THE CHRONICLE OF EUSEBIUS : IRISH FRAGMENTS

b y John Morris

The purpose of this note is to demonstrate the probable existence, in the 7th and 8th centuries, in Ireland and Britain, of a full Latin translation of Eusebius’ Chronicle, different from any now extant. Closer study of the fragments preserved, and of their historical interest, must await the labours of others, especially of those who are inti- mately acquainted with the detail of Hellenistic history and of i t s sources.

Eusebius of Caesarea published his Chronicle in 303, and himself added a continuation to 325. and Greek and Roman history. It consisted of two books; the first, commonly termed the Chronology, discussed the sources at length, and drew up l i s t s of kings, with the years of their reigns. The second book, Chronicorum Canones or Chronicle, se t Old Testament dates and Greek Olympiads in columns side by side, and slotted other dates into them in parallel columns; events were entered in the margins on either side of the columns of dates.

I ts purpose was to synchronize the recorded events of Old Testament, Near Eastern,

Only fragments of the Greek text have survived. Eusebius’ work is known from two major translations. and forty years later Prosper of Aquitaine continued Jerome. Subsequently, very many late Latin writers published continuations of either Jerome or Prosper, and Jerome’s edition has remained the standard version, in constant use from antiquity to the present day. Of the editing of Book Two, Jerome stated in his preface

Jerome published an edited Latin version, with a continuation to 378,

It does not however translate Book One, but paraphrases it into a few pages.

usque ad Troiae captivitatem pura Graeca translatio e s t ; a Troia usque ad vicesimum Constantini annum nunc addi ta , nunc admixta sunt plurima . . . A . . . supra d ic to anno. . . totum meum e s t .

The second known translation is an Armenian version, that first came to the notice of western scholars at the end of the 18th century. Book One, omitted by Jerome, but i t s concluding pages, and the first few pages of Book Two, together with i t s last page, are wanting. much was addita or admixta by the Armenian translator, but in general it seems probable that his version is in many respects nearer to the original than Jerome’s; in particular,

It contains almost the whole of

There i s no formal means of knowing how

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Jerome se t s the events in the middle of his pages, with the columns of da tes on their margins, and consequently the relative order of events frequently varies, usually by no more than a few years. only from Abraham, but from Adam, from the Flood, from the Captivity of the Hebrews, from the restoration of the Temple, etc. it reproduces them (e.g. at the Baptism) it includes the grand total from Adam, on Septua- gint reckoning. known, and a number of excerpts and fragments are preserved by various Greek and Latin writers .

Both versions contain rubrics, fixing the date of a given year not

The Armenian version omits most of them, but where

In addition to these versions, a Syriac epitome of the edition of 325 is

All versions of Eusebius’ Chronicle are available in good modern editions. In 1866- 1875 Schoene published the whole, with Latin translations of the Armenian and Syriac; in 1911 Karst published a critical edition of the Armenian in German, and the 1956 edition of Helm’s Jerome-Eusebius equipped the text with usable B.C. and A.D. dates, for intelligible reference, in the margins.

Discordant dating systems bedevil the study of early Chronicles. Eusebius, like many before and after, sought a universal reckoning of years, starting from the base of an agreed Year One. The natural starting point of Christian historians of mankind was Adam; but Eusebius was confronted with an intolerable contradiction in his Old Testament sources, for the Septuagint, the Greek version, gave a greatly longer interval between Adam and Abraham than the main Hebrew texts. By his reckoning, the Septuagint (the LXX) gave 3184 years, the Hebrews 1948, a difference which he se t down a s 1235 years. discrepancies were much less , he started h is universal dating with Abraham’s birth a s Year One (equated with the 43rd year of Ninus of Assyria, the 22nd year of Europs of Sicyon, and the 190th year of the 16th Egyptian dynasty); but when he gave date rubrics that calculated years from Adam or the Flood, he preferred the long dating of the LXX. bius’ Year of Abraham did not however prevail. ferred to begin with Christ, or e l se with various lunar cycles. based on various da tes for the Incarnation, the Baptism or the Passion, western Europe began, from the later 8th century onward, to accept our present A.D. dates, as presented by the Venerable Bede in his History of the Eng l i sh Church in 732; though in his own Chronicle, published in 725, Bede had not yet adopted this system.*

Since later

Euse- Later Christian writers increasingly pre-

After a diversity of reckonings

Jerome’s Eusebius was a major source for most later Chroniclers, including Bede, Isidore of Seville, whose Chronicle was first published in the fifth year of Heraclius, 6141615, and the Irish Annals. them put together at the end of the 11th century, two in the 15th, and two in the 17th. including the latest , drew upon other lost recensions, that disappeared in successive bar- barian invasions, from the Scandinavians to Cromwell. of a single tradition. versions, a few in one only. the same kind of problem that Eusebius had tackled. The Irish were the first nation beyond the frontiers of Rome to accept Christianity and literacy; unlike the Germans of Europe, their traditions had not been broken by massive migrations, and they inherited a vast but misty bulk of ancient native legendary history, still remembered when they learnt to write. Jus t as Eusebius had dovetailed Hebrew, Egyptian and Mesopotamian records with Greek and Roman, so the Irish sought to synchronize their own records with Eusebius’ dates; Irish events were inserted between selected notices of Eusebius.

