WRITINGS OF PATRICK, AND HIS DEATH
§ 1. _The Denunciation of Coroticus_
Christianity had been introduced among the Picts of Galloway at the
beginning of the fifth century by the labours of a Briton, who is little
more than a name. Ninian, educated at Rome, had probably come under
the influence of St. Martin of Tours, and had then devoted himself to
the task of preaching his faith in the wilds of Galloway, where, on
the inner promontory which runs out towards the Isle of Man, he built
a stone church. As the only stone building in this uncivilised land it
became known as the White House (Candida Casa), and its place is marked
by Whitern. An important monastic establishment grew around it, which
enjoyed a high reputation in Ireland in the sixth century, and was known
there as the “Great Monastery.” The work of Ninian was, in one way,
like the work of his contemporary Victricius in Gaul, being missionary
work within the Roman Empire, if Galloway and its inhabitants belonged
to the Roman province of Valentia. The Roman power may the more easily
have controlled these barbarous subjects since they were severed from
their kinsmen, the Picts of the north beyond the Clyde, by the British
population of Strathclyde.
[Sidenote: FIFTH-CENTURY BRITAIN]
After the Roman legions were withdrawn from Britain, and the island was
cut off from the central control of the Empire, the task of maintaining
order in the western part of the “province of Valentia” seems to have
been undertaken by one of those rulers who sprang up in various parts of
the island, and are variously styled as “kings” or “tyrants.” A word must
be said as to the condition of Britain in the fifth century, because it
is very generally misunderstood.
There can be no greater error than to suppose that the withdrawal of
the Roman legions from Britain in 407, and the rescript of the Emperor
Honorius, three or four years later, permitting the citizens of Britain
to arm themselves and provide for their own defence, meant the instant
departure of all things Roman from British shores, the death of Roman
traditions, the end of Roman civilisation. The idea that the island
almost immediately relapsed into something resembling its pre-Roman
condition is due partly to the scanty nature of our evidence, partly to
a misreading of the famous work of Gildas “on the decline and fall of
Britain,” partly to a mistaken idea of the isolation of Britain from
the continent, and largely to that anachronistic habit, into which it
is so easy to fall, of judging men’s acts and thoughts as if they could
have foreseen the future. It cannot be too strongly enforced that in
those years which mark _for us_ the Roman surrender of Britain, and
for many years after, no man—emperor or imperial minister or British
provincial—could have thought or realised that the events which they
were witnessing meant a final dismemberment of the Empire in the west,
that Britain was really cut off for ever. The Empire had weathered
storms before, and emerged stable and strong; to the contemporaries of
Honorius and Valentinian the Empire was part of the established order of
things, and a suspension of its control in any particular portion of its
dominion was something temporary and passing. The British provincials
did not and could not for a moment regard themselves and their province
as finally severed from Rome; they still considered themselves part
of the Empire; for a hundred and fifty years some of them at least
considered themselves Roman citizens. From this point of view alone
it is not conceivable that the traditions and machinery of the Roman
administration should have disappeared at once, the moment the central
authorities ceased to control it. What could the provincials have
deliberately put in its place? All the circumstances seem to enforce the
conclusion that the administration, in its general lines, continued,
but was gradually modified, and ultimately decayed, through three main
causes—financial necessities which must have soon led to a reduction
of the elaborate machinery of administration, the organisation of new
methods of self-help, and the development of local interests promoted by
the ambition of private persons who won power and supremacy in various
districts. There was doubtless a Celtic revival, but for many years after
the rescript of Honorius, Roman institutions must have continued to exist
alongside of, or controlled by, the local potentates, who are described
as “kings” or “tyrants.” And in the later years of the fifth century
the great successes won by the British against the English invaders
were achieved by generals—Ambrosius Aurelianus, and Arthur—who were not
“kings” or “tyrants,” but rather, in some sense, national leaders, and
whose position can be best explained by supposing that they represent the
traditions of Roman rule, and are, in fact, successors of the Roman dukes
and counts of Britain. If in some cases the tyrants may have combined
their own irregular position with the title of a Roman official it is
what we should expect.
