of Loughderg, who made a critical edition of the Psalms;[1] and there is at all events evidence to shew that the Scots possessed, in common with the Britons, a Latin version of the Bible distinct from the vulgate. It has been thought too that the Greek language which had almost ceased to be known elsewhere in the west, was widely cultivated in the schools of Ireland.[2]
But of greater significance is the fact that there reigned, not only among her professed scholars but also among the plain missionaries whom she sent forth to preach the gospel to the heathen, a classical spirit, a love of literature for its own sake, a keen delight in poetry. The very field of study of which the Latin was taught to say, This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish, was that to which the Scot turned with the purest enthusiasm. The gaiety of the Celtic nature made him shew his devotion to the classical poets by imitating them. Saint Columban, the apostle of Burgundy, whom men knew as the stern preacher of an austere discipline,[3] as the haughty rebuker of kings, was wont to seek refreshment from his religious labours in sending his friends
- ↑ On this abbat Caimin of Iniskeltra who died in 653 see J. Lanigan, Ecclesiastical History of Ireland 3. 11, 2nd ed., Dublin 1829. Ussher says, Antiq. 503, that he saw a portion of the saint's work, said to be autograph. It was elaborately noted with the usual critical signs, and contained on the upper part of the page a collation with the Hebrew, and brief scholia in the outer margin. [Ussher's mention of Hebrew is a mistake. The Psalter, now in the Franciscan convent at Dublin, having been moved thither from the convent of S. Isidore at Rome in 1871, is assigned by J. O. Westwood, Facsimiles of the Miniatures of Anglo-Saxon and Irish Manuscripts, p. 88, 1868, to the eleventh or twelfth century. See also notes by Count Nigra in the Bibliothèque de l'École des Chartes, 46 (1885) 344 sq.; and by Mr. M. Esposito in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 32. c. (1913) 78-88.]
- ↑ [The evidence for this opinion, at least so far as it relates to the time before the eighth century, is extremely scanty. Cf. M. Roger, L'Enseignement des Lettres classiques d'Ausone à Alcuin, 1905, 268-272.]
- ↑ The severity of the Rule put forth by Columban, in comparison with that of saint Benedict, is admitted, though Milman, History of Latin Christianity, 3rd ed., 1872, 2. 294, seems to imply an opposite judgement. Haddan, indeed, p. 267, goes so far as to claim an Irish origin for the substance of the entire penitential system. Compare William Bright, Chapters of early English Church History 96, Oxford 1878.
