ST. PATRICK AND THE EARLY MISSIONARIES
Even supposing the Ogam alphabet to have been used in pre-Christian
times, though it may have been employed by ollavs and poets to
perpetuate tribal names and genealogies, still it was much too cumbrous
and clumsy an invention to produce anything deserving the name of real
literature. It is, so far as we know, only with the coming of Patrick
that Ireland may be said to have become, properly speaking, a literary
country. The churches and monasteries established by him soon became
so many nuclei of learning, and from the end of the fifth century a
knowledge of letters seems to have entirely permeated the island. So
suddenly does this appear to have taken place, and so rapidly does
Ireland seem to have produced a flourishing literature of laws, poems,
and sagas, that it is very hard to believe that the inhabitants had
not, before his coming, arrived at a high state of indigenous culture.
This aspect of the case has been recently strongly put by Dr. Sigerson.
"I assert," said he, speaking of the early Brehon laws, at the revision
of which in a Christian sense St. Patrick is said to have assisted,
"that, speaking biologically, such laws could not emanate from any
race whose brains have not been subject to the quickening influence of
education for many generations."[1]
The usual date assigned for St. Patrick's landing in Ireland in the
character of a missionary is 432, and his work among the Irish is
said to have lasted for sixty years, during which time he broke down
the idol Crom Cruach, burnt the books of the druids at Tara, ordained
numerous missionaries and bishops, and succeeded in winning over to
Christianity a great number of the chiefs and sub-kings, who were in
their turn followed by their tribesmen.
St. Patrick did not work alone, nor did he come to Ireland as a
solitary pioneer of a new religion; he was accompanied, as we learn
from his life in the Book of Armagh, by a multitude of bishops,
priests, deacons, readers, and others,[2] who had crossed over along
with him for the service. Several were his own blood relations, one
was his sister's son. Many likely youths whom he met on his missionary
travels he converted to Christianity, taught to read, tonsured, and
afterwards ordained. These new priests thus appointed worked in all
directions, establishing churches and getting together congregations
from amongst the neighbouring heathen. Unable to give proper attention
to the teaching of the youths whom he elected as his helpers, so
long as he himself was engaged in journeying through Ireland from
point to point, he, after about twenty years of peripatetic teaching,
established at Armagh about the year 450 the first Christian school
ever founded in Ireland, the progenitor of that long line of colleges
which made Ireland famous throughout Europe, and to which, two hundred
years later, her Anglo-Saxon neighbours flocked in thousands.[3]
The equipments of these newly-made priests was of the scantiest.
Each, as he was sent forth, received an alphabet-of-the-faith or
elementary-explanation of the Christian doctrine, frequently written by
Patrick himself, a "Liber ordinis," or "Mass Book," a written form for
the administration of the sacraments, a psaltery, and, if it could be
spared, a copy of the Gospels.[4] A good-sized retinue followed Patrick
in all his journeyings, ready to supply with their own hands all things
necessary for the new churches established by the saint, as well as to
minister to his own wants. He travelled with his episcopal coadjutor,
his psalm-singer, his assistant priest, his judge--originally a Brehon
by profession, whom he found most useful in adjudicating on disputed
questions--a personal champion to protect him from sudden attack and to
carry him through floods and other obstacles, an attendant on himself,
a bellringer, a cook, a brewer, a chaplain at the table, two waiters,
and others who provided food and accommodation for himself and his
household. He had in his company three smiths, three artificers, and
three ladies who embroidered. His smiths and artificers made altars,
book-covers, bells, and helped to erect his wooden churches; the
ladies, one of them his own sister, made vestments and altar linens.[5]
St. Patrick was essentially a man of work and not of letters, and yet
it so happens that he is the earliest Irish writer of whom we can say
with confidence that what is ascribed to him is really his. And here
it is as well to say something about the genuineness of St. Patrick's
personality and the authenticity of his writings, for the opinion
started by Ledwich has gone abroad, and has somehow become prevalent,
that St. Patrick's personality is nearly as nebulous as that of King
Arthur or of Finn mac Cúmhail, and at the best is made up of a number
of little Patricks lumped into one great one. That there was more
than one Patrick[6] is certain,[7] and that the great Saint Patrick
who wrote the "Confession" may have got credit in the early Latin and
later Irish lives for the acts of others, is perfectly possible, but
that most of the essential features of his life are true, is beyond all
doubt, and we have a manuscript 1091 years old, apparently copied from
his own handwriting, and containing his own confession and apologia.
How this exquisite manuscript, consisting of 216 vellum leaves, written
in double columns, has happily been preserved to us, we shall not
lose time in inquiring; but how its exact date has been ascertained
through what Dr. Reeves has characterised as "one of the most elegant
and recondite demonstrations which any learned society has on record,
is worth mentioning." The Rev. Charles Graves, the present Bishop of
Limerick, made a thorough examination of the whole codex when, after
many vicissitudes and hair-breadth escapes from destruction, it had
been temporarily deposited in the Royal Irish Academy. Knowing, as
O'Curry pointed out, that it was the custom for Irish scribes to sign
their own names, with usually some particulars about their writing,
at the end of each piece they copied, he made a careful search and
discovered that this had actually been done in the Book of Armagh, and
in no less than eight places, but that on every spot where it occurred
it had been erased for some apparently inscrutable reason, with the
greatest pains. In the last place but one, however, where the colophon
occurred, the process of erasure had been less thorough than in the
others, and after long consideration, and treatment of the erasure
with gallic acid and spirits of wine, Dr. Graves discovered that the
words so carefully rubbed out were _Pro Ferdomnacho ores_, "Pray for
Ferdomnach." Turning to the other places, he found that the erased
words in at least one other place were evidently the same. This settled
the name of the scribe; he was Ferdomnach. The next step was to search
the "Four Masters," who record the existence of two scribes of that
name who died at Armagh, one in 726 and the other in 844. One of these
it must have been who wrote the Book of Armagh,--but which? This also
Dr. Graves discovered, with the greatest ingenuity. At the foot of
Fols. 52-6 he was, with extreme difficulty, able to decipher the words
_ ... ach hunc ... e dictante ... ach herede Patricii scripsit_. From
these stray syllables he surmised that Ferdomnach had written the book
at the bidding of some Archbishop of Armagh whose name ended in _ach_.
