OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

ALL THE SAINTS OF IRELAND

  • The Three Kinds of Martyrdom from The Cambrai Homily

    There are three different types of martyrdom catagorized in the text of the seventh- or eighth-century Cambrai Homily:

    Now there are three kinds of martyrdom that are counted as a cross to us, namely, white, blue and red martyrdom.

    The white martyrdom for someone is when they part for the sake of God from everything that they love, although they may suffer fasting and hard work thereby.

    The blue martyrdom is when through fasting and hard work they control their desires or struggle in penance and repentance.

    The red martyrdom is when they endure a cross or destruction for Christ’s sake, as happened to the Apostles when they persecuted the wicked and taught the law of God.

    These three kinds of martyrdom take place in those people who repent well, who control their desires, and who shed their blood in fasting and labour for Christ’s sake.
    Celtic Spirituality, ed. by O. Davis, T. O’Loughlin, Paulist Press, Classics of Western Spirituality series, 1999, p. 370.
    These translators have chosen to follow scholar Clare Stancliffe in translating the second type of martyrdom as ‘blue’ rather than ‘green’ as is more common. Footnote 175 on page 474 is also helpful:

    This motif occurs also in a sermon from the Catechesis Celtica. In her article “Red, White and Blue Martyrdom” in Ireland in Early Medieval Europe, pp 21-46, Clare Stancliffe shows that this theme originates in early monastic texts, such as the Life of St Anthony and Life of St Martin and perhaps passes to Ireland with a more developed association with colours in the work of the fifth-century Spanish author, Bachiarius. Stancliffe concludes: “Red martyrdom denotes death for Christ’s sake; white, the daily martyrdom of ascetic life; and blue the tears, hardships and fasting of the penitent” (p.44). 

    I suppose it would be fair to say that the early Irish church was distinguished more for white and blue martyrdom than for red. The majority of early Irish martyrs met with their red martyrdom in territories outside Ireland, saints like Blathmac of Iona who gave his life in the defence of the relics of Saint Columba or saints martyred on the European continent by hostile pagans, such as Killian of Würzburg or Coloman of Austria. Saint Odhran, the charioteer of Saint Patrick, is thus a very rare species indeed – the native martyr who met his death on Irish soil.

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  • The Massacre of the Innocents in Irish Sources

    The Martyrology of Oengus devotes its entire entry for December 28 to the commemoration of The Massacre of the Innocents by King Herod:
    28. Famous is their eternal acclamation,
    beyond every loveable band,
    which the little children from Bethlehem
    sing above to their Father.
    to which the scholiast has added a commentary:
    28. Famous the lasting acclamation, i.e. famous and lasting is the shout of the children who were killed in Bethlehem by Herod pro Christo.
    a loveable band, i.e. they are a dear band propter innocentiam.
    who sing above to their Father, i.e. canunt laudes, etc.
    A hundred and forty – bright fulfilment – and two thousands of children
    were slain in Bethlehem with victory by the ruler, by Herod.
    Thirty plains famous, pleasant, all about Bethlehem ;
    in every plain were slain a hundred of the pleasant children of the
    nobles ;
    a hundred and forty – sad the doom ! – in Bethlehem alone.
    The Massacre of the Innocents is also commemorated in other Irish sources, appearing, for example, in the poems of the eighth-century monastic writer Blathmac. He records in the first of his poems, in the translation of James Carney:
    20. In seeking Christ (pitiful this!) the infants of Bethlehem were slain. It was by Herod (bloodier than any prince!) that they were put to the blue sword.
    21. Happy the good gentle infants! They have happiness in an eternal kingdom: Herod, miserable creature, has eternal sorrow and eternal Hell.
    James Carney, ed. and trans., The poems of Blathmac, son of Cú Brettan: Together with the Irish Gospel of Thomas and a poem on the Virgin Mary (Dublin, 1964), 9.
    Below is the text of another poem, found in the Leabhar Breac, which reflects the raw pain of the bereaved mothers and the sheer horror of the deed:
    The Mothers’ Lament at the Slaughter of the Innocents
    Then, as she plucked her son from her
    breast for the executioner, one of the
    women said:
    ‘Why do you tear from me my darling son,
    The fruit of my womb?
    It was I who bore him, he drank my breast.
    My womb carried him about, he sucked my vitals.
    He filled my heart:
    He was my life, ’tis death to have him taken from me.
    My strength has ebbed,
    My voice is stopped,
    My eyes are blinded.’
    Then another woman said:
    ‘It is my son you take from me.
    I did not do the evil,
    But kill me — me: don’t kill my son!
    My breasts are sapless, my eyes are wet,
    My hands shake,
    My poor body totters.
    My husband has no son,
    And I no strength;
    My life is worth — death.
    Oh, my one son, my God!
    His foster-father has lost his hire.
    My birthless sicknesses with no requital until Doom.
    My breasts are silent,
    My heart is wrung.’
    Then said another woman:
    ‘Ye are seeking to kill one; ye are killing many.
    Infants ye slay, fathers ye wound; you kill the mothers.
    Hell with your deed is full, heaven shut.
    Ye have spilt the blood of guiltless innocents.’
    And yet another woman said:
    ‘O Christ, come to me!
    With my son take my soul quickly:
    O Great Mary, Mother of the Son of God,
    What shall I do without my son?
    For Thy Son, my spirit and my sense are killed.
    I am become a crazy woman for my son.
    After the piteous slaughter
    My heart’s a clot of blood
    From this day
    Till Doom comes.’
    A powerful lament, indeed.

