Brigid of Kildare

by Heather Terrell

  Regardless of the repeated denunciation, parts of the stories found within the Protoevangelium—and its later version, the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew—were seamlessly woven into the fabric of Catholic practice by medieval times. Bits of the apocryphal Gospel’s tales formed the basis of the legends around the Virgin Mary and Christ child birth and helped promote the worship of Mary within the church through the Feast of the Nativity, the Conception, and the Presentation. Nowhere would ardent readers of the Bible find mention of these events celebrated by the church; those accounts were described only in the Protoevangelium and its related progeny. Having decided to ban the Gospel as apocryphal, or legendary, the church—or its constituents—later determined that it had some need of the Mary found within its pages after all. As Alex had suspected.

  But she didn’t need to tell Declan any of this. A scholar of early biblical manuscripts, among other things, he could tell her a thing or two about the rejected Gospels.

  Alex interrupted Declan and asked him to reread the quotes from Brigid’s Gospel of Mary the Mother. “She’s referring to some version of the Protoevangelium of James,” Alex said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Listen to this,” she told him, then read aloud the relevant sections from the Protoevangelium and the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew. The text was almost identical.

  Declan pushed his chair back from the table and let out a low whistle. “Brigid must have had access to the prototype for the Protoevangelium in her mother’s library. Some scholars think that the Protoevangelium is a faulty copy of an earlier Gospel that has been lost—maybe this Gospel of Mary the Mother. This reference to the Protoevangelium in the life might have the additional effect of bolstering the credibility of that Gospel.”

  Alex asked, “There isn’t a copy of the Gospel of Mary the Mother in the life or the letters, is there?”

  Declan flipped through both quickly, then shook his head. “It doesn’t look like it. Still lost, I guess. You’re getting too big for your britches, Alex,” he laughed. “Anyway, I’m happy to see the Protoevangelium surface. I love its mischievous picture of the young Jesus.” He was referring to the descriptions of the youthful Christ child lashing out at other children with his powers when they acted against his childish will.

  Alex smiled; of course the Protoevangelium was one of Declan’s favorites. “Maybe that’s why no fewer than three popes banned it?”

  “Nah. I always thought the church was more put off by the world seeing his strong-willed mother.”

  They were interrupted by the rare ringing of Alex’s cellphone. Hardly anyone ever called her on it unless it was an emergency. She reached for it, checking the number. It was the exchange code for Kildare. Her stomach lurched as she picked up.

  “Alexandra Patterson, please.”

  “This is she.”

  “Alex, it’s Sister Mary. I have some bad news.”

  Her heart beating even harder, she said, “What’s happened?”

  “The previous keeper, Sister Augustine, just passed away.”

  “I’m so sorry, Sister Mary,” Alex said, although all she could feel was relief.

  “We’d like to use the communion vessels and the reliquary one last time for her funeral Mass, and I’d like you to be here for that. To make sure that our usage doesn’t interfere with your appraisal process—or the sale, of course. Can you make it down to Kildare for first thing Thursday morning?”

  Thursday would give her only two more days with the manuscript, two more days to ascertain the date of the Book of Kildare. But what choice did she have? “Of course, Sister Mary. I’ll be there first thing Thursday.”

  “Excellent. I hope you’ll be bringing me good news, Miss Patterson?”

  “God willing, Sister Mary.”

  xxviii

  GAEL

  A.D. 470

  Brother,

  The history begins. I have never heard anyone speak the way Brigid speaks, with such frankness and intimacy. She bares her thoughts and feelings as she unfolds the details without a shred of self-consciousness. Brother, Brigid speaks only as I have read in Augustine’s Confessions and only as I write to you.

  The experience of capturing Brigid’s words with my own is like painting a moving likeness with letters. I sit in a rigid wooden chair, with the scribe’s table before me, and force my quill to race to catch her words. I disregard the splinters that lodge in my palm as my fingers fly across the rough table surface in search of ink. I steal glimpses of her face during her rare moments of pause. At day’s end, if I have been quick and open, I find her vivacity, her soul, in my pages. In my darker moments, I wonder what will become of this history, as I do not have the same intentions for it as does she.

  Each day, we start before the sun rises and the abbey along with it. Her duties, of course, demand that we break for meals and meetings and ministry and Mass, yet we use every spare moment between—as the noon sun brightens even a gray Gael, as the afternoon shadows takes hold, even as dusk settles like silt. I scribe furiously as she talks about the misty world from which she emerged.

  While she performs her abbey responsibilities, I carry out my other charge: to create a wondrous Gospel book. Brother, I need not tell you how I delight in this task. I build on my early effort at illumination—my personal Gospel book—and meld its design with the uniquely Gaelic artistry. I hope you will not find me prideful if I share that even the recalcitrant Aidan finds time to watch as I paint and illuminate, that even he finds reason to praise me.

  Yet the scriptorium and the hut do not confine us. Brigid desires the history to memorialize her current ministry; thus we tramp across the lush countryside as she tends her people with the dedication of a servant. No task, no person is below her care. No situation poses too great a danger for her, and dangers abound in this still-Druidic warrior world. She dismisses my cautions with a laugh and a wave, saying, “You know that I am the daughter of two warriors.”

