Prophecy, Miracles, Angels and Heavenly Light? The Eschatology, Pneumatology and Missiology of Adomnan's Life of Columba (review)

This somewhat densely written book, which bears the marks of its origins as a PhD thesis, takes a bold and fresh look at Adamnan's Life of Columba, one of the seminal sources for early Scottish church history. It should be said at the outset that the approach of the author, a priest in the Scottish Episcopal Church, is as much theological as historical. His interest is in the supernatural marvellous phenomena which feature so prominently in the late seventh century abbot of Iona's Vita of his illustrious sixth-century predecessor. Bruce takes issue with Plummer and others who have seen the miracles, visions and encounters with angelic and demonic forces that loom so large in the Vita Columbae as essentially being borrowings or adaptations from pre-Christian saga material. He points out that there is no evidence at all that the saga material on which they are said to have been based actually pre-dated Adamnan's text and shows that they are much closer to Biblical stories. In this, Bruce follows the line taken by Professor Donald Meek and other Celtic scholars who emphasize the Christian and Biblical origins of the material found in the lives of the early Irish and Scottish saints and reject the thesis that they somehow display a syncretism with pagan or pre-Christian sources.

Bruce is adamant that Adamnan's description of Columba owes everything to Christian tradition and little, if anything, to pre-Christian paganism. He is also clear that 'for Adamnan, Columba is a prophet in the biblical tradition, and not a clairvoyant'. This seems reasonable enough and follows the line taken by most modern scholars of the period. Where he is more original is in his assertion that Adamnan sees the miracles of Columba in an eschatological context as signs of the breaking-in of God's kingdom to the world. For him, the encounters with angels and even with the Loch Ness monster recorded by Adamnan establish Columba as the one around whom the supernatural broke into this world. Columba is presented in the Vita as the one who brings the eschatological kingdom of God into partial realisation. His prophecies, miracles of power and healing and visions of heavenly light all show the flowering of the kingdom. This reading of Adamnan, which is well supported and wholly plausible, forms the most important and original contribution of this book to historical and theological scholarship. I am less certain about the third main argument which Bruce seeks to advance, which is that, as portrayed by Adamnan, Columba is more of a missionary and evangelist than a pilgrim and ascetic. He argues that the over-riding feature of Columba's peregrinatio for Adamnan is the marvellous, with Columba being seen as the vehicle through which the evangelistic missionary activity of the Holy Spirit works. His function is to lead souls to the heavenly kingdom. Columba here is the one who plants the seeds of the Gospel and brings them into flower, not just in the monastery but in the wider community, both of Dal Riata and Pictland.

Bruce is certainly right to emphasize the pneumatological aspects of Adamnan's treatment of Columba. Adamnan almost certainly did see Columba as displaying the gifts and charisms of the Holy Spirit and there may well have been a strong and urgent eschatological basis to his writing, as there was to so much Christian thought in this period. I remain to be convinced, however, that the Columba of the Vita was a missionary and evangelist more than he was a pilgrim, pastor and counsellor of souls and man of prayer. Dr Bruce's argument that there is a missionary emphasis in Adamnan's life is to be welcomed, nonetheless, for challenging those of us who are uneasy about Columba's portrayal as the evangelist of Scotland and who would rather...