The Irish Annals are extant in six main versions, two of All,

A l l the texts are therefore versions Many events are entered in all versions, some events in several

But the first annalists, whose work i s lost, had had to face

The Irish, however, devised an ingenious but troublesome dating system of their own.

* See Addendum, p. 93.

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Years were designated by the weekday of New Year’s day; thus, K ii meant a year when the Kalends of January fell on a Monday, the second day of the week, and the following year was Ki i i , or K i v i f it was a leap year. copyists were reduced to using a single K, without a figure, to denote a fresh year; and a s the number of blank K s entered to denote the years between entries itself was corrupted, absolute dating was lost. Al l A.D. or B.C. dates given in printed versions are later addi- tions, by editors from the 14th century to the 20th. Since all our extant texts derive from a number of lost recensions, whose editors each had their own absolute dating system, many events are entered several times over, often with the comment ut alii dicunt, according to the dates assigned in each earlier version.

The figures were quickly corrupted, and

The oldest surviving full texts are relatively late. They quote by name numerous earlier annalists, who were held to have written in the 6th, 7th and 8th centuries, and draw upon many more unnamed. which are some centuries older than the earliest known full texts. of Roscrea, and the Welsh Annales Cambriae, for the 10th century Welsh treated the Irish Annals a s the Irish had treated Eusebius; their text begins with 18 entries transcribed from the Irish Annals, into which 4 Welsh events are slotted, so that the Welsh epitome in fact constitutes the oldest extant text of the Irish Annals themselves. Other extracts are however earlier; the opening entries of the 9th century Saxon Chronicle include half a dozen Christian notices of the 1st century A.D. that are reported in the Irish Annals, but not in Bede, or in the extant texts of Eusebius or in any other known Chronicle; some generations earlier, much of the Irish legendary history entered into the Annals was known to Nennius, and isolated items were reported by Bede in the early 8th century.

Something of their early content is known from short epitomes, They include the Annals

The main European sources of the Irish Annals were Eusebius, Isidore, Bede, and many They are frequently named, and their

Four texts, the Annals of Inisfallen, of Tigernach, of Clonmacnoise, of the numerous continuators of Jerome’s Eusebius. termination is noted. and of Ulster enter in the early 7th century Finis Cronici Issiodorii, and repeat the date that Isidore appended to his first edition, the 5th year of Heraclius and the 4th year of Sisebutus, 614/615.

The A.D. da tes entered in the margins of the four texts differ, not only because of their own confusions, but also because the dating of late 6th and early 7th century events in all Irish Annals i s disturbed by a major mistake i n their European sources. Pelagius I reigned for 4 years, 10 months and 18 days, from April 556 to February 561. But the compiler of the Liber Pontificalis wrote 11 years for 4 years. The error was con- temporary with the event, for it is reproduced by the chronicler Victor Tonnensis, who was himself an old acquaintance and colleague of Pelagius. H i s own dating, in the years in which he wrote, i s itself eccentric. and gets the figures wrong; under p.c . Basili xviii (559; ed. Mommsen wrongly 558), he enters Pelagius . . . Romanae ecclesiae episcopus . . . ordinatur, qui fui t annis v, for 5 5 6 . H i s Chronicle ended five years later, with the date p .c . Basili x x i i i , properly 564. Four years later he added a continuation, closing with the end of 565, the death of Justinian and accession of Justin 11, but he dates these years a s the 37th to the 40th of Justinian’ s reign, though Justinian died in the 4th month of his 39th year. The first entry in the con- tinuation i s Pelagius Romanus episcopus moritur; praefuit annis x i .

entry is right, for the February of Justinian’ s 37th year was February 564, five years after 559, the year given for Pelagius’ accession. unthinkingly transcribed the figure xi from a written source, the Liber Pontificalis, or the notice upon which it drew, and did so in 565, four years after the event.

Pope

He dates the years by consulates or postconsulates,

The place of the

Victor knew the right interval; but he

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Mistakes of this kind are common enough in late Roman chronicles. The mathematical

They nightmares they engender have long since been ironed out by the labours of 19th century and earlier scholars; but the Irish annalists had no such researches to guide them. entered the accession of Pelagius at the right date, 556, but placed his successor 11 years later, at 567, instead of in his proper place at 561, and the consequences of the mistake bedevilled their dates for the next half century.

Tigernach, and after him Clonmacnoise and Ulster, also enter Finis Cronice Eusevi - at different dates; but the common factor i s that all of them put the entry seven years earlier than the end of Isidore, intending the year 6071608. source, known to the annalists as Eusebius’ Chronicle, ended a t that date, Since Eusebius wrote in 325, such a text was necessarily a translation wi th one or more continuations, a s was Jerome’s version. text which ended in or about 607. They list popes down to Sabinianus, who died in February 606, but do not enter his successor Boniface 111, consecrated i n February 607, or later popes. It is thereafter evident that the Chronicle which ended in 607 w a s the annalists’ source for popes. The notice of i ts end called it Eusebius’ Chronicle; but by the time of our extant annals, at least one manuscript of this text circulated under the name of Bede, for three of the notices of popes, two in the Ulster Annals and one in Tigernach, are followed by a note, perhaps a gloss, ut Beda in cronico suo; but Bede’ s Chronicle does not enter popes, and the document to which his name was here attached was evidently the 607 Chronicle, or a derivative thereof.

