Whatever the full explanation be the writers of the Lives were clearly
animated by a desire to make their saint cotemporary and, if possible, a
disciple, of one or other of the great monastic founders, or at any rate
to prove him a pupil of one of the great schools of Erin. There was
special anxiety to connect the saint with Bangor or Clonard. To effect
the connection in question it was sometimes necessary to carry the life
backwards, at other times to carry it forwards, and occasionally to
lengthen it both backwards and forwards. Dr. Chas. O'Connor gives a
not very convincing explanation of the three-hundred-year "Lives,"
scil.:--that the saint lived in three centuries--during the whole of one
century and in the end and beginning respectively of the preceding and
succeeding centuries. This explanation, even if satisfactory for the
three-hundred-year Lives, would not help at all towards the Lives of
four hundred years. A common explanation is that the scribe mistook
numerals in the MS. before him and wrote the wrong figures. There is no
doubt that copying is a fruitful source of error as regards numerals.
It is much more easy to make a mistake in a numeral than in a letter;
the context will enable one to correct the letter, while it will give
him no clue as regards a numeral. On the subject of the alleged
longevity of Irish Saints Anscombe has recently been elaborating in
'Eriu' a new and very ingenious theory. Somewhat unfortunately the
author happens to be a rather frequent propounder of ingenious theories.
His explanation is briefly--the use and confusion of different systems
of chronology. He alleges that the original writers used what is called
the Diocletian Era or the "Era of the Martyrs" as the 'terminus a quo'
of their chronological system and, in support of his position, he
adduces the fact that this, which was the most ancient of all
ecclesiastical eras, was the era used by the schismatics in Britain and
that it was introduced by St. Patrick.