Augustinus Hibernus

Does anybody know anything about this guy? Fr. Hogan apparently quotes him in The Irish Wolf-Dog (which I still don’t have — curses!) and says he was AD 665, and there’s an article title in some Irish science journal that calls him “Ireland’s first naturalist”.

Here’s a translation of the quote and a citation for it, according to some of Hogan’s notes that are on the Web at irishwolfhoundarchives.ie:

“”….whence, with lapse of time, they make even the islands which, as many affirm, had not existed from the world’s creation, while they divide the neighboring headlands from the continent by intervening tracts of sea.

“It is readily understood from this, that those beasts which are confined to islands, have evidently not been transported thither by man’s care, but were there at the severance of the islands from the mainland.

“For instance, who brought to Ireland wolves, stags, wild boars, foxes, badgers, hares, and field-mice?”

Here’s Hogan’s copy of the original Latin, a bit harder to make out.

UPDATE: Apparently it’s easier to find this out by searching for the Latin text than for the dude’s name.

A paper on the guy from 1861, with a bunch more of this text. Also explains why Hogan was citing him from an old Basel copy of the Works of St. Augustine. The work is titled “De Mirabilibus Sacrae Scripturae”. There’s a lot of stuff about solar and lunar cycles of years in the Bible, apparently.

He then moves on to the main topic of miracles/wonders, which he opines are not violations of nature or interferences with it, but only “unusual developments of the secrets of nature”.

There’s also a modern book that calls him “the Irish Augustine” and says that his treatise is in Vol. 35 of Migne. The treatise also has a Wikipedia article, except they call him “Augustinus Hibernicus”. Apparently though, “Hibernicus” gets used for Duns Scotus Eriugena also, whereas “Hibernus” not so much.So there you go.