Augustine on what Christ became

[Christmas] It is called the Lord’s birthday when the wisdom of God presented itself to us as an infant, and the Word of God without words uttered the flesh as its voice. Let us joyfully celebrate the coming of our salvation and redemption.

… For whose benefit did such sublimity come in such humility? Certainly for not of his own; but, if we are believers, totally for ours. Wake up, mankind, for your God became man!

… Let us celebrate the festal day on which the great and timeless One came from the great and timeless day to this brief span of our day. He has become for us ‘justice, and sanctification, and redemption;’ (1 Cor. 1.30, 31)

…. Hence, when the Lord whose birthday we are celebrating today was born of the Virgin, the announcement of the angelic choir was made in the words: 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men of good will.' (Luke 2.14) How can peace exist on earth unless it be because 'truth is sprung out of the earth,' (Psalm 81.11) that is, because Christ has been born in the flesh? Moreover, 'He Himself is our peace, he it is who has made both one' (Eph. 2.14) so that we might become men of good will, bound together by the pleasing fetters of unity.

… Let us then rejoice in this grace, so that our glorying may bear witness to our good conscience by which we glory, not in ourselves, but in the Lord. That is why Scripture says: He is my glory, the one who lifts up my head (Psalm 3.4). For what greater grace could God have made to dawn on us than to make his only Son become the son of man, so that a son of man might in his turn become a son of God? Ask if this were merited; ask for its reason, for its justification, and see whether you will find any other answer but sheer grace.

Augustine, Sermon 185

Aoibhinn beatha an scoláire - Sweet is the scholar's life!

The Scholar's Life (Beatha an Scoláire) is a seventeenth century Irish poem that describes the life of leisure and privilege enjoyed by the scholars of Ireland. I'm not sure where exactly this particular Irish scholar was studying, but it sounds very relaxed! Apparently in seventeenth century Ireland, school days were indeed the best days of your life! Here is Thomas Kinsella's translation.

Sweet is the scholar's life
busy about his studies;
the sweetest lot in Ireland
as all of you know well

No king or prince to rule him
nor lord however mighty;
no rent to the chapter house
no drudging, no dawn-rising

Dawn-rising or shepherding
never required of him;
no need to take his turn
as watchman in the night

He spends a while at chess
and a while with the pleasant harp;
and a further while wooing
and winning lovely women

His horse-team hale and hearty
at the first coming of Spring;
the harrow for his team
is a fistful of pens.

Seán Ó Tuama and Thomas Kinsella, eds. Duanaire, 1600-1900: Poems of the Dispossessed (Dublin: Foras na Gaelige, 1981), 16-17.

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: Early Irish Speculations

The incident of Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil has long fascinated readers of the Bible. 

Many scholars in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages speculated concerning exactly what kind of fruit Adam and Eve ate. 

An interesting seventh century Irish theological work entitled "The Odering of Nature" (De Ordine Creaturarum) proposed that Adam and Eve had eaten from a fig-tree.

“It is not at all clear from what species of tree Adam ate, but it is clear that immediately after sinning he covered his nakedness with the leaf of a fig tree (Gen. 3.7), the only tree Jesus cursed when he was in the flesh – not long before he accepted death on account of the fault of Adam. The tree immediately withered when he said: “henceforth no fruit will ever come from you” (Matt. 21.19), that is, it could no longer harm men as it had done before. For Christ gathered in that tree, that is, in the fig tree, the curse of the sin of Adam which infected the whole earth until he cleansed it with the drops of his own blood. For the Lord would have known for sure whether the first man received his guilt from this tree or from another.” (DOC X.13-14).

Patrick Fleming and the Letters of Columbanus

The First Printed Edition
of Columbanus' works
by Patrick Fleming in 1667

The Irish monastic leader Columbanus wrote several letters during his time in Europe (c. 598-615). These letters are some of the earliest examples of Hiberno-Latin and our only surviving source from the conservative Irish camp on the Easter dating controversy. The letters were written to three popes (Gregory the Great, Sabinian (?), and Boniface III), a synod of Gallic bishops that wanted to censure him, and to his own monks at Luxeuil following his expulsion from Gaul. 

Columbanus was a man who spoke his mind and was proud of that fact (Ep. 5.9). At times he had to excuse his abrasive style on the grounds that he was Irish, and appealed to "the freedom of my country's customs, for among us it is not a man's station but his principles that matter" (Ep. 5.11). This appeal to Irish free speech emboldened him to lambaste the bishop's of Gaul and occasionally a pope or two. 

The fact that we can read the letters of Columbanus today is largely down to the work of a 17th century Irish Franciscan scholar, Patrick Fleming. Fleming was a lecturer in theology at the Irish college at Louvain. His chief theological interest was the work and life of Columbanus, and he set out to collect and transcribe any manuscript material relating to Columbanus that he could find in European libraries. On a trip to Bobbio, Italy, he came across an ancient but badly written copy of Columbanus' letters, which he transcribed. That manuscript has since been lost and Fleming's 17th century transcription formed the basis of the editio princeps that was published in 1677. Had Fleming not made his own copy of the Bobbio manuscript, the letters would have been lost forever.*

Fleming was later appointed director of an Irish college in Prague in 1630, but was murdered in 1631 during the Thirty Years War. His magnum opus on the life and works of Columabanus was finally printed some 36 years later. The modern critical edition of Columbanus' letters is still primarily reliant on Fleming's work.

