228 



years, to the epactal days and embolismal months, nor to the names 

 of the Hebrew, Macedonian, and Egyptian months."* " It would at 

 any time be esteemed argumentative and learned, and the number 

 of books, he possessed or must have perused, are considerable ; he cites 

 Jerome, Origen, Cyril, Cyprian, Gregory, and Augustin ; he adduces 

 Annatolius's cycle of nineteen years, Theophylus's of ninety-five, 

 Cyril's of the same, Dionysius's octaetris, Victorinus's of 532 years, 

 with those of Augustin, Morinus, and Pachomius."-|- Virgilius, 

 whom Bruschius calls " vir pietate et doctrini clarus," and whose 

 country is marked by Alcuin, in the well known epigram : 



" Egregius praesul meritis et moribus almus, 

 Protulit in lucem quem mater Hibernia primum, 

 Instituit, — docuit, — nutrivit.";): 



this very Virgilius, in the year 767» asserted the spherical figure of the 

 earth, at a time when all Europe was ignorant of the fact,§ and com- 

 bated the opinions of Lactantius, Augustin, and other fathers of the 

 Church, who supposed that the earth had a plane surface. Pope 

 Zachary, in a letter to Boniface, entitled "De caus4 Virgilii Hiberni," 

 strangely misconceives and execrates this novel opinion, as tending to 

 irreligion and infidelity, and actually sentences its promulgator to 

 excommunication and privation of clerical rank. II Aventinus, how- 

 ever, draws a more correct view of the discovery and its author.** 



* Antiquities, p. 108. f Antiquities, p. 355. 



i Epigram 231, and see O'Conor's Rer. Hib. Script, vol. 1. Proleg. p. ccxxvii. 



§ See Vet. Epist. Hib. Syll. pp. 35 and 36. 



II " De perversa autem et iniqua doctrini, quam contra Deum et animam suam locutus est 

 (Virgilius,) si clarificatum fuerit, ita eum confiteri, quod alius mundus est et alii homines sub 

 terras sint, hunc, accito concilio, ab ecclesia pelle sacerdotii honore privatum." — Sylloge, 

 p. 35. 



** " Virgilium, in disciplinis, mathematicis, et in philosophia profana, magis quam tunc 

 Christiani mores ferebant, eruditum ex illius modi scitis, contra vulgi opinionem, et D. Augus- 



