370 
the St. Gall manuscript was considerably fuller than ours. I leave it to 
better critics to decide which is the more genuine text of this work of 
the ‘‘ sagest of the Scots.” 
Among the most venerable writers of the Irish Church, St. Aileran, 
regent of the great school of Clonard, in the seventh century, has always 
been reckoned. Our domestic writers, and foreigners as well, have 
known him by the name of ‘‘ Aileranus Sapiens,” and “ Aileranus Scot- 
torum Sapientissimus.” His death is recorded, in the Annals of Ulster, 
on the 29th of December, 664, which corresponds both with our earliest 
martyrology—that of St. Aingus Ceile-de—and with that of Suben 
(Martyrologium Subense) in Bavaria.*- The former notes his feast on 
the 29th of December, in his metrical martyrology, thus— 
La hdipenan inoeenai, 
‘With Aireran the Wise.’t 
The latter concordantly sets down—“‘ iv. Kal. Januarii, Jn Hibernia 
S. Arerant, Confessoris.” 
He wrote the Gesta of St. Patrick, a Life of St. Brigid, and is said 
to have been the author of a lifé of his contemporary, St. Fechin of Fore, 
whom he survived for about a year. We may conclude from Ussher, f 
that these works were no longer to be found in his day; and the only 
part of the writings that are known to us, of him to whom early ages 
gave the title of the ‘‘Sagest of the Scots,” in days when it was our 
country’s lot to be foremost in ecclesiastical learning in Northern Eu- 
rope, 1s that short but marvellous fragment on the genealogy of our 
blessed Saviour, of which the two copies which I have mentioned are 
all that remain. 
The following is the concluding portion, the want of which Fleming 
deplored, but which is fortunately preserved in the Vienna manuscript.§ 
He ends with ‘et illic resuscitati in sancto et spiritali vivamus corpore. 
In Azor, ut adjuvante Domino,” where the perfect copy continues the 
exposition in the words now, for the first time, made public. 
In Azor, ut adjuvante domino aereas potestates devincamus atque in 
® Now in Austria, on the east bank of the Inn, south of Passau. It was a monas- 
tery of Regular Canons of St. Augustin. See “ Monumenta Boica,” vol. iv., p. 513. 
+ The Mart. Tam]. has simply Gilepan at this day. Marian Gorman has Cile- 
nan, with the note Penleginn Cluana h@€paipo, “ Lector of Clonard.” This is 
copied into the Martyrology of Donegal, with the change of the name to Eneanan. 
Another Gipenan is commemorated at Aug. 11, in the Irish Calendars; but he was of 
Geach Ginenam, or Tyfarnham, in Westmeath, and of a later date, inasmuch as he 
was successor to Maelruain at Tamhlacht. 
+ Primordia, p. 996; or Brit. Ecc. Ant., cap. 17, Works, vol. vi., p. 588. Ussber 
seems to have known of this, or a similar MS.; for, treating of the author, he writes :— 
_“Cujus ingenii unicum, atque illud perexiguum, monimentum adhuc habemus reliquum: 
Sedulii junioris collectaneo in Mattheum insertum, atque ita prenotatum: Incipit typi- 
cus ac tropologicus genealogie Christi intellectus: quem sanctus Aileranus Scottorum 
gapientissimus exposuit.” A similar notice appears in Ware's Irish Writers. 
§ Fol. 9 a, col. 1, to 95, col. 1. 
