It would be tedious, though easy, to enumerate more names. The Protestant Mosheim, in his "Ecclesiastical History" (p. 279), remarking on the eighth century, says, "Irishmen, who in that age were called Scots, cultivated and amassed learning beyond the other nations of Europe in those dark times; they travelled over various countries of Europe for the purpose of learning, but still more for that of teaching; and in this century and the following Irishmen or Scots were to be met with everywhere in France, Germany, and Italy discharging the functions of teachers with applause."

We have thus referred to the resort of students from all parts of Europe to the schools and monasteries of Ireland, to the pilgrimages of Irishmen to Rome, and to the labours of Irishmen as missionaries and schoolmasters in various parts of Europe, because these facts appear to us conclusively to demonstrate that the Irish were in religious communion with the See of Rome, and that the religious doctrines of Ireland, of Rome, and of Catholic Europe were identical. It is admitted that in France, Spain, Germany, and Italy the spiritual authority of the Pope was acknowledged, and is it possible that any difference between Ireland and the rest of Europe as to the authority of the Pope, or on any other doctrine, could have existed without some trace of it appearing? The errors of Pelagius and his disciple Cælestius, the former of British and the latter of Irish origin, caused for some time the religious opinions of Irish visitors to the Continent to be scrutinized narrowly, and some of them were even required on their arrival at Rome to address to the Pope a written statement of their creed. If there had been any variance whatever in religious belief, would Irish missionaries have been accepted, blessed, and sent by the Popes to preach the Gospel to the Pagans? would Irishmen have been not only admitted as monks in the monasteries, but enabled by the liberality of continental princes and nobles to found monasteries? would they have been received with joy as priests and bishops in the cities of the Continent, and as teachers in the great schools? or would the continentals have frequented Ireland for religious instruction or retirement if the religion of Ireland and of France, Germany, Spain, and Italy had not been found to be the same, and if they had not all found themselves united in one common faith by a common submission to the spiritual authority of the See of Rome? We cannot see how it is possible to resist this necessary conclusion that the faith taught previous to and by S. Patrick and his successors in Ireland was the same faith which was professed in every other part of the world by those who were in communion with the See of Rome.

A rapid summary of what we have mentioned leads to one

inevitable conclusion. When we see that bishops,-first Palladius and then S. Patrick,-were sent by the Pope to exercise episcopal functions amongst the Catholics in Ireland and to convert the other inhabitants who were not Catholics; when we find that they, the former partially and the latter completely, performed the mission on which they were thus sent without any known denial of or dispute respecting the authority of him who sent them; when we find that S. Patrick, after he had effected the conversion of Ireland, left the following injunction or canon for the guidance of his clergy and people in after times: "If any grave controversies arise in this island, they shall be referred to the Apostolic See"; when we find no trace of any dispute or question as to this being the solemn canonical rule of the Irish Church, but on the contrary express confirmation of it in Irish canons of the year 700, by reference to Roman canons to the same effect; when we find, upon the authority of S. Cummian, that Irish bishops in the seventh century acted upon this rule; when we find that Ireland, having become Catholic and having had not only churches and schools but also monasteries and convents established in the country, and being by insular and distant position further removed from the barbarian incursions which had overwhelmed the Roman empire, its clergy, its monks, its nuns, its schoolmasters and its saints, became renowned throughout Christendom, and Catholics, both young and old, both men and women, came from distant countries to learn or to practise religion with more security or with more fervour in Ireland, and that there is not the slightest indication that any of these found the doctrines or the practices of religion in Ireland different from what they were accustomed to in any other part of Christendom; when we find that Irish priests went out from Ireland as missionaries to every country in Europe, and that before proceeding on their mission they almost invariably went and knelt at the feet of the Pope and asked his apostolic blessing and sanction on their labours, that many of them were raised to the dignity of bishops by the Pope, that they built churches and founded religious houses throughout the Continent, and that there is scarcely a city on the Continent in which some Irishman who there lived as an apostle or died as a saint is not to this day held in grateful memory, and that neither Pope nor people ever discovered that they preached any other than the one Catholic faith, alike in Ireland, at Rome, and in every place where they lived or died, but that Popes and people alike regarded many of them as saints in heaven, and sought their intercession as such with God; when we find no trace that any one of these Irish missionarics took a wife with him, but on the contrary, that they went, as the Apostles before them had gone, and as Catholic missionaries have ever since gone, in the only mode in which any large conversion of the heathen has, with the blessing of God, ever been effected; when we find that continental sovereigns,

who wished to obtain the best masters for schools which they were establishing, sent to Ireland for them, that Irish schoolmasters therefore taught in many of the most celebrated schools of the Continent, delivered lectures and put forth books of instruction, but that no sovereign, or bishop, or priest, or rival schoolmaster, or any other human being ever made the discovery that they taught anything but the one true Catholic faith; when we find that these Irish, from the time of S. Patrick down to that of King Henry II., whenever they wrote or published anything in which they referred to the Pope, always spoke of him just as Catholics do at the present day, and as Catholics then did throughout Christendom, Ireland included, we cannot escape, nor do we see how any one can escape, the necessary conclusion, that the Irish before and from the time of S. Patrick, to and through the time of Henry II., and to and through the time of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, and down to the present day, have acknowledged the spiritual authority of the Pope just as all Catholics have ever done and now do. Either this must be so, or if the Irish were Protestants, then must all the peoples of the various countries of Christendom with whom the ancient Irish were in constant religious communication, including the Popes themselves, have also been Protestants. And to those who reject this latter absurdity and adopt the rational conclusion which the historical evidence establishes, it involves and suggests the important reflection, that the religion of S. Patrick and of the ancient Irish and of all the peoples of Christendom with whom they were in religious communication, and of all Catholics, down to the present day, must be the religion taught by Christ our Saviour.

