¹ The date and provenance of the Book of Kells have long been debated. Currently the most widely accepted view appears to be that put forward on palaeographical grounds by Brown, T. J., ‘Northumbria and the Book of Kells,’ Anglo-Saxon England 1 (1972) 237: that the codex was written in the second half of the eighth century ‘in a great Insular centre, as yet unidentified, but subject to Northumbrian influence in script and decoration alike, [whose] possibilities include Northumbria, Eastern Scotland, and the Columban community at Kells.’ See also Lowe, E. A., Codices Latini antiquiores II (2nd ed. Oxford 1972) 43, no. 274. In view of the strong indications that the Book of Kells was made in a large scriptorium with access to a very rich library, along with other evidence adduced in the course of this paper, I subscribe to the opinion recently offered by Françoise Henry, The Book of Kells (New York 1974) 216–218, who reasserts the old Iona–Kells hypothesis and argues for a date between 790 and 820; see also Alexander, J. J. G., Insular Manuscripts, 6th to 9th Century (London 1978) 73–75. Nordenfalk, Carl, ‘Another Look at the Book of Kells,’ Festschrift Wolfgang Braunfels (Tübingen 1978) 278, has recently offered an attractive argument for Iona in his observation that on fol. 201 a ‘fish-man’ has been inserted into the genealogy of Luke and is shown grasping the prolonged headstroke of the last letter of ‘qui fuit’ to emphasize the name ‘Iona’ as a punning device to draw attention to the place where the codex was made. But, since Iona was not spelled that way in Hiberno-Saxon texts, Nordenfalk now surmises (in the revised version of his paper for the Mediaeval Academy of America, April 15, 1978) that the Irish scribe, knowing that ‘Ionas interpretatur columba’ from Isidore, Etymologiae 7.8.18, was pointing to Jonah's name because it called to mind Columba in whose honor the Book of Kells may have been written.Google Scholar

² Henry, , Kells 221. An analogous book commemoration may be cited in the case of the Lindisfarne Gospels. Its tenth-century colophon, which is generally presumed to be based on an original inscription, informs us that the great codex was made ‘for God and for St. Cuthbert’ whose relics were brought to the monastery in 698; see Lowe, C.L.A., no. 187.Google Scholar

³ In a letter to Gisarnarius (PL 103.1413), cited by Kenney, James F., The Sources for the Early History of Ireland I (New York 1929) 537, Abbot Benedict of Aniane warned against the intellectual tricks growing out of the overly subtle refinement, twisted logic, and verbal virtuosity practiced in Trinitarian theology by the scholars of his day, ‘maxime apud Scotos.’ The esoteric significance of the Kells illuminations has often been remarked upon, but rarely explored in depth; see Alton, E. H. et al., Evangeliorum quattuor codex Cenannensis III (Bern 1951) 12.Google Scholar

⁴ As Ludwig Bieler, ‘The Island of Scholars,’ Revue du Moyen Ǎge latin 7–8 (1951–1952) 228, observed, the Irish were the first since Late Antiquity to gloss their texts extensively. On the redundant and fantastic forms often characteristic of Irish exegesis, consult Bernhard Bischoff, ‘Wendepunkte in der Geschichte der lateinischen Exegese im Frühmittelalter,’ Sacris erudiri 6 (1954) 189–211, recently revised and reprinted in Mittelalterliche Studien 1 (Stuttgart 1966) 205–273. Also see Bieler, , Ireland, Harbinger of the Middle Ages (London 1966) 23; Bullough, D. A., ‘Columba, Adamnan and the Achievement of Iona,’ The Scottish Historical Review 43 (1964) 121–123. Even in their liturgy the Irish differed from other early churches by celebrating the Eucharist with great variation and a multiplication of collects and prayers; see Warren, F. E., The Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church (Oxford 1881) 96.Google Scholar

⁵ Kendrick, T. D., Anglo-Saxon Art to A. D. 900 (London 1938) 95; Henry, Kells 173. See McGurk, Patrick, ‘The Irish Pocket Gospel Books,’ Sacris erudiri 8 (1956) 257–258, who observed that the first seventeen verses were regarded as a ‘praefatio.’ The Lindisfarne Gospels label Matt. 1.1 ‘incipit evangelii genealogia mathei,’ and verse 18 as ‘incipit evangelium secundum mattheum.’ See also Jantzen, H., ‘Das Wort als Bild in der frühmittelalterlichen Buchmalerei,’ Historisches Jahrbuch 60 (1940) 507–513.Google Scholar