For this the Psalter of Cashel, Leabhar Breac, and "Four Masters," were
consulted, and it was found that one Archbishop Senaach died in 609;
it could not then have been by his commands the book was written by
the first Ferdomnach; then came, after a long interval, Faoindealach,
who died in 794, Connmach, who died in 806, and Torbach, who held the
primacy for one year after him. On examining the hiatus it was found
that the letter which preceded the fragment _ach_ could not have been
either an _l_ or an _m_, but might have been a _b_, thus putting out
of the question the names of Connmach and Faoindealach. Besides the
vacant space before the _ach_ was just sufficient to admit of the
letters _Tor_, but not _Conn_, much less _Faoindea_. The conclusion was
obvious: the passage ran, _Ferdomnach hunc librum e dictante Torbach
herede Patricii scripsit_, "Ferdomnach wrote this book at the dictation
(or command) of Torbach, Patrick's heir (successor)." Torbach, as we
have seen, became Archbishop in 806 and died in 807. The date was in
this way recovered.[8]
I have been thus particular in tracing the steps by which the age of
this manuscript came to light, because it contains the earliest piece
of certain Irish literature we have, the "Confession of St. Patrick."
Now the usually accepted date of St. Patrick's death, as given in the
Annals of Ulster, is 492, about three hundred years before that, and
Ferdomnach, the scribe, after copying it, added these words: "_Huc
usque volumen quod patricius manu conscripsit sua. Septimadecima
martii die translatus est patricius ad cælos," i.e._, "thus far the
volume which Patrick wrote with his own hand. On the seventeenth day
of March was Patrick translated to the heavens." It would appear
highly probable from this that Ferdomnach actually copied from St.
Patrick's autograph,[9] which had become so defaced or faded during the
three previous centuries, that the scribe has written in many places
_incertus liber hic_, "the book is uncertain here," or else put a
note[10] of interrogation to indicate that he was not sure whether he
had copied the text correctly. It will be seen from this that there was
not the slightest trace of any concealment on the part of the scribe as
to who he himself was, or what he was copying; there was no attempt to
antedate his own writing, or to suggest that his copy was an original.
But long after the scribe's generation had passed away and the origin
of his work been forgotten, the volume which at first had been regarded
only as a fine transcript of early documents, became known as "Canon
Phádraig," or Patrick's Testament, and popular opinion, relying on the
colophon "thus far the book which Patrick wrote with his own hand," set
down the work as the saint's autograph. The belief that the volume was
St. Patrick's own autograph of course enhanced enormously its value,
and with it the dignity of its possessors, and the unscrupulous plan
was resolved on of erasing the signature of the actual scribe. The
veneration of the public was thus secured by interested persons at
the cost of truth, and the deception probably lasted so long as the
possession of such a volume brought with it either credit or dignity.
This same volume[11] has another interest attaching to it, so that
we cannot but felicitate ourselves that out of the wreck of so many
thousands of volumes, it has been spared to us--it was brought to Brian
Boru, when in the year 1004 he went upon his royal progress through
Ireland, the first man of the race of Eber who had attained the proud
position of monarch or Ard-righ for many centuries, and he, by the
hand of his secretary, made an entry which may still be seen to-day,
confirming the primacy of Armagh, and re-granting to it the episcopal
supremacy of Ireland which it had always enjoyed.[12]
It is now time to glance at St. Patrick's "Confession," as it is
usually called, though in reality it is much more of the nature of an
apologia _pro vita sua_. The evidence in favour of its authenticity is
overwhelming, and is accepted by such cautious scholars as Stokes,[13]
Todd, and Reeves, no first-rate critic, with perhaps one exception,
having so far as I know ever ventured to question its genuineness. It
is impossible to assign any motive for a forgery, and casual references
to Decuriones, Slave-traffic, and to the "Brittaniæ," or Britains,
bear testimony to its antiquity. Again, the Latin in which it is
written is barbarous in the extreme, the periods are rude, sometimes
ungrammatical, often nearly unintelligible. He begins by telling us
that his object in writing this confession in his old age was to defend
himself from the charge of presumptuousness in undertaking the work he
tried to perform amongst the Irish. He tells us that he had many toils
and perils to surmount, and much to endure while engaged upon it. He
never received one farthing for all his preaching and teaching. The
people indeed were generous, and offered many gifts, and cast precious
things upon the altar, but he would not receive them lest he might
afford the unrighteous an occasion to cavil. He was still encompassed
about with dangers, but he heeded them not, looking to the success
which had attended his efforts, how "the sons of the Scots and the
daughters of their princes became monks and virgins of Christ," and
"the number of holy widows and of continent maidens was countless." It
would be tedious were he to recount even a portion of what he had gone
through. Twelve times had his life been endangered, but God had rescued
him, and brought him safe from all plots and ambuscades and rewarded
him for leaving his parents, and friends, and country, heeding neither
their prayers nor their tears, that he might preach the gospel in
Ireland. He appeals to all he had converted, and to all who knew him,
to say whether he had not refused all gifts--nay, it was he himself
who gave the gifts, to the kings and to their sons, and oftentimes
was he robbed and plundered of everything, and once had he been bound
in fetters of iron for fourteen days until God had delivered him, and
even still while writing this confession he was living in poverty and
misery, expecting death or slavery, or other evil. He prays earnestly
for one thing only, that he may persevere, and not lose the people whom
God has given to him at the very extremity of the world.
