Page:The ancient Irish church.djvu/84

 by us unshaken.' He goes on to tell his holiness that if he desires not to lack apostolic honour he must preserve the apostolic faith. He acknowledges the supremacy of the see of Rome in so far as to give it the second place in all the world, Jerusalem being first; but he says that it is a painful and lamentable case if the Catholic faith be not held in the apostolic see; and that under certain circumstances a Church very much younger, but one which has never harboured heretics (in which description he not obscurely designates the Church of Ireland), might sit in judgment on the Church of Rome, and cut it off from communion 'until the memory of the wicked be effaced and consigned to oblivion.'

We are not to suppose that these writings of Columbanus were current in Ireland, or that any one in that country took such a decided stand with regard to the points of controversy. As a matter of fact the question as to the keeping of Easter, which was the subject of the letter to Pope Gregory, had not yet arisen in Ireland, and the 'Controversy of the Three Chapters,' which caused the letter to Pope Boniface, never arose there, and was in all probability quite unknown. The works of Columbanus only show us in what way an Irishman of that age regarded the question of Papal supremacy when brought into close contact with it for the first time. The life of Columbanus brings us down to the beginning of the seventh century (615), and tells us that up to that time the Church of Ireland was independent in so far as to claim the right to interpret for itself the Word of God and ordain its own rites and ceremonies; that it took for its sole rule of faith the writings of the Evangelists and Apostles; that it ignored (and if occasion had arisen would