⁶ No reliable evidence exists outside the manuscripts themselves to document the liturgical readings in Irish monastic communities before the tenth or eleventh century. But since this singular treatment of the Chi Rho incipit appears so consistently in Irish Gospel books from the Book of Durrow on, it may be surmised that in the Irish communities where these codices were used Matt. 1.18 served as the major lesson for the Feast of the Nativity. Consult Godu, G., s.v. ‘Evangiles,’ DACL 5.863, 867. The sole evidence for Celtic liturgical readings dating before Kells is the Bobbio Missal, an eighth-century Continental compilation whose connections with Insular Irish monastic usage may only be conjectured, in which the pericopes for the Missa in natale Domini are listed as Matt. 1.1, 2, 16, 18–25, i.e., a drastically abbreviated genealogy followed by the Incarnation text.Google Scholar

⁷ Henry, , Kells 174, points out that the two pictorial frontispieces (Evangelist symbols and portrait) at the beginning of each Gospel and the two illuminated folios preceding Matt. 1.18 may be assumed to have been planned with blank reverses, while the incipits (including the Chi Rho) and full-page illustrations were regarded as an integral part of the text and have no blank reverses, to avoid breaks in the narrative. Henry further suggests (p. 212) that the full-page illuminations with blank reverses were distributed to painters to be executed separately and later inserted into the book when it was bound.Google Scholar

⁸ Bede, , Homilia in vigilia nativitatis Domini 5, PL 94.32–34: ‘Nomen Salvatoris, quod nobiscum Deus vocatur, utramque naturam unius personae ipsius significat… . Et vocabis … nomen ejus Jesum. Jesus Hebraice, Latine Salutaris sive Salvator dicitur… .’ Bischoff, , ‘Wendepunkte’ 208, cites several eighth-century examples of Irish exegesis on the nomen sacrum: the Praefatio secundum Marcum (258, no. 28) ‘… Christus Graece, Messias in Ebraica, unctus in Latina. Hoc nomen quomodo scribitur? Ita etiam notatur per X (chi) et P (ro) et C (sima)’; Commentary on the Pauline Letters (264, no. 33); pseudo-Hilary, Expositio in VII epistolas canonicas (266f., no. 36); and pseudo-Jerome (Cummeanus?), Commentarius in Evangelium Marci (257f., no. 27), dating from the early-seventh century.Google Scholar

⁹ See Dölger, F. J. ‘Beiträge zur Geschichte des Kreuzzeichens III 6: Das stehende Kreuz als Kürzung des Namens Christi,’ Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum 3 (1960), 5, 14; and Sulzberger, M., ‘Le Symbole de la croix et les monogrammes de Jésus chez les premiers Chrétiens,’ Byzantion 2 (1925) 414, who suggested that the crux decussata probably originated with Constantine; see Eusebius, Vita Constantini 1.31.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae 1.3.11 and 4.14 (‘X littera et in figura crucem et in numero decem demonstrat’), as pointed out by Werckmeister, O. K., ‘Die Bedeutung der Chi-Initialseite im Book of Kells,’ Das erste Jahrtausend II (ed. Elbern, V. H., Düsseldorf 1964) 692. The oldest extant manuscript of the Etymologiae was written in Ireland or at the Irish monstery of Bobbio in the seventh century (St. Gall MS 1399); for a full discussion of the early transmission of Isidore's writings to Ireland and extensive bibliography, consult Hillgarth, J. N., ‘Visigothic Spain and Early Christian Ireland,’ Proc. of the Royal Irish Acad. 62 (1962) 167–194. See also Reydellet, M., ‘La diffusion des Origines d'Isidore de Séville au haut moyen ǎge,’ Mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire de l'École française de Rome 78 (1966) 383–437. For the connection of the numeral ten (X) with the mysterium nominis Christi, see also the ancient Latin translation of Origen, In Matthaeum 142 (PG 13.1796).Google Scholar

¹¹ Bousset, W., ‘Platons Weltseele und das Kreuz Christi,’ Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 14 (1913) 273–85, cited the source for Justin, Apologia 1.60.2–5 in Timaeus 8.36, where Plato describes the form of the world soul as a Chi—that is, the two great circles of heaven which intersect at the equinoctial points to form a great Chi in heaven.Google Scholar

