Gripla - 20.12.2011, Page 108

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degrading than those of the public penance, and in this respect it can be
said to be peculiarly Irish.119
Now, if we consider baptism – which is, as we have seen, an unchang-
ing item in the patristic rainbow allegory based on Genesis – as a possible
non-literal indication for actually entering monastic life, or in other words
choosing any form of asceticism as the most direct road to heaven, an easy
parallel emerges between the Irish triadic colour-imagery of martyrdom
and the Old Icelandic three-coloured rainbow allegory. In this respect,
there is another interesting passage from the Hiberno-Latin Continental
production, which can also be brought up in this context, namely from
a Celtic homily collection preserved in the Vatican manuscript Vat. reg.
lat. 49, probably written in Brittany in the later ninth or tenth century.
In Homily 4, the preacher comments on the twelve precious stones on
the walls of the heavenly Jerusalem by introducing a comparison with the
actions of the holy men:
Quibus lapidibus comparantur actus sanctorum, quando per mar-
tiria probantur et per plures necessitates: aliis actibus probatis
per baptismum, aliis per iacintha martiria, aliis per rubra martiria
en sium persecutoris pro amore Dei, vel per sanguinem pudoris
dando confessionem ductoribus animarum...120
“With these stones the actions of holy men are compared, when
they are shown by martyrdom and various hardships: being these
actions shown some through baptism, some through blue martyr-
dom, some through red martyrdom of persecutor’s swords for God’s
sake, or else through blood (i.e., blushing of the face) in repentance
while performing confession to souls’ rulers (i.e., priests)...”
Here, again, the penitential implications are stressed to the point of
equating the red of the shedding of blood in literal martyrdom to the red
119 Cf. Stancliffe, “Red, white and blue martyrdom”: 45–46. The last sentence in the passage
from the Cambrai Homily is probably to be interpreted as referring to ordinary lay people
guilty of murder and fornication (cf. ‘carnal ones’), who having performed their period of
penance are ranked with the red, white and blue martyrs (cf. ibid., 44).
120 Cf. Stancliffe, “Red, white and blue martyrdom”: 26, with some correction from the
edition by A. Wilmart, “Catéchèses celtiques,” Analecta Reginensia, ed. A. Wilmart, Studi
e testi 59 (Città del Vaticano, 1933), 56.