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  • Saint John the Apostle and the Early Irish Church

    The Martyrology of Oengus devotes its entire entry for December 27 to
    two of the apostles – Saint John and Saint James. It reads:
     
    D. vi. cal. Ianuarii.
    27. The sound sleep of John in Ephesus
    splendid the bordgal (?)
    -with the ordination of James his brother, who is highest.
    The scholiast adds:
    27. a splendid bordgal, i.e. John’s valour (gal) was in Ephesus a splendid valour, i.e. a valour that went out over the border (bord) quasi dixisset Ephesus was full de operibus eius. his brother is highest, i.e. the greater is sollemnitas etc.
    I haven’t read any specialist commentary on this entry but wonder if the word bordgal was an archaism which the later scholiast did not understand himself and sought to explain.

    There is a body of material concerning the beloved disciple preserved in the Irish sources. In an earlier post on the Irish tradition of the Antichrist, I had mentioned an Apocalypse of Saint John as one of its sources. In the article by Father Martin McNamara that I looked at then, he mentions that the Liber Flavus Fergusiorum preserves a composite Irish text containing episodes from the Beatha Eoin Bruinne, the Life of John the Beloved Disciple (literally John of the Breast), plus fragments of what seems to be an Apocalypse of John. Saint John received this epithet because he reclined on the the breast of Christ at the Last Supper (Jn. 13:25). This composite text was translated from Latin into Irish by an Augustinian friar, Uighisdin Mac Raighin, who died in 1405. It has been translated into English in a volume of texts edited by Father McNamara and Dr. Maire Herbert and so below are some extracts from the Apocalypse and Death of John to mark the feast of the Beloved Disciple, still commemorated on December 27 in the West, although the East celebrates this feast on September 26:

    10. Thereafter John said to his disciples: “go and make a burial-place for me in front of the altar. Cast out the earth far away from it, and make it very deep”. This was done, and he himself went into it and lay readily down on the ground, and stretched up his two hands towards the Creator, saying:
    11. “I thank you, O Creator,
    Christ, the mighty Lord,
    great Heavenly Father,
    gentle soft-spokem brother,
    excellent noble teacher,
    who gently and lovingly
    calls me to your banquet,
    who well understands
    that I desire to go
    to be with you in your kingdom.
    You perceive, O divine kinsman,
    how my heart has loved
    your truth and your word,
    loved to contemplate
    and look on you totally,
    I give you thanks.”
    15. Now I entrust and hand over your people believing in Christ, who have obtained wisdom, true knowledge and sagacity, and have been blessed and baptized. Take me to you, as you promised me in the company of my brethren, Paul, Peter, Matthew, and Thomas, and the other apostles, so that I may partake of the great feast which you have created from the beginning, and which has no end. Open the divine gates and beautifully-draped windows, and the path which is undarkened by the devil, without opposition, without hostile onset. Send your splendid angelic messenger to cherish and protect [me], for you are the almighty Christ, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who lives and flourishes for all eternity”. And all the people answered: “Amen”.
    16. Then a great brightness came upon the people for the space of one hour of the day. Such was the extent of the illumination that it could not be looked on. Everyone threw themselves on the ground. Then there came to them a beautiful fragrance, and perfume of angelic incense.
    17. Thereafter they raised their heads, and looked at the burial-place. They found nothing there in place of the valiant priest, the eloquent judge, the devout helper, the wise preacher, the splendid confessor, the merciful dispenser of forgiveness, red-cheeked and blue-eyed, namely, John, the beloved apostle.. And thus John parted from the final things of this world.
    18. The suffering and afflicted of the nearby district gathered to that place, and they were cured of all their ills.
    19. As for the body of John, it is in a beautiful golden tomb, and at the end of each year, the best youth, who is without defilement or sin, is chosen, and he goes to cut John’s hair and pare his nails, and when he has completed that task, he partakes of the body and sacrifice of Christ, and he himself ascends to heaven on that day.
    Thus John’s body remains without putrefaction or corruption. Indeed, it is as if he were in a deep sleep, and it will be thus until Doomsday.
    M. Herbert and M. McNamara, eds. and trans., Irish Biblical Apocrypha: Selected Texts in Translation (Edinburgh, 1989), 96-98.

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