Beginning of Wilfrid's Career — Assembly of Whitby

BEGINNING OF WILFRID'S CAREER — ASSEMBLY OF WHITBY. Birth and early years of Wilfrid. — Note on his biographer Eddi. — Protected by the Queen of Northumbria, he enters at Lindisfarne, then goes to Rome, where no Anglo-Saxon had yet been. — He passes by Canterbury and stops at Lyons, where he separates from his companion Benedict Biscop, and where the archbishop wishes to give him his niece in marriage. — Wilfrid at Rome. — In returning by Lyons he receives the Romish tonsure and escapes, against his will, from martyrdom. — Returned to England, he becomes the intimate friend of Alchfrid, son of King Oswj'. — New monastery founded at Ripon, from whence the monks of the Celtic ritual are expelled. — Popularity of Wilfrid. — He is ordained priest by a French bishop. — Southern Ireland had already adopted the Romish computation for the celebration of Easter. — The dispute on this question revived by Wilfrid in Northumbria, and division of the royal family. — The King Oswy follows the Celtic ritual; his wife and son that of Rome. — Importance and nature of the Pascal difference. — Moderation of the Romish Church throughout the dispute. — A rivalry of influence mingles with the ritualistic dispute. —Assembly of Whitby, convoked by the king to end the controversy: composition of the assembly: the two chambers: principal persons; on the side of the Celts, the Abbess Hilda and her two communities, the Bishops of Lindisfarne and London; on the side of Rome, the young King Alchfrid, the old deacon James, and Wilfrid. —The authority of Columba unwisely invoked. — The king pronounces for the Romish Easter, and the assembly ratifies his decision. — Bishop Colman protests, abdicates, and returns to lona, carrying with him the bones of his predecessor St. Atdan, the Celtic apostle of Northumbria.

While the bishops and monks of Celtic origin were gradually establishing their authority, together with that of the Christian faith, in the greater part of the land of the Heptarchy, protected by the asgis of the Northumbrian kings, and without any ostensible relation either with Rome or with the Roman colony and its official metropolis of Canterbury, a young Anglo-Saxon, destined to transform the Church of England, was growing up unknown. More powerful than the missionaries sent from Rome, it was to be given to him, after many a struggle and many a defeat, to extend the authority of the Holy See over all Anglo-Saxon Christianity, to reestablish, even to his own prejudice, the supremacy of the metropolitan see instituted by Gregory, and to substitute everywhere the rule of St. Benedict for the observances and ascendency of the sons of St. Columba.^ Birth and This young man was named Wilfrid, and belonged ofwiifri" by birth to the highest nobility of Northumbria. 634. He was born in 634, the day after the death of King Edwin, the flight of Bishop Paulinus, and the apparently irreparable downfall of the Romish mission in the north of England.

Of hira, as of all the greater saints, and especially of St.

^ The life of Wilfrid was written by one of his companions, the monk Eddi, surnaracd Stephen, whose work is regarded as the most ancient monument of Anglo-Saxon literature after those of St. Adhelm. Venerable Bede did not write till later. He was evidently acquainted with the text of Eddi, which he has sometimes reproduced, but without quoting him, while extenuating to the utmost all the wrongs attributed to the bishops and kings with whom Wilfrid had to contend. This life, so curious and so important for the ecclesiastical history of the seventh century, had remained unknown to Mabillon and the Bollandists when they published, the former his volume of the Acta of this century in 1672, and the latter their third volume of April in 1675. Some time afterwards Mabillon was informed that the MS. of Eddi was found in the Cottonian Library at Oxford. It was communicated to him by Gale, a learned Englishman, and he published it in the supplement to his fifth volume. Gale republished it soon after in his collection of the Scriptores HistoricB Britannia; XV. (Oxonii, 1691), with the new chapters discovered in a manuscript at Salisbury. They were reprinted by Mabillon in the last volume of his Acta Sanctorum Ordinis S. Benedicti, with a warm and touching homage to his English correspondents: " Sic integrum exhibemus opus tamdiu desideratum omnibus litteratis, qui humanissimis et clarissimis viris Bernardo et Gaelo gratias mecum habebunt immortales." After this contempory author, and Bede, who follows him so closely, the life of Wilfrid was written in Latin verse by an English Benedictine of the ninth century named Fridegod, whose poem, though ridiculous in style, contains some new details then in the twelfth century by the celebrated Eadmer and by William of Malmesbury. Cf. Act. SS. O. B., vol. iii. p. 150, and vol. v. p. 632. The collection called Lives of the English Sai)its, published by the Puseyites in 1844, contains a Life of St. Wilfrid by the Rev. Mr. Faber, who died aa Oratorian in 1864.

Columba and St. Bernard, it is related that his birth was accompanied by a prophecy of his future glory. The house where his mother lay appeared all at once enveloped in a flame which seemed to reach to heaven. The frightened neighbors rushed to extinguish the fire, when they were met by the attendants of the new mother, who said to them. '' Be at ease, it is not a fire, but only this child who is just born." Such a prodigy naturally drew attention to the infant, and all the more because his father was one of the principal nobles of the country, and the boy himself, as he grow np, displayed a singularly gracious nature. While he was still in the cradle, he lost his pious mother, and his father having married a second time, he resolved at thirteen years of age to escape the persecutions of a harsh and haughty stepmother by leaving home and devoting himself to God. For this the consent, not only of his father, but also of King Oswy as chief of the nation, was necessary. At his age a young Anglo-Saxon noble was already treated as a man; he asked and obtained accordingly from his father a suit of armor, with horses and servants in sufficient number to enable him to appear at court in a manner worthy of his rank. Thus equipped he went to seek, not King Oswy, but his queen. He found her surrounded by the leaders of the nobility whom he was accustomed to see and to wait upon at his father's house, and who were already disposed in his favor on account of his intelligence and modesty. They presented him to the young queen, who was only seven or eight years older than himself, and whose heart he gained as much by his youthful grace as by the refinement and truthfulness of his intellect.^

The queen herself was no other than that Eanfleda whose baptism, it may be remembered, had given the signal for the conversion of Northumbria,^ and who had been the first Christian of the kingdom. Her father was the martyr King- Edwin, and her mother Ethelburga, daughter of the royal ^ " De inclyta gentis Anglorura prosapia... nobilitate natus." — Eadmer, Vita, n° 4. " De utero uiatris sua; valde religiosae.... Omnes concito cursu pavidi advenerunt.... Sustincte... ecce modo infuns hie natus est.... Omnibus in domuni patris sui venientibus aut regalibus sociis aut eorum servis edocte ministravit.... Privigna {noverca, Fkidegodus) cnim molesta et immitis.... Pergens itinere usquoduni invenirent rcginam regis... et per nobiles viros quibus ante in donio patris sui ministrabat laudatus praesenlatusque est reginae... erat decorus adspectu et acutissinii ingenii." — Eddius, c. 1, 2. " Ut mcrito a majoribus quasi unus ex ipsis amaretur, veneraretur, amplecteretur." — Bede, v. 19.

