er words he made him his vicar. This may well have been in
1120; for the Annals record that in that year Cellach made a
visitation of Munster. It was quite natural that during a prolonged
absence from his see he should leave its administration in the hands
of one who had proved himself so capable as Malachy. And we shall see
that this date harmonizes with other chronological data. If, then, we
place the beginning of Malachy's vicariate in 1120, his ordination as
priest, which appears to have been not much earlier, may be dated in
1119, when he was "about twenty-five years of age," _i.e._ probably
soon after his twenty-fourth birthday. His admission to the diaconate
may be placed at least a year earlier, _i.e._ in 1118. Indeed, if we
could be sure that in Ireland the normal interval between admission to
the diaconate and to the priesthood was at all as long as in other
countries we might put it further back.

[220] Luke viii. 5.

[221] 1 Pet. ii. 9.

[222] Rom. ii. 12.

[223] Rom. xii. 11.

[224] Cp. Matt. xxv. 24 ff.

[225] Jer. i. 10 (vg.).

[226] Isa. xl. 4.

[227] Ps. xix. 5.

[228] Cp. Isa. x. 17.

[229] Ps. lxxiv. 6 (vg.).

[230] Cp. Ignatius, _Trall._ 11.

[231] Ps. lxxviii. 49 (vg.: inexact quotation).

[232] Ezek. v. 11, etc.

[233] Cp. Rev. vi. 13.

[234] Ps. i. 4 (vg.).

[235] Malachy acted in accordance with the aims of Gilbert, bishop of
Limerick, who about the year 1108, wrote these words (_De Usu
Ecclesiastico_, in Ussher, 500): "I have endeavoured to describe the
canonical custom in saying the hours and performing the office of the
whole ecclesiastical order ... to the end that the various and
schismatical orders, with which almost the whole of Ireland has been
deluded, may give place to the one Catholic and Roman office."

[236] Armagh.

[237] This was probably the monastery of SS. Peter and Paul. See p.
11, n. 5. J. de Backer's suggestion (_AA.SS._, Nov. ii. 1, p. 147),
that "his monastery" was Bangor is negatived by the whole context,
which refers only to Armagh.

[238] The word "anew" (_de nouo_) seems to indicate St. Bernard's
belief that it was only in comparatively recent times that the usages
to which he refers had fallen into desuetude.

[239] It is interesting to observe that Confession is here not ranked
as a sacrament.

[240] For the statements in this section see Additional Note A.

[241] Mael Isa Ua hAinmire, who is always called Malchus in Latin
documents, t