Chapter XVI: The School of Bangor (2)

After this time we lose sight of Dungal for several years. Charlemagne died in A.D. 814, and was succeeded by his son Louis the Pious, and on the 31st of July, A.D. 817, Louis associated with himself his son Lothaire in the Imperial Government. Lothaire, young and energetic, was crowned King of Lombardy in A.D. 821, and next year proceeded to put his kingdom in order. The warlike Lombards, though conquered by Charlemagne, and kept in restraint by his strong arm, were a restless and turbulent people. Lothaire, believing that education and religion would be the most efficacious means to keep them in order, and consolidate his own power, induced Dungal and Claudius of Turin, as well as several other scholars of the Imperial Court, or the famous Palace School, to accompany him to Italy. Claudius, a Spaniard, of whom we shall have more to say again, was made Bishop of Turin; and Dungal opened a school at Pavia. In a short time it became famous; for the master was the first scholar in the Court of the Emperor. Students flocked from every quarter--from Milan, Brescia, Lodi, Bergamo, Novara, Vercelli, Tortona, Acqui, Genoa, Asti, and Como.[307] This was about A.D. 822, the very year, or as others say, the year after Claudius became Bishop of Turin. About the same time Lothaire himself went on to Rome, where he was crowned emperor by the Pope, Pascal I., with great solemnity in A.D. 823.

Dungal and Claudius were thus immediate neighbours. Both were ripe scholars, both held high and responsible positions; but Claudius, who had long held erroneous doctrines, now thought it safe to throw off the disguise. The wolf showed himself, and at once the Irish wolf dog sprang upon his foe. In order to understand this struggle, which was the last effort of Western Iconoclasm, we must go back a little and trace the chain of events which led up to the crisis.

The Seventh Æcumenical Council, and Second of Nice, was concluded at that city in A.D. 787. This Council, accepting the teaching propounded by Pope Hadrian I. in his letter to the Empress Irene, and her son Constantine, explained and defined the Catholic doctrine concerning the worship of images. It was distinctly declared that supreme worship was due to God alone; but that an inferior worship should be rendered to the Blessed Virgin and the saints; and, finally, that a relative worship was due not only to the sign of the Cross, but also to the pictures and images of the Blessed Virgin, of the angels, and of the saints of God. This relative worship was not, however, paid to the images on account of _their own_ supernatural excellence; it was only a token of the love and honour which Christians have for the originals represented by the images.

The acts of this famous Synod were, of course, in Greek, so Pope Hadrian had them translated into Latin, and sent a copy to Charlemagne, apparently in A.D. 789 or 790.

Unfortunately the Latin version was very faulty in many respects. Anastasius, the Roman Librarian, a most learned scholar and competent authority, declares that the translator knew very little of the genius either of the Greek or Latin language; that he made a word-for-word translation, from which it was frequently impossible to ascertain the real meaning; and hence, in his time, about sixty years later, few persons were found to read or transcribe this faulty copy. So Anastasius himself found it necessary to make a new and correct translation. The French theologians, therefore, at whose head was the keen-eyed Alcuin, found in this translation many things to censure, in which they were right, and many other things they censured in which they were clearly wrong. The result of their labours is known to history as the famous Caroline Books--_Libri Carolini_. They were published under the name of Charles himself, but Alcuin is generally regarded as the real author.[308]

The emperor was so pleased with his work that he resolved to send this treatise to the Pope himself. Meantime, however, he convened the Synod of Frankfort in A.D. 794, at which some three hundred Bishops of the Frankish Empire are said to have assembled.[309] Here, again, the great monarch, following the example, but scarcely imitating the modesty of Constantine at Nice in A.D. 325, presided in person, and resolved to prove himself a theologian. The Synod met in the great hall of the Imperial Palace. The emperor was on his throne; the bishops were seated round in a circle; an immense throng of priests, deacons, and clerics filled the hall. Rising up from his seat Charles advanced, and standing on the step of the throne pronounced an elaborate harangue, mainly on the heresy of the Adoptionists, but referring also to the errors of the last Greek Synod regarding image worship, and he called upon the prelates present to judge and decide what was the true faith.

