This biography of Saint Columba, the man responsible for bringing Christianity to Scotland in the 6th century AD, is filled with detail and insight. Columba was considered a man of great spiritual strength who braved the wild, untrammeled lands of rural Scotland at a time when it was ruled by tribes. Many legends are told of his miraculous abilities in fending off wild beasts, and in providing the remote peoples with compelling testimony in the one true God, and the divinity of Jesus Christ. Not only did Columba spread the word, he also established a series of monasteries which endured for centuries. Serving as the first abbot in ancient Ireland, his political influence and legacy was significant. The author, Saint Adamnan, was the ninth abbot of Ireland who assumed office late in the 7thcentury. Working from surviving accounts and sources of his era, he was able to recount his predecessor's deeds, prophecies and personality. This English translation of Adamnan was produced at Oxford University near the end of the 19th century; being among the few surviving texts of the era, this book is valuable for shedding light upon life and worship in Celtic cultures of long ago.

Founding father of the famous monastery on the island of Iona, a site of pilgrimage ever since his death in 597, St Columba was born into one of the ruling families in Ireland at a time of immense expansion for the Irish Church. This account of his life, written by Adomnán - the ninth abbot of Iona, and a distant relative of St Columba - describes his travels from Ireland to Scotland and his mission in the cause of Celtic Christianity there. Written 100 years after St Columba's death, it draws on written and oral traditions to depict a wise abbot among his monks, who like Christ was capable of turning water into wine, controlling sea-storms and raising the dead. An engaging account of one of the central figures in the 'Age of Saints', this is a major work of early Irish and Scottish history.

For the first time we see, through the theological mind of Adomnan, the mission of Columba to bring the Kingdom of God to Pict and Scot. The question is, was Adomnan simply following fashion (miracles proved sanctity, and thereby authorized the cult and its politically minded promoters), or did he also have a more sophisticated understanding of the nature and function of these authority-providing marvels that he systematizes uniquely: prophecy, miracles of power, visions? This book surveys approaches to the marvelous, tracing the intriguing recent growth in scholarly open-mindedness, and shows Plummer's 1910 hypothesis of the origin of Irish saga to be inadequate. Adomnan identifies the phenomena firmly as signs of the inbreaking eschatological Kingdom of God. Directed by the Spirit of prophecy, in miracles of transforming power, with angels and glimpses of the glory of God's presence, the conditions of the new earth are made tantalizingly present in sixth-century Scotland. The Spirit bringing the Kingdom is the mission of the church. How this is present in his Life recasts the missionary identity of Columba from a new perspective and poses questions for the task of the church today.

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This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.