The Ascetic Revival of the Ninth Century

Ascetic solitaries were common in the Irish church at a very early date. The ascetic tradition of the sixth and seventh centuries was particularly strong and remained so until the eighth century, when it suffered a temporary decline with the growth and secularization of the great monastic paruchiae . The ascetic revival of the late eighth and early ninth centuries was led by a group of highly articulate and persuasive monks who referred to themselves as the Célí Dé, the "companions of God," but were popularly referred to as the Culdees. We are convinced that the hermitage of the South Peak is an expression of Skellig Michael's enthusiasm for the Culdee revival. To understand the cultural and chronological implications of this movement we must review briefly the history of Irish eremitism and the fluctuating attitudes of the Irish toward the anchoritic ideal during the first few centuries after monasticism was introduced into Ireland.

One of the outstanding characteristics of Irish monasticism was the desire to imitate as closely as possible the monastic pattern of the first desert monks of Egypt. The life of the solitary ascetic who fled the world in search of union with God was celebrated in Europe, as in Egypt, as the highest and purest form of monastic life. St. Anthony, whose life and deeds in the Thebaid desert had been a major force in popularizing monasticism in the fourth century, was the heroic exemplar. The biography of St. Anthony by Athanasius (ca. 296–377) helped to disseminate Antonian asceticism throughout Europe.^[5] In St. Martin (ca. 316–400) Europe found its counterpart to St. Anthony, and soon the Life of St. Martin by Sulpicius Severus (ca. 363–420) circulated throughout Europe along with the Life of Anthony .^[6] Solitary asceticism was praised throughout Europe, but nowhere was it imitated so faithfully, for so long, or on such a grand scale as in Ireland. Enthusiastically adopting Antonian ideals, early Irish monks began with hermitages and small eremitic colonies. The sixth-century Irish monk Columbanus exhorted his fellows: "Let us die to ourselves that we may live to Christ; for we cannot live to Him unless first we die to ourselves, that is, to our wills."^[7] In another sermon he admonished his followers, "Have no mercy on transitory things, lest you lose what is eternal; the whole world is foreign to you who are born and buried bare."^[8] Thus two centuries and a continent away, the words and spirit were still entirely Antonian.

In adhering to this spirit, the Irish monks constantly sought the equivalent of the Egyptian desert. On the Irish mainland the locations of old hermitages are still recognizable by the name dysert or disert . The most determined ascetics, however, sought their desert on islands in the sea. The hagiographies contain countless references to monks searching for "a solitude in the pathless sea."^[9]

The second half of the sixth century saw the beginning of another aspect of Irish monachism: the creation of monastic paruchiae . These were monastic communities, geographically widespread but united in confederation under the rule of the abbot of the chief monastery. This organizational structure was directly related to the preexisting secular social system in which several petty kings owed allegiance to an overking; in fact, paruchiae were

[5] St. Athanasius wrote his Vita Antonii shortly after the death (356/357) of the great anchorite to furnish monks in other parts of the world with a model of ascetic life and to reassure the church that monachism was not heretical but orthodox. In 388 the treatise was translated into Latin by Evagrius of Antioch. For a translation into English with a rich body of textual annotations, see Athanasius, The Life of Antony and the Letter to Marcellinus , trans. Gregg, 1980.

[6] For a recent edition of the Latin text translated into French by Jacques Fontaine, see the Bibliography under Sulpicius Severus. A translation into English by Alexander Roberts can be found under the same heading.

[7] "Nosque nobis moriamur ut Christo vivamus; ei enim vivere non possumus nisi nobis ante, hoc est, nostris voluntatibus moriamur" (Sancti Columbani Opera , ed. and trans. Walker, 1957, 102–3).

[8] "Ne parcas caducis, ne aeterna perdas; alienus tibi totus mundus est, qui nudus natus nudus sepeliris" (ibid., 78–79).

