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XXII. 



Olf THE CONSORTIA OF THE EIEST ORDER OF IRISH 

 SAINTS. By REV. T. OLDEN, M.A. 



[Eead June 25, 1894.] 



Amongst the remains of our early literature few are more curious 

 than the Catalogue of the Saints of Ireland according to their several 

 periods, first published by Archbishop Ussher,^ and attributed to the 

 middle of the eighth century. 



It is an attempt to illustrate the decline of religion from its 

 primitive purity by classifying the early saints with regard to their 

 holiness, and it compares them respectively to the sun, moon, and 

 stars ; each of the three orders into which they are divided shining 

 with a lustre which gradually diminishes. The period referred to 

 in the Catalogue embraces the time which elapsed between the coming 

 of St. Patrick and the year 664, and if we assign his mission to 405, 

 the date given in the British History of Nennius, the interval will be 

 261 years, which is divided into three periods, two of which I only 

 deal "with now. 



In the first of these which terminates with the year 543, the 

 saints are distinguished by their superior sanctity, and the proof of 

 this is that " they rejected not the service and Consortia of women, 

 because, being founded on the rock Christ, they feared not the blast 

 of temptation." 



In the second period, from 543 to 599, the saints are said on the 

 other hand to have "shunned {fugiehant) the Consortia and services 

 of women, and excluded them from their monasteries." I am now 

 quotiug, not from Ussher's copy, but from that given by Fleming in 

 his Collectanea, which, for several reasons, I regard as superior to the 

 two manuscripts used by Ussher. This appears from their treatment 

 of the word Consortia, for while one of them gives an alternative read- 

 ing for it in the case of the first order, both omit it, and substitute a 

 paraphrase in treating of the second. Fleming's manuscript, on the 

 other hand, is consistent in employing it in both. It is in fact the 



1 Works, vol. vi., p. 447. 



