Drummad)... and Patrick founded a church here, wherein is Conu, the wright, the brother of Bishop Sachell,' i.e., of Baslick (Trip., Part II.). A scholion on Boethine in the (metrical) Calendar of Aengus, Feb. 19, states there were three (religious) houses of Boethin[e]: (1) Tech-Boethin[e] in Meath (Taughboyne); (2) Tech-Boethin[e] in Tirconnell (Taughboyne, Co. Donegal); (3) Tech-Boethine in Airtagh, west of Connacht (Cruachan Airtagh, or Tibohine, Co. Roscommon). A quatrain is added saying there were four of the name: Boethine, son of Brenaron, the second Abbot of Iona (of No. 2); B., son of Findach (Finda of Innisboheen, Co. Wicklow); B., son of Alla (whom the scholiast identifies with the B. given at Oct. 6, adding significantly id nescio ubi est); B., son of Cuana (of No. 1), according to the same unreliable authority. But as the local tradition relative to the feast is not open to question, we must conclude that the patron of Tibohine was B., son of Cuana, and assign Boethine, son of Alla, to Taughboyne in Meath. J. J. KELLY. [59] N° THE ORIGIN OF THE SCAPULAR A.CRITICISM O one, I think, who has read with attention the articles on the Scapular contributed by Father Benedict Zimmerman to recent numbers of the I. E. RECORD 1 will be disposed to question either the industrious research of the writer, or the admirable candour with which he has presented the evidence. Whatever opinion may be formed as to his conclusions, even the least sympathetic critic must allow that the discussion has gained much from the new material which Father Zimmerman has brought to light. It is, indeed, partly because I have formed a high idea of the thoroughness with which the investigation of sources has been conducted that I venture to press the question: Can we with these facts before us regard the story of St. Simon Stock's vision as anything more than a pious legend? Are we justified in declaring that the unqualified promise of salvation made to those who wear the Scapular till death rests upon a basis which is historically sound? If I am to compress my comments into the limits of a single article I must be chary of unnecessary preambles. Let me, then, begin at once with the earliest witness to the vision-Peter Swanyngton. It is a little difficult to discuss Peter Swanyngton's testimony with the requisite brevity: first, because Father Zimmerman's presentment of the dates differs fundamentally from that of all previous writers; secondly, because, if he will pardon me for saying so, his account of the matter in 1904 differs in a very essential particular from the account which he gave in his first article in 1901. In 1901 this narrative of Swanyngton's was described as a letter. Father Zimmerman uses the phrase several times over. 'The result is best told in the following letter of Peter Swanyngton, the saint's secretary.' 'This letter was found in the reliquary of St. Simon Stock, at Bordeaux, in the seventeenth century.' 'The letter in question is undated.' 'How was it that the writer of our copy of Peter Swanyngton's letter put the date 1251, and inserted the name of Innocent IV. ?'1 But, in 1904, we hear no more of the letter' of Swanyngton, but the document is now a chapter in the Life which he wrote in 1305, 'when he was about 70 years old." It was at Bordeaux, we are assured, in or after the year 1305, that he wrote a life of St. Simon Stock, from which the two chapters translated by us have been taken." In other words, we are told that this document was drawn up at least fifty-four years after the date which the writer himself affixed to it. Father Zimmerman will not think me captious, I hope, if I suggest that there is a good deal of difference between the evidential value of a letter dictated the day after the event and a narrative compiled fifty years later. Neither does it add to our confidence in the authenticity of the document that the writer should have pretended he was quoting the words of an actual contemporary letter, when he was in fact doing nothing of the kind. But this is not the only difficulty. Let me state one or two others. I. Father Zimmerman admits that Swanyngton writing in 1305, at the age of seventy, assigns this most consoling vision, with a whole train of other events which depended upon it, and in which he personally took an active part, 'I. E. RECORD, 1901, vol. ix., pp. 401, 403, 405, 406. 'Page 149. References without further indication refer to the articles in the I. E. RECORD for February, March, April of 1904. 