UC-NRLF B S A3M flMT BERKELEY LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA **-. u THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. THE REMAINS OF St, PATRICK, APOSTLE OF IRELAND, THE CONFESSIO AND EPISTLE TO COROTICUS. ftranslatcb into (^nrjltsTj 33Ianfc Fcrsr, with i A DISSERTATION ON THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS CONTAINED IN THE "TRIAS TIIAUMATURGA " AND " BOOK OF ARMAGH," ETC. BY SIR SAMUEL FERGUSON, LL.D., President of the Royal IrisJt Academy. DUBLIN: SEALY, E R Y E R S & W A L K E R, 94, 95 & 96 Middle Abbey Street. LONDON: GEORGE BELL S: SONS, 5 York Street, Coyent Garden. iSSS. 3BrmteB iu SEALY, BRYERS & WALKER, 94, 95 & 96 Middle Abbey Street. Dublin. LOAN STACK PRHbfl THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS 13 Y Sir Samuel Ferguson, LL.D. THE CONFESSIO AND EPISTLE TO COROTICUS. 323 The Publishers of this cheap edition of Sir Samuel Ferguson's works beg to announce that they have taken steps to ensure the copyright in America and elsewhere, and that any infringement of it will be jyanishable by law. 5 2>efcicatc tbts ^Sooft TO FOUR FRIENDS, MUCH ESTEEMED AND VALUED BY ME AS WELL AS EY HIM WHOM I DEPLORE. THE ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN AND THE BISHOP OF MEAXH, WHOSE APPRECIATION OF THIS, ALMOST THE LATEST WORK OF MY HUSBAND'S LIFE, HAS ENCOURAGED ME TO RE-PUBLISH IT ; AND ALSO TO THE BISPIOP OF DOWN, CONNOR AND DROMORE AND THE REV. ROBERT KING, WHOSE LEARNED AND DELIGHTFUL WORKS HAVE INTERESTED ME FROM EARLY YOUTH IN THE HISTORY OF OUR IRISH SAINTS. TO THEIR LONG AND TRIED FRIENDSHIP, AS WELL AS TO THEIR WRITINGS, I AM INDEBTED FOR MUCH OF THE HAPPINESS OF MY LIFE. M. C. FERGUSON. 20 North Great George's Street, Dublin, August, 1 888. Introduction, I haye to thank the Council of the Royal Irish Academy for the permission kindly accorded to me to re-publish my husband's last contribution to the Transactions of that learned body, of which he was President at the time of his death. The Patrician Documents was the title that Sir Samuel Ferguson gave to these papers ; they consisted of his translation into English blank verse, of the Confessio and the Coroticus Epistle, which are admitted by scholars to be authentic writings of St. Patrick himself, and to have come down to us from the fifth century of our era. The Patrician Documents included dissertations upon these, and on the lives published by Colgan in his Trias Thaumaturga, as well as an examination into the collec- tions in the Book of Armagh and elsewhere, not accessible to Colgan, who wrote in the middle of the seventeenth century. To the ordinary reader without pretension to scholar- ship, nor specially interested in the controversies of these early days, the chief attraction of these writings of St. Patrick will be the revelation they afford of the man himself ; of his character, motives, and springs of action ; of what he aimed at and what achieved. They furnish what may be fairly described as the great mission- ary Saint's autobiography. X INTRODUCTION. His family were of good condition. "I was born noble, my father a Decurio." That father, Calpliurn, was not only a Roman official, but was also an ecclesiastic, a deacon, the son of a presbyter, Potitus, and resided on a farm at " Bannow of Tabernia," which the narrative implies to have been in insular Britain, and within the Roman Province, bounded by the wall of Agricola, between the estuaries of the Clyde and Forth. The wall restored in the second century by the Emperor Antoninus Pius, was the defence of the civilized and chris- tianized Britons against the incursions of the Picts and Scots. The birthplace of St. Patrick has not been recorded by himself, but later biographers state it to have been called Nemthor, otherwise Ail-clyde. Ail-clyde has been identified with Dumbarton on the Clyde, the western terminus of the Roman Wall. Saint Patrick tells us that he was carried captive to Ireland, in the sixteenth year of his age, doubtless in one of the piratical expeditions of the Pagan Scoti, or Irish, and was there sold into slavery. It was his hapless fate to herd the cattle of his master on the mountain of Slemish, in the present county of Antrim. Here, friendless and alone, he passed six years in want and hardship, but with leisure for reflection. Although in his boyhood a member of a, Christian family, the future Apostle of the Irish was ignorant of God, and estranged from his Commandments; but now the Lord, pitying his youth and ignorance, visited and consoled him, turning his heart to Him, so that he attained the " touch and apprehension " of his God, and was prepared to confess Him before men. Saint Patrick speaks of himself as unlearned and ignorant, and the debased Latin in which he writes — which was common at the time in Western Europe — intermixed as it is with INTRODUCTION. xi Irish idioms, makes his language in many places very obscure ; yet he was versed in Holy Scripture, and quotes freely from the sacred writings. His humility, his grateful acknowledgments of the Divine mercy bestowed on him, and his earnest zeal for the salvation of souls, are expressed repeatedly in his Confessio. " With fear and reverence, Faithful in heart and uncomplainingly, I serve this people, to whom the charity Of Christ assigns me for my rest of life, If I be worthy, that with humble heart And truthful lips, I teach it, in the faith And measure of the Holy Trinity. Behoves me, therefore, fearless of rebuke Or danger, that I do set forth the gift And everlasting consolation Of God ; and fearlessly declare His name Abroad where'er I be ; . . . But, herding daily here, And often in the day saying my prayers, Daily there more and more did grow in me The fear of God. And holy fear and faith Increased in me, that in a single day Tve said as many as a hundred prayers, And in the night scarce fewer ; so that oft In woods and on the mountain I've remained, And risen to prayer before daylight, through snow, Through frost, through rain, and yet I took no ill, Nor was there in me then aught slow as now, For then the Spirit of God within me burned," He tells that in his childhood he had been estranged from God, and remained in death and unbelief, till chastised by hunger, nakedness, and enforced toil in Ireland. "Yet these were rather boons to me, because So chastened by the Lord, I now am made What once was far from me, that I should care Or labour for the weal of others Who then took no thought even for myself." X U INTRODUCTION. At last the opportunity of escape presented itself. It was borne in on his mind that he should leave the master whose bondman he had been. Dreams, visions, or an in- ward voice, in which Saint Patrick firmly believed, and throughout his career frequently referred to, whispered that he should see his home again. " I heard the voice, And this is what it said : ' Behold, thy ship Is ready,' but the ship lay nowise near, But nigh two hundred miles off, and where I Had never been before, and no man knew. So, thereupon, I turned myself to flight, Leaving the man whom I had served six years, And by the help of God, who showed me well The way to go, nought dreading, found the ship." In this vessel he embarked, and after trying experi- ences, during a journey of sixty days, found himself " once more amongst the Britons," with his family, who received him with affectionate warmth, and entreated him never again to leave them. The desire to win souls to God, and in especial those of the people among whom he had lived as a slave, over- powered in the missionary saint the love of home and friends and personal ease. Ho was prepared to endure persecutions, and for the good of others forfeit his " own patrician grade." That privilege of birth he was ready to renounce for the benefit of others. "What," he ex- claims, " Was it then without God's promises, Or in the body only, that I came To Ireland ? Who compelled me ? Who me bound In spirit that I should no more behold Kindred or early friend ? Whence came the sense Inspiring me with pity for the race That once were my own captors ? " INTRODUCTION. Xlll Saint Patrick has himself answered these questions. He believed that he was specially summoned to his mis- sionary work in Ireland in a dream which he thus records : "Ina night vision, I beheld a man Coming as 'twere from Ireland. Victor he. Innumerable letters bore he ; one He gave to me to read. I read one line, 4 The voices of the Irish,' so it ran. And while I read methought I beard the cry Of them that by the wood of Focluth dwell, Beside the western ocean, saying thus, ' Come, holy youth, and walk amongst us. Come ! ' All with one voice. It touched me to the heart, And I could read no more, and so awoke. Thank God at last who, after many years, Has given to them according to their cry ! " Like the great Apostle of the Gentiles, he, of the Irish, "was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision." Saint Patrick also resembled St. Paul in the assured conviction that he was divinely appointed to be a witness for Christ, called on to preach Him among the heathen. " /send thee," was the commission of Jesus, " to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light." The parallel is very close. The conversion of both these apostles was independent of the intervention of human instrumenta- lity. These eminently successful evangelists unhesitat- ingly obeyed their call to missionary work, and could alike exclaim, " I do not frustrate the grace of God." " Therefore unwearied thanks I render Him Who kept me faithful in temptation's hour, That I to-day should live to offer up Myself a living sacrifice to Him, My Saviour, my Preserver. Well may I Say, Lord, what am I ? or my calling what r That with such favour, with such aid divine, Thou hast environed and uplifted me, As daily I amongst the Gentiles rise x iv INTRODUCTION. Higher and higher, whilst I glorify Thy name where'er I be. Whate'er befalls, Happy or wretched, good or ill, the same I deem, and equally for it thakn Thee With thanks perpetual, for that Thou hast shown Him, the most sure, indubitable One, In whom I may believe for ever, Him Who will for ever hear me. So, too, I, In these last days, though ignorant, may dare Address me to a work so holy — good, So wondrous, as may even make parity 'Twixt me and thern, who, He Himself foretold, Should bear His joyful message, witnessing Him to all people, ere the world should end." This is the true missionary spirit: " Freely ye have re- ceived, freely give," and was fully evidenced in Saint Patrick's life and work. " Lo I still spend, and still will'. further spend, happy if He, who can, shall yet allow that for your sakes I even may spend my soul." The same yearning love for his converts which charac- terised St. Paul, marks also the personality of Saint Patrick. " But never, never let me lose the flock He pastures by me in earth's outland here ! God grant me that ! and that I persevere In faithful witness to my journey's end." And yet his heart often turned with longing to the- friends from whom he was separated and to his father's house. "Sure 'twere sweet to see one's country and one's kin again." "I declare in truth," adds Saint Patrick, at the close of the Covfessio, " before my God and His most holy angels, that I never had any object, save the gospel and His promises, for returning to that people from whom so hardly I escaped before." " And now beseech all them that do believe And fear the Lord, whoe'er they be, shall deign Look on this writing or receive the same, Which, sinner Patrick, I the much-unlearned, INTRODUCTION. XV Have writ in Ireland, that no man may say My ignorance it was dictated aught, If any aught of good be therein seen, Such as may pleasure God ; but rather deem, For certain, that it doth proceed from Him. And this is my confession ere I die." The Epistle to Coroticus, which bears internal evidence of having been written by the author of the Confessio, has also been translated by Sir Samuel Ferguson into English blank verse. It is an indignant letter, written to a British prince of that name, who had sold into slavery, to the> apostate Picts and Scots, certain captives, Christian men and women, for whose release the writer earnestly pleads. "It also," observes its translator, "like the Con- fessio, uses some expressions not consonant to the Latin, but to the Celtic idiom, as though the writer in both conceived his thoughts in some form of Celtic speech and expressed them in Latin. ... In the Confessio the inner nature of the writer is seen throughout. In the Coroticus he is seen in his relations with an external world of wrong and suffering, against which he struggles with the grief and indignation any pastor might experi- ence whose flock had been made the prey of lawless violence. Still there breathes through its reproaches and words of technical objurgation a lofty sentiment and energy of imagination which Avould make any prose translation inadequate to its full reproduction." This, the oldest document in British history, shows in fresh light the noble, fearless, yet tender and loving per- sonality of the great Apostle of Ireland. He thus con- cludes his letter : " I now beseech His servant, whosoe'er Shall set him forth to be the carrier Of these my letters, that he suffer none Abstract them privily, but have them read XVI INTRODUCTION. Before all peoples publicly, yea, read In presence of Coroticus himself. May God inspire them that they think at length. Of Him, and, even late although it be, .Repent them of the wickedness they've done. Manslayers of their brethren in the Lord They have been. May they yet repent, and free Their captive baptized women ; so that yet They may themselves deserve to live in God And have eternal safety. Now be peace To Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen." Sir Samuel Ferguson, in his Preface, gives the reason for his selection of the form which he adopted in these translations. "A literal prose translation," he writes, " reflecting all the discontinuances and hesitancies of the original, would indeed repel most readers from the neces- sary task of collecting the general sense and bearing of the whole piece, and would scarcely at all realize the in- tense pervading fervour and, however obstructed in its utterance, the characteristic effusiveness of the original. To convey these in English prose would require some- thing more in the nature of a free paraphrase, which would not be an acceptable constituent in a critical essay. "What appears to me a less repellent and more exact form in which to present the piece, as combining literalness with suitability for the expression of that fervent and effusive feeling which underlies its broken Latinity, is a close version in English blank verse." How he has per- formed the difficult task to which he applied himself, I shall leave to others to state. In the touching funeral address delivered by the Archbishop of Dublin in St. Pat- rick's Cathedral, on the 12th August, 1886, His Grace, Lord Plunket, said, with reference to this work : " I have spoken of our dear brother as a sciiolak. He was a man of general culture and of varied learning ; but, as we all know, his chief eminence was attained in the IXTItODUCTIOX. Xvii department of antiquarian research. . . I have spoken of him as a roET. . . . He had the passion and fire of the genuine poet, tempered at the same time by great tenderness and purity. . . . There is, how- ever, among his poems, or rather his poetical translations, one legacy which we who meet together in this cathedral ought specially to prize — I mean the last paper which he read before the Eoyal Irish Academy upon ' Patrician Documents ' — a paper containing a wonderfully beautiful translation of those works which all learned men attri- bute, as genuine, to the great founder of Christianity in tbis land. This translation is one that we must all treasure ; and we should all thank God that, before our dear brother was taken from us, he left us such a legacy." At the first stated general meeting of the Eoyal Irish Academy held subsequently to Sir Samuel Ferguson's decease, his successor in the presidential chair, the Eev. Dr. Haughton, F.T.C.D., observed, in reference to this work: " In the department of antiquities, we have had from our late president the translation of the Patrician Documents into his own graceful and attractive Anglo- Irish, of which he was so complete a master — a transla- tion which must draw and win students of other branches of knowledge who would otherwise have cared little for Saint Patrick and his literary memorials. . . . He (Sir Samuel Ferguson) devoted his life to the effort to win for Ireland, if possible, both in literature and science, the first place. His ideas are perhaps best ex- pressed in his own words : " ' The man aspires To link his present with his country's past, And live anew in knowledge of his sires. No rootless colonist of alien earth, Proud, but of patient lungs and pliant limb ; A stranger in the land that gave him birth, The land a stranger to itself and him.' " b XV111 INTRODUCTION. On the same occasion Robert Atkinson, Esq., LL.D., Secretary of Council, observed of Sir Samuel Ferguson : " The love for antiquarian studies animated him down to the last year of his life, from his first paj)er, published in January, 1838, to his last work on the ' Patrician Documents,' 1885 — a work which gives us the measure alike of the intimacy of his acquaintance with the story of Ireland's Apostle and of his mastery over the riches and beauty of the English tongue." About the same time the Bishop of Meath addressed the following letter to the editor of a Dublin news- paper : — SIR SAMUEL FERGUSON'S LATEST WORK. TO THE EDITOE OF THE IRISH TIMES. Sir, — In echoing- the sentiments of deep regret you have well expressed on Sir Samuel Ferguson's death, I wish to take the opportunity of calling the attention of the public to what I believe was the last literary work of his life — it is the trans- lation into verse of the "Remains of St. Patrick." It gives, in a most remarkable manner, a more comprehensible and a juster representation, especially of the " Confession," than any prose translation could do. It is, so far as I know, accessible only in the Transactions of the Royal Irish 'Academy. May I express a hope that that learned and scientific body will allow this most remarkable work to be published by itself in such a manner as to become available for use to the general public. Yours, etc., C. P. Meatii. It may be of interest to mention in connection with this, almost the latest literary work of his life, that Sir Samuel Ferguson's thoughts more than half a century before, had been directed to the history and experiences of Saint Patrick. In his early manhood the personality of the great Apostle of Ireland had impressed itself on his imagination, and in a story written, almost in his boyhood, The Return of Clanehoy, and recently re-published INTRODUCTION. XIX in the first Series of his Hibernian Nights' Entertainments, the characters introduced are taken to the mountain of Slemish, and discourse of the captivity of the Saint, and its results. A youthful scion of the house of O'Neill, accompanied by his tutor, is described as having forded the river Bann, and ridden forward in advance of his attendants towards the hills to the north of Connor ; here O'Xeill pulls rein, and addresses his companion : "Ho, Loughlin, these are brave mountains ! they look not like other hills ; they are broad-swelling, and rolled together like a wave of the sea, or an army of good war- riors ! How name you that great one that rises over all like the ship among the waves, or the king's presence on the ridge of battle ? " " That," answered the Erenach, "is the great Mount Slemish. We shall be on its summit ere sunset, and I shall then show thee the whole land of Dalaradia from Mourne to Eathlin." They pursued their way along the vale of Broughshane through thick woods that for a time hid everything else from their view, and were almost under the western precipices of Slemish before they beheld its huge wedge- like bulk piercing the blue sky overhead. * * * * Rounding the southern shoulder of Slemish, our tra- vellers came upon a fountain, springing out of the green sward, beside a great stone which seemed to have come down at one bound from the brow of the precipice above, for it was sunk halfway in the earth, and overhanging, as if arrested by the depth of the