COLUMBA
Columba himself, having continued his labour in Scotland for 34 years, clearly and openly foretold his death on Saturday 9th June. He said to his disciple Deirmit, "This day is called the Sabbath, that is the rest day and such will it be truly to me. For it will put an end to my labours."
Lives of the Saints, Volume 1, Page 762, Dr. A. Butler.
Tall of stature, he had a powerful voice which could be heard at a great distance. He is credited with having copied 300 New Testaments with his own hands. He was the author, not only of Latin hymns, but also of poems in his native Irish tongue. A careful examination of his writings shows that in many places he uses the Itala version of the Bible (the first translation from Greek to Latin, 300 years before the Latin Vulgate).
Life of St. Columba, Summary, page li, Adamnan.
Columba chose the small island of Iona, whose native name was Hy.
Ecclesiastical History of England, b. 3, chs. 3,4.
The fact that Ireland lay outside the bounds of the Roman Empire kept it from the saint worship, image worship, and relic worship which flooded the state church at that time . . . . Happily, Columba had more than a generation in which to work before the influence of rulers on the Continent brought another type of Christianity to the shores of England.
Truth Triumphant, page 105, B. G. Wilkinson, Ph.D.
Letters were known in Ireland before St. Patrick's day; he used to instruct his disciples in the art of writing. The characters and designs used by these early scribes were probably of Byzantine origin and would come to Ireland from Ravenna through Gaul. The Irish adapted them to their own idea of beauty, but though early Irish manuscripts have features peculiar to Ireland, similar interlacings are found in early Italian churches, especially in those of Ravenna.
Saint Columba of Iona, pages 68, 70, Menzies.
PATRICK
From the Catholic historian, T. Ratcliffe Barnett, on the Catholic queen of Scotland: "In this matter the Scots had perhaps kept up the traditional usage of the ancient Irish Church WHICH OBSERVED SATURDAY INSTEAD OF SUNDAY AS THE DAY OF REST."
Margaret of Scotland: Queen and Saint, page 97, Barnett.
He (Patrick) never mentions either Rome or the pope or hints that he was in any way connected with the ecclesiastical capital of Italy. He recognizes no authority but that of the word of God . . . When Palladius arrived in the country, it was not to be expected that he would receive a very hearty welcome from the Irish apostle. If he was sent by [Pope] Celestine to the native Christians to be their primate or archbishop, no wonder that stouthearted Patrick refused to bow his neck to any such yoke of bondage.
Ecclesiastical History of Ireland, vol. 1, pp. 12-15, Killen.
200 years after Patrick (Michelet writing of Boniface, the pope's apostle to the Germans): "His chief hatred is to the Scots [the name equally given to the Scotch and Irish], and he especially condemns their allowing their priests to marry."
History of France, vol. 1, page 74, Michelet.
It (the Papacy) labored to gather Patrick into its fold by inventing all kinds of history and fables to make him a papal hero. It surrounded with a halo of glory a certain Palladius, apparently sent by Rome to Ireland in the midst of Patrick's success. He also has been called Patrick.
St. Patrick, His Life and Teaching, page 33, note 1, Newell.
Historian A. C. Flick writes: "The Celts used a Latin Bible unlike the Vulgate, and kept Saturday as a day of rest, with special religious services on Sunday."
The Rise of the Medieval Church, page 237, Flick.
"It seems to have been customary in the Celtic churches of early times, in Ireland as well as Scotland, to keep Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, as a day of rest from labor. They obeyed the fourth commandment literally upon the seventh day of the week."
The Church in Scotland, page140, James C. Moffatt, D.D.
"In this latter instance they seemed to have followed a custom of which we find traces in the early monastic church of Ireland by which they held Saturday to be the Sabbath on which they rested from all their labours."
Adamnan Life of St. Columba, page 96), W.T. Skene
"Patrick rejected the union of church and state. More than one hundred years had passed since the first world council at Nicaea had united the church with the empire. Patrick rejected this model. He followed the lesson taught in John's Gospel when Christ refused to be made a king. Jesus said, 'My kingdom is not of this world' (John 18:36). Not only the Irish apostle but his famous successors, Columba in Scotland, and Columbanus on the Continent, ignored the supremacy of the papal pontiff. They never would have agreed to making the pope a king."
Truth Triumphant, pages 85-86, B. G. Wilkinson, Ph.D.
"The monks sent to England (in 596 A.D.) by Pope Gregory the Great soon came to see that the Celtic Church differed from theirs in many respects…Augustine himself (a Benedictine abbot)…held several conferences with the Christian Celts in order to accomplish the difficult task of their subjugation (submission) to Roman authority…The Celts permitted their priests to marry, the Romans forbade it. The Celts used a different mode of baptism (i.e., true baptism: immersion) from that of the Romans…The Celts held their own councils and enacted their own laws, independent of Rome. The Celts used a Latin Bible (i.e., the Itala) unlike the (Roman Catholic's Latin) Vulgate, and kept Saturday as a day of rest.”
The Rise of the Medieval Church, page 236-237, Flick.
These truly Biblical heroes really did exist, men such as St. Patrick, and St. Columba. And they can be shining examples for us today, if we only dig down through the polluting varnish of tradition, and find the shining truth.