The entry asserts that a principal

The Annals give decisive evidence that they used a continental

The wording of the papal entries shows something of how the 607 Chronicle grew. Felix IV (526-530) they exactly reproduce the entries of the Liber Pontificalis, the record of the chancellery; from Felix 111 (483) to Hormisdas (died 523) they reproduce Marcell- inus’ Chronicle, but, though Marcellinus also gives earlier popes, entries from Sixtus 111 (432) to 483 do not use him, but follow one of the early catalogues that formed the bas i s of the Liber Pontificalis. landed, popes are not entered.

From

Before Sixtus, in whose first year Patrick was held to have

The change at 526 is a change in the source material; for one of the main stages in the formation of the Liber Pontificalis i s the ‘Felician abridgement’, so called because it ended with Felix IV; but the change at 483 i s more likely to mark the end of the work of one of the continuators of the 607 Chronicle itself.

By themselves the papal entries show only that the Irish annalists used a Chronicle that purported to be a continuation of Eusebius by one or more hands. dence, that Chronicle might have been Jerome’ s or Prosper’ s. clearly that the annalists used a translation of Eusebius that was fuller than Jerome’s, and in some instances nearer to the original. Only two of the Annals texts give numerous continental entries before Patrick’s landing (4321, the 11th century versions of Inisfallen and Tigernach; and Tigernach’ s entries are more numerous than Inisfallen’s, though substan- tial sections of the work are lost.

Without other evi- But earlier entries show

Space permits only citation of a few selected instances.

The Christian date that Eusebius selected for emphasis with an elaborate series of date reckonings was not the Incarnation or the Passion, but the baptism and the beginning of the ministry, placed in the 15th year of Tiberius. Tigernach there enters the date, in the words iuxta vero Cronicam Eusebii eadem quae ipse de utraque editione ut sibi videbatur compossuit anni sunt Fccxxviii. Jerome and the Armenian version both give the series of

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dates that add up to that total, but the grand total of 5228 years from Adam is omitted by Jerome, and survives only in the Armenian version. The fuller dating was presumably also contained in Book One, the Chronography, whose relevant final pages are missing from the Armenian version.

Similarly, Tigernach and Inisfallen both have the entry annos xxx ab eversiorie Hieru- salem iisque ud initium Cirii regis Persarum, at 560 B.C. The words are not transcribed by Jerome, but occur in the Armenian version of Book One (a templi eversione Kyri aetate [variant ad Cyritm~l xxx atitii erant, Schoene’ s translation p. 123; von der Zerstorung d e s Tetnpels aher zu Kyrus wareti e s 30 Jahre, Karst’s translation p. 5 9 ) .

Both these entries also occur in Bede; and Bede c i tes his authority a s Eusebius it1

temporum Iihro. Elsewhere Bede c i tes Eusehius i n cronicis suis. I t i s evident that Bede knew both Books of Eusebius, the Chronography and the Chronicle, and gave their t i t les different Latin translations; the in utruque editione of Tigernach on the baptism of Christ also appears to distinguish the two Books. Bede had access to a Latin translation of Eusebius’ first Book, which is now extant only in Armenian. Neither passage is reported in any Greek or Latin fragment.

I t therefore seems clear that both the Irish and

On this evidence alone, it might reasonably be inferred that the I r i sh annalists took their entries from Bede, a s most modern editors have supposed. But several other passages show that they did not always do so. The story of the Septuagint, the translation of the Hebrew scriptures into Greek, under the patronage of Ptolemy Philadelphus, is told at length by Josephus, in Antiquities 1 2 , 2 , and more shortly by Eusebius in the Praeparatro Evan- gelica, 8 , 2 f f . Irish Annals (Tigernach) , at 283 B.C., are set out below in parallel. the Armenian version of Eusebius differ significantly, words given by Jerome alone are i n square brackets, words given in the Armenian version alone are in i tal ics in round brackets, words common to both i n plain type; variants of Schoene’ s translation are starred, a s are Inisfallen’s variants to Tigernach.

The epitomes given in the Chronicles of Eusebius and Bede, and in the Where Jerome and

EU SE BIU S BEDE IRISH ANNALS

(a) Ptolomaeus Filadelfus ann. xxxviii. . . Iudaeos qui in Aegypto (captivd erant liberos e s s e per- misit* et (munera regid ivasa 1 Eleazaro (summo) pontifici Hierosolymarum* rvotival transmittens* rdivinasl (ludaeorum) scripturas in Graecam vocem* ex Hebraea lingua* [per LXX interpretes]

transferre* curav i t

(b) quas i n Alexandrina bibliotheca* habuit, quam sibi [ex omni genere litteraturae] cornparaverat*

Ptolomeus Phil ade lphus . . . a n xxxviii . . . Iudeos qui in Aegypto erant liberos e s s e permisit e t El e az ar o pon ti f i c i multa Hierosolymam e t in templi donaria vasa transmittens