[Sidenote: COROTICUS]
The man whom we find in the reign of Valentinian III. ruling in
Strathclyde, and maintaining such law and order as might be maintained,
was named Coroticus or Ceretic, and he founded a line of kings who were
still reigning at the end of the following century. His seat was the Rock
of Clyde.[203] As the seat of a British ruler, amid surrounding Scots
and Picts, this stronghold came to be known as Dún na m-Bretan, “the
fort of the Britons,” which was corrupted into the modern Dumbarton.
The continuity of the rule of Coroticus with the military organisation
of the Empire is strongly suggested by the circumstance that his power
was maintained by “soldiers”;[204] and his position seems thus marked as
distinct from that of pre-Roman chiefs of British tribes. His soldiers
may well be the successors of the Roman troops who defended the north.
His position—whether he assumed any Roman military title or not—may
be compared to that of the general Aegidius, who maintained the name
of the Empire in north Gaul when it had been cut off from the rest of
the Empire. Aegidius transmitted his authority to his son Syagrius, as
Coroticus transmitted his to his son Cinuit; and if Syagrius had not
been overthrown by the Franks, a state would have been formed in Belgica
which would have resembled in origin the state which Coroticus formed in
Strathclyde. Of course the Gallo-Roman generals Aegidius and Syagrius,
while their authority was practically uncontrolled, were in touch with
the Empire, maintained the Imperial machinery, and had a position totally
different from the irregular position of the semi-barbarous Briton on
his rock by the Clyde; but we may be sure that Coroticus was careful
to make the most of his claim to represent the Imperial tradition and
rule over Roman citizens. And while the contrast is obvious, it is not
uninstructive to observe the analogy, which is less obvious, between the
position of Britain and its rulers, still attached in theory, name, and
tradition to the Empire, though cut off from it, and the position of
those parts of the Belgic and Lyonnese provinces, which, aloof from the
rest of Imperial territory, maintained themselves under Aegidius and his
son Syagrius for a few years amid the surrounding German kingdoms.
[Sidenote: OUTRAGE ON NEOPHYTES]
Coroticus, then, was the ruler of Strathclyde in the days of Patrick. We
can easily understand that he may sometimes have found it difficult to
pay his soldiers and retainers, and that for this purpose he may have
been forced to plunder his neighbours. However this may be, he fitted out
a marauding expedition; it does not appear that he led it himself, but
it crossed the channel, and descended on the coast of Ireland, probably
in Dalaradia or Dalriada. Perhaps it was an act of reprisal for raids
which the Scots and Picts of these lands may have made upon his dominion;
it may have been, for all we know, an episode in a regular war. At all
events he was supported in his enterprise by the Picts of Galloway, who
had relapsed into heathenism, and by some of those heathen Scots who had
come over from Ireland and settled in the region north-west of the Clyde.
In the course of their devastation these heathen allies of Coroticus
appeared on the scene of a Christian ceremony. Neophytes, who had just
been baptized and anointed with the baptismal chrism, were standing
in white raiment; the sign of the cross was still “fragrant on their
foreheads” when the heathen rushed upon them, put some to the sword and
carried others captive. Patrick, whether he had himself performed the
ceremony or not, must have been near the spot of this outrage, for he
was informed of it so soon, that on the next day he despatched one of
his most trusted priests—one whom he had trained from childhood—to the
soldiers of Coroticus, requesting them to send back the booty and release
the captives. The message, which must have reached them before they left
Ireland, was received with mockery, though the soldiers of Coroticus were
Christians and “Romans,” and it was not they but their heathen allies
who had massacred the defenceless Christians. It is not clear whether
Coroticus himself was present when the message was delivered, but it is
certain that Patrick regarded him as responsible, and we must suppose
that he had declined to interfere before Patrick wrote the letter which
is our record of this event. The only thing which the indignant bishop
could do for the release of his “sons and daughters” was to bring the
public opinion of the Christians in Strathclyde to bear upon Coroticus
and his soldiers. He wrote a strong letter, addressing it apparently
to the general Christian community in the dominion of Coroticus, and
requiring them to have no dealings with the guilty “tyrant” and his
soldiers, “not to take food or drink with them, not to receive alms from
them, nor show respect to them, until they should repent in tears and
make satisfaction to God by releasing the Christian captives.” He asks
that the letter should be read before all the people in the presence
of Coroticus. The guilt of the outrage is laid, in this communication,
entirely upon Coroticus; it is ascribed to his orders; he is called a
betrayer of Christians into the hands of Scots and Picts. Apostrophising
him the bishop writes: “It is the custom of Roman Christians in Gaul to
send good men to the Franks and other heathens to redeem captives for so
many thousand pieces of gold; you, on the contrary, slay Christians and
sell them to a foreign nation that knows not God; you deliver members of
Christ as it were into a house of ill fame.”
