Although there is now nothing remaining of the buildings in which this celebrated perennial praise was sung, a precious and golden fragment of its ancient liturgy remains. This is contained in a manuscript called the Bangor Antiphonary which is preserved in the Ambrosian Library of Milan in Italy. The Perennial Praise or Laus Perennis was based on the Temple Praise in Jerusalem and the Community of Bangor were well versed in the scriptural basis of its authority. In this they were remarkably similar to those communities of the Jews known as Essenes and Therapeutae who sung a similar praise in Palestine and Egypt in earlier times. Because of it the Bangorians established what was for them a New Jerusalem in accord with the Revelation of St John the Divine, that disciple whom Jesus loved, to whom He entrusted his mother at the foot of the Cross and whose vision of the Apocalypse contained the final oracles of God.

This association is well illustrated by extract from the Bangor Antiphonary, which is entitled “Versicles of the Community of Bangor” and which has become better known as the “Good Rule of Bangor”.

These verses contain the whole raison d’être of the Community or Family of Bangor. They were obviously inspired by John’s Vision in Revelation, chapters 21 and 22, and the writings of Ezekiel in the Old Testament. Both speak of the eternal dwelling place of God, made not with hands but with “living stones”. In other words John taught that those Jews and Gentiles who believed in Christ would build together a New Temple. As 1 Peter 2:5 says: “You also as living stones are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

Good Rule of Bangor
Straight and divine, holy, exact and constant,
exalted, just and admirable.

Blessed family of Bangor, founded on unerring faith, adorned
with salvation’s hope, perfect in charity.

Ship never distressed though beaten by the waves:
fully prepared for nuptials, spouse for the
sovereign Lord.

House full of delicious things
and built upon a rock; and no less the true
vine brought out of Egypt’s land.

Surely an enduring city, strong and unified, worthy and
glorious, set upon a hill.

Ark shaded by Cherubim, all overlaid by gold, filled with
sacred things and borne by four men.

 A very Queen for Christ, clad in the light of the sun,
innocent yet wise, from every side invulnerable.
A truly regal hall with many jewels adorned
of Christ’s flock too the fold, and kept by
the great God.

 A fruitful virgin she and mother undefiled, joyful and tremulous,
submissive to God’s word.

For whom, with the perfect, a happy life is destined,
prepared with God the Father to last to eternity.

Bradshaw’s translation
Bangor Antiphonary

Bangor was to be “an enduring city, set upon a hill” – a New Jerusalem. It was to be the Ark of the Covenant, a New Temple, “the true vine out of Egypt”, a new Perennial Praise.

To fully understand the origins and history of Bangor wewill therefore trace the whole course of the Temple worship both in Palestine and Egypt, centering first on Jesus of Nazareth who was the embodiment of that worship to his followers. We will then follow the story of the Bangor Community itself, for they it was who brought the Light of the Word of their Lord into the darkness of a Barbarian Europe. The lands and peoples among whom they sang their perennial song, thus continuing “the psalmody of the celestial choir”, constituted much of the then known world. It is a story of fortitude and courage perhaps unequalled in the history of mankind. The influence Bangor generated remains strong in Europe today and may be traced as far afield as Russia, the Ukraine and Bulgaria. Indeed, though many may not realise it, it is the very basis of modern Western civilisation itself.

To be continued

© Pretani Associates 2014

Bangor is one of a small group of Irish placenames which are well known to scholars in many European countries.  Students of hagiography meet it in the lives of Columbanus and Gall.  Students of the Irish annals meet it in connection with the so-called “Ulster Chronicle”.  Students of the Twelfth Century Reform of the Irish Church encounter it in Saint Bernard’s Life of St. Malachy.  Students of Irish hymnology, liturgy and palaeography are constantly referred to as the “Antiphonary of Bangor” as one of the prime sources in all these areas. 

It was a splendid idea on the part of Dr. Ian Adamson to bring out a book centred on the Antiphonary in 1979.  The great edition of the Antiphonary by Warren was issued in two volumes by the Henry Bradshaw Society as long ago as 1893.  They provide a page by page facsimile for the scholar, but they are too bulky, too costly, too learned and too inaccessible for the ordinary reader.  Dr. Adamson’s work reproduces the thirty-six folios (= seventy-one pages, as one side of a folio is blank) of the original MS.  in a smaller scale facsimile, provides a transcript of the latin text in beautiful calligraphy, supplies an English translation of some of the canticles, hymns, collects and prayers, and most important of all, places the MS. in its Judaeo-Christian background within the cultural history of Bangor monastery. 

Now that a new edition of Dr. Adamson’s work is shortly to be published, I deem it a high honour to be invited to write this foreword for it.  Dr. Adamson is already well known for The Cruthin (1974), an original and challenging contribution on the early history of the North of Ireland, and The Battle of Moira (1980), an edition of Ferguson’s epic poem, Congal.  In all his writings he has shown a special interest in the Pictish people of the North. Bangor was founded near their most important kingdom, Dal nAraidhe, and Comgall, its founder, was a member of their ruling aristocracy.  Dr. Adamson therefore writes of Bangor with new insights and with freshness, breadth of vision and unspoiled enthusiasm. 

