St Columban: monk or missionary?

G. S. M. Walker

doi:10.1017/S0424208400004848

St Columban: monk or missionary?

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016

G. S. M. Walker

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G. S. M. Walker*: Affiliation:
University of Leeds

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My subject has been under discussion recently, for example by Ludwig Bieler in the 1966 Spoleto Settimane and at a more popular level by Brendan Lehane in his Quest of Three Abbots. But for me the question was raised fourteen years ago, when I was editing the Latin works of St Columban, and Aubrey Gwynn showed me much kindness in correspondence. He mentioned inter alia the comments of Bishop Galvin, then nearing the end of his long life as a missionary to China. Galvin first went out as a young priest in 1912 to serve a mission in Hanyang. Returning on furlough in 1918, he made a celebrated appeal to the members of Maynooth College for the conversion of the Chinese, as a result of which he was joined by Father John Blowick in founding the Irish Congregation of St Columban, popularly known as the Maynooth Mission to China. Soon appointed Vicar Apostolic, Galvin later became Bishop of Hanyang, and stayed in his diocese under a series of trials, persecution, and house arrest, until he was expelled from the country in 1952. He told a friend that he would never have survived his experiences had it not been for a constant memory of Columban’s example, and he felt that he had enjoyed the saint’s companionship for forty years. Though not an academic scholar, Bishop Galvin is entitled by the circumstances of his life to judge the spirituality of Columban, and he criticized my original statement that his patron was ‘a monk, not a missionary’.

Type: Research Article
Information: Studies in Church History , Volume 6: The Mission of the Church and the Propagation of the Faith , 1970 , pp. 39 - 44

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0424208400004848 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1970

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^{Page 39 of note 1} La Conversione al Cristianesimo nell’Europa dell’alto Medioevo (1967), 559-80.

^{Page 39 of note 2} I.e. Brendan, Columba, Columban (1968).

^{Page 39 of note 3} A new edition of S. Columbani Opera (Dublin 1957) is in preparation; Professor Bieler has generously undertaken the bulk of the textual revision.

^{Page 40 of note 1} S. Columbani Opera, p. xxxii.

^{Page 40 of note 2} Ad Hunaldum, 5 (Opera, p. 184); ad Sethum, 8 (186).

^{Page 40 of note 3} De Mundi Transitu, 89-92 (184).

^{Page 40 of note 4} Instructio, III, I (72).

^{Page 40 of note 5} Instr. V, I (84); cf. V, 2 (86), VI, I (86), IX, I (98).

^{Page 40 of note 6} Instr. VII, I (94).

^{Page 40 of note 7} Instr. VIII, 2 (96).

^{Page 40 of note 8} Instr. IX, I (96).

^{Page 41 of note 1} Epist. I, 8 (10).

^{Page 41 of note 2} Epist. II, 6 (16).

^{Page 41 of note 3} Epist. IV, 5 (30).

^{Page 41 of note 4} Instr. XII, 3 (14).

^{Page 41 of note 5} The edition by Krusch in MGH has now been superseded by that of M. Tosi (Piacenza 1965).

^{Page 41 of note 6} Vita Col. I, 3 (Tosi 14).

^{Page 41 of note 7} I, 4 (18).

^{Page 41 of note 8} I, 5 (18).

^{Page 42 of note 1} I, 5 (20).

^{Page 42 of note 2} I, 6 (22).

^{Page 42 of note 3} I, 6 (24).

^{Page 42 of note 4} I, 7 (24).

^{Page 42 of note 5} I. 23 (64).

^{Page 42 of note 6} I, 31 (94).

^{Page 42 of note 7} I, 32 (98).

^{Page 42 of note 8} I, 35 (104).

^{Page 42 of note 9} Roussel, J., Saint Colomban (1941), 1, 99 n. 6 Google Scholar.

^{Page 43 of note 1} Ladner, G.B., ‘Alienation and Order’, in Speculum, XLII (1967), 236 n. 14 Google Scholar.

^{Page 43 of note 2} Sermo 363; see de Gaiffier, B., in Convegni, IV (1963), 17 n. 8 Google Scholar.

^{Page 43 of note 3} De civ. Dei, I, praefatio; Enchiridion, 56 (15).

^{Page 43 of note 4} HE, III, 4; IV, 3; V, 9.

^{Page 43 of note 5} R. Oursel, Les Pélerins du Moyen Age (1963), p. 9.

^{Page 43 of note 6} Cf. S. Columbani Opera, p. xviii.

^{Page 43 of note 7} The Road to the Isles (1927), p. 49.

^{Page 44 of note 1} In F. J. E. Raby, Christian-Latin Poetry (1927), p. 323.

^{Page 44 of note 2} Raby, p. 435.

^{Page 44 of note 3} R. Kipling, Puck of Pook’s Hill (1939 ed.), p. 162.

^{Page 44 of note 4} In the preface to Tosi’s edition of Jonas, p. xi.

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