³ See p. 210. convert of Augustin, who still lived in the monastery of Ljmington, where she had passed her widowhood in retirement. Eanfleda herself was destined to end her days in the cloister under the crosier of that daughter whom she dedicated to God in order to obtain the defeat of the tyrant Penda. The antecedents and the character of the Queen of Northumbria naturally influenced her in favor of the young noble's desire. She granted him, or prevailed with her husband to grant him, authority to renounce all public and military service in order to enter upon a religious life, in which shc promised to watch over him. She then confided ^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^are of a favorite follower of the king, who himself afterwards retired from the world. This aged warvior conducted hisA'oungand noble charge to the great monastic sanctuary of Northumbria at Lindisfarne. There Wilfrid won all hearts as he had won the queen's. His humility and ardor for monastic rule, no less than his passion for study, marked him out for the affectionate admiration of the cenobites. He soon learned the whole Psalter in the version of St. Jerome, and made the contents of all the other books which he found in the library of the monastery his own.^

Thus the years of his youth flowed on at Lindisfarne; but before he yielded the half of his long hair to the scissors, which, cutting bare the upper part and front of his head, would have impressed on him the monastic tonsure according to the Irish fashion, he began to find out that all was not perfect in those Celtic rules and traditions of which Lindisne under- ^^^^^^ ^''^^ ^hc Centre and stronghold in England.

With a sagacity much admired by his historians, he determined to make a journey which no other An- Angio°° glo-Saxon had yet undertaken, and to go to Rome, ^efbeen'*'* not merely to obtain the remission of his sins and the ^^ ^^"' blessing of the Mother of the Churches, but also to study the monastic and ecclesiastical observances which Avere followed under the shadow of the See of St. Peter. The monks of Lindisfarne being informed by their pupil of this extraordinary project, not only used no attempts at dissuasion, but actually encouraged him to accomplish it; •''

^* " Concedit in quod petierit, ut sub suo consilio et munimine serviret.... Quidam nobilis ex sodalibus regis valde sibi amabilis et fidelis, Cudda.... Omnibus statim in aniore factus est.... Omnem psalmorum seriem niemorialiter et aliquantos libros didicit," — Eddius, c. 2.

^* " Adliuc laicus capite.... Adhuc inattritam vitara genti nostras tentare in cor adolescentis ascendit." — Eddius, c. 23. " Necdum quidem adtonsus,

AND THE BENEDICTINE OEDER. 307

nothing could better prove their good faith and implicit subordination to Catholic unity. Wilfrid then went to ask his father's blessing, and to confide his plans to his royal protectress. Queen Earitleda, who, after the murder of her father, had taken refuge in the country of her mother at Canterbury, was too much the spiritual daughter of the Romish missionaries not to approve of Wilfrid's design. She sent him with warm recommendations to her cousin-german Ercombert. King of Kent,^ prayiog that prince to keep the young pilgrim with him until he should be able to find suitable companions for so long a journey.

On his arrival at Canterbury Wilfred exercised the same fascination upon the King of Kent as upon all those who had known him from his childhood. Seeing the young and handsome Northumbrian wholl}^ given up to prayer and study, Ercombert conceived for him the most ardent attachment, and kept him at his court for a whole year. Wilfrid took advantage of this interval to study and adopt the Romish usages as they could be learned in the Roman colony at Canterbury, which was still governed by a missionary brought over by St. Augustin, Archbishop Honorius, now his fourth successor. He took the trouble to substitute, in his happy and flexible memory, the fifth edition of the old version of the Psalter, which was then used in Rome, for the version corrected by St. Jerome, which he had learned by heart at Lindisfarne, and which was used in the Celtic Church as well as in the Churches of Gaul and Germany.''' Meantime the verum eis qu£e tonsura majores sunt virtutibus, humilitatis et obeclientiae non mediocriter insignitus.... Aniniadvertitpaulatim adolescens aninii sagacis, minime perfectam esse virtutis viain quae tradebatur a Scottis proposuitque anirao venire llomam, et qui ad sedem apostolicam ritus eeclesiastici sive monasteriales servarentur, videre.... Laudavcrunt ejus propositum eumque id... perficere suadebant." — Bede, 1. c.

Ethelbert, first Christian kin<,', died in 013,
married Bektiia, jrrauddaughter of St.Ci.otilde.
J
Eadbald Ethelbuuoa,

reigned from 616 to 640. wife of Edwin, King of Northumbria.

Ercombert Eaneeeda,

reigned from 640 to C04. born 0U6, wife of Oswy,

King of Nortliunibria. ' "Eexvero... servum Dei... niirifice diligebat... Psalmos quos prius secundum Ilieronymum Icgcrat, more Ilomanorum juxta quintam cditionem memorialiter transmutavit.... Secundum petitioncm regime languentis tajdio.... Perrexit cum benedictione parentum suorum.... Omnibus affabilis... corpore strenuus... pedibus velox... tristia era nunquam contraxit... alacer et gaudens navigio." — Eddius, c. 3. " Supervenit illo alius adolescens de nobilibus Anglorum." — Bede, 1. c.

Queen of Northumbria, impatient for the return of her favorite, urged upon King Ercombert that Wilfrid should commence his pilgrimage, and soon afterwards the monarch gave him leave to depart, sending with him another young Northumbrian noble, Biscop Baduging, equally distinguished by his zeal for study, equally inflamed with the desire of visiting- Rome, and whom, under the name of Benedict Biscop, we shall afterwards see filling an important part in the monastic history of his own province.

Thus they started; and it is easy to imagine the joy and ardor of these young and brave Christians, when, after having rapidly crossed the Straits, they began their journey through France. Wilfrid especially, with all the enthusiasm of his age, pursued his way, strong and unwearied, with an affability and gayety which nothing could alter. His companion, a little older, was of a more austere temper; thus it Avas impossible that they should long agree.^ On their arrival at Lyons, Biscop proceeded immediately to Rome, while Wilfrid remained some months with the s^Benedict Archbishop Delphinus. Here also was displayed the marvellous empire which this youth obtained over the hearts of the most different persons, from the young queen of his own country and the warlike comrades of his father, to this Gallo-French prelate who was so charmed with him, with the pure and candid soul which was well reflected in the serene beauty of his countenance, that he offered to adopt hina as his son, giving him his niece in marriage, and the government of the whole of an adjoining province. But Wilfrid replied, " I have made a vow; I have left, like Abraham, my kindred and my father's house in order to visit the Apostolic See, and to study there the rules of ecclesiastical discipline, that my nation may profit by them. But if God gives me life I will return this way and see you again."

The archbishop, recognizing the earnest sincerity of his vocation, let him depart for Rome with all his suite; for the young and high-born Northumbrian did not travel as a sim- 'ple pilgrim, but with all kinds of guides and baggage.^

^** " Decedente ab eo austerae mentis duoe." — Eddius, c. 3.