The Council did so, at least in their own opinion, after ten days' discussion. They very properly condemned the heresy of the Adoptionists, and the condemnation was approved in Rome; but in the Second Canon they very improperly censured the Second Council of Nice, as if it declared that the same worship and adoration were due to the images of the saints, as are paid to the Holy Trinity. Of course the Council of Nice in their authentic acts had declared exactly the reverse. Moreover, the prelates of Frankfort added that they would give neither _servitus_ nor _adoratio_ to the images of the saints; and, no doubt, they were right in the sense in which they used these terms.

It seems probable that the Caroline Books, written about A.D. 790 or 791, were approved of in this assembly before they were sent to the Pope. But when Hadrian received them he very promptly and effectively refuted them. To each censure of the Council of Nice he gave an elaborate answer, in which the Pope convicts the authors of the Caroline Books, from the extracts sent to him, of grave errors in doctrine, as well as of misquotations and misrepresentations of the Fathers. He shows that they did not understand the true meaning of the Sacred Scriptures in those passages which they cited, that they attributed to the Nicene Fathers errors which they never taught, and that it was the Pope, not the French bishops, who had received authority to teach the Universal Church.

The authors of the Caroline Books richly deserved this castigation. They went so far as to declare that the Synod of A.D. 754, which ordered images to be broken, as well as the Synod of A.D. 787, which commanded them to be worshipped, were _infamae_ and _ineptissimae_. God alone is, according to them, to be _adored_ and _worshipped_, and the saints may be _venerated_; but no kind of adoration or veneration may be paid to the images of the saints, because they are lifeless, and made by the hands of men. It is evident the Frankish theologians did not understand what is meant by relative worship. They admit, however, that the images of the saints may be retained for adorning churches, and also as memorials of the past; but it is not lawful to worship them even by such veneration as is paid to men, _salutationis causâ_. Such is the substance of the doctrine put forward by the authors of the Caroline Books.[310] Pope Hadrian died on Christmas Day A.D. 795, and the controversy concerning image worship seems to have been lulled for some years in the West. It broke out again, however, with greater warmth in A.D. 824. In the month of November of that year an Embassy arrived at Rouen, where Lothaire was then holding his court, bearing letters and presents from the Greek emperor, Michael the Stammerer, to his western brother.

Michael was an Iconoclast, but not an extreme one; and wrote a very plausible letter, in which he complains of the superstitious excesses of the image-worshippers at Constantinople. He represents himself as the friend of peace and harmony, anxious to repress the excesses of both the extreme parties; and he beseeches his brother Lothaire to lend him his aid, especially by his influence with the Pontiff of the old Rome, to whom he sends several presents with a view to gain his good will and co-operation for the same laudable purpose. Lothaire, ignorant of the real facts of the case, and misled by this most deceptive document, promised his assistance to the Greek ambassadors in Rome, and resolved to aid in the good work of reconciling the extreme parties in the East. He wrote to Pope Eugenius II. to that effect, and asked his permission to appoint a conference of the prelates of his empire, with a view to sift the question thoroughly. The Pope seems to have consented to this course; and the conference met at Paris on the 1st of November, A.D. 825.

These gentlemen issued a most elaborate production addressed to the emperor, by him to be forwarded to the Pope. They begin by attacking the letter of Hadrian to Constantine and Irene, in which letter, as they allege, he ordered images to be superstitiously adored--_quod superstitiose eas adorari jussit_. In support of his doctrine he cited the Fathers, but according to them it was _valde absona_ what he cited, and _ad rem non pertinentia_.

Then they attack the Second Council of Nice which gravely erred by ordering images to be worshipped, as the Great Charles had clearly proved in the books sent to Rome by the Abbot Angilbert. And Hadrian, too, in his answer to this treatise, when defending the Synod, wrote what he liked, not what he ought--quae _voluit_, non tamen quae _debuit_.

This was not enough for this Paris Conference; they had the assurance to dictate to the Pope what he was to write in reply to the Greek emperor; and to Lothaire himself they recommended what he ought to write to the Pope. On the point of doctrine they declare that nothing made by the hands of man is to be adored or worshipped; and to prove their position they quote St. Augustine, who, according to them, says that image worship had its origin with Simon Magus, and a _meretricula_ called Helen!

