ST. PATRICK.
_FROM_ “_ENGLISH WRITERS_.”
THE birth of St. Patrick, Apostle and Saint of Ireland, has been
generally placed in the latter half of the fourth century; and he is said
to have died at the age of a hundred and twenty. As he died in the year
493—and we may admit that he was then a very old man—if we may say that
he reached the age of eighty-eight, we place his birth in the year 405.
We may reasonably believe, therefore, that he was born in the early part
of the fifth century. His birthplace, now known as Kilpatrick, was at
the junction of the Levin with the Clyde, in what is now the county of
Dumbarton. His baptismal name was Succath. His father was Calphurnius,
a deacon, son of Potitus, who was a priest. His mother’s name was
Conchessa, whose family may have belonged to Gaul, and who may thus have
been, as it is said she was, of the kindred of St. Martin of Tours; for
there is a tradition that she was with Calphurnius as a slave before he
married her. Since Eusebius spoke of three bishops from Britain at the
Council of Arles, Succath, known afterwards in missionary life by his
name in religion, Patricius (_pater civium_), might very reasonably be a
deacon’s son.
In his early years Succath was at home by the Clyde, and he speaks of
himself as not having been obedient to the teaching of the clergy. When
he was sixteen years old he, with two of his sisters and other of his
countrymen, was seized by a band of Irish pirates that made descent on
the shore of the Clyde and carried him off to slavery. His sisters were
taken to another part of the island, and he was sold to Milcho MacCuboin
in the north, whom he served for six or seven years, so learning to speak
the language of the country, while keeping his master’s sheep by the
Mountain of Slieve Miss. Thoughts of home and of its Christian life made
the youth feel the heathenism that was about him; his exile seemed to him
a punishment for boyish indifference; and during the years when young
enthusiasm looks out upon life with new sense of a man’s power—growing
for man’s work that is to do—Succath became filled with religious zeal.
Three Latin pieces are ascribed to St. Patrick: a “Confession,” which is
in the Book of Armagh, and in three other manuscripts; {10a} a letter to
Coroticus, and a few “Dieta Patricii,” which are also in the Book of
Armagh. {10b} There is no strong reason for questioning the authenticity
of the “Confession,” which is in unpolished Latin, the writer calling
himself “indoctus, rusticissimus, imperitus,” and it is full of a deep
religious feeling. It is concerned rather with the inner than the outer
life, but includes references to the early days of trial by which
Succath’s whole heart was turned to God. He says, “After I came into
Ireland I pastured sheep daily, and prayed many times a day. The love
and fear of God, and faith and spirit, wrought in me more and more, so
that in one day I reached to a hundred prayers, and in the night almost
as many, and stayed in the woods and on the mountains, and was urged to
prayer before the dawn, in snow, in frost, in rain, and took no harm,
nor, I think, was there any sloth in me. And there one night I heard a
voice in a dream saying to me, ‘Thou hast well fasted; thou shalt go back
soon to thine own land;’ and again after a little while, ‘Behold! thy
ship is ready.’” In all this there is the passionate longing of an
ardent mind for home and Heaven.
At the age of twenty-two Succath fled from his slavery to a vessel of
which the master first refused and finally consented to take him on
board. He and the sailors were then cast by a storm upon a desert shore
of Britain, possibly upon some region laid waste by ravages from over
sea. Having at last made his way back, by a sea passage, to his home on
the Clyde, Succath was after a time captured again, but remained captive
only for two months, and went back home. Then the zeal for his Master’s
service made him feel like the Seafarer in the Anglo-Saxon poem; and all
the traditions of his home would have accorded with the rise of the
resolve to cross the sea, and to spread Christ’s teaching in what had
been the land of his captivity.