first dint it had made in the soil. Under this they halted. XX INTRODUCTION. " Is not this a strange and solemn scene, Prince ? " said the Erenach. " This lonely hollow at our feet, this black rock on which we stand, these w r ooded wildernesses all around, and that solitary well-spring in the midst, rising unwearied and silent, and sliding down the same smooth path from century to century ! Knowest thou who wandered amid these woods and mountains, climbed those rocks, and drank of these blessed waters eight centuries ago ? " "I know not," said O'Neill, "unless perhaps a herd of wild boars or a troop of wolves." " Oh, holy and blessed Patrick !" exclaimed the Erenach, " was it for this that the visions came to thee by night, and the voice of the unborn infants of Erin crying out of the forest for redemption, that the scene of thy prayer and fasting should be deseited and forgotten, that the people of thy choice should be made vagabond like Cain!" " Nay," said O'Neill, " I knew not that the good saint had been a mountaineer of Dalaradia." "Knowest thou not the song of Fiech of Sliebtha ?" said the Erenach. "From beginning to end," answered O'Neill; "I learned it of Callough Moyle, my grandfather's bard." " What says he in his 16th and l*7th stanzas ?" said his preceptor. O'Neill repeated the Irish of the following : — "By the fountain that never knows drought or decrease, He nightly sang an hundred psalms In service of the King of Angels, Then went he to sleep on the hare rock, His covering round about a damp mantle, His pillow of rest, the hark of the forest tree." " And what sayeth his own epistle, when he tells how the love of God increased within him day by day in his captivity ? " questioned the Erenach. INTRODUCTION. XXI O'Neill paused for an instant to recollect, then repeated the passage — " Etiam in sylvis etmonte manebam, et ante lucem excitabar ad orationem, per nivem, per gelu, per pluviam ; et nihil niali sentiebam, neque ulla pigritia erat in me." " You look now upon these woods," cried theErenach "this is that mountain, and yonder well-spriog is that fount ! Hear me, Prince, we stand on the most blessed ground in Europe, in the cradle of the Church, in the nursery of kingdoms, in the very womb and navel of western Christendom! for here it was, even in this wild and lonely rock of Slemish, that God raised up the re- claimer of the Pagan, and here I make a vow, and I call these hills and waters and these eternal rocks to be perpetual witness against me, that through good and evil, through honour and dishonour, through life and death, I will devote myself to the sacred cause of this thy thrice blessed land's recovery." O'Neill stood apart, astonished and in silence, while the other knelt and prayed ; and neither spoke, till at length the Erenach having risen, the Prince turned himself again to the wonders at his feet. Fifty years and upwards of a studious life had passed ere Sir Samuel Ferguson again turned his mind to the elucidation of Saint Patrick's history. How he worked and how he laboured that he might preserve the story of the dear ancestral Island, this book as well as many- other products of his pen will testify. In the prose portion of this work he entered fully into critical inquiries as to the date and credibility of the various lives of St. Patrick which have come down to us from the sixth and subse- quent centuries. " These Secondary Evidences," he writes, " consist of the seven lives published by Colgan in his Trias Thauimi- XXU INTRODUCTION. turga, and of the collections in the Book of Armagh not accessible to him, supplemented by the valuable matter lately restored to them from the Royal Library of Brussels, by the Bev. Edward" Hogan, in his ' Docunienta de Sco. Patricio.' " The earliest of these is known as the "Fiacc Metrical Life, " certainly later in date than A.D. 565, as it alludes to the abandonment of Tara, which had been for some GOO years the seat of regal power in Ireland, but was deserted in the sixth century after Christ. It is written in Irish, ' ' a very archaic example of the language, and is composed in rhymed verse." This Sir Samuel has rendered in couplets, following the text and translation, printed by Dr. Whitley Stokes, in his " Goidelica." Lives II., III., IV. in the Trias Thaumaturga, ascribed by Colgan, to Patrick junior, Benignus, and Eleran the Wise, bear internal evidence of being of later compo- sition than the Annotations of Tirechan, in the Book of Armagh. This MS., now in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin, is a small vellum quarto, the writing of which is ascribed to Ferdomnach, who died A.D. 844. In its pages he requests the prayers of its readers — Pro ferdomnaclio ores. The manuscript is inferred on other grounds to have been penned in the year 807. The notices it contains of St. Patrick are considered by that eminent scholar, Dr. Beeves, now Bishop of Down and Connor, to be the oldest and most authentic now in existence. The Book of Armagh is not only the source from whence other biographies borrow, but it has pre- served earlier traditions and preceding literature ; such, for example, as the so-called Dicta Patricii, and the Gonfessio which Tirechan quotes as the writing of St. Patrick himself, calling it scriptio sua, The same vener- able manuscript contains also what is known as the INTRODUCTION. XXU1 Midrcliu Life. Of this portion of the Book of Armagh, some chapters are missing ; these have been recently re- covered from a vellum MS. life of St. Patrick, in the Eoyal Library at Brussels, which as mentioned above, has been carefully compared by the Rev. E. Hogan, S.J., with the Armagh Codex, as it proved to be a perfect twelfth century copy of the Muirchu Life in the Book of Armagh, and to contain the missing chapters from the older manuscript. The fifth and sixth Lives, ascribed by Colgan to Probus and Jocelyn, date from about the tenth century, and yield in interest and value to the seventh Life known as the Tripartite with its duplicate in Irish. "This," writes Sir Samuel Ferguson, " is the most copious repertory of all ; and from the fact that the first elements of almost all its matter may be found in the Book of Armagh, either recorded at length or indicated in the rough index to names of persons and places at the end of Tirechan in that collection, there can be little doubt that whatever be the date of its compilation in its present form, most of its substance is drawn from traditions, which were current before the compilation of the Armagh Codex. It may, therefore, be of an authority equal to that of any of the antecedent Lives." Sir Samuel Ferguson enters at length upon the inter- esting yet complex inquiries suggested by these "Lives" and "Documents," and discusses their points of agree- ment and of difference as amongst one another, as well as their date and comparative value', and points out the immense difficulty of attempted reconcilements of the details given in these " Secondary Evidences " with the facts recorded by Saint Patrick himself in the " Primary Evidences " — namely, the Confessio and Epistle to Coroticus. He has marshalled these authorities with the utmost clearness of statement, the result, no doubt, of his legal Xxiv INTRODUCTION. training, wide knowledge of the subject, love of truth, and candour of mind. He thus sums up his labours : " The evidences, it is believed, are here somewhat more systematically marshalled. ... To judge of these elements of opinion, it was necessary that both sets of evidence should be before the reader, and they are now, it is believed for the first time, presented in one catenation." The prose portion of his work is, in short, a judicial summing up of evidence by a clear and competent judge. But the reader must undertake the responsibilities of the intelligent juryman. This is a task from which some may shrink, and for such it may be desirable to attempt some elucidation of these disputed points. The reader, familiar with the legends derived from later sources and the controversies grounded thereon, as to whether Saint Patrick visited Gaul, Lerins, Rome, &c, and received his commission from St. Germanus of Auxerre, or Bishop Amathorex, or Pope Ctdestine him- self, will do well to observe that the Confessio and Epistle to Coruticus afford no data on which to decide these questions. They contain but a casual allusion to Gaul and none whatsoever to Italy, nor are any of the above- named personages alluded to. The writer dwells, in the Confessio, on his attachment to his Irish converts and unwillingness to leave them, even although ) <; 'T\vere sweet To see one's country and one's kin again ; \ Or farther yet proceeding, even to Gaul, To see the brethren, and the faces see Of my Lord's saints, God knows I were right glad ! But in the Spirit am bound ; and He declares I were God's recreant did I leave them so. Moreover, truth it is, I would not lose The fruit of all my labour, well begun. Yet 'tis not I determine, but my Lord, He who commanded I should hither come, INTRODUCTION. XXV That here I should fulfil mv rest of days In serving them, and so methinks I shall." So that it seems almost implied that the apostle did not elect to leave Ireland, and this is the only passage in these, his undoubted writings, in which he refers to the possi- bility of a visit to Gaul. But he does refer to a second captivity subsequent to the six years of slavery from which he escaped in the ship which bore him from Ireland. He minutely describes the journey : " We forthwith sailed, and in a three days' run We took the land ; and eight and twenty days We crossed a desert after, where our food Failed, and keen hunger fell upon us all." In answer — as Saint Patrick believed — to his prayer, a drove of swine crossed their path, on which they fed. They also found wild honey in the wood. On that same night Saint Patrick suffered from, nightmare — a not un- natural result of the abundant meal of swine's flesh and honey partaken of under the circumstances recorded, but deemed by the sufferer to be a visitation of Satan, who, as " I lay sleeping, fell on me, as a mighty mass of rock might fall." But on his calling " Helias " with all his might, he saw the sun rise in the heavens, and adds : 11 I think 'Twas Christ my Lord who gave my cry for help, And sent His succour." And then, quoting from St. Matthew's Gospel, " It is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you," goes on to state : " Whereby again I suffered bondage after many years. Continuing till this day, from that first night." Sir Samuel Ferguson is of opinion that the " bondage " Saint Patrick " suffered " was a spiritual bondage. " It XXVI INTRODUCTION. was the first occasion," he writes, "on which he had experienced what he conceived to be the presence of an indwelling coercer of his will, to obedience to whose promptings all his subsequent life was to be conformed." This explanation seems fully warranted by the context, for in no other sense could the saint be described as en- during captivity " continuing till this day from that first night." He proceeds with his narrative, covering a period of two months, and concludes this portion of his personal history with the statement : " On the very night Following the sixtieth day, the Lord me freed Out of their hands. . . . And so once more, These few years passed, I found myself at home Amongst the Britons, with my family." It must also be borne in mind that the very earliest of the " Secondary Evidences " dates from nearly two centu- ries after Saint Patrick's death. The " Lives," as we have said, were compiled during a period which ranges from the sixth to the eleventh century. Their statements, which embody the traditions of an uncritical age, are often contradictory. The chief motive of their compilers was religious edification. A vast mass of mirabilia, investing the memory of the saint with powers he was far from claiming for himself, gradually grew up, obscur- ing the acts and the character of the central figure — a man noble from his modesty, simplicity, disinterestedness, and singleness of aim. Still, the fact that St. Patrick received deacon's orders, and consecration as a bishop, and would naturally require study and instruction to qualify him for his work, gives probability to the statements in these Secondary Evidences. And yet there are passages in his writings that imply that he lacked these qualifications, was unlearned and INTE.ODUCTIOX. XXVll ignorant, yet considered himself sent by God, though unrecognised by man. This is chiefly observable in his " Coroticus " Epistle. " I, Patrick — I, a sinner and unlearned, Here in Hibernia constituted bishop, Believe most surely that it is from God I hold commission to be that I am, A proselyte and pilgrim for His love, Here amongst savage peoples. He who knows All things, knows also if this be not so."' It is certain that objections to himself, and questionings as to his authority, had been made by " certain seniors r who " opposed his mission " and held his function "in small esteem." " Men much despise me," he said else- where, and quotes the text, " A prophet hath no honour in his own country." He does not ascribe this to malice on their part, but meekly says : " My wish did not commend itself to them, Bv reason, I confess, of my defect In learning." All this obviously applies to " seniors," not in Gaul, but in Britain. Still more touching is his allusion to a sin of his youth mourned and confessed by him, and, after the lapse of thirty years of his " toilsome, hard episcopate," brought up against him by those "seniors." The tone he us* sis most pathetic : " In my grief And pain of mind, I to my dearest friend Told what I in my boyhood, in one day, Yea, in one hour had done : because as yet I had not strength; I know not, Heaven knows, If, at that time, I yet had fifteen years. XXV111 INTRODUCTION. But I rather grieve For him, my dearest friend . . . my friend of friends, To whom I did confide my very soul." This unnamed friend seems to have been the one to whom he owed his rank as bishop. The scene is still Britain — not the Continent of Europe. His friend — " In that debate, wherein I had not part, Nor moved in it, nor was I then in Britain, Had in my absence battled bravely for me. Yea, he with his own mouth had said to me, " Behold, thou art deemed worthy of the grade Of bishop," though indeed unworthy I. "Whence comes it then, that he should afterwards, In presence of them all, both good and bad, Thus publicly degrade me, and deny What, unsolicited, of his own will, He gladly had conceded me before ? But God is over all : of this enough." This Ecclesiastical Council, Synod, or Conference — whatever may have been its title, seems to have had points of resemblance with the one spoken of in the Epistle to the Galatians, in which St. Paul — whose apostleship in a somewhat similar way seems to have been called in question, emphatically describes himself as " an Apostle not of man, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father," and adds, "When it pleased God to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the heathen ; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood." In like manner the Apostle of Ireland asserted Jus direct and divine commission : " Wherefore my thanks I render unto Him Who in all things has been my Comforter, That He impeded not my going forth Whereon. I had resolved, nor stayed the work Which my dear God had taught me I should do." INTRODUCTION. XXX It seems apparent that the writings of St. Patrick him- self give no countenance to the legends derived from the "Lives." The seventh, known as the "Tripartite," and dating from the 11th century, has recently been edited, with marvellous learning and rare erudition, by "Whitley Stokes, Esq., D.C.L., in the Master of the Rolls series Jlerum Britannicorum Medii Alvi Scriptores. The Irish Tripartite had previously been translated by the dis- tinguished Irish scholar, "W. H. Hennessy, Esq., M.R.I. A., and published in Miss Cusack's "Life of St. Patrick." In this, the latest work of Dr. Whitley Stokes, he gives a summary of the legendary matter contained in these "Lives," and in especial in the fifth Life, by Probus, as follows : "The kernel of fact in this story seems to be that Pat- rick returned to Ireland on, or soon after, his ordination as priest (say in a.d. 397), and without any commission from Borne; that he laboured for thirty years in convert- ing the pagan Irish, but met with little or no success ;| that he attributed this failure to the want of episcopal ordination and Roman authority ; that, in order to have these defects supplied, he went back to Gaul (say in A.D. 427), intending ultimately to proceed to Pome ; that he spent some time in study with Germanus of Anxerre ; that, hearing of the failure and death of Palladius, who had been sent on a mission to Ireland, by Pope Celesti- nus in A.D. 431, he was directed by Germanus to take at once the place of the deceased missionary ; that Patrick thereupon relinquished his journey to Pome, received episcopal consecration from a Gaulish bishop, Matorix, and returned a second time to Ireland, about the year 432, when he was sixty years old, as a missionary from the Gaulish Church, and supplied with Gaulish assistants and funds for his mission." The Secondary Evidences have been thus tabulated by Dr. Whitley Stokes. The late Dr. Todd, in his " St. XXX INTRODUCTION. Patrick Apostle of Ireland," and the late R,ev. J. Shearman, in his " Loca Patriciana," with other authors, came to the conclusion that there were two or more Patricks, and that the Acta must be assigned to more missionaries in Ireland than one. " It is plainly impossible," wrote Sir Samuel Ferguson on this topic of the Secondary Evidences, " to refer all these incidents, literally, as they stand recorded, to a single actor. The reader must either reject such of them as are too early and too late respectively, and refer the residue to the Patrick of popular belief, or else accept the alternative of allocating such of these as appear to stand on an historical basis amongst several Patricks. . . . With these aids a reasonably consistent account of the Patrick of the Secondary Evidences, in his youth, captivity, continental career, and Irish mission, might be constructed. But if this portraiture be compared with the Patrick of the Primary Evidences, amoral discrepancy, to some minds more embarrassing than any difficulty of date or person, has to be encountered. For, if the characters presented in the one set of proofs and in the other are to be reconciled, it must be by believing that a conscientious missionary, following in the track of an authorized predecessor, has arrogated to himself all the credit of what had been accomplished by Palladius, if not by Palladius and others ; and that a candid student, educated in the best schools of the west of Europe, should be found lamenting not only his want of learning, but his want of the opportunities of acquiring it." This moral difficulty remains, and is a formidable one. Is it possible to conceive that the simple, honest, earnest servant of God, and evangelizer of the Pagan Irish, whose attractive personality stands revealed in his Autobio- graphy, could have tacidly assumed for himself the credit of other workers in the missionary field ? Let the reader INTRODUCTIOX. XXXI bear in mind that the Primary Evidences — Lis script io sua — are one or two hundred years earlier in date than any of the "Lives," and six centuries older than the " Tripartite " Life, and judge accordingly of their rela- tive value as historic testimony. It remains only to refer to the scholars in our own day who have elucidated the early Christian history of Ire- land. The theme is a wide one — too wide fully to enter on here. Bat we may cite the honoured names of Petrie, Todd, and Shearman — no longer with us : of Reeves, Stokes, Hermessy, King, Olden, G. T. Stokes, in the paths of historic research; of Edwin, Earl of Dunraven, and Margaret Stokes, in art and architecture ; while in literature D'Arcy M'Gee, D. F. McCarthy — no longer with us — and Aubrey de Vere, happily still left to us, have found poetic inspiration in the lives of Ireland's Saints. M. C. FERGUSON. 