Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

We agree with Dr. Colenso that this is a “huge difficulty”, and that the duties of the priest, as described by him, involve a manifest absurdity. But we contend that the duties of the priest, as described by him, are not to be found in the Pentateuch; that _all the circumstances_ which constitute the difficulty and the absurdity are simply _additions of his own_. This is indeed a serious charge against a writer who represents himself to the public as an earnest and conscientious searcher after truth. But we hope to satisfy our readers that it is a plain and obvious fact; and it is our duty, as Dr. Colenso truly tells us, “to look plain facts in the face”.

It is evident that the whole weight of the objection consists in this: that, according to the sacred narrative, the priest is commanded, first, to carry the bullock _himself_; secondly, to carry it _on his back_; thirdly, in doing so, to _go on foot_. Now there is not the faintest insinuation in any text Dr. Colenso has produced, nor, we may add, in any text the Pentateuch contains, that the priest should _go on foot_, or that he should carry the bullock _on his back_. These two ideas are to be found only in the fanciful and rather irreverent gloss of Dr. Colenso.

Neither is it commanded in the sacred text that the priest should _himself_ carry the bullock out of the camp. Even in the English translation there is nothing to imply that he might not, for this duty, employ the service of his attendant Levites. It is said, indeed, “he shall carry forth the bullock without the camp”. But by the common use of language we may impute to a person, as his own, the act which he does by the agency of another. Thus a minister of state is said to write a letter, when the letter is written at his direction by his secretary. In the Fourth Book of _Kings_ it is recorded of Nabuchodonosor that “_he carried away all Jerusalem_, and all the princes, and all the valiant men of the army, to the number of ten thousand, into captivity:... and the judges of the land he carried into captivity from Jerusalem into Babylon. And all the strong men, seven thousand, and the artificers and the smiths a thousand”, etc.—(IV. _Kings_, xxiv. 14-16). No one dreams of any difficulty in a sentence like this. Yet, if we admit the Colenso system of interpretation, the difficulty is insuperable, because the _meaning of the sentence_ is, that Nabuchodonosor _himself_ carried that immense multitude _on his back_ from Jerusalem to Babylon.

If we now turn to the Hebrew text we shall find that it is still less favourable to Dr. Colenso and his “huge difficulty”. The word והוציא (vehotzi), which is there used, literally means _and he shall cause [it] to go forth_, that is to say, _he shall have it removed_. This will be at once admitted by every biblical scholar, and can be made intelligible without much difficulty to the general reader. In the Hebrew language there are several forms of the same verb, sometimes called conjugations, each of which has a meaning peculiar to itself. The primitive form is _kal_; and the _hiphil_ form “denotes the _causing_ or _permitting_ of the action, signified by the primitive _kal_”.(5) For example: קדש (kadash) in _kal_ signifies _to be holy_; in _hiphil_, _to cause to be holy_, _to sanctify_; נטה (natah) in _kal_ means _to bow_; in _hiphil_, _to cause to bow_, _to bend_. Now, in the passage quoted by Dr. Colenso the word והוציא is the _hiphil_ form of יצא (yatza), _to go forth_; it therefore means literally _to cause to go forth_.(6) We need scarcely remark that the priest would comply with this injunction whether he himself in person removed the bullock, or whether he employed the Levites to do it; whether he carried it on his back, according to the ridiculous paraphrase of Dr. Colenso, or removed it in wagons provided for the purpose.

And now that our paper approaches to a close, it may be asked what is the result of our labours, and what has been gained to the cause of truth by all the minute and tedious details through which we have conducted our readers? It seems to us that we have directly answered two of Dr. Colenso’s arguments, and that we have moreover established indirectly a strong presumption against all the rest. Let us put a case to our readers. A jeweller exhibits for sale a string of pearls. He demands a very high price, but he pledges his word of honour that the pearls are of the rarest quality and of the highest excellence. A casual passer-by is attracted by the glittering gems. He enters the shop; he listens with eager credulity to the earnest protestations of the merchant; but he hesitates when the price is named. At this critical moment a friend arrives, who is happily somewhat versed in jewellery. He selects one or two pearls from the string, and after a brief inspection clearly shows, not merely that the price is far beyond their value, but that they are not pearls at all. What would be thought of the merchant who had offered them for sale? Who would frequent his shop? Who would believe the other pearls to be genuine on the strength of his protestations? It may be indeed that he is not a swindler; but if he is an honest man, he is certainly a very indifferent judge of his business.

Now what this jeweller is in a matter of commerce, such, as it seems to us, has Dr. Colenso been proved to be in a matter of infinitely greater moment. He comes before the world with the prestige of a great name and of a high position. He earnestly announces that he has made a great discovery, and that he is forced by his conscience to speak out his mind. He offers to the public an attractive array of brilliant and plausible arguments; and in return he asks us to surrender the inestimable treasure of Christian faith. At first we are bewildered and perplexed by the novelty and variety of his arguments; but after a little we summon up courage; we select two or three from the number, and these we submit to a minute and careful analysis. We find that they are miserably defective and utterly inconclusive. Facts are misrepresented, the meaning of language is perverted, the principles of sound reasoning are disregarded. May we not then fairly infer that Dr. Colenso’s earnest protestations of sincerity and good intention afford a very insufficient guarantee for the accuracy of his statements and the stability of his arguments? We do not say that he is dishonest; but we do say that he has proved himself a very incompetent authority.