¹² Justin, , Apologia 1.60: ‘What has been said in the Timaeus to explain the world has also been said about the Son of God… . He made him in every way like a Chi.’ See Sieper, Johanna, ‘Das Mysterium des Kreuzes in der Typologie der alten Kirche,’ Kyrios 9 (1969) 20; also Hugo Rahner, Griechische Mythen in christlicher Deutung (Zurich 1945) 77.Google Scholar

¹³ Irenaeus, , Adversus haereses 5.18.3, 4.17.6. These passages were cited long ago in this connection by Bousset, ‘Weltseele’ 273–274; see also Wingren, G., Man and Incarnation: A Study in the Biblical Theology of St. Irenaeus (Edinburgh–London 1959) 121–122. In his interpretation of the Kells Chi-cross as a cosmological salvific symbol, Werckmeister, ‘Bedeutung’ 705–707, cites these passages from Irenaeus to support his argument, particularly the use of the ‘painted image’ as a metaphor for the manifestation of the creator through the name of Christ (Adversus haereses 4.17.6). Although other aspects of the interpretation are somewhat flawed by his methodological approach (see the reviews by Paul Meyvaert, Speculum 46 [1971] 408–411, and Grabar, André, Cahiers archéologiques 18 [1968] 254–256, of Werckmeister, , Irisch-northumbrische Buchmalerei des 8. Jahrhunderts und monastische Spiritualität [Berlin 1967], in which his article on the Kells Chi Rho page is repeated on pp. 147–170), Werckmeister's elucidation of the Chi-cross in relation to the dogmatic explication of Irenaeus seems to be correct. As he pointed out, the sytematic exposition of salvation through the identity of the creating Logos with the Incarnate and crucified Christ does not occur often in patristic writing, and we know also that the Adversus haereses was translated into Latin at a very early date; see Köstermann, E., ‘Neue Beiträge zur Geschichte der lateinischen Handschriften des Irenaeus,’ Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 36 (1937) 1–34.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Gregory of Nyssa, Oratio in Christi resurrectionem, PG 46.621c–625b; see Ladner, Gerhart B., ‘St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. Augustine on the Symbolism of the Cross,’ Late Classical and Mediaeval Studies in Honor of A. M. Friend (Princeton 1955) 88–90, who notes Gregory's dependence on Irenaeus.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Although McGurk, ‘Two Notes on the Book of Kells and Its Relation to Other Insular Gospel Books,’ Scriptorium 9 (1955) 106, points out that little crosses of this sort were used as scribal signs to mark important passages, there is no reason to assume that this is the case in the Durrow incipit since the text has already been starred far more dramatically by the large Chi itself, above which the little cross is all but lost. Its reappearance above In principio in the same codex probably also refers to Christ as the Verbum. CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁶ Ambrose, , Hexaemeron 6.9.58 (CSEL 31.1.249.9–11): ‘Imago quaedam animi loquitur in vultu, fidei basis, in qua cotidie nomen domini scribitur et tenetur.’Google Scholar

¹⁷ Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 6.145 (PG 8.378): ‘And generally the decalogue gives the blessed name through the letter Iota, in which it shows that Jesus is the Logos.’ See Dölger, F. J., Ichthys: Das Fischsymbol in frühchristlicher Zeit I (Münster 1928) 356–358. Evidence of Irish interest in the exegesis on Iota may be cited in the discussion of its relationship to apex in an eighth-century commentary on Matthew cited by Bischoff, ‘Wendepunkte’ 243.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Augustine, , De civitate Dei 18.23; also Confessiones 13.21, 23; and In Johannis Evangelium tractatus 17.11.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Dublin, Trinity College MS 52, dating from 807.Google Scholar

²⁰ Sermo sancti Severiani episcopi, cod. Vat. Lat. 276, quoted by Dölger, Ichthys II 28: ‘Si enim Christus non esset piscis, numquam a mortuis surrexisset.’ This work may be a translation of a sermon of Severianus of Gabala; Dölger, ibid. 28–29, argues to a dependence of this sentence on a comparison of the baptized Christian to a fish in Origen's Homilies on Leviticus 7.7 (ed. Baehrens, W. A., GCS Origenes 6.392.9–10). According to Zeno of Verona, Tractatus 2.13.2 (PL 11.430), the fish coming up from the dark deep is a metaphor for Christ arising from the dead: ‘Piscem primum a mortuis adscendentem Christum debemus accipere… .’Google Scholar

