Greek was current in Lyons, for Caligula reigned from 37 to 41 a.d. Now let us come to the second century. Here we can produce abundant Christian testimony. Eusebius, the Church historian, has preserved for us the most ancient document concerning the Gallic Church in the celebrated Epistle of the Churches of Lyons and Vienne, detailing the terrible persecution they underwent about the year 178. This long Epistle was written by the Christians of Lyons to their brethren in Asia Minor, and was in Greek. Irenæus, again, one of the most celebrated Church Fathers, and one who lived through that same persecution, and succeeded the Bishop of Lyons who was martyred on that occasion, was a copious writer whose works we still possess; and Irenæus, you will observe, wrote all his works in Greek. The language, then, of the Christians of Southern Gaul at the end of the second century was Greek.

Now let us advance to the third century. We here may use a new source of information. One of the most learned and valuable works which that great French scholar and archæologist, Edmond le Blant, has produced, is his "Christian Inscriptions of Gaul," in two large quarto volumes, the only copy of which possessed by any Dublin library will be found in Trinity College. Le Blant gathered up carefully every Christian inscription now extant, or of which he could find any record in France, appending to each a long and learned dissertation. Among the very earliest of his "finds" is that numbered 4, where we have the Autun Inscription given at full length. The Autun Inscription is well known by archæologists, and has been often described and often debated from a theological as well as a historical point of view. My interest in it is, however, on this occasion, of a purely linguistic character. This monument is a Greek inscription written in verse. There are eleven verses, the opening words being Ιχθύος Ουράνιου θεῖον γένος ἦτορι σεμνῷ, in which the writer describes the Christians as the Divine Race of the Heavenly Fish, referring to a well-known symbol used in the primitive ages of the Church. The author of this inscription must have been a man of reading and culture, because he uses rare words and expressions drawn from Homer. He, for instance, uses the word Top for the heart, a Greek word found only in Homer, Simonides, Pindar, and a chorus of Aeschylus; while he uses a Homeric phrase, Ociov yévos, to describe the adherents of the Christian faith. This inscription is attributed to the close of the third century, say about

1 The dissertations dealing with our subject, in addition to his preface, p. cxv., are Nos. 38, 211, 225, 248, 521, 557, 613.

the year 300, while, when we turn to Lentheric's works, we find a long Pagan inscription written in Greek in the time of the Emperor Alexander Severus and Julia Mammæa, his mother, the friend and disciple of the celebrated Origen. That inscription was written about the year 225. Alexander Severus is celebrated for his Syncretistic tendencies in the matter of religion. He wished to enrol Christ among the Roman gods, and was willing to recognize Christianity, if it would take its place among the established religions of the empire, side by side with the poetic paganism of Greece and the weird mystic rites of Mithras and of Egypt. This Gallic Greek inscription shows the same tone, for it unites the rites and worship of Egypt and of Serapis with those of Jupiter and Venus. (See Lentheric's "La Grèce," &c., p. 485.) Here, then, you have evidence showing that in Gaul among Christians and Ragans alike, Greek was the language of the grave as well as of life, of lamentation and sorrow as well as of flattery and adulation.

We now come to the fourth century. People generally have no difficulty in admitting the extensive use of Greek in the West till the early part of the fourth century, but they have a vague kind of idea that after that period the Roman Empire broke up, and that neither Latin nor Greek survived the wreck, but that all Europe was in a hopeless state of ruin, confusion, and ignorance for the following thousand years. Now this is all a vast mistake, begotten largely of the utter neglect and contempt with which our Universities have treated the languages, literature, and history of the later Roman Empire. I must not, however, allow myself to get too far away from my main point. I shall therefore merely say, that the Roman Empire remained as firm and stable as ever all through the fourth century, and Greek continued to prevail in Gaul throughout that century. Let me give you a few proofs. Upon the death of Constantine the Great the Roman Empire was divided into three portions. The West was assigned to the eldest son, Constantine the Younger, as he is usually called. He was a Greek by education. He must have had a large Greek following and a crowd of Greek courtiers. Constantine found, too, that celebrated Greek writer, St. Athanasius of Alexandria, living at Treves when he set up his throne there; and when Constantine died, three years later, in 340, a funeral oration was pronounced over his body at Arles, which was couched in the Greek language, and is still extant in the same language.1

1 This funeral oration will be found in Greek at the end of the "Roman History" of Eutropius, p. 703, as published by Havercamp at Leyden, in 1729.

It is no wonder, then, that when you turn to Le Blant's books you find numerous Greek funeral inscriptions coming from Treves and its neighbourhood, while three hundred years ago they were much more numerous, vast quantities of them having disappeared through neglect and civil commotions.1

Remember now one fact: I have shown the continuous existence of Greek in Gaul down to the year 400, and that not only in the southern districts of the country, but far away in the north-east of the country at Treves, upon the banks of the Moselle. Let us, however, come to the fifth and sixth centuries, a time when the ordinary student regards France as reduced to a state of primitive barbarism through the invasion of the savage hordes who swept down upon the defenceless victim. Surely, many people conclude, no knowledge of Greek can then have survived. Yet this was the period of St. Patrick, and the time when active intercourse with Ireland, through Christian missionaries, began to arise. Hence the difficulty, how did Greek, and Hebrew too, get into Ireland? And now, strange as it may seem, I can produce far more abundant evidence of the existence of Greek in Gaul, north, south, east, and west, during the next two centuries than at any other period. The authorities are so numerous that I can barely glance at them. St. Jerome, for instance, was an eminent author whose writings are full of information concerning the manners and customs of his time. He died about the year 420. He wrote in Palestine, but he lived many years at Treves and in other parts of Gaul. He gives us some very interesting glimpses of the Irishmen of his day, and shows us that our reputation was much the same in his time as it is still amongst the uneducated and more credulous English lower classes of the present day. St. Jerome saw Irish troops in Roman pay at Treves. He tells us they were very brave, but kept their courage up by eating human flesh, so that it was very dangerous for any plump or well-fed children to be caught straying near their barracks. Now St. Jerome, in the preface to the second book of his Commentary on Galatians, gives us some information on the very point about which we are inquiring. He tells us that the inhabitants of Arles, Marseilles, and their co-provincials, were tri

