¹ The most reverend bishop Finan, who is also called by the Welsh name Winnin, was born of father Capreus and mother Lassara, of the people of the Aradaei and of noble stock from Ulidia. The blessed Patrick, bishop of the Irish, foretold that he would be a venerable and distinguished bishop. For when, at a great feast which his parents had abundantly provided for their whole household through three nights, the wine ran out, trusting in the boy’s holiness according to blessed Patrick’s prophecy, they signed three vessels full of weak ale through the hand of the same infant, and they were turned into the colour and taste of the best wine. After these things the bishop Colman arriving, the docile boy was handed over to him to be taught; with whom he was instructed for some years in all obedience and humility. And it happened once, when the blessed bishop had raised his hand aloften with a scourge to strike the holy boy, already reading, for some reason, that the angel of the Lord held it suspended in the air. When this was done, Finan, prostrate on the ground, said: “My father, why do you not strike me?” And he: “Son, I wish to do so: but I am hindered by divine power. Therefore if you wish to be scourged, you must go to another master. For at this hour I will never chastise you.” And he sent him to the venerable old man Coelan, abbot of Nendrum, and diligently commended him to have care of his body and soul. But he, looking upon the youth’s face, at once said: “This one will never be my disciple: for truly in heaven and on earth he far surpasses me in honour and merit. For he will be a bishop, distinguished in wisdom and conspicuous in religion and holiness.” Hearing this, Finan, touched by the spirit of prophecy, said: “Without delay you will see one come here whom I shall follow and under whom I shall be trained: who may help me in all my necessities.”

² And now, ships in which the most holy bishop named Nennio was with his company, coming from Britain, held the harbour of the island before the monastery. They being received with joy and honour, the same fathers commended the youth Finan to the venerable bishop with all diligence. With him returning home he sailed, and in his seat, which was called the Great Monastery, he learned the rules and institutions of the monastic life for some years, a worthy monk, and labouring he profited not a little in the pages of the holy scriptures, and through the invocation of the name of Christ did many miracles. A certain man, Greek by race, vexed for many years for his most monstrous crimes, whom a legion of demons unhappily followed as he went seeking health through every part of the world, he freed by his prayer from every sickness of body and soul. A king of Britain’s daughter, who loved him with carnal love too much and on a certain day shamelessly enticed him to an illicit act, and who by the just judgment of God, before her father and the people, died after a short interval on that account — moved with compassion at the groans of her parents and those standing by, he recalled her to a chaste and holy life. A vessel of water, infected with poison by a certain man’s envy, trusting in the Lord he drank: and felt no harm at all from it afterwards.

³ Instructed therefore not a little in the rules of monks and in the pages of holy scripture, he resolved to seek the apostolic see, that whatever healthful knowledge he might happen to lack, he might there drink in to the full. For there, remaining a studious inquirer for seven years, he ascended to the degree of the priesthood. And when he was preaching the word of the Lord to the Roman people in a certain church, certain clerics in envy, lest his voice be heard by the people, made organs and trumpets and the other instruments of musical modulation sound together. Yet overcoming all these with wondrous lofteniness, by divine power his voice is commended, and God is glorified in His saint. After these things he converted to the faith of Christ two peoples of numerous multitude worshipping idols near Italy, by preaching and miracles together: and he made the feet of certain of them rushing upon him stick fast to the ground; and when their king had commanded a beam to be fixed in the ground to crucify the man of God, his other hand adhered to the same beam, while the other was joined to his side. Yet all of them, penitent and converted to the faith, he released at once. Moreover two lions coming from a nearby wood, the holy man going before, followed him through the city carrying their cubs in his bosom before all the people, as cows follow their calves. For if he did this, they promised they would believe in his God. Moreover also he restored to life a certain man killed by them.

⁴ These things accomplished, the servant of God hastened back to his country with the relics of saints, and a marble altar, and three round stones delivered to him by the ministry of angels, with which in the space of his life he used, in place of lamps in the night hours, to read, write and pray. Receiving afterwards the office of the episcopate, with how many miracles he shone in Ireland, truly no man knows. In the church which is called the Cell of the Mountain, he raised a certain nun from death; he recalled to life the drowned minister of a certain bishop; and he recalled from the dead a bishop named Nath, who, having received the saving viaticum from Finan’s hand, rested in peace. A certain widow’s son, dead for three days, he raised and baptized. A son of wickedness who had wounded his disciple with a spear, excommunicating him, he said: “The birds of the sky shall eat your flesh, and the earth shall not receive your bones scattered everywhere, and your unhappy soul shall descend to the infernal regions without end.” After a little time had passed, a wind blowing from the south thrust that enemy of God into a deep valley near the sea, where, pierced through by a wooden stake, he perished hanging. The son of king Damen, who while the servant of God was consecrating the Lord’s body disturbed him greatly and irreverently forbade the holy work to be done — through his prayer, poured out with hands extended to the Lord, a huge hammer descending from heaven upon his head killed him, as he deserved. Two noble and barren matrons also he caused by his prayer to conceive and bring forth.

⁵ He went to king Diarmait to plead for a certain friend of his: and when the king had commanded the gates of the town to be barred, they were at once opened by divine power. Hearing this, the king mounted his chariot wishing to avoid the man of God, the chariot broke and he fell, and struck with blindness, he commanded the holy man to be brought to him. But he refusing said: “If he would acquiesce to my petitions, he will obtain from God what he wishes.” Then the messenger said to the king: “Truly, king, he places in your judgment the matter for which you sent me.” The king acquiescing, the man of God commanded blessed water, with which he might be sprinkled, and his own belt, with which he might be girded, to be carried to him. He, sprinkled with the water and girded with the belt, returned to his former health. Tuathal also, the said king’s predecessor, denied the alms of butter which a studious reader of the divine scriptures by nights as well as days had asked of him for the use of lamps. Then Finan, foreknowing the future, uttered a certain prophetic word against him in his mother tongue, foretelling that he would die not long after. Hearing which, led by penitence, he sought pardon with bent knees, and said: “Lord, tell me by what death I shall die.” And he: “One of your ministers,” he said, “will kill you.” But that man, wise in his own eyes and swelling too much with proud inflation, dared ironically to question the servant of God still further, saying: “How great a space is there between us and the kingdom of God?” And he: “Not over long,” he said: “for its inhabitants hear the voice of a humble man.” Hearing this and still persisting in his pride, he said: “Where is hell — in heaven, or on earth, or under the earth? Or of how great a breadth and depth is it? Is the space between us and it long?” To whom the excellent doctor, somewhat moved with the zeal of God, answered: “I have not measured hell, but you will measure it with your own feet. And how long and short is the way which leads to it may be weighed from this: before the end of this day arrives, you will be in it.” Which prophecy was fulfilled by his sudden death before evening. —

⁶ These few things from the greatest of the virtues of this great and most holy bishop I have resolved to glean for the edification of readers; who, after the observance of the commandments of almighty God, after the presence of angels coming frequently to consult him and to console him, and many other divine revelations besides, seized by infirmity lay on the bed of pain for the circuit of a whole year. But when the hour of his dissolution drew near, he took the sacraments of the Lord’s body and the blood of Christ, and gave up his spirit into the hands of his Creator, on the fourth ides of September. And his body was buried in Scotland at Cunningham, in the place which from his Welsh name is called Kilwinin.