Saint Columba

From New World Encyclopedia
Previous (Saint Cecilia)
Next (Saint Cyprian of Carthage)


Saint Columba
Columba at Bridei's fort.jpg

An early 20th century depiction of Columba's miracle at the gate of Bridei's fortress, described in Adomnán's Vita Columbae.
Apostle of the Picts
Born December 7, 521 in County Donegal, Ireland
Died June 9, 597 (Age 75) in Iona, Scotland
Venerated in Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Lutheran Church, Anglican Church
Major shrine Iona, Scotland
Feast June 9
Patronage floods, bookbinders, poets, Ireland, Scotland

Saint Columba (7 December, 521–9 June, 597) was a venerable Irish saint, sometimes referred to as Columba of Iona, or, in Old Irish, as Colm Cille or Columcille (meaning "Dove of the Church"). He was renowned for his physical stature, his forceful personality, his love of scholarship, and his missionary activity, though it was in this final arena that he made his most lasting contributions. Specifically, Saint Columba was responsible for numerous advances in the conversion of the British Isles, including the founding of the redoubted monastery at Iona, the development of a strictly ascetic monastic order, the conversion of King Brude of the Picts, and the construction of churches throughout Scotland. It is for this reason that the saint is celebrated as the Apostle of the Picts.[1]

Biography

Early life in Ireland

In 521 C.E., Colm Cille (the future Columba) was born to Fedlimid and Eithne of the Uí Néill clan in Gartan (County Donegal, Ireland). His was an advantaged and noble upbringing, as the bloodlines of both of his parents could be traced back to Irish royalty.[2] This guaranteed that the youth would be afforded the best possible education, to which end he was trained by St. Finnian, a schoolmaster at the monastery in Moville.[3] After continuing his studies under a bard named Gemmen, he was ordained as both a monk and a priest. In the years that followed, he returned to his homeland and was present at the founding of numerous important monasteries, including those of Derry, Durrow, and Kells.[4] Though Columba was renowned for the extent of his erudition and exegetical skill, he also had a reputation for his arrogant, haughty disposition—a trait that would soon have disastrous consequences.

Sometime around 560 C.E., Columba became involved in a dispute that eventually led to his (voluntary or enforced) exile from Ireland. Most sources suggest that the ultimate cause of this exile was that the saint had rallied his family's troops to rise against the King Diarmait in 561 at the Battle of Cúl Dreimhne—a conflict that cost the lives of over three thousand men.[5] Though the exact cause of this conflict is lost to history,[6] its impact was unequivocal. Columba was blamed (or blamed himself) for the deaths of combatants and vowed not to return to his homeland until he had converted as many souls as had been lost in that fateful battle.[7] As such, he had no choice but to depart for the wilds of Scotland, where the kingdom of the Picts was still largely pagan.

Scotland

In 563, the saint, accompanied by a band of twelve disciples, traveled to Scotland and docked on the island of Iona. As this islet had been granted to them by the king of Irish Dál Riata, the companions viewed it as an auspicious locus for their evangelical mission and began the construction of an imposing monastery on its shores.[8] This monastery was one of the only bastions of scholarly study (in general) and the Christian faith (in specific) in the region for several hundred years.[9]

his reputation as a holy man led to his role as a diplomat among the tribes; there are also many stories of miracles which he performed during his work to convert the Picts. He visited the pagan king Bridei, king of Fortriu, at his base in Inverness, winning the king's respect. He subsequently played a major role in the politics of the country. He was also very energetic in his evangelical work, and, in addition to founding several churches in the Hebrides, he worked to turn his monastery at Iona into a school for missionaries. He was a renowned man of letters, having written several hymns and being credited with having transcribed 300 books personally. One of the few, if not the only, times he left Scotland after his arrival was toward the end of his life, when he returned to Ireland to found the monastery at Durrow. He died on Iona and was buried in the abbey he created.

St Columba's monks were collectors of dulse (Palmaria palmata) for the poor according to a poem attributed to St Columba. [10]

Legacy and Veneration

Columba is credited as being a leading figure in the revitalization of monasticism, and "[h]is achievements illustrated the importance of the Celtic church in bringing a revival of Christianity to Western Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire".[11]

Vita Columbae

The main source of information about Columba's life is the Vita Columbae by Adomnán (also known as Eunan), the ninth Abbot of Iona, who died in 704. Both the Vita Columbae and Bede record Columba's visit to Bridei. Whereas Adomnán just tells us that Columba visited Bridei, Bede relates a later, perhaps Pictish tradition, whereby the saint actually converts the Pictish king. Another early source is a poem in praise of Columba, most probably also composed in the course of the 7th century. It consists of 25 stanzas of four verses of seven syllables each.

The earliest recorded example of the name Arthur in a British document occurs, as Arturius, in Adomnan's vita. There it occurs as the name of a prince among the Scots, the son of Áedán mac Gabráin, king of Dál Riata from AD 574, far from the legendary King Arthur's familiar haunts in the southwest.

The vita of Columba is also the source of the first known reference to a Loch Ness Monster. According to Adomnan, Columba came across a group of Picts who were burying a "poor little man"[12] who had been killed by the monster, and saved a swimmer with the sign of the Cross and the imprecation "You will go no further", at which the beast fled terrified, to the amazement of the assembled Picts who glorified Columba's God. Whether or not this incident is true, Adomnan's text specifically states that the monster was swimming in the River Ness — the river flowing from the loch — rather than in Loch Ness itself.

