Note 552 — Chapter V

Compare the passage concerning a brother who had been sent from Clairvaux to Sweden in 1143, and had founded a daughter monastery there: "The lord [St. Bernard] sent to his faithful servant learned and discreet persons from the parts of Germany and England, by whom the discipline of monastic religion founded in that kingdom increased and bore worthy fruit among peoples who had indeed heard the name of monk, but had never before seen a monk" (V.P. vii. 54). It was literally true that no monastic communities had previously existed in Sweden (C. H. Robinson, Conversion of Europe, p. 482 f. Cp. Vacandard, ii. 416). But the passage before us cannot be construed as an assertion that Ireland was in like case; for in § 12 mention is made of the "monks" of Bangor in the time of Congall. St. Bernard (or Malachy, if the words are really his) must be taken to mean simply that the so-called monks of the decadent contemporary Church of Ireland were not monks in the true sense of the word. (Cp. Lett. iii. § 2). There is nothing to be said for the explanation suggested by Lanigan (iv. 114) that the "nations" are nations other than the Irish, who had no monks. For where were those nations to whom the Irish might send colonies of monks? The fact is that the Latin word for "nations" (gentes) may quite well mean here what it certainly means in § 42, the Irish tribes.