® " Videos in facie Serena quod benedictam raentem gerebat.... Si manseris mecum fiducialiter, dabo tibi vieinam partem Galliarum ad regendum virginemque filiam fratris mei in uxorem, et te ipsum adoptivum filium habebo.... Sunt vota mea Domino... ut visitem sedem apostolicam et ecclesiasticaa disciplinae regulas didicerim in augmentum regis nostrae.... Cum ducibus et opibus." — Eddius, c. 4. " Cunctis simul qua9 necessitas poscebat itineris largiter subministratis." — Bede, 1. c. This Archbisliop

On entering Rome, his first thought was to hurry to the Church of St. Andrew, from whence Augustin and the first missionaries to England liad set out. Kneeling before the altar, where there was a the Gospels, he implored the Apostle St. Andrew, for the love of that God whom he had confessed by his martyrdom, to open his mind, and to atone for the rustic plainness of his Saxon tongue by giving him grace to study, to understand, and to teach the English nation the eloquence of the Gospel. After which, as he began to visit, one by one, all the sanctuaries of the Eternal City, he met with a wise and holy man, Archdeacon Boniface, one of the principal counsellors of the Pope, who took pleasure in instructing the young stranger as his own child, carefully explaining lo him the four Gospels, the ecclesiastical discipline, and the calculation of Easter, which the Celts of Britain and Ireland refused to admit. Finally he presented him to the Pope, to whom he explained the object of the journey of this youthful servant of God: the Pontiff placed his hand upon the head of the young Englishman, blessed, and prayed for him. Thus Wilfrid left Rome, assuredly without suspecting the harsh and cruel trials which were fated to bring him back thither so often again.i'^

In returning from Rome, Wilfrid, as he had promised, again stopped at Lyons to see the archbishop,. who received him with all his former tenderness, ' still insisting upon making him his heir. He even remained three whole years with this prelate, occupied in completing his ecclesiastical education among the learned doctors whom he found at Lyons, as if his desire had been to arm himself completely against Celtic usages, by comparing the teaching received at Rome with the venerable traditions of the earliest Gallican Church. Here, too, he received from the hands of the archbishop the tonsure which he preferred,

Delfin or Delphinus is one of the most disputed personages in the history of the seventh century; see the article consecrated to him by the Bolhindists in vol. vii. of September, p. 720 to 744. It is he who is venerated in the diocese of Lyons under the name of St. Annemond or St. diamond.

'o "De remissione peccatorum suorum, pro qua instantius orabat, per hoc certificari postulabat, si de ingenii sui tarditate et linguae suaj rusticitate, ipsius intervcntu, absolvi mereretur." — Ricardi Hagulstadensis, Ilist-, c. 3. " Ut pro sua intercessione Dominus ei legendi ingeniuin ct docendi in gentibus eloquentiam Evangeliorum concedisset.... Qui ponens manum benedictam super caput adolescentuli servi Dei, cum orationebenedLxit cum. Eddius, c. 5. The Pope was probably Eugenius I., elected in G54, during the exile of the holy martyr Pope Martin I. no longer that Celtic tonsure which shaved the top and front of the head from one ear to the other, leaving the hair to hang down behind, which the Romans, it is not known why, called the tonsure of Simon the Magician; nor the Oriental tonsure, which completely bared the head, and which was believed to be that of St. Paul; but the Roman tonsure, that of St. Peter, which removed all the hair except a circle round the skull, representing the form of the crown of thorns.

The extreme importance attached to this difference of tonsure, puerile and insignificant as it is in our eyes, will no longer astonish us when we remember the great significance of long hair among all barbarous races, and above all among our Merovingians. Long hair in men was not only the mark of royal or very noble birth, but also a sign of power, daring, and pride. Apart even from the question of ritual unity, Wilfrid and the Romans, without doubt, saw in the persistence of the Celts in wearing long hair, at least at the back of their heads, a vestige of pride and want of discipline incompatible M'ith the ecclesiastical profession, and especially with the life of the cloister.

Wilfrid's visit to Delphinus was cut short by the death of the archbishop, who perished a victim to the tyranny of Ebro'in, then governor of Neustria and Burgundy in the name of the Regent Bathilda, the French queen, once an English slave, who was afterwards to become a nun and a saint. Delphinus was seized in his metropolitan city by the soldiers of Ebro'in, who dragged him to Clialons, and there put him to death. Wilfrid followed him, in spite of the entreaties of the martyr; with the incomparable enthusiasm and heroism of youth, he hoped to partake the fate of his protector. " What could be better," he said, " than to die together, father and ^°^^' ^^'^ ^° ^® ""^^^^ Christ? '' After the murder of the archbishop, when Wilfrid, stripped of his vestments, waited his turn, the chiefs of the party asked who this handsome youth, so eager for death, might be? and when they were told that he was a foreigner, of the race of those famous conquerors of Great Britain who were feared all over the world, they resolved to spare him. After this, as soon as he had superintended the burial of his spiritual father, he returned to England. ^^

" " Amor magis ac magis crescebat inter eos. ... A doctoribus valde eruditis niulta didicit.... Tonsurae de ore apostoli formulam, in modum coronse spinese caput Christi cingentis... libenter suscepit.... Nihil est

These details may perhaps appear too minute; but the}' will be pardoned on account of the interest which attaches to the early years of a man destined to exercise, throughout half a century, a preponderating influence over his country, and, through her, over the power and freedom of the whole Church. Nor is it a matter without interest to seize in their very birth the manifestations of that mysterious and disinterested attraction which drew towards Rome, and towards Roman ideas and practices, this noble and daring scion of a barbarous race, this champion whose impassioned constancy contributed so powerfully in the future to link the destinies of England, and, by her means, of Germany and the whole west, to the foot of the apostolic throne.

On his return to England, Wilfrid, from the first, by the crown-like form of his tonsure, set up a visible and permanent protest against the ascendency of Celtic customs. He thus signified his intention to enter upon the struggle as soon as the opportu- "Aue^scm** nity should present itself. It is not known whether he returned to Lindisfarno — at any rate he did not remain there. He was soon summoned to the court of the young Alchfrid, son of King Oswy, whom the latter had just associated in the kingdom. We have already noticed the touching friendship of Prince Alchfrid for the son of the cruel enemy of the Northumbrians, Penda of Mercia, and his influence on the conversion of the Mercians.^^

melius quam pater et filius simul mori et esse cum Christo.... Quis est iste juvcnis formosus qui se prjcparat ad mortem?... Transmarinus de Anglorum gente ex Britannia.... Parcite illi et nolite tangere eum." —EuDiLs, c. G. " Quod tunc temporis magno terrori quamplurimis crat, sua scilicet Anglorum natio." — Eadmek, n. 11.

'^ Most historians have confounded this Alchfrid, eldest son of Oswy, with his younger brother Aldfrid. Bede, however, has carefully distinguished them by the orthography of their names, and Lappenberg has put this distinction beyond a doubt. Alchfrid, the eldest, who married a daughter of Penda in G53, and was the friend of Wilfrid, died before his father; Aldfrid, l)robably a natural son of Oswy, educated and for a long time protected at lona, only returned to succeed Egfrid, the second son and successor of Oswy, and to be the implacable adversary of Wilfrid. See the genealogical table Appendix VI., p. 752. It must be allowed, however, that the confusion which prevails throughout the primitive history of the Anglo-Saxons is greatly augmented by the fondness they had for giving to the children of one family names almost identical: thus, Oswald, Oswin, Oswulf, Osred, Osric, Ostrytlia, in the dynasty of Nortlmmbrian kings; Sebert, Sigebert, Sigehere, Sigeherd, in that of the kings of Essex; Ceawlin, Ceolric, Ceolwulf, Ccanwaich, Ceadwalla, in that of the kings of Wessex; Penda and Peada in Mercia, &c. This custom was not peculiar only to the royal families; the Bishop Ceadda had three brothers, Cedd, Caelin, and Cynnbill, all monks like himself.