20 Xorth Great George's Street, Dublix, August, 1888. THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. I. The additional material recently supplied to Patrician criticism invites to a review of the evidences, as they at present stand, bearing on the principal questions which have been raised regarding the writer of the Confessio Patricii and the Coroticus Epistle ; namely, as respects — («) his place of origin, (b) his career before entering on his Irish mission, and (c) his epoch in time. II. It is obvious, that in any general review of these evidences, the Canfrssio and Coroticus, as purporting to come from the hand of Patrick himself, ought to occupy the first place and be considered in their entirety ; because whatever, in subsequent evidences, may conflict either with their general tenor, or with particular facts vouched 10 THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. by them, must be esteemed of less authority. As between the two documents themselves, the Confessio, although probably later in date, yet, as containing the record of the earlier events in tho life of the writer, is given the pre- cedence. III. Assuming its authenticity, it is not only (next, perhaps, to the Coroticus) the oldest document in British history, but it affords a close and intimate view of the nature and mental disposition of one of the greatest of Christian missionaries. IV. The texts used are those of the Book of Armagh and of Fell, 1, in the Bodleian Library, very faithful copies of which are to be found in the Appendix to Part II. of the Facsimiles of National MSS. of Ireland. The Bodleian text, as well as other exemplars used by "Ware and the Bollandists, contains considerably more matter than is to be found in the older transcript in the Book of Armagh. But that transcript bears many internal evi- dences of abridgment; and there is nothing in the more copious matter of the other copies necessarily at variance with it, so far as it has come down to us. The translation, THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. 11 therefore, has been grounded on both, distinguishing those parts not found in the Book of Armagh by technical indications, but preserving the continuity of the united texts. Both texts are more or less corrupt and defective — the Bodleian one exceedingly so. In neither of them can reliance be placed on the punctuation ; and the divisions of sentences and paragraphs have to be adjusted to the apparent contexture of the writer's thoughts. Most of these blemishes have, no doubt, arisen from the careless- ness of copyists; but the generally ungrammatical form and inartificial sequences of the composition are due, I would suppose, to the writer's imperfect knowledge and difficult use of the Latin language, to which he himself bears repeated testimony. V. A literal prose translation, reflecting all the discon- tinuances and hesitancies of the original, would indeed repel most readers from the necessary task of collecting the general sense and bearing of the whole piece, and would scarcely at all realize the intense pervading fervor and — however obstructed in its utterances— the charac- teristic effusiveness of the original. To convey these in English prose would require something more in the 12 THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. nature of a free paraphrase, which would not be an acceptable constituent in a critical essay. What appears to me a less repellent and more exact form in which to present the piece, as combining literalness with suitability for the expression of that fervent and effusive feeling which underlies its broken Lalinity, is a close version in English blank verse. That even rhymed English verse may rival the closest prose in conciseness, we may see in the "Essay on Man," the " Rdigio Laid," and other poems in our language. Blank verse, untramelled by the necessities of rhyme, holds to the word and thought still closer. Indeed, no prose could, without affectation, admit such closeness as is allowable and congenial to this medium of translation. No translation, however, whether prose or metrical, can dispense with the very words of the original where questions of meaning are involved; but these are as easy to be cited in foot notes, in the one presentation of the general context as in the other. VI. Translation from one language into another is often like the natural process of freezing — the product exceeding in bulk the producing material. But in English translation from Latin, this need not be so. The number THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. 13 of words must indeed be greater, but the whole verbal bulk may be, and in the present instance will be found to be, less. In the Latin, which expresses by inflections what we in English accomplish by the use of auxiliary particles, fewer words suffice, but these greatly exceed their English equivalents "in syllabic length. Thus, in the Latin version of the Lord's Prayer there are but forty-nine words as against fifty-five in the English version ; but the latter has only seventy-four syllables in its fifty-five words as against one hundred and three syllables in the forty- eight words of the former. VII. A version from the Latin, keeping within these limits, may be accepted as possessing the closeness of literal prose ; and English blank verse need not exceed them, and may yet retain enough of freedom to reflect an original conceived with loftiness and energy. The version of the Confessio here presented will be found to come within the limits I have indicated. I believe it contains nothing that is not found in the original, and omits nothing of any materiality that is there found. It is a long time since a communication so entirely within the department of Polite Literature has been read before the 14 THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. Academy; but in the intervals of scientific and antiquarian discovery we shall not in any degree be outside our privileged pursuits, or wanting in duty to the other objects which they are designed to promote, if we occa- sionally addict ourselves to what our fathers have, I may be allowed to say, wisely designated the Litterce Human- iores. VIII. THE "CONFESSIO" OF SAINT PATRICK. [The passages ending with (A) are from the Armagh Codex ; those ending with (B) are from the Bodleian.] {Before A.J). 500). I, Patrick, sinner, most unlearned of all The Faithful, and of many most despised, Had, for my father, Deacon Calphurn, son Of Presbyter Potitus, of a place 5 Called Bannow of Tabernia, near whereto He owned his country dwelling ; and 'twas there I suffered capture, then not full sixteen. I knew not the true God ; and, led away Into captivity, w 7 ith thousands more, 10 Was brought to Ireland — fate too well deserved. For we from God had far withdrawn ourselves ; We kept not His commandments ; and our priests, Who urged salvation on us, heeded not ; And God upon us justly brought the wrath 15 Of His up-rousing, and dispersed us forth Amongst the heathen, to the world's far end, Here, where my Littleness may now be seen 'Mongst strangers; here, wdiere God set free the sense Receptive in my heart of unbelief, 20 That, even late, I should recall my sins, And turn myself with all my heart to Him, The Lord, who did regard my Smallness then ](> THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. With pity for my youth and innocence ; Who, ere I knew Him, had me in His charge ; 25 Yea, ere I knew to choose 'twixt good and ill, Admonished me and gave me consolation, As father might a son. And, therefore, now I will not hide, nor could I, were it fit To hide, such boons, such graces, as my Lord 30 Has deigned me here in my captivity. And this my poor return ; that having attained The touch and apprehension of my God, I should with high exalted heart, in face Of all that lives below all skies, confess 3a That other God nor was, nor is, nor shall be, Save but the Lord, the Father unbegotten, Without beginning, out of whom proceeds Every beginning ; He who in His hand Holds all things as aforesaid ; and His Son 40 Our Lord Christ Jesus, who, we do confess, Was with the Father ere the worlds began ; Begotten of the Father spiritually, In wise unspeakable, ere aught made was. By Him were all things made, things visible Ab And things invisible. He was made Man, And, conquering death, returned again to heaven. And God gives Him all power o'er every name Of things in earth and heaven and things in hell, That every tongue may own that Jesus Christ 50 Is Lord and God, in whom we do believe And wait His coming when He shall be judge Of living and of dead ; who shall repay To each according to his deeds ; and He It is who pours on us abundantly *>5 The gift and comfort of the Holy Spirit And certain hope of immortality ; THE CONFESSIO. 17 "Who makes the well-believing and obedient Sons of the Father, co-heirs with Himself, Christ, whom we do confess and do adore, 60 One God in Trinity of holy name. Now He Himself has, by His prophet, said : Call upon Me in tribulation? s day, And 1 ivill free, and thou shalt sound My praise. And said again : To show forth and confess 65 The works of God is very honourable. Therefore, though but ill-taught in many things, I would my brethren and my friends to know What kind I am, and that they may behold The very thought that rises in my soul. 70 I not ignore the witness that my Lord Doth witness by the Psalmist : They that speak Lies shall ye lose ; nor, yet again, The mouth That lies, shall lose his soul ; and our said Lord Saith in the Gospel thus : The idle word 75 Men use, for it each soid that lives shall give Account and reckoning at the Judgment Day. So me with fear and trembling it behoves To dread the doom of liars, in that same day When none can draw aside or hide himself, 80 But all must yield account, yea, of the least Of all their faults before the chair of Christ. Wherefore long time I've had in mind to write, But up to now abstained me ; for I feared Lest I should fall in censure of men's tongues : 85 Because I have not read as others have, Who, excellently versed in civic law* *" Excellently versed in Civic law : " Qui optime itaque jure et saeras literas utroque pari modo combiberunt, with the annotation in margin Ineertus liber hie. B 18 THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. And sacred letters, in a like degree, Have never since their childhood changed their speech, But rather made it perfecter by use ; 30 Whereas this speech and utterance of mine Is here transformed into another tongue ; And, by the savour of the style I use, 'Tis easy to be judged how I've been taught * And trained in diction. As the Wise One saith, 95 Sense, knowledge, and the doctrine of the truth Shoiu by the tongue. But what avails excuse Beside the fact ? when here ye all may judge The actual way in which, in my old age, I strive at what, in youth, I never learned. 100 For then my sins obstructed. I was still, When captured, but a lad, a beardless boy, That knew not what to seek or what to shun. Therefore to-day it shames me to disclose My ignorance ; because I have not learned 105 With brevity and elegance of speech. To treat deep things, as, how the Spirit moves The soul's affections and the human mind. But were it given me, as it is to some, I would not long be slow to sing His praise, 110 Even though to some perchance in this I seem Presumptuous, with my rude and stammering tongue. Yet it is written that the stammering tongue. Shall yet be sivift to speak the words of peace. * " How I've been taught : " Sicut facile potest probari ex aline [ex salivu] scripturae meae qualiter sum ego in sermonibus instructus atque eruditus, would be nearer the drift of the original if expressed : " 'Tis easy to be judged what kind of school I've been brought up in." Sum ego = ta me, in the Irish. THE COXFESSIO. 19 How much the more, then, lies that charge on us 115 Who, Christ's Epistles, to the world's far ends Bear word of His salvation ; not, indeed, Learned words, but words of power writ in our hearts, Not with pen-ink, but by the Spirit of God. Yea and again that Spirit testifies 120 Unlearning also comes from the Most High. Wherefore I, chief and first of the unlearned, God's runaway, untaught, who nothing know How to provide the morrow, surely know This, that, before my happy humbling came, 125 I was as is a stone that, in deep mire, Lies on the highway : and He came, who can, And, in His pity, thence did lift me up And set me on the wall-tox^. Therefore I Will now be bold and eager-prompt to pay 130 The tribute of my praises to the Lord Who has bestowed His everlasting boons So great on me as pass the mind of man. Wherefore all ye who fear the Lord, admire, Both great and small ; and ye, ye great and learned, 135 Lords of the land, and Rhetoricians, Hear aud enquire, who was it raised me up, Me, foolish me, from midst of them esteemed Wise men and law-learned, and in power of speech, As in all else, prepotent, and inspired 110 Me, even me, the butt of this world's scorn, Above the rest, to be what now I am Here, whilst at least with fear and reverence Faithful in heart and uncomplainingly I serve this people, to whom the clarify 145 Of Christ assigns me, for my rest of life, If I be worthy ; that, with humble heart And truthful lips, I teach it, in the faith 20 THE PATRICIAN" DOCUMENTS. And measure of the Holy Trinity. Behoves me, therefore, fearless of rebuke 150 Or danger, that I do set forth the gift And everlasting consolation Of God ; and fearlessly declare His name Abroad where'er I be : that also, so, After my death, I leave, as my bequest * 155 Amongst the children of my baptism, These many thousands. Not, indeed, that I Was worthy that my Lord his servant poor Should so far favor, after all the toils, The hardships heavy, and the captive years 160 Borne 'niongst this people ; — should bestow such grace As, till I came to Ireland, t I nor knew Nor ever hoped. But, herding daily here, And often in the day saying my prayers, Daily there more and more did grow in me 1()5 The fear of God. And holy fear and faith Increased in me, that in a singla day I've said as many as a hundred prayers, And in the night scarce fower ; so that oft In woods and on the mountain I've remained, 170 And risen to prayer before daylight, through snow, Through frost, through rain, and yet I took no ill, Nor was there in me then aught slow as now, For then the Spirit of God within me burned. And there it was, one night, in sleep, I heard 175 A voice that said to me : " Thou fastest well * "Bequest:" Ex agallias ; the word divided so between end of one line and beginning' of another. Exagalliae — Du Canoe. t " 'Till I came to Ireland 'J' quod ego in iuuentute mea nunquam speraui neqae cogitaui sed postquam in hiberione deueneram : where sed, as in line 231, post, seems to bo used in the sense of the Irish acht=.uisi. THE CONFESSIO. 21 That soon shalt see thy land and home again." Soon after which, again, I heard the voice, And this is what it said : " Behold thy ship Is ready," but the ship lay nowise near, 180 But nigh two hundred miles off, and where I Had never been before, and no man knew. So, thereupon, I turned myself to flight, Leaving* the man whom I had served six years ; And by the help of God, who showed me wellf 1S5 The way to go, nought dreading, found the ship. But it, before I came, had left its place And lay elsewhere. I craved to go on board. My suit displeased the Master : with harsh speech He answered me, " Thou shall not come with us." 190 Which when I heard, I left them there, to reach My hut wherein I lodged, and as I went Began to pray. Before my prayer was done, I heard one of them calling after me, " Come, for in faith we did receive thee ; come, 195 Make friendship with us in what way thou wilt." And so, that day, 1 did make friends with them, Out of God's fear, and for, besides, I hoped To hear them yet say, " Come, in faith of Christ." For Heathens were they. So I clave to them. 200 We forthwith sailed, and, in a three days' run, W r e took the land ; and eight and twenty days We crossed a desert, after : where our food Failed, and keen hunger fell upon us all. Then one day, said the Master thus to me, * " Leaving the man:" intermisi hominem. "I separated from the man," as if the thought expressed in this singular use of inter mil to had been conceived in some form of the Irish etar-scairim, that is, inter-separo. t "Well," ad bonam, as in the Irish go maith. 22 THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. 205 " "What, Christian, you who say your God is great, Good, and Almighty, why not pray for us Who perish here of hunger, where the face Of men is hardly seen ? " Then I spoke thus Before them all : " Turn ye your sinful hearts : 210 Convert you to the Lord my God, to whom. Nought is impossible, that He, this day, Send you whereof ye yet may eat your fill ; For all things everywhere abound with Him." God aiding, so it was. Behold, a drove 215 Of swine came on the road before our eyes. Many they slew ; two nights we tarried there Well nourished, and our dogs filled full : for they Were semi-starved, and many left we there Half dead beside the way. Then praise to God 220 All gave, and I much honour in their sight Obtained, and thenceforward, abundantly Fared we. Wild honey also in the wood Found they, and offered of it, and one said, " 'Tis sacrificial ; taste." I tasted none ; 225 For which, thank God. Ou that same night I lay Sleeping, when Satan sorely troubled me, As well I shall remember, for as long As in this mortal body I shall be. He fell upon me, as a mighty mass 230 Of rock might fall, so that in all my limbs Remained not but so much* of power as brought Into my mind the thought to cry, " Helias." With which word in my mouth, I saw the sun Rise in the heavens; and while I cried, " Helias," 235 With all my might, its radiance fell on me, * "But so much :" et nihil membrorum praeualens sed unde mihi ueuit in spiritum ut heliam uocarem. Sed=acht=znisi, as in page. THE CONFESSIO. 23 And banished all my torpor : and I think 'Twas Christ, my Lord, who gave my cry for help, And sent His succour. Even so, I hope, 'Twill be hereafter, in the dreadful day 240 Of my last pressure. And the Gospel says (A), In that day testifies the Lord Himself, The Spirit of the Father it is that speaks Within you (B), not yourselves. (Whereby) again I suffered bondage,* after many years 245 Continuing till this day, from that first night. And so remained I in their company, But heard the same voice I had heard before Say, " Two full months shalt thou abide with them." And so it was : for, on the very night 250 Following the sixtieth day, the Lord me freed Out of their hands. He gave us food and fire, Daily dry weather too, till, at the last, Upon the tenth day, when we all arrived, — Days eight and twenty in the desert spent, 255 As is above said f — there remained to us * " Again I suffered bondage : " sicut in (Buangelio inquit dominus non uos estis (A), qui loquimini sed spiritus patris uestri qui loquitur in nobis et iterum post annos (B) multos adhuc capturam dedi ea node prima (A). A passage of great obscurity, here brought into the apparent sequence of the narrative by the introduced "whereby." The subject, too long to discuss in a note, is examined in par. xxix., post. 1* "As is above said:" node ilia sexagessima liberauit me dominus de manibus eorum etiam in itlnere prceuidit nobis cibum et ignem et siccitatem cotidie donee x. decimo die periunimus omnes sicut super ias insimiaui xx. et viii. disertum iterfecimns et ea node qua peruenimus, &c. To whichever antecedent the words of reference sicut superius insinuaui relate, it is evident that the twenty-eight days in the desert were part of one continuous journey {post, xxx.), commencing at the Irish shore, and ending at Patrick's home in Brittanis. The discrepancy in numbers is, no doubt, due to errors of transcription. 24 THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. No morsel left of food ; and (so), * once more, These few years passed, I found myself at liome Amongst the Britons f with my family, "Who all received me as they might a son, 260 And earnestly besought me, that at length After these many perils I had borne, I never more would leave them. It was there In a night vision I beheld a man Coming as 'twere from Ireland. Victor he. 265 Innumerable letters bore he : one He gave to me to read. I read one line, ' ' The voices of the Irish,' ' so it ran. And while I read, meth ought I heard the cry Of them that by the wood of Focluth dwell, 270 Beside the Western Ocean, saying thus, " Come, holy youth, and walk amongst us. Come ! " All with one voice. It touched me to the heart, And I could read no more ; and so awoke — thank God at last who, after many years, 275 Ha^ given to them according to their cry ! And, on another night, I know not, I, God knows, if 'twas within me or without, One prayed with words exceeding exquisite I could not understand, till, at the close, 280 He spoke in this wise — " He who gave his soul For thee, is He Avho speaks." I woke with joy. And once I saw Him — praying, as it were Within me, and I saw myself as though * "So," introduced as "whereby," above. + " Amongst the Britons : " in Britannis as in the Irish gloss on Fiacc, in bretnaib. TIIE CONFESSIO. 