The Lives of the Saints, Volume III (of 16): March

This name, about the time of Constantine, supplanted the older Latin name of Gessoriacum.

54

An instance of the way in which later writers have amplified the incidents may here be given. Probus adds that he diligently perused the psalter and hymns, and Jocelin that he read the whole psalter through every day. "As if," says Dr. Lanigan, "he could have found books containing them in the North of Ireland at that period, or, when suddenly made a prisoner, had time to provide himself with religious tracts, or, while still a careless boy, was anxious about them."

55

"Et veni … ad bonum," according to the Bollandists ought to be "ad Benam," that is to Bantry Bay.

56

Probably S. Victricius, one of the apostles of the Morini, afterwards bishop of Rouen.

57

An instance of the rodomontade of some of the later lives may be quoted here. They say that to escape S. Patrick's persuasive eloquence only one way lay open to him, to set fire to his house and furniture and property, and precipitate himself into the flames. As a specimen of the absurdity of some of the legends, the following will suffice. A robber stole one of S. Patrick's goats and ate it. S. Patrick called his goat, and it bleated to him out of the man's belly.

58

Jocelin tells some absurd stories about his contest with the Magi or Wise-men. He relates how that one of them, Lochu, a great friend of the king, to show the power of his religion, rose in the air, as though ascending to the skies. Then Patrick prayed, and angelic hands flung a snow-ball at him out of heaven, which knocked him down, head foremost, on a sharp stone at Patrick's feet, and that was the end of him. Another miracle was as follows: – A house was built, one-half of green wood, the other of dry timber. A Magus was vested in S. Patrick's chasuble, and placed in the green wood part of the house; and Benignus in the Magus's habit in that part which was of dry wood. The house was set on fire. The green timber was burnt, with the Magus, but not the chasuble; the dry timber would not burn, and Benignus escaped, only his coat was reduced to ashes.

59

This was too good a story for Jocelin not to spoil it. So he relates, in contradiction to the other historians, that the king felt no pain, and the wound was miraculously healed on S. Patrick resuming his staff.

60

This is the date assigned by Dr. Lanigan. Dr. Todd is certainly wrong in giving 493.

61

And in some of the most ancient lives, which speak of S. Patrick at the end of his career as Sen-Patrick, the old man Patrick.

62

In the Life of S. Afra (Aug. 5th), it will be shown that it is a late mistake to call her a courtesan.

63

The genuineness of this letter, in which he mentions also the finding of the cross, has been doubted. One objection is that it contains the word "consubstantial," which at that period Cyril would hardly have used. But it is by no means improbable that this word was interpolated by copyists, for the purpose of obtaining the authority of Cyril for that term.

64

Canon VII. "Since a custom and old tradition has obtained, that the bishop of Ælia (Jerusalem) should receive honour, let him hold the second place, the metropolitan (of Cæsarea) being secured in his own dignity."

65

The Rite of Taurobolia, Prudent. Peristreph. 10.

66

Baine is the common Irish for milk, but there is a Welsh word, probably adopted from the Latin, Llæth, which means milk.

67

"A description or briefe declaration of all ye auntient monuments, &c., written in 1593," but this seems to have been written originally in Latin somewhat earlier. It has been several times republished, lastly by Sanderson, in 1767.

68

This secular tradition was preserved in the following words: – "Subter gradus saxeos (secundum et tertium) climacis ascendentis et ducentis erga turrim campanarum in templo cathedrali civitatis Dunelmensis, prope horologium grande quod locatur in angulo australi fani ejusdem, sepultus jacet thesaurus pretiosus, (corpus S. Cuthberti.)" The earliest notice of such a tradition is in Serenus Cressy, (1688), Church History, p. 902. The next in two MSS. in Downside College by F. Mannock (1740), who states that he had heard it from F. Casse (1730.) Both these statements pointed to the removal of the body in the time of Henry VIII. The next notice of it is in 1828, when F. Gregory Robinson wrote to Lingard, (see Lingard's Remarks, p. 50), but in this account the removal was described as taking place in Mary's time. The secresy was partly broken when, in 1800, the sketch of the cathedral which exists in the archives of the Northern (R.C.) Province was allowed to be seen. Lingard's tradition (Anglo Saxon Church, ii. p. 80), about the exchange of S. Cuthbert's body for another skeleton is unknown to the Benedictines, who assert that they possess the secret. It is said that the Benedictine tradition concerning the site does not agree with the secular. What started the diggings in 1867, under the stairs, was that a hereditary Roman Catholic of Gateshead became a Protestant, and gave up a small piece of paper on which was written the above secular tradition, "subter gradus, &c." His father or grandfather had been servant to a Vicar Apostolic, after whose death he had some of his clothes, among which was a waistcoat, inside which the above was secured. It was ascertained that this was not a hoax, and the late Dean Waddington invited some of the fathers from Ushaw over, and the head of the English Benedictines to see the diggings. It was supposed that the "precious treasure" was something else, perhaps the Black Rood of Scotland, containing a portion of the true cross, and that the words above in parenthesis, (corpus Sti. Cuthberti) are a gloss. However they dug, but found nothing but concrete and rock.

69

Anciently Fontenelle.

70

Longfellow's Saga of king Olaf.

71

The boy was afterwards sent to Fontenelle, and he is the authority for the events of S. Wulfram's mission in Friesland.

72

Afterwards S. Ouyan, and then S. Claude, after the bishop of Besancon, who reformed it in 635.

73

Lignea sola, quæ vulgo soccos monasteria vocitant Gallicana, continuato est usu.

74

Deus bone, qualiter comfortatus, qualiter sum reparatus ad horam.

75

The Burgundian king Gondecar had a brother and a son, both named Chilperic, who reigned at Geneva. The son reigned only one year after his father; he was killed by Gondebald in 477. S. Romanus died in 460. It is probable that his elder brother died before him, and that Lupicinus visited the elder Chilperic. I have therefore supposed that he died about 430. The Bollandists supposing that it was the younger Chilperic he visited, have fixed his death at 480.

76

Short Studies, vol. 2, page 216.

77

"Rule of S. Carthage," Irish Ecclesiastical Record, vol. 1, p. 117.

78