Twenty years ago I paid my first visit to Bobbio in Northern Italy where the manuscript of the Antiphonary of Bangor was lovingly preserved for many centuries.  I then proceeded to Milan in order to see the manuscript itself in its present home in the Ambrosian Library.  Imagine my frustration when I discovered that although the Library had reopened after the summer vacation, the manuscript room would not reopen for visitors until the following week.  As my return ticket did not allow me to stay over, I pleaded with the Library Authorities and pulled out all the stops……..came all the way from near Bangor……..would only take a minute……..was a professor of history……..but all to no avail.  Every time a member of the staff passed in or out of the room I could see that there were manuscripts on show in the glass cases within….. but I did not see the manuscript of the Antiphonary for another three years. 

Lest the same fate should befall others I hope that Ian Adamson’s new edition of Bangor: Light of the World will have a wide circulation.  It covers many themes which will be a revelation to most of us – The Perennial Praise in the Jewish Temple and its movement west with Martin of Tours, the Divine Office in Early Ireland and the Rule of St. Columbanus, St. Mahee of Nendrum and St. Malachy of Armagh.  It also provides that most unusual thing at the present time – a book about the religious history of Ulster, of which both Protestant and Catholic, both Nationalist and Unionist, can be equally proud.  Tolle, lege. 

                                                                                   Tomás Cardinal Ó Fiaich

Archbishop of Armagh

Ard Mhacha

Lá Fhéile Pádraig, 17 Márta 1987

© Pretani Associates 2014

The Gospel of Thomas is of another kind, a “Sayings” Gospel, which records 114 of Jesus’s sayings rather than the story of his life, death and resurrection. Its purpose is to promote the secret teachings of Jesus and explain to the faithful that by understanding his words rather than by believing in his death and resurrection that they would have everlasting life. The Gospel is attributed to Didymus Judas Thomas, whom Jesus says is his “twin” , “Didymus” being Greek and “Thomas” Aramaic for “twin”. If it is not a forgery, as some believe, it may be the closest we ever get to the real Jesus. Yet the leadership of the church in Jerusalem passed, not to Thomas, but to Jesus’s brother, James the Just.

The convert Paul was, apart from Jesus, the most important figure in the spread of Christianity. His letters to the young churches were probably written sometime between 50 and 60 AD. Paul’s conversion appears to have been the result of a vision of Jesus following his death which completely altered his understanding of Jesus, God’s Law and the true road to salvation. He became convinced that the end of the World was nigh and people needed to be saved before it was too late. His theological belief in the Resurrection of the Christ had the clearest implications for the ethical well-being of the community.

The Gospels of Matthew and Luke have been dated to between 80 and 85 AD. The Gospel of Matthew concentrates on Jesus’s Jewishness but at the same time demonstrates his opposition to the Jewish leaders of his day.  Yet for all that, Jesus was a Jewish Messiah, sent by a Jewish God to a Jewish people to gather Jewish disciples, in fulfilment of Jewish Scriptures. He was merely summing up the Jewish Law into two Commandments: to love God above all else and to love one’s neighbour as oneself (22:35-40).Thus he superseded the Scribes and Pharisees and all their works.

Luke was a Gentile physician, known to have been a travelling companion of the apostle Paul, but there is the usual academic debate about whether he wrote the Gospel or not. Nevertheless, Jesus is portrayed as a Jewish prophet, who as the Son of God brought the whole world to salvation, not just Jewish people but Gentiles as well. He was therefore the Salvator Mundi, the Saviour of the World. He was born like a prophet, preached like a prophet, and finally died like a prophet. He was even obliged to go to Jerusalem to be killed, for that is where all the prophets die (13:33).

The Gospel of John has been traditionally ascribed to John, the son of Zebedee, one of Jesus’s closest friends. But this ascription cannot be found anywhere until the latter part of the 2^nd Century. In earlier sources John is described as a countryman from Galilee, who would have spoken, like Jesus, Aramaic, not the literary Greek in which the Gospel is written. Moreover in Acts 4:13 John is described as illiterate. The Gospel is, in fact, likely to have been translated from oral Aramaic sources towards the end of the 1^st Century, so that whether John was illiterate or not is of no special significance.

John’s Gospel provides a completely different view of Jesus. He is no longer the compassionate and charismatic healer and worker of miracles, proclaiming the coming of the Kingdom of God, a prophet without honour among his own people. Nor even the Jewish Messiah, sent by the Jewish God to fulfil the Jewish Scriptures. He is now the Logos, the Word. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. Jesus had passed from the prophetical to the mystical to the Divine….