Through the reputation of its venerable founder and its position as a major European center of learning, Columba's Iona became a place of pilgrimage. A network of Celtic high crosses marking processional routes developed around his shrine at Iona.

Columba is historically revered as a warrior saint, and was often invoked for victory in battle. His relics were finally removed in 849 and divided between Alba and Ireland. Relics of Columba were carried before Scottish armies in the reliquary made at Iona in the mid-8th century, called the Brecbennoch.

Legend has it that the Brecbennoch, was carried to Bannockburn by the vastly outnumbered Scots army and the intercession to the Saint helped them to victory. It is widely thought that the Monymusk Reliquary is this object.

O Columba spes Scotorum... "O Columba, hope of the Scots" begins a 13th century prayer in the Antiphoner of Inchcolm, the "Iona of the East".

St Columba's feast day is June 9 and with Saint Patrick, March 17, and Saint Brigid, February 1, is one of the three patron saints of Ireland. Prior to the battle of Athelstaneford, he was the sole patron saint of Scotland. He is also venerated within the Orthodox faiths as a saint and Righteous Father.[13]

Notes

  1. ↑ It should be noted that some individuals, such as the administration of Firth's Celtic Scotland and the Age of the Saints, argue against the importance of Saint Columba in the conversion of the Pictish people. Likewise, Farmer acknowledges that "his missionary work in Scotland has been much exaggerated" (110). Regardless, it is undeniable that Columba's affiliation with the Scottish church has been his claim to lasting fame within the Calendar of Saints, regardless of how it may have been overstated.
  2. ↑ Specifically, he was a patrilineal descendant of Niall of the Nine Hostages, an Irish king of the 5th century, and a matrilineal descendant of the kings of Leinster (Butler, 506).
  3. ↑ Butler, 507; Farmer, 110.
  4. ↑ Edmonds (1908).
  5. ↑ See, for example, Farmer, 110; Butler, 507; Edmonds (1908); Seyfried's introduction to [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/columba-e.html Adamnan's Life of St. Columba.
  6. ↑ Edmonds describes the two primary explanations for this conflict: "Later writers state that [Columba's] departure was due to the fact that he had induced the clan Neill to rise and engage in battle against King Diarmait at Cooldrevny in 561. The reasons alleged for this action of Columba are: (1) The king's violation of the right of sanctuary belonging to Columba's person as a monk on the occasion of the murder of Prince Curnan, the saint's kinsman; (2) Diarmait's adverse judgment concerning the copy Columba had secretly made of St. Finnian's psalter." The second possibility pertains to a persistent suggestion that the saint had surreptitiously copied a psalter owned by Finnian (his erstwhile instructor), which devalued the original. When his trickery was discovered, they brought the case to arbitration, where both sides asserted their right to the copied text: Columba due to his expenditure of effort, and Finnian due to his ownership of the initial tome.
  7. ↑ Butler, 507.
  8. ↑ It should be noted that the residents of this area were not entirely made up of pagan Picts, as the Irish Gaels had been colonizing the west coast of Scotland for the previous several centuries (Fletcher, 23-24).
  9. ↑ Butler, 508-509. See also Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation (Book III: Chapter IV): "Before [Columba] passed over into Britain, he had built a noble monastery in Ireland, which, from the great number of oaks, is in the Scottish tongue called Dearmach- The Field of Oaks. From both which monasteries, many others had their beginning through his disciples, both in Britain and Ireland; but the monastery in the island where his body lies, is the principal of them all" (emphasis added).
  10. ↑ This use of edible seaweed is described in M. Indergaard and J. Minsaas (1991), "Animal and human nutrition" in M.D. Guiry and G. Blunden (eds.), Seaweed Resources in Europe: Uses and Potential. John Wiley and Sons. ISBN 0471929476
  11. ↑ See "Columba" in Dowley et al. (1977).
  12. ↑ See Adomnan's Vita Columbae.
  13. ↑ Orthodox wikipage for Saint Columba, http://orthodoxwiki.org/Columba_of_Iona, accessed 25 December 2006

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Adomnan of Iona. Life of St Columba. Translated and Edited by Richard Sharpe. London: Penguin, 1995. ISBN 0-14-044462-9. Also accessible online at the Fordham University's Medieval Sourcebook.
  • The Venerable Bede. The Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation. Translated by L.C. Jane. London: J.M. Dent; New York E.P. Dutton, 1910. Accessed online at: Fordham University's Medieval Sourcebook.
  • Butler, Alban. Lives of the Saints. Edited, revised, and supplemented by Herbert Thurston and Donald Attwater. Palm Publishers, 1956.
  • Cambridge Biographical Dictionary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. ISBN 0521395186.
  • Dowley, Tim, et al. (eds.) Eerdman's Handbook to the History of Christianity Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1977. ISBN 0-8028-3450-7.
  • Edmonds, Columba. "Saint Columba" in The Catholic Encyclopedia. 1909.
  • Farmer, David Hugh. The Oxford Dictionary of Saints. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. ISBN 0192800582.
  • Fletcher, Richard. Who's Who in Roman Britain and Anglo-Saxon England. Shepheard-Walwyn, 1989. ISBN 0-85683-089-5.
  • Lewis, James. Paths of Exile: Narratives of St. Columba and the Praxis of Iona. Cloverdale Books, 2007. ISBN 978-1-929569-24-3

External links

All links retrieved September 16, 2007

Credits

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:

Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.

Retrieved from https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/p/index.php?title=Saint_Columba&oldid=461460

Content is available under Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of Use for details.
Copyright Logo
Powered by MediaWiki