²¹ David, Pierre, ‘Un Recueil de conférences monastiques irlandaises du viii^e siècle,’ Revue Bénédictine 49 (1937) 81. This eighth-century collection of lectiones, intended for the instruction of an Irish monastic community, is preserved in MS 43 in the Cracow Cathedral Library; fols 70^r to 74^v concern the miraculous catch of fish after the Resurrection.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²² See Dölger, , Ichthys II 449, 453, who cites Augustine, Ambrose, and Paulinus.Google Scholar

²³ Lives of the Irish Saints (Bethada Náem n Érenn), ed. Plummer, Charles (Oxford 1922) II 125.Google Scholar

²⁴ Ibid. I 131, II 259.Google Scholar

²⁵ See Wingren, , Man and Incarnation 165–166, who quotes Adversus haereses 4.29.5–4.31.5.Google Scholar

²⁶ See Warren, , Liturgy 138. This practice is known from the various penalties assigned for dropping or losing the sacrament in Cuminius, De mensura poenitentiarum 13 (PL 87.996); Regula coenobialis 15 (PL 80.218).Google Scholar

²⁷ Henry, , Kells 199; Margaret Rickert, Painting in Britain: The Middle Ages (2nd ed. Baltimore 1965) 23; Ian Finlay, Celtic Art (London 1973) 146. Cf. Nordenfalk, Carl, Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Painting: Book Illumination in the British Isles, 600–800 (New York 1977) 117. Although the small animals in Kells have been variously identified as rats or kittens, I am convinced they were intended to represent mice.Google Scholar

²⁸ Consult Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum, s.v. ‘Brotstempel,’ II 630–631, on the cross stamp on Eucharistic bread; also DACL 5.1366–1368.Google Scholar

²⁹ See n. 21 supra. Cf. Augustine, In Johannis Evangelium tractatus 136.2; Sieper, ‘Mysterium,’ 18.Google Scholar

³⁰ Irenaeus, , Adversus haereses 5.2.2–3.Google Scholar

³¹ John's story was known in Europe in the early Middle Ages from a sermon of Gregory the Great (Vita sancti Gregorii 2.9); See RE 11.1 (1921) 53.Google Scholar

³² The verses appear in a fragmentary ninth-century MS containing other Irish poems and are translated by Murphy, Gerard, Early Irish Lyrics, Eighth to Twelfth Century (Oxford 1962) 3, from W. Stokes and J. Strachan, Thesaurus palaeohibernicus (Cambridge 1903) II 293–294:Google Scholar

³³ See, for example, the Book of Leinster 283, and the Book of Lismore 8, quoted by Donatus, Mary, Beasts and Birds in the Lives of the Early Irish Saints (Philadelphia 1934) 155.Google Scholar

³⁴ Donatus, , Beasts 91.Google Scholar

³⁵ Isidore, , Etymologiae 12.2.38: ‘Musio appelatus, quod muribus infestus sit. Hunc vulgus cattum a captura vocant. Alii dicunt quod cattat, id est videt… . Unde et a Graeco venit cattus, id est ingeniosus… .’Google Scholar

³⁶ Augustine, , Sermo 263, De ascensione Domini (PL 38.1210): ‘… by the very death of Christ the devil is vanquished, as if he had swallowed the bait in a mousetrap… . The cross of the Lord was the devil's mousetrap; the bait by which he was caught was the Lord's death.’ As Meyer Shapiro, ‘Muscipula diaboli: The Symbolism of the Mérode Altarpiece,’ Art Bulletin 27 (1945) 182, remarked, the metaphor occurs three times in Augustine's writings; see also Sieper, , ‘Mysterium’ 19.Google Scholar

³⁷ Donatus, , Beasts 108–109, cites several examples: the curse of St. Comgall (Vitae sanctorum Hiberniae 2.10), the miracles of St. Cado and St. Ciarán of Cluain (Book of Lismore 271).Google Scholar

³⁸ Isidore, , Etymologiae 12.2.40 (PL 82.440): ‘Mus pusillum animal, Graecum illi nomen est; quidquid vero ex eo trahitur Latinum fit. Alii dicunt mures, quod ex humore terrae nascuntur. Nam mus terra, unde et humus. His in plenilunio jecur crescit, sicut quaedam maritima augentur, quae rursus minuente luna deficiunt.’Google Scholar

