Who would deny that man the name of saint? And who, if by that sagacity
which comes from the combination of intellect and virtue, he sometimes
seemed miraculously to foretell coming events, would deny him the name of
prophet also?
If St. Severinus be the type of the monk as prophet, St. Columba may
stand as the type of the missionary monk; the good man strengthened by
lonely meditation; but using that strength not for selfish fanaticism,
but for the good of men; going forth unwillingly out of his beloved
solitude, that he may save souls. Round him, too, cluster the usual
myths. He drives away with the sign of the cross a monster which attacks
him at a ford. He expels from a fountain the devils who smote with palsy
and madness all who bathed therein. He sees by a prophetic spirit, he
sitting in his cell in Ireland, a great Italian town destroyed by a
volcano. His friends behold a column of light rising from his head as he
celebrates mass. Yes; but they also tell of him, 'that he was angelical
in look, brilliant in speech, holy in work, clear in intellect, great in
council.' That he 'never passed an hour without prayer, or a holy deed,
or reading of the Scriptures (for these old monks had Bibles, and knew
them by heart too, in spite of all that has been written to the
contrary), that he was of so excellent a humility and charity, bathing
his disciples' feet when they came home from labour, and carrying corn
from the mill on his own back, that he fulfilled the precept of his
Master, 'He that will be the greatest among you, let him be as your
servant.'
They also tell of him (and this is fact and history) how he left his
monastery of Derm Each, 'the field of oaks,' which we call Derry, and
went away at the risk of his life to preach to the wild Picts of
Galloway, and founded the great monastery of Iona, and that succession of
abbots from whom Christianity spread over the south of Scotland and north
of England, under his great successor Aidan.
Aidan has his myths likewise. They tell of him how he stilled the sea-
waves with holy oil; how he turned back on Penda and his Saxons the
flames with which the heathen king was trying to burn down Bamborough
walls. But they tell, too (and Bede had heard it from those who had
known Aidan in the flesh) of 'his love of peace and charity, his purity
and humility, his mind superior to avarice or pride, his authority,
becoming a minister of Christ, in reproving the haughty and powerful, and
his tenderness in relieving the afflicted, and defending the poor.' Who,
save one who rejoiceth in evil, instead of rejoicing in the truth, will
care to fix his eyes for a moment upon the fairy tales which surround
such a story, as long as there shines out from among them clear and pure,
in spite of all doctrinal errors, the grace of God, the likeness of Jesus
Christ our Lord?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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