The sequel of this episode is unknown. We have no record whether the
letter of Patrick had any effect on the obstinate hearts of Coroticus
and his soldiers, or whether those to whom it was addressed applied the
pressure of excommunication, which he begged them to put in force. The
Irish legend that the king was turned into a fox by the prayers of the
saint is based on the idea that he declined to release the captives; but
it may have no other foundation than the letter which we possess.
[Sidenote: LETTER OF PATRICK]
But this letter has an interest for the biographer of Patrick beyond
the details of the occurrence which evoked it. Beside, and distinct
from, the wrathful indignation which animates his language, there is
a strain of bitterness which had another motive. He is clearly afraid
that his message will not be received with friendship or sympathy by
the British Christians to whom it is sent. He complains expressly that
his work in Ireland is regarded in Britain—in his own country—with envy
and uncharitableness. “If my own do not know me—well, ‘a prophet has
no honour in his own country.’ We do not belong, peradventure, to one
sheepfold, nor have we one God for our father.” He refers to his own
biography, to his birth as a Roman citizen, to his unselfish motives in
undertaking the toil of a preacher of the Gospel in a barbarous land
where he lives a stranger and exile; as if he had to justify himself
against the envy and injustice of jealous detractors. “I am envied”;
“some despise me.” This bitterness is a note of the letter, and almost
suggests that in Patrick’s opinion the envy and dislike with which his
successful work in Ireland was regarded in north Britain was partly
responsible for the outrage itself.
There is no extant evidence to fix the date of this episode, but the
dominance of the same bitter note in the other extant writing of Patrick,
which was written in the author’s old age, makes it not improbable that
the letter belongs to the later rather than to the earlier period of his
labours in Ireland. To that other document, the _Confession_, we may now
pass.
§ 2. _The Confession_
Men of action who help to change the face of the world by impressing
upon it ideas which others have originated, have seldom the time, and
seldom, unless they have received in their youth a literary training,
the inclination, to record their work in writing. The great apostles
of Europe illustrate this fact. None of them, from Wulfilas to Otto of
Bamberg, has left a relation of his own apostolic labours. We are lucky
if a disciple took thought for posterity by writing a brief narrative of
his master’s acts. But in the case of the apostle of the Scots, as in the
case of the apostles of the Slavs, no disciple wrote down what he could
aver of his own certain knowledge. If Benignus, his pupil and successor,
had done for Patrick what Auxentius did for Wulfilas, what Willibald did
for Boniface, we should have certainty on many things where it is now
only possible to note our ignorance. But although neither Patrick nor
any of the other apostles who preached to Celt, German, or Slav wrote
the story of his own life, some of them have left literary records which
bear on their work. The most conspicuous example is the correspondence
of our West-Saxon Boniface, the apostle of the Germans; but fortunately
in Patrick’s case, too, circumstances occasionally forced him to write.
The _Confession_ is of far greater interest and value than the letter
against Coroticus; for, though not an autobiography, it contains highly
important autobiographical passages, to which reference has been made in
the foregoing pages.
[Sidenote: THE CONFESSION]
This work was written in Patrick’s old age, at a time when he felt that
death might not be very far off. “This,” he says, “is my confession
before I die,” and accordingly the work is known as the Confession. This
title, however, might easily convey a false idea. The writer has occasion
to confess certain sins, he has occasion also to make a brief confession
of the articles of his faith, but it is in neither of these senses that
he calls the work as a whole his Confession. Neither his sins nor his
theological creed are his main theme, but the wonderful ways of God in
dealing with his own life. “I must not hide the gift of God”; this is
what he “confesses”; this is the refrain which pervades the _Confession_
and emphatically marks its purpose.
