Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 5.djvu/239

 DUNSTAN

199

DUNSTAN

467; Pluzanski, Essai sur la philosophie de D. Scot. (Paris, 1888); Werner, Joh. Duns Scoliis (Vienna, 1881); Idem, Die Psychology und Erkennlnisslehre des Joh. Duns Scotus (Vienna, 1877); Seebero, Die Theologie ties Duns Scotus (Leipzig, 19(X)): MiNGEs, 1st Duns Scotus Jndelerminislf (Miinster, 1905); Idem, Der Gottesbegriff des Duns Scotus auf seinen angeblich excessiven Indeterminismus gepruft (Vienna, 1907): Idem, Die Gnaden- Ithre des Duns Scotus auf ihren angeblichen Pelagianismus un.I S, nj,i~l"'nanismus gepriifl (Munster, 1906); Idem, Ver- A '.- n Glauben und Wissen, Theologie und Philoso-


 * .' /' /.i Sco/i« (Paderborn, 1908); Idem, Dfranaeb/icA

190S); Idem,

ningica quoad iiiaracchi, 1908), l.s by the same -' ((/j/.s in Zeilschr.

des Dii Jonnnis D'/ns Scoti doctrm ' / prcecipuas proposita. exf" I, II; cf. also the fol^.^. i author: Die angeblich la i> /.- f. kalh. Theol. (Innsbrurk, 1 Werke nach Duns .S'co^/n in 7' 76-93; Beitrag zur Lchn- des Duns Scotus iiber </i. Person Jesu Chrisli (Tu- bingen), 384-124; Bedeu- tung von Objekt, Umstanden und Zweck fur die Sittlich- keit eines Aktes nach Duns Scotus in Philosophisches Jahrbuch (Fulda, 1906), 338-347; Beitrag zur Lehre des Duns Scotus uber du Univocation des Sein.-^bi- griUes (Fulda), 306-323.

Lexicographic Aids: — De Varesio, Promptua- rium Scoticum (Venice, 1690), I, II; Garcia, Lest- con Scholasticon {Scoticum). (Quaracchi, 1906-1908), distributio, 1-4.

Parthenids Minges.

Dunstan, Saint, archbishop and con- fessor, one of the great- est saints of the Anglo- Saxon Church ; b. near Glastonbury on the estate of his father, Heorstan, a West Sax- on noble. His mother, Cynethryth, a woman of saintly life, was mir- aculously forewarnetl of the sanctity of the child within her. She was in the church of St. Mary on Candlemas Day, when all the lights were suddenly extinguished. Then the candle held by I'yne- thryth was as suddenly relighted, and all pres- ent lit their candles at this miraculous fiame, thus foreshadowing

that the boy "would be the minister of eternal light" to the Church of England. In what year St. ]5un- stan was born has been much disputed. Osbern, a writer of the late eleventh century, fixes it at "the first year of the reign of King Aethelstan",

and committed to the care of the Irish scholars, who then frequented the desolate sanctuary of Glaston- bury. We are told of his childish fervour, of his vision of the great abbey restored to splendour, of his nearly fatal illness and miraculous recovery, of the enthusi- asm with which he absorbed every kind of human knowledge, and of his manual skill. Indeed, thro\igh- out his life he was noted for his devotion to learning and for his mastery of many kinds of artistic crafts- manship. With his parents' consent he was tonsured, received minor orders, and served in the ancient church of St. Mary. So well known did he become for devotion and learning that he is said to have

., ( I ul.iim.li, 1907), been summoned by his uncle Athelm, Archbishop of -. — m— — r-.,» - Canterbury, to enter

T)ichii'iicrfcviptii|,'nViiiiiiS)},i5iiic fiibriif II I fa r'tfttvjpiopjmnianii sn>un(Vfliii.

Fol. 1 recto, .MS. Auct., F. IV. 32, Bodleian Library,0.xford, 956

his service. By one of St. Dunstan 's earliest biographers we are in- formed that the young scholar was introduced by his uncle to King .\ethelstan, but there must be some mistake here, for Athelm prob- ably died about 923, and Aethelstan did not come to the throne till the following year. Perhaps there is con- fusion between Athelm and his successor Wulf- helm. At any rate the yoimg man soon be- came so great a favour- ite with the king as to e.xcite the envy of his kinsfolk at court. They accused him of study- ing heathen literature and magic, and so wrought on the king that St. Dunstan was ordered to leave the court. As he quitted the palace his enemies attacked him, beat him severely, boimd him, and threw him into a filthy pit (probably a cesspool), treading him down in the mire. He managed to crawl out and make his way to the house of a friend, whence he journeyed to Winche.sterandentered

the service of Bishop Aelfheah the Bald, who was hii relative. The bishop endeavoured to persuade him to become a monk, but St. Dunstan was at first doubtful whether he had a vocation to a celibate life. But an attack of swelling tumours all over his body, so severe 924-5. This date, however, cannot be reconciled that he thought it was leprosy, which wa.s perhaps with other known dates of St. Dimstan's life and in- some form of blood-poisoning caused by the treatment volves many obvious absurdities. It was rejected, to which he had been subjected, changed his mind, therefore, by Mabillon and Lingard ; but on the He made his profession at the hands of St. Aelfheah, strength of "two manuscripts of the Chronicle" and and returned to live the life of a hermit at Glaston- "an entry in an ancient Anglo-Saxon paschal table", bury. Against the old church of St. Mary he built a Dr. Stubbs argued in its favour, and his conclusions little cell only five feet long and two and a half feet have been very generally accepted. Careful examina- deep, where he studied and worked at his handicrafts tion, however, of this new evidence reveals all three and played on his harp. Here the devil is said (in a [)a,ssages as interpolations of about the period when late eleventh-century legend) to have tempted him ( »sbern was writing, and there seem to be very good and to have been seized by the face with the saint's rea.sons for accepting the opinion of Mabillon that the tongs.

saint was born long before 92.5. Probably his birth While Dimstan was living thus at Glastonbury he

dates from about the earliest years of the tenth cen- became the trusted adviser of the Lady Aethelflaed,

tury. King Aethelstan's niece, and at her death found hira-

In early youth Dunstan was brought by his father self in control of all her great wealth, which he used in