§ 17. The Conversion of Scotland. St. Ninian and St. Kcntlyern.
See the works of SKENE (the second vol.), REEVES, McLAUGHLAN,
EBRARD, CUNNINGHAM, mentioned in $ 7.
Also DR. REEVES : The Culdees of the British Islands as they appear
in History, 1864.
DR. Jos. ROBERTSON : Statuta JZcclcsicc Scoticana, 1866, 2 vols. BISHOP FORBES: The Kalcndars of Scottish /Saints, Edinb., 1872; Lives
of /S. Ninian and S. Kcntigern, compiled in the V2th century, Edinb.,
1874. HADDAN & STUBBS: Councils and Ecclesiast. Docu?n., Vol. II., Part. I.
(Oxf., 1873), pp. 103 sqq.
Scotland (Scotia) before the tenth century was comprised in the general appellation of Britain (Britannia), as distinct from Ireland (Hibcrnia). It was known to the Romans as Caledo nia,2 to the Kelts as Alban; but the name of Scotia was exclu sively appropriated to Ireland till the tenth century. The inde pendent history of Scotland begins with the establishment of the Scottish monarchy in the ninth century. At first it was a purely Keltic kingdom; but in the course of time the Saxon
1 Killen, I. 226 sq.
2 In Gaelic, Calyddom, land of forests, or, according to others, from Kaled, i. e. hard and wild.
G2 FOURTH PERIOD. A.D. 590 TO 1049.
race and feudal institutions spread over the country, and the Keltic tribes retreated to the mountains and western islands. The names of Scot and Scotch passed over to the English-speak ing people and their language; while the Keltic language, for merly known as Scotch, became known as Irish.
The Keltic history of Scotland is full of fable, and a battle field of Romanists and Protestants, Episcopalians and Presby terians, who have claimed it for their respective systems of doc trine and church-polity. It must be disentangled from the sectarian issues of the Culdean controversy. The historian is neither a polemic nor an apologist, and should aim at nothing but the truth.
Tertullian says, that certain places in Britain which the Ro mans could not conquer were made subject to Christ. It is quite likely that the first knowledge of Christianity reached the Scots and Picts from England ; but the constant wars between them and the Britons and the decline of the Roman power were unfavorable to any mission work.
The mission of Palladius to Scotland by Pope Cselestius is as vague and uncertain as his mission to Ireland by the same Pope, and is strongly mixed up with the mission of Patrick. An Irish colony from the North-Eastern part of Ulster, which had been Christianized by Patrick, settled in Scotland towards the close of the fifth century, and continued to spread along the coasts of Argyle and as far as the islands of Mull and lona, until its progress was checked by the Northern Picts.
The first distinct fact in the church history of Scotland is the apostolate of ST. NINIAN at the close of the fourth century, during the reign of Theodosius in the East. We have little reliable information of him. The son of a British king, he devoted himself early to the ministry of Christ. He spent some time in Rome, where the Pope commissioned him to the aposto late among the heathen in Caledonia, and in Gaul with Bishop Martin of Tours, who deserves special praise for his protest against the capital punishment of heretics in the case of the
\ 17. THE CONVERSION OF SCOTLAND. 63
Priscillianists. He began the evangelization of the Southern Picts in the Eastern districts of modern Scotland. He built a white stone church called "Candida Casa," at Whittern (Quhithern, Witerna) in Galloway, on the South- Western border of Scotland by the sea side, and dedicated it to the memory of St. Martin, who had died in that year (397).1 This was the beginning of "the Great Monastery" (" Magnum Monasterium ") or monastery of Rosnat, which exerted a civilizing and human izing influence on the surrounding country, and annually at tracted pilgrims from England and Scotland to the shrine of St. Ninian. His life has been romanized and embellished with legends. He made a new-born infant indicate its true father, and vindicate the innocence of a presbyter who had been charged by the mother with the crime of violation; he caused leeks and herbs to grow in the garden before their season; he subdued with his staff the winds and the waves of the sea; and even his relics cured the sick, cleansed the lepers, and terrified the wicked, "by all which things," says Ailred, his biographer, "the faith of believers is confirmed to the praise and glory of Christ."
ST. KEXTIGERN (d. Nov. 13, 603), also called ST. MUNGO (the gracious one),2 the first bishop of Glasgow, labored in the sixth century for the conversion of the people in Cumberland, Wales, and on the Clyde, and re-converted the Picts, who had apostatized from the faith. He was the grandson of a heathen king in Cumbria or Strathclyde, the son of a Christian, though unbaptizcd mother. He founded a college of Culdccs or secular monks, and several churches. He wore a hair shirt and garment of goat-skin, lived on bread and vegetables, slept on a rocky couch and a stony pillow, like Jacob, rose in the night to sing psalms, recited in the morning the whole psalter in a cold stream, retired to desert places during Lent, living on roots, was con-crucified with Christ on Good Friday, watched before
1 On Whittern and the Candida Casa, see Nicholson, History of Galloway, I. 115; Forbes, S. Ninian and S. Kcntigern, 268, and Skene, II. 46.
2 In Welsh, Cyndcyrn means chief, Munghu dear, amiable. See Skene, II. 183.