Unhappily this "Confession" is a most unsatisfying composition, for
it omits to mention almost everything of most interest relating to
the saint himself and to his mission. What floods of light might
it have thrown upon a score of vexed questions, how it might have
set at rest for ever theories on druidism, kingship, social life,
his own birthplace, his mission from Rome,[14] his captors. Even of
himself he tells us next to nothing, except that his father's name was
Calpornus,[15] the son of Potitus, the son of Odissus, a priest, and
that he dwelt in the _vicus_ or township of Benaven Taberniæ; he had
also a small villa not far off, where he tells us he was made captive
at the age of about sixteen years. Because his Christian training was
bad, and he was not obedient to the priests when they admonished him
to seek for salvation, therefore God punished him, and brought him
into captivity in a strange land at the end of the world. When he was
brought to Ireland he tells us that his daily task was to feed cattle,
and then the love of God entered into his heart, and he used to rise
before the sun and pray in the woods and mountains, in the rain, the
hail, and the snow. Then there came to him one night a voice in his
sleep saying to him "Your ship is ready," and he departed and went for
two hundred miles, until he reached a port where he knew no one. This
was after six years' captivity. The master of the ship would not take
him on board, but afterwards he relented just as Patrick was about to
return to the cottage where he had got lodging. He succeeded at last
in reaching the home of his parents _in Britannis_ [_i.e._, in some
part of Britain, including Scotland], and his parents besought him, now
that he had returned from so many perils, to remain with them always.
But the angel Victor came in the guise of a man from Ireland, and gave
him a letter, in which the voice of the Irish called him away, and the
voices of those who dwelt near the wood of Focluth called him to walk
amongst them, and the spirit of God, too, urged him to return.[16]
He says nothing of his training, or his ordination, or his long sojourn
in Gaul, or of St. Germanus, with whom he studied according to the
"Lives," but he alludes incidentally to his wish to see his parents and
his native Britain, and to revisit the brethren in Gaul, and to see the
face of God's saints there; but though he desired all this, he would
not leave his beloved converts, but would spend the rest of his life
amongst them.[17]
From this brief _résumé_ of the celebrated "Confession" it will be
seen that it is the perfervid outpouring of a zealous early Christian,
anxious only to clear himself from the charges of worldliness or
carelessness, and absolutely devoid of those appeals to general
interest which we meet with in most of such memoirs, but there is a
vein of warm piety running through the whole, and an abundance of
scriptural quotations--all, of course, from the ante-Hieronymian or
pre-Vulgate version, another proof of antiquity--which has caused it
to be remarked that a forger might, perhaps, write equally bad Latin,
but could hardly "forge the spirit that breathes in the language which
is the manifest outpourings of a heart like unto the heart of St.
Paul."[18]
There are two other pieces of literature assigned to St. Patrick, as
well as the "Confession"; these are the "Epistle to Coroticus" in
Latin, and the "Deer's Cry" in Irish. The Epistle is not found in
the Book of Armagh, but it is found in other MSS. as old as the tenth
or eleventh century, and bears such close resemblance in style and
language to the "Confession," whole phrases actually occurring in
both, that it also has generally been regarded as genuine.[19] There
is some doubt as to who Coroticus was, but he seems to have been a
semi-Christian king of Dumbarton who, along with some Scots, _i.e._,
Irish, and the Southern Picts who had fallen away from Christianity,
raided the eastern shores of Ireland and carried off a number of St.
Patrick's newly-converted Christians, leaving the white garments of the
neophytes stained with blood, and hurrying into captivity numbers upon
whose foreheads the holy oil of confirmation was still glistening. The
first letter was to ask Coroticus to restore the captives, and when
this request was derided the next was sent, excommunicating him and all
his aiders and abettors, calling upon all Christians neither to eat nor
drink in their company until they had made expiation for their crimes.
Patrick himself had, he here explains, preached the gospel to the Irish
nation for the sake of God, though they had made him a captive and
destroyed the men-servants and maids of his father's house. He had been
born a freedman and a noble, the son of a decurio or prefect, but he
had sold his nobility for others and regretted it not. His lament over
the loss of his converts is touching: "Oh! my most beautiful and most
loving brothers and children whom in countless numbers I have begotten
in Christ, what shall I do for you? Am I so unworthy before God and men
that I cannot help you? Is it a crime to have been born in Ireland?[20]
And have we not the same God as they have? I sorrow for you, yet I
rejoice, for if ye are taken from the world ye are believers through
me, and are gone to Paradise."
The "Cry of the Deer," or "Lorica," as it is also called, is in Irish.
The saint is said to have made it when on his way to visit King
Laoghaire [Leary] at Tara, and the assassins who had been planted by
the king to slay him and his companions thought as he chanted this
hymn that it was a herd of deer that passed them by, and thus they
escaped. The metre of the original is a kind of unrhymed or half-rhymed
rhapsody, called in Irish a _Rosg_, and is perfectly unadorned. The
language, however, though very old, has of course been modified in the
process of transcription. Patrick calls upon the Trinity to protect him
that day at Tara, and to bind to him the power of the elements.
I bind me to-day[21]
God's might to direct me,
God's power to protect me,
God's wisdom for learning,
God's eye for discerning,
God's ear for my hearing,
God's word for my clearing,
God's hand for my cover,
God's path to pass over,
God's buckler to guard me,
God's army to ward me,
Against snares of the devils,
Against vices, temptations,
Against wrong inclinations,
Against men who plot evils
To hurt me anew,
Anear or afar with many or few.
* * * * *
Christ near, Christ here,
Christ be with me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ within me,
Christ behind me,
Christ be o'er me,
Christ before me,
Christ in the left and the right,
Christ hither and thither,
Christ in the sight,
Of each eye that shall seek me,[22] etc.
In the Book of Armagh, in the last chapter of Tirechan's life, St.