BLESSED THADDEUS M’CARTHY.

[In an article of the _Record_ for April (page 312), we briefly referred to a Bishop of Cloyne and Cork who is venerated as blessed, in Ivrea, a town of Piedmont. In conformity with the few fragments preserved in the archives of Ivrea and elsewhere regarding him, we adopted the opinion that his name, according to modern orthography, should be rendered Thaddeus Maher. Since the publication of the article just mentioned, a paper containing much valuable matter has been communicated to us through the great kindness of the Very Rev. Dr. M’Carthy, the learned Professor of Scripture in Maynooth College, who had prepared it long before the article in the _Record_ was published, and before he could have had any knowledge of our views on this subject. We are anxious to publish every document that we can find on this interesting question, in the hope that by discussing it, light may be thrown on the history of a holy Irish bishop, who is honoured beyond the Alps, but so little known at home, that there is great difficulty in determining his real name. In one of our next numbers we shall return to this subject.]

On June 23rd, 1847, the Most Rev. Dr. Murray, Archbishop of Dublin, received at Maynooth a letter covering a bill of exchange for £40 (1,000 francs), sent for the relief of the famine-stricken poor of Ireland, by order of the good Bishop of Ivrea. The town of Ivrea (anciently _Eporedia_) is the capital of the Piedmontese province of the same name, which extends from the Po to the Alps. The province contains a population of over one hundred thousand, of whom about eight thousand reside in the town, where is also the bishop’s see.

The letter to Dr. Murray enclosed a separate paper, of which the following is a copy:—

“De Beato Thaddeo Episcopo Hiberniae.

“Anno Domini millesimo quadringentesimo nonagesimo secundo, die
vigesima quarta Octobris, Eporediae (antiquae urbis Transalpinae
in Pedemontio) postremum obiit diem in hospitio peregrinorum sub
titulo Sancti Antonii, quidam viator incognitus; atque eodem
instante lux mira prope lectum in quo jacebat effulsit, et
Episcopo Eporediensi apparuit homo venerandus, Pontificalibus
indumentis vestitus. THADDEUM MACHAR Hiberniae Episcopum illum
esse innotuit ex chartis quas deferebat, et in Cathedrali ejus
corpus solemni pompa depositum est sub altari, et in tumulo Sancti
Eusebii Episcopi Eporediensis, atque post paucos dies coepit multa
miracula facere.

“Acta et documenta ex quibus ejus patria et character episcopalis
tunc innotuerunt, necnon ad patratorum miraculorum seu prodigiorum
memoriam exarata, interierunt occasione incendii quo seculo xvii.
Archivium Episcopale vastatum est. In quadam charta pergamena
caracteribus Gothicis scripta, quae in Archivio Ecclesiae
Cathedralis servatur haec leguntur:

“Marmoreis tumulis hoc templo Virginis almae
Corpora Sanctorum plura sepulta jacent
Martinus hic . . . . .
. . . . . . . .
Inde Thaddeus adest, quem misit Hibernia praesul
Sospite quo venit saepe petita salus,
Regia progenies alto de sanguine Machar,
Quem nostri in Genua nunc Latiique vocant.
Ingemuit moriens, quem Hiberno sidere cretum
Non Cariense tenet, non Clovinense solum.
Sic visum superis; urbs Eporedia corpus
Templo majore marmoreo claudat opus.
Hic jacet Eusebii testudinis ipse sacello,
Pauperiem Christi divitis inde tulit.
Hunc clarum reddunt miracula sancta: beatus
Exstat: et in toto dicitur orbe pius.
Huc quicunque venis, divum venerare Thaddeum
Votaque fac precibus: dicque viator, Ave.
Mille quadringentos annos tunc orbis agebat
Atque Nonagenos: postmodum junge duos.

“Verbis illis _solum Cariense_ vel _Cloviense_ et _Clovinense_
designari a poeta civitates Hiberniae in quibus Thaddeus aut natus
aut Episcopus fuerit, putandum est, forsan Clareh, Carrick.

“Quamobrem exquiritur utrum in Hibernia habeatur notitia hujus
Episcopi THADDEI MACHAR—loci ubi natus fuerit,—ejus familiae, quae
regia seu princeps supponitur in poesi,—civitatis seu ecclesiae in
qua fuerit Episcopus. Desiderantur quoque notitiae si quae
reperiri poterunt et documenta quibus illius vita et gesta
illustrari possint; insuper utrum labente saeculo xv. aliqua
persecutio in Hibernia adversus Episcopos facta sit, quemadmodum
argumentari licet ex quibusdam Epistolis Innocentii VIII. circa
immunitatem ecclesiasticam”.—(_End of paper_).

As our space precludes a literal translation of this paper, a summary may be acceptable to the reader.

