IT is objected again that St. Patrick called the followers of
Coroticus, who were Britons, his fellow citizens, and that, therefore,
the Saint and the island Britons are of the same nationality.
The objection is founded on St. Patrick's "Epistle to Coroticus," in
which the following words occur: "I have vowed to my God to teach this
people, although I should be despised by them, to whom I have written
with my own hand to be given to the soldiers to be forwarded to
Coroticus. I do not say to my fellow citizens, nor to the fellow
citizens of the pious Romans, but to the fellow citizens of the devil,
through their evil deeds and hostile practices."
As the Romans had abandoned Britain long before the letter to Coroticus
was written, it is somewhat difficult to understand the precise meaning
of the words just quoted: "I do not say to my fellow citizens, or to
the fellow citizens of the pious Romans," unless some of the soldiers
of Coroticus were, like St. Patrick, Roman freemen. The word "citizen"
in the Roman sense was as wide as the extent of the Roman Empire.
Although the soldiers of Coroticus are also called "fellow citizens of
the pious Romans," no one would surely dream of saying that the
soldiers of Coroticus and the pious Roman were actually of the same
nationality. St. Patrick could, therefore, call the soldiers of
Coroticus in the same sense his "fellow citizens," without implying
that he was of the same race. If, however, the soldiers of Coroticus
were Roman freemen, they would be fellow citizens of St. Patrick and
fellow citizens of the Romans, although of different nationalities. The
indignant protest made by the Saint in the same letter, that "free-born
Christian men are sold and enslaved amongst the wicked, abandoned, and
apostate Picts," greatly favours our interpretation of "fellow
citizens."
It must, however, be acknowledged that there is a considerable amount
of obscurity about the meaning of the words, which are so confidently
interpreted as signifying that the Apostle of Ireland was a native of
Great Britain. But the words as they stand cannot be fairly assumed to
prove that St. Patrick was a "fellow countryman" of the soldiers of
Coroticus, unless they prove with equal force that the Romans were of
the same nationality as the soldiers of Coroticus. The quotation proves
too much and, therefore, it proves nothing.