When the Emperor Lothaire received these precious documents from the two prelates, Halitgar and Amalarius, deputed to present them, and ascertained their contents, he told them, as might be expected from a sensible man, that the letter to the Pope especially contained some things that were superfluous and more that were impertinent. He therefore commissioned Jeremias of Sens, and Jonas of Orleans, to make extracts from the report which would be more to the point and less likely to give offence in Rome; telling them, at the same time, to show every respect to the Pope, as they were bound to do; that although much might be gained by deference, nothing could be effected by exasperating the Pontiff. If, he adds, the _pertinacia Romana_ will make no concessions, but the Pope is prepared to send an embassy to Constantinople, then let them try at least to induce him to allow the emperor also to send an embassy in conjunction with that of the Pope.

The emperor himself wrote a respectful and plausible letter to the Pope, urging upon him to send ambassadors to the Greek court, adding that he might send with them the two bishops who bore the report of the Paris Conference to His Holiness; and that thus he might be instrumental in restoring peace to the distracted Churches of the East.

Things were at this pass when Dungal appears upon the scene. The prelates of France were, many of them at least, not quite sound on the question of image worship; but Claudius of Turin, just about this time, brought things to a crisis.

This Claudius was a Spaniard, educated in his youth by Felix, Bishop of Urgel, in Spain, one of the leaders of the Adoptionist heretics. The mind of Claudius was infected with this as well as several other errors; but especially with the most extreme form of Iconoclasm.

Like Dungal, he seems to have been in high favour at court; but he kept his errors at that time to himself, at least in their extreme form. When appointed to the See of Turin he threw off the mask. On his first or second visitation he removed the crosses from his cathedral, he broke the images of the saints, and the holy pictures on the walls; he declaimed from the pulpit even against the worship of the saints themselves, or their relics in any shape or form; and finally, heartily denounced the pilgrimage to Rome, which even then was customary with the faithful, as unnecessary and superstitious.

These rash and violent proceedings gave great scandal to the faithful of the diocese. They were divided into two factions; for the bishop had numerous partisans of his own, but they were in a minority; and on one occasion the prelate very narrowly escaped being torn to pieces by the mob. The wily Claudius, however, by his representations to the emperor, in which he threw all the blame on the turbulence of the superstitious Lombards, succeeded in maintaining his ground.

About A.D. 824 a friend of his, the pious Abbot Theodemir, wrote a remonstrance to Claudius on his proceedings, in which he adjured him, by the memory of their former friendship, to discontinue these odious proceedings, reminding him how unworthy it was of a Christian bishop to dishonour the Saints of God, to insult the Cross of Christ, and break the images of His saints and martyrs.

This gentle remonstrance only made the Iconoclast more furious. He wrote a reply to the holy abbot, a considerable portion of which has come down to us, and shows Claudius in his true colours.

It is entitled--"Apologeticum atque Rescriptum Claudii Episcopi adversus Theutmirum Abbatem."

It was this work brought out Dungal. He had hitherto been much pained at the proceedings of Claudius; for being then in Pavia he could scarcely be ignorant of what took place in Turin. Most of the French prelates, however, themselves more or less infected with unsound doctrine, held aloof; and even Agobard of Lyons wrote in favour of Claudius, so Dungal, although probably only a deacon, if, indeed, at all in holy orders, felt it his duty to come forward as the champion of the truth. He got his teaching not in France or Germany, but in Ireland; so he was not tainted with the errors of the Frankish theologians.

Dungal's treatise against Claudius is entitled: "Dungali Responsa contra Perversas Claudii Taurinensis Episcopi Sententias."

In the prologue of the book Dungal declares that for God's honour, and with the sanction of Louis and his son Lothaire, he undertakes to defend, on the authority of the Holy Fathers, the Catholic doctrine against the frantic and blasphemous trifling of Claudius, Bishop of Turin. Many times since his arrival in Italy he had just cause to complain, whilst he saw the field of the Lord oversown with tares, yet he held his peace in grief and pain. He can, however, do so no longer, when he sees the Church distracted, and the people seduced by deceivers. He first sets forth very clearly the points at issue between the rival parties, and then proceeds to refute Claudius, and prove the Catholic doctrine, observing at the outset that it was astonishing insolence for any man to presume to "censure and blaspheme that doctrine and practice which for 820 years or more was followed by the blessed Fathers, by most religious princes, and by all Christian households up to the present time."

