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DadDave
Guest
I’ve seen it purported that the early Irish Christian church was more eastern / orthodox in praxis and spirituality than it was “Roman”? Is there any evidence for this?
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jam070406
Guest
This is very interesting. Can you recommend any good reading on this? Thanks.
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Hesychios
Guest
In addition to what Jarek has said, it is worth pointing out that the Irish church owes a lot to the earlier churches of Britain and Gaul. Gaul was not evangelized from Rome, it was evangelized at the same time as central Italy and apparently the churches of Asia had a lot to do with that. Saint Ireneaus of Lyons in the second century was part of that effort.
Similarly, monasticism came to Gaul chiefly through the agency of Saint John Cassian (end of fouth century-early fifth) and his companions. He learned directly from the desert fathers in his day, having spent his younger days in Egypt among them. Monasticism followed the Rhone river and Roman roads into the interior of Gaul. and helped evangelize that land.
Saint Patrick was a contemporary of both Saint John Cassian and Saint Augustine of Hippo, and the son of a priest in Britain. The story has it that after his release from servitude in Ireland he went to Gaul to be a monk and prepare for holy orders. I am not sure where he received his Episcopal consecration, but I think it may have been in Gaul, not Britain. He is credited with introducing monasticism into Ireland, this while it was still a fresh and new movement in Gaul.
I don’t have a good recommendation of a single book on the subject, but if I think of something I’ll post it.
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DadDave
Guest
Would St. Irenaus’s writings be a good example of a more eastern spirituality in the west? I’ve heard that St. Ambrose may be too?
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Hesychios
Guest
As for St Ireneaus I have not read anything of him besides his Against Heresies great work, which is not actually an example of spirituality, so I don’t know.
As for Saint Ambrose I have read some of his letters, which deal with parochial matters mostly, so I can’t answer the question. Perhaps someone else would know.
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Pilgrim1701
Guest
amazon.co.uk/Celtic-Theology-Humanity-World-Writings/dp/0826448712/ref=sr_1_15?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1328199868&sr=1-15
One of the reviews for this says; ‘For those who like to think that the Celtic Christianity was something other than that practiced by the Roman Church,Thomas O’Loughlin leaves them in no doubt that they are wrong.’
I’ve read another book by the same author on ‘Discovering St Patrick’.
There seems to be a trend, in rejecting the Roman Catholic Church, to find some sort of replacement, and the drive is to say 'Oh well, the CELTIC church was not like this that or the other. There were eastern influences to be sure, particularly in the early monastic tradition, and no doubt some regional difference as to liturgies and liturgical calenders, but this was true elsewhere also.
It is uncertain whether St Patrick was raised to the episcopate in mainland Europe, or in Britain, but since Pope St Celestine had already sent a bishop called Palladius to evangelise Ireland, and the relationship with the Church in Britain, not to mention trade within the British isles and with Europe, would suggest Ireland was already coming under the influence of Rome.
One of the reviews for this says; ‘For those who like to think that the Celtic Christianity was something other than that practiced by the Roman Church,Thomas O’Loughlin leaves them in no doubt that they are wrong.’
I’ve read another book by the same author on ‘Discovering St Patrick’.
There seems to be a trend, in rejecting the Roman Catholic Church, to find some sort of replacement, and the drive is to say 'Oh well, the CELTIC church was not like this that or the other. There were eastern influences to be sure, particularly in the early monastic tradition, and no doubt some regional difference as to liturgies and liturgical calenders, but this was true elsewhere also.
It is uncertain whether St Patrick was raised to the episcopate in mainland Europe, or in Britain, but since Pope St Celestine had already sent a bishop called Palladius to evangelise Ireland, and the relationship with the Church in Britain, not to mention trade within the British isles and with Europe, would suggest Ireland was already coming under the influence of Rome.
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Stephentlig
Guest
I’m Irish and I never would have known that we were more eastern in thought. Often when I think of all the hermitages on the cliffs in the west I think of how Eastern it all felt. And since Ireland is so cold, monasticism here in such a fashion must have been very difficult for them compared to the desert of Eygpt etc where apart from nighttime would have been relatively warm to live in.
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Filii_Dei
Guest
The desert night is actually rather cold, and the huge change in temperatures between day and night in the desert could actually be a greater challenge. Anyway, many of the monastics would have likely been native, and they would be used to the temperatures. In any case, monastics aren’t prohibited from keeping themselves warm, you know. The monasteries would be losing a lot of their brothers to hypothermia otherwise.
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DL82
Guest
I know that for some time, the Church of Scotland taught Church history to its ministry candidates in 3 periods - the Early Church, the Church up to the Synod of Whitby, and the Reformation to the Present - anything that happened between the acceptance of ‘Roman’ norms in these islands until Calvin and Knox came along didn’t interest them!
Things have moved on since then, but I can see where this interpretation comes from
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Celticnovice
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mardukm
Guest
To be more concise, it is the Orientals who have more claim to a connection with the Irish Church than the Eastern Byzantines.
Blessings,
Marduk
Blessings,
Marduk
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BertBlyleven
Guest
This is a huge trend, and seems to be largely driven by wishful thinking.
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Ignatios
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Ignatios
Guest
Also this:
stpeterandstpaul.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=45:church-history&Itemid=173&layout=default
enjoy and GOD bless you all †††
stpeterandstpaul.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=45:church-history&Itemid=173&layout=default
enjoy and GOD bless you all †††
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mardukm
Guest
While I appreciate much of what is in the article, the following is just uninformed bias:
**St.Patrick’s presence on the Island of Lerins accounted for his Independence from Rome. St.Patrick liked to follow True Orthodoxy.
