The Life of St. Mochuda of Lismore | Page 5

the eye as well as the
tongue and thought. An Irish homily refers to the mortification of the
saints and religious of the time as martyrdom, of which it distinguishes
three kinds--red, white, and blue. Red martyrdom was death for the
faith; white martyrdom was the discipline of fasting, labour and bodily
austerities; while blue martyrdom was abnegation of the will and
heartfelt sorrow for sin.
One of the puzzles of Irish hagiology is the great age attributed to
certain saints--periods of two hundred, three hundred, and even four
hundred years. Did the original compilers of the Life intend this?
Whatever the full explanation be the writers of the Lives were clearly
animated by a desire to make their saint cotemporary and, if possible, a
disciple, of one or other of the great monastic founders, or at any rate to
prove him a pupil of one of the great schools of Erin. There was special
anxiety to connect the saint with Bangor or Clonard. To effect the
connection in question it was sometimes necessary to carry the life
backwards, at other times to carry it forwards, and occasionally to
lengthen it both backwards and forwards. Dr. Chas. O'Connor gives a
not very convincing explanation of the three-hundred-year "Lives,"
scil.:-- that the saint lived in three centuries--during the whole of one
century and in the end and beginning respectively of the preceding and
succeeding centuries. This explanation, even if satisfactory for the
three-hundred-year Lives, would not help at all towards the Lives of
four hundred years. A common explanation is that the scribe mistook
numerals in the MS. before him and wrote the wrong figures. There is
no doubt that copying is a fruitful source of error as regards numerals.

It is much more easy to make a mistake in a numeral than in a letter;
the context will enable one to correct the letter, while it will give him
no clue as regards a numeral. On the subject of the alleged longevity of
Irish Saints Anscombe has recently been elaborating in 'Eriu' a new and
very ingenious theory. Somewhat unfortunately the author happens to
be a rather frequent propounder of ingenious theories. His explanation
is briefly--the use and confusion of different systems of chronology. He
alleges that the original writers used what is called the Diocletian Era
or the "Era of the Martyrs" as the 'terminus a quo' of their chronological
system and, in support of his position, he adduces the fact that this,
which was the most ancient of all ecclesiastical eras, was the era used
by the schismatics in Britain and that it was introduced by St. Patrick.
As against the contradiction, anachronisms and extravagances of the
Lives we have to put the fact that generally speaking the latter
corroborate one another, and that they receive extern corroboration
from the annals. Such disagreements as occur are only what one would
expect to find in documents dealing with times so remote. To the credit
side too must go the fact that references to Celtic geography and to
local history are all as a rule accurate. Of continental geography and
history however the writers of the Lives show much ignorance, but
scarcely quite as much as the corresponding ignorance shown by
Continental writers about Ireland.
The missionary methods of the early Irish Church and its monastic or
semi-monastic system are frequently referred to as peculiar, if not
unique. A missionary system more or less similar must however have
prevailed generally in that age. What other system could have been
nearly as successful amongst a pagan people circumstanced as the Irish
were? The community system alone afforded the necessary mutual
encouragement and protection to the missionaries. Each monastic
station became a base of operations. The numerous diminutive dioceses,
quasi-dioceses, or tribal churches, were little more than extensive
parishes and the missionary bishops were little more in jurisdiction than
glorified parish priests. The bishop's 'muintir,' that is the members of
his household, were his assistant clergy. Having converted the chieftain
or head of the tribe the missionary had but to instruct and baptise the
tribesmen and to erect churches for them. Land and materials for the
church were provided by the Clan or the Clan's head, and lands for

support of the missioner or of the missionary community were allotted
just as they had been previously allotted to the pagan priesthood; in fact
there can be but little doubt that the lands of the pagan priests became
in many cases the endowment of the Christian establishment. It is not
necessary, by the way, to assume that the Church in Ireland as Patrick
left it, was formally monastic. The clergy lived in community, it is true,
but it was under a somewhat elastic rule, which was really rather a
series of Christian and Religious counsels.