THE JOURNAL OF CLASSICAL AND SACRED PHILOLOGY. i. Notes on the Study of the Bible among our Forefathers. No. II. " Se bonne se hine sylfne gesyhS bedaelende beon bara streama Haligra Gewrita lara, and bses Halgan Gastes, bonne bi$ he genoh J^urstig : ac gif he bonne hyne sylfne mid ^sem se-spryngum Codes Worda gelecS and his mod mid J?aere swetnysse f^ses gastlican gedrinces gefylleS, he seleS )?aes bonne dryncan his byrstendum mode 1 . " Ancient Laws, &c. ed. Thorpe, n. 430. Two different streams of influence met and finally co-operated in the christianizing of the Anglo-Saxons. The earlier of them issued from the Scotish tribes who occupied the northern pro- vinces of Ireland: the later from a well-known mission set on foot by Gregory the Great, and carried out by his successors. I have shewn already that the Irish teachers were addicted to the study of the sacred volume. Their labours seem to have been most appreciated among the "Anglian" settlers of the north; and it was owing mainly to the literary spirit which they propa- gated in Northumbria that the leading English scholars of the seventh and eighth centuries were educated in those parts. For we must recollect that the influence of the Irish extended far beyond the Christian communities who kept aloof from con- tinental missionaries, and declined to recognize the jurisdiction of the pope. In many districts where the Roman modes of 1 ["He who sees himself cut off from But on the other hand if he allay his the streams of doctrine preserved in Holy thirst at the water- springs of God's Scriptures and from the Holy Spirit, Word, and fill his spirit with the sweet- is in such a case thirsty enough. ness of that ghostly potion, he thereby lets his thirsty spirit drink."] Vol. I. November, 1854. 21
