OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Year: 2017

  • Saint Columbanus and The First Christmas Tree

    Henry van Dyke, The First Christmas Tree (1897)

    I was somewhat amused to find the following article from a 1913 Australian newspaper attributing the origins of the Christmas tree to our own Saint Columbanus and his missionary labours among the Germanic peoples of early seventh-century Europe. Now I have certainly heard that the Christmas tree was introduced to these islands from Germany, but in the nineteenth century by Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. The writer below, however, confidently asserts that ‘careful research’ disproves a Germanic origin for the Christmas tree and that its origin is traced to an Irishman – Saint Columbanus. That may come as news to the English who claim that their own great missionary saint among the Germanic tribes, Saint Boniface, holds the honours. I have to admit that it comes as news to me too,  I doubt very much that any individual can claim to be the originator of the Christmas tree or that its origins can be traced in an unbroken line back to pre-Christian practices. I suspect Saint Columbanus might just say ‘Bah, humbug!’.

    THE CHRISTMAS TREE

    ITS ORIGINS TRACED TO THE IRISH SAINT COLUMBANUS

    Familiar us is the Christmas tree to us, and as dearly-beloved as it is to the people of the civilised world, it is surprising how very few there are who know of its origin, or its introduction into the celebration of the most beautiful and impressive festival of the year, legends there are in plenty, but few of them seem founded upon a basis of fact. Most of them, have been handed down – with the customary “warping from the original story”- from generation to generation. The use of the fir tree in the celebration of Christmas is usually believed to have originated in Germany. Careful research proves this to have been a fallacy. As are so many of the ancient customs and institutions, its origin as a Christmas adjunct is traced to an Irishman.

    It was Saint Columbanus, who engaged in converting the pagans of Germany and Switzerland to Christianity, found them so firmly impressed with the sacredness of trees -especially the fir- that he conceived the idea of endowing them with an illustrative Christian meaning. To these people, the tree was an object of worship from which no amount of reasoning would convert them, and because of this, Saint Columbanus and his fellow missionaries found it an especially favourable symbol for their use.
    As far back as the seventh century the fir tree, because of its evergreen verdure, was known in Christmas [Christian?] writings and pictures as a symbol of eternal life, while a legend, dating from the same period, represents an old man bearing a lighted tree, who entered every home at Christmas time and granted a single wish to each of the inmates.  The evolution of this beneficent old personage with his beautiful fir into our own Santa Claus and his gift-laden tree is easily traced.
    THE CHRISTMAS TREE. (1913, December 24). Northern Star (Lismore, NSW: 1876 – 1954), p. 10. Retrieved December 20, 2017, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article72348547

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2017. All rights reserved.

  • Saint Adamnan of Iona and the Genealogy of Christ

    St Matthew from the Book of Durrow
    J.O. Westwood (1868)

    As we approach the feast of Christmas we will be hearing the genealogy of Christ among the readings for the season. This is an aspect of the scriptures which scholar Thomas O’Loughlin has discussed in his book ‘Journeys on the Edges – The Celtic Tradition’ (part of the Traditions of Christian Spirituality series). In the excerpt below, he examines how the great abbot of Iona and biographer of St Colum Cille, Adomnan, would, unlike people today, have found this type of information compelling and of genuine interest:

    ‘Today when we hear scriptural passages in the liturgy, either about the tribal wars in Kings or any of the descriptions of tombs in which a patriarch was buried – or worse when we hear any of the genealogical passages – we may become exasperated that ‘such stuff’ is greeted as the Word of God. But to Adomnan these were among the parts of the Scriptures that spoke most directly to him and his people. He knew tribal warfare at first hand – it was endemic in his society and he expended much effort in trying to mitigate its suffering. And, just as the scriptural writers assumed that God took sides in this so that ‘his people’ either triumphed or were punished for their sins by defeat, he assumed that God could take sides and manifest his will in these matters. Conscious that he was Irish and a member of a family that could be related to a common ancestor, all the genealogical material in Scripture was inherently interesting to Adomnan. He knew himself as a member of the Cenel Conaill – the ruling family in the northern part of Ireland – which was also the family of Columba and the five other abbots before him, and we can still construct his family tree! His own culture shared many of the values of those who originally compiled that material, and just as biblical writers created genealogies to forge alliances between groups, so Adomnan looked to those lists of ancestors to find his people’s relationships to the rest of humanity. By tracing an ancestry back to the Flood the Irish became part of the whole history of God’s providence, and then it was simply a matter of location that they were among the last peoples to hear the gospel.’

    (Thomas O’Loughlin, Journeys on the Edges (London, 2000), 52-53.

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2017. All rights reserved.

  • The Scholars of Clonard: A poem of Sedulius Scottus

    Below is the translation of a poem on the Scholars of Clonard attributed to the prolific ninth-century Irish poet, Sedulius Scottus. Sedulius made his career abroad in the courts of continental Europe, but like all good Irishmen, he never forgot where he came from. In this poem he pays tribute to the tradition of learning established at the monastic school of Clonard and to three of its scholars in particular – Vinnau/Finnian the sixth-century founder, Ailerán the Wise, a seventh-century scholar and Fergus, a scholar of the ninth century who also features in some of the author’s other poems.

    Look on the marble columns surpassing the stars,
    which the sand of the saint-bearing land supports here
    happy, famous Ailerán, Vinnau, Fergus,
    shining lights made by gift-carrying God.
    O He sent a great present of Scotia [i.e.Ireland],
    rich relics which Pictonia [i.e. Poitiers] wishes to be its own,
    whence comes Titan and where night established the stars
    and where midday is hot with blazing hours
    [i.e. the east and the west and the south].

    David Howlett, ed. and trans., The Celtic Latin Tradition of Biblical Style (Dublin, 1995), 129.

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2017. All rights reserved.