LXX interpretes petit qui scripturam sanctam in Graecum verterent e loqu ium

Ptolomeus Phi I ade Iphus* . . . qui regnavit annis xxxvi i i* Iudeos qui in Aegipto erant liberos e s se permisit et Eleazaro* pontifici multa* Hierusolimam et in templi* donaria vassa* transmit tens

LXXII* interpretes petit qui scripturam sanctam in Graecum verterent e I o qu i urn Non solum enim gentium scripturas, sed divinas litteras in bibliothecam* suam contulit;* nam Ixxx* milia* librorum undique col locavit

8 4

VARIANTS: Armenian E u s e b i u s : e s s e permisit] dimisit; Hierosolymarum]

vocem] linguam; Hebraea lingua] Hebraeorum sermonem; transferre] transferri; quas . . . bibliotheca] quas et in sua bibliotheca Alexandriae; habuit . . , compara- verat] comparata reposuit.

regid Hierosolyma Eliazaro (surnmo ; transmittens] transmisit et;

Irish A n n a l s , In i s fa l l en: Philadelphus] Philodelpus; xxxviii] xxvii; Eleazaro] Elizaro; multa] ad; templi] templum multa; vassa] e t vassa; LXXII] LXX; bibliothecam] bibliothicam; contulit] tulit; IXXX] xxx; milia] millia

These five texts preserve three different translations of the same original. The subs- tance of paragraph (a) i s the same in all of them; but the wording of Bede and of the two Irish texts is identical, apart from scribal errors and slight differences i n spelling. They constitute one translation; Jerome and the Armenian version have substantial differences of phraseology from each other, and from the Irish and Bede translation. Their relation to the original can be checked, for a Greek transcript of Eusebius’ own entry of this passage i s preserved by the Chronicon Paschale (Schoene p. 118-120). All three translations omit some detail, notably the statement that the Hebrew scholars were lodged in 72 separate houses in the Pharos; but Tigernach preserves one detail of the original, as given in the Chronicon Paschale, in Josephus, and in the Praeparatio Evangelica, that the translators numbered 72, s ix from each of the twelve tribes. Later convention reduced them to the convenient round figure of seventy; Jerome, Bede and Inisfallen alter the figure to suit the convention.

Paragraph (b) , describing Philadelphus’ library, is preserved by Jerome, by the Arme-

Again, the three nian translator and by the Irish Annals, but not by Bede. of Eusebius’ Chronicle survives, but the source of Eusebius is known. versions are separate epitomes of the same original; the Armenian translation is shortest, Jerome’s slightly fuller, but the Irish text preserves a detail of the original, which they omit, the number of books of Philadelphus’ library. The figure is corrupt, and the corrup- tion betrays i t s origin. of volumes, 200,000, but Tigernach gives 80,000, or 8 myriads. explained by the misreading of Latin figures, but in Greek a confusion between H and K myriads is easy. The text that Tigernach transcribed was a Latin translation made from a Greek original; since his paragraph is a slightly fuller version of the note on the library in Eusebius’ Chronicle, it is likely that the Greek original was Eusebius’ Chronicle. Both paragraphs, (a) and (b) , come from the same source; the Irish transcribed both, Bede transcribed only the first. both used a common source.

No Greek fragment of the text

Demetrius, the king’s librarian, boasted a collection of 20 myriads Such an error is not easily

It is evident that the Irish were not here using Bede, but that

The variant wording of paragraph (a) i s at leas t as old a s Jerome’s time, for he used it himself, in a passage in h is in Danielem (11,5),

i s te es t Ptolemaeus Philadelphus. . . sub quo L X X interpretes Alexandriae scripturam sanctum i n Graecum dicuntur vertisse sermonem, qui et Eleazaro pontifici multa Jerosolymam et in templi donaria vasa transmisit; cuius bibliothecae praejuit Demetrius Phalereus.

The verb ver t i sse , and the dozen words et Eleazaro. . . vasa transmisit are word for word those of the Irish and Bede translation of Eusebius’ Chronicle; but they differ from those that Jerome used in his own translation of the Chronicle, though the similarity of the passages, apart from verbal differences, is sufficient to show that all are translations thereof. In the in Danielem, either Jerome translated afresh direct from Eusebius, ignoring

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his own earlier translation, or he transcribed a different translation by someone e l se .

Jerome’s passage in the in Danielem continues however with a paragraph on a different The paragraph is appropriate to a Chronicle theme, ;Ilustrating the power of Philadelphus.

notice of Philadelphus’ death, but it does not appear in Jerome’s or the Armenian version of Book Two, or in the notice of Philadelphus in Book One. the Irish Annals and by Bede, at the end of Philadelphus’ reign, at 247 B.C.

