l<]sposiTo — On the " De Mirabilibus Sanctae Scrip fur ue.'''' 199 



. ' This didiculty was explainc;! in a (liUcri'iit niaiiiier by Reeves,^ who 

 pi-oposed to regard this Augustimis as an Irish ecclesiastic connected, like his 

 famous predecessor, with the church of Carthage. This solution is highly 

 improbable — as indeed the editors long before Reeves had perceived.^ There 

 is no evidence of Irisli ecclesiastics having ever been connected with the 

 Church of Carthage, and tlie miserable condition of that Church in the middle 

 of the seventh century was certainly not calculated to attract foreigners. 

 Moreover, were Reeves' view adopted, we should have to conclude that 

 Bathanus and Manchianus were also connected with the same church, and it 

 would be difficult to understand why an author writing for African priests 

 and bishops should find it necessary to insert the allusions to Ireland and 

 Irish affairs which we read in (3) and (4). But there is a decisive argument 

 against Reeves's view of an Irish Augustine of Carthage as author.^ Barely 

 sixty years after its compilation the "De Mirabilibus," as we shall shortly see, 

 was cited by an Irish computistical writer as a work of St. Augustine's. It 

 is difficult to believe that had there been an Irish writer named Augustine 

 all memory of him would have been already blotted out in his own country 

 only sixty years after he had written. 



'I'he most probable solution appears to be that the treatise was originally 

 anonymous,- or that the writer's name had become effaced in the archetype 

 and forgotten, and that some later editor or reviser, either by mistake, or 

 deliberately for the purpose of gaining authority and popularity for the work, 

 inserted the name Augustinus and the reference to Carthage in the Dedication, 

 neglecting at the same time to erase those passages which conclusively belied 

 such an attribution. It is well to bear in mind that patristic forgeries made 

 by Irishmen at this period are by no means uncommon.* 



I Proc. R I. .\cad., vii, 186], pp. 514-522. 



" This had been al.so realized by Moran ("Essays on tlie Early Irish Church." 1864, 

 p. 219 n.), but liis suggestion that some word giving the meaning Lloiimncnoiae was to be 

 read in place of Caithatiinensium does not find a particle of evidence to support it. 



3 The improbability of Reeves's view had evidently strnck G. T. Stokes ('" Irel:»nd and 

 the Celtic Church," ed. Lawlor, 1907, pp. 221-224), and Gougaud ("Les Chretient^s 

 Celtiques," 1911, pp. 256-257), who speak of the ''De Mirabilibus," and carefully oiuit 

 all mention of the author's supposed connexion with Carthage. It may also be remarked 

 tihat it is highly improbable that an author writing at Carthage in the middle of the 

 seventh century would have employed a Biblical text of the mixed type cited in the "De 

 Mirabilibus " (cf . infra, pp. 202-205). 



■• In view of the fact that these works are little known, it may serve some useful 

 purpose to enumerate them liere : — 



1. "Acta of the Council of Caesarea," an Ii-ish paschal forgery of A.u. 508 (ed. 

 Krusch, " Studien zur christlich-mittelalterlichcn Chronologie," 1880, pp. SOS-illO ; cf. 

 also MacCarthy, "Annals of Ulster," iv, 1901, pp. Ixix, cxv-cxvii) ; Ms. Digby 63. 



2. "Pseudo-Athanasian Tractate on the Paschal System," forged in 546 (ed. Krusch, 

 luc. cit., pp. 328-330 ; cf. MacCarthy, pp. cxvii-cxviii). 



[26*] 



