lONA
90
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-
