The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

CHAP. VIII] OF SCOTLAND 125
the existence of episcopacy in that church, but the direct infer-
ence from the passage unquestionably is that the Culdee church
possessed an order of bishops superior to that of the presbyters.
The Culdee church being, then, essentially an episcopal
church, let us now examine its peculiarities, and in what respects
it differed from the form of church government universally
prevalent at that period ; and in doing so it \vdll be necessary
to bear in mind that the Culdee church included the province of
the northern Scots in Ireland, as well as the northern Picts in
Scotland, and that it was the work of St.- Patrick in the iifth
century, not that of Columba in the sixth (as generally supposed),
who merely added the nation of the northern Picts to
its jurisdiction.
In the }-ear 380, about fifty-two years before the Culdee
church was established by Saint Patrick, the monastic system
was for the first time introduced into Europe by Saint Martin
of Tours ; and previous to the rise of this extraordinary and
powerful institution, the Catholic clergy consisted merely of the
three orders of bishops, presbyters, and deacons.
The bishops were, generally speaking, seated in the principal
towns, and exercised an ecclesiastical jurisdiction over a certain
extent of the surrounding country which formed his diocese,
while the spiritual wants of its inhabitants were supplied by the
subordinate orders of presbyters and deacons. Such was the
state of the clergy when the Culdee church took its origin, but a
new institution had arisen in the East, which was destined afterwards
almost to supplant the clergy, and to wield the whole
power of the Establishment. Although they subsequently
attained this extraordinary elevation, yet at the time of which
we speak the monasteries had barely risen to a station which
placed them on a par with the clergy. Originally the monasteries
were societies exclusively composed of laymen, who
from the active duties of the
adopted this mode of retiring
world, and devoting themselves to a life of contemplation and
devotion. Their spiritual wants were supplied by the bishop
and presbyters of the diocese in which the monastery was
situated, and to whose jurisdiction they were subject in ecclesi-
astical matters. Subsequently they found it expedient to
and after
procure a presbyter for the head of their monastery,