Note 183 — Chapter I

Formam. The word, as used by St. Bernard, seems to include the two notions of rule and example. It would seem that Malachy received some sort of monastic rule from Imar. Cp. § 7, "his monastery," and the reference to "the first day of his conversion" in § 43. Both passages imply that he belonged to a religious order. So in § 5 he is said to have been before the other disciples of Imar "in conversion." On later occasions he was subject to Imar's "command" (§§ 14, 16). It is not improbable that the disciples who gathered round Imar were the nucleus of the community which he founded at Armagh (note 1). If so, the inference is reasonable that Malachy became a regular canon of St. Augustine.