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 SCOTO-HIBERNIAN

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SCOTO-HIBERNIAN

degree at one of these universities, or at least a cer- tificate of having attended courses of lectures therein, is as a rule required of students aspiring to the Presby- terian ministry. Many "bursaries" or scholarships are available for students in divinity; and the course of studies prescribed for them is comprehensive and carefully arranged. It is impossible, however, to deny the fact, or to view it without apprehension, that the hold of dogmatic truth is becoming constantly weaker in the Established as in the Free Church, among teach- ers and learners alike. German rationalistic ideas have penetrated deeply into the divinity halls of the Kirk; and half an hour's conversation with a Scotch professor of Biblical criticism or systematic theology, or with the ablest of the younger generation of minis- ters who have sat at their feet, will be sufficient to show how wide has been the departure from the old orthodox standards of belief within the Church. The latest formula of subscription imposed on ministers at their ordination still professes a belief in the "fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith" con- tained in the Presbyterian Confession; but this does not apparently include any real acceptance cither of the Divinity of Christ or of the inspiration of Holy Scripture, at least in the sense in which tho.se doctrines are understood by Catholics. "In Presbyterian Scotland", writes a modern critic, "there are many good Christians, but Pr(!sbyterian Scotland is em- phatically not a Christian country, any more than Protestant England." That such a deliberate ver- dict should be possible in the twentieth century of the Christian era is melancholy indeed.

Acts of the General Assetriblies of the Church of Scotland, 1638- 1854 (Edinburgh, 1843-75) ; Confession of Faith of the Church of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1638); First and Second Book of Dis- cipline (a. 1., 1621); Sage, An Account of the Present Persecu- tion of the Church in Scotland (Ix)ndon, 1690) ; Brief arul True Account of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland occasioned by the Episcopalians (London, 1690) ; Short Statement of the origin and nature of the present divisions in the Church of Scotland (London, 1840) ; Fothehi.voham, Presbyterianism in Religious Systems of the WorLl (Edinburgh, 1861); McCrie, The Public Worship of Presbyterian Scotland (Edinburgh, 1892); Calder- WOOD, History of the Church of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1842-44) ; Lee, Lectures on the History of the Church of Scotland from Ref- ormation to Revolution (Edinburgh, 1860); Kixloch, History of Scotland, chiefly in its Ecclesiastical Aspect (Edinburgh, 1888) ; Walker, Scottish Church History (Edinburgh, 1881); Church of Scotland Year-book (Edinburgh, 1911); Power, Presbyterianism in C. T. S. Lectures on Hist, of Religions (London, s. d.)

D. O Hunter-Blair.

Scoto-Hibernian Monasteries, a convenient term under which to include the monastic institutions which were founded during the sixth century in the country now known as Scotland, though that name was not used in its present sense until four hundred years later. These institutions owed their origin to the zeal and energy of St. Columba, whose labours among the Picts and Scots extended over a period of nearly forty years, and whose biographer, Adamnan, the ninth abbot of lona, is our chief authority on the subject, although his list of Columban foundations is probably incomplete, and the exact dates of their erection are uncertain. What is certain, however, is that these monastic houses grouped themselves round lona as their centre, and long remained in close con- nexion with her. Like the Columban houses in Ire- land, they acknowledged the jurisdiction of lona as that of their mother-house, and the communities belonging to them together formed the widespread organization known as the family of lona, or muinlir loe. Not all these monasteries were actually founded by St. Columba in person, some of them owing their origin to his immediate followers, whose names have in many cases survived the (lisai)pearance of all material traces of the establishments in question. Reeves, Skene, and other Scottish and Iri.sh anti- quarians have devoted much time, labour, and re- search in the endeavour to identify the localities men-

tioned by Adamnan and other early writers. With out following them into these topographical and phil- ological details, it may be stated generally that vestiges of Columban foundations are to be found in the northern, eastern, and western districts of Scot- land, formerly occupied respectively by the Northern and Southern Picts and by the Scots of Dalriada. Many of these monasteries were established on the islands off the west coast, including Tiree, Skye, Garveloch, Harris, Lewis, North and South Uist, Lismore, Mull, Eigg, Canna, Colonsay, and numerous smaller islands.

Adamnan makes no mention of the monasteries founded by Columba and his contemporaries and fol- lowers in the Pictish territories north and east of the great central mountain-range known as Drumalban; but from other sources we know that there were many of such foundations, several of them being in the remote Orkney Islands. The Book of Deer, a notable foundation in the Buchan district, records the method in which these isolated monasteries were established among the heathen tribes, the head of a tribe granting a cnlhair, or fort, which was then occupied by a colony of clerics or missionaries — a system of settlement in every respect similar to that prevailing in the Irish Church at the same period. All down the east coast, as far as the Forth, we find the name of Colum, Colm or Comb constantly associated at the present day with churches, chapels, parishes, fau-s, and wells, showing how widespread were the influence and labours of the saint of lona. In the territory of th( Southern Picts, who as a nation had been converted to Christianity a century before by St. Ninian though many of the faithful had since fallen away the faith was revived, and new centres of religion and of missionary work were formed by the monasterie."- established by Columba and his friends. The mo niistic church of Abernethy was founded, or rather refoundcd, by King Gartnaidh, son and successor of Brude, Columba's own convert and warm ally. Another friend of the saint, Cainnech, founded the church and monastery of Kilrimont, celebrated in after times as St. Andrews. The monastic church of Dunkeld, though founded much later, at the event- ful period when the Picts and Scots were united under the sceptre of Kenneth Mc Alpine, was essentially a Columban foundation, though by that time the in- fluence of the venerable mother-house of lona had greatly waned, and the jurisdiction over the Irish monastic churches had in fact been transferred to Kells in Meath.

In Scotland Dunkeld, under royal patronage, took the place of lona as the head of the Columban churches; and so clearly was this recognized that when the diocesan form of church government was established in Scotland, lona was included in the Diocese of Dunkeld, and remained so long after Argyll, of which it formed a part, became the seat of a bishopric of its own. By that time, however, the Columban or monastic church, dominant in Scot- land for nearly two centuries, had, as an organized body, decayed and disappeared. Early in the eighth century the remnant of Columban monks were ex- pelled by King Nectan, and the primacy of lona came to an end. The numerous Columban monasteries, or at least such of them as were not abandoned and in ruins, came into the hands of the now dominant Culdees; and they in turn, when the Scottish Church came to be reorganized on the English model under the influence of St. Margaret and her family, found themselves gradually superseded by the regular monastic orders which were introduced into the country by the munificence of kings, princes, and nobles, and reared their splendid abbeys on the sites of the humble monasteries of Columban days. One Columban house onlv, the monastery of Deer already mentioned, which had been founded by Columba