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lONA

solet dici." The version of the psalm " Venite exult- emus" used in the Breviary is that of the ancient Ro- man psalter, which differs in some passages from the Vulgate. H. Leclercq.

lona, School of. — lona is the modern name de- rived Ijy change of letter from Adamnan's loua; in Bede it is Hii; the Gaelic form is always I or Y, which becomes Hy by prefixing the euphonic h. This rugged, storm-swept i.sland, three miles long and one in average breadth, and about a mile distant from the Ross of Mull, was next to Armagh the greatest centre of Gaelic Christianity — the latter was Pat- rick's city and primatial see; the former Columba's monastic city, a "primatial island", and the light of all the North. Yet closely connected with Ireland for at least 600 years, it may be described as an Irish island in the Scottish seas. Columba, born in 521, landed with twelve of his monks at the southern ex-

of Kells" be his own work, and he was engaged in copying one of the psalms when, overtaken by mortal illness, he directed his nephew Baithcn to write the rest. And we are told, too, that Baithen during his brief abbacy of three years in succession to Columba was, like his master, engaged in "writing, praying and teaching up to the hour of his happy death". When asked about the learning of Baithen, Fintan one of his monks replied: "Be assured that he had no equal on this side of the Alps in his knowledge of Sacred Scrip- ture, and in the profundity of his science " ; and he was at once a pupil and a professor of the School of lona. Language like this might be considered exag- gerated if we did not possess the writings of Adamnan, the ninth abbot and the most illustrious scholar of lona.

Adamnan, otherwise Eunan, a native of Drum- home, in County Donegal, and a tribal relative of Co- lumba, was educated from his youth in lona, and it

Rdins of Iona Cathedral — Exterior

tremity of the island — ever since called Porta Chur- raich, or the Bay of the Island — on Whitsun Eve, 12 May, 563. Whether he came to do penance for his share in the battle of Cuildreimhne two years before, or, as the Irish "Life" says, "to preach the Gospel to the men of Alba and to the Britons and to the Saxons" — which in any case was his primary purpose — we cannot now determine. It appears that he got a grant of the island from his relative Conall, King of Dalriada, which was afterwards confirmed by Brude, King of the Picts, when the latter was con- verted by the preaching of Columba, who immediately set to work to build his monastery, more Scottcrum, of earth, timber, and wicker-work. Hence not a trace now remains of those perishable buildings — all the existing ruins are medieval. A Celtic monastery consisted of a group of beehive cells around a central church or oratory, the other principal Imililings being the common refectory or kitchen, I he lil)nirv <ir scriptorium, the abbot's house, and the guest-house. Adamnan, after Columba himself the brightest orna- ment of the School of I(ma, in his "Life" of the founder, makes explicit references to the tabuttr, waxen talilcts for writing; to the pens and styles, graphia and calami, and to the ink-horn, cornicula atramenti, to be foiind in the scriptorium. Columba was certainly a most accomplished scribe if the " Book

may be said that all his learning was the learning of lona. His "Life of Columba ", written at the request of the brotherhood, in Latin, not in Gaelic, is on the whole one of the most valuable works of the Western Church of the seventh century that have come down to us. He gives us more accurate and authentic in- formation of the Gaelic Churches in Ireland and Scot- land than any other writer, not excepting even Ven- erable Bede, who described him as " a good and wise man, and most nobly instructed in the knowledge of the Scriptures ". But he was much more. We know from his writings that he was an accomplished Latin scholar, a Gaelic scholar too — Gaelic was his mother tongue — while he had a considerable acquaintance with Greek and some even with Hebrew. He was, moreover, painstaking, judicious, and careful in citing his authorities. He has also left us an admirable treatise "On the Holy Places" in Palestine which he eoinpilcil from tlic narrative of a shi]nvri'cke(l French liishop nanicil ,\rculfus, who returning from the Holy Land was cast on the shores of lona. This is an in- valuable treatise from which Bede has extracted long passages for his history, showing that its authority was as great in his own day as it has ever since con- tinued to be in the estimation of .scholars. This learned man was a true monk, and like Columba him- self took a share in the manual labour of the monas-