This young prince, the son of a father who had been instructed in the school of the Scottish monks, and of a mother baptized and educated by the Romish missionaries, had inclined from his cradle to the religious exercises of his mother. He had always loved and sought to follow the Roman rules. At the news that the favorite of his mother, the young and noble Wilfrid, alread}^ so well known by his piety at Lindisfarne, had arrived from Rome, and was teaching the true Easter with all the regulations of the Church of St. Peter, Alchfrid sent for him, received him like an angel come from God, and fell at his feet to demand his blessing. Then, after discussing thoroughly the usages of the Roman Church, he conjured him, in the name of God and St. Peter, to remain with him, and instruct both himself and his people. Wilfrid willingly obeyed. To the irresistible attraction which, in his earliest youth, he had exercised overall hearts, there was now joined the authority of a man who had travelled, studied, and seen death and martyrdom close at hand. This increase of influence did but increase the affection of Alchfrid. The young prince and the young monk, one in soul, became still more one in heart; they loved each other with a passionate tenderness, which every day increased. The friendship of David and Jonathan, so often quoted by monastic annalists, appeared to the Northumbrians to be reproduced in that which existed between the son of their king and his youthful countryman.^^ „„ „ Wilfrid, with his Roman tonsure, and his ideas New mon- ... ' • t • t ,• asteryof still more Roman, could not remain at Lindisfarne. Kijjoa,

'^ Alchfrid therefore sought not merely to retain him theVonks'^ near to himself, but also to create for him a great to'cehlc'^'^'^ monastic establishment of which he should be the rites are head, and from whence his influence might spread expelled. itself over the Northumbrian Church.^* The young king had already founded a new monastery at Ripon, in a fine situation, at the confluence of two rivers, and in the '* " Catholicas Ecclesiie regulas sequi semper et amare didicerat." —Bede, v. 19. " Audiens servum Dei.... Verum Pascha priBdicantem et S. Petri ecclesiae disciplinain multiplicem didicisse, quam maxime rex diligebat.... Mirifice anima utriusque in alterum conglutinata erat, sicut animam David etJonathaj in alterum compaginatam legimus... de die in diem inter cos amor augebatur." — Eddius, c. 7.

^* Eddi and Bede mention a former donation given by the young king to Wilfrid, and situated at Stanford or Stamford. But no important foundation resulted from this, and they do not even agree as to the position of the domain. We will merely remark that it supported only ten families, while that of Ripon sufficed for forty, according to the Saxon mode of valuing land.

AND TPIE BENEDICTINE ORDER. 313

very heart of Deira; he had given it to monks of the Celtic ritual, all the religious communities in the country being composed either of monks of Scottish origin or of Northumbrians educated by the Scots. The first occupants of Ripon had come from Melrose, under the conduct of Abbot Eata, one of the twelve young Saxons whom St. A'idan, the first Celtic missionary to Northumbria, chose for his future fellowlaborers; and had among them, in the capacity of steward, a young monk named Cathbert, who was also destined to fill a great position, and to eclipse Wilfrid himself in the devotion of the northern English.^^

Alchfrid had endowed this foundation with a domain so large that it was inhabited by forty families. But soon, under the influence of those Roman predilections which the return of Wilfrid developed in his mind, he required the new community of Ripon to celebrate Easter at the date fixed by Rome, and to renounce the other customs in which the Celtic Church diS"ered from that of Rome. They unanimousl}' declared that they would rather go away and give up the sanctuary which had just been given them, than abandon their national traditions. Alchfrid took them at their word, and gave them their dismissal. Abbot Eata and the future St. Cuthbert returned to Melrose, and Wilfrid was installed in their place by his royal friend, with the express intention of thus giving him the means of propagating the rules and doctrines which he preferred. Thus the war commenced— a war of which Wilfrid did not live to see the end, although he carried it on for more than half a century .^^

Wilfrid was now at the brightest moment of his life. He employed the bounty of his friend to carry out the generous impulses of his heart, and scattered round him abundant " "Famulus Domini Cuthbertus officio praepositua hospitum."— Bede, Vita S. Cuthberti, c. 7.

'" Nothing can be more singular than the different manner in which the same historian gives an account of the same events in two different works. And this historian is no other than the Venerable Bede! In his Ecclesiastical History he seems to treat the expelled monks as obstiiiaie rebels: " Quia illi (qui Scottos sequcbantur) data sibi optione nialuerunt loco cedere quam mutare snam consuetudinom et Pascha catholicum casterosque ritus canonicos juxta Romanae et apostolicoB ecclesia; consuctudinem recipcre, dcdit (Alchfridus) lioc illi quern melioribus imbutum disciplinis ac nioribus vidit." —Hist. Eccles., iii. 25, v. 19. In his life of Cuthbert he honors them as the victims of an unexpected storm: " Quia fragilis est et mare frcti volubilis omnia seculi status, instante subito turbine, pra3fatus abbas Eata cum Cutliberto et ceteris quos secum addiixerat fratribus, donmm rcpulsus est, et locus monasterii, quod condiderat, aliis ad incolendum raonachis datur." — C 8. alms; he saw the ideas so dear to him spreading and strengthening themselves; he rejoiced in the protection of a prince who was to him at once a brother and a son; and, to sum up all, he was almost as dear to the people of Deira as to their king. The nobles and other Northumbrians idolized him, and regarded him as a prophet.^"

"^'^^ yowng abbot, however, was not yet a priest and it was the earnest desire of Alchfrid that his friend should be his confessor, and remain in some degree attached to his person.^^ The whole of Northumbria was then under the rule of Colman, the Celtic Bishop of Lindisfarne; but it was not from him that Wilfrid could have willingly received the sacrament of ordination. However, at this juncture the king received a visit from Agilbert, a Frenchman by birth, educated in Ireland, who, having become Bishop of the kingdom of Wessex, had lost half of his diocese because the king of the country, weary of listening to sermons which were not in Saxon, had chosen to constitute another bishop without Agilbert's consent. He therefore, not willing to sanction this abuse of power, had renounced his see.^^ Although the King of Wessex was the intimate friend of Alchfrid, it was to the N'orthumbrian court that the displaced bishop first came to seek a refuge before returning to his own country. Alchfrid made known to him the virtue and good repute of Wilfrid, enlarging upon his humility, his fervor in prayer, his prudence, goodness, and sobriet}^— the latter being a virtue always greatly admired by the Anglo-Saxons, who practised it very little — and last, and above all, the gift which he had of commanding with authority and preaching with clearness. " Such a man is made to be a bishop," said Agilbert, who did not hesitate to ordain him priest in his monastery at Ripon, and, as Alchfrid had requested, for the personal service of the prince and his court.2o

The influence of Wilfrid must have grown rapidly during the four or five years which followed his

" " Non solum rex sanctum abbatem diligebat, sed oranis populus, nobiles et ignobiles eum habebant quasi prophetam Dei, ut erat." — Eddius.

'8 " Desiderante rege ut vir tantse eruditionis et religionis sibi specialiter individuo comitatu sacerdos esset ao doctor." — Bede, v. 19.

''' See above, p. 286. Cf. Bede, iii. 7.

^^ " Dicens virum esse... sobrium... plenum auctoritatis... non vinolentuiu... et bene docentem serraone puro et aperto: ideo rogo te ut imponas super eum presbyteri gradum et sit mihi comes individuus.... Talis utique debet opiscopus fieri." —Eddius, c. 9.