³⁹ See James, M. R., The Bestiary (Cambridge 1928), in which the thirteenth-century MS is reproduced in facsimile. On the medieval compilations from the Latin and Greek Physiologus texts and the addition of Isidore's ‘De animalibus’ from the Etymologiae, consult Florence McCulloch, Medieval Latin and French Bestiaries (Chapel Hill 1960) 73–74. The round object invariably pictured in the mouths of bestiary mice has been variously identified as cheese (James 42) or grain (McCulloch), despite the reference to the moon in the Isidorian text which appears directly beneath the pictures. Unfortunately, none of the extant copies of the Etymologiae dating from the seventh to the ninth centuries illustrated this passage; see Díaz, M. y Díaz, , Index scriptorum Latinorum medii aevi Hispanorum (Acta Salmanticensia 13.1; Salamanca 1958) no. 122, 39–41. The presumption of an early illustrated edition of the Etymologiae seems unnecessary; Isidore's text alone appears to me sufficient to account for the independent production of these widely separated but analogous images.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Rahner, Hugo, ‘Mysterium Lunae: Ein Beitrag zur Kirchentheologie der Väterzeit,’ Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie 63 (1939) 311–349, 428–442, and 64 (1940) 61–68, 121–131; and ‘Das christliche Mysterium von Sonne und Mond,’ Eranos-Jahrbuch 10 (1943) 305–404.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Origen, , In Genesim 3.13 (PG 81c–85a).Google Scholar

⁴² Theophilus of Antioch, Ad Autolycum 2.15 (Corpus apologetarum 8.100).Google Scholar

⁴³ Rahner, , ‘Das christliche Mysterium’ 393–395; cf. John Lydos, De mensibus 4.80: ‘The primordial basis of all birth is Selene.’Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Ambrose, , Hexaemeron 4.8.32: ‘Minuitur luna ut elementa repleat. Hoc est ergo grande mysterium. Donavit hoc ei qui omnibus donavit gratiam. Exinanivit eam, ut repleat qui etiam se exinanivit, ut omnis repleret. Exinanivit enim se ut descenderet nobis: descendit nobis ut ascenderet omnibus… . Ergo annuntiavit Luna mysterium Christi.’ For evidence that Ambrose's Hexaemeron was well known in Ireland by the eighth century, see Bischoff, ‘Wendepunkte’ 231.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Eighth-century Irish commentaries on this text focus on the nomina sacra abbreviated in Greek letters; see Bischoff, ‘Wendepunkte’ nos. 33 and 36, 266–268, and 270–271.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Augustine, , Enarrationes in Psalmos 10.4 (PL 36.133); Enarrationes in Psalmos 103, Sermo 2.19 (PL 37.1373): in both cases the moon is an image of the Church. Variations on the theme appear often in early Christian theology, e.g., Tertullian, De resurrectione carnis 12 (PL 2.810a–811a): ‘the moon, along with all the cycles of nature, is a guarantee of our resurrection,’ for in it God wanted to express the mystery of Christian fulfillment before he revealed it in Scripture. Zeno of Verona, Tractatus 1.16.8 (PL 11.380b–381a), repeats the old proof for the Resurrection in the rebirth of the moon re-enacted in the nightly sky. For Isidore, De natura rerum 18.5 (PL 83.991–992), the moon expressed the immortality of the soul.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Augustine, , Enarrationes in Psalmos 102.9 (PL 37.1324).Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Basil, Hexaemeron 8.8 (PG 29.184); cf. Gregory Nazianzen, Oratio 31.10; Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus 2.10.107. See Immisch, O., ‘Sprachliches zum Seelenschmetterling,’ Glotta 6 (1915) 193–206; Deonna, W., ‘The Crab and the Butterfly: A Study in Animal Symbolism,’ Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 17 (1954) 63–64.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Ambrose, , Hexaemeron 5.23.78: ‘I have mentioned these things in order that such examples as these may arouse us to a belief in the transformation which will be ours at the resurrection… .’Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Isidore, , Etymologiae 13.1.1 (PL 82.471). Werckmeister, ‘Bedeutung’ 703, suggested that the three genera of animals in the Chi expressed Christ embracing his creation on the cross.Google Scholar

