Rome; but at length, becoming a convert, he had experiences curiously similar to those with which the men who have followed his footsteps in more modern times have been made familiar.
That this was not the mere excess of zeal of one particular archbishop, is shown by the fact that one of the canons of the old Anglo-Saxon Church enacts, 'That such as have received ordination from the bishops of the Irish or Britons who in the matter of Easter and the tonsure are not united to the Catholic Church, must again by imposition of hands be confirmed by a Catholic bishop.' It is probable that the Irish on their part behaved similarly towards any that came from the Romish party to them. We have no record as to how they dealt with ecclesiastics, but ordinary people leaving the 'Catholic party' had to undergo a forty days' penance before the Celts would receive them.
On the subject of the celibacy of the clergy we must speak with less confidence, as the evidence is to some extent conflicting. When Saint Patrick's mission began celibacy was highly esteemed in Gaul and Western Europe, but was not universally imposed on the clergy; and this seems exactly to represent the state of the case in Ireland. There is extant a Book of Canons, attributed to Saint Patrick, but which bears internal evidence of belonging to the eighth century, one of which ordains that when the wife of a clergyman goes abroad she must wear a veil on her head. The learned Cardinal Moran enters into an elaborate argument to show that the canon does not imply a married clergy—that the wife referred to is after all not the clergyman's wife. The subject, however, is not one for argument, but for taking words in their plain and obvious
