COLUM'BA, SAINT. SAINT Coursr-emix., or SAINT COLM (521-5971. An Irish missionary, one of the greatest names in the early ecclesias tical history of the British Isles. He was horn at Gartan. County Donegal. northwest Ireland, December 7, 521. His father was Fedhilmidh, of the powerful Clan O'Donnell. and related to sev eral of the rulers of Ireland and West Scotland: his mother was Eithne, who also boasted royal ancestry. He studied first at Mo•iIle, County Down, five miles south of Bangor. on Belfast Lough. under Bishop Saint Finnian, and was or dained deacon by him; next under another Saint Finnian, at Cloward, who ordained him a priest. He was early distinguished by his piety, and the name Columba, i.e. dove, was recognized as an appropriate one. He showed rare monastic zeal. In 545 he founded the church and monastery of Derry, and in 553 those of Darrow, not far west of Dublin. The latter became of great impor tance. and in both places the saint is still com memorated by a well and a stone. He founded other monasteries, the chief of which was Bells. In 561 he embroiled himself in the civil strifes of his country and N•as charged with having incited the bloody battle of Culd•eimline (no• Coola drummon), because lie appealed to his tribe to defend by force of arms the copy of the Latin Psalter which he had made from one borrowed of his old teacher, Saint Finnian of Moville. But for being thus the occasion of bloodshed he was censured by an Irish ecclesiastical synod. and recommended to do penance by foreign mission ary labor. Accordingly, in 563. he beaded a little company of twelve disciples and sailed across to the west coast of Scotland, and landed upon the little island of Ily, since called 1-eolum cille, hut better known as Iona. It lies just opposite Oban. There he began the great work of converting the Picts, to which lie owes his fame. His missionary operations were prob ably very simple. consisting of persistent per sonal appeals. In the legends which are told about him, as in the life of him by Adam non and in the Book of Deer, a Celtic 7.%1S. of the eleventh or twelfth century. preserved at Cam bridge, England, edited by John Stuart for the Spalding Club (Aberdeen, 1869), the miraculous enters. Alan miraculous occurrences are nar rated of him, whose traditions still linger in the scenes of his labors. He promoted monasti cism. overcame the opposition of the Druids. made many converts, including royal personages, and foumied many diuretics. As in Ireland. so in Scot land. be took part in secular affairs, and at least one battle is said to have been incited by him. He died at lona at midnight between .1111H! S and 9, 597, ii ml left an imperishable name. With loving care his bones were enshrined, and his relics—the stone pillow on which lie slept, the Looks lie loved so well the staff which was the symbol of his pastoral authority, and other objects which he had used—were long preserved and exhibited. Columba was a poet. and three Latin hynms now extant are attributed to him. In one of them, the "Altus Prosator," published with an English paraphrase, by John. _Marquis of Bute (Edinburgh. 1872), each strophe begins with a different letter, in alphabetical order. Besides these, some Celtic poems are attributed to him, and a Rule (printed in Celtic and Eng lish in Haddon and Stubbs, Councils and Eccle siastical Documents, ii. 119, and iu English only
in Skene, Celtic Scotland, ii. 508).
Columba was an ascetic, callable of any amount of deprivation. He was an eager stu dent and made copies with his own hand of documents which fell in his way. Two of these —the Book of Kens and the Book of Darrow —were long preserved. His energy sometimes led him to harsh actions. but that he was tender hearted the affection of his monks evinces. He seems to have had original ideas upon Church government ; for Bede writes of Iona that its ruler was "an abbot, who is a priest, to whose direction all the province, and even the bishops, contrary to the usual method, are subject, ac cording to the example of their first teacher [Columba], who was not a bishop, but a priest and a monk" (Eccles. iii. 4). Bede then criticises the Columban monks because they did not, until 715, keep Easter after the Western manlier, but upon the 14th of Nisan, or what ever day it came, as the Eastern Church did. Other peculiarities of the Columban monks, pre suming that they followed the Irish models, was that they lived in huts grouped around a church and surrounded by a wall; each hut had its head, but all were under the abbot, who per formed episcopal functions though not usually a bishop, and was a spiritual father to all the community, and when he pleased summoned all the members to him by ringing a hand-bell, one of the insignia of his office. The monks dressed in an undergarment covered by a coarse woollen wrapper fastened around the waist by a rope. They shaved the front part of their beads from a line drawn over the top from ear to ear. Their religious services were numerous and strictly attended tn, hut the rest of their time was spent in labor, either in WO rking upon their fields and tending Cattle (for they raised what they needed for their support), or in copying books, particu larly the Bible, or in studying or in teaching others. Latin was spoken as well as Celtic. and was employed by them in writing. Some of the monastic communities contained famous schools, where Greek and even Hebrew were taught. The continuance of the memory of Saint Columba in Scotland is shown by the fact that his is one of the commonest names given to a church. even to-day, among the Presbyterians. The life of Saint Columba was written by two of his sue cessors in the abbacy of Iona—Cuimine Ailbhe, seventh abbot (G57-69), whose De T'irtutibu.e Saneti Columba' (printed by Pinkerton, London, 1789; Paisley. 1889) was incorporated in the Vita. Sancti Columbce of Adaninan, the ninth abbot (679.704). But both these writers are concerned not so much with the life as with the prophecies, miracles, and other unusual phenom ena which were ascribed to their subject, and so the amount of real biographical facts is very small. This 'life' by Saint Adamnan is. how ever, one of the best of the medieval lives of saints. It has been edited in a very superior man ner, first by W. Reeves (Dublin, 1857). and again upon Reeves's edition by J. T. Fowler (Latin text and English notes, Oxford, l894; English translation of the text, ]S95).