1 See "Christian Inscriptions of Gaul," t. 1., p. 327, where Le Blant quotes some Latin verses of Conrad Celtes, the last of which says of Treves—

lingual, speaking with equal facility Greek, Latin, and Celtic.' Gaul, and specially Southern Gaul, became, in fact, in the earlier part of the fifth century-that is, just about the time of St. Patrick-a special centre of Greek and Oriental influences. We have manifold evidence on this point. We still possess, for instance, a Rescript of the Emperor Honorius, dated in 418, addressed to the Prefect of Gaul, confirming and extending the power of a kind of local Parliament which had existed in Gaul from the earliest times. The history of that institution is most interesting, and throws much light upon Roman methods of managing their great Empire from the time of Augustus downwards. The Emperor Honorius endeavoured to use and develop this local legislature so as to strengthen Roman power against the invaders. In his Rescript issued for this special purpose, he gives us a glimpse of the active intercourse maintained by Gaul with the farthest East, telling us, in the high-flown language then used, that the city of Arles was the centre to which "the wealthy Orient, perfumed Arabia, luxurious Assyria, fertile Africa, beautiful Spain, and brave Gaul brought their richest treasures." But it was not trade alone which brought Greek and Eastern customs and languages into Gaul at this period. Religion, as the most powerful force that works upon man, told in the same direction. Southern Gaul became the favourite centre towards which Greek, and Syrian, and Egyptian Monasticism tended, establishing in Southern Gaul, in the early days of the fifth century, the celebrated Monastery of Lerins where St. Patrick is said to have been trained for his missionary work. There was one man connected with the monastery of Lerins whose career shows how close was the connexion, how frequent the intercourse between Egypt, Syria, Greece, and Gaul, in the fifth century. John Cassian is one of the most famous Gallic writers of the fifth century; and Cassian spent a good half of a very long life in the East and in Egypt. He spent seven years among the Monks of Nitria in Egypt, where the celebrated Nitrian manuscripts were found fifty years ago. He lived in Palestine, and served as archdeacon to St. Chrysostom at Con

1 See Dr. Lightfoot's "Galatians," Introd., pp. 12, 13.

2 See Macmillan's Magazine, November, 1882, where I gave an account of this fact, so little known to the usual run of historians, under the title "Home Rule under the Roman Empire."

3 Sidonius Apollinaris tells us of a St. Abraham, who was a sufferer in the persecution raised by the Persian King Isdegerdes. He was born on the Euphrates, passed over into France, ruled a monastery there, and died about 476. See Le Blunt, "Dissert.," No. 557; "Ireland and the Celtic Church,” pp. 3, 173.

stantinople about the year 400; and then after working as a Greek ecclesiastic at Constantinople, he came to Gaul, where the remaining half of his life was spent organising and developing the monastic institutions which had been transplanted thither from Egypt. Syriac and Greek must have been for Cassian almost his mother tongue. During the fifth and sixth centuries Cassian's monastery of Lerins was in the most close and active communication with Syria, Egypt, and the East. In fact, whenever an inhabitant of Gaul felt called to a specially devout life, and wished to enjoy the highest spiritual privileges, he went off from Marseilles to Egypt, as we see from the case of Justus, who was Bishop of Lyons during the earlier years of the fifth century. He got tired of his work as bishop. He wished to lead a more devout and meditative life. He therefore retired to the deserts of Nitria in Central Egypt, just as naturally as when we want a little change and refreshment we run over to Harrogate, Wiesbaden, or Switzerland.1

But it was not religion alone which spread Greek and Oriental influences all over France during the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries; trade and commerce, as we have already hinted, invited their presence and made it welcome. Salvianus is one of the best known writers of the latter half of the fifth century. He lived at Cologne and Treves. He gives, in his treatise "De Gubernatione Dei," a sad picture of the disordered state of society in Gaul as the fifth century dragged along its weary course; and he tells us that all their towns and cities were filled with crowds of Syrians whose cupidity and extortions were disgraceful. Salvianus's death may be roughly fixed at 460. If we then pass over a space of 120 years to the year 589, we shall come to the Council of Narbonne.

Now the decrees of Church Councils and Synods are not generally regarded as valuable historical documents; and yet this is a great mistake. No documents are half so valuable for the illustration of social life when the ancient order was breaking up, and the nations of modern Europe were in the throes of birth, as the records of the obscure councils held in Gaul from the fifth to the tenth century. The Council of Narbonne, for instance, met in 589, and passed a series of Canons, preserved in Mansi's great work, "Collectio Conciliorum," the fourth of which ordained that "Every man, bond or free, whether a Goth, Roman, Syrian, Greek, or Jew, should rest on Sunday." You

1 See his epitaph in Le Blant, t. 1., p. 62, No. xxvii.; and Justus (11), in Smith's "Dict. Christ. Biog."