Note to Article V. of No. I. 261 to have been written before the end of the 6th century, record the subjects of St Patrick's studies, thus : "Postquam Patricius didicerit sacros canones, omnesque ecclesiasticas disciplinas apud Germanum, retulit Germano &c." (Colgan, p. 5, col. 1.) You will not, I hope, -from these remarks conclude that I wish to impugn Mr Hardwick's conclusion, or to deny that our forefathers were diligent students of the Bible, and well acquainted with its letter and spirit. All I would say is, that the phrase sacred or holy Scriptures, in the mouth of a writer of the 9th or 10th century, did not mean ex- clusively the Bible ; in fact, it seems to have been sometimes used in contradistinction to the canonical Scriptures, of which I cannot give you a better instance, than that quoted by Du Cange, from the life of St Olbert, abbot of Gemblours* (pb. 1048), where we read that St Olbert provided for his monks a library, for the purpose of improving their minds by frequent meditation upon the Scriptures (frequenti Scrip- turarum meditatione), where it is evident that the word Scriptures has a more general meaning than it would now have, in our modern use of it, because this writer goes on to tell us that the abbot not only transcribed for his library a volume containing the whole history of the Old and New Testament, but also collected more than an hundred volumes of Divine Scripture, with fifty volumes of secular learning " plenariam vetus et novum Testamentum continentem in uno volumine transcripsit historiam, et divinae quidem Scripturse plusquam centum congessit volumina, ssecu- laris vero disciplinse libros quinqnaginta." The Book of Armagh, alluded to by Mr Hardwick (p. 84), is now the property of the Rev. Win. Reeves, D.D., of Ballymena, from whose learning and zeal for Irish ecclesiastical history, we may hope to have before long a more satisfactory account of its contents than has as yet been published. For this reason I say no more at present upon the subject, except to warn Mr Hardwick that Sir Wm. Betham's work, which he quotes (The Irish Antiquarian Researches), is not to be im- plicitly followed, without accurate verification of the author's state- ments. One of the most remarkable evidences in proof of Mr Hardwick's views which can be presented to the mind, is the fact, that so many MSS. of the Scriptures in Irish characters, of a date prior to the 9th century, still exist. When we consider the frightful destruction of life and property, the burning of towns, monasteries, and houses, which was the rule, and not the exception in Ireland, for so many centuries, the fact that 20 or 30 manuscripts of portions of the Bible (chiefly Gospels or Psalms) still exist, which were undoubtedly written in Ire- land, is a remarkable proof that the antient Irish saints were singularly diligent in the pursuit of Biblical knowledge. Jas. H. Todd. The*. Coll. Dublin, March 17, 1854.
- Mabillon. Actt. SS. Bened. sec. vi. (torn. 8.) p. 531, ed. Vend.