⁵¹ See Werckmeister, , ‘Bedeutung’ 689–691, 693–701.Google Scholar

⁵² Cf. Werner, Martin, ‘The Madonna and Child in the Book of Kells,’ Art Bulletin 54 (1972) 14–15, who postulates that the model included the four apocalyptic beasts and explains their omission as an unintentional error resulting from the interruption caused by the Viking attack on Iona. Henry, Kells 186, also remarks on the inexplicable absence of the four beasts in the Christ Enthroned image, particularly in a book in which the symbols of the Evangelists are omnipresent, and in light of the fact that the maiestas Domini iconography was accessible in Britain in the late–seventh- or early–eighth-century wooden coffin of St. Cuthbert from Lindisfarne; see Kitzinger, E., ‘The Coffin Reliquary,’ The Relics of St. Cuthbert, ed. C. F. Battiseombe (Oxford 1956) 248–264. The image of the Logos Incarnate appears as a leitmotiv throughout the Book of Kells. Its last and most moving evocation occurs in the portrait of the Evangelist John on fol. 291^v, where, as Henry, Kells 194, has observed, the partial figure looming outside the frame is obviously the Verbum. Indeed it forms a visual counterpart to the echoing of the word Verbum in the facing incipit.Google Scholar

⁵³ Rather than stemming from a pictorial tradition of the maiestas Domini in Gospel frontispieces as suggested by Henry and Werner, the Kells image of Christ seems more plausibly to have been based on an illustration for a liturgical or theological text for Easter, such as the full-page figure which appears on fol. 1 of the early–ninth-century copy of Sedulius, Carmen paschale in Antwerp, Museum Plantin-Moretus MS M.17.4, which shows a youthful Christ with a cross nimbus, enthroned within an arcade. The pictures and text of this Carolingian MS were copied together from a Northumbrian model whose original subscription (‘Liber Cudwine’) refers to the eighth-century bishop of Dunwich, a contemporary of Bede's, who is known to have brought illustrated books from Rome, thus pointing ultimately to an even earlier model. See Koehler, Wilhelm, ‘Die Denkmäler der karolingischen Kunst in Belgien,’ Belgische Kunstdenkmäler , ed. Clemen, Paul (Munich 1923) 8–10 and Fig. 19; Karl der Grosse: Werk und Wirkung (Aachen 1965) no. 442, 269–270; Caesar, C., ‘Die Antwerpener Handschrift des Sedulius,’ Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 56 (1901) 258. As in the Antwerp representation, a cross appears above the head of Christ in the Book of Kells; both figures wear red robes and hold books.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Werner, , ‘Madonna and Child’ 131–132. Perhaps similar allusions to the Eucharist were made in the large disc marked with a cross and four dots, as well as the two fish, which appear as fantastic extensions of the upper throne surrounding Christ in the Antwerp frontispiece.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ See Warren, , Liturgy 134.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ This interpretation was argued by Werner for the Durrow cross in an unpublished paper, ‘The Introductory Miniatures in the Book of Durrow,’ Abstracts of Papers Delivered in Art History Sessions, Annual Meeting of the College Art Association of America (San Francisco 1972) in which he cited several literary references to the popularity of the cult of the True Cross in the British Isles during the seventh and eighth centuries.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Bischoff, , ‘Wendepunkte’ 207–208, gives ample documentation in examples of eighth-century Irish exegetical writings of a persistent fascination with the inscription on the titulus of Christ's cross as the source of the ‘three sacred languages,’ based on Jerome's philological argument for triglottal linguistic knowledge. See Lucchesi Palli, E., s.v. ‘Kreuztitulus,’ Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie II (Rome–Freiburg 1970) 648. See also Schapiro, M., ‘The Miniatures of the Florence Diatessaron (Laurentian MS Or. 81): Their Place in Late Medieval Art and Supposed Connection with Early Christian and Insular Art,’ Art Bulletin 55 (1973) 524, who notes that, although no differentiation is made between the arms of the cross to represent the titleboard, models for this peculiar form of double-barred cross were available to Insular artists in the form of sixth- and seventh-century Anglo-Saxon coins. Cf. Nordenfalk, Carl, ‘The Diatessaron Miniatures Once More,’ ibid. 544, who still argues that a copy of Tatian's Diatessaron could have been brought to Iona to serve as a model for the Durrow cross; Schapiro prefers the earlier opinion of Åberg, N., The Occident and Orient in the Art of the Seventh Century: The British Isles (Stockholm 1943) 101, 103, 105, that the Durrow cross is ‘a purely ornamental construction.’Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Origen, , Homiliae in librum Jesu nave 8.3 (ed. Baehrens, W. A.; GCS Origenes 7.338.9–13): ‘Crux Domini nostri Jesu Christi gemina fuit…: hoc est, gemina ratione constat et duplici: quia visibiliter quidem Filius Dei in carne crucifixus est: invisibiliter vero in ea cruce diabolus cum principatibus suis et potestatibus affixus est cruci.’ See ibid., 8.6 (342.10–13); Sulzberger, ‘Symbole’ 364.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ See Dinkier, E., ‘Kreuz,’ Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie II 564. Schapiro, ‘Diatessaron’ 524, n. 163, remarked in connection with Kells that a cross with circular knobbed ends was found on an early Anglo-Saxon tombstone at Hartlepool in Northumbria; see Baldwin Brown, G., The Arts in Early England V (London 1921), plate VI.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Mütherich, F. and Gaehde, J. E., Carolingian Painting (New York 1976) 34.Google Scholar

