that there shall be no idleness, as God says, Thou shalt not appear before Me empty.'[1]
The 'desert' in which these anchorites lived was simply a place set apart for themselves. Sometimes this was near the monastery, as at Glendalough; sometimes it was actually in it, as in the case contemplated by the rule just quoted, and as we know to have been the case at Kells. The desert was a place where penitents might retire for a while and obtain ghostly comfort and advice, for many of the anchorites were famous as anmcharas, or 'soul friends.' For the regulation of these, both penitents and advisers, there was an officer appointed, who was called the 'Head of the Desert.'
When these facts are considered, it will be seen that it is most important that we should not be misled by words, when the terms used for the existing circumstances in one country are transferred to those of another. The words, monastery, monk, anchorite, desert, and the like have done more than anything else to give wrong ideas as to what the ancient Irish Church was like. We have seen that in Ireland the anchorite was simply a stricter monk, and when we remember that he was allowed to keep a servant and to receive visitors, we can scarcely say that his rule was too strict. It is very probable, however, that at first no such institutions existed, and that a considerable time elapsed before such a development was thought of. The ancient catalogue
- ↑ O'Curry, MS. Materials of Anc. Irish Hist., p. 374. The last sentence is given in Latin: 'Ut Deus ait: Non apparebis ante me vacuus.' The passage occurs in four places (once in the Apocrypha), but in no case is the Vulgate exactly as here quoted. It will be noticed that the meaning unemployed is given to vacuus, though the Biblical context requires the meaning empty-handed.
