Note 579 — Chapter VII · THE COÄRBS OF COLUMCILLE.

Kenneth seems to have taken for his model the establishment of a bishop from Iona in Northumbria, where the whole kingdom formed one diocese under one bishop. The term ‘primus episcopus’ here unquestionably means first in time, not in dignity. The Scotch Episcopal Church appears to have understood it in the latter sense, and thus presents the anomaly of one of the successors of a long line of bishops bearing the title of ‘primus episcopus.’ An elective primacy, too, is as great an anomaly.