The Lives of the Saints, Volume III (of 16): March. Baring-Gould Sabine
into Palestine, at a time when Eutychianism prevailed, and he had the misfortune to embrace the errors of that heresy; but S. Euthymius (Jan. 20th) visited him, and restored him to the unity of the faith. He expiated his error by the most rigorous fasting. He became very intimate with S. Euthymius, S. John the Silentiary, S. Sabas, and S. Theoctistus.
A great number of disciples placed themselves under his conduct, and he built a laura near Jordan, consisting of seventy cells, amidst which was a monastery for the lodging of those who were to live in community, and disciplined those who afterwards occupied the hermitages of the laura. The anchorites assembled in the church on the Sabbath and the Sunday to participate in the sacred mysteries, and on these two days they ate common food that had been cooked, and drank a little wine; on other days they ate only bread and dates, and drank water. Fires were never lighted in the cells, and the hermits slept on rush mats.
S. Gerasimus carried his abstinence further than his brethren. Throughout Lent he took no other nourishment than the Divine Eucharist.
One day as the old abbot was walking on the banks of the Jordan, he saw a lion limping, and roaring with pain. The lion, instead of attempting to escape, held up its paw, which was much swollen, and Gerasimus taking it on his lap, examined it, and saw that a sharp splinter had entered the flesh. He withdrew the piece of reed, and bathed the paw. The lion afterwards gratefully followed him to his cell, and never after left him, but was fed by the abbot. There was an ass belonging to the monastery which brought water from the Jordan, for the necessities of the brethren; and Gerasimus sent the ass out to pasture under the guardianship of the lion. One day the lion had gone away from his charge, and an Arabian camel driver passing by, stole the ass. In the evening the lion returned depressed in spirits to the monastery, without the ass. Gerasimus naturally concluded that the lion had eaten the animal, and he cried out, "Sirrah, where is the ass?" The lion stood still, and looked back over his shoulder. "You have eaten him!" said the abbot; "Let us praise God. Well, what the ass did, you shall do now." And thenceforth the lion carried the water for the brethren.
Now one day a certain soldier came to the monastery, and seeing the lion toiling under the water bottles, he pitied the lordly beast, and gave some money to the abbot to buy an ass on the next opportunity, and release the lion from its office of water-carrier. Some days after this, as the lion was near Jordan, there came by the driver who had stolen the ass, with three camels, and the stolen beast itself. The lion set up its mane and roared, and made towards the man, whereupon the driver took to his heels. Then the lion caught the end of the ass's halter, and drew it along with the camels to the door of the monastery. And thus the abbot learned that he was wrong in accusing his dumb friend of having devoured his charge.
For five years the lion was the constant companion of the old abbot, going in and out among the monks; and at the expiration of that time Gerasimus died. Now the lion was out when he departed to his rest; but when the lion returned home, he went about searching for the old man. Then the abbot Sabbatius, a disciple of the dead saint, seeing the uneasiness of the lion, said to him "Jordan, (for by that name the lion was called), our old friend has gone away and left us orphans, and has migrated to the Lord; but here is food, take and eat." But the lion would not and paced to and fro seeking the dead man, and every now and then throwing up his head, and roaring. Then Sabbatius and some of the other brethren came and rubbed his neck, and said, "The old man is departed to the Lord, and has left us." But this did not appease the lion; and the more they caressed him, and spake to him, the more agitated he became, and the louder he roared, "showing with mouth and eyes how great was his distress, because he saw not the old man."
Then the abbot Sabbatius said to him, "Come along with me, as you will not believe me, and I will show you where our old friend is laid." And he led the lion to the place where Gerasimus was buried; and the abbot Sabbatius, standing at the tomb, said, "See here is where he is buried." And then he knelt and wept upon the grave. So when the lion saw this, he went, and stretched himself on the grave, with his head on the sand, and moaned, and remained there, and would not leave the place, but was found there dead, a few days after.
