Chapter XXII: The Story of Ciaran's Gospel (la, Vg)

This striking anecdote is unique, and probably founded on an authentic incident. The two versions before us differ in some respects, as a comparison will show. The story is told in another form in the _Quinta Vita Columbae_ (TT, p. 403) to the effect that "Once Saint Kieranus, whom they call the Son of the Wright, on being asked, promised Columba that as he was writing a book of the Holy Gospels, he would write out the middle part of the book. Columba, in gratitude to him, said, 'And I,' said he, 'on behalf of God, promise and foretell that the middle regions of Ireland shall take their name from thee, and shall bring their taxes or tribute to thy monastery.'" The same version appears in O'Donnell's _Life of Colum Cille_ (printed text, p. 128). Yet another version appears in the glosses to the _Martyrology of Oengus_ (9th September), according to which Colum Cille wished to write a gospel-book, but no one except Ciaran had an exemplar from which to make the copy. Colum Cille went to Ciaran's cell and asked for the loan of the book; Ciaran, who was preparing his lesson, and had just come to the words _Omnia quaecumque_, etc., presented him with it. "Thine be half of Ireland!" said Colum Cille. It is worth passing notice that the verse in question, here treated as the central verse of the gospel, is not one-fifth of the way through the book. Had the original narrator of the tale a copy with misplaced or missing leaves?

_The Stanza in VG._--This is apparently slightly corrupt, but the metre is evidently meant to be _ae freslige_. It probably belongs to one poem with the previous stanzas in the same metre: its first line echoes the stanza in incident XIX. Literally, "With Findian read / Ciaran the pious, with diligence // he had half a book without reading / half of Ireland his thereafter."

_The Saying of Alexander._--I regret to have to acknowledge that I have been unable to get on the track of any explanation of this appendix to the incident, as related in VG. It is probably a marginal gloss taken into the text. The "Alexander" is presumably one of the popes of that name, and if so, must be Alexander II (1061-1073), as the first Pope Alexander is too early, and the remaining six are too late. I have, however, searched all the writings bearing his name without discovering anything like this saying, nor can I trace it with the aid of the numerous indexes in Migne's _Patrologia_.