Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 4.djvu/719

 DAVID

641

DAVID

hi !:i'", which is now generally accepted. Little else til it can claim to be historical is known about St. 1 'avid. The tradition that he was born at HenvjTiyw

I \ itus-Menevin) in Cardiganshire is not improbable. Ho was prominent at the Synod of Brevi (Llandewi Brcfi in Cardiganshire), which has been identified with the important Roman militarj' station, Loventium. Shortly afterwards, in 569, he presided over another synod held at a place called Lncus Victorise. He Wiis Bishop (probably not .-Vrchbishop) of Menevia, the Roman port Menapia in Pembrokeshire, later known

! as St. David's, then the chief point of departure for I Ireland. St. David was canonized by Pope Callistus

II in the year 1120.

I'liis is all that is known to history about the patron

if Wales. His legend, however, is much more elab-

iM 111', and entirely unreliable. The first biography

t h it has come down to us was written near the end of

till' eleventh centurj", about 500 years after the saint's

iliitli, by Rhygj'farch (Ricemarchus), a son of the

till II Bishop of St. David's, and is I'hiefly a tissue of

iiA I'litions intended to su[>|Hirt thi' claiin of the Welsh

r|ii>riipate to be independent nf Caiitcrliury. Giraldus

< ' iiiibrensis, William of Malmesburj', Geoffrey of

Mminiouth, John de Tinmouth, and John Capgrave

all -iinply copy and enlarge upon the work of Rhygy-

I fareh, whilst the anonymous author of the late Welsh

life ijrinted in Rees, "Cambro^Briti.-^h Saints" (Cott.

MS, Titus, D. XXII) adds nothing of any. value. Ac-

iiiig to these writers St. Davie! was the son of Sant

iiidde ab Ceredig ab Cunedda, Prince of Keretica

liganshire) and said by some to be King Arthur's

!!• [ hew, though Geoffrey of Monmouth calls St. David

l\iiiij .\rthur's uncle. The saint's mother was Nonna,

iir Xonnita (sometimes called Melaria), a daughter of

('.\ iiyr of Caergawch. She was a nun who had been

violated by Sant. St. Da\'id's birth had been foretold

tliiity years before by an angel to St. Patrick. It

tiiiik place at "Old Menevia" somewhere about A. d.

)-"i I. Prodigies preceded and accompanied the event,

aril at his baptism at Porth Clais by St. Elvis of Muns-

ti r. "whom Divine Providence brought over from

In land at that conjuncture", a blind man was cured

by the baptismal water. St. David's early education

was received from St. Illtyd at Caerworgom (Lan-

\Mt major) in Glamorganshire. Afterwards he spent

t'l! years studying the Holy Scriptures at Witland in

( annarthenshire, vmder St. Paulinus (Pawl Hen),

wlmm he cured of blindness by the sign of the cross.

A: tlie end of this period St. Paulinus, warned by an

I, sent out the young saint to evangelize the

sii. St. David journeyed throughout the West,

ling or restoring twelve monasteries (among

\' I h occur the great names of Glastonbur>', Bath,

ami Leominster), and finally settled in the Vale of

H -. where he and his monks lived a life of extreme

I rity. Here occurred the temptation of his

Is by the obscene antics of the maid-ser\'ants of

vife of Boia, a local chieftain. Here also his

n iiks tried to poison him, but St. David, warned by

.■^t Sruthyn, who crossed from Ireland in one night on

t' ' back of a sea-monster, blessed the poisoned bread


 * ate it without harm. From hence, with St. Teilo

St. Padam, he set out for Jerusalem, where he

made bishop by the patriarch. Here too St.

i I iirie and St. Daniel fovmd him, when they came to

fall him to the Synod of Brevi "against the Pela-

t'i ins". St. David was with difficulty persuaded to

iiipany them ; on his way he raised a widow's son

". and at the synod preached so loudly, from the

hat miraculotisly ro.se under him, that all could

'•■• IV him, and so eloquently that all the heretics were

'iiiifciimded. St. Dubric resigned the "Archbish-

iiirir nf Caerleon", and St. David was a|)pointed in his

I One of his first acts was to hold, in the year

\ft another .synod called "Victory", against the

Ljians, of which the decrees were confirmed by the

IV— 11

pope. With the permission of King Arthur he re- moved his see from Caerleon to Menevia, whence he governed the British Church for many years with great holiness and wisdom. He died at the great age of 147, on the day predicted by himself a week earlier. His body is said to have been translated to Glastonbury in the year 966.