*note: There was a second 17th century transcription produced by a scholar named Joadoc Metzler, but this is very probably a transcription of Fleming's work and not from the Bobbio manuscript. See Johannes Wilhelmus Smit, Studies on the language and style of Columba the Younger (Columbanus) (Amsterdam, Hakkert, 1971), 33-8.

Celebrating Christmas with Wise Men from Ireland

Sedulius Scottus, (fl. 840-860) lived in Liège at a time when Irish scholarly influence in western Europe was at its zenith. He was a scribe, poet, grammarian, philosopher, and theologian; a professional wise man of sorts. In one of his poems he mentions his fellow Irish compatriots, Fegus, Blandus, Marcus, and Beuchell, as the "four-span of the Lord, [and] the glory of the Irish race" (Quadraige domini, Scottensis gloria gentis), no false modesty here.

In a Christmas poem he wrote around 850 he described a Christmas celebration in Liège. The imagery of the nativity is applied to the church and her bishop. The church choir emulates the angelic hosts in their praise of God and the bishop is the shepherd who leads his flock to the true Shepherd Christ.

But what of the Wise Men? Well naturally for Sedulius, the Wise Men are the Irish scholars like himself who have come to Lèige bearing gifts of wisdom and eloquence!

Here is an excerpt from that Christmas poem;

It is the time of snow, gleaming with perfect light; now is the season in which the Lord Jesus was born. O brothers shine like the purest snow, and glisten with unblemished souls. The blessed Virgin gave birth to Jesus, Ruler of the world, and son of the Almighty…

The Messiah. the bread of life, is born in the town of Bethlehem. But here is the Lord's house, and bread too, and the nourishing drink of poor Bethlehem. 

As the angelic choirs chanted harmonious praises and sand melodious hymns to God on high, so our excellent choir, with one voice, celebrates O Zion, your glorious triumphs…

The Lord was our Shepherd, and the shepherds its witnesses; and the Shepherd was the child who was born in Bethlehem...

Out of the east came the Magi bearing gifts, hastening in their journey to the Christ child; but now Irish scholars arrive from western lands, bringing their precious gifts of learning…

When the joyous day arrives, let all rejoice as one, and let gladness and love rule every man's heart. Divine radiance attests to Christ's birth, and heaven's splendor adores our True Light. Let us walk happily in the light of Christ, and go directly to his sacred land. Amen.

See Edward Doyle, Sedulius Scottus: On Christian Rulers and The Poems, Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, Vol. 17 (Binghamton, NY: State University of New York, 1983), 112-113.

Live in Christ, that Christ may live in you

"I live, yet no longer I, but Christ lives in me, he who for me has died; for that is the cry of the elect. But none can die to himself, unless Christ lives in him; but if Christ lives in him, he cannot live to himself. Live in Christ, that Christ may live in you (Vive in Christo ut Christus in te)."

Columbanus, Sermon 10.2

Massive Scribal Hangovers: One Ninth Century Confession

Codex Sangallensis 904, page 204,
a ninth century copy of Priscian's Latin grammar
with an ogham gloss in the top margin

Medieval Irish scribes were habitually recording their emotional and physical state as they labored at the task of copying manuscripts. These scribal glosses range from pious prayers ("God bless my hands today" Laon MS 26, f18v) to curses on pens, parchment, and careless work by fellow scribes.

Physical ailments were also described, sometimes in graphic detail. One scribe writing in Co. Clare informed whoever cared in a marginal gloss, "the phlegm is upon me like a mighty river, and my breathing is labored." (MS Egerton 88 f. 26).

One Irish ninth century copy of a Latin grammar, the Institutiones grammaticae by Priscian (c. 500), contains alongside the usual prayers and complaints a curious marginal gloss in ogham script.

Ogham script was used by the Irish possibly as early as the fourth century AD, mainly in grave monuments scattered over Ireland (as well as some in western Britain).

The ogham gloss on the top of page 204 in the Priscian grammar is a single word in Irish, Latheirt.

This obscure word can be accurately defined thanks to the remarkable old Irish dictionary dating to possibly as early as the ninth century, the Sanas Cormaic (Cormac's glossary). The entry for the Irish word Latheirt is defined as follows;

Ale [Lait] + killed [ort], i.e. ale has killed us, that is ale drinking.

McManus notes,

 
"This [definition] together with other contexts shows the basic meaning to be 'excessive ale-consumption' with the logical extensions 'excessive drunkenness' and 'massive hangover', the last probably the meaning intended in the Priscian Oghams."

The task of copying out a Latin grammar by hand was difficult enough for a monk without the added misery of a hangover. This was not our scribe's finest hour.

Ogham gloss that reads in Irish Latheirt, i.e. "massive hangover."

See,

Damian McManus, A Guide to Ogham, Maynooth Monograph 4 (Maynooth: An Sagart, 1991), 133.