Macc
Cuill from the sea,' the illustrious bishop and prelate of Arduimen.
Saint
Patrick having by means of a miracle converted a wicked man of Ulster, called
MaccCuill (Maughold), and
his men, the following incident is related: "Then they were silent and said, 'Truly
this man Patrick is a man of God.' They all forthwith believed, and Macc Cuill
believed, and at Patrick's behest he went in the sea in a coracle of [only] one
hide. . . . Now Macc Cuill went on that day to sea, with his right hand towards
Mag Inis, till he reached Mann, and found two wonderful men in the island before
him. And it is they that preached God's Word in Mann, and through their preaching
the men of that island were baptized. Conindri and Romuil were their names. Now
when these men saw Macc Cuill in his coracle they took him from the sea and received
him with a welcome, and he learnt the divine rule with them until he took the
bishopric after them.
The names of the following saints who are supposed
to have lived during his time, are also found in Man: Maughold (the Macc Cuill
already mentioned), said to have been one of his earliest disciples, who has given
his name to a parish, a headland, and an islet; Lonan, who has a parish; and Saint
Bridget (n. 438, ob. 508), the most famous of Irish female Cistercian saints
before the Columban period, who has a parish and seven keeills, according to Manx
tradition founded the nunnery near Douglas;
and there is possibly also Ruisen, or Rushen, one of Patrick's disciples who may
have given his name to the parish church of Rushen. From thence it may have been
applied to the sheading, glen, castle and town of that name (the town being now
called Castletown). About St. Germanus,
who is said to have preceded Conindrus and Romulus, and to have been the first
bishop, there has been much controversy, which need not be entered into here.
It
has been suggested by the writer elsewhere that the name of Germanus,
the famous Bishop of Auxerre, sent with Lupus, Bishop of Troyes, by the Gallican
clergy in 429 to deliver the British
Church from the Pelagian heresy, has been substituted for that of Coemanus, or
Mochaemog, a disciple of St. Patrick's, who according to an ancient legend, was
connected with him in the conversion of the children of Lir. But this system did
not prove successful in Ireland, and seems "to have led, towards the end of his
(St. Patrick's) life, to the adoption of a very peculiar sort of collegiate church.
It consisted in a group of seven bishops placed together in one church; and they
were brought closer to the tribal system based on the family, which prevailed
in Ireland, by these bishops being usually seven brothers selected from one family
in the tribe.
The first forty years of
Saint Columba's life were spent in Ireland, where he is said to have founded
no less than 300 churches. About 546,
he sailed to Iona, then called I or Hy, with twelve disciples and 200 companions.
This island, where he founded a monastery, became his head-quarters, and from
thence he made his numerous missionary expeditions, which appear to have speedily
resulted, not only in the conversion of the
Western Isles and Man, but also of the
Picts of the mainland of Scotland. His biographer, ADAMNAN,
who lived not long after his death. As to his Church, we must bear in mind that
it was from the Irish Church, with which it never lost its connexion. It was essentially
a monastic church, with
its bishops under monastic rule, and as such, subject to the abbot, even though
a presbyter, as the head of the community, though their special functions — ordination
and the celebration of the Eucharist — were fully recognized, as was their superior
rank to the presbyters. The members of the monastic community were termed brethren,
and consisted of three classes. "Those of advanced years and tried devotedness
were called seniors. Their principal duty was to attend to the religious services
of the Church and to reading and transcribing the Scriptures. Those who were stronger
and fitter to labour were termed the working brothers. Their stated labour was
agriculture in its various branches, and the tending of cattle; and probably,
in addition to this, the service within the monastery, in the preparation of food,
and the manufacture of the various articles required for personal or domestic
use.
"Their doctrinal system was that common to the Western Church prior
to the fifth century. . . . To use the language of Columbanus, the Columban Church
'received nought but the doctrine of the evangelists and the apostles'; and, as
we learn from Adamnan,
the foundation of Columba's preaching, and his great instrument in the conversion
of the heathen, was the Word of God." The main characteristics of the Irish
Church, then, were that it was a similar organization to that of the civil
tribe, and that, during and after the Columban period, it was governed by abbots,
who might be laymen, and not by bishops.