On the 24th of October, 1492, died at Ivrea, in St. Antony’s Hospice for Pilgrims, Blessed Thaddeus, an Irish bishop, whose body was deposited under the high altar of the cathedral, in a shrine over the relics of the holy patron, St. Eusebius. At the time of death a brilliant light was seen round his bed, and at the same moment to the Bishop of Ivrea there appeared a man of venerable mien, clothed in pontifical robes. Several other miracles were also wrought through his intercession. The papers found with him showed he was an Irish bishop, and these, as well as other documents proving his great sanctity, religiously kept in the episcopal archives, were destroyed by fire in the seventeenth century. In an old parchment, written in Gothic letters, still preserved in the archives of the cathedral church, are these lines:

’Neath marble tombs, in this the virgin’s shrine
The bones of many a saint in peace recline;
Here martyred . . . . .
Thaddeus there. From Erin’s shore he came,
A bishop, of M’Carthy’s royal name.
At whose behest were wondrous cures oft made.
Still Latium, Genoa, invoke his aid.
Dying, he mourned that not on Irish soil,
Where sped his youth, should close his earthly toil:
Nor Cloyne, nor Kerry, but Ivrea owns
(For God so willed) the saintly bishop’s bones.
’T is meet that they in marble shrine encased
Should be within the great cathedral placed.
Like Christ, whose tomb was for another made,
He in Eusebius’ cenotaph is laid.
Soon sacred prodigies his power attest,
And all the Earth proclaims him pious, blest.
O ye who hither come, our saint assail
With prayers and votive gifts; nor, traveller, fail
To greet with reverence the holy dead.
Since Christ was born a thousand years had fled,
Four hundred then and ninety-two beside
Had passed away, when St. Thaddeus died.

When Dr. Murray received the Bishop of Ivrea’s letter, he placed it in the hands of the late venerated President of Maynooth College, from whose MSS. it is now copied, together with the very literal translation of the verses made by one of the junior students at the time. Dr. Renehan undertook to collect all the notices of Blessed Thaddeus in our Irish annals, and to give the best answers he could to the bishop’s questions. He even visited Ivrea in the summer of 1850, in the hope of finding traditional records of the life of Blessed Thaddeus, but to no purpose. He found the task more difficult than might be expected. All the knowledge regarding the saint’s family, see, etc., that can be gathered from Irish or British sources is found in these few lines from Ware on the Bishops of Cloyne:

“THADY M’CARTHY (_succ._ 1490).—Upon the resignation of William, Thady M’Carthy, by some called Mechar, succeeded the same year by a provision from Pope Innocent VIII., as may be seen from the _Collectanea_ of Francis Harold”—Ware’s _Bishops_ (Harris), p. 563.

The Blessed Thaddeus’s name is unhonoured then, in his own country; his biography, if ever written, is at least not recorded by the Irish historians. Even the scanty information which the industrious Ware supplies, was gleaned not from our annals, but from Harold’s _Collectanea_, probably notes and extracts taken from documents in the continental libraries. Dr. Renehan had, therefore, little to add on our saint’s life. He was, however, fully satisfied that Blessed Thaddeus of Ivrea was no other than the Bishop of Cork and Cloyne, mentioned by Ware. His arguments may be seen in a rough outline of his answer to the Bishop of Ivrea’s letter, among the O’Renehan MSS. in Maynooth, almost the only authority we had time to consult for this notice. Sometimes the very words of the letter are given in inverted commas:—

I. The Pilgrim of Ivrea was an Irish bishop who died in the year 1492. “The most diligent search through our Irish annals will not discover another bishop to whom even so much of the poet’s description will apply but Thaddeus M’Carthy, Bishop of Cloyne. About that date there were indeed in Ireland five bishops named Thaddeus: 1. Thady, Bishop of Kilmore, since before 1460; but his successor Furseus died in 1464, and Thomas, the third from him, died before 1492. 2. Thady M’Cragh, of Killaloe, succeeded in 1430, full sixty years before our saint’s death at Ivrea. His third successor died in 1460. 3. Thady, Bishop of Down, was consecrated in Rome, 1469, died in 1486, and his successor, R. Wolsey, was named before 1492. 4. Thady of Ross died soon after his appointment in 1488, succeeded by Odo in 1489. 5. Thady of Dromore, appointed only in 1511, and the see was held by George Brown in 1492. The date (1492) is alone enough to prove that B. Thaddeus of Ivrea was not any of the preceding bishops, and there was no other of the name for full sixty years after or before, but the Bishop of Cork and Cloyne, the date of whose death fits exactly all the requirements of the case. Ware quotes from Harold that he was appointed by Innocent VIII. (_sed._ 1484-1492,) that he succeeded W. Roch, resigned 1490, and further, that Gerald, who succeeded, resigned in 1499, after obtaining a pardon from Henry VII. in 1496”—(_Lib. Mun._, i. p. 102)

II. Another line of the old fragment seems to name the see of the B. Thaddeus, whom the poet describes as lamenting his death abroad, far from the “solum Chariense”, or “Clovinense”, which we interpret far “from _Kerry_”, the burial place of his family, and “from _Cloyne_”, his episcopal see. “Cloyne” is variously Latinized, even by Irish writers, “Cloynensis”, “Clonensis”, “Cluanensis”—and often “Clovens” or “Clovinen”, in Rymer’s _Foedera_.(7) What more natural than that a poet would describe the pilgrim as longing to be buried either in his cathedral church of _Cloyne_ or with his fathers in _Kerry_?