We have confined ourselves to the one test of Catholicity, the being in communion with the See of Rome. We might have shown, for the evidences are superabundant, that the ancient Irish believed the doctrines and followed the practices of the Catholic Church, but it appeared to us that there was no way in which we could so readily prove that the ancient Irish were Catholic as by proving that they were in communion with the See of Rome. We could easily have proved that they believed in the real presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Sacrament of the altar, but so do some members of the Church of England; we could easily have proved that they honoured the saints, and especially the Blessed Virgin, Mother of God, and asked them, and especially her, to pray to God for them, but so do some members of the Church of England; that they went to confession, but so do some members of the Church of England; and we might thus have identified the leading doctrines and the prominent practices of the ancient Irish and of the whole Catholic Church then, ever since, and at the present day, but many of such doctrines and practices might also have appeared very similar to, if not identical with,

those of some members of the Church of England; and therefore we thought that the most ready and simple and certain way of determining whether the ancient Irish were Catholics or Protestants was to apply the test of their being in communion or not in communion with the See of Rome. That is the crucial test, alike with ancient Irish and modern Anglican, and to that test therefore we have confined ourselves in the present article.

When, indeed, it is said that the ancient Irish were Protestants, what is really meant? Is it meant that they were Church of England Protestants, or Calvinists, or Congregationalists, or Methodists, or Baptists, or Quakers, or any other of the various, nay multitudinous, forms of Protestantism? Is it meant that they believed in the Thirty-nine Articles, or in the Catechism of the assembly of divines, or in that which has been taught by Calvin, or by Wesley, or by Fox, for all these and many others come under the generic name of Protestants, though differing widely from each other? Is it meant that the ancient Irish believed that there is or that there is not regeneration in baptism, for both these opposite beliefs are tolerated in the Church of England? Is it meant that the ancient Irish believed or did not believe in the Real Presence, for this belief and its negative co-exist in the Established Church? Is it meant that they believed, or did not believe, in holy orders and apostolical succession, for both these beliefs, and both their negatives, also exist in the Established Church; and the difficulty is to know what is the belief of the Established Church of England, unless it be comprised in the very compendious and lawyer-like statement recently made by a learned Queen's counsel on the hustings, that "the Church must do whatever the State tells it to do," which obviously means that the creed of the Church of England is contained in the statute book, and may be altered by Act of Parliament next session.

It is an old saying that much dispute might be avoided by definition of terms, and when any one asserts that the ancient Irish were Protestants he would certainly lessen, and perhaps altogether avoid, the trouble of inquiry if he would first define the word "Protestants," and state the exact doctrines which they hold. We hope and believe that it is consistent with the respect and esteem and affection which we have for many Protestants, if we say that the religious doctrines of Protestants are so various and so indefinite, that we should not be far from the mark if we suggested that a Protestant may believe or disbelieve almost anything he likes, if only he refuse to acknowledge the authority of the Church of Rome; and if this be so, we have taken the most effectual way of proving that the ancient Irish were not Protestants, by showing that they did acknowledge the authority of the Church

of Rome.

ART. II.-AUTHORITY OF THE SCHOLASTIC

PHILOSOPHY.

La Filosofia antica esposta e difesa del P. GIUSEPPE KLEUTGEN, D.C., D.G. Versione dal Tedesco.

Roma.

De l'Unité dans l'Enseignment de la Philosophie au sein des Ecoles Catholiques. Par le P. H. RAMIÈRE. Paris.

Essay on first Principles. By the Very Rev. JOHN CANON WALKER. London: Longman.

THE foundation by Descartes of what is called "the modern philosophy," may fairly be accounted the severest intellectual calamity which ever befell the Church. However much she suffered in other ways from the various heresies of successive centuries, intellectually she gained by them. For she was led in each case to investigate more profoundly, to analyze more carefully, to express more precisely the dogma assailed; while its assailants were expelled from her territory, and had no power therefore to taint her atmosphere. But Descartes was no heretic: and the result of his career is, that for a very considerable period there has been mutual internecine war among Catholics, as to the very fundamentals of philosophy. * From the fact of living in the midst of this phenomenon, there is a tendency in contemporary Catholics greatly to underrate its disastrousness; and it may be worth while therefore, before going further, to point out one or two particulars under which it is especially deplorable.

Dogmatic Theology more properly so called-the exposition and analysis of dogmata in themselves and in their mutual relation-has its very life in the combination of

"This great undeniable fact must never be lost sight of, that up to the beginning of the last century the scholastic philosophy kept itself in possession throughout the whole extent of the Catholic Church (Kleutgen, vol. i. p. 100). F. Kleutgen then would give some 150 years, as the period during which the calamity mentioned in the text has oppressed the Church. "Our domestic contentions turn on the most fundamental questions; those on which depends the certainty of all our rational convictions; on the principles which should be opposed to sceptics and pantheists; on the legitimacy of the idea of God and of all absolute ideas; on the very value of reason; in one word on the whole of philosophy" (Ramière, pp. 4, 5). VOL. XIII.—NO. xxv. [New Series.]

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