  In my days with Aidan, I often heard the other monks tell tales of her wondrous selflessness, but I thought the vignettes tall. I was wrong. If you ever perchance read the history, brother, you will see an account of her good deeds, and I endeavor to animate them well. I must admit, however, to witnessing her works firsthand moves in a manner words cannot share. In fact, she is so kindly and maternal in her ministrations, I once asked her whether she did not regret forgoing motherhood.

  Her answer to my somewhat impertinent inquiry vastly informed my understanding of her. She said, “How can I be mother to all, if I am mother to one?”

  Her statement casts an interesting shadow over all our dealings, for she is indeed mother to her people. I recall one afternoon when Brigid dragged us on horseback through near-blinding rain over hills that slid like ice. She seemed to have a particular destination in mind that day, though she did not always, and we arrived at a small cluster of structures in a knoll.

  The inhabitants, rough Christian men and women indistinguishable in their dun-colored cloaks, emerged at the rare sighting of their abbess. They threw themselves prostrate at her feet, and Brigid knelt down in the puddles to draw them up to her level. She spoke to each person in a low voice, such that I could not overhear, and their faces softened at the conversation.

  When the group rose, Brigid addressed the whole: “I understand that one of your daughters wishes to enter the abbey life as a nun. May I meet this young woman?”

  A man scrambled into one of the structures and came forth dragging a writhing girl under his arm. “Here she is, Abbess.” The local community insists on calling Brigid by her title, regardless of her efforts to the contrary. “My daughter Maeb wants to take the veil,” he said, shoving the reluctant girl forward.

  The unkempt, towheaded girl, who could not have been more than twelve, stumbled at the force of her father’s push. Brigid bent down to help her up and took her hand in hers. She looked into the girl’s face and asked, “Is it your intention to enter the Abbey of Cill Dara as a religious?”
r />   The girl did not answer.

  Still holding the girl’s hand, Brigid turned to the little crowd and said, “It seems she would prefer not to join us in Cill Dara. And that is fine.” Brigid offered the girl the kiss of peace.

  The father stepped forward and said, “Maeb wants to go, all right, but she cannot talk. She’s a mute and has been since the day of her birth.”

  Brigid’s hand tightened around that of young Maeb, until her own knuckles shone white. “It saddens me to see our strong Gaelic culture absorb the Roman beliefs that women are chattel. I will force no woman to act against her wishes, regardless of her father’s command. I will not relinquish Maeb’s hand until she tells me her desires—in whatever way she can.”

  Brigid turned away from the parents of this poor girl—no doubt pushing her into abbey life because no man wanted to marry a mute—and asked the girl again, “Is it your intention to enter the Abbey of Cill Dara as a religious?”

  I could feel the crowd tense, and I worried that they might turn against Brigid, abbess or no. The girl, whose face altered inexpressibly at the loving attention given her by Brigid, emitted a croak.

  The mother gasped at the sound, but Brigid merely smiled at the girl, who tried again. With a rasp, she said, “I wish to do nothing but what you wish.”

  While the crowd watched in amazement as the girl made these first utterances, Brigid continued their conversation as if it were quite normal. “I wish for you to speak your own desires.”

  “I wish to join you,” the girl whispered.

  Brigid hugged the girl tight. “Then join us you shall. Maeb, welcome.”

  We said our farewells, and left the knoll with Maeb. I have recounted this story in the life, and I have no doubt that many will call it miraculous. And perhaps it is. Or perhaps it is the result of Brigid’s goodly kindness. Only He knows.

  Oh, I can hear your knowing laugh, brother. Yes, I confess that Brigid fascinates. Worry not. Daily I remind myself that Satan can take many forms, even that of a well-intentioned, pious-seeming woman. So may I share with you my efforts to ensure that no fresh temptations of Satan worm in? I dedicate the evenings, when the light fails and illumination grows impossible, to shoring up my defenses. After evening Mass, I rush to my hut. Once I secure the door behind me, I throw myself facedown on the dirt floor and assume the penitential position of the cross. Silently, for I cannot risk another religious overhearing my supplications, I cry to God for His help to strengthen my heart against any of Brigid’s sacrilege or allure.

  Hours pass in this manner, so many I cannot account for all of them. I rise from the floor only when my body aches and my forehead bleeds. Then, filled with fervor, I pry loose the stone in the hut’s floor where I store my secret writings, these letters to you among them. Exhausted and near collapsing, I force myself to report to Gallienus.

  I recount in excruciating detail Cill Dara’s heretical practices of which I’ve been told and which I’ve observed—the tonsures, the suggestion of the Druid in certain rituals, the renegade celebration of Easter, Brigid’s performance of the Mass, and the unorthodoxies of her life. I list all the banned Gospels I saw in the scriptorium’s satchels, knowing that this profanation is so deep Gallienus need not call it Arian or Pelagian. Even an Arian or Pelagian would take offense at the copying and dissemination of the prohibited texts.

  As I lie down to rest on the rock that served as pillow, I pray to arise renewed to God’s task. And so you find me, in the prayerful moments before sleep.