III. The passage which seems to us most decisive, is that which points to the _royal extraction_ and _name_ of this holy bishop: “_Regia progenies, alto de sanguine Machar_”. Observe how in the notice from _Harold_ Bishop M’Carthy was called also “Mechar”. Clearly both were one and the same name. Thus [Gaelic: Mac Careaw], Anglicised M’Carthy, is pronounced Maccaura, with the last syllable short, as in Ard-Magha (Armagh), and numberless like words. Hence Wadding,(8) in speaking of the foundation of Muckross Abbey, Killarney, by Domnal M’Carthy, Prince of Desmond, quotes to this effect a Bull of Paul II., in 1468, in which Domnall’s name is spelled “_Machar_”, a form identical with that in the contemporary fragment. In truth, there is no Irish family name like “Machar” at all but “Meagher”, which is invariably spelled with “O”, especially in the Latinized form; and the “O’Meaghers” had no claim to _royal_ blood.

IV. The Blessed Thaddeus was “regia progenies”. Now there was no _royal_ family name in Ireland like that in the inscription except the truly _royal_ name, made more royal still by the saintly Bishop of Cloyne. Without insisting with Keating that the ancestry of the M’Carthy family could be traced through twenty-eight monarchs who governed the island before the Christian era, we may assert with the Abbe MacGeoghan, in a note (tom. iii. p. 680), strangely omitted by his translator, “that if regard be had to primogeniture and seniority of descent, the M’Carthy family is the _first_ in Ireland”.

Long before the founders of the oldest royal families in Europe—before Rodolph acquired the empire of Germany, or a Bourbon ascended the throne of France—the saintly Cormac M’Carthy, the disciple, the friend, and patron of St. Malachy, ruled over Munster, and the title of _king_ was at least continued in name in his posterity down to the reign of Elizabeth. “Few pedigrees, if any”, says Sir B. Burke, “in the British empire can be traced to a more remote or exalted source than that of the Celtic house of M’Carthy.... They command a prominent, perhaps the _most prominent_ place in European genealogy”. Plain then is it that in no other house could the “regia progenies” be verified more fully than in the M’Carthy family.(9)

V. The date of death, the wished-for burial place, his native soil (Kerry), or his diocese (Cloyne)—the name and royal extraction, all point to the Bishop of Cloyne as the saint whose relics are still worshipped at Ivrea. If we add that “Chiar” is the usual Irish form of Kerry; that Domnall’s (the founder of Irrelagh) father’s name was THADDEUS, not improbably our Saint’s uncle, the evidence seems to be overwhelming.

VI. We have said there is no account in Irish writers of even the Bishop of Cloyne, except the few lines in Ware. The continental annalists of the religious orders do, however, speak of one celebrated Thaddeus, without mentioning his surname or country. Elsius (quoting _De Herera_ and _Crusen_, whose works are not within our reach) notices Thaddeus _de Hipporegio_ sive _Iporegia_, “as a man distinguished for learning, religious observance, preaching, holiness of life, and experience, a man of great zeal, and a sedulous promoter of the interests of his order”. He was prior, he adds, of several convents, seven times definitor, thirteen times visitator, four times president of synods, nine times vicar-general, and his government was ever distinguished for the greatest love of order and edifying example. See Els., _Encom._, August., p. 645.

After quoting these words in substance from the Augustinian chronicler, Dr. Renehan adds: “After the most diligent inquiry I could make at Ivrea, wherever I could hope for any little information, particularly at the episcopal palace (where I was received with marked respect, as a priest from the country that sent out the B. Thaddeus), and of the Bishop’s secretary, the vicar-general, and many others, whose kind attention I can never forget, I could find no vestige of any other Thaddeus, called after the city (_Eporedia_), but our own blessed Irish bishop; and I was assured, over and over again, that he was the only Thaddeus known in its annals, or who ever had any connection with the town, by birth, residence, death—or any way known to the present generation”. It is not then unreasonable to suppose that the Thaddeus so celebrated in the Augustinian Order was no other than our Bishop. True, Elsius gives 1502 for the date of the friar’s demise; but Elsius is never to be trusted in dates, and the printer may easily take MCCCCXCII. (the true date), for MCCCCCII. Indeed, 1492 is not so different from 1502 that an error may not have crept in.

