Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 11.djvu/473

 PALLADIUS

425

PALLADIUS

island lying under wintry cold, l)ut God hindered him, for no man can receive anything from earth unless it be given to him from heaven; and neither did those fierce and cruel men receive his doctrine readily, nor did he himself wish to spend time in a strange land, but returned to him who sent him. On his return hence, however, having crossed the first sea and com- menced his land journey, he died in the territory of the Britons." In the Scholia on St. Fiacc's Hymn in the ancient "Liber Hyranorum" it is stated that in the country of the Hy-Garclion, Palladius "founded some churches: Teach-na-Roman, or the House of the Ro- mans, Kill-Fine, and others. Nevertheless he was not well received, but was forced to go round the coast of Ireland towards the north, until driven by a tempest he reached the extreme p.art of Modhaidh towards the south, where he fovmded the church of Fordun, and Fledi is his name there." The Vita Secunda, life of St. Patrick, in Colgan's collection, adds further interest- ing details: "The most blessed Pope Celestine or- dained Bisiiop the Archdeacon of the Roman Church, named Pall-adius, and sent him into the Island of Hi- bernia, after having committed to him the relics of Blessed Peter and Paul and other Saints, and having also given him the volumes of the Old and New Testa- ments. Palladius, entering the land of the Irish, ar- rived at the territory of the men of Leinster where Nathi Mac Garrchon was chief, who was opposed to him. Others, however, whom the Divine mercy had disposed towards the worship of God, having been baptized in the name of the sacred Trinity, the blessed Palladius built three Churches in the same district; one, which is called Cellfme, in which even to the pres- ent day, he left his books which he had received from St. Celestine and the box of relics of the blessed Peter and Paul and other Saints, and the tablets on which he used to write, which in the Irish language are called from his name Pallere, that is, the burilen of Palladius, and are held in veneration. Another, Tcrh-na-Roman, and the third Domnach Ardec, in which are buried the holy men of the companions of Palladius, Sylvester and Salonius, who are honoured there. After a short time Palladius died in the plain of Girgin in a place which is called Fordun. But others say that he was crowned with martyrdom there." Another ancient document, known as the Vita Quinia in Colgan's work, repeats the particulars here given relating to the foun- dation of three churches, and adds: "But St. Palladius, seeing that he could not do much good there, wishing tQ return to Rome, migrated to the Lord in the region of the Picts. Others, however, say that he was crowned with martyrdom in Ireland."

The three churches have been identified. Teach-na- Roman is Tigroney, where are the ruins of an old church in the parish of Castle Mac Adam in the county of Wicklow. Kill-Fine was supposed by Fa- ther Shearman to be the same as Killeen Cormac, a re- markable old churchyard, three miles south-west of Dunlavin, but more probably situated in the parish of Glendalough, in the townland which the Ordnance Survey has named Lara-West, but which is still called Killfinn by the people. The third church Domnach A rdec is Donard which gives its name to a parish and village in the west of the County Wicklow in the barony of Lower Talbotstown. This parish, as Father Shear- man writes, retains "some vestiges of its ancient im- portance; the sites of primeval Christian churches, large and well-preserved Raths and Tumuli, Crom- lechs, Ogham Pillars, ancient ecclesiastical Cashels, Pagan Cathairs on the surrounding hills, with many other evidences of a civilized and numerous pop- ulation". The modern critical Scottish historians. Bishop Forbes, Skene, and others, confess that in re- gard to the connexion of St. Palladius with Scotland, the Irish documents are the only reliable sources. The traditions set forth in Fordun's chronicle and later writings are regarded as purely mythical. One assigns

to Palladius an apostolate in Scotland of twenty-three years; another makes him the tutor of St. Servanus, contemporary of St. Adamnan and Brude, King of the Picts (a. d. 697-706), all of which is irreconcilable with the Irish narratives and with the date of the saint's mission from St. Celestine. A German theory has found favour with some writers in recent times, to the effect that the Bishop Palladius referred to in the second entry by Prosper as sent to Ireland by Celes- tine was none other than St. Patrick. This theory viewed independently of the ancient historical narra- tives would have much to commend it. It would merely imply that the Bishop Palladius of the second entry in the chronicle was distinct from the Deacon Palladius of the first entry, and that the scanty rec- ords connected with Palladius's mission to Ireland were to be referred to St. Patrick. But this theory is inconsistent with the unbroken series of testimonies in the ancient lives of St. Patrick and cannot easily be reconciled with the traditions of the Scottish Church.

Shearman. Loca Patriciana (Dublin, 1879); Stokes, Vita Tri- partila in Rolls Series {London. 1888); Forbes, Kalendars of Scot- tish MSS. (Edinburgli, 1872): Skene, Celtic Scotland, II (Edin- burgh, 1886); Bellesheim, Hist, of the C. Church in Scotland, tr. Hunter-Blair, I (Edinburgh and London, 1887). See also lives of St. Patrick by Healy, Tonn, Burt. etc.

Patrick Francis Cardinal Moran.

Palladius (naXXdSios), b. in Galatia, 368; d. probably before 431. The identity of the author of the "Historia Lausiaca", of the Palladius who wrote a life of St. John Chrysostom, and of the Bishop of Helenopolis, long disputed, has been vindicated of late years (Preuschen, Butler, op. cit.) and is now generally accepted. A disciple of Evagrius of Pontus (q. v.) and an admirer of Origen, he became, when twenty years of age, a monk on the Mount of Olives under a certain priest. Innocent. After three years he went to Egypt to study the life of the famous Egyptian monks (see Monasticism), but later, fall- ing into ill-health, wandered from one colony of monks to another, and made the acquaintance of Didymus the Bhnd (d. 395) who had known St. Anthony. In the Nitrian desert., then inhabited by thousands of monks living partly in communities and partly as isolated hermits, he met Evagrius. For nine years he stayed among these monks, observing their life and hearing the traditions of their founders, Anthony, Paul, Pachomius, Pambo, etc.; he also visited the monks and nuns of the Thebaid and Scete, so that he saw all the chief monastic colonies of Egypt. On the death of Evagrius (399), Palladius set out for his own country (Asia Minor) by Alex- andria and Palestine. At Bethlehem he met St. Jerome, whose great knowledge, he declares, was marred by "envy and jealousy" (Hist. Laus., 1, Of Possidonius). The great opponent of Origen was nat- urally not sympathetic to his visitor. At Jerusalem Palladius saw Rufinus of Aquileia and Melania. In Bithynia he was ordained bishop (ibid., xlix, Of John of Lycus). St. John Chrysostom ordained him for the See of Helenopohs, hut Bardenhewer thinks that Palladius of Helenopolis mentioned by Socrates, "Hist. Eccl.", VII, xxxvi (Frcilnirg. 1S94, p. 3.54), is another person. From this time he hei'omes a zealous adherent of his patriarch, whose troubles in 403 he shared. He was imprisoned for eleven months in a dark cell (Hist. Laus., loc. cit.). Later he hved for a time in Palestine near Jericho under a famous her- mit, Elpidius of Cappadocia (Hist. Laus., Ix, Of Elpidius). In 40,') he went to Rome to plead the cause of Chrysostom with Innocent I (401-17) and Emperor Honorius (395-423). He came back to Con- stantinople as a member of the mission sent by Honorius to Arcadius (30.5—108) in favour of the banished pa/- triarch. But there he and his colleagues were im- prisoned and then banished, Palladius being sent to Syene in Upper Egypt. Later he went to Antinoe