Cormac’s Rule
Author: J. Strachan
An electronic edition
view the header | view the Irish text
p. 63.
1. Lasting, low-voiced congregation, happy the hour if I
could learn [it]. The high knowledge feeds me, the melodious
song of the believers.
2. Let us sing the song which the ancients have sung, the
course (?) which they have sounded forth. Would that I could
expel from my flesh what they have expelled.
3. A grateful gift is speech without boasting, to be ever at
the will of the King. Humility to fitting folk would be no folly,
no disadvantage.
p. 64.
4. Due celebration with patience, it is the ornament of every
great work, we praise it. Silence when it is necessary. Eyelids
towards heaven under . . .
5. Stepping with dignity past kings. Renunciation of wine
and flesh. Pure choice of a fair glorious grade, a humble,
learned confessor.
6. Order of confession; perpetual sorrow; walking with
knowledge; little sound. Rule fair-wondrous, pure; not to be
a hateful lying.
7. ’Tis no evil heresy, ’tis no peradventure: God’s love
demands His fear. A walking without wicked pride from the
Devil; not to be one hour in arrogance.
p. 65.
8. Patience, purity, with holiness; a putting away of hypocrisy
with perversity. A holy dinner without repletion, without
a full meal (?); a small fair ration; being a-fasting.
9. Fasting when it is proper; the excellent restraint which
it brings (?). Solution [of questions] in time of faith deserves
that there come not heresy.
10. A load of devotion with gentleness, pure . . . without
sorrow. The mind towards bright eternal heaven. The selling
of darkness for light.
11. An emaciated, miserable body. Study with a well-spoken
old man. Intentness on (?) conversing with the Canon.
Forgetfulness of the wretched paltry world.
p. 66.
12. A protection of the soul, an approach to heaven, a
wonderful power, a fostering of purity, is the food which is after
extinction of desire, Christ’s body with the blood of Mary’s Son.
13. White raiment after the fashion of an elder, sound food
. . . I deem enough from my . . . King at the completion of
earthly life.
14. Let it be a deed of wisdom without danger. Let us
escape from folly, from destruction . . .
© 2006 Thesaurus Linguae Hibernicae