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The Hymn of St. Secundinus in honour of St. Patrick
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 July 2017
Extract
The earliest event of Irish history that bears a well authenticated date is the mission of Palladius to Ireland in A.D. 431. The record of this year is found in the contemporary chronicle of Prosper of Aquitaine. In another work written a few years later. Prosper writes of the institution of a christian church in Ireland by Pope Celestine, who died in 432. All the early Irish sources agree in dating the mission of Patrick in 432.
Seven years later, the Annals of Ulster and the Annals of Inisfallen have the entry, derived from an earlier common source: ‘ Secundinus, Auxilius, et Iseminus mittuntur in Hiberniam in auxilium Patricii ’ A short tract copied in the Book of Armagh and dating probably, like the other documents in the same collection, from about 700, tells that Auxilius and Iserninus were sent by Germanus. It is silent regarding Secundinus.
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References
1 See Kenney, Sources, i. 164-5.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid., i. 337-9.
4 The edition quoted here is Newport J. D. White's ‘ Libri Sancti Patricii : the Latin writings of St. Patrick ’ in Proc. RIA, xxv, sect. C, pp. 201-326.
5 AU. The date in A Inisfallen is 448.
page 130 note 1 See my study of the Annals of Tigernach in Ériuy vii. 30-113.
page 130 note 2 The first words of the hymn of St. Secundinus in honour of St. Patrick. See Kenney, Sources, i. 258-60.
page 130 note 3 See ibid. And cf. the introduction to In St. Patrick's praise: the Hymn of St. Secundinus (Sechnall), ed. G. F. Hamilton (Dublin, 2 ed., 1920).
page 131 note 1 ‘ Beginnings of Latin culture in Ireland ‘, in Studies, xxi (1931). 450.
page 131 note 2 Sources, i. 260.
page 131 note 3 Czarnowski, S., Le Cu/te des héros—St. Patrick (Paris, 1919), pp. 30-1Google Scholar.
page 131 note 4 Confession, § 58.
page 132 note 1 Sources, i. 260
page 133 note 1 Sources, i. 260.
page 133 note 2 See Kenney, Sources, i. 339-40. Bury, J. B., The life of St. Patrick and his place in history (1905), pp. 263-6Google Scholar. For the date of Génair Pátraic, see my paper ‘ The earliest lives of St. Patrick', in Journ. RSAI, lviii (1928). 4-11.
page 133 note 3 See Kenney, Sources, i. 331-4.
page 133 note 4 Tripartite Life, 1. 1357
page 134 note 1 See Kenney, Sources, i. 327-8.
page 134 note 2 Ibid. Kenney gives a summary account of this theory which was first put forward by Zimmer. Cf. Bury, op. cit., pp. 384-91.
page 134 note 3 Kenney, i. 324.
page 134 note 4 See above, p. 131.
page 135 note 1 For Tirechan's memoir, see Kenney, i. 329 ff.
page 135 note 2 Ibid., i. 668-9, 788.
page 135 note 3 Histoire de la littérature Latine chrétienne (1920), p. 515.
page 137 note 1 This story is contained in a sequence of chapters which are omitted from the Book of Armagh and preserved in the Brussels codex (edited by Edmund Hogan in Analect. Bolland. (1882), i. 531-83 ; see Kenney, i. 331-4). The headings of these chapters, nevertheless, are given in the Book of Armagh in the list of contents drawn up to precede the liber primus of Muirchu's work. In the Brussels codex, however, the chapters, instead of being included in liber primus, are placed in the beginning of liber secundus, and liber primus thus ends at the same point in both manuscripts. I suggest that the Armagh scribe, having first intended, as the list of contents shows, to include these chapters, may have afterwards decided to reject them as spurious. Their style, if I judge rightly, is much more laboured and clumsy, and in a degree more turgid, than the style of Muirchu. Their being grouped by the list of contents in liber primus by the Book of Armagh but placed in the beginning of liber secundus in the Brussels MS. may indicate that they were separated or in some way distinguished from the main text in the common original, as they might be if they were not part of Muirchu's work.
page 138 note 1 Bury, pp. 331-4, 382-4.
page 138 note 2 Ibid., pp. 32-6, 338-42.
page 139 note 1 When this sentence was first written, there was no anticipation that its argument would be proved in subsequent events.
page 139 note 2 Bury, pp. 50-3.
page 139 note 3 Bury (pp. 332 ff.) places the second conference subsequent to 432 and previous to 448. Rev. Dr. John Ryan (Irish Monasticism, pp. 68 ff.) criticises the view of Bury and arrives at a conclusion similar to that given above.
page 143 note 1 See Kenney, i. 255 sqq.
page 144 note 1 Life of St. Patrick, p. 246.
page 144 note 2 Fr. John Ryan, S.J., points out to me that Fr. C. Blume in Analecta Hymnica Medii Aevi, li. 345 accepts the hymn as the authentic work of St. Secundinus.
page 144 note 3 Ibid.
page 144 note 4 See Kenney, i. 263 sqq.
page 144 note 5 See above, p. 142.
page 145 note 1 In St. Patrick's praise: the Hymn of St. Secundinus (Sechnall).
page 145 note 2 Life of St. Patrick, p. 118.
page 146 note 1 ‘ Testis in lege ’ and ‘ legem credit’ show that ‘ lex ’ here means doctrine. The verses cited are separated by three strophes, yet must have had immediate sequence in the author's mind. There are other signs of disturbance of an original order in this part of the poem, perhaps a result of the mnemonic device of an alphabetic order in the words beginning the strophes.
page 146 note 2 ‘ Usque ad transitum meum ’ : nevertheless ‘ Czarnowski argues that the designation of Patricius as testis Domini fidelis is evidence that he was no longer living’ (see Kenney, i. 260).
page 147 note 1 Strophe xv.
page 147 note 2 Strophe xvi.
page 147 note 3 Strophe xxi.
page 147 note 4 Epistle, § 5.
page 147 note 5 Strophes vi, xvii.
page 147 note 6 Confession, § 56.
page 150 note 1 See Kenney, Sources, i. 534.