Dr. Renehan’s theory, then, with regard to B. Thaddeus, fully detailed in the letter to the Bishop of Ivrea, was this:—

Thaddeus M’Carthy was born in Kerry, where the M’Carthy More branch of the family resided, and where, in the monastery of Irialac (now Muckross), or in Ennisfallen (see _Archdall_), the princes of the house were always buried. The young Thaddeus went abroad at an early age, and embraced the monastic life. His virtues and piety soon attracted the notice of his religious brethren, as manifest from their chronicles. They became in time known to the ruling Pontiff, Innocent VIII., who raised him to the episcopal dignity. The B. Thaddeus repaired to Rome in the first place, to receive consecration and jurisdiction from the successor of St. Peter, imitating in this the example of our great patron saint. He stopped at Ivrea, probably on his way home, fell sick there, and died, God witnessing to His servant by signs and wonders. The silence of our annalists is thus accounted for to a great extent by the long residence of B. Thaddeus abroad. This theory is remarkably borne out by the independent notice in last _Record_. Having little to help us to arrive at any correct notion of the saintly bishop’s life beyond the epitaph and the slender tradition at Ivrea, we entirely subscribe to this view. Other sources of information may be opened, now that we have ventured to bring, for the first time, the name of B. Thaddeus before the Irish Catholic people; and for this service, little as it is, and entirely unworthy of our saintly bishop, we still expect his blessing in full measure.

LITURGICAL QUESTIONS.

We have received from various quarters several questions connected with the ceremony of marriage. We propose in this number of the _Record_ to answer some of them.

We shall treat in the first place of the Mass. The questions forwarded to us may be reduced to the two following:

1. When and on what days can the Missa pro sponso et sponsa be said, and on what days is it forbidden by the Rubrics?

2. In either Mass are any commemorations to be made, and when and how are they to be made?

In reply to these questions, we beg to bring under the notice of our readers the following decrees of the Sacred Congregation of Rites.

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

4266. In celebratione Nuptiarum quae fit extra diem Dominicum vel alium diem festum de praecepto seu in quo occurrat duplex primae vel secundae classis etiamsi fiat officium et Missa de Festo duplici per annum sive majori sive minori dicendam esse Missam pro sponso et sponsa in fine Missalis post alias Missas votivas specialiter assignatam: in diebus vero Dominicis aliisque diebus festis de praecepto ac duplicibus primae et secundae classis dicendam esse Missam de Festo cum commemoratione Missae pro sponso et sponsa. Atque ita decrevit et servari mandavit. Die 20 Decembris 1783. Factaque deinde per me Secretarium de praedictis Sanctissimo Domino Nostro Pio PP. VI. relatione Sanctitas sua praefatum Sac. Cong. generale Decretum confirmavit, et ubique exequutioni dandum esse praecepit. Die 7 Januarii 1784

4394. Verumtamen cum interea nonnulla excitata fuerint dubia circa rubricam in haccelebranda Missa servandam, et Parochorum sensus sit varius quippe quia aliqui eidem Missae Hymnum Angelicum adjiciendum censent cum vers. Ite, Missa est in fine, alii vero etiam Symbolum Nicenum legendum putant, ea freti ratione quod haec Missa ceu solemnis et pro re gravi haberi debeat: ideo ad amputandas controversias et dubitationes utque ab omnibus unus idemque conveniens ritus servetur: sacra Rituum Congregatio, me subscripto secretario referente, re mature discussa, declaravit atque decrevit quod firma remanente dispositione praefati Decreti quoad designationem dierum in quibus Missa votiva pro sponso et sponsa celebrari potest, eamdem esse votivam privatam, proindeque semper legendam sine Hymno Angelico et symbolo Nicaeno cum tribus orationibus, prima videlicet ejusdem Missae votivae propria ut habetur in fine Missalis secunda et tertia diei currentis ut in Rubric. Tit. vii. num. 3, de Commemorationibus, Benedicamus Domino in fine, et ultimo Evangelio S. Johannis. Et ita decrevit die 28 Februarii 1818.

4437. Cum per Decretum Generale S. hujus Congregationis die 20 Decembris 1783 dies designentur, quibus Missa pro sponso et sponsa etiam diebus excludentibus duplicia per annum, ideoque etiam infra octavam Epiphaniae, in vigilia Pentecostes, et infra octavam privilegiatam sanctissimi Corporis Christi: alii vero putant his etiam diebus eamdem Missam vetitam; idcirco idem Parochus petiit declarari.

5. An hujusmodi Missa dici possit diebus duplicia excludentibus ut supra notatis?

6. An Commemoratio Missae pro sponso et sponsa dicenda prout ex dicto decreto in Missis de duplici primae vel secundae classis dici debeat sub unica conclusione cum oratione Festi vel sub altera conclusione?

7. An talis Commemoratio pariter dici debeat vel sub altera conclusione prout solet de aliis commemorationibus occurrentibus in diebus Dominicis et Festis de praecepto?

8. Quo loco, quando aliae occurrunt commemorationes ut in proximo quaesito commemoratio Missae pro sponso et sponsa dicenda sit sub secunda conclusione, an scilicet ultimo loco?

Et S. Rituum Congregatio exquisita sententia alterius ex Apostolicarum Caeremoniarum Magistris scripto exarata, typisque evulgata ad relationem Eminentissimi et Reverendissimi D. Card. Cavalchini Ponentis, respondendum censuit ut infra, videlicet.

Ad 5. Negative quoad octavam Epiphaniae, vigiliam Pentecostes, et octavam privilegiatam Sanctissimi Corporis Christi, quatenus privilegium concessum sit ad instar octavae Epiphaniae.