[9] The Vita Sancti Columbae by Adamnan is full of these references. The following example is typical: "Some of our brethren have lately set sail, and are anxious to discover a desert in the pathless sea." (Aliqui ex nostris nuper emigraverunt, desertum in pelago intransmeabili invenire optantes) (ed. and trans. Reeves, 1874, 71, 185).

frequently allied with and supported by the ruling families. For example, all of the monasteries belonging to the paruchia of St. Columba were in the territory controlled by his family, the Uí Néill, and seven of the first eight abbots of Iona, the chief Columban monastery, were relatives of St. Columba's. In time, economic and social dependence on aristocratic families caused the gradual secularization of many of the great monastic confederations.^[10]

During the seventh century monastic paruchiae were becoming increasingly important and common. But the earlier Egyptian ideals of ascetic simplicity and austerity were not forgotten, and monasteries continued to support and encourage ascetics. It was not unusual for the founders of monasteries to spend some time as hermits, either early in life or upon the approach of old age.^[11] The great scholastic monastery of Bangor still consciously looked to the model of Egyptian monachism and felt itself the direct spiritual descendant of Egypt. The Antiphonary of Bangor , written between 680 and 691, makes some nineteen references to Egypt; the attitude embodied in them is summed up perfectly in one of the quatrains:

A House full of Delights
Built on Rock
A veritable vine
Transmitted from Egypt.

Domus deliciis plena
Super petram constructa
Necon vinea vera
Ex Aegypto transducta.^[12]

By the eighth century the monastic paruchiae exercised effective control over the Irish church. The great wealth and power resulting from their alliance with ruling families led to the creation of great monastic schools from which beautiful manuscripts and decorative metalwork emerged. Inevitably in a system where family lands were frequently also monastic lands and where the monastic and the secular were often inseparable and indistinguishable from each other, a certain secularization of the monasteries occurred. In some cases abbacies became secular and administrative, and their succession passed down not only in families but also from father to son. Abbot Corman of the Monasterboice monastery died in 764 and was succeeded by his son Dub-da-inber. At Trevet between 774 and 839 a father, son, and grandson made up the abbatial succession. This increasing secularization of monasteries, though not inherently evil, did facilitate abuses of monastic ideals. The difference was blurred between goals, attitudes, and position in the spiritual and secular worlds.^[13]

Monks even went to war. In 764 Clonmacnoise and Durrow were involved in an armed conflict in which two hundred men of Durrow are said to have been killed. In Emain Macha in 759 Ulstermen fought with the southern Uí Néill. According to The Annals of Tigernach this battle took place "at

[10] For a discussion of the formation of paruchiae , see de Paor and de Paor |1958|, 1967, 50–51; Hughes |1966|, 1980, chap. 7.

[11] St. Cuthbert spent most of the last eleven years of his life in a hermitage on Farne Island after retiring as abbot of Lindisfarne in 676. St. Fursey spent some time as a hermit on an island in Lough Corrib near Galway (ca. 630) before he traveled to England and the Continent to found monasteries (Henry 1963, 1:41). On Fursey see also Bede, trans. Sherley-Price, 1955, bk. 3, chap. 19.

[12] For the text see Antiphonary of Bangor , ed. Warren, 1895, 2:28. The date is discussed in the introduction to that volume.

[13] For a lucid account of the secularization of the church in the eighth century, see Hughes |1966|, 1980, 163.

the will of Airechtach, priest of Armagh through discord with Abbot Fer-dáchrich" (Hughes [1966] 1980, 170). The references to ecclesiastical synods, common in the sixth and seventh centuries, declined in the eighth century, suggesting that the abbots were looking more to the secular kings than to their fellow churchmen for support (Hughes [1966] 1980, 170–72).