After proving that these practices were not only not forbidden, but sanctioned by God Himself in the Pentateuch, he goes on to establish this tradition of the Catholic Church, quoting most of the Greek and Latin fathers, the poems of Paulinus, Prudentius, and Fortunatus, the Acts of the Martyrs and the Liturgy of the Church. He quotes, moreover, the Apocalypse, the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, at great length, to prove the same doctrine, and alleges that it was the universal belief and practice in the East and in the West from the days of the Apostles down to his own time. The Greeks lately erred; but their errors were retracted and condemned.

It is impossible not to admire the great knowledge of Sacred Scripture and Patristic literature displayed by the author. He reasons, too, clearly and cogently; and writes in a limpid and flowing style. Indeed, we know no writer of that age who excels Dungal in Latin composition, whether in poetry or prose; and this is generally admitted by those acquainted with the Latin literature of the period. Muratori observes that this work shows that Dungal was a man of wide culture.[311] This is high testimony from such an authority. Papirius Massonus, in his address to the prelates and clergy of Gaul prefixed to the treatise of Dungal, calls him an excellent theologian--_Theologus excellens_--and Alzog declares that the sophistical reasoning of Claudius, Bishop of Turin, was refuted by Jonas, Bishop of Orleans, but much _more ably_ by Dungal, an Irish monk of St. Denys, and subsequently by Strabo and Hincmar of Rheims.

Dungal's was not only the ablest, but also the first work that was written on the subject; for in it he alludes to the Synod or Conference of Paris in A.D. 825, as held two years before. So it must have appeared in A.D. 827, long before the refutations published by Jonas, Eginhard, Strabo, or Hincmar. Henceforward Iconoclasm began to lose ground in the West; and soon entirely disappeared, until revived in the sixteenth century.

As was observed before, towards the close of his life, Dungal retired to the monastery of Bobbio, to which he bequeathed his books. From Bobbio they were transferred to Milan, in A.D. 1606, by Cardinal Frederic Borromeo, and are now in the Ambrosian Library of that city. Among them were three Antiphonaries, one of which seems to have been the famous Bangor Antiphonary. Dungal, no doubt, procured these ancient rituals in order to quote them against Claudius in support of the Catholic doctrine. He appropriately dedicated the work to his countryman St. Columbanus.[312]

Columba, as Lanigan observes, was the real name of Columbanus, the founder of Bobbio, and in all probability, when Dungal calls himself an _incola_ of the saint, he rather means fellow-countryman, than inmate of his monastery.[313]

We cannot stay to criticise the poetry of Dungal. His best poem is an elaborate eulogy on Charlemagne, written in hexameter. Some critics have questioned if Dungal were the author; the style, however, even of the opening lines of the poem, compared with the first lines of the epitaph which he wrote on himself leaves no doubt that the "Irish Exile" was Dungal. The smaller poems that survive, are written in elegiac metre, and display considerable taste, although not much imagination.

There is every reason to think that Dungal, who died about the year A.D. 834, was buried in the crypts of Bobbio. He sleeps well with the friendly saints of Erin; and we earnestly join in his own humble prayer, that he may live for ever with those saints in heaven, even as their dust has long commingled in their far-off graves under the shadows of the Appenines.[314]

IV.--ST. MALACHY.

We cannot close the history of the School of Bangor without giving a sketch of the life of its greatest abbot, St. Malachy, who may, indeed, be regarded as its second founder. We refer to him here, not because he was a great scholar or a distinguished writer, but rather because the Abbot of Bangor was the great reformer of the Irish Church in the twelfth century--a man pre-eminent for the zeal, energy, and holiness of his apostolic career in the face of the greatest difficulties and dangers. He was, says the _Chronicon Scotorum_, the man who restored the Monastic and Canonical rules of the Church of Erin; and that sentence is really a summary of his whole life.