Patrick is declared to be entitled to four honours in every church and
monastery of the island. One of these honours was that the hymn written
by St. Seachnall, his nephew, in praise of himself, was to be sung in
the churches during the days when his festival was being celebrated,
and another was that "his Irish canticle" was to be always sung,[23]
apparently all the year through, in the liturgy, but perhaps only
during the week of his festival. The Irish canticle is evidently this
"Lorica," which was, as we see from this notice in the Book of Armagh,
believed to be his in the seventh century, and it has been sung under
that belief from that day almost to our own.[24]
The other hymn, the singing of which at his festival is alluded
to as one of St. Patrick's "honours," was composed by Seachnall
[Shaughnal],[25] a nephew of St. Patrick's, in laudation of the
saint himself. It is a very interesting piece of rough latinity, and
is generally regarded as genuine. The occasion of its composition
deserves to be told, for it casts a ray of light on the prudential
and self-restrained side of St. Patrick's character, which no doubt
contributed largely to his success when working in the midst of his
wavering converts. Seachnall said that Patrick's preaching would be
perfect if he only insisted a little more on the necessity of giving,
for then more property and land would be at the disposal of the Church
for pious uses. This remark of his nephew was repeated to St. Patrick,
who was very much annoyed at it, and said beautifully, that "for the
sake of charity he forbore to preach charity," and intimated that the
holy men who should come after him might benefit by the offerings of
the faithful which he had left untouched. Then Seachnall, grieved at
having thus pained his uncle, and anxious to win his regard again,
composed a poem of twenty-two stanzas each beginning with a different
letter, with four lines of fifteen syllables in each verse.[26] When
he had done this he asked permission of Patrick to recite to him a
poem which he had composed in praise of a holy man, and when Patrick
said that he would gladly hear the praises of any of God's household,
the poet adroitly suppressing Patrick's name which occurs in the first
verse, recited it for him. Patrick was pleased, but interupted the
poet at one stanza when he said that the subject of his laudations
was _maximus in regno cælorum_,[27] "the greatest in the kingdom
of heaven," asking how could that be said of any man. _Maximus_,
ingeniously replied Seachnall, does not here mean "greatest," but
only "very great." He then disclosed to his uncle that he himself was
the object of the poem, and asked--like all bards--for the reward
for it, whereupon Patrick promised that to all who recited the hymn
piously morning and evening, God in His mercy might give the glory of
heaven. "I am content with that award," said the poet, "but as the hymn
is long and difficult to be remembered I wish you would obtain the
same reward for whosoever recites even a part of it." Whereupon St.
Patrick promised that the recitation of the last three verses would be
sufficient, and his nephew was satisfied, having proved himself the
first poet of Christian Ireland, and having obtained such a reward for
his verses as neither bard nor ollav had ever obtained before him. It
was probably this same Seachnall who was the author of the much finer
hymn of eleven verses which used to be sung in the old Irish churches
at communion--
"Sancti venite
Christi corpus sumite,
Sanctum bibentes
Quo redempti sanguinem.
Salvati Christi
Corpore et sanguine,
A quo refecti
Laudes dicamus Deo.
Hoc Sacramento
Corporis et sanguinis
Omnes exuti
Ab inferni faucibus," etc.
The legend in the Leabhar Breac has it that this hymn was first
chanted during the holy communion by the angels in his church, on the
reconciliation between himself and Saint Patrick, whence the origin of
chanting it during the communion service.
The Book of Armagh contains the two earliest lives of the national
saint that we have, probably the two earliest biographies of any
size ever composed in Ireland. They are written in rude Latin, with a
good deal of Irish place-names and Irish words intermixed, the first
by one Muirchu Maccu Machteni,[28] who tells us that he wrote at the
instigation of Aed, bishop of Sletty, who, as we know from the "Four
Masters," died about 698, and the second by Tirechan, who says he
received his knowledge of the saint from the lips and writings of
Bishop Ultan,[29] his tutor, who died in 656, and who, supposing him
to have been seventy or eighty years old at the time of his death,
must have been born only eighty or ninety years after the death of St.
Patrick himself. Both of these writers appear to have had older memoirs
to draw on, for Muirchu says that many had before them endeavoured to
write the history of St. Patrick from what their fathers and those who
were ministers of the Word from the beginning had told them, though
none had ever succeeded in producing a proper biography,[30] and in
Tirechan's life of him in the Book of Armagh--an evident patchwork--we
read that all his godly doings had been brought together[31] and
collected by the most skilful of the ancients. The first of these
lives consists of two books containing twenty-eight and thirteen short
chapters, respectively, the second, Tirechan's, of one book containing
fifty-seven chapters, in addition to which there are a number of minor
notes referring to St. Patrick in Latin and in Irish, which Ferdomnach,
who transcribed the book in 807, appears to have taken from other old
lives or memoirs of the saint. The Irish portions of these notes are of
peculiar interest, as showing what the Irish language was, as written
about the year 800.[32]
If it is genuine the earliest life of Patrick ever written would
probably be the brief metrical life ascribed to Fiacc of Sletty, the
sixth or seventh in descent from Cáthaoir [Cauheer] Mór, who was
king of Leinster at the close of the second century.[33] His mother
was a sister of Dubhthach's [Duv-hach], the chief poet and Brehon of
Ireland, who, we are told, helped St. Patrick to review and revise the
Brehon Laws. Fiacc was a youthful poet in Dubhthach's train at Tara.
