Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Sedulius
SEDULIUS (d. 828), commentator on the Scriptures, has often been confounded by mediæval writers with Cœlius Sedulius the poet, who was the author of the ‘Carmen seculare,’ and of the hymns in the Roman Breviary, ‘A Solis ortus Cardine’ and ‘Hostis Herodes impie.’ Both writers are said to have been Irishmen, and their works have a religious purpose; but Ussher has shown that Cœlius Sedulius the poet flourished in the fifth century, and must be differentiated from the commentator who even quotes the poet, and is sometimes termed junior, in allusion to his later date.
Ware identified the later Sedulius with a British bishop of Irish birth, who is said to have been at Rome in 721, and there signed the decrees of a Roman council; but Lanigan considers this a mistake, and nothing seems to be known of the bishop in question.
He is with more reason identified with the Sedilius or Siadhal, son of Feradach, who was abbot of Kildare, and died in 828. He is described by Hepidanus, a monk of St. Gall, who wrote in 818, as Sedulius Scotus, a ‘distinguished author.’ The works of Sedulius consist of a Latin commentary on the Epistles of St. Paul, drawn from the works of the fathers, and one on the Gospel of St. Matthew, collected from various sources. They are frequently quoted by Archbishop Ussher in his ‘Religion of the Ancient Irish,’ and they have been published in the ‘Bibliotheca Patrum,’ where they are assigned to ‘Sedulius Scotus.’ According to the ‘Annals of the Four Masters,’ Sedulius was abbot of Kildare, and died in 828.
[Ussher's Works, iv. 245–58, 291–3, vi. 319–332; Lanigan's Eccl. Hist. i. 17, iii. 255; Bibliotheca Patrum, tom. vi.; Labbe apud Baronius, De Scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis, pp. 149–152.]
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.244
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 188 | ii | 6-5 f.e. | Sedulius: for must be the commentator read must be differentiated from the commentator |