Honoratus  of  Aries,  the  founder  of  the  famous  monastery  of
Lerins.  There  he  put  in  practice  the  divine  maxims  of
Cassian,  and  changed  that  barren  island,  which  he  found
covered  with  brushwood  and  filled  with  serpents,  into  a  garden
of  Eden,  where  man  once  more  walked  in  innocence  with
Grod ;  and  bounteous  nature  rewarded  the  incessant  labour  of
the  monks  with  fruits  of  choicest  flavour  and  flowers  of  richest
hues.  He  was  taken  away  much  against  his  will  from  his
beloved  island  and  made  Bishop  of  Aries;  but  he  survived
only  two  years,  dying  in  the  j^ear  a.d.  429,  just  at  the  time
that  St.  Patrick,  his  disciple,  was  preparing  to  eome  to  Ireland.
A  similar  monastery  and  monastic  school  was  about  the  same
,  time,  and  under  the  same  influence,  founded  by  St.  G-ermanus
at  Auxerre,  as  we  have  already  seen,  when  speaking  of  St.
Patrick's  training  for  the  Irish  mission.
It  is  in  these  cradles  of  western  monasticism  that  we  must
try  to  find  the  true  character  of  the  monasticism,  as  well  as
of  the  discipline  and  ritual,  which  St.  Patrick  introduced  into
Ireland.  If,  as  the  Tripartite  asserts,  St.  Patrick  spent  some
thirty  years  in  France  and  Italy,  and  the  islands  of  the
Tyri'hene  Sea,  preparing  for  the  work  for  which  Providence


192  THE"  SCHOOL  OF  ST.  FINNIXN  OF  CLONARD.
destined  him  in  Ireland,  he  had  ample  time  to  visit  all  their
celebrated  monasteries,  and  doubtless  spent  some  of  these
years  not  only  at  Marmoutier  of  St.  Martin,  and  with  St.
