jurisdiction conferred upon it; in as much as the Archbishop of Canterbury for the time being had claimed a legatine jurisdiction over Ireland ever since the time of St. Augustine*, by virtue of the authority "over all the Britains t," conferred by St. Gregory upon this our apostle. Accordingly the Irish prelates, and St. Malachy in particular, had earnestly solicited the court of Rome to send certain palls to the Church of Ireland, as the proof of her immediate dependance on the See Apostolic +. I come now to consider the system which is peculiar to Dr. Ledwich on the present subject. In fact it is such as never did enter, and is never Bede says of St. Laurence, successor of St. Augustine of Canterbury; "Non solum novæ, quæ de Anglis erat collecta, ecclesiæ "curam gerebat, sed et veterum Britanniæ incolarum, nechon et "Scotorum, qui Hiberniam incolunt, populis pastoralem impendere "solicitudinem curabat," 1. ii. c. 2. In after times Lanfranc exercised this paramount juridiction, and received oaths of canonical obedience from Patrick and Donatus, whom he successively consecrated to the see of Dublin. See the very explicit oaths to this effect in Wharton Anglia Sacra, vol. i. pp. 80, and 81. Hence when there was a question of raising the city of Waterford to the dignity of a bishopric, the Irish prelates, with their King, applied to St. Anselm of Canterbury, to effect this by his legatine jurisdiction. See Eadmer, Hist. Novorum, c. 36. Hence also, when the four pails were granted to the Irish metropolians, Roger Hoveden complains: "Hoc factum est contra antiquam consuetudinem et dig. "nitatem Cantuariensis ecclesiæ." Hoveden ad an. 1151. + “Britanniarum omnes episcopos tuæ fraternitati committimus." Bed. 1. i. c. 27. By Britannia, in the Plural, Polybius and Ptolemy understand both the sister islands. See St. Bernard in Vita Malach. c. 15, "Metropolitica sedi "deerat adhuc Pallii usus quod est plenitudo honoris. Erat et altera metropolitica sedes, &c." likely to enter, into the conception of any other man of letters whomsoever. Having vainly attempted to give an Asiatic origin to the Christianity of Ireland, totally unconnected with, and in direct opposition to the Christianity which prevailed at Rome, in England, and other places; he endeavours to shew a continuation of this new discovered religion down to the 12th century*, amongst an order of pious monks, called Culdees. He tells us, that their founder St. Columba† was a quartodeciman; that "they did not adopt the corruptions of the Anglo-Saxon church, or the superstitions "which contaminated Christianity §;" that they adhered to the ancient faith, and abhorred "Roman innovations || ;" that "Commian, a Culdee, apostatized and listened to Roman "emissaries ¶;" that "at length Adamnan, the "Culdean abbot of Hy, likewise apostatized**." These are a few among the many glaring errors which this "cultivator and destroyer of antiquity," as I have elsewhere called him, has fallen into in speaking of the Culdees. In the first place then these Colidei, or worshippers of God, were not a distinct order of monks founded by St. Columba, and confined to the island of Hy; but this was a general Antiq. p. 96. ** P. 111. + Ibid. p. 103. P. 100. + Ibid. p. 107. name for all the ancient Scotch and Irish monks, or rather canons regular, as we are assured by unquestionable authority *.-2dly, St. Columba and his monks of Hy were not quartodecimans, if Bede, who knew them so well, may be credited in what he affirms concerning them .-3dly, The Culdees had no other faith, or ecclesiastical discipline, except as to the mode of computing the festival of Easter, than the English church, and all the other churches of the same ages had. For does Dr. Ledwich himself believe that if they had denied the real presence of Christ in the blessed Eucharist, or the utility of praying for the dead, or that of desiring the prayers of the saints, or the Pope's supremacy, or had even rejected the use of pious pictures in their churches, or of holy water, and such like things which we are sure the English Saxons adopted, they would have been invited to join with the Roman missionaries in forming our infant church, in educating its youth, and in governing it in quality of bishops? Would their virtues have been so highly extolled 66 * Giraldus calls them "Cælibes, quos Calicolas vel Coli deos vocant." Topograph. Hib. Dist. ii. cap. 4. Hector Boetius, lib. vi. Hist. Scot. says, that the name became so vulgar, that priests in general, almost down to his own time, were called "Culdei," that is to say, "Cultores Dei." "Quem tamen (Diem Pascha) non semper in luna quarta. “decima, cum Judæis, ut quidam rebantur, sed in die quidem Do“minica, alia tamen quam decebat hebdomada celebrabant." Eccles. Hist. I. iii. c. 4. by Bede, and the Catholic hagiographers in general, as they are, and would the names of their saints be inscribed upon the churches, and in the martyrologies of Rome, and all the Catholics of Christendom. 4thly, It is evident that what Dr. Ledwich writes concerning the ancient religion and Roman innovations, ought to be inverted : for nothing is more certain than that the ancient British British prelates prelates originally followed the practice of Rome and the other churches, with respect to the time of keeping Easter, as well as in other particulars, and that the error which they and the Irish prelates fell into upon this point was an innovation comparatively of a late date. Of this we have positive proofs: for the chief bishops of the British church were present at, and subscribed to the Council of Arles, as I observed to you before, the very first canon of which appoints the time of Easter to be kept on the same day throughout the world, and that the Pope should give general notice of that day*. This canon was confirmed in the œcumenical council of Nice, and the Emperor Constantine 66 * "Breviarium Epistolæ Domino Sanctissimo Fratri Silvestro "Marinus vel Cætus Episcoporum qui adunati fuerunt in oppido “ Arelatensi. — Quid decrevimus communi consilio caritati tuæ, significavimus ut omnes sciant quid in futurum observare de "beant.—Can. i. Primo loco de observatione Paschæ dominici ❝ut uno die et uno tempore per omnem orbem a nobis observetur 66 et juxta consuetudinem, literas ad omnes tu dirigas." Labbe, "Concil. tom. i, wrote a circular letter to all the churches of the christian world, informing them of what had been decreed in this particular, and exhorting, the several bishops to subscribe to it*. In this letter he testifies that our British provinces were amongst those which agreed with Rome and the remainder of the West, as also with the South, the North, and a great part of the East, in opposition to a certain part of the East, (namely, Syria and Mesopotamia) as to the time of calculating Easter. It is evident, then, that the observance of the British churches was conformable to that of Rome in this particular, down to the year 325, when the aforesaid letter was written; and there cannot be a doubt that they continued in the same observance as long as the Pope, agreeably to the ancient custom, and the decree of the council of Arles ‡, had a facility of writing to them, and giving them notice of the right day of keeping Easter; that is to say, until the Britons were crushed by the Saxons, and driven into the mountains of Wales and Cornwall. This catastrophe was complete about the year 500, at which time we may suppose that, attempting to calculate the vernal equinox, and * Euseb. in Vit. Constant. I. iii, c. 17. + ὅπερ δ' αν κατὰ τὴν τῶν ῥωμαίων πόλιν τε καὶ ἔφρικήν, Ιταλίαν τε ἄπασαν, αίγυπτον, σπανίαν, γαλλίας, βρεττανίας, λίβυας, ὅλην ἑλλάδα, ἀσιανάν τε διόικηςιν, ποντικὴν τε καὶ κιλίκιαν, μια συμφώνω φυλάττεται γνώμη. Euseb. Vit. Cons. l. iii. c. 19. Can. i. |