It is however reproduced by

JEROME, lN DANlELEM BEDE IRISH ANNALS Tantaeque potentiae fuisse Tantae autem potentiae Tantae autem potentiae narratur, ut Ptolemaeum fuisse* narratur. . . ut patrem vinceret. Ptholomeum patrem vinceret. Ptolomeum patrem vinceret. Narrant enim historiae Narrant enim hi stori ae habuisse eum peditum habuisse eum peditum eum habuisse peditum CC miIIia, equitum X X millia, C c milia, aequitum X X milia, CC milia, equitum X X milia, curruum vero I1 millia, curruum I1 milia, currum* I1 milia, elephantos, quos primus elephantos, quos primus elifantos, quos primus eduxit ex Aethiopia, CCCC, naves longas quas nunc Liburnas vocant MD, alias ad cibaria militum deportanda M , auri quoque et argenti grande pondus. . .

fuisse narratur. . . u t

Narrant enim historiae

adduxit ex Ethiopia, CCCC, et cetera his similia.

adduxit ex Ethiopia, CCCC, naves longas quas Liburnas dicimus MD, alias ad portanda militum cibaria M, et cetera*

VARIANTS: Inisfallen: potentiae fuisse] fuisse potentiae; currum] curruum; ceteraJ r [el [iqua] multa

Both Bede and the I r i sh Annals cite Jerome’s notice word for word; but the Irish texts include one clause, on the warships, which Bede omits. Irish Annals did not here copy Bede; either Bede copied them, or both drew upon the same source.

It is therefore evident that the

It is likely that Jerome’s words are here also a translation of an entry in Eusebius’ Chronicle, which he omitted in his own translation thereof; and it is theoretically possible that he, like Bede and the Irish, copied the independent Latin Version. But Bede and the Irish Annals cite Jerome’s in Danielem i n eight or nine other passages, sometimes naming it, and his in Zachariam once. In some other instances, all three might be citing the same translation of Eusebius; but in some Bede and the Irish are plainly citing Jerome. At 188 B.C., the latest in date of these citations, Bede and the Irish reproduce in Danie lem 11, 14, on Onias’ foundation of a Hebrew temple in Egypt, but they reverse the order of Jerome’s sentences, and both have the same link words of their own that connect the sentences; and at 645 B.C., the earliest of the citations, they note, in identical words, the reign of Josiah, and his death at Megiddo (11 Kings 23,291 . The direct source is not known; it may have, been an entry in Eusebius, omitted by Jerome and the Armenian. Inisfallen omits the last sentence, including Megiddo, but Bede and Tigernach add a note to Megiddo, w n c hhxrrnianopolis vocatiir (Maximinopolis, Tigernach) . from Jerome in Zachariam 3 , 12, 11, who there gives the information in an entirely different context, explaining that the place called Hadadrimmon i n Megiddo by Zechariah was so named in the fourth century A.D.

The words come

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Bede and the Irish had access to the work of a scholar who had studied Jerome’s commentaries closely, and used them to annotate a translation of Eusebius. He may have been the translator, or one of his continuators. Whoever he was, he was a critical editor. Bede and the Irish have numerous date rubrics that revise Eusebius’ chronology; they are not Bede’ s work, for they are considerably more numerous in the Irish texts than in his. gint dating from Adam, and assert the shorter Hebrew chronology. At the beginning of h is Chronicle, Bede firmly s ta tes the interval from Adam to Noah as annos ruxta Hebraicam veritatem MDCLVI, iuxta LXX interpretes TCCXLl l , and from Noah to Abraham as iuxta Hebraicam auctoritatem . . . annos autem CCXCII, porro iuxta LXX interpretes ann. M L X X I I ; and throughout reckons by the Annus Mundi according to the Hebrew dating from Adam, and places the date in the margin, with occasional equation in the text.

They reject Eusebius’ reckoning from Abraham; they also reject his longer Septua-

These dates are a partial extract from the system that the Irish excerpted more fully; from the birth of Christ onwards numerous rubrics are inserted into the text, a s , for example, under Nero, ab initio mundi Tcclxiii iuxta LXX interpretes, secundum vero Ebreos Illtxiiii, ab incarnatione lxiii. Such entries are not reproduced by Bede; though the Irish sometimes add Bede’ s entries to them. Thus, at the Incarnation, dated to the year of Abraham 2015 by Eusebius and Jerome, Bede has the date 3952 in the margin, and his text gives the 42nd year of Augustus, the 27th year since Cleopatra’ s death, and AUC 752. Tigernach also has a marginal 3952; h i s text gives 5190 (for 5199) according to the LXX, 3952 according to Ebraica veritas, AUC 572, the 42nd year of Augustus; and adds the decennoval cycle year. tion. 607 edition of Eusebius.

It then continues Beda ait and reproduces the notice in Bede’ s Chronicle, in addi- Tigernach used both an earlier Irish Anna1 and Bede; both of them had used the

In the notice of the baptism, Bede and the Irish draw different extracts. Tigernach begins ab initio mundi secundum Ebreos peractis Til vel1111 (annos) , ut Eusebius ait; iuxta autem LXX Vccxxxii; ab lncarnatione quoque x x x . . . Eusebius ait quod anno XVI Tiberii principium fuerit LXXXI iubelli secundum Ebreos, quare autem nostra supputatio X I X minus ponendas estimaverit annos, facile qui superiore huius libelli legerit inveniet. It continues with the passage cited above, iuxta vero cronicam Eusebii (eadem quae ipse de utraque editione, ut sibi videbatur, compossuit) anni sun? Vccxxviii. Bede however begins peractis a mundi principio secundum Hebreos annis, ut Eusebius in chronicis suis signat Ill1 milibus, adnotando quod XVI anno Tyberii . . ., continuing to vccxxviii , in the same words a s Tiger- nach. Eusebius there enters the Jubilaeum, but the date 4000 i s not his. Jubilaea of 50 years each. the Incarnation, plus 29 to the ministry, gave 3981, nineteen years short of 4000.