Ad. 6. Negative ad primam partem, affirmative ad secundam.

Ad. 7. Ut in antecedenti.

Ad. 8. Faciendam primo loco post alias de praecepto.

Atque ita respondit die 20 Aprilis 1822.

From these decrees the following conclusions may clearly be established:

1. On all Sundays and holidays of obligation, and feasts of first and second class, the Mass of the day is to be said with the commemoration of the Mass pro sponso et sponsa. This appears clear from the decree 4266 quoted above.

2. This commemoration is to be made sub altera conclusione, and not sub unica conclusione cum oratione Festi.

3. If there are other commemorations to be made in the Mass of the day, they are to be said before the commemoration of the Mass pro sponso et sponsa. This appears from the answer given by the Sacred Congregation of Rites to the question 8 in the Decree No. 4437, and Gardellini, in a note on this same question, says: “Imo si occurrant plures commemorationes ut accidit potissimum dum celebranda est Missa de Dominica, illa Nuptiarum primum dumtaxat locum obtinere poterit post alias a rubrica praeceptas et sic reliquas praestare, siquae sint a superiore imperatae”.

4. The decree 4394 makes it clear that on all the ordinary doubles throughout the year, the Missa pro sponso et sponsa may be celebrated; and it declares, moreover, that it is a votive private Mass, and, as such, to be said sine Gloria et Credo, with the second and third prayers of the day occurring, and to conclude with the Benedicamus Domino and the Gospel of St. John. This decree, clear as it may appear, gave rise to another question about privileged octaves which exclude doubles, which was afterwards proposed to the Sacred Congregation of Rites, and to which an answer was given on the 20th April, 1822, in the Decree 4437, already quoted, question 5.

Gardellini, in a valuable note, explains the matter fully, and we quote his words on the subject:—

“Hisce decretis compositae quaestiones omnes videbantur: secus tamen accidit, nam nova excitata sunt dubia. Quippe nonnulli sunt, qui opinantur Missam hanc dici posse etiam diebus qui excludunt duplicia per annum, praesertim vero infra octavam Epiphaniae, in vigilia Pentecostes et infra octavam privilegiatam sanctissimi Corporis Christi. In hac autem opinione versantur quia in primo illo Decreto dies isti expressim et nominatim non excipiuntur. Ast hi errant quam maxime. Non enim declaratione indigebat id, quod sub generali prohibitione, utpote a Rubricis jam vetitum continebatur. Jubet Decretum, ne Missa nuptiarum celebretur in duplicibus primae vel secundae classis sed vult ut in hujusmodi occursu solam obtineant commemorationem: ergo includit in regula etiam dies, in quibus per easdem Rubricas fieri nequit Festum duplex secundae classis vel occurrens vel translatum si in octava Epiphaniae duplicia isthaec non admittuntur, potiori jure nec Missa votiva privata non obstante Indultu admitti poterit, utpote quae in occursu hujusmodi duplicium celebranda non est”.

We must refer our readers to this very instructive note of Gardellini, which we regret we cannot insert here in full, owing to its great length. Indeed it is not necessary to do so, inasmuch as the answer given to the question 5 in the Decree 4437, already quoted, puts an end to further discussion, and settles the question definitively.

There are other questions connected with the ceremony of marriage, but we must reserve them for another occasion.

CORRESPONDENCE.

I. The See Of Down And Connor.

_To the Editors of the Irish Ecclesiastical Record_.

GENTLEMEN,

In the March number of your valuable periodical there was a most interesting paper on the See of Down and Connor. I apprehend, however, it contained a few slight mistakes, which I would have pointed out, but hoped that some person more intimately conversant with the subject would have done so in your April number. Such not having been the case, I shall endeavour to do so. However, before entering on these matters, I beg to say, in illustration of your learned contributor’s notes, that the “_Ecclesia de Rathlunga_”, of which Bishop Liddell had been rector, is now called Raloo, and lies between Larne and Carrickfergus, in the county of Antrim (see Reeves, p. 52); that _Lesmoghan_, of which Bishop Killen had been pastor, still bears the same name, forming a sub-denomination of the parish of Ballykinler, county Down (Ib., p. 28); that _Arwhyn_, of which John of _Baliconingham_ (now Coniamstown, near Downpatrick) was rector, is now the mensal parish of Ardquin, in the barony of Ardes, county Down (Ib., p. 20); and that _Camelyn_, of which Bishop Dongan was pastor, is now called Crumlin, being united to the parish of Glenavy, near Lough Neagh, county Antrim (_Ib._, p. 4). Returning from this digression, it is quite plain from the Bull dated June, 1461, given by De Burgo (_Hib. Dom._, p. 474), and cited by your contributor, p. 267, appointing Richard Wolsey to the See of Down, that Wolsey was not the immediate successor of Bishop John, who died in 1450. It expressly states, as mentioned in the article, that the See was _vacant_ by the death of THOMAS, last bishop of the canonically united dioceses of Down and Connor, repeating the same name in the body of the Bull. How this is to be reconciled with the statement that Wolsey was John’s successor, I cannot say; but it follows, on the principle laid down by your contributor in ignoring John Logan, placed by Ware between William, bishop from 1365 to 1368, and Richard Calf II., 1369, that we must have a Bishop Thomas between John and Richard Wolsey. Dr. Reeves (_Eccl. Ant. Down_, etc., p. 257), on the authority of this very Bull, has accordingly done so, marking him as succeeding in 1450, and the see vacant in 1451. He conjectures him to have been _Thomas Pollard_, who in 1450 was appointed custose of the temporalities. Dr. Cotton (vol. iii. p. 201) adopts this view without hesitation, and it would appear by a complaint of the beforementioned Bishop John, shortly after the union of Down and Connor in 1441, that even then Pollard claimed to have an apostolical provision for the See of Down (Primate Mey’s _Registry_, cited by Reeves, p. 37; see also Harris’s _Ware_, p. 203, where it is likewise mentioned that Pollard contested the See of Down with John of Connor, both carrying themselves as bishops thereof, Harris adding that it was thought Pollard was supported by the primate, and that it was only in 1449 Pollard lost his cause, just two years before Wolsey’s appointment). It may be asked, had he a reversionary provision before the union was canonically effected? If not, is _Thomas_ a misprint for _John_ in the Bull? as we are aware that there are many typographical errors in the _Hib. Dom._—for instance, as to _John_ O’Molony, Bishop of Killaloe, who died circ. 1650, is in several places called _Thomas_.