Of miracles, in the sense of violations of natural laws, the _Confession_
says nothing; but his own strange life seemed to Patrick more marvellous
than any miracle in that special meaning of the word. The _Confession_
reveals vividly his intense wondering consciousness of the fact that
it had fallen just to him, out of the multitude of all his fellows who
might have seemed fitter for the task, to carry out a great work for
the extension of the borders of Christendom. As he looked back on his
past life, it seemed unutterably strange that the careless boy in the
British town should have shone forth as a light to the Gentiles, and the
ways by which this strange thing had been compassed made it seem more
mysterious still. But what impressed him above all as a divine miracle
was that he should have felt assured of success beforehand. What we, in
a matter-of-fact way, might describe as a man’s overruling imperative
desire, accompanied by a secret consciousness of his own capacity, to
attempt a great and difficult task seemed to Patrick a direct revelation
from one who had foreknowledge of the future—_qui novit omnia etiam
ante tempora secularia_. The express motive of the _Confession_ is
to declare the wonderful dealings of God with himself, as a sort of
repayment—_retributio_—or thanksgiving.[205]
[Sidenote: PATRICK’S ILLITERACY]
But it would hardly have been necessary to make such a declaration
in writing if it had not seemed to him that his life and work were
partly misunderstood. It was inevitable that a man of Patrick’s force
of character and achievements should have aroused some feelings of
jealousy and voices of detraction; and the _Confession_ is evidently
a reply to things that were said to belittle him. One charge that was
brought against him was his lack of literary education. His deficiency
in this respect was probably urged as a disqualification for the eminent
position of authority which he had won by his practical labours. Compared
with most of the many bishops in Gaul, compared perhaps with most of
the few bishops in Britain, Patrick might well have been described
as illiterate. In the eyes of his countryman, Faustus, in the eyes of
Sidonius Apollinaris, the Bishop of Armagh would have seemed, so far
as style is concerned, unworthy to hold a pen. On this count Patrick
disarms criticism by a full admission of his _rusticitas_, his lack of
culture, and acknowledges that as he grows old he feels his deficiency
more and more. It was even this consciousness of literary incompetence
that had hitherto withheld him from drawing up the _Confession_ which he
has at length resolved to write. Then he goes on to explain by passages
from his life how it was that, though he missed the early training which
is to be desired in a religious apostle, he had nevertheless presumed
to take in hand the work of converting heathen lands. His narrative
is designed to show that it was entirely God’s doing, who singled him
out, untrained and unskilled though he was; that there were no worldly
inducements to support the divine command, which he obeyed simply without
any ulterior motive, and in opposition to the wish of his kinsfolk. Here
he is meeting another imputation, which stung him more than the true
taunt of illiteracy. His detractors must have hinted that it was not with
perfectly pure and unworldly motives that he had gone forth to preach
among the Scots. He does not conceal that the island in which he had
toiled as a captive slave had no attraction for him; he implies that he
always felt there as a stranger in a strange land.[206] “I testify,”
he says, summing up, “in truth and in exultation of heart, before God
and His holy angels, that I never had any motive save the gospel and
promises of God, to return at any time to that people from which I had
formerly escaped.”[207] He repudiates especially the imputation that he
won any personal profit in worldly goods from those whom he converted, or
that he sought in any way to overreach the folk among whom he lived. To
show how discreetly he ordered his ways, how careful he was to avoid all
scandalous suspicion, he mentions that when men and women of his flock
sent him gifts, or laid ornaments on the altar, he always restored them,
at the risk of offending the givers.