It renders 80 The critical editor observed that the Hebrew date 3952 for

The passage shows something of the method of the translator and editor of the first stage of the 607 edition of Eusebius; and it also reveals something of the composite works that intervened between that document and Bede. Bede to the Annals, for Bede did not use Incarnation da tes in his Chronicle, except for events in h is own lifetime, and does not reproduce them here. worked from an earlier text, whose author had been faced by two contradictory translations of Eusebius. One was a straightforward translation, quae ipse composuit, de utraque edi- tione, Jerome’s work, seen a s a single book condensed from two, which gave the date 5228; that is Eusebius’ date, set down in the Armenian text, i t s component figures given by Jerome. the 81st Jubilaeum, that Jerome and the Armenian translation had entered without comment or criticism; and which also asserted the Hebrew verity.

The passage does not come from

Both he and the annalists

The other was a critical edition of Eusebius, which challenged his date for

Its editor knew Book One of

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Eusebius, called here superior huius libellus, and expected h i s readers to know it. He was probably the same editor who had used Jerome’s commentaries to annotate the text; though he might have been a separate later editor. 11th century annalists through the intermediary of another chronicler, perhaps I r i sh , who had already faced the problem of two contradictory versions of Eusebius.

But his work reached Bede and the

One of the achievements of this critical editor was our modern A.D. dating. The Irish annalists note the loth, 20th and 30th year ub Incurnutione, and thereafter note others spora- dically; but Bede, though he adopted this dating system in the History, did not give these dates in the Chronicle. not yet decided to adopt it. The system of reckoning i s that which Bede later used, and which the world has learnt from him, for the 30th year, at the baptism, is equated with the 15th year of Tiberius, 28/29 A.D. Bede’ s own usage is often from one to three years out in particular da tes , and the discrepancy of one year at 15 A.D. is not significant. It is also possible that this editor was responsible for the division of human history into Six Ages, used by Bede and the Irish, and also by Isidore; but there i s not conclusive evidence that Isidore was familiar with the 607 version of Eusebius, and the Six Ages may therefore be the work of another, perhaps of Isidore himself; for they amount to no more than a formal classification of Eusebius’ own analysis.

He plainly knew it, for he used the texts that gave it, but had

The full Latin translation of both books of Eusebius was probably made not much later than Jerome’s time, and possibly earlier. Its first l ist of popes i s probably fifth century or earlier, and may well have continued Eusebius’ own list . given down to 385; those given Anno Domini begin in 400, but neither are continued after Patrick’s arrival i n Ireland. 385 and 400. A continuator used Jerome’s Daniel and Zachariah, both of them published about 406. taries Jerome translated Eusebius in words different from h i s own publication (378), but identical with those of the full version, that he may himself have used that translation; and that the initial translation was earlier than Jerome, the use of the commentaries the work of an early continuator, who revised and annotated the original. may suggest an explanation.

Dates ah Incarnuttone are

The change may mean that one continuation ended between

But the theoretical possibility remains open that, since in some of these commen-

More exact enquiry

The text was continued by several hands until 607. It is first named and noted in the Irish Annals. Northumbria before 725; subsequent versions of the Irish Annals used the 607 Chronicle, and also used Bede, Jerome, Isidore and other sources. could be transmitted from Ireland to Northumbria were easy. Seventh century contacts i n general were close. annalists was Cennfaelad. He was the grandson of a High-King of Ireland, and is said to have sustained a severe head wound at the battle of Mag Roth, in 639. H i s life was saved by the surgeons of the druidical school of Tooniregin, whose operation “removed his brain of forgetting”, and equipped him with a prodigious memory that lasted him through forty years of scholarship; he graduated i n each of three faculties of c lass ics , law and literature, where traditional discipline was based upon memorizing vast quantities of ancient tales. records on to tablets, and thence to vellum, in Latin characters, for the benefit of Christian Ireland. that turn Eusebius’ date rubrics into Irish verse may have the same origin as those that treat of Ireland.

A Chronicle based upon it, which also used Jerome, reached Bede in

The means whereby the text

In particular, one of the chief early sources named by the Irish

He is said to have broken with tradition in that he transcribed the ancient

Many verses on Irish history are attributed to h im; and some of the quatrains

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Cennfaelad is one of three 7th century scholars whom Irish tradition honoured with the title ‘archidoctor’. The others were Aileran and Fland Fina. to be the son of Cennfaelad’ s cousin, a High-King’ s daughter, and of the exiled Northum- brian prince Oswy; he stayed in Ireland when his father returned to Northumbria in 633, and spent most of the next fifty years in Irish monasteries. Oswy died in 670, and was succeeded in Northumbria by his English-born son Egferth, whose unprofitable bellicosity incurred the reproof of St Cuthbert and of archbishop Theodore of Canterbury. When he was killed in 685, in the course of an aggressive campaign that the church had denounced, the Northumbrian nobility, on Cuthbert’ s initiative, chose his Irish-born brother a s king.