Afterwards he was tonsured by St. Patrick, became Bishop of Sletty, and
on Patrick's death is said to have written his life, and not forgetful
of his former training, to have written it in elaborate verse.[34] So
famous a critic as Zimmer believed half the poem to be genuine, but
Thurneysen rejects it because it does not fall in with his theories of
Irish metre.[35]
But the longest and most important life of St. Patrick is that known
as the Tripartite, or Triply-divided Life, which is really a series
of three semi-historical homilies, or discourses, which were probably
delivered in honour of the saint on the three festival days devoted to
his memory, that is, the Vigil, the Feast itself, on March 17th, and
the day after, or else the Octave. This Tripartite life, which is a
fairly complete one, is written in ancient Irish, with many passages
of Latin interspersed. The monk Jocelin, who wrote a life of the
saint in the twelfth century, tells us that St. Evin[36]--from whom
Monasterevin, in Queen's County, is called, a saint of the early sixth
century--wrote a life of Patrick partly in Latin and partly in Gaelic,
and Colgan, the learned Franciscan who translated the Tripartite in his
"Trias Thaumaturga,"[37] believed that this was the very life which
St. Evin wrote. Colgan found the Tripartite life in three very ancient
Gaelic MSS., procured for him, no doubt, by the unwearied research of
Brother Michael O'Clery in the early part of the seventeenth century,
which he collated one with the other, and of which he gives the
following noteworthy account:--
"The first thing to be observed is that it has been written by its
first author and in the aforesaid manuscript, partly in Latin, partly
in Gaelic, and this in very ancient language, almost impenetrable by
reason of its very great antiquity, exhibiting not only in the same
chapter, but also in the same line, alternate phrases now in the
Latin, now in the Gaelic tongue. In the second place, it is to be
noticed that this life, on account of the very great antiquity of its
style, which was held in much regard, used to be read in the schools
of our antiquarians in the presence of their pupils, being elucidated
and expounded by the glosses of the masters, and by interpretations
of and observations on the more abstruse words; so that hence it
is not to be wondered at that some words--which certainly did
happen--gradually crept from these glosses into the texts, and thus
brought a certain colour of newness into this most ancient and
faithful author, some things being turned from Latin into Gaelic, some
abbreviated by the scribes, and some altogether omitted."
Colgan further tells us that, "of the three MSS. above mentioned,
the first and chief is from very ancient vellums of the O'Clerys,
antiquarians in Ulster; the second from the O'Deorans, of Leinster;
the third taken from I know not what codex; and they differ from each
other in some respects; one relating more diffusely what is more close
in the others, and one relating in Latin what in the others was told in
Gaelic; but we have followed the authority of that which relates the
occurrences more diffusely and in Latin." O'Curry discovered in the
British Museum a copy of this life, made in the fifteenth century, and
it has since been admirably edited by Dr. Whitley Stokes, who, however,
does not believe for philological and other reasons, that it could
have been written before the middle of the tenth century. If so it is
no doubt a compilation of all the pre-existing lives of the saint,
and it mentions distinctly that six different writers, not counting
Fiacc the poet, had collected the events of St. Patrick's life and his
miracles, amongst whom were St. Columcille, who died in 592, and St.
Ultan, who died in 656.[38] It is hardly necessary, however, to say
that in the matter of all anonymous Gaelic writings like the present,
it is difficult to decide with any certainty as to age or date. The
occurrence, indeed, of very old forms, shows that the sentences
containing those old forms were first written at an early period; the
occurrence of more modern forms, however, is no proof that the passages
containing them were first written in modern times, for the words may
have been altered by later transcribers into the language they spoke
themselves; nor are allusions to events which we know were later than
the date of an alleged writer, _always_ conclusive proofs that the work
which contains them cannot be his work, for such allusions constantly
creep into the margin of books at the hands of copyists, especially if
those books were--as Colgan says the Tripartite life was--annotated
and explained in schools. In cases of this kind there is always
considerable latitude to be allowed to destructive and constructive
criticism, and at the end matters must still remain doubtful.[39]
So much for the more important lives of St. Patrick, the first known
_littérateur_ of Ireland.
[1] "Contemporary Review."
[2] So Tirechan, in Book of Armagh, fol. 9. "Et secum fuit multitudo
episcoporum sanctorum et presbiterorum, et diaconorum, ac exorcistarum,
hostiarium, lectorumque, necnon filiorum quos ordinavit."
[3] So many English were attracted to Armagh in the seventh century
that the city was divided into three wards, or thirds, one of which was
called the Saxon Third.
[4] See Dr. Healy's "Ireland's Ancient Schools and Scholars," p. 64.
[5] There is a curious poem on St. Patrick's family of artificers
quoted in the "Four Masters" under A.D. 278.
[6] There were no less than twenty-two saints of the name of Colum, yet
that does not detract one iota from the genuineness of the life of the
great Colum, called Columcille. There were fourteen St. Brendans, there
were twenty-five St. Ciarans, and fifteen St. Brigits.
How Ledwich--who, however, as O'Donovan remarks, looks at everything
Irish with a jaundiced eye--could have written down St. Patrick as a
myth is inconceivable, in the face of the fact that he was already
recognised in the sixth century as a great saint. The earliest mention
of him is probably St. Columba's subscription to the Book of Durrow, in
the sixth century, which runs: "Rogo beatitudinem tuam Sancte Presbyter
Patrici, ut quicumque hunc libellum manu tenuerit Columbæ Scriptoris,
qui hoc scripsi ... met evangelium per xii. dierum spatium." Here we
see a prayer already addressed to him as a national saint.
[7] This is clearly shown by the 56th chap. of Tirechan's life fol.