The next bishop respecting whom I wish to make some observations is Eugene or Owen Magenis, appointed in 1541, and though I am not disposed to deal uncharitably with him, I have no doubt he was a “temporiser”, though he may have been secretly “orthodox”. Dr. M’Carthy (Dr. Kelly’s _Essays_, p. 427), and Brennan, and Walsh, in their ecclesiastical histories of Ireland are compelled to come to the same conclusion; and upon the whole of his career I candidly confess I don’t know what other result they could arrive at. I ground nothing on his being present, if he were present, at Queen Elizabeth’s first parliament in 1560, which passed the Act of Uniformity, and required the oath of supremacy to be taken by all ecclesiastics; for even if he had been present, there is no documentary evidence extant showing how those in attendance voted, and those acquainted with Irish history know on the authority of Archdeacon Lynch that these acts were hurriedly and surreptitiously passed on a day when they were not expected to be brought forward, and in a thin packed house. But it appears, so far as his public acts are reported, that he submitted in matters of ecclesiastical discipline to all the rapid changes and schisms which the fertile imaginations of the pseudo-reformers introduced during the Tudor reigns. He surrendered his bulls to Henry VIII., obtained from Paul, “Bishop of Rome”, not “His Holiness”; took out pardon for accepting them, with a new grant of the see, with the archdeaconry and confirmation of the parishes of Aghaderg and Anaghlone, parishes to which _he had been_ promoted by the Primate in 1526 and 1528. It is an oversight to suppose that about 1541 and 1543 the northern chieftains who submitted to Henry VIII. were exempted from all pressure in matter of religion. Cox (_Aug. Hib._, vol. i. p. 272) writes that the king about that time caused all the Irish who submitted to him to renounce the “Pope’s usurpations, and to own the king’s supremacy by indenture”, among others, stating that O’Neill did so, January, 1542, all the indentures being registered in the Red Book of the Exchequer. The articles of Con O’Neill’s submission are printed in vol. iii. part iii. p. 353, of the _State Papers of Henry VIII_.; and by the second article, he expressly renounces obedience to the Roman Pontiff and his usurped authority, and acknowledges the king to be the supreme head of the Church in England and Ireland, immediately under Christ. Manus O’Donnell, 3rd June the preceding year, in his letter styles the king on Earth immediately under Christ supreme head of the Church of England—(_Ib._, p. 217). M’Donell, captain of the galloglasses, goes further, and promises to annihilate and relinquish the usurped authority of the Bishop of Rome; and his adherents and abettors will expel, extirp, and diminish, etc.—(_Ib._, p. 383). Redmond MacMahon, captain of the Farney, 30th December, 1543, also renounces the usurped authority of the Roman Pontiff—(Shirley’s _Farney_, p. 40). Even in the reign of Queen Mary, we find Owen Macgenis, of Iveagh, chief of his sept and captain of his country, binding himself not to admit any provisions from Rome, but oppose them all he could—(Cox, i. p. 299). No doubt these indentures were extorted by necessity from these chiefs, who scoffed at the idea that Henry had any religion or was the head of any church, and kept the articles just as long as they could not help it. Dr. M’Carthy, I presume on the ground of Bishop Magenis suing out pardon in Queen Mary’s reign, considers he afterwards “repented”, being made a privy councillor and governor of his country; but then we have two similar acts of repentance in Elizabeth’s reign, for he took out the royal pardon, 1st May and 25th October in her first year, thus atoning for his folly in her predecessor’s. If he lived till 1564, as Dr. Moran (_Archbishops of Dublin_) supposes—though I consider he was dead in 1563, from the queen’s letter, dated 6th January, 1564, naming James M’Caghwell to the see, then “destitute of an incumbent”, and also from the fact of Shane O’Neill applying for the see for his brother, 1563-4—then, knowing that the greater parts of the counties of Down and Antrim were, in the early years of Elizabeth’s reign, completely under subjection to the English, and coupling this with the solicitation of the royal pardons, the least that can be said is, that Bishop Magenis acquiesced in or tacitly submitted to the ecclesiastical changes enacted in the parliament of 1560, not forgetting that about the same time Andrew Brereton, governor of Lecale (called Britton by Anthony Bruodin, in Dr. Moran’s _Archbishops of Dublin_, p. 142), mercilessly strangled John O’Lochran and two other Franciscan friars, in Downpatrick. But I have reserved for the last the conduct of Bishop Magenis in the reign of Edward VI. On the 2nd of February, 1552-3, he assisted George Brown of Dublin in _consecrating_ Hugh Goodacre to be Archbishop of Armagh, and _John Bale_ to be Bishop of Ossory, according to a new-fangled form annexed to the second Book of Common Prayer of Edward VI., which was not even authorised by act of parliament, nor by any order of the king (Mant, vol. i. p. 219)—as an Erastian church would require—which was opposed by the Catholic clergy at the time, and afterwards, in the reign of Queen Mary, condemned by all the Catholic bishops of England as invalid, defective in matter, form, and intention. And who was this John Bale whom Bishop Magenis assisted in _consecrating_ by this vitiated rite? He, according to Pits, as quoted by Harris (Ware’s _Bishops_, p. 417), was “an English Heretick, an apostate Carmelite, and a married priest. This poor wretch, except his calumnies against men and his blasphemies against God and his saints, hath nothing in him worthy to be taken notice of”. Condemned by his brother Protestants, Vossius, Wharton, etc., for his acrimony and falsehood, it is little wonder the Catholics, on the death of Edward VI., chased him from Kilkenny. Had his “King Johan: a play, in two parts”, published by the Camden Society in 1838, been known in his lifetime, in which drama he apotheosises that merciless tyrant, alike despicable, cruel, and infamous, the murderer of his own nephew, as a great reformer, “the model of every virtue, human and divine”, it would have completed his infamy and disgrace. No earthly fears should have prevailed on an orthodox bishop to pretend to consecrate a man whose life was such a disgrace to religion. I do not lay much stress on the formal words of the Bull appointing Myler Magrath to these sees, 12th October, 1565, vacant _per obitum Eugenii Magnissae_: it simply shows he was not deposed, and it may have been with him as with his successor, that hopes were entertained for some years that he would abandon his state conformity, which I trust was the case. The astute and wily ministers of Elizabeth at this early date did not compel apostacy, nor seek for purity of morals; though apostates themselves, all they required was outward conformity, that the elect should take investiture from the crown. They bided their time.