25 Within myself, and over me, that is 285 Over the inner man, I heard Him pray- Strongly with urgent groans, myself the while Amazed, and wondering who should pray in me, Till, at the very ending of his prayer, He showed, a bishop.* I awoke and called 290 To memory what His apostle says — The Spirit helps the weakness of our prayer ; For when we pray, and know not as we ought What to pray for, the Spirit Himself doth pray For us with groanings inexpressible 295 Not to he put in words. And yet again, The Lord our Advocate doth plead for us (A). And when t some certain of my seniors came Against my toilsome, hard episcopate, And made impeachment of me for my sins, o00 In that day truly I was tempted sore To fall both now and everlastingly. But the Good Lord, for His name's sake, did spare His proselyte and pilgrim, so as I Out of that treading-under came not ill 305 With stain and shame upon me. I pray God It be not made occasion to themselves "He showed, a bishop :" Sic efficiattis est ut sit episcopus. It might be conjectured to be mistranscription for sic effatns est ut sis episcopus ; but the internal presence of the great bishop of souls seems more consistent with the context. + " And when:" Et quando temptatus sum ab aliquantis senioribus meis qui venerunt . . . contra laboriosutn episcopatum meum. When ? "Where ? Whence did the seniors come ? and was the episcopate prospective or subsisting ? The answers to these questions depend in great measure on the terminus a quo from which the thirty years, next mentioned, are to be computed. 26 THE PAT1UCTAN DOCUMENTS. Of sin. They found me, after thirty years,* To charge me with one word I had confessed Before I was a deacon. In my grief 310 And pain of mind I to my dearest friend Told what I in my boyhood, in one day, Yea, in one hour had done : — because as yet I had not strength : I know not, Heaven knows, If, at that time, I yet had fifteen years. — 315 I had not yet believed the living God Even from my childhood; but remained in death And unbelief till sore chastised I was By hunger, nakedness, and enforced toil Daily in Ireland, — for I came not here 320 Self-sent — until, indeed, I almost sank. Yet these were rather boons to me, because, So chastened by the Lord, I now am made What once was far from me, that I should care Or labour for the weal of others, I 325 Who then took no thought even for myself. On whicn same day when these my elder ones Eebuked me (B), in a vision of the night, I saw a script against me,f and no name * "After thirty years : " Post annos triginta invenerunt me. If the terminus a quo be referred to the commission of the fault, invenerunt must be read as in the sense of moral detection, which is difficult. If read as in the ordinary sense of finding out topically, the terminus should apparently be referred to Patrick's departure on this Irish mission. But see post, 1, 419. ■f " I saw a script against me : " vidi in vissu noctis seriptum erat contra facem meam sine honore et inter haec audiui responsum dicentem male audiuimus [scripto contra] faciem designati nudato nomine. A most difficult passage, not helped by the corres- ponding Bodleian text. Contra faciem is perhaps the Irish in agaid " adversum ; " and, in that sense, the passage may be made to bear the meaning it has in the version, by introducing the two words in brackets, but otherwise seems hopelessly obscure. For male audio, in the sense given, seethe examples in I'acciolati, " audio." THE CONFESSIO. 27 Of honor written, and, the while, I heard 330 That voice within make answer, " We are here Ill-styled by name stripped bare of dignity." It was not ' k Thou art here ill-styled," it said, But " we," as if the Speaker joined himself Tncorporately with me, and the voice 335 Were His who once said, Whoso toucheth thee, Toucheth as Hivere the apple of mine eye. Wherefore my thanks I render unto Him Who in all things hath been my comforter, That He impeded not my going forth 340 Whereon I had resolved, nor stayed the work Which my dear God had taught me I should do : Nay, rather felt I as from Him new strength Infused. And so before both God and man My faith was proved, wherein I boldly say 345 My conscience reprehends me in no wise, Now, nor yet will. I take to witness God I have not lied relating what I heard In these communings (A). But I rather grieve For him, my dearest friend, that we should need 350 To hear such answer* given— my friend of friends To whom I did confide my very soul — And certain brethren had advertised me That he, before that inhibition made.f In that debate wherein I had not part 355 Nor moved I it, nor was I then in Britain- Had in my absence battled bravely for me. Yea, he with his own mouth had said to me, " Behold, thou art deemed worthy of the grade * " Hear such answer:" Cur hoc meruimus asidire tale responswn, referring apparently to "we are here ill-styled," supra. •J- " Before that inhibition : " ante dcfensionem Mam. 28 THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. Of Bishop ; " though indeed unworthy I. 360 Whence comes it, then, that he should afterwards, In presence of them all, both good and bad, Thus publicly degrade me, and deny What, unsolicited, of his own will, He gladly had conceded me before ? 3G5 But God is over all : of this enough. No ; I must (not) conceal* the gift of God Which, in this land of my captivity, He hath bestowed me, which with earnest quest I sought for and here found. He me hath saved 370 From all unrighteousness; and I believe By reason of the indwelling comity, And trust in Him which, even to this day Doth work within me audibly, t He knows Were these man's voices. Had they been, belike 375 Christ's charity had made me hold my peace. Therefore unwearied thanks I render Him Who kept me faithful in temptation's hour, That I to-day should live to offer up Myself a living sacrifice to Him, 380 My Saviour, my Preserver. Well may I Say, Lord, what am I, or my calling what That with such favor, with such aid divine Thou hast environed and uplifted me, As daily I amongst the Gentiles rise 385 Higher and higher, whilst I glorify Thy name where'er I be. Whate'er befalls Happy or wretched, good or ill, the same I deem ; and equally for it thank Thee With thanks perpetual for that Thou hast shown * " I must (not) conceal:" Sed tamen dcbeo absconder e : non omitted in text ? + " Audibly," nudimicr. TIIE CONFESSIO. 390 Him the most sure indubitable One, In whom I may believe for ever ; Him Who will for ever hear me. So, too, I, In these last days, though ignorant, may dare Address me to a work so holy-good, 395 So wondrous, as may even make parity 'Twixtme and them, who, He himself foretold Should bear His joyful message, witnessing Him to all people, ere the world should end. And we do witness here, the Gospel now 400 Is preached so far as no man is beyond (B). 'Twere long, in whole or part, to tell my toils, Or how the Almighty One did oft release Me from enslavement; aud from perils twelve, "Wherein my life was ventured ; and from snares, 405 The which I cannot put in words. 'Twere ill Too much to tax my reader where I have The Author's self within, who all things knows, , Even before they happen, as He knows Me, his poor pupil. And for that it is 410 The voice divine doth oft admonish me : "Whence came this wisdom to me who had none, Nor knew the number of my days nor Him ? "Whence came this knowledge and this heart's delight In this His gift so great, so salutary, 415 That, for its sake, I well contented left Country and kin ? And many were the gifts They offered me with yearning and with tears. And certain of my seniors, too, made known Their disapproval ; * but with the help of God * " Their disapproval." If this be the same opposition of the seniors above related (1.297), and again in more geneial terms referred to, post (]. 556-60), it should be deemed to have preceded Patrick':'* mission, whatever difficulty that construc- tion might aitail in interpreting' invenerunt. 29 30 THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. 420 In no way did I yield them my consent : — Not mine the grace ; but God it was in me, Who conquered through me and withstood them all, That I might come to preach His Gospel here To the Hibernian people, that I here 425 Should suffer the contempts of unbelievers Should hear derision of my embassage, And many persecutions, even to chains, Endure ; nay, even my own patrician grade Forfeit for others' good. And if I be 4o0 But worthy to do somewhat for His name, Ready I am, this hour, with all my heart, To yield Him service, even to my death, Who this grace does me that, through means of me, Much people is re-born to God, confirmed, 435 And clerks ordained for their instruction, New coming to the faith from earth's far ends, And gathered to the Lord, even as, of old, He promised by His prophet, They shall come From outmost ends of earth ; and also says, 440 Our fathers got them idols, and therein Had nothing profitable ; and again This also : / have set thee as a light To light the Gentile, that thou shoal dst make safe Even to the ends of earth. And here I wait 445 To see fulfilled His words, who ne'er deceived, As promised in the Gospel, — They shall come From east and west, and sit down side by side With Abraham and with Isaac and with Jacob. Even so do we believe from all the world 450 The faithful come. Behoves it, therefore, we Fish well and diligently, as the Spirit says, Come after Me that I may make of you Fishers of men ; and, by His prophet, again, THE CONFESSIO. 31 Behold, of fishermen and hunters keen 455 I send a multitude; so saith the Lord. Et cmtera* Whereby it much behoves We spread our nets in such wise as a shoal And multitude be taken ; and that clerks Be everywhere at hand who may baptize 400 The hastening crowd, even as our good Lord saith In His evangel, Going, therefore, forth, Teach ye all nations, and, the same baptize In name of Father, Son, and. Holy Ghost, Teaching them to observe ivhat things soe'er 4G5 I have commanded ; and, lo, I myself Am with you till the final consummation Of all things ; and again says, Going forth Into the whole world, preach ye my evangel To every creature living. Who believes 470 And is baptized, is safe. Who not believes, He. shall be damned f (A). And He again says thus : The gospel of my kingdom shall be preached To the whole world ; and witness shall be made To all the nations, and then conies the end. 475 Likewise our Lord doth by His prophet say, Lo, in the latter days, thus saith the Lord, I shall pour forth my Spirit on all flesh. Your sons and daughters they shall, prophesy, Your youths see visions, and old men dream dreams. 480 And on your servants and your handmaidens * " Et ccetera : " Probably an indication of abridgment (iv. supra). fThe words " reliqua sunt exempla" here occur in the Armagh Codex, left untranslated, as being* probably the language of the scribe, indicating abridgment from a fuller text. 32 THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. In thf.se days shall 1 pour my Spirit, and they Shall prophesy. And also Hosee says, Her will I call my people who was not My people, and on her will pity take 485 On whom I took not pity ; and in the place Wherein 'twas said no people of mine are ye, There shall they yet he called the sons of God (B). Whence now the Irish, who, in former days, Had but their idols and their rites unclean, 490 Nor aught knew of the Lord, have late become The Lord's own people. And the sons of Scots And daughters of their kings, now sons of God Are counted, and vowed handmaidens of Christ (A). And one biess'd Scotic lady nobly born, 495 A most fair person whom myself baptized, Came, soon thereafter, making her report Of intimation by a messenger Sent her from God with His admonishment That virgin she should live and nearer Him. 500 In six days after, — thank the Lord for it, — With excellent observance she assumed The grade desired of all Christ's handmaidens : Not at their parents' bidding. They from them Suffer reproach and persecution, 505 Yet, notwithstanding, still the number grows Of those of our kind daily born to us I know not, I, how many they are, besides Widows and women continent ; of whom They chiefly suffer who, in bondage held, 510 Bear threats and terrors : yet they persevere, And God to many of them grants the grace That, if but in a little, earnestly They follow His example. Whence it comes Should I now care to leave them, going forth THE CONFESSIO. ;j:j 515 It may be into Britain,* sure 'twere sweet To see one's country and one's kin again : Or farther yet proceeding, even to Gaul, To see the brethren, and the faces see Of my Lord's saints, God knows I were right glad, 520 But in the Spirit am bound : and He declares I were God's recreant did I leave them so. Moreover, truth it is, I would not lose The fruit of all my labour well begun. Yet 'tis not I determine, but my Lord, 525 ' He who commanded I should hither conic*, That here I should fulfil my rest of days In serving them : and so methinks I shall : Albeit but little trust I in myself, Clad in this body of death, for he is strong 530 "Who daily struggles to subvert my faith, And turn me from the unfeigned chastity I'll keep, God helping, till my days do end. The flesh indeed still draws us down to death, And snares of lawless pleasure ; and I lmow 535 In part the reason why I cannot live The perfect life His other faithful souls Achieve ; but to my good Lord I avow I blush not at His searching of my heart ; For since I first did know Him in my youth, 540 His love and fear have ever grown in me, And I, He helping, still have kept the faith. Let him who will, then, laugh : let him who will, Scoff. I shall not keep silence, nor conceal *" Going 1 forth ; it may be into Britain, &c. :" tit pergens in britanniis et libentissime paraius eram quasi ad patriam et parentes non id solum sed usque gallias usilare fi aires et, ut uiderem t'aciem sanctorum dominl mei. In some of the MSS. the words are fratres meos. a 34 TIIE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. The signs and marvels ministered to me 64.5 Of God, who knoweth all things many years Before they are ; yea, from before all time. Wherefore ought I unintermittingly Give thanks to Him that He did so indulge My ignorance and sloth, not once but oft ; bbO And not as with an object of just wrath Dealt with me, but as with His yoke-fellow, Though slow I was to learn the part enjoined, And by the Spirit shown ; who pitied me 'Mongst thousand thousands other ; for He saw bob That I was willing-ready, but knew not In what way to bear witness : for they all* Opposed my mission, and, behind my back, Did prate and say, " This one, forsooth, would put His life in jeopardy 'mongst enemies, 5G0 Who of the Lord know nothing," not as though They spoke in malice : but, indeed, because My wish did not commend itself to them, By reason, I confess, of my defect In learning. And I did not recognise 0G0 At once the grace that then was in me — grace Now efficacious as it then had been, Had I been as I ought. Thus simply, then, Brethren and fellow servants in the Lord Who have believed with me, I've told to you oTO How it has come to pass that, for the sake Of strengthening and confirming you in faith, I have preached, and still do, hoping we all May yet rise higher. That be my reward ! Because the wise son is his father's glory. "They all:" See ante 1. 419. THE COXFESSIO. . 35 575 You know, and God knows, what way from my youth I have conversed amongst you, in the faith Of truthfulness and singleness of heart : That to the people I do dwell amongst I have declared the faith, and so do still. 580 God knows that I no man of them in aught Have circumvened, nor, for the sake of Him And of His Church, will ever ; nor provoke In them, or anyone, unch-arity, « Whereby the name of God may be blasphemed 585 In me, for it is written, Wo to him By whom the name of God shall be blaspheme!. And, unlearned though I be in skill of words, Yet have I striven in some poor sort to serve My Christian brethren and Christ's handmaidens, 590 And pious women who of their free will Did oft bestow me gifts, and on mine altar Cast of their jewels, which I still returned, Though thereby they were grieved : and, for the hope Of life eternal, have so led my life, 595 Here with them, so on guard, as none may find In any tittle of my ministry Cause of offence, nor let my smallest act Afford occasion to the infidel To sully or diminish my good fame. 600 Think ye, where I such thousands have baptized, I took from any of them, in recompense, But half a scruple. Tell me when, or where ? I will return it. Yea, where God ordained Through my weak ministry these many Clerks, 605 Gratis I gave them orders. If I asked Of any to the value but of my shoe, Tell me : I will repay it you and more. 'Twas rather I who spent my worldly wealth 3G THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. On you, amongst you, wheresoe'er I went, 610 In your behalf, through perils manifold, So far as no man was beyond, nor there Had ever come who might give baptism, Ordain a clergy, or confirm the flock. God aiding, I did, with most willing mind 615 And diligent affection to your weal, Defray it all. Sometimes I fee'd the kings, In that I fee'd their sons who gave convoy To guard us all from capture. In one day They sought, indeed, to slay me ; but my time G20 Was not yet come. But all the goods they found Upon us they bore off, and me myself Kept bound with iron, till, the fourteenth day. The Lord did lose me from their power ; and all Our goods were given us back, for the Lord's sake, 625 And sake of our conductors. You vourselves Have knowledge what gratuities I spent On them that did administer the law Throughout the regions I most visited. I think not less than fee of fifteen men 630 I did disburse amongst them, all, that you Might me enjoy, and I again in you Have manifold enjoyment in the Lord. Nor grudge I it, nor count it yet enough. Lo, I still spend, and still will further spend, 635 Happy if He, who can, shall yet allow That for your sakes I even may spend my soul (B). I call to witness God I do not lie, Nor write as seeking opportunity Of lucre or of flattery or reward ' 640 Of praise. That honour is enough for me Which is not seen, but in the heart believed (A). But He who promised never lies (B). I see THE CONFESSIO. ' 3" Myself, iii this my generation, Beyond degree exalted by my Lord, G45 Unworthy though I am, nor such as He Might deign so favour. For I surely know That poverty and plainness fit me more Than luxury and riches. Christ our Lord Was also poor for us. I poorer still, G50 For. should I crave for wealth, I have it not. Nor j udge I now myself : for daily now I look to find my death by violence, Or, captive, to be sold to slavery, Or some such end : (A) but none of these I fear, 055 Having assurance of His promises, For I have cast me in the hands of God Who governs all things, and his prophet saith, Cast thou thy burden on the Lord, and Re Will aid thee. Yes, I do commend my soul G60 To my most faithful God whose embassage I here discharge, howe'er unworthily. For He respects not persons, but did choose Me to this office, that, amongst the crowd Of His ambassadors, I might be least. 665 What shall I render back to Him for all His benefits conferred on me ? What say Or promise to Him when I plainly see I nothing have unless He gives it me, Yea, though I search the heart and reins. Enough, 670 k More than enough I count it, well content, ( If He but give me that I drink His cup As granted other claimants of His love ; But never, never let me lose the flock He pastures by me in earth's outland here ! 