He followed the Church of Jerusalem and not Rome. Jerusalem was the Mother Church of Christianity. Patrick was never a Roman Catholic, he was a Celt and predated Roman Catholicism as we know it.**
St. Patrick believed in the Latin doctrines of Purgatory and the Procession of the Holy Spirit from Father and Son. He was sent to Ireland under the omophor of Pope St. Celestine and other Latin bishops.
We can expect the influence of Copts through the Tradition of monasticism everywhere. But this Coptic author’s denial of St. Patrick’s Roman Catholicism is just revisionist hogwash.
Blessings,
Marduk
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Ignatios
Guest
I am sure he would have responded appropriately to you IF he was to respond to a bunch of hogwash talks, but I doubt that someone in his level would even consider reading more than 30 seconds into your version of Roman Catholicism.
Blessings to all especially to you Marduk.
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mardukm
Guest
I would love to hear his response to the facts that St. Patrick believed in the Latin doctrines of Purgatory and filioque, and was sent under the omophor of Pope St. Celestine. I would love to hear his reasons for claiming that St. Patrick was not Roman Catholic. Unfortunately, the scholarship that you claim for him did not go that far in his article to which you linked. Care to contact him?
Blessings,
Marduk
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Mintaka
Guest
I’m pretty sure that the Egyptian author wouldn’t agree with another piece of Irish historical writing – the one that claimed that Latin, Greek, and Hebrew were all specially blessed by God; but that Irish was artificially constructed at the language academy set up just after the Babelization of language, as the most beautiful possible language composed from the most beautiful of all mankind’s sounds.
Loving Irish literature, like loving those of us who are Irish, means being willing to enjoy a bit of bull, but also being willing to call it when you see it.
Ireland had ports. They got a lot of Mediterranean travelers, whenever the coastdwellers in Ireland and the continent and Scandinavia weren’t doing too much piracy and slave-raiding. They got a lot of travelers from Europe. They held onto all kinds of Roman and Greek stuff, and some Coptic too.
However, Ireland also did its own thing. I don’t think there’s too many Coptic abbot/bishops who ever agreed to serve as elected king and warleader of their clan, even if they got everybody to promise that he wouldn’t be made to marry and have kids like a proper king should. (It was an emergency situation during invasion, and all the other eligible males in line were dead or too young, but there ain’t nobody in Christendom that would have supported the poor abbot. He certainly knew he was cruising close to the wind.)
The other thing you have to realize is that, though Ireland was always poor, except during the balmy days before the Little Ice Age, they had a lot better libraries than almost anybody else in Europe (until the Vikings, English, Famine, Irish Civil War, etc. came along), and they had long memories. So there’s a lot of stuff they held onto or acquired.
For example, just the other day, I was looking online at a nice Irish manuscript of Paul’s letters in Greek (written and colored in an Irish style, which was pretty cool), with glosses written in Latin above. This isn’t something you could easily have laid your hands on in, say, France.
Loving Irish literature, like loving those of us who are Irish, means being willing to enjoy a bit of bull, but also being willing to call it when you see it.
Ireland had ports. They got a lot of Mediterranean travelers, whenever the coastdwellers in Ireland and the continent and Scandinavia weren’t doing too much piracy and slave-raiding. They got a lot of travelers from Europe. They held onto all kinds of Roman and Greek stuff, and some Coptic too.
However, Ireland also did its own thing. I don’t think there’s too many Coptic abbot/bishops who ever agreed to serve as elected king and warleader of their clan, even if they got everybody to promise that he wouldn’t be made to marry and have kids like a proper king should. (It was an emergency situation during invasion, and all the other eligible males in line were dead or too young, but there ain’t nobody in Christendom that would have supported the poor abbot. He certainly knew he was cruising close to the wind.)
The other thing you have to realize is that, though Ireland was always poor, except during the balmy days before the Little Ice Age, they had a lot better libraries than almost anybody else in Europe (until the Vikings, English, Famine, Irish Civil War, etc. came along), and they had long memories. So there’s a lot of stuff they held onto or acquired.
For example, just the other day, I was looking online at a nice Irish manuscript of Paul’s letters in Greek (written and colored in an Irish style, which was pretty cool), with glosses written in Latin above. This isn’t something you could easily have laid your hands on in, say, France.
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Mintaka
Guest
I found what I was looking at. It’s called the “Codex Boernerianus”, these days, and it resides in Dresden. The first few pages are some kind of intro in very crabbed and stuffed together handwriting, the first Paul page is nearly rubbed away, the ink toward the top and bottom margins is in bad shape, and the left hand pages have a lot of bleed-through of ink.
But once you actually get into the Paul section, most of the right hand pages are very eminently readable, even for people like me who don’t know much Greek and aren’t much good at medieval handwriting styles.
Here’s the Wikipedia page, which links at the bottom to the Dresden library’s digitalizations of the book. It’s from the 800’s, which isn’t super-duper early, but it’s still pretty nice. It was taken from the famous library of the Irish expatriate monastery of St. Gall, in Switzerland.
But once you actually get into the Paul section, most of the right hand pages are very eminently readable, even for people like me who don’t know much Greek and aren’t much good at medieval handwriting styles.
Here’s the Wikipedia page, which links at the bottom to the Dresden library’s digitalizations of the book. It’s from the 800’s, which isn’t super-duper early, but it’s still pretty nice. It was taken from the famous library of the Irish expatriate monastery of St. Gall, in Switzerland.
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Hesychios
Guest
I agree.
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