28 The Rev. J. H. Todd on an Ancient Irish Missal. 



sion that Columbanus should be quoted, or in some way referred to in this MS., 

 it unfortunately happens that no such document as the Poenitentiale of Colum- 

 bamis is known to have existed, unless his Regula Cosnohialis* be intended ; 

 nor is there anything to prove whether the Pcsnitentiale of Bobio has quoted 

 the ipsa verba of Cummian, or Cummian the ipsa verba of the Bobio MS.; or, 

 finally, whether both may not have copied from some common source, which 

 is the most probable supposition, when we see, from the foregoing comparison 

 of the two passages, that the i])sa verba have not in fact been quoted. f 



But Dr. O'CoNOE tells us that Mabillon himself confesses : — "Mabillonius 

 ipse fatetur," — and to prove this he cites in a note the following words of Ma- 

 billon: I give them exactly with the break in the middle, as Dr. O'CoNORhas 

 printed them: — 



" In fine etiam, quod rarissimum est, et poene singulare, habetur Liber Poe- 



mVmffa^w, in quo multa scitu digna occurrunt quse,iisdem fere verbis, 



reperies in Pcenitentiali Cummiani, editionis Lovaniensis anni 1667." — Ma- 

 billon, Muswi Ital, tom. i., p. 276 et 393. 



"What would a reader suppose from this citation to have been the statement 

 of Mabillon? Certainly, that " multa scitu digna" are to be found " iisdem 

 fere verbis" in the Poenitentiale of Cummian. Yet Mabillon says nothing of 

 the sort. There are here two sentences separated by dots. In the first, which 

 occurs in his prefatory remarks, p. 276, Mabillon tells us that at the end of 

 the Missal there is a Liber Panitentialis (a thing of very rare occurrence), in 

 which are many things well worth knowing — " multa scitu digna.". The other 

 passage occurs in a note on page 393, after an interval of 117 pages. It is not 

 likely that after so much intervening matter the two passages could have been 

 intended as one. What Mabillon says in p. 393 is this:— "Hsec" [not quai\ 

 iisdem fere verbis reperies," meaning by hwc, the words of Can. 28, which have 



* Fleming, Collect. Sacra, p. 19. It is entitled, "Regula; cosnobialis fratrum, sive Liber de quo- 

 tidianis pcKnitentiis monacliorum." 



t The extract above given from St. Cummian contains au enactment much less severe than tliat 

 of the Bobio Penitentiary ; and there are other additions which render it more probable that Cum- 

 mian quoted from the Bobio MS., or from some common authority, than that the Bobio MS. 

 copied from S. Cummian. If this be so, and if we assume that Cumraian's Penitentiary is an Irish 

 authority, it will prove that the Irish author borrowed from the Galilean, and not the Galilean 

 from the Irish. 