AND THE BENEDICTINE ORDER. 315

return to England, and he must have displayed great energy in his attack upon the Celtic spirit of the nation, to have brought about so promptly the decisive crisis which we are about to record. It must be remarked that he alone took the initiative and the responsibility. In this conflict, the object of which was to secure preponderance of Rome, we can find no trace of any mission or impulse whatever from Rome. The Roman colony of Canterbury, whose chief was an Anglo- Saxon, lent no direct assistance; and in Northumbria, as in the neighboring kingdoms, —converted to Christianity by Celtic apostles,— Wilfrid found no aid except the recollection of the abortive efforts of the first Romish missionaries, or the limited influence possessed by priests who had accompanied princesses of the race of Hengist, when they entered by marriage other dynasties of the Anglo-Saxon descendants of Odin; unless it were the testimony of travellers who, arriving from Canterbury or France, might express their astonishment to see the northern Christians, converts of Scottish missionaries, celebrating Easter at a different time from the rest of Christendom.-^

There was indeed one fact which might encourage him to attempt again, in another region and under circumstances far less favorable, the enterprise in which Augustin had failed. Of the four countries in which the Celtic Church reigned Ireland, Wales, Scotland proper, and Northumbria, with their four monastic citadels of Bangor on the sea, Bangor on the Dee, lona, and Lindisfarne, Ireland, the cradle and chief home of Celtic traditions, had begun in heart to return to Roman unity. Thirty years before, a council had been held at Leighlin, in the south of the island, at the sug- southern gestion of Pope Honorius I., who had invited the o 1 /Scots of Ireland to celebrate Easter according to the common practice of the Church. The fathers of this council, after much animated discussion, had decided that wise and humble men should be sent to Rome, as sons to their mother, to judge of the ceremonies there. These deputies declared, on their return, that they had seen the fathful from all parts of the world celebrating Easter on the same day at Rome. On their report the Romish cycle and rules relative to the paschal calculations were adopted by all the south of Ireland. This decision had been chiefly brought about by the efforts of a disciple and spiritual descendant of

=" Bede, 1. c.

Columba, a monk named Cummian, then abbot of one of the Columbian monasteries in Ireland. Abbot Cummian ²² had been obliged to defend himself against the attacks which his partiality for Roman usages brought upon him, by an apologetic letter, still preserved, where his erudition displays itself in an innumerable throng of texts and calculations. He sums up in these decisive words: '' Can there be imagined a pretension more perverse and ridiculous than that which says: Rome is mistaken, Jerusalem is mistaken, Alexandria is mistaken, Antioch is mistaken, the whole world is mistaken; the Scots and the Britons alone make no mistake? " ^^ But the example of the south of Ireland did not atfect the north of the island, and still less the Picts and Scots of Caledonia. The arguments of Cummian could not convince the direct successor of Columba, the Abbot of lona.^^ He, and all his community, obstinately retained the Irish computation; and as it was precisely at this period that the missionaries sent from Ireland relighted in Northumbria the light of the faith, extinct since the death of King Edwin and the flight of Bishop Paulinus, it is easily apparent how it happened that the erroneous calculation of Easter, according to the Celts, took root everywhere together with the new doctrine. It is not even certain that Wilfrid was aware that an3'thing favorable to his views had occurred in that part of Ireland which was furthest from Northumbria, for we do not find any mention of it in his acts or discourses.

-^^ ^°"S ^^ ^t, Aldan, the first Celtic apostle of Northumbria, lived, the idea of finding fault with his method of celebrating the greatest feast of that religion which he taught and practised so well, had wufrid entered into no man's mind. Whether he himself was ignorant of the difference of ritual, or whether, knowing it, he did not choose to withdraw himself from the usages of his race and of the parent monastery of lona, he was not the less the object of universal confidence and ven-

^* He must not be confounded with Cumin called the White (Cumineus albus), Abbot of lona from 657 to 669, author of the oldest biography of St. Columba.

2' " Quid pravius sentire potest de ecclesia matre quara si dicamus: Roma errat, Hierosolyma errat, Alexandria errat, totus mundus errat; soli Scoti et Britones rectum sapiunt!" — Cummianus Hibeknos, Epist. de Controversia Faschali, in Usserii Sylloge, ii.

^"^ Segienus, descendant in the fourth degree from the grandfather of Columba, and fourth Abbot of lona, from 623 to 652. — Cf. Lanigan, Eccles. Mist, of Ireland, ii. 389. Dollinger, Kirchengeschichte, p. 221. eration.25 Under his successor, Bishop Finan, the question had been raised by one of the Lindisfarne monks, Irish by birth, who had travelled and studied in France and Italy. This monk, named Eonan, became involved in a violent quarrel with the Bishop of Northumbria upon the subject. He had led back a few to the Roman observance of Easter, and persuaded others to study the matter; but the bishop, harsh and passionate as Columba himself had sometimes been, far from being convinced, was only embittered by the remonstrances of Ronan, which served chiefly to make him a declared adversary of the Roman cause.-*'

When Finan died, leaving Bishop Colman — like himself, Irish by birth and a monk of lona^— as his successor at Lindisfarne, the dispute became at once open and general. Wilfrid had succeeded in sowing agitation and uncertainty in all minds; and the Northumbrians had come so far as to ask themselves whether the religion which had been taught to them, and which they practised, was indeed the religion of that Christ whose name it bore.^'

The two Northumbrian kings mingled in the strug- in gle on different sides. Oswy, the glorious van- ftmi^iy^a'sto quisher of Penda, the liberator of Northumbria, the conqueror and benefactor of Mercia, the Bretwalda or military and religious suzerain of the Anglo-Saxon confederacy, naturally exercised a much greater influence from that of his young son, whom he had associated with himself in the kingdom. And the mind of Oswy, who had been baptized and educated by Celtic monks, who spoke their language perfectly, and was probably desirous of conciliating the numerous Celtic populations who lived under his rule from the Irish Sea to the Firth of Forth, did not go beyond the in-

^' The judgment of Bede on this aspect of the life of Ardan deserves to be quoted at length, as much on account of its reserve as of its praises: —" Quod autem pascha non suo tempore observabat, vel canon icum ejus tempus ignorans, vel sua gentis auctoritate ne agnitum sequeretur devictus, non adprobo, nee laudo.... Ilrec dissonantia paschalis observantiae vivente .^Edano patienter ab omnibus tolerabatur qui patenter intellexerant, quia etsi pascha contra morem eorum qui ipsum miserant facere non potuit, opera tamen fidei, pietatis et dilectionis, juxta morem omnibus Sanctis consuetum, diligenter exsequi curavit: unde ab omnibus ctiam his qui de Pascha aliter sentiebant, merito diligebatur." — iii. 17, 25.

^'^ " Quin potius, quod csset homo ferocis animi, acerbiorem castigando et apertum veritatis adversarium reddidit." — Bede, iii. 25.