16aa of the Book of Armagh, where he makes the following statement:
"XIII. Anno Teothosii imperatoris a Celestino episcopo papa Romæ
Patricius episcopus ad doctrinam Scottorum mittitur. Qui Celestinus
XLVII episcopus fuit a Petro apostolo in urbe Roma. Paladius episcopus
primus mittitur [in the year 430, according to Bede] qui Patricius
alio nomine appellabatur, qui martirium passus est apud Scottos,
ut tradunt sancti antiqui. Deinde Patricius secundus ab anguelo
Dei, Victor nomine, et a Celestino papa mittitur, cui Hibernia tota
credidit, qui eam pene totam bab[titzavit]." Also it is to be observed
that St. Patrick's life according to the usual computations, covers
120 years, which seems an improbably long period. According to the
Brussels Codex of Muirchu Maccu Machteni's life, he died _a passione
Domini nostri_ 436; the author, no doubt, imagined the passion to have
taken place in A.D. 34; this would fix Patrick's death as in 470. See
p. 20 of Father Hogan's "Documenta ex Libro Armachano," and with this
Tirechan also agrees, saying "A passione autem christi colleguntur anni
ccccxxxvi. usque ad mortem Patricii." Tirechan curiously contradicts
himself in saying, "Duobus autem vel v annis regnavit Loiguire post
mortem Patricii, omnis autem regni illius tempus xxxvi. ut putamus," in
chap. ii., and in chap. liii. he says that Patrick taught (_i.e._, in
Ireland) for 72 years! He evidently compiled badly from two different
documents.
The only cogent reason for doubting about the reality of St. Patrick
is that he is not mentioned in the Chronicon of Prosper, which comes
down to the year 455, and which ascribes the conversion of Ireland to
Palladius, as does Bede afterwards. It is the silence of Prosper and
Bede about any one of the name of Patrick which has cast doubt upon his
existence. A most ingenious theory has been propounded by Father E.
O'Brien in the "Irish Ecclesiastical Record" to explain this. According
to him Patrick _is_ the Palladius of Prosper and Bede. The earliest
lives, and the scholiast on Fiacc's hymn, tell us that Patrick had four
names; one of these was Succat "_qui est deus belli_," but Palladius
is the Latin of Patrick's name (succat). The _Deus belli_ could only
be rendered into Latin by the words Arius Martius or Palladius, these
being the only names drawn from war-gods, and of these Palladius
was the commonest. It seems not unlikely that the Patrick who wrote
the "Confession" and converted Ireland is the Palladius of Bede and
Prosper, who also converted Ireland. The Paladius of Tirechan who
failed to convert Ireland is evidently another person altogether.
It is to be remarked that although Bede never mentions Patrick in his
"Ecclesiastical History," nevertheless in the "Martyrology"--found
by Mabillon at Rheims, and attributed to Bede, Patrick is distinctly
commemorated--
"Patricius Domini servus conscendit ad aulam,
Cuthbertus ternas tenuit denasque Kalendas."
[8] For the full particulars of this acute discovery, which sets
the date of the codex beyond doubt or cavil, see Dr. Graves' paper
read before the Royal Irish Academy, vol. iii. pp. 316-324, and a
supplementary paper giving other cogent reasons, vol. iii. p. 358.
According to O'Donovan, the "Four Masters" antedate here by five
years. It is worth remarking that Torbach, who caused this copy to be
made, was himself a noted scribe. His death in 807 is recorded in the
"Four Masters" and in the "Annals of Ulster," we read "Torbach, son of
Gorman, scribe, lector, and Abbot of Armagh, died."
[9] There are several passages omitted in the Book of Armagh, which
are found in an ancient Brussels MS. of the eleventh century. These
were probably omitted from the Book of Armagh because they were
undecipherable. The Brussels MS. and others contain nearly as much
again as it, and there are many proofs that this extra matter is not
of later or spurious origin; thus Tirechan refers to Patrick's own
records, "_ut in scriptione sua affirmat,_" for evidence of a fact not
mentioned in the "Confession" as given in the Book of Armagh, but which
is supplied by the other MSS., namely, that Patrick paid the price of
fifteen "souls of men," or slaves, for protection on his missionary
journey across Ireland. The frequent occurrence of _deest, et cetera,
et reliqua_, show that the Armagh copy of the "Confession" is nothing
like a full one. The Brussels MS. formerly belonged to the Irish
monastery of Würzburg.
[10] _See_ ch. III, note 31.
[11] The other contents of the Book of Armagh, besides the Patrician
documents, are a copy of the New Testament, enriched with concordance
tables and illustrative matter from Jerome, Hilary, and Pelagius. It
includes the Epistle to the Laodiceans attributed to St. Paul, but it
is mentioned that Jerome denied its authenticity. There are some pieces
relating to St. Martin of Tours, and the Patrician pieces--the Life,
the Collectanea, the Book of the Angel, and the "Confession."
[12] "Sanctus Patricus iens ad cœlum mandavit totum fructum laboris sui
tam baptismi tam causarum quam elemoisinarum deferendum esse apostolicæ
urbi quae scotice nominatur ardd-macha. Sic reperi in Bibliothics
Scotorum. Ego scripsi, id est Caluus Perennis, in conspectu Briain
imperatoris Scotorum, et quod scripsi finituit pro omnibus regibus
Maceriae [_i.e._, Cashel]." "Calvus Perennis" is the Latin translation
of Mael-suthain, Brian's scribe and secretary. For a curious story
about this Mael-suthain, _see_ p. 779 O'Curry's MS. Materials.
[13] See above Ch. XI, note 13. It has been printed in Haddan and
Stubb's, "Councils," etc., vol. ii. p. 296, and also admirably in
Gilbert's facsimiles of National MSS.
[14] It has often been said that the life of the saint in the Book
of Armagh ignores the Roman Mission. But while the life of Muirchu
Maccu Machteni does ignore it, Tirechan's his contemporary's, life,
in the same book, distinctly acknowledges it, in these words, "deinde
Patricius secundus ab anguelo dei, Victor nomine, _et a Celestino papa_
mittitur cui Hibernia tota credidit, qui eam pene totam bap[titzavit]."
(_See_ chap. 56 of Tirechan's life.)
