[This post is actually an assignment that I just finished for my history class. I liked it a lot, both the book (How the Irish saved civilization, Thomas Cahill. An easy read and highly recomended for those who love their Irish-Catholic heritage.) and the paper that I wrote about it. It is long and vaguely academic, so don't feel obligated to read it. But I think that at least Jeff and Brian will appreciate the essay.]
“The word Irish is seldom coupled with the word civilization…If we strain to think of ‘Irish civilization,’ no image appears” (Cahill, 3). Nonetheless, Cahill titles his book, How the Irish saved civilization. This odd marriage of Ireland and civilization is often unnoticed in many history books. Cahill tells about the Irish not simply because it is a missing fact in the historical chain of events that links the ancient to medieval history, but because what the Irish did might not seem important at all. It is impossible to miss the impact Rome had on Europe—her ruined cities witness to her previous splendor. The Irish contribution was not something so visible, nor as frail and static, as stone cities. What the Irish brought into Europe was life and energy; an enthusiasm for Christianity, education, and beauty, which is realized to a supreme degree through the manuscripts they produced. The full significance of the Irish monks copying books is only understood when one looks at the state of the world when Rome was crumbling.
The end of the Roman world is a story of slow decay. The brittleness and superficiality of the Roman Empire was evident even as early as the fourth century. Cahill gives the example of a high ranking Roman aristocrat and poet named Ausonius, whose manners and poetry indicates the accepted rule of life at that time: “doing well what has been done before…[and] receiving the appropriate admiration of the one’s peers for doing it” (21). His life and work are thoroughly unoriginal, superficially based on the glory of Roman past, and what’s worse, he was popular and respected. The drive and desire that had pushed Rome to conquer the world four hundred years earlier was no longer alive. Two of the great honors of the Roman republic, citizenship and army officer positions, were more and more burdensome. The tax system of her citizens was unjust and universally hated, while the army was made up largely of barbarian recruits, partially because the taxes could not afford anything else. The large, private, aristocratic estates scattered throughout the empire were chaffing under the Imperial system and many were starting to act as independent kingdoms. It would not take a big push for the whole hated system to fall apart, and that push came when the Germans crossed the frozen Rhine, and when in 410 Alaric and the Visigoths sacked Eternal Rome. The fall was predictable, and some might see it as unregrettable, but there were many near losses during the barbarian conquest, losses that would have left Europe no chance of a classical renaissance during the centuries following the invasion.
By the sixth century A.D., the classical world had fallen in the west, and the great masterpieces of that world should have been lost when Rome died. Cahill gives a brief survey of the Classical tradition to give an idea of the treasures that were at stake: “the passionate nobility of Virgil, the cool rationality of Cicero, the celestial meditativeness of Plato—this flame of civilization is about to be extinguished.”(59) These books are not simply bestsellers; they carry with them the reflections and insights of great struggles—and victories—of humanity. They are the cultural inheritance that allows a man like Augustine to realize so deeply about the human experience that he can write Confessions, the first psychological novel. “We realize that with Augustine human consciousness takes a quantum leap forward—and becomes self-consciousness.”(41) Augustine describes man as a self-reflecting Subject, and not simply an Object with reason. The impact of this kind of thinking is incalculable, and it was in real danger of being lost forever. And so, among the many treasures of the Classical era, these few books were saved and they were saved by the unlikely help of the newly Christianized Celts of Ireland.
When Patrick was captured as a youth and became a slave in Ireland, he entered into a radically different culture than the British Roman household he had grown up in. It was an “illiterate, aristocratic, seminomadic, Iron-age warrior culture.”(82). The highest virtues of these pagans were beauty, generosity, and bravery; (94) traits continue to inform the character of the Irish people to this day. They had a propensity for warfare, which included the slave runs, but they also had a taste for delicate beauty in art (e.g. intricate Celtic knots in their workmanship) and in poetry. The sudden conversion to Christianity through the missionary work of bishop Patrick changed the Irish, but did not Romanize them. The pagan priesthood with its human sacrifices was replaced by the marvelous Gospel message that God was not a fickle, frightening, hungry deity; rather, God sent his own son to die as a sacrifice on behalf of humans. The Cross, which had been a stumbling block for Jews and foolishness for Greeks, was intuitively understood by the Irish. Within one generation the island had been irrevocably converted to Christianity. Soon they began on their mission to save civilization.
Anyone who knows the Irish knows that they love to talk, they love words. In ancient times they had a respected tradition of poetry and stories, but, after Patrick, literacy was introduced to the island and soon manuscripts became the new infatuation of the Irish’s love with words. Books were collected, hand-copied, and decorated with passionate extravagance. Latin, Greek and even attempts at Hebrew were copied by the Irish monks. Books were not the only outlet of the Irish energy. The three great Irish virtues—generosity, beauty and bravery—found expression in the “martyrdom” of monastic living (151). These monasteries spread throughout Ireland, and then all through Europe. They became the centers of evangelization in pagan northern Europe and centers of renewal in the collapsed south Europe. The brave and generous Irish who left their homeland to serve throughout Europe breathed hope and life into the post-Roman world that had rolled-over and died of selfishness and apathy a few generations before. Sadly, within a few centuries the Norse invaders would ravage Ireland, and their monasteries were would be despoiled again and again by raids. The endeavors of the Irish were cut short, and all that is left is their treasured manuscripts.
Cahill draws parallels between the late Roman Empire and the contemporary Western culture. “Rome’s demise instructs us in what inevitably happens when impoverished and rapidly expanding populations, whose ways and values are only dimly understood, press up against a rich and ordered society.” (217) The lesson of Patrick and the Irish monks is not historical trivia, it is important to culture today. Perhaps the great work of the modern saints will not be to copy books, but will certainly need the generosity, adaptability, enthusiasm, and “catholicism” that was found in their Irish predecessors.