675 God grant me that ! And that I persevere In faithful witness to my journey's end. And if, for His sake. I have ought of good 38 THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. Accomplished, for His love, T pray Him grant That with His captives and His proselytes, 680 Even for His name's sake I may shed my blood, Be it without my dues of burial, Yea, though this wretched body and these limbs Be torn asunder by devouring dogs, Wild beasts, or fowls of heaven. I surely know 685 Did this befall me, I should so enrich My soul with my poor body ; and I know Clad in our bodies we shall all arise In that day, in the brightness of the sun, To wit, in glory of Lord Jesus Christ, 690 Our dear Eedeemer, rise as sons of God, And co-heirs with Himself, conformable To His own image as it then shall be. For this sun, which we see, doth daily rise At God's commandment; but God so ordains 695 It shall not always rise, nor shall its light Endure for ever. It shall fade, and they That worship it shall perish : but, for us "We do believe and worship the true Sun, Chiist, which shall never perish, nor shall He 700 Who doth His will, but shall endure for ever, As Christ Himself, who, in the heaven of heavens, Reigns with the Father and the Holy Ghost Now and for everlastingly — Amen. Again and yet again I iterate 705 My brief words of Confession, and declare In truth, and in uplifting of the heart, Before my God and His most holy angels, That other object never did I look to In coming back* again amongst this people, * "In coming back : " Utunquam redderem [redirem] agentem [ad genteni] Mam; Unde antem prim uix euaseram. A good example of the corrupt state of the Bodleian text. THE CONFESSIO. 39 710 From whom so hardly I escaped before, Save but the Evangel and His promises (B). And now beseech all them that do believe And fear the Lord, whoe'er they be shall deign Look on this writing or receive the same 715 "Which sinner Patrick, I, the much-unlearned, Have writ in Ireland, that no man may say My Ignorance it was dictated aught, If any aught of good be therein seen Such as may pleasure God, but rather deem 720 For certain that it doth proceed from Him. And this is my Confession e'er I die (A). IX. The first impression made by this narrative as re- gards Patrick's place of origin, certainly is, that Bannow Tabernise was in insular Britain; because in speaking of his desire to revisit his family from Ireland (viii. 518-24), he puts Gaul beyond them. The first impression also is that no great length of time elapsed between his Call and his proceeding on his mission ; and that the intermediate time was spent in Britain ; because he thanks God for not having impeded him in going forth (ib. 340) on his mission to the Irish (ib. 422), notwithstanding the opposition of his family and seniors, which struggle, commencing in Britain, appears to have been continuous and presumably carried on in one place. The only intimation of epoch is, vaguely, that it was in Christian times, and while a well- settled Church-organization existed in that part of Britain in which his family were settled. 40 THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. X. Besides these probable matters of fact, and the lively traits of Patrick's personal character which it fur- nishes, the Confessi o intimates that on some occasion— the place of which is not distinctly specified— he had experi- enced an injurious opposition against his "laborious episcopate," then seemingly in course of prosecution, when some personal title of distinction was withheld from him in what may be inferred to have been an ecclesiastical script (viii. 279-44), and that at some previous time, he not then being in Britain, his conduct, apparently in reference to episcopal functions had been the subject of discussion in some assemblage, probably synodical, in that country {io. 348-59). XI. The Coroticus Epistle is not found with the Con- fessio in the Book of Armagh ; but while the Confessio has always been referred to as (i Epistolarum Patricii Liber Primus," the Coroticus has in like manner been known as "Epistolarum Patricii Liber Secundus," and, in the Book of Armagh, the entitlement under which the Confessio is found is " Incipiunt Libri Sancti Patricii Episcopi," show- ing that at least another was intended to accompany it. The Coroticus, as will be seen, contains much internal evi- dence of having proceeded from the same hand as the Confessio (conf. viii. 454-5, with xii. 122-4 ; and viii. 492-4, with xii. 134-6, &c). It also, like the Confessio, uses some expressions not consonant to the Latin but to the Celtic idiom, as though the writer in both conceived his thoughts in some form of Celtic speech and expressed them in THE CONFESSIO. 41 Latin (viii. 93??, 161 n, 183 n, 184??, 231??, 258??, 328??, and xii. 69 n, 140 ??, 188 n). It is a shorter piece than the Confessio and in some respects less interesting. In the Confessio the inner nature of the writer is seen throughout. In the Coroticus he is seen in his relations with an external world of wrong and suffering, against which he struggles with the grief and indignation any pastor might experi- ence whose flock had been made the prey of lawless violence. Still there breathes through its reproaches and words of technical objurgation a lofty sentiment and energy of imagination which would make any prose translation inadequate to its full reproduction. It is therefore presented here as, in form as well as substance, a companion piece to the Confessio. No important differ- ence of meaning arises on any verbal discrepancy of the texts. That used by the Bollandists is here adopted, from Villanueva, who has appended notes of the various readings [S. Patricii Synodi et ojpuscula, 240). XII. THE "CQROTICUS" EPISTLE. {Before A. D. 500.) I, Patrick — I, a sinner and unlearned, Here in Hibernia constituted bishop, Believe most surely that it is from God I hold commission to be that I am, 5 A proselyte and pilgrim, for His love, Here amongst savage peoples. He who knows All things, knows also if this be not so. I would not aught so harsh and so severe From me proceeded ; but constrained I am 10 By zeal for God and for the truth of Christ, And stirred to anger for my people's sake, My sons in God, for whom I made exchange Of kin and country, and did vow myself For rest of life, if worthy, even to death, 15 To teach the Heathen ; though, indeed, by some My function now be held in small esteem. Therefore these words I, with my proper hand, Have framed and written, for delivery To these the soldiers' of Coroticus ; 20 I say not, to my fellow- citizens, Nor fellow- citizens of pious Romans, But rather fellow- citizens of Fiends, Because of their ill deeds, who, barbarously, In manner full of hatred, live in death, THE COROTICUS EPISTLE. 4:] 25 Companions of the Scots and Picts apostate, Intent to glut their savage souis in blood Of innocents unnumbered, by myself In God begotten and in Christ confirmed. The day wherein my white-robed neophytes — 30 The chrism still wet arid glistening on their brows — Passed at the sword's edge of these murderers, The day next following, sent I my Epistles By one whom from his youth I had brought up, A holy Presbyter, with other clerks, 35 Beseeching that some portion of their spoils They might forgive us, and set free again The baptized captives whom they still detained : They answered my request with jeers and laughter. Alas, I know not which the more to mourn, 40 Them slain, or them made prisoners, or them Whom Satan therein made his instruments ; Who, with himself, must in the pains of hell Hereafter have their lasting recompense : For, He who sins the servant is of sin, 45 And worthy to be called the Son of Satan. Know ye then, all men having fear of God, That alien unto me and unto Him Whose office here I execute, are they Fratricides, parricides, devouring wolves 50 Who swallow up the people of the Lord As 'twere a meal of bread. But it is wiittcn, The wicked have made void Thy law. That law, W r hich in Hibernia in those latter days. Thou didst set up so fair and excellent. 55 God granting, I intrude on no man's right, But have my part, with others He has called And pre- appointed, to proclaim His gospel, Through no small persecutions, to earth's ends ; 44 THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. Albeit the enemy doth strive against me CO By tyranny of this Coroticus, Who knows not fear of God or of God's priests, His chosen ones, to whom He delegates The power supreme and awful : Whatsoever Ye bind on earth it shall be bound in heaven. 65 Wherefore, beseech you, all that holy are, And all of humble heart, that with such men Ye hold no flattering converse. You, with them, Eat not nor drink ; nor of them take their alms, Until with rigorous* penance, and with tears 70 Effused, they make atonement, and set free These new-baptized handmaidens of Christ, For whom He died and suffered on the cross. For the Most High doth not respect the gifts The unjust offer. He ivho offers up 75 Out of the 'poor mail's substance, is as he Who slays the son in presence of the father. Again : The riches he is gorged withal Forth from his belly he shall vomit up. Death's messenger shall hale him, and the ire 80 Of dragons shall assail him. Tongue of asp Shall slay him. Inextinguishable fire Consume him. Woe to them that fill themselves With that not theirs. What profits it a man To gain the whole ivorld, if he lose himself, 85 And suffer condemnation of his soul ? Long were the list, to run through all the law Denounced by God against cupidity. Greed is a mortal sin. Thou shall not covet Thy neighbour's goods. Thou shalt commit no murder. * " With rigorous penance : " Crudtliter, agreeable to the Irish cruaid "hard." THE COROTICUS EPISTLE. 45 90 The homicide cannot he one with Christ. Who hates his brother shall a murderer Be deemed, and he ivho loves not his own brother Remains in death. How much niore guilty he "Who stains his hands in blood of God's own children, 95 Lately acquired to Him in earth's far ends, Here through rny Littleness's ministry. . What ! was it then without God's promises Or in the body only that I came To Ireland ? Who compelled me ? Who me bound 100 In spirit that I should no more behold ~K ; j.dred or early friend ? Whence came the sense Inspiring me with pity for the race That once were my own captors ? I was born Noble ; my father a Decurio ; 105 That privilege of birth I have exchanged (I blush not for it, and I grudge it not) For benefit of others, bartered so In Christ, and given over to a race Extern to mine, all for the glorious hope 1 10 Ineffable, of that perennial life Which is in Jesus Christ our Lord ; albeit My own not know me. And 'tis also said, A prophet in his own land hath no honor. Belike they think we are not of one Father 115 Nor of one sheexD-fold. But the Lord declares Who is not with me is against me. lie Who ivith me gather eth not, scattereth. Ill fares it when one builds and one casts down. And seek I not the things that are mine own ? 120 Not for mine own delight : 'twas God that stirred That strong solicitude within my heart, That, of the hunters and the fishermen Whom He aforetime for these latter days 46 THE PATHICIAN DOCUMENTS. Had pre-appointed, I too should be one. 125 Men bear me envy : Lord what shall I do ? Men much despise me : Lord, behold thy sheep Are torn around me, and are made a prey Of these aforesaid robbers, by command Of this, Thy foe, Coroticus, whose mind 130 Is far from charity ; who, Christian men Delivers into hands of Scots and Picts. Lord, ravening wolves have eaten up thy flock Which here in Ireland had such fair increase, Sons of the Scots and daughters of the Kings 135 Now holy monks and handmaidens of Christ, So many, past iny counting. Wherefore thou, Coroticus, no pleasure in these wrongs Done to the just hast now, nor ever shalt have, Now nor till judgment, and the final day 140 Of condemnation to the under world.* What man of holy life would not abhor To jest, to feast, wiih such as these ? They fill Their houses with the spoils of Christians slain. They live on rapine. Pity they know not. 145 They drink of poison ; and the poisoned cup They offer to their kindred, even as Eve Knew not 'twas death she offered Adam. So Fares it with all the wicked ; endless death And endless pain the fruit of all they do. 150 This custom do the Gaulish Christians use And Roman. Fit and holy Presbyters They send the Franks and other extern Heathens, * "Of condemnation to the under- w orld : " Quam obrem injur iam justorum non te placeat, etiam usque ad inferos non placebit. " Ad inferos," equivalent to the Irish use of "go bratb," to the condemnatory judgment, for ever. THE COROTICUS EPISTLE. 4 7 "With money charged, so many thousand coins, "Wherewith to ransom their baptized slaves : 155 Thou slayest and sellest into extern lands "Which Imow not God, my Christians, and dost cast Christ's baptized virgin members in a stews. "What hope canst thou, so acting, have in God ? Him who thinks with thee, him who to thy crime 160 Gives words approving, God will judge. For me, I Imow not how to speak or what words use Of these dead dear ones of God's family Thy sword has touched, alas, too close. 'Tis writ, To iveep with them that weep. And writ again, 165 If ails one member all do ail with it. And still the Church bewailing must lament Those sons and daughters whom as yet the sword Leaves living, but who live in exile far Across the sea, where, that the sin may show 170 Fouler by want of shame, the impudent kits shameless and abounds ; where free-born men And Christians, sold for money, serve as slaves To basest, wickedest, apostate Picts. Therefore with lamentation unrestrained 175 I will uplift my voice ; oh dearest brothers, Loveliest and most beloved, my sons in Christ Begotten of me, past my power to count, What shall I do for you, unworthy I, To succour God or man ? The iniquity 180 Of the unjust has overcome us. They, Belike, believe not that one baptism "We both have been baptized in ; that one God We both have over us. Belike, think scorn Of us, that haply Ireland gave us birth. 1 85 For this do I bewail you, oh my brothers. Yet, on the other hand, do, in myself, 48 THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. Eejoice that my poor toils in your behoof And pilgrim labours were not all in vain,* Though such unspeakable and horrid crime 190 Has happened during this my ministry. Thank God, the baptized of you, and believing Are gone from this place into Paradise. I see you as ye take your parting flight To where shall be no night nor any grief, 195 Nor ever death may enter ; in whose fields, Even as young calves let loose, ye shall exult, And under foot tread down your enemies, "Who dust and ashes 'neath your feet shall lie. There, with apostles and with prophets, ye 200 Shall reign, and martyrs, and eternal crowns Enjoy ; as He has witnessed, saying thus: Coming from east and west they shall sit down With Abraham and Isaac and with Jacob In kingdom of the Heavens. Without are dogs, 205 Sorcerers, and murderers, and perjurers, Whose portion shall be henceforth in the lake Of ever-burning fire. And not in vain The apostle tells us : Where thejustest man Is hardly safe, where shall the sinner look— 210 The impious, and transgressor of the Laiv — To find himself? Where shall Coroticus, With his most wicked rebels against Christ, Look to be found ? Where find them they who now Bestow the baptized women and the spoils 215 Of orphans on their filthy satellites, For sake of this world's fleeting sovereignty, Which, in a moment, passes as a cloud, * " In vain; "m vacuum; agreeable to the Irish idiom, dul ar nemnid. THE C0R0TICU3 EPISTLE. 49 Or smoke that dissipates before the wind. So shall the sinner and the fraudulent 220 Perish before God's face. But they, the just, Shall banquet in the heaven of heavens with Christ, Judging the nations, and o'er unjust kings Eule throughout ages without end. Amen. Before my God and His most holy angels 225 I bear my witness that it shall be so, Even as my poor Ignorance has said it. For these are not my words. These are the words Of God and His apostles and His prophets, Who never lied, which I here put in Latin. 230 They ivlio believe are safe. Who not believe They shall be damned. The voice that speaks is God's. I now beseech His servant, whosoe'er Shall set him forth to be the carrier Of these my letters, that he suffer none 235 Abstract them privily, but have them read Before all peoples publicly, yea, read In presence of Coroticus himself. May God inspire them that they think at length Of Him, and even late although it be, 240 Eepent them of the wickedness they've done. Manslayers of their brethren in the Lord They have been. May they yet repent, and free Their captive baptized women ; so that yet They may themselves deserve to live in God, 245 And have eternal safety. Now be peace To Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen. D 50 THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. XIII. This document advances us no further in the inquiry as to Patrick's place of origin than by its sugges- tion (xii. 19-25), that the ruler of that district, wherever situate, was Coroticus (post, xxxii.), and that Coroticus's soldiers, professing Christians, were Roman citizens of Patrick's own municipality there, and associates of the Picts and Scots, an indication pointing to some part of Northern insular Britain. Its contribution to Patrick's personal history is also scanty. In it (ib. 2) he alleges himself to be constituted bishop in Ireland ; and the Epistle, de- nouncing the minor excommunication, is in itself an act of episcopal jurisdiction. In the exercise of his functions he intrudes on no other man's right (ib. 55-8), while he inti- mates (ib. 97-101) that his mission was undertaken under Divine compulsion, and that, since going forth on it, he had never again beheld the faces of his family or friends. On the question of epoch the Coroticus furnishes ground for wider speculation. The reference to "Apostate" Picts (ib. 25, 173) will, prima facie, strike most readers as indicating a, date subsequent to the conversion of the Southern Picts by Ninian of Whiterno, about A.D. 412, the conversion of the Northern Picts by Columba in the sixth century being clearly too late, and any earlier Christianization of Scotland, rightly or wrongly, dis- credited. It is certain, however, that monuments of an earlier date than either Ninian or Columba, laying claim to a Christian origin, exist in PicQand, and it will be well not to allow the possibility of there having been apostate Picts before the mission of Ninian in North THE COROTICUS EPISTLE. 51 Britain to be excluded from our consideration ; especially as the context of the Epistle is not to be reconciled with- out difficulty to a post-Ninianite epoch. For, certainly, municipal institutions and the presence of a Christian Eoman soldiery (ib. 20-1) are features more likely to be found in Northern Britain before the withdrawal of the legions and general flight of the Bomans in the early part of the fifth century. To the same effect is the passage in which, reproaching Coroticus with selling fellow Christians into slavery, Patrick contrasts his conduct with that of the Christians of Gaul and Borne (ib. 150-56) who bestowed their treasures in redeeming baptized captives from the Franks and outside Gentiles. The meaning appears to include the Franks among the other "exteras gentes ; " which would look to a period prior to their removal from the right bank of the Bhine and settlement in Belgic Gaul about A.D. 428, and indeed prior to the disruption of the Bomano-Gaulish civiliza- tion, by the great inroad of the barbarians about a.d. 407. XIV. The mission of Palladius, Archdeacon of Auxerre, as first bishop to the Irish Christians by Pope Celestine in A.D. 431, rests on the cotemporaneous authority of Prosper of Aquitaine, and has never been denied or doubted. If the writer of the Confessio and Coroticus succeeded him, these Epistles penned after probably thirty years from his arrival (viii, 98, xii. 33-4), would belong to the latter part of the fifth century, and <32 THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. all the last- mentioned inferences as to epoch, however probably flowing from them, should be set aside. Before determining on that alternative, it will be well to enter on an examination of the other evidences. XV. These Secondary Evidences consist of the seven Lives published by Colgan in his Trias Thaumaturga, and of the Collections in the Book of Armagh not accessible to him, supplemented by the valuable matter lately restored to them from the Eoyal Library of Brussels by the Rev. Edward Hogan in his "Documenta de S c0 . Patricio" (post, xxvi.). There are other Lives in Irish Manuscripts, but they do not appear to add anything pertinent to this inquiry. XVI. In marshalling the Lives, Colgan has given the first place to the Irish Hymn or metrical legend ascribed to Patrick's cotemporary, Fiacc, bishop of Sletty. In the arrangement of the others he has been influenced by this consideration, that he finds in thetn expressions to the effect that such a one "is" or "inhabits" in such a church, being a person of known date in history. Consequently, he takes these Lives to have been compiled while the persons in question were still living. But this is now recognised as a misappre- hension of the expression "is," which in Irish hagio- graphy means no more than that the relics of such a one are there preserved, or his memory there venerated. For example, in the second of Colgan.' s Lives the expression THE COEOTICUS EPISTLE. 