[Sidenote: PATRICK’S DETRACTORS]
It is easy enough to read between the lines the kind of detraction that
wounded St. Patrick; it may seem less easy to determine in what quarter
the unfriendly voices were raised. But there are certain indications
which enable us to suspect that it was in his own country and by his own
countrymen that the charges to which he obliquely refers were brought
against him. At the end of the composition he says that he wrote it
“in Ireland”; and this gives us a reasonable ground for supposing that
it was addressed mainly to people outside Ireland. When he speaks of
“those peoples amidst whom I dwell,” when he mentions “women of _our_
race” (not “women of _my_ race”), in contrast with women of Scottish
birth,[208] we can hardly be wrong in thinking that he is addressing
not his Irish disciples, but some of his British fellow-countrymen. And
we may well believe that if this “apology” for his life had been meant
in the first place for Ireland, he would have taken some care to veil
his feeling of homelessness; he would not have shown so clearly that he
felt as an alien on outlandish soil, and that he was abiding there only
from a sense of duty, doing despite to the longings of his heart. This
inference is borne out by the writer’s express statement that he wishes
his “brethren and kinsfolk” to know his character and nature.[209] Nor
is it contradicted by the fact that he closely associates those whom
he addresses with his own work.[210] On the contrary, this enables us
to identify more precisely the origin of the detraction which evoked
the _Confession_. The unfriends who disparaged him were clearly some of
those British fellow-workers who had laboured with him in propagating
the Christian faith in Ireland. That jealousy and friction should occur
between the chief apostle and some of his helpers is only what we might
expect, as in any similar case; and it may be that some of those who
felt themselves aggrieved returned in disgust to Britain, and indulged
their ill-will by spreading evil reports about Patrick’s conduct of the
Irish mission. It was for the communities in Britain where such reports
were circulated, it was to refute those who set them afloat, that the
_Confession_ was in the first instance intended.
[Sidenote: ATTACKS ON PATRICK]
But Patrick had been exposed to one direct attack, which seems to have
caused him more distress and agitation of spirit than any experience
during his work in Ireland. Before he was ordained deacon, he had
confessed to a trusted friend a fault which he had committed at the age
of fifteen. His friend evidently did not consider it an obstacle to
ordination, and subsequently supported the proposal that Patrick should
be consecrated bishop for Ireland.[211] But afterwards he betrayed the
secret, and the youthful indiscretion came to the ears of persons whom
we may perhaps identify with some of Patrick’s foreign coadjutors.[212]
“They came,” he says in his rude style, “and urged my sins against my
laborious episcopate.” The words prove that he had already laboured for
some years—other indications suggest fifteen or sixteen years[213]—when
this attack was made. He does not tell us how he met or weathered the
danger; he ascribes his escape from stain and opprobrium to Divine
assistance. We can sympathise with him in his deep resentment of an
attack so manifestly unjust, of a friend’s treachery apparently so
inexcusable; but the incident clearly shows that there existed a party
distinctly hostile to him, men who were ready to seize on any handle
against him. His want of culture had been hitherto the chief reproach
which they could fling; when they discovered a moral delinquency, though
it was more than forty years old, the opportunity was irresistible.
But while the vindication was addressed to an audience beyond Ireland, it
was intended also for the Irish. It might almost be described as an open
letter to his brethren in Britain, published in Ireland. He describes
it himself as “a bequest to my brethren, and to my children whom I
baptized,” for the purpose of making known “the gift of God,” _donum Dei_.
The spirit and tone of this work are so consistently humble from first
to last, that it almost lends itself to a misconstruction, in the sense
that the measure of Patrick’s achievements was smaller and the sphere
of his work more restricted than our other sources give us to suppose.
It has even been said that the _Confession_ is a confession of a life’s
failure.[214] Any such interpretation misreads the document entirely. On
the contrary, the main argument, as we have already seen, is that the
success which Patrick had been led to hope and expect—through divine
intimations as he believed—had been brought to pass. If success is not
proved by vaunting, failure assuredly is not proved by the absence of
boasts. But the proud consciousness of the writer that his life had been
fruitful and prosperous comes out more subtly in the implied comparison
which he suggests between himself and the first Apostle of the Gentiles,
by quotations and echoes from Paul’s epistles.[215]
It is pathetic to read how the exile would fain visit Britain, his home,
and Gaul, where he had many friends, but feels himself bound by the
spirit to spend the rest of his life (_residuum aetatis meae_) in his
self-chosen banishment, to maintain his work, and especially to protect
by his influence the Christians, whom dangers constantly threatened. His
energy and undismayed perseverance had accomplished a great work, and he
decided not to desert it till death compelled him.