“The word Irish is seldom coupled with the word civilization…If we strain to think of ‘Irish civilization,’ no image appears” (Cahill, 3). Nonetheless, Cahill titles his book, How the Irish saved civilization. This odd marriage of Ireland and civilization is often unnoticed in many history books. Cahill tells about the Irish not simply because it is a missing fact in the historical chain of events that links the ancient to medieval history, but because what the Irish did might not seem important at all. It is impossible to miss the impact Rome had on Europe—her ruined cities witness to her previous splendor. The Irish contribution was not something so visible, nor as frail and static, as stone cities. What the Irish brought into Europe was life and energy; an enthusiasm for Christianity, education, and beauty, which is realized to a supreme degree through the manuscripts they produced. The full significance of the Irish monks copying books is only understood when one looks at the state of the world when Rome was crumbling.
The end of the Roman world is a story of slow decay. The brittleness and superficiality of the Roman Empire was evident even as early as the fourth century. Cahill gives the example of a high ranking Roman aristocrat and poet named Ausonius, whose manners and poetry indicates the accepted rule of life at that time: “doing well what has been done before…[and] receiving the appropriate admiration of the one’s peers for doing it” (21). His life and work are thoroughly unoriginal, superficially based on the glory of Roman past, and what’s worse, he was popular and respected. The drive and desire that had pushed Rome to conquer the world four hundred years earlier was no longer alive. Two of the great honors of the Roman republic, citizenship and army officer positions, were more and more burdensome. The tax system of her citizens was unjust and universally hated, while the army was made up largely of barbarian recruits, partially because the taxes could not afford anything else. The large, private, aristocratic estates scattered throughout the empire were chaffing under the Imperial system and many were starting to act as independent kingdoms. It would not take a big push for the whole hated system to fall apart, and that push came when the Germans crossed the frozen Rhine, and when in 410 Alaric and the Visigoths sacked Eternal Rome. The fall was predictable, and some might see it as unregrettable, but there were many near losses during the barbarian conquest, losses that would have left Europe no chance of a classical renaissance during the centuries following the invasion.
By the sixth century A.D., the classical world had fallen in the west, and the great masterpieces of that world should have been lost when Rome died. Cahill gives a brief survey of the Classical tradition to give an idea of the treasures that were at stake: “the passionate nobility of Virgil, the cool rationality of Cicero, the celestial meditativeness of Plato—this flame of civilization is about to be extinguished.”(59) These books are not simply bestsellers; they carry with them the reflections and insights of great struggles—and victories—of humanity. They are the cultural inheritance that allows a man like Augustine to realize so deeply about the human experience that he can write Confessions, the first psychological novel. “We realize that with Augustine human consciousness takes a quantum leap forward—and becomes self-consciousness.”(41) Augustine describes man as a self-reflecting Subject, and not simply an Object with reason. The impact of this kind of thinking is incalculable, and it was in real danger of being lost forever. And so, among the many treasures of the Classical era, these few books were saved and they were saved by the unlikely help of the newly Christianized Celts of Ireland.
When Patrick was captured as a youth and became a slave in Ireland, he entered into a radically different culture than the British Roman household he had grown up in. It was an “illiterate, aristocratic, seminomadic, Iron-age warrior culture.”(82). The highest virtues of these pagans were beauty, generosity, and bravery; (94) traits continue to inform the character of the Irish people to this day. They had a propensity for warfare, which included the slave runs, but they also had a taste for delicate beauty in art (e.g. intricate Celtic knots in their workmanship) and in poetry. The sudden conversion to Christianity through the missionary work of bishop Patrick changed the Irish, but did not Romanize them. The pagan priesthood with its human sacrifices was replaced by the marvelous Gospel message that God was not a fickle, frightening, hungry deity; rather, God sent his own son to die as a sacrifice on behalf of humans. The Cross, which had been a stumbling block for Jews and foolishness for Greeks, was intuitively understood by the Irish. Within one generation the island had been irrevocably converted to Christianity. Soon they began on their mission to save civilization.
Anyone who knows the Irish knows that they love to talk, they love words. In ancient times they had a respected tradition of poetry and stories, but, after Patrick, literacy was introduced to the island and soon manuscripts became the new infatuation of the Irish’s love with words. Books were collected, hand-copied, and decorated with passionate extravagance. Latin, Greek and even attempts at Hebrew were copied by the Irish monks. Books were not the only outlet of the Irish energy. The three great Irish virtues—generosity, beauty and bravery—found expression in the “martyrdom” of monastic living (151). These monasteries spread throughout Ireland, and then all through Europe. They became the centers of evangelization in pagan northern Europe and centers of renewal in the collapsed south Europe. The brave and generous Irish who left their homeland to serve throughout Europe breathed hope and life into the post-Roman world that had rolled-over and died of selfishness and apathy a few generations before. Sadly, within a few centuries the Norse invaders would ravage Ireland, and their monasteries were would be despoiled again and again by raids. The endeavors of the Irish were cut short, and all that is left is their treasured manuscripts.
Cahill draws parallels between the late Roman Empire and the contemporary Western culture. “Rome’s demise instructs us in what inevitably happens when impoverished and rapidly expanding populations, whose ways and values are only dimly understood, press up against a rich and ordered society.” (217) The lesson of Patrick and the Irish monks is not historical trivia, it is important to culture today. Perhaps the great work of the modern saints will not be to copy books, but will certainly need the generosity, adaptability, enthusiasm, and “catholicism” that was found in their Irish predecessors.
1 comment:
Sounds interesting - I may have to get this book at some point (you know, after I've finished some of the other "academic" reading I have sitting around my room).
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