53 is used regarding Bishop Loarne of Bright in the county of Down : " Civitatula est quae dieitur Imreathan, ubi est Episcopus Loarne qui ausus est increpare Patricium tenentem manum pueri ludentis juxta ecclesiam suam" (Vit. II. a c. xxxvii.). The story, as more fully told in the Vita. iv. a c. xxxvii., shows the idea of the kind of presence after death, thought, in these limes, to be continued in the persons of buried saints. The boy's hoop with which he had been playiag near the grave of Saint Patrick (Bright is not far from Saul, where the incident seems to have happened) had fallen down through a chink into the interior of the grave, The boy, having put in his hand to recover his plaything, was unable to withdraw it ; on which bishop Loarne, being sent for, attended, and addressed these words to Patrick : " Cur, senior, manum innocentis tenes ? " XVII, This kind of indication affording no criterion, it will now be inquired whether Colgan's arrangement may not be supported on some other ground. One group, comprising the three last Lives, Five, Six, Seven, is easily separable as bearing internal evidence of times later than the ninth century. There remain Lives One, Two, Three, and Four, to which may be added the Collections in the Book of Armagh as now supplemented by the matter brought to light at Brussels. These Collections refer themselves to certain dates in the seventh century. Tirechan, the author of one set of them, states that he took his matter from the oral instruction or from the book of 54 THE PATRICIAN" DOCUMENTS. his teacher, Bishop Ultan of Ardbraccan, who died a.d. 656. Muirchu Maccu Machthine, the author of the imperfect Life constituting another part, professes to write at the dictation or by the command of his patron, Bishop Aed of Sletty, who died a.d. 698. Both profess to ground their relations on already existing material written and traditionary. Muirchu, in a preface to his work, intimates that many had already endeavoured to compile the Acta of Patrick, and that there was at least one "Life" of the saint then in existence; but in excusing his own imperfect style, seems to claim the merit of originality in his composition. Tirechan, in addition to the book of Bishop Ultan, refers also to a " Commemoratio " or personal memoir which he ascribes to Patrick himself. XVIII. These circumstances invest the Patrician Collections in the Book of Armagh with distinctive impor- tance, and, in the absence of date-indications from the other pieces, give them the character of a standard by comparison with which the relative priorities of all may be approximately estimated. This may be done in a manner sufficiently discriminative for the purposes of the present inquiry, by the application of some principles grounded on common experience. It may be laid down as matter generally observed in compositions of this kind. First. That as between a shorter and a longer bio- graphy of the same person, the longer may be presumed to be the more recent ; which presumption, in biographies THE COROTICUS EPISTLE. 55 of saints, is strengthened where the disparity is caused by the introduction of additional Mirabilia. Secondly. That when the same matter verbatim is found in several pieces on the same subject, continuously in one, but discontinuously and with interspersed matter, ejusdem generis, in others, there is a presumption that the latter is copied from the former ; especially where the author of the continuous matter claims originality for his composition, and where faults or obscurities of expression in the professing original are found corrected or avoided in the duplicate. XIX. A careful examination of the Lives Two, Three, and Four, shows that, while each in length greatly exceeds the Muirchu, this excess is in a large degree made up of Mirabilia; that almost the whole text of Muirchu, in many instances chapter for chapter and word for word, interspersed with cognate matter which a copyist would not be likely to omit, exists in these Lives respectively ; and that, in them, defects and obscurities of expression of Muirchu are rectified or avoided. For these reasons the " Colgan," Lives Two, Three, and Four, will be regarded as puisne in date of composition and authority to Muirchu as it to Tirechan, subject however to this reservation, that their sources may be of an equal or greater antiquity. XX. But the Hymn of Fiacc does not afford any pre- sumption of the same kind. It nowhere borrows the language of the other Lives. They add to and improve on 56 THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. the matter found in it. It gives one alias to Patrick, Succat. They add Cothraige and Magonius. It represents Patrick as obtaining, in compensation for not being buried, as he wished, at Armagh, two special privileges, namely, that his favourite Hymn should be a lorica for those who should sing it, and that, at the Last Day, all the Irish should go up with him to Judgment. To this the Lives add two further prerogatives ; and the Muirchu improves on that respecting the Last Day by making Patrick himself the Judge of the Irish on that occasion. *■&' XXI. A probable priority among these Secondary Evi- dences may therefore be assigned to the Fiacc already put first in his series by Colgan. In the midst of much that is vague and trivial it contains apparently the germs from which most of what has since been affirmed respecting Patrick's epoch, contemporaries, and personal history immediately before his arrival as a missionary in Ireland, appears to have grown up. In point of literary interest it is bald and jej une, like most bardic works of its class. "We experience, indeed, a great change in leaving the natural effusions of Patrick himself for the vague and evasive generalities of his commemorator. The piece is in Irish, a very archaic example of the language, and is composed in rhymed verse. The necessities of the rythm lead to the employment of chevilles or phrases thrown in as metrical make-weights; but some of these, such "as histories relate," " as lines tell us," indicate that written material then existed, and that the writer did not, as Colgan was THE COROTICUS EPISTLE. 51 inclined to believe, relate cotemporaneous events. Indeed nothing in literary criticism can be clearer than that this piece was written some considerable time after the desertion of Tara, an event twice referred to in it (xxii. 10, 22), which took place about A.D. 565. It may, if I have given it its proper priority, have been composed at any time during the period which elapsed after Tara had become " desert and silent," and before the middle of the seventh century, when Tirechan and Muirchu began the amplifications, continued with increasing proportions by the writers of the remaining Lives. As first of the evidences by which the purport of the original documents has been enlarged and modified to the great extent which will be presently disclosed, it ought not to be put forward at any disadvantage in form or substance as compared with them. It is therefore also given in its entirety, and with such aids to the reader in taking in its general teno." as a metrical version may confer. In this, the text and translation printed by Stokes in his " Goidelica," have been followed. XXII. The Fiacc Metrical Life. {After A.D. 565.) 1. Born in Nemthur was Patrick, as histories tell us. At his age of sixteen he was brought under sorrow. 2. His name at first, Succat; for his sire's, understand ye 'Twas Calphurn mac Otid, sprung from, deacon Odisse. 3. Six years in hard thraldom, man's victuals he ate not ; Four masters Cothraige obeyed in their households. Spake Victor to MilchiCs thrall, " Over sea hie thee." "Where he planted his feet, on the rock rest their imprints. 5. Over all the Alp mountains, over sea did he travel, Till he tarried with German, in the south, in south Letha.* * "Letha : " used generally for the continent of Europe, as Armorican Letha, Letha of Rome. The south of Gaul would appear to be here intended as comprising 1 the Rhone delta and its islands (2 :>os ^> xxv.). THE FIACC METRICAL LIFE. 59 G. In the Terrene sea islands he tarried, he pondered, At reading the Canon, at study with German. 7. To Erin he came by his Angel admonished, In manifold visions to haste his returning. 8. 'Twas a good day for Erin the coming of Patrick ; He heard the young children from Focluth wood calling. 9. They prayed to the holy one, that he would come to them.* Come, and conduct them to life everlasting. 10. For thus had their prophets foretold them the coming Of a new time of peace would endure after Tara 11. Lay desert and silent. The druids of Laery Had told of his coming, had told of the Kingdom. 12. Holy life led he still, strong expeller of evil, Therefor do his merits shine high o'er the Nations. * "Come to them:" till recently read as " They prayed that the holy one, traversing Letha, would come," &c. The more approved reading is now taken to be lethu = cum Mis. 60 THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. 13. The Hymns and Apocalypse and the Three Fifties Sang he daily : baptizing, and praising God always. 14. Nor allowed he the cold winter weather him hinder From his nights in the water-pools; preaching, the daytime. 15. In Slan well, by Boirche, he'd sing psalms a hundred Ev'ry night in his suit to the High King of Angels, 16. And would then take his sleep, on the bare rock reposing, In his wet-dripping frock, with a stone for his pillow. 17. He preached the glad Gospel ; he wrought many marvels ; He healed halt and leper ; he raised the dead living. 18. To the Scoti he preached it, with manifold labours,* That they all might, at doomsday, attend round their Patron ; 19. Emer^s sons, sons of Erimon, all whom the Devil Had theretofore shut in his great pit infernal, * "With manifold labours :" till recently read as "After toiling through Letha." THE FIACC METRICAL LIFE. 61 20. Till came their Apostle — as a swift wind his wending — Preaching peace from Christ's cross, sixty years, to the Feni. 21. There "was darkness o'er Erin, they adored things of Faery ; They believed not the truth of the Trinity Godhead. 22. In Armagh is Headship ; long since life was in Emain ; A great church is Down ; Tara — woe's me — a desert. 23. When Patrick first sickened, he'd have fain gone to Macha; By day came the Angel thereon to entreat him. 24. He came south to Victor — it was he gave the summons — The bush burned unburnt whereout Victor bespoke him, 25. Saying "Headship to Macha " for which to Christ glory — "But thou must to heaven, which grants thy petition, 26. " That the hymn thou hast chosen shall be breast-plate of safety To all who, at Doom, shall come round thee to judgment." 27. He who gave him Communion, who survived him, was Tassach. He had said he would come : and his words were accomplished. 62 THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. 28. Night's shade set aside, there was light around unfading, To a year's end was radiance, was one continual daylight. 29. In the fight the son of Nun fought against them of Canaan, When the sun stood still on Gibeon, as histories tell us, 30. Though Joshua stayed the sun till the wicked were slaughtered. More fitting was his light at death of holy Patrick. O 1 The clerks of Erin flocked to attend his funeral office. The quiring angel's strain made them all sink down in slumber. 32. The soul from Patrick's body, toil-worn, at last departed ; God's angels all the night sang around it unceasing. 33. When Patrick departed, he went to the other Patrick, And together they ascended to Jesus the Son of Mary. 34. Humble Patrick, unblemished, much good did he accomplish. In his service with Mary's Son, since first born in Nemthur. THE FIACC METRICAL LIFE. 63 XXIII. The Fiacc supplies the particular name of Patrick's birth-place, Nemthur, "but affords no further clue to its local situation. It also for the first time introduces the name of Milchu, Patrick's bondmaster, and purports to give some account of Patrick's career after his escape from slavery and before entering on his Irish mission. Some time must have been spent by him in necessary clerical preparation ; and this interval, passed over in the Confessio, is here accounted for by probationary studies pursued in the South of Europe under the tuition of Germanus, meaning, no doubt, the celebrated bishop of Auxerre of that name (xxii. 5, 6). During this period, apparently, Patrick is represented as having his Call from the children of Focluth (ib. 8, 9), an incident which, in the Confessio, is put at the home of his family in Britain (viii. 262-72) ; and this discrepancy cannot but detract from the credit of the Fiacc (11) and of the remaining authorities following it in this particular. It ascertains very clearly the epoch of the Irish mission of the Patrick it commemorates, which, in common with all the Lives, it represents as having taken place in the time of Leoghaire, son of Neil, A. D. 428-464. Its most noteworthy state- ment, however, is that intimating a plurality of Patricks {ib. 33), which shows that at least two personages of eminent sanctity were then recognised as having borne the name. To the evidences that Patricius was a title of office (Loc. Pat. 414), I add one example, the signature to the acts of the Council of Orange, A.D. 529, of P. 1VI. F Liberius Y. C. et illustris prsefectus prastorii Galliarum atque Patricius (Usher, 6, p. 26), 64 THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. XXIV. The Fiacc has a Gloss and Scholium (post, xli.) the places of which, in order of date and authority, have not been determined. They appear to be subsequent to the Armagh Collections, and also to some of the " Colgan " Lives, inasmuch as identical matter of the Muirchu Life is found dispersed in the Scholium ; and both Scholium and Gloss explain Nemthur as another name for Ailclyde, whereas the authors of Lives Two and Three repeat the Nemthur of Fiacc, without any attempt at identification. In this view the Armagh Collections come next in order after the text of the Fiacc, while the Gloss and Scholium of the latter fall into some place after Life Three. XXV. What are known as the Annotations of Tirechan in the Book of Armagh are, as has been seen (sup. xvii.), presumably older than the Life by Muirchu; and will first be noticed for some light they may possibly throw- on the subject of there having been more Patricks than one (sup. xxiii.). " I have found," he says (Hog. Doc. de S co . P. 57), "in Bishop Ultan's book four names for Patrick, that is, Magon, or the renowned; Succat, who is Patrick — qui est Patricius— and Cothirthiacus, because he served in four households of the Magi." Bringing Patrick at once to the field of his missionary employment, Tirechan affords no information as to his place of origin. His condensed introductory chapter may be regarded as a summary of the beliefs respecting the pre-missionary life of Patrick which were in current acceptance in Ireland about the middle of the seventh century. Having related TIRECHAN. 65 the story of his captivity in the service of Milchu, in his first chapter, he thus proceeds : — " Then, however, the Angel of the Lord visited him in his dreams, on the heights of Skirte (Skirry), near to Sliebh Miss. And this was the Angel's la^t command : 'Behold, thy ship is ready: arise and journey (ambula ),' and he (the Angel) departed from him up to heaven; and he arose and jou'neyed (ambulavit) according to the command of the Lord's Angel, Victor by name. In his seventeenth year was he cap'ured, led away and sold into Ireland; in his twenty-second year it was vouchsafed to him to leave his toils \\i'h the Magi. Seven other years he journeyed (ambulavit), and saiL-dthe seas (in fludibus), in plains and mountain-valleys, throughout Gaul and all Italy, and in the islands which are in the Terrene Sea, as he himself has said in his narrative (commemoratio) of his labours. And he was thirty years in one of these islands, which is called Aralanensis, as Bishop Ultan testified to aie. But all that happened to him you may find written in the distinct history of him. These [matters which I am now about to relate] are his latest mirabilia, concluded and happily accomplished ( finita atque fdiciter facta) in the fifth year of the reign (in V. regni anno) of Loigire Mac NeillV (Hog. Doc. 57, c. 1). He then relates the missionary artaof Patrick, extending over seventy-two years (c. 53), which, if they were finished at the time stated, would throw back his advent to A.D. 359. The other relevant passage is from his 56th chapter (Hog. Doc. 89) : "In the thirteenth yoar of the Emperor Theodosius, Patrick is sent [as] Bishop, for the ins'ruction (ad dodrinam) of the Scoti, by Bishop Celestine, Pope of E 66 THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. Rome : which Celestine was forty -seventh Bishop from the Apostle Peter in Koine city. Paladius is first sent [as] Bishop, who was called Patrick for his other name (sup. xxiii. ; post, xlviii.), who suffered martyrdom amongst the Scoti, as holy men of old testify. Then the Second Patrick is sent by the Angel of God, Victor by name, and by Pope Celestine ; through whom all Ireland believed, who gave baptism to almost all of it. . . . All which things, in God accomplished, have been gathered together by the most skilful of our ancients." There are four remarkable passages connecting some Patrick with a precedent Christian institution in Ireland in Tirechan. Coming to Coleraine, after crossing the river Bann, on his return from his visitation of Conn aught, Patrick imparts his blessing to that place, " in quo fuit episcopus" (Hog. Doc, 86). In Find Moy of Hy Maine, Patrick finds the cross which the Christian mother had planted by mistake over the sepulchre of the pagan buried beside her son (Hog. Doc, 83). In Tir Erril he discovers the altar (Hog. Doc, 69) which, the Tripartite explains, lay with its glass chalices hidden in a cave in Dumagraid. At Achadgower, in Mayo, there came to him a pious maiden, Mathona, a nun, sister r or relative of Benignus, who assisted at the episcopal ordination of her brother Senach. Senach appears to have made certain stipulations regarding his orders (Hog. Doc, 80; Hennessy, apud Cus.), and the result is, in the "language of Tirechan, "missam Patricii acceperunt," all which tend to favour the inference that, besides the author of the Confessio, some other and later Patrick has been commemorated in the Lives. THE MUIRCHU LIFE. 67 XXVI. The Muirchu Life, since the discovery of the Brussels manuscript, which makes up its chapters missing from the Book of Armagh, may now be considered as a document of greater importance than even the Annota- tions of Tirechan. A few years ago it became known that a vellum manuscript Life of Patrick existed in the Boyal Library at Brusssels which appeared to correspond with the Muirchu Life, so far as it is found in the Book of Armagh. We should not have had this valuable identi- fication of the perfect twelfth century copy with the imperfect ninth century transcript of this seventh century compilation, if our late brother Academician, Sir William Betham, had not, in what must now be deemed a happy moment, ventured on the editing, however imperfectly, of the Book of Armagh (Antiquarian Researches, Dublin). He puts this venerable record, so far as it relates to St. Patrick, substantially before the world, and enabled the learned men who at Brussels continue the work of the Bollandi