The ancient Irish church/Chapter 11

by John Healy

CHAPTER XI.

POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN IRELAND AND ROME.

The first and most important difference that showed itself when the Roman missionaries in England and the Irish Church came into contact was, that the former were subject to the Pope, whereas the latter was not. This has been denied by some, but the proof of it is simply overwhelming. Every point of ritual, unimportant in itself, in which the Irish refused to conform to the Romans goes to show that this difference existed. In all their discussions it is tacitly assumed. The favourite argument of the Romans is that they are followers of Saint Peter, an honour which they altogether deny to their opponents. The Irish consider it a sufficient reply that they follow Saint John, or even Saint Columba. On one famous occasion a decision was given against the Irish, not on the merits of the question, but because the one side could quote the verse, 'Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven'; whereas the other side could show nothing of the same kind about Columba. Such a way of deciding the question would have been impossible if both sides acknowledged equally the supremacy of the see of Rome. Then, the ignorance which the Romans display concerning Ireland and everything Irish, shows that whatever theory may have been held in papal circles as to the subjection of all other Churches, as a matter of fact Ireland had been left to go its own way without any assertion of authority on the part of the Pope. Augustine and they who were with him never knew until they were in Britain that the British Church was different from their own; and when they were made painfully conscious of this fact, they still thought that the Irish must be like themselves. Finally, the fact that they denied the validity of the Irish ordinations is the clearest possible proof that in their eyes at all events the Church of Ireland was not in communion with Rome.

It is of no avail to bring forward, as is often done, the many points of agreement between Rome and Ireland. That the two Churches did agree in many, nay, in most points, is historically certain, and it would be a mistake to represent the Irish Church as being in all respects like the Protestants of to-day. But, just as the Churches of the East and West at the time when they were not only independent, but hostile, were yet in agreement on every fundamental doctrine, so the Irish Church, though it differed from the Church of Rome only on those points in which Rome of the seventh century differed from Rome of the fifth, yet owed no allegiance to the papal see, and does not seem to have been conscious of the fact that Rome had already made a universal demand for such allegiance.

A less important, but more striking difference between the two Churches, was the method of computing the time for holding the festival of Easter. Easter is always held on the first Sunday after the fourteenth day of the first Jewish month. As the Jewish months follow the moon, the feast necessarily comes each year at a different period, and in order to calculate this time correctly a computation is made of the number of years after which the moons will come on exactly the same days as before. This term of years is called a 'cycle.' If in any year Easter falls say on the last day of March, it will again fall on that day when the number of years in the cycle have gone by. The calculation requires a considerable amount of astronomical knowledge, and a great many different numbers have been proposed. The Metonic cycle, called after its inventor Meton of Athens (B.C. 432), was a period of nineteen years. The Jewish cycle, followed by the early Christians, was one of eighty-four years. The famous Hippolytus (A.D. 230) proposed a cycle of one hundred and twelve years. The Alexandrians, after the Council of Nicæa, fell back on the old Metonic cycle of nineteen years; but their adhesion to it was not constant. Theophilus of Alexandria (A.D. 380) proposed a cycle of four hundred and thirty-seven years, and Cyril of Alexandria (A.D. 412), one of ninety-five years. Meantime the Church of Rome had mostly followed the eighty-four year period, sometimes called the cycle of Anatolius (A.D. 284), although really of much older date than his time. Finally a cycle of five hundred and thirty-two years was proposed by Victorius (A.D. 463), and this in the end received general acceptance. It is now generally known as the cycle of Dionysius Exiguus (A.D. 527), and is practically the cycle used at the present day.

When Christianity was first preached in Ireland the eighty-four year cycle of Anatolius was in use. The Irish Church therefore continued to use it, and when the Church of Rome changed it for a better and more accurate computation, Ireland was unconscious of the change, and continued in the old way. They also followed the rule that when the fourteenth moon fell on a Sunday, Easter might be kept on that day, whereas the Romans, following the Nicene canon, held that it should not be kept until the Sunday following. The matter involved no doctrine, except indirectly the authority of Rome; but as it led to the keeping of the great Christian feast at different times—the two computations sometimes differing by nearly a month—it was a diversity of use that was very apparent, and prevented union in worship more than other differences of much greater importance would have done.

When the matter came to be argued there was an astonishing amount of ignorance or dishonesty displayed. For example, the Roman missionaries charged the Irish with the quartadeciman heresy, This was either a mistake or a misrepresentation. The quartadeciman controversy was, it is true, about the time when the feast of Easter ought to be held, but it had no concern as to the particular cycle which should be employed. The Romans also boldly claimed the authority of Saint Peter for the cycle first put forward by Victorius in the year 463. The Irish, on their part, claimed the authority of Saint John for the cycle of Anatolius. In this they probably were partly right. It is very likely that this was the cycle actually used by Saint John; but the subject is one on which we have little authentic information.