  Brother,

  I heard from Brigid’s own mouth that she was warrior-born. And through the tales of the abbey’s history, she told me that she was warrior-trained. Yet I have a confession. I thought that all her talk of martial instruction and practice was common Gaelic boasting or, cast in a more flattering light for Brigid, a show of might to the warrior society lurking outside her walls. I did not believe her.

  Brother, I am no innocent, clinging to visions of His peaceable kingdom. I understood that the Abbey of Cill Dara’s peace stood on vulnerable ground in an unstable culture. Too often, my time with Brigid was interrupted by urgent requests for her skills in mediation. Though she never described the disputes she arbitrated, I learned from others that she adjudicated upsets among chieftains and bloody disputes between neighbors. Yet somehow, these clashes and the ensuing carnage seemed far from the calm world of Brigid’s hut and the scriptorium. I do not know why. Perhaps my obsession with the Gospel book and the history distracted me. Or perhaps Brigid shielded me.

  But even I heard grumblings about the Liffey decree from the other monks. The river Liffey cuts through the plains of Cill Dara, passing through or touching upon by means of swampland three adjoining territories. Each of these provinces was governed by a different chief, and the most pugnacious of the three—Caichan—had proclaimed by writ that they must join together to build a wide road through the three regions, the design of which would sit upon the Liffey riverbed and swampland at certain points. At the outset, the three chiefs agreed that the region needed the road, and set their people to labor creating a solid foundation with tree branches and stones, utilizing Caichan’s plan. Within weeks, however, it became clear that Caichan had allocated the most arduous work on the soggy riverbeds and marshes to the people of the two other chiefs, Miliucc and Dichu.

  Although she never mentioned the nature of her work, I watched firsthand as Brigid trudged out to settle countless disputes about this decree. I knew that she recognized the benefits of the road and desired its furtherance for the abbey purposes. Yet as the road building grew ever more challenging, the tensions escalated.

  One afternoon, Lochru and Daig, two of Brigid’s Gaelic monks whose abbey roles were nebulous but who appeared whenever peacekeeping measures were called for, interrupted our work. Instead of receiving them inside, as she did other visitors, Brigid talked with them outside the door for nearly a quarter hour. She finally stepped back into the hut, announcing that she’d have to stop our labors for the day.

  “The chiefs are drawing battle lines over the Liffey decree, are they not?” I asked.

  She looked at me with surprise. “Yes. How did you know?”

  “It is no secret within the abbey. I assume that you will try to stop them. May I join you?”

  “I do not think so, Decius. It isn’t safe.”

  “I need to witness the full history of the abbey to record it, do I not?”

  Brigid smiled. “I suppose you are right. If you insist, come.” Her robes swirled around her as she exited the hut. She did not wait for my answer.

  We set out on horseback to the west, on a route unfamiliar to me. I had grown accustomed to roaming the countryside with Brigid at my side, but instead, Lochru and Daig flanked her. The threesome rode so quickly that I pushed my horse to keep their pace.

  By nightfall, we reached a grove. I spotted a large bonfire at its center, and we veered toward it. Tall oaks wove a canopy over our heads, but the moonlight was so strong and the fire so bright, I could easily make out the men gathered there. At the core of a large circle of soldiers stood three exceptionally tall men, two with long hair and the other with short hair, spiked with a chalky substance. All three wore outer cloaks of a heathery fabric over short, brightly colored tunics and sword belts hooked with blades so long they touched the ground. They were screaming.

  To my astonishment, I recognized these men. They often attended Sunday Mass with their vast families in tow and their sword belts empty, yet I had no idea they were the chiefs so often criticized in conversation. I could not believe that Brigid had managed to convert these hardened warrior souls.

  Though we dismounted and drew close, the chiefs’ exchange was so heated they did not take notice of our presence. Until Brigid drew herself to her full height, cleared her throat, and called out, “Chiefs.”

  “Abbess, my apologies,” Caichan said. In unison, the chiefs and their men knelt before Brigid.

  “Shall we leave the weapons outsi
de the grove?” she asked, though it sounded more like a command.

  The chiefs nodded in agreement, and their men began to gather the shields, chain mail, helmets, and swords that rested behind each as a declaration of impending battle. The men took leave of their chiefs, and we religious and warriors stood facing one another.

  “I understand that the accord we reached has been undone,” Brigid said.

  The chiefs began shouting at once, each pronouncing the inequity of the decree and the impracticality of the accord. Brigid stayed absolutely still while they aired their grievances and then said, in a voice quieter yet mightier than any of their own, “You will not behave in this offensive manner in this sacred place, under God’s blessed sky. You will abide by the accord I painstakingly wrought with His guidance. Did Patrick teach you nothing about the destruction and sinfulness in warring against your brothers?”

  The chiefs stopped their bellowing and stared at her. As did I. As did Lochru and Daig. The power in her voice was inescapably Godsent.

  Caichan’s scrape-metal voice interrupted the still night air: “My apologies, Abbess. For bringing you from the warm safety of your abbey on a cold eve. For dragging you into this quarrel once again. And for disobeying your request for adherence to the accord. The battle will proceed at dawn, as we discussed.”