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Western Civilization's Base of Supply
cultivation of the arts and sciences, to become "monks
and exiles for the sake of Christ," "for the love of God,"
"for the name of the Lord," "for the love of the name
of Christ," "for the benefit of their souls," "for the gaining
of the heavenly land," as "pilgrims for the kingdom of
God" such are the formulae which the biographers of
these consecrated pilgrims preferably employ. Pro
Christo peregrinari volens enavigavit "Desiring to go
abroad for Christ he sailed away" are the words of Adamnan
concerning Columcille. "My country," said Mochona,
one of Columcille's disciples, "is where I can gather the
largest harvest for Christ" The three Irishmen who after
tossing on the seas for days arrived at the English coast
and were received by King Alfred had left Ireland, the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tells us, "because for the love of
God they would be on pilgrimage they recked not where."
They called themselves, and were called by others,
"peregrini," that is to say, pilgrims, strangers, voluntary
exiles. They interdicted themselves for a prolonged
period often for their whole life from returning to
their own land. The hagiographers, for this reason, often
compare them to Abraham. It seemed as if they had all
heard the voice which said to the Patriarch: "Go forth
out of thy country and from thy kindred." 1
To continental people there was something baffling in
the sustained energy of these medieval Irishmen. Writers
of the time make note of the impression of wonder
produced by the Irish passion for traveling and preaching.
How strongly the Alemanni of the ninth century,
who never left their own country, were imprest, asZimmer
notes, by this trait of the Irish, is perceived in the remark
1 Compare on this subject the reasoning from insufficient evidence of John
Henry Newman, Hist. Sketches, Vol. III. Yet Newman compares very favorably
with some later English Catholic writers, who have had opportunities
of knowing better.
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