have been profitably employed. If, moreover, they shall happily assist in placing, in its true light, before my Protestant countrymen that religion, which once shone with such lustre in our Island, great will be my joy, and the reward of my labour abundant exceedingly.

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

OF

IRELAND.

CHAPTER I..

Origin of Christianity in Ireland-Mission of Palladiusof St. Patrick-Superstition of the Irish before their Conversion, &c. &c.

The shade of remote antiquity impends over the origin of Christianity in Ireland. The peculiar means, which Providence employed to convey to that country the first tidings of redemption, are hence concealed from view. To relieve the obscurity, our historians have resorted to the aid of conjecture; and the intercourse of Ireland with the nations first converted to the Gospel, has been assigned as the medium, through which the first rays of religion dawned on our island. The simplicity of this hypothesis recommends it to attention, while the intercourse which it assumes, that Ireland formerly mantained with foreign countries, rests on unquestioned testimony.

In the economy of the New Dispensation, it is remarkable, that the nations which beheld those manifestations of the Almighty power, that attended the promulgation of the Gospel, were generally linked by the ties of commerce or of policy with other distant regions. Thus, an opportunity was afforded to such persons as civil or commercial concerns drew from home to those countries, where first the Divine origin of the Gospel was authenticated by miracles, of inquiring into a religion, which the Deity so unequivocally sanctioned.

That these persons, on their return home, informed their countrymen of what they had heard and seen relating to the new code of worship, may be reasonably presumed. On a subject so important and so interesting, they could not have remained silent, when communing with friends endeared to them by the alliance of kindred and of country.

But by whatsoever means the tidings of salvation were first conveyed to Ireland, it is certain that the light of the Gospel appeared at a very early period in her horizon. Among the proofs of this assertion, the following incident may be justly numbered:-In a part of the country, in a place whither Palladius or his associates had not penetrated, the sacred vessels of the altar were discovered, almost immediately after St. Patrick had commenced his Apostolic labours.* An important portion of the Christian worship, it would hence appear, was known in a part, at least, of the kingdom, before St. Patrick engaged in the conversion of the Irish people.

The language of St. Prosper confirms the accuracy

* Colgan. Tr. Th. part 11, Cap. 35, and Jocelin Cap. 105.

of

this inference, and favours even the opinion, that, previously to St. Patrick's mission, the knowledge of the Gospel had reached many parts of the island.*

The authority of St. Prosper proves indeed, that, before the period of St. Patrick's Apostleship, there were among the Irish people, some who had embraced the Christian faith. But that the professors of the Gospel in Ireland were then only few in number, the testimony of St. Patrick clearly evinces :-"The Irish," says the holy man, "who till this time had not the knowledge of God, and worshipped idols and unclean things, how are they now become the people of the Lord, and are called the sons of God."+

From the disciplinary regulations

which appear to have been made at the very origin of the Church in Ireland, it may be also collected, that the ancient superstition of the Irish people prevailed to such an extent, at least for some time after the opening of St. Patrick's mission, as to require that the intercourse of the Christian converts with their unbelieving countrymen, should be placed under salutary restraint.

Besides the direct arguments which establish, that the Irish people adhered to a false worship, when St.

Speaking of Palladius' mission, St. Prosper says, that Palladius was sent "Ad Scotos in Christum credentes." Chron. Basso et Antiocho. Coss. (A.D. 431.)

+ Unde autem Hiberione, qui nunquam Dei notitiam habuerunt, et non nisi idola et immunda usque nunc semper coluerunt, quomodo nuper facta est plebs Domini et filii Dei nuncupantur. Confes. St. Patric. p. 16.

The rule, for example, that prohibits alms offered by a Gentile, to be received into the Church; and that also which enjoins on the Clergy not to bring any suits before infidel judges. Vid. Spelman, Ware Opusc. T Patric. adscrip. Can. 1 and 13.

Patrick engaged in their conversion, we may refer, moreover, to St. Prosper's account of the mission of Palladius. According to Prosper's narrative, Palladius was "the first Bishop" to whom the care of the Irish mission was confided. Now, had the Gospel seed been generally disseminated throughout Ireland, previously to the mission of Palladius, the wants of the rising Church in that country would doubtless have required, before the fifth century, the aid of the Episcopal authority. For, it has ever been the usage of ecclesiastical antiquity, that a numerous congregation of the faithful, such as, in the opinion now combated, the Irish Christians then were, should be confided to the care of a Bishop. The importance which Christian antiquity ascribed to those functions, that exclusively belong to the Episcopal order, caused the usage here spoken of to be observed in every age with scrupulous fidelity. It cannot be then supposed, that the converts to the Gospel in Ireland, had they been numerous, would have been left, for a protracted period, destitute of an advantage, which was carefully imparted to other countries.

It has been, indeed, maintained, that, before the mission of Palladius, those who professed the faith in Ireland were governed by Bishops, and the advocates of this opinion produce the names of some Ecclesiastics, who, they assert, administered the episcopal functions there, before the time of Palladius. To me it appears, that without the aid of an ingenuity which candour will not sanction, such an opinion cannot be reconciled with the narrative of St. Prosper. This narrative distinctly states, that Palladius, having received episcopal consecration from Pope Celestine, was the first Bishop that was sent to the Scots who be