It may seem strange to us that a question like this, which after all was astronomical rather than theological, could have been regarded as of such immense importance. But when we remember how often some outward act, indifferent in itself, may become the way of expressing belief in a particular doctrine, we can easily see that the controversy may, after all, have been as important as it was most certainly believed to be by both sides that took part in it. The difference between the two words homoousois and homoiousios may seem insignificant, yet underlying it was the great question which convulsed the whole Church at the time of the Arian controversy. In our own day it may seem a paltry subject of dispute whether a clergyman should stand at the side or end of the holy table; yet it becomes quite different when the posture comes to be regarded as the outward expression of doctrine. In somewhat the same way this Easter controversy was regarded. It was the visible method of declaring to which Church a man belonged. As Bede says of Saint Aidan, 'He could not keep Easter contrary to the customs of those who had sent him.'^[1] In other words, this was his method of declaring that he owed his allegiance to the Church of Iona, and not to the Church of Rome.

Another difference, unimportant in itself, but zealously clung to for the same reason, was the tonsure. The practice of shaving the head in token of dedication to God was found among some heathen nations, and was not unknown among the Jews. It was introduced into the Christian Church in connection with monasticism. In the Eastern Church the tonsure consisted in shaving the whole head; in the Western, only the top of the head was shaved, leaving a circle of hair which was supposed to have a resemblance to the crown of thorns. The Celtic tonsure differed from both, and consisted in shaving the front of the head in a line from ear to ear. The origin of this curious custom has not as yet been satisfactorily investigated, nor is it possible for us now to say whence this Celtic tonsure was derived. But it will be easily understood how a peculiarity of this kind is clung to, when it becomes the badge of a party. History furnishes us with numberless examples in which some particular way of cutting the hair, some peculiarity in dress, some simple ornament, the wearing of one particular colour or of some flower, has been adopted as the distinguishing mark of a religious or political party and has been at once raised to an importance that it would not otherwise possess. It has given zealous men an opportunity of displaying their zeal, it has compelled time-servers and waverers to declare themselves, it has shown the strength of the party, and for these reasons has been clung to with the greatest devotion. The white and red roses of York and Lancaster—the cropped hair of the Roundheads and the flowing locks of the Cavaliers—the broad-brimmed hats, poke bonnets, and sombre grey of the Quakers—the orange and blue of the Revolution—are all cases in point. In the same way the Celtic tonsure was regarded by the Irish as the outward mark of their ecclesiastical independence, and for that reason was zealously preserved.

Of more importance was the question of ordination; but unfortunately we cannot now say in what the difference between the two Churches consisted. Bishops among the Irish were consecrated by a single bishop, whereas among the Romans there were ordinarily three employed. But the rule was not a strict one. When Augustine of Canterbury asked the question, whether a bishop might be ordained by him without other bishops being present, Pope Gregory answers, 'As for the Church of England, in which you are as yet the only bishop, you can no otherwise ordain a bishop than in the absence of other bishops.' It is evident therefore that this of itself would not have rendered the Irish ordinations invalid in the sight of Rome. Yet it is quite clear that they were so regarded. The very answer of Pope Gregory shows it, for he completely ignores the bishops of the British and Irish Churches who were already in the country. According to modern Romish doctrine, the sacrament of orders cannot be repeated; yet we find that re-ordination was insisted on in the case of Celtic bishops.

Let us take, for example, the case of Saint Chad. When he was first consecrated bishop, the ceremony was performed by Wini, Bishop of the West Saxons, assisted by two British bishops who kept Easter according to the Roman method, 'for at that time,' Bede informs us, 'there was no other bishop canonically ordained besides that Wini'—that is to say, the British and Irish were all regarded as outside the pale of the Church of Rome. Here we have the canonical number of consecrators, and one of them at least had orders which were recognised by the Church of Rome; but the form used on the occasion must have been the Celtic, for Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury afterwards upbraided Bishop Chad, that he had not been duly consecrated, and himself 'completed his ordination after the Catholic manner.'^[2] Chad had received his religious training from the Irish, and in his youthful days had spent some years in Ireland; for a long time, too, he had upheld the Celtic customs against the teachings of Rome; but at length, becoming a convert, he had experiences curiously similar to those with which the men who have followed his footsteps in more modern times have been made familiar.