It is almost needless to say that this beautiful incident has given to the abbot Gerasimus his symbol of a lion, in art.
[Irish Hagiologies, and an addition of Usuardus published in 1490. A saint of this name was venerated on this day in the Dumblane Breviary, but it is uncertain if it was the same. The Life of S. Kieran, published by Colgan, and that given by the Bollandists, are of later date, and like so many of the Acts of Celtic Saints, abound in fables.]
According to the Irish legendary lives, Kieran of Saigir was bishop in Ireland before the arrival of S. Patrick. After honouring him with the title of the "first-born of the saints of Ireland," these lives proceed to inform us that his father was Lugneus, a noble of Ossory, and his mother Liadain, of Corcalaighde, (Carberry), in South Munster. S. Kieran was born in Cape Clear Island. Having spent thirty years in Ireland still unbaptized, he heard of the Christian religion as flourishing at Rome, and went thither for the purpose of being instructed. There he was baptized, and remained twenty years, studying the Scriptures and canons, after which he was ordained bishop, and sent to preach in his own country. On his way to Ireland he met S. Patrick in Italy, who was not as yet a bishop, and who told Kieran that he would follow him to Ireland in thirty years from the date of their meeting. This must have happened in 402, and accordingly Kieran, being then fifty years old, was born in 352. When arrived in Ireland he was miraculously directed, as S. Patrick had told him he would, to the place since called Saigir, (Seir-Kieran, in King's County), where he erected a monastery. Having ordained an innumerable multitude of bishops and priests, he died at the age of 300!
Other accounts state that Kieran's meeting with S. Patrick somewhere out of Ireland occurred several years after the latter had commenced his apostolical labours in this country. Jocelin places it at a time when S. Patrick was returning from Britain, whither he had gone to obtain a supply of additional helpers for his mission, and tells us that Kieran was then one of the six Irish priests who were proceeding to foreign countries for religious improvement, and all of whom afterwards became bishops in their own country. In the Tripartite history of S. Patrick the precise place of meeting is not given; but, what is more to the purpose, it is represented as having occurred at least twelve years after S. Patrick had begun his mission in Ireland, and Kieran is stated to have then received directions from the saint concerning the district in which he should erect his monastery.
It appears, however, that he was no disciple of S. Patrick at all, and did not live in his times. His name does not occur in Tirechan's list, nor in any of the Lives of S. Patrick, except in those two just quoted, and his appearance in them is evidently due to the legends in circulation concerning the meeting. Had S. Kieran been a disciple of the apostle, how could he have become a scholar of S. Finnian of Clonard, in the 6th century? For such he is stated to have been, not only in the Life of S. Finnian, and in that of his illustrious namesake of Clonmacnois, but also in the tract which is called his first life, and which enters into more particulars than the other. S. Finnian's school could not have become celebrated before 534. In both Kieran's lives his namesake of Clonmacnois, who died in 549, and the two Brendans, one of whom died in 577, and the other a few years earlier, are spoken of as having had transactions with him.
We may then safely conclude that he belonged to the sixth century, became distinguished towards the middle of it, and died during its latter half. As this was known to be the case, his blundering biographers strove to reconcile their nonsense concerning the antiquity and privileges of Saigir, with the true date of his death, by making him die at the age of about 300 years, although, had they calculated better, about 220 years might have sufficed.
Kieran, we may safely conclude, was made a bishop about the year 538. Having retired to a lonesome spot, since called Saigir, he led at first the life of a hermit, and after some time erected a monastery, around which a city gradually grew up. Next he established a nunnery in the neighbourhood for his mother Liadania, and some pious virgins, her companions, whence the church Killiadhuin got its name. Besides the care of his monastery, Kieran was assiduously employed in preaching the Gospel in Ossory, and he converted a great number of heathen. He is usually considered to have been the first bishop of Ossory, and founder of that see. It is singular that, notwithstanding all that is said in the lives, in praise