[Sidenote: REAL AND MYTHICAL PATRICK]
His two writings furnish the only evidence we possess for forming an idea
of his character. The other documents, on which we depend for the outline
of his life and work, preserve genuine records of events, but reflect the
picture of a man who must not be mistaken for the historical Patrick. The
bishop, of British birth and Roman education, is gradually transformed
into a typical Irish saint, dear to popular imagination, who curses men
and even inanimate things which incur his displeasure. He arranges with
the Deity that he shall be deputed to judge the Irish on the day of doom.
The forcefulness of the real Patrick’s nature is coarsened by degrees
into caricature, until he becomes the dictator who coerces an angel into
making a bargain with him on the Mount of Murrisk.[216] The stories of
the Lives, so far as they characterise Patrick, present the conception
which the Irish formed of a hero saint. The accounts of his acts were not
written from any historical interest, but simply for edification; and
the monks, who dramatised both actual and legendary incidents, were not
concerned to regard, even if they had known, what manner of man he really
was, but were guided by their knowledge of what popular taste demanded.
The mediaeval hagiographer may be compared to the modern novelist; he
provided literary recreation for the public, and he had to consider the
public taste. In regard to the process by which Patrick was Hibernicised,
or adapted to an Irish ideal, it is significant that the earliest
literature relating to his life seems to have been written in Irish. This
literature must have been current in the sixth century, and on it the
earliest Latin records are largely based.
The writings of Patrick do not enable us to delineate his character, but
they reveal unmistakably a strong personality and a spiritual nature.
The man who wrote the _Confession_ and the _Letter_ had strength of
will, energy in action, resolution without over-confidence, and the
capacity for resisting pressure from without. It might be inferred,
too, that he was affectionate and sensitive; subtle analysis might
disclose other traits. But it is probable that few readers will escape
the impression that he possessed besides enthusiasm the practical
qualities most essential for carrying through the task which he undertook
in the belief that he had been divinely inspired to fulfil it. A
rueful consciousness of the deficiencies of his education weighed upon
him throughout his career; we can feel this in his almost wearisome
insistence upon his _rusticitas_. Nor has he exaggerated the defects
of his culture; he writes in the style of an ill-educated man. His
Latin is as “rustic” as the Greek of St. Mark and St. Matthew. He was
a _homo unius libri_; but with that book, the Christian Scriptures, he
was extraordinarily familiar. His writings are crowded with Scriptural
sentences and phrases, most of them probably quoted from memory.
§ 3. _Patrick’s Death and Burial (A.D. 461)_
[Sidenote: HIS DEATH]
It would appear that some years before his death Patrick resigned his
position as head of the church of Armagh, and was succeeded by his
disciple Benignus.[217] If this is so, it seems probable that he retired
to Dalaradia, and spent the last three or four years of his life at Saul,
in the Island-plain. Here he may possibly have written his _Confession_;
here he certainly died. His death is encircled with legends which reflect
the rival interests of Armagh and Downpatrick, but attest the fact that
he died and was buried at the barn of Dichu. It was a disappointment
to Armagh not to possess his body, and it was a stimulating motive for
mythopoeic ingenuity to explain how this came to pass.
When the day of his death drew nigh, an angel came and warned him.
Forthwith he made preparations, and started for Armagh, which he loved
above all places. But as he went, a thorn-bush burst into flame on the
wayside and was not consumed. And an angel spoke—not Victor, the angel
who was accustomed to visit Patrick, but another sent by Victor—and
turned him back, bidding him return to Saul, and granting him four
petitions, as a consolation for the disappointment. Of these petitions
two are significant. One was that the jurisdiction of his church should
remain in Armagh; the other that the posterity of Dichu should not die
out. The first represents the interests of Armagh; the second clearly
originated in the Island-plain.
Patrick obeyed the command of the angel, who also predicted that his
death would “set a boundary against night.” The rite of the Eucharist
was administered to him at Saul by Bishop Tassach of Raholp, and at
Saul he died[218] and was buried. After his death there was no night for
twelve days, and folk said that for a whole year the nights were less
dark than usually. And other wonders were recorded. Men told how angels
kept watch over his body and diffused, as they travelled back to heaven,
sweet odours as of wine and honey.