St. Malachy--in Irish Maelmeadhog--was born probably in the neighbourhood of Bangor or Armagh in the year A.D. 1095. The family name was O'Morgair, or O'Mongair, which it is said was afterwards changed into O'Dogherty. His father was a lay professor or lecturer in the School of Armagh; but his mother seems to have come from the neighbourhood of Bangor, of which her brother, the uncle of Malachy, was afterwards titular abbot or perhaps airchinnech. The boy was thus fortunate not only in having the advantages of a famous school and a learned father; but also in attaching himself as a personal friend and disciple to the great and holy Imar O'Hagan, who then lived as a recluse in Armagh. It was doubtless under his holy guidance that Malachy acquired that fund of solid virtue which he afterwards exhibited throughout his life.

In consequence of his eminent virtues whilst still very young, Malachy was promoted by Celsus of Armagh to deacon's orders; and shortly afterwards, before he had attained the then canonical age of thirty, he was ordained a priest by the same great prelate.

Wishing to perfect himself in sacred learning, and especially in the laws and discipline of the Church, St. Malachy next went to the great College of Lismore, which was at this period under the presidency of the venerable Malchus, Bishop of Waterford, and apparently also of Lismore. St. Bernard describes him as then an old man full of days and virtues, and richly endowed with divine wisdom. He was an Irishman by birth, but had been trained in the monastery of Winchester to a more accurate knowledge and observance of ecclesiastical discipline than were to be found at that time in Ireland. Under the influence and direction of this prelate the School of Lismore became, perhaps, the first in Ireland,[315] and St. Malachy fully availed himself of its great advantages.

On his return from Lismore in A.D. 1125, he was at once appointed to the Abbacy of Bangor. His uncle, the lay or titular abbot, gave up to Malachy peaceable possession of the ruined monastery and its wide domains, and became himself an humble monk of the new community--yes, a new community--the abbey lands were there, and a nominal abbot who enjoyed the revenues, but no church, no school, no community.[316] The ancient home of the saints had become a wilderness, the stones of the sanctuary were scattered, no sacrifice was offered on its altars.

It was the work of the Danes, who made a more complete ruin of Bangor than of any monastery elsewhere; because it was on the sea-shore of that narrow channel between Down and Galloway, which was the highway of the pirates. St. Bernard says that it was reported that in one day they slew nine hundred monks at Bangor.

Malachy now took twelve brethren with him and began to build an oratory once more at Bangor. It was finished in a few days, for it was an humble building in the Irish style--opus Scoticum--constructed of planed boards, but closely and firmly put together. Cells for the monks were built around it, and thus Bangor again began to flourish.

Then Malachy most unwillingly was taken from his infant monastery and made Bishop of Connor, that is of the entire County Antrim. At this time things were in a dreadful state in Antrim. There is no reason to question the testimony of St. Bernard. He is an independent and impartial witness, who got his information from St. Malachy and the disciples, whom he had left at Clairvaux. No doubt St. Bernard is rhetorical in style, but he is definite in statement. The natives were indocile and immoral. They neglected to go to confession, contracted illegitimate marriages, paid no tithes or first fruits. There were few priests, and no preaching in the churches. Malachy girt up his loins for the work before him. He went amongst the people on foot, accompanied with a few disciples. He admonished, he instructed, he ordained priests, he preached the Gospel everywhere. He had to endure much, but in the end he succeeded. The face of the country was soon changed, the desert bloomed as a garden, and the people that were not the Lord's became once again the chosen people of God.

It was during these years that Malachy went to the south of Ireland on a visit to his friend Cormac Mac Carthy, King of Cashel, and there founded the monastery which St. Bernard calls monasterium Ibracense, on land given him by King Cormac for that purpose. St. Celsus, Archbishop of Armagh, had been driven by usurpers out of his See and was now in the south of Ireland, at Ardpatrick, in the co. Limerick, over which, as heir of St. Patrick, he claimed certain rights. Feeling his end approaching, and knowing that St. Malachy was, of all others, best fitted to succeed him in the Chair of St. Patrick, he sent him his crozier as a token of his wish to have Malachy as his successor.

But Malachy was unwilling to be transferred to the primatial See, and not without good reason. First of all he wished the translation to be made in a canonical way by the bishops of the province with the sanction of Gilbert the Papal Legate. This, however, was soon accomplished, the temporal princes also giving their cordial adhesion to the proposal. Then Malachy consented on one condition, that when things were put in order in Armagh, he might be free once more to return to his own diocese and his beloved monastery of Bangor.