[15] In Irish he is usually called Son of Alprann or Alplann, the
C of Calpornus being evidently taken as belonging to the Mac, thus
Mac Calprainn became Mac Alprainn. In the Brussels Codex of Muirchu
Maccu Machteni's life, however, he is called _Alforni filius_, and
the place of his birth is called _Ban navem thabur indecha_, supposed
to be Killpatrick, near Dumbarton, in Scotland, which is evidently a
corruption of his own Bannaven Taberniæ, which seems to mean River-head
Tavern; it may be from the two words _navem thabur_ that St. Fiacc's
hymn says that he was born in _nemthur_. Patrick himself only gives us
two generations of his ancestry, and it is very significant of Irish
ways to find Flann of Monasterboice, running it up to fourteen!
[16] It is worth while to transcribe this passage as a fair specimen
of St. Patrick's style and latinity. "Et ibi scilicet in sinu noctis
virum venientem quasi de Hiberione cui nomen Victoricus, cum æpistulis
innumerabilibus vidi; et dedit mihi unam ex his et legi principium
æpistolæ continentem 'Uox Hiberionacum.' Et dum recitabam principium
æpistolæ, putabam enim ipse in mente audire vocem ipsorum qui
erant juxta silvam Focluti [in the county Mayo] quæ est prope mare
occidentale. Et sic exclamaverunt: 'Rogamus te sancte puer ut venias
et adhuc ambulas inter nos.' Et valde compunctus sum corde, et amplius
non potui legere. Et sic expertus [_i.e._ experrectus] sum. Deo gratias
quia post plurimos annos præstitit illis Dominus secundum clamorum
illorum" (Folio 23, 66, Book of Armagh, p. 126 of Father Hogan's
Bollandist edition).
[17] The "Confession" ends with a certain rough eloquence: "Christus
Dominus pauper fuit pro nobis; ego vero miser et infelix, et si opes
voluero jam non habeo; neque me ipsum judico quia quotidie spero aut
internicionem aut circumveniri, aut redigi in servitatem, sive occassio
cujus-libet.... Et hæc est confessio mea antequam moriar."
[18] Dr. Healy's "Ireland's Ancient Schools and Scholars," p. 68.
[19] It is printed by Haddan and Stubbs, "Councils," etc., vol. ii. p.
314.
[20] This is certainly the first time on record that this question--so
often repeated since in so many different forms--was asked.
[21] See the original in Windsch's "Irische Texte," 1. p. 53, and
Todd's "Liber Hymnorum"--
"Atomrigh indiu niurt Dé dom luamaracht
Cumachta Dé dom chumgabail
Ciall Dé domm imthús
Rose Dé dom reimcíse,
Cluas Dé dom éstecht
Briathar Dé dom erlabrai,
Lám De domm imdegail
Intech Dé dom remthechtas.
Sciath Dé dom dítin
Sochraite Dé domm anucul
Ar intledaib demna
Ar aslaigthib dualche
Ar cech nduine míduthrastar dam,
ícéin _ocus_ i n-ocus
i n-uathed _ocus_ hi sochaide," etc.
[22] Thus translated almost literally by Dr. Sigerson, "Bards of the
Gael and Gall," p. 138. This is not the only poem attributed to St.
Patrick, several others are ascribed to him in the "Tripartite Life,"
and a MS. in the Bibliothèque Royale contains three others. Eight lines
of one of them is found in the Vatican Codex of Marianus Scotus and are
given by Zeuss in his "Grammatica Celtica," p. 961, second edition. The
lines there given refer to St. Brigit. There is also a rann attributed
to St. Patrick quoted by the "Four Masters," and the "Chronicon
Scotorum" attributes to him a rann on Bishop Erc.
[23] "Canticum ejus scotticum semper canere," which a marginal note in
the book explains as _Ymnus Comanulo_, which Father Hogan interprets as
_protectio Clamoris_, adding "ac proinde synonyma voci Faith Fiada,"
which has been interpreted _clamor custodis_ or "The Guardsman's Cry"
by Stokes. The poem, then, was extant in the seventh century, was
attributed to St. Patrick, and was sung in the churches--a strong
argument for its authenticity.
[24] "Even to this day," says Dr. Healy, in "Ireland's Ancient Schools
and Scholars," p. 77, "the original is chanted by the peasantry of
the south and west in the ancestral tongue, and it is regarded as a
strong shield against all dangers natural or supernatural." I, myself,
however, in collecting the "Religious Songs of Connacht," have found no
trace of this, and I am not sure that the learned Bishop of Clonfert,
led astray by Petrie, is not here confounding it with the "Marainn
Phadraig," which mysterious piece is implicitly believed to be the
work of St. Patrick, and is still recited all over the west, with the
belief that there is a peculiar virtue attached to it. I have even
known money to have been paid for its recital in the west of Galway, as
a preventive of evil. For this curious piece, which is to me at least
more than half unintelligible, see my "Religious Songs of Connacht." It
appears to have been founded upon an incident similar to that recorded
by Muirchu Maccu Machteni, book i. chap. 26.
[25] Of Dunshaughlin _recté_ Dunsaughnil (Domhnach Seachnaill) in Meath.
[26] As this was probably the first poem in Latin ever composed in
Ireland, it deserves some consideration. It is a sort of trochaic
tetrameter catalectic, of the very rudest type. The _ictus_, or stress
of the voice, which is supposed to fall on the first syllable of the
first, third, fifth, and seventh feet, seldom corresponds with the
accent. The elision of "m" before a vowel is disregarded, no quantities
are observed, and the solitary rule of prosody kept is that the second
syllable of the seventh foot is always short, with the exception of one
word, _indutus_, which the poet probably pronounced as _indŭtus_. The
third verse runs thus, with an evident effort at vowel rhyme ("Liber
Hymnorum," vol. i. p. 11).
"Beati Christi custodit mandata in omnibus
Cujus opera refulgent clara inter homines."