Fratres, to recognise the identity of the Life in their Eoyal Library with the Life by Muirchu in the Armagh Codex in Trinity College Library here. This has led to a most careful comparison of the two texts by the Bev. Edward Hogan, S.J., to whom we are also indebted for the " Docurnenta de Sancto Palricio " above referred to, printed at Brussels in 1884. Dr. Whitley Stokes had already, in his Goidelica, translated the Irish passages, in which the imperfections of Sir William Betham's Essay chiefly betrayed itself. Mr. Hogan extends hia work to all the contents of this part of the 08 THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. Codex, both Latin and Irish, and, in the first six chapters of the Muirchu Life, supplies us with the matter which, undoubtedly, at one time, existed on the folio now missing from our own Book. XXVII. In the newly-acquired part of the Life, Muirchu, as regards Patrick's place of nativity, grounds himself on the Oonfessio with an addition which may help towards the better ascertainment of the site. The scribe presents the Bannave Tabemice of the Confessio in the dislocated form Ban navem thabur indecha, where the added decha may recall the Dakenclud of the Dunbarton terminus of Graeme's Dyke, as described by John Major (Hist. Maj. Brit. 1. i. ci.). He then proceeds with other matter equally remarkable, " quern vicum constanter, indubitanterque comperimus esse ventre." Here may be recognised the source of Probus's statement in Life Five of the Trias, " quern vicum constanter indubitanterque comperimus esse Neutrix provinciam," which has caused so may fine intelligences, in search of Patrick's birth- place, to cross the English Channel into the Gaulish province of Neustria. Every one acquainted with com- mon paleographic difficulties knows how often it occurs that u and n have been mistaken for one another. Thus Dunbarton, in the old Welsh dialogue between Taliesin and Merlin (Skene F. B.), appears as Neutur. In the Myvirian Archaeology, the editor has read it Nentur. In both shapes it seems to be the equivalent of Fiacc's Nemthor, whatever that name may originally have been. THE MUIRCHU LIFE. 69 XXVIII. In these recovered chapters, Muirchu, following the Confessio, conducts Patrick from captivity to his family in Britain, and plainly declares that, in his view, this was insular Biitain, by bringing him thence to Gaul over sea, " transnavigato rnari dextro Britannico. " XXIX. The Brussels complemental matter supplies another incident in the Muirchu Life, which may be noted as one of the points of later departure from the sequence of events recorded in the Cunfessio. He has a chapter (3) on a second captivity, which, according to his account, Patrick, after his escape to Biitain, suffered " ab aheuigenis." This adventure has been expanded by one of the subsequent Life writers (post, xlii.) into a sea voyage from the Boyne to Bordeaux, with a twenty-eight days' journey through French desert (viii. 255 n.), con- ducting Patrick to hiskin>rnan St. Mardn of Tours. The -whole appears to be a parasitic growth, and to depend from that one point iu the story of the Confessio where Pairick uses the words, " et iterutn post annos multos adbuc capturam dedi." At this point there is a hiatus in the Book of Armagh. Pat rick having described his night- mare in the desert, and stated what seems to have been his belief that it was Chri&t who, within him, made use of Lis, Patrick's, voice to exclaim " Helias," proceeds to justify that belief from Scripture " Sicut in euangelio dixit dorninus non uos estis" followed by the unconnected words, " multos adhuc capturam dedi." The Bodleian 70 THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. and other texts supply what is here plainly wanting, namely, " qui loquimini, sed spiritus Patris vestri qui loquitur in vobis. Et iter um post annos," which complete the sense. This has been taken as if Patrick were here writing in reference to a bodily captivity. But they who, following Muirchu, so understood the texts, have overlooked the "adhuc," which, in its context, imports a captivity still continuing. Patrick certainly was not in bodily bondage when he wrote the Confessio ; whence it must be concluded that his words, if they be not scriptural quotation, are necessarily to be understood as of a spiritual captivity, such as that of " aged Paul now also a prisoner of the Lord." Indeed the expression " et iterum" is so often used in the Confessio as intro- ductory of scriptural citation when a further text is vouched in support of a preceding one, that, if the words in question could be at all adapted to the language of the Epistle to Philemon, such would be a welcome version of the passage. But they can only by a great stretch of adaptation be so considered; and the incurring of a spiritual bondage remains as the preferable construction. It was the first occasion on which he had experienced what he conceived to be the presence of an indwelling coercer of his will, to obedience to whose promptings all his subsequent life was to be conformed ; and this probably will be received as the meaning conveyed in 1 ' ea nocte prima." That he believed himself to be subject to this kind of bondage, even up to the time of his death, was the tradition amongst the writers of the Lives. " When THE MUIRCHU LIFE. 71 Patrick first sickened, he had fain lain in Macha" (xxii. 23), hut such was not the divine will. " Alas," he says to Victor, who tells him this request was denied, "my captivity is even to the end; since I cannot so much as choose for myself the place of my burial " (Vita 3 a , c. 88). XXX. This part of the Confessio, therefore, it may be affirmed gives no support to the theory of more than one captivity in the ordinary sense of the word, and is quite consistent with the completion of Patrick's whole journey within the predicted two months, when, after the six years of his detention in Ireland — comparatively few as contrasted with the life-long duration of his other kind of captivity — he found himself again at home in Britain, agreeably to the first prediction, which, it may be observed, all the other interpretations necessarily contradict, " cito iturus ad patriam vestram et terram." XXXI. Having described Patrick's return to his family, as in the Confessio, Muirchu, in the fifth and sixth chapters of the new matter supplied to us by these Complementa, passes into a condensed and somewhat abrupt continuation of the narrative ; — " And many visions were there shown him. And he was of the age of thirty years, as the apostle says (et cetera), to (the measure of) the fulness of Christ, (when) going forth to the Apostolic seat, to visit and honor (it) even as the head of all the Churches of the whole world, 72 THE PATKICIAN DOCUMENTS. in order that, understanding already the divine and sacred mysteiies whereto God had called him, he should learn, understand, fulfil, preach, and confer the divine favor on the extern nations, converting them to the faith of Christ." From which it may be collected that, in Muirchu's view, Patrick had at this time acquired the knowledge of his ecclesiastical office, but before entering on it desired to testify his respect to the Holy See, and, it may he inferred, to obtain its sanction for his undertaking : — "Having: therefore sailed across the southern sea of Britain, in order to proceed across the Gaulish Alps by the accepted (the ordinary?) route (accepto itinere), at their extremity, which he had in his heart proposed to take, he found a certain most holy prince bishop and high duke at Alsiodor (Auxerre) city, with whom (he remained in study)," &c. "And, having there spent a long time as, forty years according to some, thirty according to others, his old and right trusty (angel) Victorious by namo, who [here the Armagh text begins] had predicted to him in Ireland all things before they came to pass, visited him with frequent visions, telling him the time was now arrived when he should come (hither) and, with the net of the evangel, fish for those rude and savage peoples for whose instruction God had destined him ; and there it was said to him in a vision, The sons and daughters of the Wood of Focluth call thee,^ &c. Where the growing disregard of the authority of the Confessio may be observed in the transfer of the place of his call from his home in Britain to Auxerre in Gaul. Then follows, in both texts, the incident of the death of THE MUIECHU LIFE. 73 Palladius, leading to Patrick's proceeding at once on his Irish mission, without wailing to complete his intended journey to Rome. The statement of Palladius' mission is substantially as above given by Tirechan (xxv.), save that Pope Celestine does not appear in it. Patrick, on Victor's summons, sets out on his "inceptum iter." "Whether this was for Rome or for Ireland is not stated. On his way he receives intelligence of the death of Palladius at a place the situation of which has given rise to much speculation. It is doubtfully called Ebmoria in the Armagh, and distinctly Curbia in the Brussels, Codex. If the "inceptum iter" were for Ireland, Curbia would seem the better reading, for Corbie is on the route northward from Auxprre. If for Rome, the site of Ebmoria should be looked for on the " acceptum iter" by the extremity of the Gaulish Alps. These, in Irish geography, are the mountain chains of Auvergne a*:d Languedoc, in which the Loire has its sources. At their eastern extremity, " ad extremum," the valley of the Rhone gives access to the Terrene or Mediterranean Sea. Here, in the delta of the Rhone, is the island of Aries (Arelato), to which reference is found above in Tirechan, under the name Aralanensis (xxv.), but which has its true name Arelatensis in the Fourth Life (post, xxxix.), and being also known as the Insula Cameraoenis, has been satisfactorily identified by Colgan with the modern Camargue. A British connexion had been established at Aries by the jpseudo Emperor Constantine, about 407, if it did not exist before, and there will be 74 THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. nothing locally improbable in voyages from thence to Italy ascribed to Patrick in other Lives. Wherever the disciples with news of Palladius' death, met Patrick, his further proceedings, according to Muirchu, were taken with great promptitude. " Patrick and those who were with him changing their route, turned aside (declinaverimt iter) to a certain wondrous man and chief bishop, Amathorex by name, living in a neighbouring place, and there the holy Patrick, knowing what would befall, received the episcopal grade from the holy bishop Mathorex. Auxilius also was ordained, and (so were) Isernine, and others of lower degree, on the same day as holy Patrick. Then the venerable traveller, &c, took ship and reached Britain, and omitting all occasions of delay, save the common requirements of the road, for no man can seek the Lord by dallying, with all speed and a favouring wind crosses over sea." XXXII. The Muirchu Life is divided into chapters. A short index to the headings of the several chapters is found in both copies. One of these, No. 28, is conversant with the Coroticus incident (sup. xiii.). The text of the chapter, missing from the Armagh Codex, is present in the Brussels copy. It makes Corictic (Cuirthech in Lib. Arm.) a British king, and the entitlement of the chapter in both examples is " De conflictu Patricii adversum Coirthech regem Aloo." Alo-clotha is the form in which Ailclyde is presented in the older Irish annals, as Alofind for Elphin in the Book of Armagh. There is no other royal seat in insular or continental Britain compounded THE MUIRCHU LIFE. 75 in Ail but Ailclyde. It is, therefore, matter of cogency to conclude that, in the seventh century, the Coroticus of Patrick's epistle was regarded as king of Ailclyde the capital of the kingdom of the Strathclyde Britons. In the Welsh additions to the Ilistoria Britonum of Nennius is a list of these Strathclyde kings, including the name of Ceretic yuledec, that is, Dux or Imperator, the native designation given to various British reguli who from time to time usurped the imperial purple. The document is referred to A.D. 977 (Skene, An. P. & S. xcv. 15). It purports to trace the pedigree of Eun Map Artgal through fifteen generations, to Ceretic guledec. Eun was reigning in Ailclyde A.D. 878, which, at thirty years to the genera- tion, would put the middle age of Ceretic about A.D. 428. Other computations of the same kind, grounded on the dates or intermediate names in the list, would bring him down to A.D. 470 or 480, in full agreement with the accepted Patrician chronology. This list, however, is an instructive example of the uncertainty attending the thirty years canon, when applied to any but long and well- authenticated lines of descent. Among other issue of Ceretic, set forth in it, are Eydderch Hael and his father Tudwal Tutclud, both mentioned by Adamnan, and of known historic dates. Eidderch, fifth in descent, reigning a.d. 573, would put Ceretic, the great-great- grandfather about A.D. 423. Tudwal, a generation nearer, is made by the author of the Life of Ninian cotemporary with a Ninian, who must be taken as the second of the name, and who flourished at Whiterne about 76 THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. A.D. 520 (Usher, 6, 585). He is also made by the author of the Life of Kentigern, cotemporary with Darerca, the supposed sister of St. Patrick, who died A.D. 518 (ib. 584). If Tudwal were reigning at any time so shortly after the death of Patrick, commonly assigned to A.D. 493, Ceretic, his great grandfather, could hardly have been the reigning cotemporary of the same Patrick. Nor do the difficulties arising on the epoch of Coroticus stop here, There is another copy of the Run pedigree, compiled about A.D. 1300 (Sk. F. B. 167), amongst the Hengwrt Manuscripts. In this, while the generation numbers are the same, the names between the Guledec and Tudwal differ, suggesting the loss of one or more generations, while the Guledec is named Maxen, as if Ceretic were, alio nomine, Maxen Wledeg, or that Maximus raised by the Britons to the Imperial rank, who reigned A.D. 383-9. In reference to him, there is a statement by Johannes Major, not irrelevant to this enquiry, though, not vouched for by any other authority. Having described the last constructed Roman wall between Abercornie and Dakenclud, and stated that it ran 8,000 paces further to the North than the old line of Agricola, he goes on to say, regarding the additional land so gained, "banc terrain Maximus dux suo regno adjecit" (Hist. Maj. Brit. 1. 1, c. 1). On these data the epoch of Coroticus, and of the Patrick from whom he received the epistle, will appear earlier or later, according as the mind of the reader may be swayed in either direction by the other evidences. ADDITIONS TO TI RECTI AN. 77 XXXIII. Tlie Book of Armagh contains matter supplemental to the compilations of Tirechan. The Codex here has the appearance of a commonplace book of undigested material, partly in Latin and partly in Irish. In that portion which is in the Irish language occurs an account of the proceedings of Isernine, above referred to (xxx'u). He is here identified with an Irish bishop, Idh, and represented as engaged in a proceeding not easily to be reconciled with the statemeDt of his having been the cotemporary of Germanus. Patrick and he had sailed by different routes for the same destination. Patrick had arrived by way of a port on the eastern, Isernine by one on the southern, coast. Isernine is represented as visiting, first, his own kindred of the Cothraige, a small tribe in the present county of Carlow. Thence he proceeds into the southern borders of Wicklow where he converts and baptizes the seven sons of Cathbod. This innovation, it is represented, was displeasing to the then king of Leinster, namely Euna Cennsaiagh, who proscribed the converts. They, accompanied by Isernine, went into exile in another part of the country, where Patrick subsequently joined them, and by his interest with Crimthan, son of Enna, obtained their pardon. Enna Cennsaiagh was a personage having a well-defined place in Irish history. He overthrew the monarch, Eochaid Muimedon at the battle of Cruachan Clsenta, about a.d. 358. He appears to have been then a man of many exploits, and is said (O'Curry, 493) to have warred against the Ulster kingdom at or before the destruction 78 THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. of Emania. The statement respecting him in the Book of Leinster is that he was cotemporary of Enna Nia, father of the first Dunlang king of Leinster, and great- great-grand father of that second Dunlang, whose sons Iollan and Ailill Patrick is stated in the Lives to have baptized at Naas : Enna Genselach &a,n agus Enna Nia comamser doib andis wide lugair dixit. Mair drecuin drecuin da Enna hui nathaig nuadat nascad giallu gaedel necht. " The same time then for both Enna Genselach and Enna Nia, as Lugair said : Great dragons of dragons are the two Ennas, descendants of the wounding hostage- binder of the Gael, Nuadu Necht " (L,L. 316 b). He was fourth in descent from Cathir Mor, whose death is put, at latest, in A.D. 177, and must apparently have been long past middle age when the conversion of the sons of Cathbod took place. If we can credit our Irish pedigrees the sons of Cathbod were eighth in descent from Cucorb king of Leinster (Loc. Pat. tab. 1), whose death is put at A.D. 119. This would make their probable period A.D. 360. "With all allowances for lives of exceptional duration, we cannot bring down the actors in these affairs to the post-Palladian period without excessive straining of probabilities and many serious misgivings. XXXIV. These Additions further throw light on some obscurities respecting the epoch of Fiacc, nephew of Dubtach Maccu Lugair, ordained bishop by Patrick on his journey into Enna's territory of Hy Kinsela. In c. 51 of Tirechan (Hog. Doc. 88) Patrick, after his ordi- ADDITIONS TO TIRECHAN. 