06 — Columba the Poet and Prophet
Beside the monastic founder and apostle to the Picts stands another Columba: the seer of Adomnán’s Vita, whose foreknowledge fills the whole first book of the Life, and the poet of Gaelic memory, patron of the bardic order and reputed author of the great Latin hymn Altus Prosator and a body of Irish exile-laments. This section examines both — the prophetic motif that dominates the Vita Sancti Columbae and the question of how an Orthodox reader receives charismatic gifts attributed to a saint, and the verse connected with Columba, from the early elegy Amra Choluimb Chille to the poems ascribed to his own hand — weighing in each case what is securely his, what is plausibly of his community, and what a later tradition placed in his name.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (pre-Schism; Celtic; apostle to the Picts)
In the memory of the Gaelic Church Columba (Colum Cille, c. 521–597) was a man of two distinctive gifts beyond his work as abbot and missionary: he saw, and he sang. The two faces are not separate from his sanctity but are the forms in which his sanctity was chiefly remembered. As seer he is the subject of Adomnán’s first book, de propheticis revelationibus — the prophet who foretells deaths and battles, reads the secrets of hearts, and ordains a king at an angel’s command. As poet he is the saint who, by tradition, rose at the Convention of Druim Cett to save the filid from suppression, the founder for whom the ollam of Ireland composed one of the earliest pieces of vernacular Irish verse, and the reputed author of Latin hymns and Irish laments of exile. This section treats the two together because they belong together in the cult, and it treats both with the same source-critical care: pinning every prophecy to Adomnán by book and chapter and holding it as the Life’s testimony, and sorting the attributed poems by the strength of their claim to early-Iona or Columban authorship, following the central study of Clancy and Márkus.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| The Attributed Poems | The Amra Choluimb Chille, the early Old Irish elegy traditionally by Dallán Forgaill (Stokes 1899), its archaic language, prose preface, and glosses, and its witness to Columba as protector of the poets at the Convention of Druim Cett (Adomnán VC 1.10, 1.49); the Latin and Irish poems ascribed to Columba — above all the abecedarian hymn Altus Prosator — and the vernacular “exile poems” (Fil súil nglais); a source-critical assessment following Clancy & Márkus (1995) and Herbert (1988), with the authenticity of the Altus Prosator and the exile poems weighed. |
| Prophecy and the Second Sight | Prophecy as the dominant motif of the Vita Columbae, Book 1 (de propheticis revelationibus): Columba’s foreknowledge of guests, deaths, battles, and the fates of kings; his clairvoyant “second sight” and vision at a distance; the ordination of Áedán mac Gabráin and the angel with the glass book (VC 3.5), one of the earliest accounts of a Christian royal ordination in the British Isles; the literary function of prophecy in hagiography; and how an Orthodox reader receives charismatic gifts attributed to a saint — affirmed in principle, held as the Vita’s testimony. |
See Also
- The Vita Columbae — Adomnán’s Life and its three-book scheme; Book 1 of prophecies is the source of the prophetic dossier
- The Shape of the Cult — how a hagiographic Life and its wonders are received by an Orthodox reader
- Manuscripts and Learning — the scriptorium and Latin learning of Iona, the culture behind the early poems
- The Young Monk Colum Cille — Columba’s Irish foundations and the peregrinatio the exile poems lament
- Bridei and the Northern Picts — the missionary and royal setting of the prophecies of kings
- Monasticism — the ascetic tradition that cultivates and affirms the charism of foresight
- The Church Fathers — the patristic frame for prophecy and the Latin hymn tradition
References
- Adomnán of Iona. Life of St Columba (Vita Sancti Columbae). Trans. Richard Sharpe. London: Penguin, 1995. (Cited by book and chapter; Book 1, de propheticis revelationibus; VC 1.10 and 1.49 for Druim Cett; VC 3.5 for the ordination of Áedán mac Gabráin.)
- Anderson, Alan Orr, and Marjorie Ogilvie Anderson, eds. and trans. Adomnán’s Life of Columba. Rev. ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991.
- Clancy, Thomas Owen, and Gilbert Márkus. Iona: The Earliest Poetry of a Celtic Monastery. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995.
- Stokes, Whitley, ed. and trans. “The Bodleian Amra Choluimb Chille.” Revue Celtique 20 (1899).
- Herbert, Máire. Iona, Kells, and Derry: The History and Hagiography of the Monastic Familia of Columba. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988.