⁶¹ McGurk, , ‘Two Notes’ 105–107.Google Scholar

⁶² On the appearance of angels at the Nativity and Resurrection in Irish exegesis, see Bischoff, , ‘Wendepunkte’ 243. These figures may not necessarily represent the four archangels from the apocryphal second book of Enoch, as suggested by Henry, , Kells 191, and Werner, , ‘Madonna and Child’ 11. Their number may be purely arbitrary for reasons of symmetry, and their presence may have been intended simply to convey the idea of a theophany of the divine Logos. Leo the Great, Sermon 40.3, on Lent, tells us that in the Temptation the perfect Godhead of Christ was revealed by the attendant angels.Google Scholar

⁶³ Werner, , ‘Madonna and Child’ 11; Henry, Kells 188. Martin Werner has kindly drawn my attention to David McRoberts, ‘The Ecclesiastical Significance of the St. Ninian's Isle Treasure,’ Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries in Scotland 94 (1960–1961) 308–13, who discusses what he believes to be a contemporary flabellum fragment as well as other evidence of Insular examples.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Henry, Françoise, Irish Art II (Ithaca 1967) 81–82; Werner, , ‘Madonna and Child’ 13.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Nordenfalk, , ‘Another Look’ 275–276.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ See Godu, , ‘Évangiles,’ DACL 5.867. In Ireland Maundy Thursday was called cennlá or ‘Day of the Supper’; Stokes and Strachan, Thesaurus palaeohibernicus II 254.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ That the liturgical association between the exaltation of the True Cross and the Last Supper was known at Iona is evinced by Adamnan, De locis Sanctis 3.3 (ed. Meehan, Denis, Scriptores latini Hiberniae 3, Dublin 1958) 108–109.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Cf. Henry, Kells 188–189, who conjectures that the three-figure composition may have been based on an early Christian model from Rome analogous to the small scene included in the Luke portrait in the Gospels of St. Augustine brought to England in the late-sixth century, now in Cambridge.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ See Warren, , Liturgy 128–129, 131–132; L. Gougaud, ‘Les rites de la fraction dans la liturgie celtique de la Messe,’ Report of the Nineteenth Eucharistic Congress (London 1909) 348–361; de Puniet, P., ‘Concélébration liturgique,’ DACL 3.2478. Other references in Insular art to the rite of cofractio panis may be cited in the scene of the hermit saints Paul and Anthony sharing a loaf of bread miraculously brought by a crow in the desert, based on Jerome's Life of St. Paul of Thebes, which appears on the Irish high crosses of Moone, Armagh, and Castledermot dating from the eighth and early-ninth centuries, as well as on the earlier Saxon Ruthwell Cross. On all these monuments the ‘communion’ of desert saints is closely linked with the crucifixion and with the Eucharist in the adjacent scene of the multiplication of loaves and fishes; see Henry, Irish Art I 149–150; II 146–151. Saxl, F., ‘The Ruthwell Cross,’ Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 6 (1943) 3–4, pointed out that the inscription ‘fregerunt panem’ makes an unequivocal reference to the Eucharistic liturgy. The most striking analogue to the cofractio panis references in Kells occurs on the pediment of the Pictish cross-slab from Nigg, dating from the end of the eighth century, now in the National Museum of Antiquities in Edinburgh, in which the two hermit saints kneel over portable altars above a pair of crouching dog-like lions who guard the circular host and chalice in the center; see Mobray, C. L., ‘Eastern Influences on Carvings at St. Andrews and Nigg, Scotland,’ Antiquity 10 (1936) 434–435.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Nordenfalk, , ‘Another Look’ 276–277. Also consult Henry, Kells 189–190, for a discussion of possible sources for this image. Prudentius, Tituli historiarum 31 (CCL 126.396): ‘Excidio templi veteris stat pinna superstes; structus enim lapide ex illo manet angulus usque in saeclum saecli; quem sprerunt aedificantes nunc caput est templi et lapidum conpago novorum.’Google Scholar

