Fresh Batch #122: The Oldest Irish Manuscript

Mercury, Mars, St. Patrick, St. Palladius, The Lords of Seas, Commerce, and Courts

From the Book of Armagh

William Betham wrote (Irish Ant. Res. pp. 243, 244.), “The Psalter of Columbkill, the Book of Dimma, and the Book of Armagh, are national muniments, of which all Irishmen may be justly proud, may exultingly produce as evidences of the civilization and literary acquirements of their county, at an age, when other nations of Europe, if not in utter ignorance and barbarism, were in their primers, their very horn-books.

“The Psalter of Columbkill, written in the sixth century, is probably the oldest Irish MS. extant. The four gospels of Dimma, written early in the seventh century, is perhaps, the oldest in the pure Irish character.”

Betham added in a footnote, “From the writing of the Visitation of the Sick, in Dimma’s book, and the entry written in the presence of Brien Boiroimhe, in the year 1006, in the book of Armagh, being precisely the same character, and differing in toto from that of the remainder of the MSS. commencing on a spare blank part of the vellum, at the end of the gospel of St. Luke, and continued on an inserted membrane, I consider it to have been written long after the book itself, viz. at the end of the tenth or beginning of the eleventh century.”

Betham doesn’t demonstrate how the Psalter of Columbkill (which is a book of psalms allegedly written by St. Columba) was dated to the 6th century, at a time prior to all of the methods used today, which means they likely used some sort of palaeography (paleography in US), which is not scientific. Yet, even by this arbitrary dating, it conforms to the chronology of the priestly takeover that I write about, for Michaelis lamented, “No manuscript pertaining to the gospels was written prior to the sixth century.”

The dating of this manuscript, however, is still claimed to be from 560-600 AD, and is called The Cathach. It allegedly “contains a Vulgate version of Psalms XXX (10) to CV (13) with an interpretive rubric or heading before each psalm. It is written in Latin.”

This is the Cumdach, or Book Shrine, of the Cathach.

However, the origin story of this manuscript is too legendary for me to accept, and I’m not sure that St. Columba was a historical man, at least how he’s described by the religious Irish. According to the writer of the Royal Irish Academy, “It is possible to date the manuscript to the late 6th or early 7th century from the script, but modern historical scholarship has cast doubts on St Columba's authorship. The story of the circumstances in which St Columba’s manuscript was produced was written down in the early sixteenth century by Manus O’Donnell, in his new life of the saint who was patron of his kin group (O’Kelleher & Schoepperle, 1918; Lacey, 1998). The story is sometimes cited as the earliest example of copyright, but it reflects attitudes to manuscript ownership in the sixteenth rather than the sixth century.”

Click here to go through the Cathach page by page and see it for yourself.

The quality of this writing is elegant and sophisticated, which indicates, even though this is the oldest manuscript still extant from Ireland, that the skillset and system were used prior to the 6th century (should the Psalter be authentic).

If you’re missing something in your repertoire that’ll help you look at the world differently and expand your mind, or you’re just inquisitive about the universal system of priestcraft that governs the world, read the Spirit Whirled series.

There is more on the Cathach, the Book of Armagh, St. Patrick, and Palladius on the other side.

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