Fland Fina was said

A s king, he took his English name, Aldfrith. His enthronement was a deliberate act of policy; when the Northumbrians replaced a boisterous soldier with a middle-aged Irish academic, they did so with their eyes open. Bede praised him a s scripturis doctissimus, and undecumque doctissimus, and remarked that after disastrous military adventures the kingdom quamvis intra fines angustiores nobiliter recuperavit (History 26,4; 5 , 1 2 ) . Ald- frith reigned for 20 years, presiding over the early years of the new monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow, to which Bede had been admitted five years before, at the age of seven. There is no doubt that Aldfrith could have equipped the monastic library with copies of any impor- tant texts that his mother’s cousin possessed, and little doubt that he did so. Even apart from Aldfrith, exchange of learning was plentiful. Adomnan, who had been Aldfrith’ s abbot in Iona, visited the new monasteries in Bede’ s youth, and Bede reported with enthusiasm that in the 670s and 680s many Englishmen travelled in Ireland (History 3,27) “around the cells of different teachers, for the joy of reading. The Irish welcomed them all, gave them food and lodging without charge, lent them their books to read, and taught them without fee.” without formal qualification, without fees and with expenses paid, with adequate lending libraries, made Ireland the intellectual inspiration of the age; any important text available in Ireland was accessible to Bede. He had the means of acquiring copies both of the 607 edition of Eusebius, and of Annals that had made use of i t , and of Jerome, Isidore and other main sources.

The great Irish statesman and scholar

Higher education open to all,

These considerations suggest that there was less originality in Bede’ s Chronicle than has often been supposed. his fame and achievement owe relatively little to his Chronicle. sources that he and the Irish used invite deeper enquiry. The passages discussed above are chiefly those where the source of the entries is known; for that is the means whereby the texts used can be identified. But there are many other passages whose source i s not known. Bede’ s Chronicle has been critically edited, by Mommsen, and a different type face distinguishes the passages of unknown origin; it i s likely that many of them derive from the 607 Eusebius Chronicle. But the Irish Annals have not been similarly analysed. Many entries can be traced to particular earlier chronicles; but very many cannot, especi- ally in the annals of Tigernach. a single very imperfect printed edition. the Irish Annals made use of more than one major unknown source, it i s more probable that their unidentifiable continental entries come from a single source; and that all or most derive from the 607 edition of Eusebius. Inisfallen, should help to distinguish a part of the probable contents of Eusebius’ Chro- nicle, supplying entries which Jerome and the Armenian translation omitted.

The conclusion does not detract from the stature of Bede,for But the analysis of the

The text is difficult to use, for it is available only in Though it might theoretically be possible that

A careful edition of Tigernach, used with

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BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

EUSEBIUS, CHRONICLE

Jerome, Armenian, Syriac; Greek and Latin fragments

ed. A. Schoene, 2 vols., Berlin 1875, 1866 Migne Patrologia Graeca 19, 99 ff.

Jerome

ed. R. Helm Die griechischen chrrstlichen Schriftsteller 24 and 34 = 47, Berlin 1913, 1926, 1956 Migne Patrologia Latina 27, 33 ff .

Armenian

ed. J. Karst Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller 20, Berlin 1911

Syriac

ed. C. Siegfried and H. Gelzer, Leipzig 1884 (with Latin translation)

IRISH ANNALS

Annals of Inisfallen (c. 1092, with continuations)

ed. Sean MacAirt, Dublin 1951

Annals of Tigernach (c. 1088, with continuations)

ed. W. Stokes, in Revue Celtique 16 (1895) 375-419; 17 (1896) 6-33; 119-263; 337-420; 18 (1897) 9-59; 150-198; 267-303; 374-391

Annals of Clonmacnoise (c. 1408), surviving only in a colourful English version made by MaGeoghagan in 1627 from an original now lost

ed. D. Murphy, Dublin 1896

Annals of Ulster (before 1498)

ed. W. M. Hennessy and B. Mac Carthy, Dublin 1887-1901

Annals of the Four Masters (1632-1636)

ed. J . O’Donovan, Dublin 1851

Chronicum Scotorum (of D. MacFirbis, 1660-1666)

ed. W. M. Hennessy, Rolls Series, London 1866

also

The Annals o f Roscrea

ed. D. Gleeson and Sean MacAirt in Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 59C, 1957-1959

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Annals from the Book of Leinster

ed. W. Stokes in Vita Tripartita (The Tripartite Life of Patrick) 2, 512-529, Rolls Series, London 1887

Annales Cambrenses (c. 954 with continuations)

ed. E. Phillimore in Y Cymmrodor 9 (1888) 152 f f . ed. E. Faral in La LAgende Arthurienne 3, 44 ff., Paris 1929 ed. J. Morris in Nennius, Chichester, forthcoming

BEDE

Opera Omnia

ed. J . A. Giles, 13 vols., London 1843-1845

Chronica

ed. T. Mommsen Monumenta Germaniae Historica (Auctorum Antiquissimorum 13, Chronica Minora 3) 247 ff., Berlin 1898

Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum

ed. C. Plummer, Oxford 1896, reprint 1966

ISIDORE OF SEVILLE

Chronica

ed. T. Mommsen Monumenta Germaniae Historica (Auctorum Antiquissimorum 11 , Chronica Minora 2) 424 ff., Berlin 1896

VICTOR TONNENSIS

Chronica

ed. T. Mommsen, Chronica Minora 2 (see above) 184 f f .