Malachy now found that he had even a more difficult and dangerous task to accomplish in Armagh than had awaited him in the County Antrim.

For more than two hundred years a family of usurpers had established themselves at Armagh, and held the land and See of Armagh, transmitting it from father to son, or grandson, in regular hereditary succession. Most of them were laymen and married men; but they paid regularly ordained prelates to perform all necessary episcopal functions, keeping for themselves the lands, the nomination to the churches, and even the titles of Bishops and Abbots of Armagh.

It has been said that some of these married men were regularly consecrated prelates duly recognised by the Irish Church. There is not a shadow of evidence for the statement, except _the name of bishop_ which is given to some of them. On the other hand, we have unexceptionable testimony that these men were laymen, and that the title of bishop was given to them, although they were laymen. St. Bernard settles the question. He says that this wicked and adulterous generation were so obstinate in asserting this right of hereditary succession, that although clerics of their blood were wanting, bishops were never wanting--that is bishops who were not even clerics. Of these, he says, before Celsus there were eight married men, learned enough but without orders.[317] "Denique jam octo extiterant ante Celsum viri uxorati, et absque ordinibus, litterati tamen." Gerald Barry tells exactly the same story--that various churches in Ireland and Wales had lay abbots.[318] He explains too, how it came to pass. Certain powerful men in the parish, who were at first the stewards of the church lands, and defenders of the clergy, afterwards usurped the ownership of the lands, and in order to secure them for themselves, their children, or their relations, they called themselves abbots and owners of the lands, leaving only to the clergy such chance offerings as they might happen to receive.

Such a system was of course the fruitful root of many evils. St. Malachy resolved to expel these usurpers from the See of Armagh. It was a long and difficult task; and frequently his life was in deadly peril. But God visibly protected him; he was patient, too, and prudent, as well as zealous; and in the end was completely successful. After three years of patient toil, he was universally recognised as Primate; and having thus banished the usurpers, he resigned the See to the care of the learned and saintly Gelasius, and retired once more to his beloved Bangor, keeping only the charge of the episcopal Church of Down.

We cannot follow St. Malachy through his subsequent glorious career. He went to Rome and was specially honoured by Pope Innocent II., who put his own mitre on his head, and his own stole around his neck in presence of his court, and appointed him his Legate for all Ireland. On his way to Rome he stopped at Clairvaux, where he had the good fortune of meeting St. Bernard, who became his dearest and most intimate friend. In him too, St. Malachy, more fortunate even than St. Columba, found a biographer who made the virtues and merits of the Irish saint known to posterity, and to the entire Church of God.

The saint also left at Clairvaux four of his disciples to be trained there under the eyes of St. Bernard himself in the discipline of the great Cistercian Order. It is to them we owe the introduction of that order into Ireland in A.D. 1142, and all the great religious houses which the Cistercians founded throughout the length and breadth of Ireland.

After his return home, armed with the plenary powers of Papal Legate, Malachy devoted himself with even more zeal and success than before to the reformation of his own diocese, and the general restoration of ecclesiastical discipline throughout the kingdom. He was ably supported by the Irish prelates both in the North and in the South; and he would have changed the face of the Church before many years, but it pleased God to call him to Himself all too soon for Ireland. In A.D. 1148 he went to France to meet Pope Eugene III., who was then at Clairvaux. Before Malachy, however, arrived, the Pope had departed, but he was consoled by the warm welcome which he received from St. Bernard and his monks. Shortly after the Irish saint fell sick to the great sorrow of the community, but Malachy consoled them, and told them that there was no chance of his recovery for it was God's will that he should die at Clairvaux. Feeling his strength failing he caused all the brethren to be summoned to his bedside. At once they came--St. Bernard at their head. "With longing I have longed," said the dying man, "to eat this pasch with you"--that is the holy Viaticum--"before I die, and I thank my God that my longing has been gratified." Blessing them one by one he said, "Remember me, and please God I will not forget you." So saying he rested a little; but towards midnight the community was summoned again, and while they wept and prayed around his bed, he fell asleep in the Lord, and "the Angels carried his soul to Heaven." It was at midnight between the 1st and 2nd of November, but the latter being All Souls' Day, his Feast is kept on the 3rd of November. He was canonized by Pope Clement III., about the year A.D. 1190.