Page:The ancient Irish church.djvu/48

. In this we are told that there were three classes of Irish saints, the first of which was most holy, the second very holy, and the third holy. The first class was like the sun, the second like the moon, the third like the stars. The first order, the most holy, were led by Patrick, and had one Head, Christ. Of these, it is said that 'they rejected not the services and society of women, because, founded on the rock Christ, they feared not the blast of temptation.' The second order, however—very holy, although not as holy as the first, and later in date—'refused the services of women, separating them from the monasteries.' The kind of monastic life revealed in this description of the first order, and which is said to have existed for a considerable time, shows how much the ideal of the East had been modified before it found favour in the eyes of the western islanders.

When we come to the legends of the saints we meet with evidence at every step that both sexes were to be found together in the monasteries. Not that these legends are at all to be taken as serious history. It would require a very large share indeed of faith to receive the half of what they tell us. But we may be certain that they never contain anything that would be considered improper or unworthy of a saint, according to the ideas of the age in which they were composed; and if they record that women were commonly found in the monasteries, it may be taken as a plain proof that it was then neither an unusual nor unheard-of occurrence. To this may be added the fact that until a very late