There were already centres of Christian work in Ireland, where devoted
men were labouring and drew a few into their fellowship. Succath aimed
at the gathering of all these scattered forces, by a movement that should
carry with it the whole people. He first prepared himself by giving
about four years to study of the Scriptures at Auxerre, under Germanus,
and then went to Rome, under the conduct of a priest, Segetius, and
probably with letters from Germanus to Pope Celestine. Whether he
received his orders from the Pope seems doubtful; but the evidence is
strong that Celestine sent him on his Irish mission. Succath left Rome,
passed through North Italy and Gaul, till he met on his way two followers
of Palladius, Augustinus and Benedictus, who told him of their master’s
failure, and of his death at Fordun. Succath then obtained consecration
from Amathus, a neighbouring bishop, and as Patricius, went straight to
Ireland. He landed near the town of Wicklow, by the estuary of the River
Varty, which had been the landing-place of Palladius. In that region he
was, like Palladius, opposed; but he made some conversions, and advanced
with his work northward that he might reach the home of his old master,
Milcho, and pay him the purchase-money of his stolen freedom. But
Milcho, it is said, burnt himself and his goods rather than bear the
shame of submission to the growing power of his former slave.
St. Patrick addressed the ruling classes, who could bring with them their
followers, and he joined tact with his zeal; respecting ancient
prejudices, opposing nothing that was not directly hostile to the spirit
of Christianity, and handling skilfully the chiefs with whom he had to
deal. An early convert—Dichu MacTrighim—was a chief with influential
connections, who gave the ground for the religious house now known as
Saul. This chief satisfied so well the inquiries of Laeghaire, son of
Niall, King of Erin, concerning the stranger’s movements, that St.
Patrick took ship for the mouth of the Boyne, and made his way straight
to the king himself. The result of his energy was that he met
successfully all the opposition of those who were concerned in the
maintenance of old heathen worship, and brought King Laeghaire to his
side.
Then Laeghaire resolved that the old laws of the country as established
by the judges, whose order was named Brehon, should be revised, and
brought into accord with the new teaching. So the Brehon laws of Ireland
were revised, with St. Patrick’s assistance, and there were no ancient
customs broken or altered, except those that could not be harmonised with
Christian teaching. The good sense of St. Patrick enabled this great
work to be done without offence to the people. The collection of laws
thus made by the chief lawyers of the time, with the assistance of St.
Patrick, is known as the “Senchus Mor,” and, says an old poem—
“Laeghaire, Corc Dairi, the brave;
Patrick, Beuen, Cairnech, the just;
Rossa, Dubtach, Fergus, the wise;
These are the nine pillars of the Senchus Mor.”
This body of laws, traditions, and treatises on law is found in no
manuscript of a date earlier than the fourteenth century. It includes,
therefore, much that is of later date than the fifth century.
St. Patrick’s greatest energies are said to have been put forth in Ulster
and Leinster. Among the churches or religious communities founded by him
in Ulster was that of Armagh. If he was born about the year 405, when he
was carried to Ireland as a prisoner at the age of sixteen the date would
have been 421. His age would have been twenty-two when he escaped, after
six or seven years of captivity, and the date 427. A year at home, and
four years with Germanus at Auxerre, would bring him to the age of
twenty-seven, and the year 432, when he began his great endeavour to put
Christianity into the main body of the Irish people. That work filled
all the rest of his life, which was long. If we accept the statement, in
which all the old records agree, that the time of Patrick’s labour in
Ireland was not less than sixty years; sixty years bring him to the age
of eighty-eight in the year 493. And in that year he died.
The “Letter to Coroticus,” ascribed to St. Patrick, is addressed to a
petty king of Brittany who persecuted Christians, and was meant for the
encouragement of Christian soldiers who served under him. It may,
probably, be regarded as authentic. The mass of legend woven into the
life of the great missionary lies outside this piece and the
“Confession.” The “Confession” only expresses heights and depths of
religious feeling haunted by impressions and dreams, through which, to
the fervid nature out of which they sprang heaven seemed to speak. St.
Patrick did not attack heresies among the Christians; he preached to
those who were not Christians the Christian faith and practice. His
great influence was not that of a writer, but of a speaker. He must have
been an orator, profoundly earnest, who could put his soul into his
voice; and, when his words bred deeds, conquered all difficulties in the
way of action with right feeling and good sense.