That this was not the mere excess of zeal of one particular archbishop, is shown by the fact that one of the canons of the old Anglo-Saxon Church enacts, 'That such as have received ordination from the bishops of the Irish or Britons who in the matter of Easter and the tonsure are not united to the Catholic Church, must again by imposition of hands be confirmed by a Catholic bishop.' It is probable that the Irish on their part behaved similarly towards any that came from the Romish party to them. We have no record as to how they dealt with ecclesiastics, but ordinary people leaving the 'Catholic party' had to undergo a forty days' penance before the Celts would receive them.

On the subject of the celibacy of the clergy we must speak with less confidence, as the evidence is to some extent conflicting. When Saint Patrick's mission began celibacy was highly esteemed in Gaul and Western Europe, but was not universally imposed on the clergy; and this seems exactly to represent the state of the case in Ireland. There is extant a Book of Canons, attributed to Saint Patrick, but which bears internal evidence of belonging to the eighth century, one of which ordains that when the wife of a clergyman goes abroad she must wear a veil on her head. The learned Cardinal Moran enters into an elaborate argument to show that the canon does not imply a married clergy—that the wife referred to is after all not the clergyman's wife. The subject, however, is not one for argument, but for taking words in their plain and obvious meaning. I therefore give the canon in the original Latin, leaving it to the reader to translate, and to decide whether the deduction I have drawn from it is justified. It is as follows: 'Quicunque clericus ab hostiario usque ad sacerdotem sine tunica visus fuerit, atque turpitudinem ventris et nuditatem non tegat, et si non more Romano capilli ejus tonsi sint, et uxor [ejus] si non velato capite ambulaverit, pariter a laicis contemnentur, et ab Ecclesia separentur.'^[3]

Shortly before the Anglo-Norman invasion, there is reason to believe that some of the highest ecclesiastical dignitaries in the land were married men; but, on the other hand, these cases must have been exceptional, for Giraldus Cambrensis, who delights in mentioning anything he can find disparaging to the Irish Church, whilst he charges the Irish clergy with habitual drunkenness, says that they are especially eminent for the virtue of continence, and goes on to remark that it may be considered almost a miracle that where wine has the dominion lust does not rule also. On the other hand, there was still in his day much resemblance between the Welsh and the Irish; and he tells us that in the Welsh Church there was to be found a married clergy, for he says, 'The sons after the decease of their fathers succeed to the ecclesiastical benefices not by election, but by hereditary right, possessing and polluting the sanctuary of God.' He also tells us that the same habit was followed in Brittany—a place where Celtic influence continued until a very late date. The married clergy of Wales were an old institution, for we have the curious record under the year 961: 'The same year Padarn, Bishop of Llandaff, died, and Rhodri, son of Morgan the Great, was placed in his room, against the will of the Pope, on which account he was poisoned. And the priests were enjoined not to marry without the leave of the Pope, on which account a great disturbance took place in the diocese of Tielaw, so that it was considered best to allow matrimony to the priests.'^[4]

In the case of the Irish abbots it, no doubt, must often have happened that the tribal instincts would prove stronger than the ecclesiastical, and that a married abbot would be chosen in preference to one of another family. The general tendency, however, seems to have been towards celibacy, but without imposing it as a hard and fast rule.

As to the difference between the Irish and Romish doctrine of confession and absolution, nothing need be added to what has been already said in connection with the 'soul friend.'

There were also some differences of ritual. The Irish Church had its own peculiar liturgy until the time of the Anglo-Normans. They administered baptism with rites different from those of Rome, using single instead of trine immersion, and omitting the use of chrism. But it is not necessary that we should go into these minor details—all the more so as our sources of information are very scanty.

The points of difference between the Church of Ireland (or, to speak more correctly, the Celtic Churches, for the Scotch, British, and in many respects the Armorican Churches agreed with it) and the Churches of Western Europe may therefore be classed under seven heads:—

1. Independence of Rome.
2. Method of computing Easter.
3. Tonsure.
4. Ordinal.
5. Toleration of Married Clergy.
6. Public instead of Auricular Confession.
7. Ritual and Liturgy.

1. Bede, Eccl. Hist., iii. 25.
2. Bede, Eccl. Hist., iv. 2.
3. Haddan and Stubbs Councils and Eccl. Documents relating to Great Britain and Ireland, vol. ii. p. 328. Some MSS. omit the word ejus, put in brackets above, and the cardinal builds greatly on this. To any ordinary person, 'a man and wife' and 'a man and his wife' would mean the same thing.
4. Haddan and Stubbs.