By the late eighth century a reaction to this state of affairs resulted in a great Irish ascetic and anchoritic revival. The reformers were determined to remove from monachism any preoccupation with secular affairs; in general they sought a return to the old desert ideal of prayer, meditation, and asceticism (Hughes [1966] 1980, 173–77). The most influential leader of this movement was Máel-ruain, founder of the monastery of Tallaght, a community of ascetics. His followers, unlike earlier ascetics, were forbidden to go on pilgrimage and were instructed to avoid worldly disputes and to avoid asking visitors for news of the world, "since it might harass and disturb the mind of him to whom it was told."^[14]

In addition to forming communities of ascetics, individual Culdees commonly attached themselves as anchorites to one of the great monasteries. In two manuscripts dating from the period 830–840 a monk has recorded the customs and discipline of Máel-ruain and his chief disciple Máel-díthruib of Terryglass, making several references to this practice. "A certain anchorite lived in Clonmacnoise named Laisren, quite naked and free from sin"; and "there was a certain anchorite from Slain—Now he had dairying and store of victuals given him by the monastery."^[15]

The Culdees were not the only practitioners of this anchoritic revival. The ninth-century Rule of Columba advised hermits to be by themselves in a retired spot near a chief monastery. The monastery could provide food, clothes, and spiritual direction; the anchorite, in turn, could spend part of his day teaching, writing, or otherwise assisting the monastery. In the ninth century the term anchorite meant a monk who practiced severe asceticism. He could be a solitary recluse or the chief scribe of a monastery who went into seclusion for only part of the year. The chief duties of the ascetic were prayer and study. But if a monk could not bring himself to tears of compunction in his prayers, the Rule counseled him to turn to manual labor until he sweat (1873, 119, 121).

By example and word, Culdees became the most important ascetic force in Ireland during the late eighth and ninth centuries. Their beliefs spread in part because of the fame of their scholarship. The two main Culdee monasteries, Tallaght and Findglais, were called the two eyes of Ireland in a ninth-century monastic text, The Triads of Ireland .^[16] From these monasteries came several manuscripts containing the Culdee doctrine: the Monastery of Tallaght , the Teaching of Máel-ruain , and the Rule of the Célí Dé . Additionally, there is a section on Culdees in the ninth-century work the Rule of St. Carthage .^[17]

Yet powerful as was the Culdees' influence during this period, it did nothing to alter the basic organizational structure of the Irish church. Lack of uniformity was one outstanding characteristic of the early Irish mo-

[15] "Araile ancarae robui hi cluaoin mac naois laisrien a ainm imnocht imdilmain cen ní for a cubus" (Monastery of Tallaght , 155). "Báoi alaile anchoire antuaid o sláne colcu. Coibnius dochuttae. Rochachti iarum commor corroabstinit. Robaoi iarum áirgi laisim o muindtir taiseit on muindtir" (159).

[16] "Di snil Herenn-Tamlachta, Findglais," The Triads of Ireland , ed. and trans. Meyer, 1906, 3. See also Flower, 1932, 66–75, for a fuller discussion of the role of anchorites and Culdees in ninth-century Ireland. The most complete discussion of the Culdees to date, incorporating all documentary references to them, is found in O'Dwyer, 1981.

[17] The Teaching of Máelruain and The Rule of the Célí Dé can be found in The Rule of Tallaght , ed. and trans. Gwynn, in Hermathena no. 44, 2d supp. vol., 1927, 1–87. The part of the Rule of St. Carthage that discusses the Culdees may be found in Mac-Ewen, 1915, 1:131.

nastic orders; each house had its own rules and practices. There was never any attempt to exercise or enforce the organizational discipline common to continental Benedictines.^[18] Following the Culdees' lead was always purely voluntary, a matter of conscience; their appeal to the individual was emotional and carried with it no authority for enforcement. Paradoxically, this may mean that the appeal and influence of the Culdees were greatest among monks, like those of Skellig Michael, who were already living a severely ascetic life.

Spiritual power unsupported by a unified organization tends to dissipate in time. So it was with the influence of the Culdees. The secularization and growth of the great monastic paruchiae continued and increased in the tenth century.