" "Unde movit hajc questio sensus et corda multorum, timentium ne forte, accepto Cliristianitatis vocabulo, in vacuum currerent aut cucurrissent." — Bede, iii. 25. structions of his early masters.^^ Notwithstanding he had to contend within the circle of his family, not onl}^ with his son Alchfrid, excited in behalf of the Romish doctrine by his master and friend Wilfrid, but also with his queen, Eanfleda, who did not need the influence of Wilfrid to make her entirely devoted to the Roman cause, since, on returning from exile to marry Oswy, she had brought with her a Canterbury priest — Roraanus by name, and Roman in heart — who guided her religious exercises. Under the direction of Romanus, the queen and all her court followed Roman customs. Two Easter feasts were thus celebrated every year in the same house; and as the Saxon kings had transferred to the chief festivals of the Christian year, and especially to the greatest of all, the meeting of their assemblies, and the occasion which those assemblies gave them of displaying all their pomp, it is easy to understand how painful it must have been for Oswy to sit, with his earls and thanes, at the great feast of Easter, at the end of a wearisome Lent, and to see the queen, with her maids of honor and her servants, persisting in fasting and penitence, it being with her still only Palm Sunday.29

This discord, as Bede says, with regard to Easter, was the capital point of the quarrel which divided the Anglo-Saxons into two bodies according as they had received the faith from Roman or Celtic missionaries. The differences remarked by Augustin in his struggles with the British clergy appear henceforward reduced to this one. The great reproach addressed to the Celtic clergy by the envoy of Pope Gregory, that they despised the work of converting the Saxons, is no longer in question. Our Celts of the North had succeeded only too well, according to Wilfrid, in converting and even in ruling two-thirds of Saxon England. Nor at this phase of the quarrel is there any further mention either of baptismal ceremonies, or of the customs contrary to ecclesiastical celibacy ,2^^ or of any of the other points formerly contested. The ^** " Ulorum lingua optime imbutus, nihil melius quam quod illi docuissent sestimabat." — Bede, 1. c.

^' " Observabat et regina Eanfleda cum suis juxta quod in Cantia fieri viderat.... Et cum rex Pascha dpminicum solutis jejuniis faceret, tunc regina cum suis persistens adhue in jejunio diem Palmarum celebrare." —Bede, 1. c.

"" It is now clearly shown that, in the Celtic Church, the deacons and priests never strayed from the Romish doctrine of celibacy. Their continence has been attacked, as that of the Briton clergy by Gildas, but no one has been able to prove that they regarded marriage as a remedy for this incontinence. There were depraved priests, there were also clerks not having difference of the two tonsures to which Wilfrid attached such great importance, and which must have struck from the first the eyes and attention of the Anglo-Saxon converts, is not even named in the long discussions of which we still possess a record.31 j^w tm-n exclusively on the celebration of Easter.

Nothing could be more fanciful and more com- i„,vh^tthe plicated than this Pascal calculation; nothing more difficult to understand, and especially to explain. Let us try, however, to draw forth some clear ideas from the depths of the endless dissertations of contemporary authors and even of more recent historians. Since the earliest days of Christianity a division had existed as to the proper date for the celebration of Easter. Some churches of Asia Minor followed the custom of the Jews by placing it on the fourteenth day of the first lunar month of the year. But all the churches of the West, of Palestine, and of Egypt, fixed upon the Sunday after the fourteenth day of the month nearest to the vernal equinox, so as not to keep the feast along with the Jews, and the general Council of Nice erected this custom into a law of the Church. Those who had not accepted this law, but persisted in celebrating the fourteenth day, were held as heretics and schismatics, under the n^ime of quartodecimans. The imputation of complicity in this heresy made against the Celtic Church by the chiefs of the Koman clergy in a bull addressed in 640, during the vacancy of the Holy See, to the bishops and abbots of the north of Ireland, was most unjust.^^ The only mistake made by the Celts was that of neglecting to keep themselves informed of the difficulties which arose as to the manner of determining the commencement of the first lunar month, which ought to be the Pascal monLh. As has been already said in respect to the dispute between St. Augustin and the Britons of Cambria,*^ they had remained faithful to the custom which prevailed at Rome itself when Patrick and the other missionaries to the British Isles brought thence the light of the Gospel. At that period, in Rome and in all the West, the ancient Jewish cycle of eighty-four years was universally followed to fix this date. The Christians of Alexandria, however, betreceived the higher orders who lived with their wives — but nothing more, and especially no excuse for setting up, either as a doctrine or as a regular lialjit, the marriage of priests.

*' However, JBcde, wlio has preserved all these discussions, says, in speaking of the tonsure: " Et de hoc questio non minima erat." — iii. 2G.

^2 Bede, ii. 19. »•' Sec p. 175. ter astronomers than those of Rome, and specially charged by the Council of Nice to inform the Pope of the date of Easter of each year, discovered in this ancient cycle some errors of calculation, and after two centuries of disputes they succeeded in making the Roman Church adopt a new Pascal cycle, that which is now universally received, and which limits the celebration of Easter to the interval between the 22d of March and the 24th of April. The Celtic churches had no knowledge of this change, which dated from the year 525— that is to say, from a time when the invasions of the Saxons probably intercepted their habitual communications with Rome: they retained their old Jewish cycle of eighty-four years, and adhered obstinately to it. They celebrated Easter always on Sunday, but this Sunday was not always the one which had been appointed by the Romish Church after the new calculations. Thus it happened that King Oswy was eight days in advance of his wife, and complained of having to rejoice alone in the resurrection of Christ, while the queen was still commemorating the commencement of the passion in the services for Palm Sunday.

On this diversity, then, which was in appearance so slight and trifling, turned the great dispute between the Celtic and Roman monks, between those who had first begun the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons, and those who had so happily completed it. It is amazing to note the vehemence and the duration of a dispute so bitter on a subject so insignificant. Certainly there was something painful in being unable to persuade the new believers to celebrate the greatest festival of their religion on the same day; but, on the other hand, it is evident that all these Catholics must have been profoundly agreed as to the important questions of faith and practice, since they could attach so much weight to a difference of astronomical calculation.

Let us at the same time remark that throughout of'thc'^ito^- this controversy the Roman Church displayed an durin'^"'^^'' exemplary moderation, and always acted in constru"^% formity with the paternal instructions given by St.

Gregory the Great to St. Augustin. She did not impose upon Wilfrid the mission he had taken upon himself. It was not at Rome, but at Lyons, that he received that tonsure which the Romans themselves do not seem to have taken much pains about. Rome never treated as schismatics or heretics those Celtic dissidents, the most illustrious of whom, Columbanus of Luxeuil and Aidan of Lindisfarne, have always had a place in her martyrology. She never proceeded otherwise than by way of counsel and exhortation, without insisting on violent measures, and patiently awaiting the returning calm of excited spirits, giving to all an example of prudence, moderation, and charity .3*

On the other hand, it is clearly evident that a competiunder the veil of a question purely ritual, was hid- Au^nce'^^'^" den one of political and personal influence. The precocious greatness of Wilfrid and his ambitious fervor might well awaken hostility among the clergy and nobles of Northumbria; his pretensions, which seemed so many audacious innovations, were of a kind to wound a people but recently converted, and instinctively inclined to attach great importance to the external forms of the new faith. But it was above all a struggle of race and influence. On one side the Celtic spirit, proud, independent, and passionate, of which the great Abbot of lona was the type, and of which his sons, the apostles of Northumbria, were the representatives; on the other, the spirit of Rome, the spirit of discipline and authority, imperfectly personified by its first envoys, Augustine and Paulinus, but endowed with a very different degree of vigor and missionary energy, since the moment when an Anglo-Saxon of the type of Wilfrid had constituted himself its champion. England was the stake of this game. All the future of that Christianity which had been so laboriously planted in the island, depended on its issue.

