Easter differently from those who were around him, and therefore while one was keeping the fast of Lent, the other was commemorating with a feast the Resurrection of our Lord. Here was a visible token of nonconformity. Any one could see that the Church of Ireland and the Church of France were not in accord. The matter was considered to be of sufficient importance to warrant the assembling of a synod of the French bishops, who considered the advisability of expelling Columbanus from the country. To this synod the latter addressed an epistle, in which he begs that he and his companions may be allowed 'to live with you in peace and charity, in silence amongst these woods, near to the bones of our seventeen brothers who are dead, in the same way as up to the present we have been allowed to live amongst you these twelve years, and that as we have heretofore done, we may still fulfil our duty in praying for you.' He goes on to argue with them the question in dispute, and finally, he makes an appeal for mutual forbearance. But he gives no sign of being ready to alter his practice in the least, or of conforming to the ways of those who were around him. At the same time he wrote a letter to Pope Gregory the Great on the subject. This, as well as another letter written at a later period to Pope Boniface IV., is of the highest importance as throwing light on the position which he took with regard to the Pope, and as telling us from his example something of the way in which the subject of papal supremacy was regarded by the Irish Church. That Columbanus was altogether wrong in his arguments on this particular question, whereas the Church of Rome was right, does not concern the matter one way or the other. At present we have only to consider how far he as a member of the Irish Church
