surprised and shocked at the uncanonical appearance the other. The Romans asserted that their tonsure ha descended to them from the prince of the apostle while that of their adversaries was the distinguishin mark of Simon Magus and his disciples (67). Th Scots, unable to refute the confident assertions of thei adversaries, maintained, that their method of shavin the head, however impious in its origin, had been after wards sanctified by the virtues of those who had adopte it (68). The arguments of the contending parties serv only to prove their ignorance of ecclesiastical antiquity During the first four hundred years of the christian era the clergy were not distinguished from the laity by an peculiar method of clipping the hair: and the severitof the canons proceeded no farther than the prohibi tion of those modes, which were the offspring of vanit and effeminacy (69). The tonsure originated from th piety of the first professors of the monastic institute To shave the head was deemed by the natives of the east à ceremony expressive of the deepest affliction: an was adopted by the monks as a distinctive token of tha seclusion from worldly pleasure, to which they had voluntarily condemned themselves. When in the fifth century the most illustrious of the order were drawn from their cells, and raised to the highest dignities in (67) Bed. 1. iii. c. 25. v. c. 21. (68) Numquid, says Colman, patrem nostrum Columbam, et successores ejus divinis paginis contraria sapuisse vel egisse credendum est? quos ego sanctos esse non dubitans, semper eorum vitam, mores, et disciplinam sequi non desisto. Bed. l. iii. c. 25. (69) Deflua cæsaries compescitur ad breves capillos. Pruden. περι ελεφάνων, 13. the church, they retained this mark of their former profession; the new costume was gradually embraced by the clergy; and the tonsure began to be considered, both in the Greek and the Latin church, as necessary for admission into the number of ecclesiastics. It was at this period that the circular and semi-circular modes of shaving the head were introduced. The names of their authors were soon lost in oblivion; and succeeding generations, ignorant of their real origin, credulously attributed them to the first age of christianity (70). Such were the mighty objects, which scattered the seeds of dissension in the breasts of these holy men. The merit of restoring concord was reserved for the zeal and authority of Oswiu, king of Northumbria. As that province had received the doctrine of the gospel from the Scottish missionaries, their influence was predominant with the prince and the majority of the people : but his queen, Eanfled, who had been educated in Kent, and his son Alchfrid, who attended the lessons of St Wilfrid, eagerly adhered to the practice of the Roman church. Thus Oswiu saw his own family divided into opposite factions, and the same solemnities celebrated at different times within his own palace. Desirous to procure uniformity, he summoned the champions of each party, to meet him at Whitby, the monastery of the Abbess Hilda, and to argue the merits of their respective customs in his presence. The conference was conducted with freedom and decency. To Wilfrid was intrusted the defence of the Roman, to Colman, bishop of Lindis (70) See Smith's Bed. app. n° ix. According to an ancient book of canons quoted by Usher, the semicircular tonsure was first adopted in Ireland. (Ush. Ant. Brit. c. 17, p. 924.) farne, that of the Scottish missionaries. Each rested his cause on the authority of those from whom the discipline of his church was supposed to be derived: and the king concluded the discussion by declaring his conviction, that the institutions of St Peter were to be preferred before those of St Columba. This decision was applauded by the courtiers and of the Scottish monks many ranged themselves under the banners of their adversaries; the remainder retired in silent discontent to their parent monastery in the isle of Hii (71). The termination of this controversy has subjected the successful party to the severe but unmerited censures of several late historians. They affect to consider the Scottish monks as an injured and persecuted cast and declaim with suspicious vehemence against the haughty and intolerant spirit of the Roman clergy (72). But, if uniformity was desirable, it could only be obtained by the submission or retreat of one of the contending parties and certainly it was unreasonable to expect that those, who observed the discipline which universally prevailed among the christians of the continent, should tamely yield to the pretensions of a few obscure churches on the remotest coast of Britain (73). The charge of persecution is not warranted by the expressions of the original writers, who give the praise of moderation al (71) Bed. 1. iii. c. 25, 26. An. 664. (72) Henry, hist. of Brit. vol. iii. p. 204. Rapin, vol. i. p. 71. (73) Numquid universali, quæ per orbem est, ecclesiæ Christi, eorum est paucitas uno de angulo extremæ insulæ præferenda. Wilf. apud Bed. 1. iii. c. 25. Also 1. ii. c. 19, most exclusively to the Romans. Bede has recorded. the high esteem in which Aidan and his associates were held by the bishops of Canterbury and Dunwich; and observes that through respect to his merit, they were unwilling to condemn his departure from the universal discipline of the catholic church (74). The letters which the Roman missionaries wrote on occasion of this controversy, uniformly breathe a spirit of meekness and conciliation; and prove that the writers rather pitied the ignorance, than resented the obstinacy of their opponents (75). But historic truth will not permit equal praise to be given to the conduct of the Scottish and British prelates. When Daganus, a Caledonian bishop, arrived at Canterbury in the days of Lawrence, the successor of St Augustine, he pertinaciously refused to eat at the same table, or even in the same house with those, who observed the Roman Easter (76); and St Aldhelm assures us that the clergy of Demetia carried their abhorrence of the catholic discipline to such an extreme, that they punished the most trivial conformity with a long course of penance, and purified with fanatic scrupulosity every utensil, which had been contaminated by the touch of a Roman or a Saxon priest (77). We may wonder and lament that for objects of such inferior con (74) Bed. ibid. (75) Bed. l. ii. c. 4, 19. Wilk. conc. tom. i. p. 36, 40. Ep. Bonif. 44, p. 59. (76) Bed. 1. ii. c. 4. (77). Apist. Aldhel. ad Geron. Regem, inter Bonifac. ep. 44, p. 59. See also Bede, l. ii. c. 20. Mat. West. ad an. 586. |