95 



of the Deity, bitterly reproaches the Scots of Ireland, with having no 

 truer opinion on the subject ^han a camp dog ;* while Saint Jerome 

 actually designates the notions of Pelagius as Scottish pottage, (pultis 

 Scotorum,-)™) and rails at them as peculiarly Irish. J 



In fact, Ireland, as far as it was Christianized, appears early to 

 have adopted the Arian and Pelagian heresies, and if there were a 

 doubt on the subject, the letters of Pope John to the Scots in 649, 

 must wholly satisfy it, sent, as they were, pregnant with authority and 

 learning, (" magn^ auctoritate atque eruditione plenas,") and in which 

 he says of the Pelagian errors, " And we have ascertained this too, 

 that the venom of the Pelagian heresy agahi revives amongst you ;"§ 

 while he expressly contrasts it, as if it were long established and of 

 general use in Ireland, with a heresy as to the time of keeping Easter, 

 which he says was but new and partial amongst them. 



Such were the overflowing beams of Christianity that broke in 

 upon Ireland, and foretokened the coming of him who was happily 

 to fulfil the alleged prediction of the Magian prophets, || and whom all 

 tradition and biography mark as the evangelist of the Trinity and 

 universal Apostle to Ireland. 



* " Semifer et Scotus sen tit cane milite pejor." — Apotheos. 1. 216. 



f Prolog, in com. Propli. Jeremiah. t Pinkerton's Scotland, v. 2. pp. 260-1. 



Ijli ^ «£t Ijoc quoque cognovimus quod virus Pselagianae hereseos apud vos denuo.revivis- 

 cit, &c."— Bede, Eccl. Hist. lib. 2. c. 19. 



II Ante, p. 88. J 



x\ 