[Sidenote: BURIAL LEGENDS]
But miracles of this kind were not the only legends which gathered round
the passing of the saint whom Armagh and Ulidia were alike eager to
appropriate. The old strife between the kingdom of Ulidia and the kingdom
of Orior[219] blazed up anew, in story, over Patrick’s grave. The men
of Orior advanced into the island-plain, and blood would have been shed
on the southern banks of Lake Strangford if a Divine interposition had
not stirred the waves of the bay, which by a sudden inundation dispersed
the hosts and prevented a battle.[220] This was before the burial; but
after the coveted body had been entombed, the men of Orior came again,
resolved to snatch it from the grave.[221] Finding a waggon drawn by two
oxen, they imagined the body was inside, and drove off, to discover, when
they were near Armagh, that no body was there. They had been the victims
of an illusion, designed, like the rising of the waters, to prevent the
shedding of blood.
From these two myths an inference of a negative kind can be drawn with
certainty. It is plain that, whatever controversy may have arisen
concerning the burial of Patrick, there was no armed conflict. For the
common motive of both legends is to account for the circumstance that the
event did not lead to a war between the two peoples. But it would not
be equally legitimate to draw the positive inference that the stories
preserve the memory of a dispute, though not with arms, on the occasion
of the saint’s death. They point undoubtedly to a controversy and
dispute, but this controversy and dispute may have arisen in subsequent
years. The story of the angel’s appearance reflects a conciliation
between the claims of Saul and the claims of Armagh, and the two legends
of the frustrated attempts of the men of Orior embody the same motive
of peace and concord. Armagh had to acquiesce in the fact that Saul
possessed Patrick’s body; Saul acquiesced in the assertion that it was
Patrick’s own wish to lie at Armagh.
* * * * *
But this was not the only rivalry aroused by the desire of possessing
the saint’s mortal remains. When in later years a church was founded on
the hill beside Dún Lethglasse, and overshadowed the older foundations
of the neighbourhood, it was alleged that Patrick was buried in its
precincts, and that the church was founded on that account. The story
was invented that the angel gave him directions as to the fashion of his
sepulture. “Let two untamed oxen be chosen, and left to go where they
will.” This was done. The oxen, drawing the body in a waggon, rested at
Dún Lethglasse, and there it was buried.[222]
* * * * *
It is clear that all these tales must have taken shape at a considerable
time after the saint’s death. If his burial had actually caused any such
commotion as the legends suppose, his tomb would assuredly have been
conspicuous or well known, and no doubt could have arisen as to the
place where he was laid. There would have been no room for the double
claim of Saul and Dún Lethglasse. But so great was the uncertainty that
it suggested a resemblance with Moses, whose grave was unknown. It is
recorded, though it is not a record which we can implicitly trust, that
St. Columba investigated and discovered the place of Patrick’s sepulchre
at Saul. These doubts and uncertainties justify us in concluding that
Patrick was buried quietly in an unmarked grave, and that the pious
excitement about his bones arose long after his death. And we can feel
little hesitation in deciding that the obscure grave was at Saul. Of the
three places which come into the story, Saul alone needs no mythical
support for its claim, a claim in which Armagh itself acquiesces. Legend
is called in to explain why the saint was not buried at Armagh; legend is
called in to explain why he should be buried at Downpatrick; no legend is
required to account for his burial at Saul.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: RELICS OF PATRICK]
No visible memorial of Patrick has escaped the chances of time, with one
possible exception. In the Middle Ages the church of Armagh cherished
with superstitious veneration two treasures which were believed to
have belonged to him, a pastoral staff and a hand-bell. The crozier
was deliberately destroyed in the war of sixteenth-century zealots
against mediaeval superstition, but the four-sided iron hand-bell still
exists.[223] Both relics were very ancient, but to say that the bell
was certainly Patrick’s would be to go beyond our evidence, which only
establishes a probability that it existed at Armagh a hundred years or so
after his death.