It is this which gives a truly historical interest p„riiament to the famous conference of Whitby, convoked by ofwMtby. King Oswy, for the purpose of regulating and terminating the dispute which troubled his kingdom and the neighboring countries. He desired that the question should be publicly debated in his presence, and in that of the Witenagemot, or parliament, composed not only of the principal ecclesiastics and laymen of the country, but of all those who had a right to sit in the national councils of the Anglo-

" " Der Romischer Stuhl benahni sich im ganzen auch hier mit der ilira cigenen umsichtigen Weisheit unci Liberalitat." This is the testimony rendered by the illustrious Dollinger in his excellent .account of this controversy, JIandbuch der Kirchengcschichte, i. 2, 227. The learned historiographer of the Irish Church, Lanigan, professor of theology at Pavia, who wrote about 1828, quotes the excesses of the ultra-orthodox English converts, who would admit nothing to be good, or even tolerable, except what was practised at Rome, even in matters which the Romans themselves held of no importance, vol. iii. p. 68.

Saxons. It is to be remarked that here, for the first time in the history of these assemblies, a sort of diyjgjQ^ j^j-q ^^^,q chambers like that which has become the fundamental principle of parliamentary institutions is Bede states that the king consulted the nobles and the commoners, those who»were seated and those who stood round, precisely like the lords and commons of our own days.35

The place chosen for the assembly was on the sea-coast, and in the centre of the two Northumbrian kingdoms, at Streaneshalch or Whitby, in the double monastery of monks and nuns governed by the illustrious Hilda, a princess of the Northumbrian blood-royal, who was now fifty years of age, and thus joined to the known sanctity of her life ^^ maturity of age and experience sufficient for the government of souls. Although baptized by Bishop Paulinus at the time of the first Romish mission to the court of her grand-uncle King Edwin, she was completely devoted to Celtic traditions, doubtless from attachment to the sainted Bishop Aidan, from whom she had received the veil. Her whole community were of the same party which had- been hitherto favored by King Oswy, and Avas naturally represented by Colman, Bishop of Lindisfarne, at that time the only prelate in the vast kingdom of Northumbria. He, with all his Celtic clergy, attended the council, as well as Cedd, a monk of Lindisfarne, who had become Bishop of the East Saxons, among whom he had re-established the episcopal see of London, after the expulsion of the Romish missionaries. Bishop Cedd, Anglo-Saxon by birth, but educated in Ireland before he became a monk in the Hiberno- Scottish monastery of Lindisfarne,^" was to act as interpreter in the conference between the Celts on one side and those who spoke only Latin or English on the other, and he acquitted himself of these functions with a most watchful impartiality.

^* "Hffic dicente rege, elevatis in ccElum manibus, faverunt adsidentes quique, sive adstantes, raajores una cum mediocribus." — Bede. " Beisitzende und umstebende, Adel und Gemeine." — Lappenberg, p. 165. This reminds one of the famous passage of Tacitus: " De minoribus rebus principes corksultant; de majoribus omnes: ita tamen, ut ea quoque quorum penes plebem arbitrium est, apud principes pertractentur." — Be Mor. Germ.

36 (4 Praesenti Sancta-Moniali piissima Hilda." Such is the testimony borne to her by Eddi, the biographer of Wilfrid, whose adversary she always was.

^^ At least this is to be supposed from the comparison of different passages of Bede (iii. 23, 28; iv. 3), on the youth of the two brother bishops, Cedd and Ceadda.

The side opposed to the Celts had at its head The Eomaa the young King Alchfrid and the Bishop Agilbert; the latter, though educated in Ireland, not having hesitated to embrace the cause of those Roman customs which prevailed in France, his native country. Wilfrid was the soul of the discussion he had so warmly desired, and its special orator: he appeared in the arena in all the glow of youth and talent, but supported by two venerable representatives of Roman missions to England — the priest Romanus, who had accompanied the Queen from Canterbury; and James, the aged, courageous, and modest deacon, sole relic and sole surviving witness of the first conversion of Northumbria under the father of Eanfleda, who had remained alone, after the flight of St. Paulinus, for nearly forty years, evangelizing Northumbria and observing Easter according to the Roman custom, with all those whom he had preserved or restored to the faith.

All being assembled, perhaps in one of the halls of the great monastery of St. Hilda, but more likely, from the great numbers, in the open air on the green platform which then, as now, surmounted the abrupt cliffs of Whitby, and from whence, the eye wanders far over those waves which bore the Saxons to the shores of Great Britain; King Oswy opened the proceedings by saying that as they all served the same God and hoped for the same heaven, it was advisable that they should follow the same rule of life and the same observance of the holy sacraments, and that it would therefore be well to examine which was the true tradition they ought to follow. He then commanded his bishop, Colman, to speak first, to explain his ritual, and to justify its origin. " 1 have," said the Bishop of Lindisfxrne, '' received the Pascal usage which I follow from my predecessors who placed me here as bishop; all our fathers have observed the same custom; these fathers and their predecessors, evidently inspired by the Holy Ghost, as was Columba of the Cell, followed the example of John the apostle and evangelist, who was called the friend of our Lord.

We keep Easter as he did, as did Folycarp and all his dis-

ciples of old. In reverence for our ancestors we dare not, and we will not, change." ^^ Then the king gave leave to Agilbert to speak, that he might describe the reasons of his

^' " Patres nostri et antccessores eorum manifesto Spiritu Sancto inspirati, ut erat Columcille.... Nee hoc audemus pro patribus nostris, nee volumus mutare." — Eddics, c. 10. different observance; but the poor bishop, remembering that he had lost his vast diocese of Wessex through his imperfect knowledge of Anglo-Saxon,89 begged that his disciple Wilfrid

might be allowed to speak in his place. " We think pre-

cisely alike/' said Agilbert, " but he can better express our thoughts in English, than I could through an interpreter.'^** Then Wilfrid began, " We keep Easter as we have seen it kept b}^ all Christians at Rome, where the blessed apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul, lived, taught, suflFered, and are bur- He had seen the same rule observed in Italy and in Gaul, where we have studied; we know that it is so in Africa, in Asia, in Egypt, in Greece, and throughout Christendom, in spite of all difference of language and of country.

only the Picts and Britons who, occupying the two most remote islands of the ocean, nay, but a part even of those islands, foolishly persist in contradicting all the rest of the world." ^i

Colman replied, " It is strange that you speak of our traditions as absurd, when we only follow the example of the great apostle who was thought worthy to lay his head upon the breast of our Saviour, and whom the whole world has judged to be so wise." The dialogue then continued in a less excited manner. In this discussion the bishop displayed the natural haughtiness of his race, and the abbot that persuasive eloquence already so dear to the Anglo-Saxons, who were charmed to hear their own barbarous language spoken perfectly by a man cultivated and formed by the learning of Italy and Gaul. As for the question itself, both had recourse to extremely poor arguments. Wilfred quoted Scripture, where there is not a single word as to the Pascal cycle, and the decretals of the universal Church, of which only one relates to the matter, that of the Council of Nice, which contents itself with the decision that Easter should always be celebrated on Sunday, a particular which the Irish observed equally with the Romans. Instead of limiting himself to the statement that the rules established at Rome had been and ought to be adopted everywhere, he also affirmed that St.

