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lected the use of chrism in baptism, or did not make use of it in a proper manner, and that a single bishop amongst them was accustomed to consecrate another bishop, without the presence of two others, as the Council of Nice requires. But what trifling, Sir, is this! For since it is evident that Lanfranc did not, on this, account, deny the validity of the Irish baptisms and orders, and since both Catholics and Protestants are agreed that chrism is not essential to baptism, nor the presence of three bishops to consecration, it is plain that the diversity in question neither was, nor was considered as a sufficient ground for the rest of the Church to break off communion with the prelates of this island.

VIII. In order to prove that the clergy were permitted in ancient times to marry, and that therefore the Church then was upon a different footing from what it is now, Archbishop Usher mentions that St. Patrick was the son of the deacon Calphurnius, who himself was the son of the priest Potitus. I answer, that if the learned primate had acted fairly by his readers, he would have informed them that the same author who mentions these particulars concerning St. Patrick's family expressly tells us that the children of Cal

"doubt any longer? And since he confirms what he said, and declares "THIS IS MY BLOOD, who will dare to hesitate, and affirm that "it is not his blood? He once changed water into wine, which re"sembles blood, at Cana in Galilee; and is he not worthy to be "believed, when he says that he changes wine into blood?" &c. St. Cyril of Jerusal. Catech. Mystagog. i. See also the Liturgy of St, Basil, and of St. Chrys. in Le Brun, &c.

phurnius and Potitus were born previously to their father's ordination*.

To prevent being obliged to return again to the same subject, I shall here take notice of some of the extravagant assertions of Dr. Ledwich concerning it. He says that the ancient Irish monks called Culdees, were married t; in proof of which he quotes an authority of still less weight than his own, the assertion of the well-known deistical writer in the last century, Toland. To be sure, a monastery of 3000 monks, as was that of Benchor under St. Comgalt, with each one a wife and family, was admirably calculated for the observance of those austere rules of obedience, silence, abstemiousness, poverty, chastity, &c. which Dr. Ledwich admits them to have prac tised; having borrowed them, as he tells us, not from the monks of Egypt, but from the more ancient heathen priests of Egypt §! He says, however, that "when it came to their turn to offi"ciate they did not cohabit with their wives; as

by the 28th canon of the African code, "subdeacons, who handle the holy mysteries, "deacons, priests, and bishops are directed, at "their several terms, to abstain from their wives:

a practice derived from Egypt to the Jews, and "from them adopted by the Christians. Celi"bacy was unknown for the first three hundred

years of the Church ." What a mass of misrepresentation and falsehood is here heaped to

⚫ Joceline.
§ Ibid,

+ Antiq. p. 111.

‡ Ibid. p. 90,

Ibid. pp. 111, 112,

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gether!-In the first place, by Ledwich's own. account, the monks in general, and the Culdees in particular, "had no office in the Church; even "the abbots had not priesthood till the 12th century *." St. Columba is mentioned as an exception to this rule. Hence their "turn to officiate," according to this author himself, "never 66 came round.” 2dly, The antiquary mostshamefully imposes upon the reader in what he pretends to quote from the 28th canon of the African code. The canon here mentioned has no relation whatever with the matter in question. In the 25th canon, however, of that code, it is thus decreed: "In conformity with what had "been established in former councils, it is our "order that subdeacons, deacons, priests, and

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bishops, shall abstain from their wives, and "be as if they had none and if they act other"wise, they shall be removed from their of"fice t." In the council of Nice ‡, the council of Arles §, and other councils, it was forbidden to bishops, priests, and deacons, to have any woman at all in their houses, except a mother, a

Antiq. pp. 111, 112.

"Placuit quod in diversis conciliis firmatum est, ut subdiaconi "qui sacra mysteria contrectant et diaconi et presbyteri, sed et epis. copi, secundum priora statuta, etiam ab uxoribus se contineant, "ut tanquam non habentes videantur esse; quod nisi fecerint ab ec"clesiastico removeantur officio." Integer Codex Canonum Ecc. Afric. Can. 25. Concil. Labbe, tom. ii. p. 1061,

‡ Nicen. Can. 2.

§ 2 Arelat. Can. 3.

sister, or some very near relation. 3dly, The writer equally imposes upon those who trust to him, in what he says about the derivation of continency from pagan priests. If those illustrious prelates who framed the African code, Aurelius, St. Augustine, St. Alypius, &c. to whose authority he has just now appealed, are to be believed, this observance is derived from the apostles*. Nor does he less aim at deceiving, when he asserts, that " celibacy was unknown for the first "300 years of the Church." For does not St. Paul teach that, though he that giveth his virgin in marriage does well, yet that he who giveth her not does better t. Does he not intimate that he himself was unmarried? Is there a single father of the Church, from the first to the last of them, who has not written in commendation of virginity? St.Jerome, who flourished in the fourth age, testifies that

* "Cum præterito concilio de continentia et castitatis mo"deramine tractaretur, gradus isti tres qui constrictione quadam "castitatis per consecrationes adnexi sunt, episcopos, presbyteros

et diaconos, ita complacuit, ut condecet sacros antistites ac Dei "sacerdotes, nec non et levitas, vel qui sacramentis divinis in ser "viunt, continentes esse in omnibus, quo possint simpliciter quod a "Domino postulant impetrare, ut quod apostoli docuerunt, et “ ipsa servavit antiquitas nos quoque custodiamus.", Codex Afric. Can. Labb. t. ii. p. 1052.

3.

t1 Cor. vii. 38.

I shall satisfy myself with here mentioning, that the illustrious doctor and martyr St. Cyprian, in the 3d century, wrote a whole book, as several later fathers also did, in commendation of virginity. In the same century, the great Origen declares thus: "Videtur "mihi quod illius est solius offerre sacrificium indesinens qui indesi"nenti et perpetuæ se voverit castitati." Hom, 23. in Num.

་

it was the established rule in the three great patriarchates of Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome, to admit no persons into their clergy, but those who either never had been married, or who had renounced the married state *. With respect to our English church at the end of the sixth century, we gather from St. Gregory's permission for the clerks in minor orders to take wivest, that this was unlawful for the clergy in holy orders, namely, for bishops, priests, and deacons, agreeably to a well known rule of reasoning; and we are justified in inferring the same with respect to the Irish clergy in St. Patrick's time, from a certain canon in one of his councils §. But I fear I have tired you with the length of this polemical letter, which, however, I could not shorten, in

"Quid facient orientis ecclesiæ, quid Egypti et Sedis Apostoli. ་་ cæ, quæ aut virgines clericos accipiunt aut continentes; aut si uxores habuerint mariti esse desistunt ?" St. Hieron. Epist. adversus Vigilant.-St. Epiphanius delivers much the same testimony. Expos. Fid. Cath.

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+"Si qui sunt clerici EXTRA SACROS ORDINES constituti, qui se continere non possunt, sortiri uxores debent et stipendia sua "exterius accipere." Resp. 1. St. Greg. St. Aug. Bed. Hist. Ecc. l. i. c. 27.

"Exceptio confirmat regulam."

"De Tribus seminibus Evangeliorum, cap. 18.-Centesimum "episcopi et doctores qui omnibus omnia sunt; sexagesimum "clerici et viduæ quæ continentes sunt, tricessimum laici qui fideles "sunt, qui perfecte Trinitatém credunt. His amplius non est in messe "Domini, Monachi vero et virgines eum centismus jungimus." Synod. 2. St. Patricii. Spelman, p. 58. It is evident that continency is here represented as an attribute of the clergy and of widows, on account of which they are entitled to a sixty-fold reward.