⁷¹ Bede, , In S. Joannis Evangelium expositio 2 (PL 92.666b–667b). Henry, , Kells 204, observed that the architectural details of the Temple of Jerusalem correspond to characteristic features of early Irish churches. Thanks to the new researches of Walter Horn we may now also confidently recognize its rectangular shape as a distinctive form for the Irish monastic church.Google Scholar

⁷² Ambrose, , Hexaemeron 4.8.32: ‘The Church has, like the moon, her frequent risings and settings. She has grown, however, by her settings and has by their means merited expansion at a time when she is undergoing diminution through persecution and while she is being crowned by the martyrdom of her faithful. This is the real moon which from the perpetual light of her own brother [the sun] has acquired the light of immortality and grace. Not from her own light does the Church shine, but from the light of Christ.’ Earlier Origen, Homiliae in Genesim 1.7 (PG 12.151): ‘… sicut sol et luna magna luminaria dicta sunt esse in firmamento coeli; ita et in nobis Christus et Ecclesia.’ Isidore, De natura rerum 18.6 (PL 83.992), repeated the lunar metaphor for the Church: ‘Nonnumquam vero eadem luna etiam Ecclesia accipitur, … sic Ecclesia a Christo illuminatur.’Google Scholar

⁷³ See Wingren, , Man and Incarnation 46–47, 118–121.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ The Bobbio Missal, however, gives Matt. 4.1–11 instead of Luke 4.1–13 as the ‘lectio quae legitur initio quadraginsimae’; see The Bobbio Missal, ed. Lowe, E. A. (HBS 58) 41. Adamnan, , Vita sancti Columbae 2.39, tells us that Lent was observed at Iona as a season of preparation for Easter. The severity of its Lenten Rule is attested by Bishop Cedd who learned its strict observance in a Columban monastery; see Bede, Historia ecclesiastica 3.23.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ See Warren, , Liturgy 98–99. Lessons formed an integral part of the Celtic liturgy. According to Abbot Cuminius, ‘Sacrificium non est accipiendum de manu sacerdotis, qui orationes et lectiones secundum ritum implere non potest’; De mensura poenitentiarum 14. In a passage from Adamnan, Vita sancti Columbae 3.17, it appears as if an additional reading from the Gospels may have preceded the liturgy itself.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ McGurk, , ‘Two Notes’ 107, conjectured that the blank page facing the ornamented text ‘Tunc crucifixerant [sic] XPI’ may have been intended for a representation of the crucifixion; see also Henry, , Irish Art II 72.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ Henry, , Kells 198–199, is probably correct in her conjecture that the symbolic beast of the Evangelist Mark may refer to the Resurrection in several places throughout the Kells codex: e.g., the lion emerging from behind the frame above and below the Quoniam incipit for Luke on fol. 188 and the saltire cross at the beginning of John on fol. 290^v. By the end of the sixth century, the four beasts had been interpreted as symbols of the four major events in the life of Christ by Gregory the Great, Homiliae in Ezechielem 4 (PL 76.815): ‘… qui et nascendo homo, et moriendo vitulus, et resurgendo leo, et ad coelos ascendendo aquila factus est.’ Cf. Henry, Kells 198, who cites as the earliest textual source the much later Honorius of Autun.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ Warren, , Liturgy 97.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ Adamnan, , Vita sancti Columbae 3.12 (‘Quasi die solempni’); 2.45. See Warren, , Liturgy 141.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ Henry, , Irish Art II 61, 70. Apart from church services, the chief occupation of all monks under the Columban Rule consisted of reading and writing. The office of scribe (Scribnidh or Scribneior) was equal in importance to that of abbot. Baithene, the second abbot of Iona, was also an accomplished scribe. See Warren, , Liturgy 18–19.Google Scholar

⁸¹ Eclectic culling of extensive patristic texts had many precedents in Hiberno-Saxon scholarship; see Kenney, , Sources, passim ; and Bieler, , ‘La transmission des Pères latins en Irlande et en Angleterre à l’époque préscolastique,’ Sacris erudiri 22 (1974–1975) 75–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸² Hillgarth, , ‘Visigothic Spain’ 171.Google Scholar

^∗ I should like to express many thanks to George Brown and Carl Nordenfalk for their generous help and encouragement.Google Scholar