III. How the same King Oswald, asking a bishop of the Scottish nation,
IV. When the nation of the Picts received the faith of Christ. [565 A.D.]
CHAP. IV. When the nation of the Picts received the faith of Christ. [565 A.D.]
IN the year of our Lord 565, when Justin, the younger, the successor of
Justinian, obtained the government of the Roman empire, there came into Britain
from Ireland a famous priest and abbot, marked as a monk by habit and manner of
life, whose name was Columba,to preach the word of God to the provinces of the
northern Picts, who are separated from the southern parts belonging to that
nation by steep and rugged mountains. For the southern Picts, who dwell on this
side of those mountains, had, it is said, long before forsaken the errors of
idolatry, and received the true faith by the preaching of Bishop Ninias, a most
reverend and holy man of the British nation, who had been regularly instructed
at Rome in the faith and mysteries of the truth; whose episcopal see, named
after St. Martin the bishop, and famous for a church dedicated to him (wherein
Ninias himself and many other saints rest in the body), is now in the possession
of the English nation. The place belongs to the province of the Bernicians, and
is commonly called the White House, because he there built a church of stone,
which was not usual among the Britons.
Columba came into Britain in the ninth year of the reign of Bridius, who was the
son of Meilochon, and the powerful king of the Pictish nation, and he converted
that nation to the faith of Christ, by his preaching and example. Wherefore he
also received of them the gift of the aforesaid island whereon to found a
monastery. It is not a large island, but contains about five families, according
to the English computation; his successors hold it to this day; he was also
buried therein, having died at the age of seventy-seven, about thirty-two years
after he came into Britain to preach.Before he crossed over into Britain, he had
built a famous monastery in Ireland, which, from the great number of oaks, is in
the Scottish tongue called Dearmach—The Field of Oaks. From both these
monasteries, many others had their beginning through his disciples, both in
Britain and Ireland; but the island monastery where his body lies, has the
pre-eminence among them all.
That island has for its ruler an abbot, who is a priest, to whose jurisdiction
all the province, and even the bishops, contrary to the usual method, are bound
to be subject, according to the example of their first teacher, who was not a
bishop, but a priest and monk;of whose life and discourses some records are said
to be preserved by his disciples. But whatsoever he was himself, this we know
for certain concerning him, that he left successors renowned for their
continence, their love of God, and observance of monastic rules. It is true they
employed doubtful cycles in fixing the time of the great festival, as having
none to bring them the synodal decrees for the observance of Easter, by reason
of their being so far away from the rest of the world; but they earnestly
practiced such works of piety and chastity as they could learn from the
Prophets, the Gospels and the Apostolic writings. This manner of keeping Easter
continued among them no little time, to wit, for the space of 150 years, till
the year of our Lord 715.
But then the most reverend and holy father and priest, Egbert, of the English
nation, who had long lived in banishment in Ireland for the sake of Christ, and
was most learned in the Scriptures, and renowned for long perfection of life,
came among them, corrected their error, and led them to observe the true and
canonical day of Easter; which, nevertheless, they did not always keep on the
fourteenth of the moon with the Jews, as some imagined, but on Sunday, although
not in the proper week.For, as Christians, they knew that the Resurrection of
our Lord, which happened on the first day of the week, was always to be
celebrated on the first day of the week; but being rude and barbarous, they had
not learned when that same first day after the Sabbath, which is now called the
Lord’s day, should come. But because they had not failed in the grace of fervent
charity, they were accounted worthy to receive the full knowledge of this matter
also, according to the promise of the Apostle, "And if in any thing ye be
otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you." Of which we shall speak
more fully hereafter in its proper place.