It is impossible to discover in this story how much, if any, is true. Some of it has obviously been invented for controversial purposes. The twelve monasteries, the temptation by the women, the attempt on his life, all suggest an imitation of the life of St. Benedict. Wilder legends, such as the Journey on the Sea- Monster, are commonplaces of Celtic hagiology. Doubtless Rhygyfarch and his imitators collected many floating local traditions, but how much of these had any historical foimdation and how much was sheer imagination it is no longer possible to decide.

AnTiales Cambrifs, ed. .\B Ithel in Rolls iSpne.s (London, 1860), 3-6: Ada .S'.S., March. I, 3.S-47; Buhez Sanlez Notin. ed. SlON.NET (Paris, 1837); Challon-f.r, Britannia Sancla (Lon- don, 1745), I, 140-45; Hole in Did. Christ. Biog. (London, 1877). I, 791-93; Bradley in Did. Nat. Biog., s. v.: Giraldds Cambrensis, Opera, ed. Brewer in Holht Heriea (London, 1863). Ill, 375-404; Haddan and St.bhs, fn„nr,l,< „,i,l Er.de- fiia.'itical dorumrnt.t rrlating to Great lir.!.i.ti , I, 121, 143. 148; Lives of th. < ■ ■ ' ■ I: ' '. ed.

Rees (Llandoverv. Wales, 1S53). IIIJ :i I'U Is. M. imkm- bert. Les moines ,r Occident (Paris, 1 sijo, 111. Is :,.-,; Nihe- LEr, r.imhn.i .^orni (London, 1879), 446-479; Rkks, Kssau on the ir./x/, s,i,nix I London, 1836). 43, 162, 191. 193; Stanton. Men.,h.,vi „f Kuiihmd and Wales (London, 1887), 92-93, 203; Wharton-, .\nalia Sacra (London. 1691), II. 628-53.

Leslie A. St.L. Toke.

David, Armand, missionary priest and zoologist, b. 1,S26; d. 1900. He entered the Congregation of the Mission in 1848, having already displayed great fond- ness for the natural sciences. Ordained in 1862, he was shortly afterwards sent to Peking, and began there a collection of material for a museum of natural his- tory, mainly zoological, but in which botany and geol- ogy and paheontology were also well represented. At the ret^uest of the French Government important specimens from his collection were sent to Paris and aroused the greatest interest. The Jardin des Plantes commissioned him to undertake scientific journeys through China to make further collections. He suc- ceeded in obtaining many specimens of hitherto un- knoTNTi animals and plants, and the value of his com- prehensive collections for the advance of systematic zoology and especially for the advancement of animal geography received universal recognition from the scientific world. He himself summed up his labours in an address delivered before the International Scien- tific Congress of Catholics at Paris in ,\pril, 1888. He had found in China altogether 200 species of wild ani- mals, of which 6S were hitherto unknown to zoologists ; 807 species of birds, 65 of which had not been de- scribed before. Besides, a large collection of reptiles, batrachians, and fishes was made and handed over to specialists for further study, al.so a large mnnber of moths and insects, many of them hitherto unknown, were brought to the museum of the Jardin des Plantes. What Father David's scientific journeys meant for botany may be inferred from the fact that among the rhododendrons which he collected no less than fifty-two new species were foimd and among the ■primula: about forty, while the Western Mountains of China furnished an even greater number of hitherto imknown sj)ecies of gentian. The most remarkable of hitherto unknown animals foimd by David was a spe- cies of bear (ur.vm mcUinoleucu/i, the black-white bear) which is a. connecting link between the cats and bears. Another remarkable animal fovmd by him received the scientific name of rlajihurus dnridi- anus. Of this animal the Chinese say that it has the horns of the .stag, the neck of the camel, the foot of the cow, and the tail of the a,ss. It h.id dis:ippeared with the exception of a few preser\'ed in the gardens of the Emperor of China, but David succeeded in securing a