luke wadding

Appropriating Patrick: Keating, Ussher, Toland and the Early Irish Church

by
A statue of St Patrick in an antique shop window (c) david perry/flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
A statue of St Patrick in an antique shop window
(c) david perry/flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

The very oldest texts in any language written in Ireland that have survived relate to St Patrick. One, the Confessio, outlines his own account of his life. To the modern reader, it may seem sparse. There is no mention of Pascal fires, of shamrock or of snakes.

The tale of St Patrick developed over time, and to fulfil different purposes. Muirchú’s Latin Life of Saint Patrick, compiled around the year 680 which includes tales of wonders, was written to confirm Armagh’s pre-eminent place in the Irish Church. Patrick was said to have arrived in Ireland in 432AD to undermine the earlier Palladius who was documented to have arrived in 431AD. The development of the myth continued into the 15th century, with examples to be found in the Book of Lismore and the Leabhar Breac. This tradition emphasised St Patrick as a wonder worker and a prophet. At the same time secular writings such as the 12th century Acallamh na Senorach include stories of Patrick meeting the Fianna.

The Norman invasion saw a parallel tradition emerge, starting with Gerald of Wales’ outline of Patrick’s life in Topographia Hibernica, which included a debunking of the legend of the banaishment of the snakes. Jocelin of Furness’ account, based on resources some of which are now lost, was written as part of the Anglo-Norman attempt to appropriate the saint. Written at the same time as the shrine in Downpatrick was established, it portrays Patrick as a miracle-working prophet, whose mother was related to St. Martin of Tours.

Read more

“Old Luke Wadding…said Welcome”

by
Oil painting of Luke Wadding by Carlo Maratta held in the National Gallery of Ireland (public domain)
Oil painting of Luke Wadding by Carlo Maratta held in the National Gallery of Ireland (public domain)

He was born in Waterford and became a great scholar. He died in the 17th century after spending most of his adult life abroad. Religion was central to his life. Some of his work is still used today. However, unlike Robert Boyle, to whom this description could also apply, Luke Wadding has been almost forgotten.

In the 16th and 17th century, scholasticism saw a second flowering. The works of Thomas Aquinas were studied by scholars of the Dominican and Carmelite orders. The Franciscans tended to study the work of Franciscan Duns Scotus, with the school proper emerging as Scotus’ works were collected and edited in the 16th century. The Jesuits drew from both, the philosopher Suárez being the most influential example (Suarezianism was effectively another school). There was variation within this broad outline: an individual philosopher in any of these schools might draw on many philosophers. Corkman John Punch for example was primarily a Scotist scholar but also drew on Ockham and Aquinas.

This was the world Luke Wadding moved in. Born eleventh in a family of fourteen, he was named for “Luke” after the feastday on the 18th October two days after his birth. His mother was related to the archbishop of Armagh, his brother Ambrose became a Jesuit as did cousins Peter and Michael Wadding, and another cousin Richard became an Augustinian. Little surprise then that Luke Wadding entered a seminary in Portugal in 1604 after studying in Kilkenny College. He joined the Franciscan order and was ordained in 1613. That was the start of a long and illustrious career: professor in Salamanca, theologian in Rome, founder of the Irish College of St Isidore in Rome (1625), rector of the college, founder of the Ludovisian College for Irish secular priests, Procurator of the Franciscans at Rome, 1630-34, and Vice-Commissary of the order from 1645-48.

Read more

The Great Scottish Debate: Duns Scotus and Eriugena

by
Stained glass depicting monks battling demons

Debates over national dividing lines can get heated. Consider the 17th century discussions over the two philosophers John Duns Scotus and John Scottus Eriugena.

In 1620, a book by the bishop of Ossory David Rothe, Brigida thaumaturga, was published in Paris. It was on the surface an account of the life of St Brigid of Kildare, but that life is used as a metaphor by Rothe for the medieval mission of the Irish to Europe and of the mission of clergy to Ireland (a Catholic country under Protestant rule). The latter required financial security for Irish seminary students, which was their due (according to Rothe) given the huge contribution the Irish had made to France in the past, scholastically and religiously, including the work of John Scottus Eriugena.

Not the type of thing that would have the writer called a “devil”, one might think, but that was not all Rothe wrote. The work also targets Scottish scholar Thomas Dempster who claimed a large number of Irish saints and scholars for Scotland. As the historian Liam Chambers points out, this claim undermined Rothe’s argument for French aid for the Irish and left the Irish Counter-Reformation without native saints. Roth systematically rebutts Dempster’s claims, even going so far as to say all described as “Scotia” or Scots in the Middle Ages are Irish.

Read more

Tradition of Scotist Scholars

by

What kind of works in Philosophy did Scotus leave us? […] What is the current status of his works? The Opera omnia was first edited by my countryman of origin, Luke Wadding, who in the terrible seventeenth century departed Ireland and labored in Italy to edit Scotus and other Franciscan writers. Another Irishman, Maurice O’Fehily, living in Padua, Italy, had edited Scotus’s Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle in 1497, and published the work in Venice. But then, these and some Englishmen were continuing a tradition of scholars who, like Scotus, had gone to Paris in the early fourteenth century, scholars who with John Duns Scotus refused to obey Philip the Fair and with Scotus, had to leave Paris and go back to Oxford in the early fourteenth century namely Ricardus Hibernensis, Odo Hibernensis and Thomas Anglicus.

From Duns Scotus: A Brief Introduction to his Life and Thought by Jeremiah Hackett in “Studies in Scottish Literature” (1991).

Read more