MARCELLINUS COMES

Chronicon

ed. T. Mommsen, Chronica Minora 2 (see above) 60 ff.

LIBER PONTIFICALIS

ed. L. Duchesne, 2 vols., Paris 1886-1891 ed. T. Mommsen (to 530 A.D.) Monumenta Germaniae Historica (Gesta Pontificum) Berlin 1898

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JEROME (Hieronymus)

In Danielem

ed. D. Vallarsius, vol. 5 , 618 ff., ed. 2, Venice 1768, reprinted Migne Patrologia Latina 25, 491 f f .

In Zachariam

ed. D. Vallarsius, vol. 6 , 775 ff., ed. 2, Venice 1769, reprinted Migne Patrologia Latina 25, 1415 f f .

Modern consideration of the problem has been chiefly confined to Ireland. publications are:-

The principal

Eoin MacNeill “The Authorship and Structure of the ‘Annals of Tigernach’ - , Eriu 7 (1914) 30 ff.

A. G. van Hamel “Ueber die vorpatrizianischen irischen Annalen” , Zeitschrift f i ir ce l t i sche Philologie 17 (1928) 241 f f .

R. A. S. MacAlister “The Sources of the Preface to the ‘Tigernach’ Annals”, Irish Historical Studies 4 (1944-1945) 38 f f .

T. F. O’RahiIly “Some Questions of Dating in Early Irish Annals” in his Early Irish History and Mythology 235 ff., Dublin 1964

S . MacAirt Annals of Inisfal len, Introduction pp. xvii ff., Dublin 1951

These discussions have been mainly concerned with theories about the origin and development of the Irish Annals. them cite an edition of Eusebius, save MacNeill and MacAirt, who both refer only to the difficult and uncritical publications in Migne’ s Patrologia. several untenable assumptions, one, implicit in all discussions, directly expressed by O’Rahilly (p. 249-250), that “by Chronicon Eusebi i can only be meant St Jerome’s Latin translation and continuation. . . as revised. . .by Prosper” ; and a second, that in all passages paralleled in Bede, the Irish copied or miscopied Bede’s Chronicle. assumption is sometimes pushed to extremes, in spite of the evidence, a s , for example, by MacAirt (p. xix, note 4) , who notes the passage on the armament of ‘Philodelphus’ , cited above, but suggests that a glossator, presumably Irish, read Bede, looked up h is source in Jerome’s in Danielem, and added the first of the c lauses that Bede omitted, about warships, but refrained from adding the subsequent c lauses , about Philadelphus’ revenue. The consequence of these assumptions is a somewhat confusing conception of an ‘Ulster Chronicle’ and of an Irish ‘World Chronicle’, whose dates and relationship are debated.

Their starting point i s handicapped, since none of

They therefore rest on

The

CONCLUSION

The backbone of the problem seems somewhat simpler than is suggested by these recent treatments. with critical comment.

The seventh century Irish had at their disposal a full translation of Eusebius, Into it they slotted such items of Irish traditional history a s they

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considered to be worth recording. Later editors and copyists omitted some items, added and expanded others, treating their originals a s Jerome had treated Eusebius, with much that was admixta and addita, and some that was omissa. particularly glosses imported from corrupt genealogies, pervert the original; but others correct i ts errors. in detail; and all our surviving texts are selections from among these earlier versions. The decipherment of their apparent confusions is inherently no more difficult than the sorting out of comparable muddles in European annals; but it cannot be undertaken until reliable editions of the surviving manuscripts are available.

Some elements of the added material,

The result was a multiplicity of manuscripts, differing from each other

At present, only Inisfallen i s available in a critical edition; several of the other printed versions do not distinguish between the text of their own manuscripts and the glosses thereon; none has any useful critical annotation; and no one has yet compared the six main versions with one another or with their identifiable sources. When this work is undertaken, it should be possible to distinguish the core of the annals from i t s many accretions; and, among other observations. to recognize those entries which are likely to derive from Eusebius.

It i s not probable that the excavation of the text will add many previously unrecorded historical details; for many of those that at first sight seem significant, a s , for example, the Irish birth dates for Plato and Hippocrates, appear to be corruptions of known entries that reported insignis habetur. But the historiographical interest for the text of Eusebius is considerable, particularly in the reconstruction of the last pages of Book One, missing from the Armenian and all other versions, and it remains possible that a few interesting novelties may be brought to light, especially in the Hellenistic period. The contribution to the understanding of the early Irish historical tradition is likely to be more considerable.

University College London

ADDENDUhf (see p . 81)

Our A.D. reckoning is based on the calculations of Dionysius Exiguus, but was accepted a s a general system of numbering individual years under the influence of Bede. It is however common in the surviving transcripts of late 7th and early 8th century West Saxon and Mercian charter grants, usually paired wi th the correct indiction year. I t i s therefore possible that it was put into use by Aldhelm about 680, half a century before Bede wrote his History. source, the 607 edition of Eusebius.

If so, either Bede took the system from Aldhelm, or both took i t from a common

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