Muratori printed this hymn, from the so-called Antiphonary of Bangor, a
MS. of the eight century preserved in the Ambrosian Library. The rude
metre is that employed by Hilary in his hymn beginning--
"Ymnum dicat turba fratrum, ymnum cantus personet,"
which, as Stokes points out, is the same as that of the Roman soldiers,
preserved in Suetonius,
"Cæsar Gallias subégit, Nicomedes Cæsarem."
The internal evidence of the antiquity of this hymn is "strong," says
Stokes, "first, the use of the present tense in describing the saint's
actions; secondly, the absence of all reference to the miracles with
which the Tripartite and other lives are crowded; and, thirdly, the
absence of all allusion to the Roman mission on which many later
writers from Tirechan downwards insist with much persistency." We may
then, I think, receive this hymn as authentic.
[27]
"Maximus namque in regno cælorum vocabitur,
Qui quod verbis docet sacris factis adimplet bonis;
Bono procedit exemplo formamque fidelium
Mundoque in corde habet ad Deum fiduciam."
[28] In the "Martyrology of Tallaght" this curious name is written Mac
hui Machteni, _i.e._, the son of the grandson of Machtenus, or Muirchu,
_i.e._, Murrough, descendant of Machtenus, and the Leabhar Breac has
this note at the name of Muirchu: "_civitas ejus in uib Foelan, i.e.,
mac hui Mathcene_," thereby giving us to understand that he was a
native of what is the present county of Waterford. Maccumachteni is
not a surname, for these were not introduced into Ireland for three
centuries later.
[29] "Omnia quæ scripsi a principio libri hujus scitis quia in vestris
regionibus gesta sunt, nizi de eis pauca inveni in utilitatem laboris
mei a senioribus multis, ac ab illo Ultano episcopo Conchubernensi qui
nutrivit me, retulit sermo!"
[30] "Multos jam conatos esse ordinare narrationem istam secundum quod
patres eorum et qui ministri ab initio fuerunt sermonis tradiderunt
illis; sed propter difficillimum narrationis opus diversasque opiniones
et plurimorum plurimas suspiciones nunquam ad unum certumque historiae
tramitem pervenisse."
[31] "Omnia in Deo gesta ab antiquis peritissimis adunata atque
collecta sunt;" and again: "Post exitum Patricii alumpni sui valde
ejusdem libros conscripserunt;" but this may mean that they made copies
of the books left behind him.
[32] Here is a specimen: "Dulluid pâtricc othemuir hicrîch Laigen
conrâncatar ocus dubthach mucculugir uccdomnuch mâr criathar la auu
censelich. Áliss pâtricc dubthach imdamnae .n. epscuip diadesciplib
dilaignib idôn fer soêr socheniûil cenon cenainim nadip ru becc
nadipromar bedasommae, toisclimm fer ôinsêtche dunarructhae
actoentuistiu," which would run some way thus in the modern language:
"Do luid (_i.e._, Chuaidh) Pádraic ó Theamhair i gcrích Laighean go
râncadar [fein] agus Dubhthach Mac Lugair ag Domhnach Mór Criathair le
uibh Ceinnsealaigh. Ailis (_i.e._, fiafruighis) Pádraic Dubhthach um
damhna (_i.e._, ádhbhar) easboig d' á dheiscioblaibh, eadhoin fear saor
sói-chineáil, gan on gan ainimh (_i.e._, truailiughadh), nâr 'bh ro
bheag [agus] nár 'bh rómhór, a shaidhbhreas (?). Toisg [riachtanus] liom
fear aon seitche [mná] d'á nach rugadh acht aon tuistui (gein)," etc.
[33] For Cáthaoir Mór, _see_ p. 30.
[34] The metre was called _Cetal nothi_, Thurneysen's "Mittelirische
Verslehren," p. 63. It scarcely differs in most parts from Little
Rannaigheacht.
[35] _See_ "Keltische Studien," Heft ii., and the "Revue Celtique." The
first verses run thus:--
"Genair Patraicc in Nemthur
Is ed atfet hi scélaib
Maccan se mbliadan déac
In tan dobreth fo deraib.
Succat a ainm itubrad
Ced a athair ba fissi
Mac Calpairn _maic_ Otide
Hoa deochain Odissi."
[36] He was tenth in descent from that Owen Môr who wrested half the
sovereignty of Ireland from Conn of the Hundred Battles.
[37] _I.e._, "The wonder-working Three," containing the lives of
Patrick, Brigit, and Columcille, translated by Colgan from Irish into
Latin.
[38] Also St. Aileran the Wise, whose "Fragments" are published by
Migne; St. Adamnan, the author of the "Life of Columcille"; St. Ciaran
of Belach-Duin; and St. Colman. Jocelyn says that Benignus, who died in
468, wrote another life of Patrick, but of it nothing is known.
[39] Here is a short passage from the Tripartite, which will show the
language in which it is written: "Fecht ann occ tuidhecht do Patraic
do Chlochur antuaith da fuarcaib a thren-fher dar doraid and, _i.e._,
Epscop mac Cairthind. Issed adrubart iar turcbail Patraic: uch uch. Mu
Debroth, ol Patraic ni bu gnath in foculsin do rad duitsiu. Am senoir
ocus am lobur ol Epscop Mac Cairthind," which would run some way thus
in the modern language: "Feacht [uair] do bhi ann, ag tigheacht do
Phádraig go Clochar (i gcondae, Tir-Eóghain) ón tuaidh, d' iomchair a
threán-fhear é thar sruth do bhi ann, eadhoin Easbog Mac Cairthind. Is
eadh adubhairt tar éis Padraig do thogbháil "Uch, uch!" Mo Dhebhroth
[focal do bhi ag Padraig, ionnann agus "dar mo láimh" no mar sin], níor
ghnáth an focal sin do rádh duit-se. Táim im sheanoir agus im lobhar ar
Easbog Mac Cairthind." _See_ O'Curry MS. Materials, p. 598.