^' See above, page 286.

"" " Loquatur, obsecro, vice niea discipulus meus Wilfridus presbyter; ille melius ipsa lingua Anglorura quam ego per interpretem." — Bede, iii. 25.

^' " Prseter hos tantum et obstinationis eorum complices, Pictos dico et Britones, cum quibus de duabus ultimis oceani insulis, et his non totis, contra totum orbem stulto labore pugnant.... Mirum quare stultum appellare velitis laborem nostrum."— Bede, 1. c.

Peter bad established the custom then followed at Rome, as if that custom had been always the same, and had not, in fact, been changed nearly a century before, to be brought into accordance with the best astronomical calculations. But Bishop Colman either knew nothing or understood nothing of this change, and was not able to cite it against his adversary. He perpetually recurred to the examples of St. John and the fathers of the Celtic Church, and with more vehemence still quoted Columba, whose life, so minutely described by the contemporaries of this very council of Whitby ,^2 contains no trace of peculiar attachment to the Celtic Easter, but shows that he merely followed with simplicity the ancient usage transmitted by St. Patrick to the Irish monks. Nothing gives us reason to suppose that the great Abbot of lona, if once informed of the universal prevalence of the Roman custom, would have been opposed to it.

" Can we admit," said Bishop Colman, " that our most venerable father Columba. and his successors, men beloved of God, have acted contrary to the Divine Word? Many of them have given proof of their sanctity by miracles; and as for me, who believe in that sanctity, I choose to follow forever their teaching and their example." Here Wilfrid had the better of the argument. '•' As to your father Columba and his disciples, with their miracles, I might answer that, at the day of judgment, many will say to our Lord, that they have done miracles in His name, and He will answer that He never knew them. But God keep me from speaking thus of your father! it is better, when one is ignorant, to believe good than evil. I do not therefore deny that they were servants of God, and beloved by Him: no doubt they loved Him in their rustic simplicity, with the most pious intentions. I do not think there was much harm in their observance of Easter, because no one had told them of more perfect rules. If a Catholic calculator had been presented to them, I believe they would have followed his counsel as they followed the commandments of God which they knew. But as for you, without doubt you sin, if, after having heard the decretals of the Apostolic See, and even of the universal Church, con- ^* The first of these biographers, Cumin the White, was at that very time Abbot of lona, from whence Colman came; and the second Adamnan, then a monk in Ireland, was already forty years old in 664. The latter does not mention the Pascal difference except to relate the prophecy of Columba during his visit to Clonmacnoise, " De ilia qua? post dies multos oh diversitatera paschalis festi orta est inter Scotiae ecclesias discordia." — Lib.

i. c. 3.

VOL II. 28 firmed by Holy Scripture, you still despise them. Even admitting the sanctity of your fathers, how can you prefer, to the Church spread over the whole earth, this handful of saints in one corner of a remote island? Finally, for your Columba (and I would willingly say our Columba, so far as he was the servant of Christ), however holy or powerful by his- virtues he may have been, can we place him before the chief of the apostles, to whom our Lord himself said — ' Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build ray Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it; and I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven '? " ^^

The Saxon king then addressed his bishop, "Is it truc, Colman, that these words were said by our speech. ^^^^ ^^ g^^ Peter? " " It is true, king," was the answer. " Can you then," rejoined the king, " show me a similar authority given to your Columba? " " No," said the bishop. " You are then," continued the king, " both agreed that the keys of heaven were given to Peter by our Lord? " " Yes," answered the two adversaries together. " Then," said the king, " I say, like you, that he is the porter of heaven, and that I will not oppose him, but on the contrary, obey him in all things, lest when I reach the doors of the celestial kingdom, there be no one to open them for me if 1 am the adversary of him who carries the keys. In all my life I will neither do nor approve anything or any person that may be contrary to him."^*

'^^® whole assembly approved this conclusion of the king by vote, holding up their hands, both the nobles who were seated, and the freemen who usages. stood round,*^ and all decided to adopt the Roman *^ " Justius multo est de incognitis bonum credere, quam malum; unde et illos Dei famulos et Dei dilectos esse non nego, qui simplieitate rustica, sed intentione pia Deum dilexerunt... qiios utique credo, si quis tunc ad eo9 catholicus calculator advenerat.... Etsi enira patres tui sancti fuerint, numquid universal! quae per orbem est ecclesiae Christi, eorum est paucitas uno de angulo extremse insula praferenda. Etsi sanctus erat et potens virtutibus ille Columba vester, immo et noster si Christi erat." — Bede, iii. 25. The dubious and slightly disdainful tone used by the young Wilfrid in speaking of the great Columba, of whose life he was evidently ignorant, is remarkable. However, this speech is only found in Bede, himself singularly hostile to Columba. Eddi, the contemporary and companion of Wilfrid, attributes to him much more humble language, of which he quotes little. Eleury, relating this scene, believes that he spoke against St. Columbanus of Luxeuil.

** " Ille est ostiarius et clavicularius, contra quem concluctationem controversiae et judiciorum ejus in vita mea non facio, nee facientibus consentio." — Eddius, c. 10. Cf. Bede, 1. c.

** " Hffic dicente rege, elevatis in coelum manibus, faverunt adsideutes quique, sive adstantes." — Bede. custom. The sitting ended without any discussion of the other contested points, which, no doubt, were regarded as settled by the first decision. Of the three bishops who had taken part in the deliberation, Agilbert, ex-Bishop of the Western Saxons, embarked for his own country, and Cedd, Bishop of the East Saxons, who had acted as interpreter to the two adverse parties, renounced the customs of Lindisfarne, in which he had been educated, and returned to his diocese of London to spread the Roman usages there.

But Colman, Bishop of the Northern Anglo- Big,,op Saxons, refused to recognize the decision of the coimau council. He could not resign himself to see his abdicates, doctrine despised, and his spiritual ancestors de- ?oiona,"'^"* preciated; he feared, also, the anger of his countrymen, who would not have pardoned his defection.^^ Notwithstanding the affection and veneration showed for him by King Oswy, he determined to abandon his diocese. Accordingly, taking with him all the Lindisfarne monks of Scottish origin, who w^ould neither give up the Celtic Easter nor shave their heads in Roman fashion, he left Northumbria forever, and went to lona to consult the fathers of the order, or family of St. Columba. He carried with him the bones of his predecessor St. A'idan, the founder of Lindisfarne, and first Celtic evangelist of Northumbria, as if the ungrateful land had become unworthy to possess these relics of a betrayed saint, and witnesses of a despised apostleship. Undoubtedly this holy bishop, whose virtues, like those of his predecessors, draw, in this supreme hour, an eloquent and generous homage from the venerable Bede, would have done better to have yielded and remained in his diocese conforming to the customs of Rome. But what heart is so cold as not to understand, to sympathize, and to journey with him along the Northumbrian coast and over the Scottish mountains, where, bearing homewards the bones to his father, the proud but vanquished spirit returned to his northern mists, and buried in the sacred isle of lona his defeat and his unconquerable fidelity to the traditions of his race?

*^ "Propter timorem patris suaj." — Eddius, I. c. "Videns spretam suani doctrinatn, sectanique esse despectam." — Bede, iii. 26. Cf. iv. 4.