It is questionable but that Sir James Ware knew Bishop Dougan had been Bishop of Soder and Man, for in one of his MSS. in Trinity College Library, cited by Reeves, p. 177, he writes of John Duncan, Archdeacon of Down, in 1373, “Factus Episcopus Sodorensis sive Insular. Manniar, 1374”; the different spelling of the name, and the great age Dr. Dougan must have attained before his elevation to Down in 1394 (living till 1412), may have induced him to doubt the identity.

I am delighted to learn that we are to have these valuable papers with others on the succession of the Irish sees, published in a separate volume; and were I permitted to offer a suggestion, I would recommend that the succession should be brought down to the period of the Confederation of Kilkenny, when all the sees, with the exception of Derry and Dromore, were, I think, full. Enriched with a few biographical notes, such a work would be a valuable accession to Irish ecclesiastical history, and would, besides, utterly shatter the vain and fanciful theories of Mant, Palmer, etc., as to apostolical succession through the puritanical Adam Loftus, the apostate rector of Outwell, in Norfolk, to which he had been appointed in 1556—(Cotton’s _Fasti_, v. p. 197).

I omitted to ask if it can be explained why Myler Magrath, in his letter of 24th June, 1592, given _in extenso_ by Father Meehan in Duffy’s _Hib. Magazine_, March, 1864, calls, “Darby Creagh”, Bishop of Cloyne, his cousin. Dermot or Darby Creagh, or Gragh, or MacGragh, or M’Grath—for by these various names he is called, is stated in the paper on Cork and Cloyne in your last number to be a native of Munster; whereas Myler Magrath was eldest son of Donogh, otherwise Gillagmagna Magrath, of Termon Magrath, county of Fermanagh, of which the family had been erenachs. He married Anne O’Meara, by whom he had five sons—Terence, alias Tirlagh, Redmond, Barnaby, _alias_ Brien, Mark, and James, besides two daughters, Cecily or Sheelagh, married to Philip O’Dwyer, and Eliza or Ellis, married to Sir John Bowen. How came the relationship? I don’t understand why Myler is named as the foster-brother of the great Shane O’Neill. The latter was fostered by the O’Donnellys of Tyrone, and hence frequently styled Shane Donnellagh. Terence Donnelly, alias Daniel, Dean of Armagh, was his foster-brother.

J. W. H.

April 8, 1865.