3 Ib. + Those who know something of the working of the Society for Psychical Research will best judge of the suspicion with which the narrative of an apparition would be received which, instead of depending on a letter written the following day, proved on inquiry to have been first committed to paper fifty years afterwards, and to contain errors of fact of the most startling nature. Is it asking too much that before preaching to the faithful so momentous a promise as that attached to the Scapular we should submit it to the ordinary tests enjoined alike by prudence and historical criticism? If St. Simon Stock had ever been canonized, or if his cause had been examined into and reported upon by the Roman authorities, the matter would be somewhat different. But we know that in the case of St. Simon even this guarantee is entirely absent. to the year 1251, instead of 1262, which is the correct date.1 But in 1251 Swanyngton would only have been sixteen years old. Surely when he wrote the Life he would have had some idea of his own age, and he would have known whether he was sixteen or twenty-seven at the time when he acted as the saint's secretary, and probably also his confessor." And this reckless inaccuracy occurs in a formal document deposited in the saint's shrine ! II. That Swangnyton should have invented a 'Dean of St. Helen's at Winchester "3 and have wrongly supposed that the Winchester foundation took place immediately after the vision, may be more easily conceived, but it is possible that he should have been wildly at sea as to the identity of the Pope he travelled so far with St. Simon to visit ?5 The Pope whom he actually names was not even the immediate predecessor of the Pope whom he ought to have named.6 III. The whole chronology, in fact, is a hopeless muddle. Father Zimmerman's explanation removes some difficulties, but only to create others. According to him the vision took place on July 16th, 1262. Now, the story supposes that the vision occurred to console the Carmelite brethren at a time of great persecution." But in July, 1262, the trouble was over, and the reigning Pope Urban IV.had already issued his most important bulls in favour of the Order. According to Swanyngton's narrative our Lady told St. Simon to appeal to the Pope, whom she named. But the Pope who was to publish the decisive Bull in favour of the Order was not Urban, but Clement IV., elected in 1265.9 If our Lady really named the Pope who was finally to silence their I. E. RECORD, 1901, vol. ix., p. 404. 'Cf. I. E. RECORD, 1901, vol. ix., p. 401. Father Zimmerman speaks of the Special Chapter convened and the three days' fast enjoined at this time of trial. I. E. RECORD, vol, ix., PP. 399, 400. Page 152. When this was issued St. Simon Stock was already dead. detractors, the identity of the next occupant of the Chair of Peter must have been known to the whole Carmelite Order through St. Simon's letter, two years before his election. In any case, if the mental infirmities of Peter Swanyngton in his old age were such as to lead him into these serious errors about names and dates-errors which are not disputed-what can possibly be the value of his testimony regarding the vision. He would be the very type of those well-meaning but imaginative enthusiasts, with whom most of the extravagant legends of the Middle Ages may be assumed to have originated. And now, what does the extrinsic evidence tell us of this document which is put forward as the earliest and most authentic account of the vision vouchsafed to St. Simon Stock? In the year 1642 a famous and somewhat sceptical French scholar, J. Launoy, published an attack on the Carmelite Scapular and the Sabbatine Indulgence. His principal argument against the former was the absence of all contemporary testimony. No mention was made of it, he asserted, though in this particular he afterwards owned his mistake, before the time of Palæonydorus, at the end of the fifteenth century. Launoy's attack must have excited considerable attention, for three separate replies were issued in quick succession. All of them took up this point of the early evidence for the vision, but Father John Chéron capped the efforts of his confrères by the production of a document calculated to silence all cavillers. He professed to print the text of the very letter written by the Saint's own secretary, at Cambridge, the day after the apparition. Strange to say, up to that moment, as Father Zimmerman admits, we have not a hint of the existence of any such contemporary account. Neither Bale in England, nor Trithemius abroad, to say nothing of the numerous Carmelite annalists, were acquainted with Swanyngton's Life of St. Simon Stock, though they mention Swanyngton and specify his writings. What is still more strange, although the appearance of this Deus ex machina was hailed by Launoy and others with ill-concealed derision, the Life has |