Holy Souls and a Holy Community: The Meaning of Monastic Life in Adomnán's Vita Columbae

This article explores the conception of monastic life and its goals in an early medieval Irish saint's life, Adomnán's Vita Columbae (VC), written at the end of the seventh century on the monastic island of Iona by Columba's eighth successor as the abbot of the monastery. Previous studies on the image of monastic life in VC have concentrated on the physical descriptions of the buildings and the layout of the monastery; the aim of this article is to turn attention to the spiritual aspects of monastic life by exploring Adomnán's understanding of its nature and goals. The VC should be read as a carefully crafted theological work dealing with such topics as virtue, sin, and salvation, communitarian concepts crucial to the institutional life of the monastery.