79 nation of Fiacc, on his way to Munster, is represented as also baptizing the sons of Dunlang, meaning, in the common acceptance of the Life- writers, the above mentioned Iollan and Ailill, the sons of his convert Dunlang the second, king of Leinster, about A.D. 450. That it was the elder Dunlang, however, who is here referred to by Tirechan, may be thought probable from the fact that he had at least seven sons, which is not reported of his great-grandson Dunlang the second ; and that the Irish-Latin additions to Tirechan, after the statement respecting the sons of Cathbod (supra) go on to say, " ranic Patraic iarsuidiu (Patrick came afterwards) et crediderunt sibi (vii.) filii Dunlangi " (Hog. Doc. 103), implying very persuasively that the ordination of Fiacc, and the conversions of the sons of Cathbod and of Dunlang, were nearly contemporaneous. Fiacc, after his ordination, remained (congabt) at his first church at Minbeg, on the borders of Wicklow and Carlow, until sixty of his community died (coniorchartar) there. An angel afterwards commanded him to remove to Sletty, on the opposite side of the Barrow, where his resurrection was to be. Fiacc would not, unless Patrick in person should come to lay out his new church, which Patrick afterwards did (Hog. Doc. 107, 8). Thio has the appearance of a translation of relics, after Fiacc's remains had been interred in Minbig for a lengthened period. One of the traditions respecting him and his son Fiachra purports so to represent the fact. Colgan (Tr. Th. 1S5, n. 37) cites this from the Calendar of Cash el, <: Fiacrius filius 80 THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. Fiachi, et ambo quiescunt in Minbeg;" repeated by Cathal Maguire in his Martyrology, " Fiacrius filius est Fiaci, et est (sup. xvi.) cum eo simul in Minbeag, nempe in cella parva quse est in sylva inter Cluain Mor Maedoc et Aghad Abhail, in qua et sanctus Fiacus jacet " (Loc^ Pat. 197). Great difficulty has been experienced in co-ordinating Fiacc with Patrick and the younger Dunlang; and Todd (Book of Hymns, 292) in making out a late enough date for Fiacc, has been obliged to insert some questionable and several surmised steps in his pedigree. XXXV. The lives remaining to be examined are the Second to the Seventh inclusive in the Trias, reckoning under the last its duplicate known as the Irish Tripartite. All of them, for the reasons assigned (xx.), are taken as posterior in date of compilation to the Fiacc, and to the collections of Tirechan and the Life by Muirchu in the Book of Armagh. As amongst themselves, the only departure from the order given them that I would venture to suggest, would be a transposition of Six and Seven — that is, a postponement of the Life by Jocelyn (a.d. 1182) to the Tripartite, the direct iuternal evidences of which do not come lower down than a.d. 897 (Hennessy, apud Cus., p. 466). These with the Fifth Life, bearing the name of Probus as author, and referable by very pregnant indications to the tenth century (Tr. Th. 61, 2 ; 64, 38), are the only ones of the series which afford clear evidences of their periods. Two, Three, and Four have LIFE TWO. 81 been arranged by Colgan in the order of seniority of their supposed authors, Patrick junior, Benignus, and Eleran the Wise ; but these early origins, for the reasons above given (sup. xvi.), cannot now be sustained, and for the further reasons also premised (sup. xix.), must all be postponed in date to the Life by Muirchu. No better sequence, however, irrespective of positive dates, than that given them by Colgan can be suggested, especially as Two and Three appear to ground themselves on Irish originals, and preserve, imbedded in their Latin text, several examples of that kind of fossil material. XXXVI. Life Two then follows Fiacc in making Nemthor the place of Patrick's birth, but adds nothing express to our knowledge of where Nemthor is, beyond what may be inferred from its use of the language of Muirchu in bringing Patrick from the home of his family into Gaul by crossing the southern British Sea (Tr. Th., 13, c. xxi.) ; whence its author must be concluded to have supposed the home insular. It also with the metrical Life attaches itself uncon- formably to the narrative of the Confessio at the point where Patrick is told to take shipping for home, and marks expressly the discrepancy which in the Fiacc is only inferential (sup. xxii. 4, o) : " Ecce, navis tua paratu. est, ut peteret (peteres) Italiam, ut ibi per sanctam Scripturam disciplinandus esses " (Tr. Th., 12, c. xvii.). Its staple, like that of all the other remaining Lives, is drawn from Muirchu, prefaced by numerous mirabilia of 82 THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. the Infancy, here apparently for the first time introduced, and supplemented by some particulars, also appearing to be here of primary introduction, relating to Patrick's acta and cotemporaries. Having related his call (c. xxi.), which, with the Confessio it makes in Britain, "cum parentibus suis," it takes up the narrative of Muirchu, and conducts him, as above, across the southern sea of Britain to Germanus, with whom he reads for thirty years 4< in insula Arelanensi " (c. xxii.), being, doubtless, the Island of Aries above referred to (sup: xxxi.). Then, again following Muirchu, it relates the mission of Palladius by Pope Celestine, his failure, and death in Forddun, or, as others say, his martyrdom (c. xxiv.). Here also it introduces, apparently for the first time, the name of Nathi filius Garrchon, who, on Palladius' arrival ''in fines Lageniensium," offered him some opposition. After which it interposes somewhat abruptly in Muirchu' s narrative a short but pregnant chapter (xxv.) in these words: — "Patrick, sent by the same Pope Celestine to Ireland, came to the mouth of a certain river, the Deac {Inbltir Deagadh, Wicklow). But the aforesaid wicked nobleman, Nathi, who previously had withstood Palladius, opposed the blessed Patrick also and his doctrine. But Sinell, son of Findcath, through the preaching of the holy Patrick, believed in Almighty God, and first amongst the Scots was baptized of holy Patrick, wherefore he (Patrick) bestowed his blessing on him and on his seed." Patrick then, proceeding northward into Ulster, makes his first convert Dichu, Primus Scotorum per Pairicum LIFE TWO. 83 Confespus (ib. c. xxix.) ; and afterwards, returning to Wicklow, is received by the grandson, and gives his blessing to the infant great-grandson, of Smell. Two first converts are certainly suggestive of different and successive missions ; and if Dichu be properly placed 63 in his table of descent, Sinell being 59, one must recognize a great difference in time. XXXVII. Both ISTathi and Sinell are well-known names in what is called the Dal Messincorb genealogy, preserved in the Book of Leinster and elsewhere, and lately published from these sources by the Rev. J. F. Shearman (Loc. Pat., Tab. i.). Sinell is, in all the extant examples of this pedigree, eighth in descent from Cucorb king of Leinster. Cucorb's epoch is ascertained by that of Fedlimedh Eeactmar king of Ireland, A.D. 113-119, bv whom he was slain. His fourth son was Messincorb, amongst whose descendants are found Findcath, Sinell, and Smell's cotemporary, Nathi. Here it will be well to preserve a judicious observation of Colgan, the truth and appositeness of which all students of these genea- logical tables will readily acknowledge. " Nostros his- torices quanclo non texunt genealogias, solere ssepe usurpare nomen filii late, pro nepote, aliove descendente " (Tr. Th., 18, n. 35). For Sinell, in the pedigree, is not son, but great-grandson of Findcath ; being son of Conall, son of Cucongelt, son of Findcath, son of Garrchu, son of Fothad, son of Eochaid Lamderg, son of Messincorb, son of Cucorb ; and, at the generally accepted rate of thirty 84 THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. years to a generation, should, together with his cotem- porary Nathi, if the pedigree be right, be concluded to have flourished about A.D. 360, synchronously with Enna Cennsalagh and the sons of Cathbod, who, it will be remembered, are brought within the first influences of the Patrician mission by the supplementer of Tirechan (sup. xxxiii.). All deductions, however, of this kind, are subject to the possibility that steps in the pedigree may have been lost ; and Shearman, deeming the post-Palladian date, which he considered the true one, to be irreconcilable with this epoch for Sinell, has felt himself justified in suggesting — " Some generations are wanting between Garrchu, circa 200, and Findcath" (Loc. Pat., Tab. i., No. 55). Tf three generations, indeed, could be so interpolated, Sinell would be brought down to post- Palladian times ; but no ground for such an alteration of the text can be suggested save that of conformity to accepted ideas. XXXVIII. Life Three adopts the statement and language of Life Two as regards Nemthor and the early mirabilia. It follows substantially the story of the Confessiowp to Patrick's escape, his return to his parents, and his call by the Voices from Focluth, which it gives in the Irish, hoch ! aillilo fortaiclt (c. xx.). It then takes up the thread of Muirchu's relation, and conducts him to St. Germanus, at Auxerre. In common with all the remaining Lives, however, it breaks up the thirty or forty years assigned by Muirchu to Patrick's studies LIFE THREE. 80 under Gernianus, and, after some time spent at Auxcrre, transfers him to the tuition of St. Martin of Tours (Tr. Th. 22, xxii.), thence to the Tamerensian (Camerensian) island, and thence to Eome, where he receives another call (Tr. Th. 22, xxiii.). This transfer to the tuition of Martin involves an insuperable anachronism. Martin had died before a.d. 418, the date of Germanus' call to ecclesiastical orders. In describing these travels it introduces apparently for the first time, those anomalies in continental geography which here and in all the remaining Lives, bespeak a date in times of diminishing enlightenment, and have occasioned extreme embarrass- ment to successive commentators. Patrick, at Eome, hears the voice of the angel, " ' Go thou to the island Hibernia, and aid them who invoke thee.' And Patrick said, ' I will not go until,' &c. And the angel led him to Mount Arnon ur muir letha (on the sea of Letha) on a rock of the Tyrrene Sea, in a city which is called Capua " (Tr. Th. 23, xxv.). Elsewhere this mountain is called Armon, Morion, and Narnchin (Lit. iEngus. L. Br.), and is placed somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Arelatensian island ; whence it may be surmised that Capua is either a geographical blunder, or that the name may have been borne by some city of Provence, as that of "The Eome of Gaul " was borne by Aries. As regards epoch, this Life, as well as the next, ascribes the rnartyrdoni of Odhran, the Saint's charioteer, to a person far out of the range of any Patrician chro- nology, namely, Folige, from whom the Hy Failge, "a quo 86 THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. orti sunt alii Folgi," that is, Eossa Foilge, eldest son of Cathir Mor, whose date would be early in the third century. The subsequent Lives correct this anachronism by introducing a Foilge Bearraidh (si. A.D. 501, Q.M.) as the murderer ; but, assuming Life Three to be of earlier compilation, it is worth remark that it represents Foilge as having been revisited " post niultum temporis " by Patrick, affording another instance of successive acta, at long intervals, ascribed to one or more of the name. The body of Foilge had in the meantime been inhabited by the demon, and on being summoned to Patrick's presence, his dry bones only are found in his house (Tr. Th. 25, c. lix.). The remainder of the Third Life appears to be drawn from Muirchu and Tirechan. XXXIX. Life Four begins with a tradition that the family of Patrick was of Jewish descent, and reached their settlement in Strath-clyde, "in qua terra conceptus et natus est " (Tr. Th. 35, c. i.), by way of Armorica " juxta mare Thyrrenum," showing that in the writer's judgment there were several Armoricas, one on the southern as well as the better known Armorica on the northern sea-board of Gaul. Having suggested the interpretation " turris ccelestis " for Nemthor, and given the current version of Campus Tabernix, he adds, " Britannica autem lingua Campus Tabern idem campus tabernaculorum dicitur," probably referring to the Moy Tabern of old Irish Tuatha de Danaan tradition, whose site on inde- pendent grounds, is put in this region by O' Flaherty LIFE FOUR. 87 (Ogygial.iii., c.xxiii.). The story attaches itself somewhat unconforrnably to the narrative of the Confessio : " Ecce navistua parata est ; tempus namque adest ut in Sanctis litteris docearis " (Tr. Th., 37, c. xxi.). It then conducts Patrick, " Elevato velo, prospero flatu, ad Britanicos sinus " (c. xxiii.), to his parents, where he has his call, and whence he proceeds across the southern British Sea to Saint Germanus, first at Auxerre, and afterwards in the Arelatensian island, where he has a further call, again repeated in Borne, whither he proceeds by sea, " per mare Thyrrenum navigando transivit " (c. xxix.), and so back again to Ireland, "recto transitu per Italiam Galliasque." The writer cites the Confessio, and, in two instances, from texts not now known to exist. In one of these, Patrick is made to state that his mother was Concessa (Tr. Th., 15, c. i.) ; and in the other (37, c. xvii.) to supply an additional example of the psycho- logical experiences of his youth. In this passage, relating his life in the wilds while herding the flocks of Milchu, he goes on to say, Audiebam quosdam ex sjpiritibus psallentes in me, et nesciebam quiessent. " I heard certain of the spirits within me singing psalms, and I knew not who they might be " {ante, viii., 276). It cannot be said that the Fourth Life supplies anything from which an earlier epoch than that usually ascribed to Patrick can definitely be inferred. It brings him in contact (c. lxxvii. ) with the Foilge above-mentioned, but without the story of the dry bones. There may be more matter for reasonable speculation on this head in its SS THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. statement (c. lxxviii.) that, on a certain occasion Patrick was accompanied on his progress through the borders of Ossory by bishops Ibar and Ailbe. It would be too wide a subject here, to enter on an examination of the grounds on which the obits of these ecclesiastics have been determined in our annals, but I do not desire, in passing the topic by, to be understood as yielding convinced assent to the late date assigned. XL. The Fifth Life, in two books, a work well ascertained to the tenth century, bears the name of Probus as author. The writer is manifestly Irish (Tr. Th., 61, n. 2). It is to be regretted that, having ascer- tained, '' indubitanter," that Bannave Tdbemix regionis is Nenirix provinciam ubi olim gigantes habitasse dicuntur, he does not more distinctly state where Nentria is. He makes Patrick, however, a Briton, intimating at the same time that he himself writes in these islands : — " Hie in Britanniis natus." He contradicts the Confessio in putting Patrick's call at Mount Ilermon, near the Terrene Sea (c. xviii.)- His relation of the capture is extremely confused, but seems to show that he under- stood Arimuric in the same sense as the author of Life Pour, that is, as a designation of any maritime district. The word, indeed, continued to be so used by Irish writers down to the time of O'Plaherty, who dates the Epistle Dedictory of his Ogygia " Aremorica Galviensi." Having stated that Patrick was born " hi3 in Britanniis," he proceeds : — " Cumque adhuc esset in patria cum patre LIFE FIVE. 89 Calfurnio et matre Concessa, in civitate eorum Arimuric, facta est seditio magna in partibus illis. Nam filii Eethmiti Eegis de Britannia vastantes Arimuric, et alia circumposita loca, jugulaverunt Calpurnium et uxorem ejus Concessam, filiosque eorum, Patricium, &c. — abducentes Hiberniam ingressi sunt et vendiderunt Patricium Milchoni regi," &c. — which can hardly be otherwise read than that while Patrick was still in his own country with his father and mother (i.e., hie in Britanniis) in their seaside abode (civitate Aremorica) the misfortune in question befell them. Obviously the passage is either an inaccurate copy of the corres- ponding statements in the scholium on the metrical Life, or the latter is an improvement on it or some similar account. XLT. The statement of the Scholiast, whatever be its true place in the sequence {ante, xxiv.), is more definite. He alleges the identity of Nemthor with Ailclyde, and accounts for Patrick having been carried off from Lethanian Aremorica, in which, if we accept his authority, we should conclude Bannave Tabernisd to be situate, by the circumstance that he had accompanied his family from Strathclyde thither. Contrasting the one story with the other, the less exact will probably be regarded as the older. "Whichever be the original, these passages no doubt are the foundation of all that has been conjec- tured regarding Patrick's Armorican connexion, and his birth among the continental Britons, although both explicitly exclude the latter inference. 90 THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. XLII. Probus interposes a third captivity between Patrick's return to his family in insular Britain and his first departure on his Irish mission, conducting him by way of Bordeaux to St. Martin at Tours, from whom he receives the tonsure and ordination ; thence to the " Eremitas et Solitarios nudis pedibus " ; thence to the Island between the mountains and the sea, from which he goes to Mount Hermon, and is there ordained presbyter by Bishop Senior, whose city, we are informed, " vallata est septem muris (Tr. Th., 48, xvii.). A frequent source of error in Irish transci iption arises from the confusion between the characters or sigla expressing six and seven (se and seclit); and a six- walled city, Six fours the Hexafrourai of the Massilian colonists, does, indeed, exist within no great distance of Aries, and may be the place referred to. There is, however, notwithstanding much obscurity in the account of these peregrinations, a general consistency which forbids our ascribing it to mere invention, and few readers will rise from a perusal of Probus without the persuasion that some apostolic missionary of the Irish — whether Palladius Patrick, Senior Patrick, or Patrick the author of the Cun/essio — did, some time in the fourth or beginning of the fifth century, sojourn for purposes of ecclesiastical training in those regions bordering the Terrene Sea on the southern coast of Gaul. It is to this region Probus, in continuing disregard of the Confessio, transfers the Call of the children of Focluth Wood, and brings Patrick thence in prompt obedience to it on his mission to the Irish. Coming hither as a simple presbyter, LIFE SEVEX. 91 and without coininision, Patrick finds himself unsuccess- ful, and resolves to seek necessary authority at Rome (Tr. Th., 48, c. six.). At this point Probus, resuming the narrative of Muirehu, " transnavigato vero niari Britannico" (Hog. Doc, 24, c. 25), conducts Patrick to Germanus, and proceeds with the remaining incidents of his hearing of Palladius' mission and death, and of his return hither, and missionary acta, as already related. These various captivities and double mission taken in con- nexion with the two Patricks of the " Fiacc " Life (xxiii.) are certainly suggestive of blended sets of acta of several persons living at different epochs. XLIII. The Tripartite, or Life Seven, is the most copious repertory of all ; and, from the fact that the first elements of almost all its matter may be found in the Book of Armagh, either recorded at length or indicated in the rough index (Hog. Doc. 110-1G) to names of persons and places at the end of Tirechan in that collection, there can be little doubt that, whatever be the date of its compilation in its present form, most of its substance is drawn from traditions which were current before the compilation of the Armagh Codex. It may, therefore, be of an authority equal to that of any of the antecedent Lives. Its testimony on the question of birthplace is explicit, that Patrick was born at Nemthor of the Strath-clyde Britons (" de Brltannis Alcluidentibus," Tr. Th., 117, c. I.), and that the palace of the prince of that region, daily frequented by Patrick's 92 THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. foster-mother, described by Jocelyn as "in quodani promontorjo supereminenti prsefato oppido Nempthor " (Tr. Th., 6G, c. xi.), was in Ailclyde (Tr. Th., 119, c. xv.). The Tripartite also has the Arniorican story, substantially as told by Pro bus and the Scholiast on Fiacc ; and, on the subject of Patrick's continental travels, follows the Fiacc in making Patrick's escape from captivity a first step in his continental journey. "Patricio in solitudine agenti, apparuit Angelus, jubens ut in Italiam ad discendas scripturas se conferat. Dixit, propera: ecce nuvis tua parata est " (Tr. Th., 120, c. xxii.). And in equal disregard of the authority of the Confessio it puts the call in the islands of the Terrene Sea. As bearing on the question of epoch, it differs from all the antecedent Lives in extending Patrick's period from his first arrival in the 5th of Leoghaire throughout that and the following reign into the 8th year of Lugaid, Leoghaire's son, who succeeded on the death of Ailill Molt, a.d. 481. This brings the death of Patrick of the Tripartite to A.D. 493, the date which has had the acceptance of the greater number of modern writers, these also being of the greater weight. As earlyicideed as the compilation of the Patrician Synchro- nismus in the Leabhar Breac (vol. 2, p. 220) which probable associated evidence would refer to the time of Domnall, Archbishop of Armagh, A.D. 109 j, this was the received date, and, notwithstanding the evidence of Tirechan to the contrary, it continues to be so in the Annals and in the latest writings of Todd and Shearman. The " Chronicon Scotorum," however, distinguishes A.D. 489 as the date L1F£ SEVEN. 93 of the death of Patrick the Archbishop and Apostle of the Irish, marking, in nearer accordance with Tirechan, A.D. 457, in the latter parb of the reign of Leoghaire, as the obit of "Senior Patrick the bishop, i.e. of Glaston- bury," a further evidence of the continuing tradition from the time of the writer of the Fiacc Life of there having been at least two Patricks engaged in the Irish mission. But that a missionary of so late a date should have been in living rolations with the persons introduced by the Tripartite as Patrick's cotemporaries is very difficult to credit. XLIY. Amongst the names in the rough index referred to (sup. xliii.) is found Saran, son of Coelbadh, and the twelve sons of Coelbadh. Patrick's connexion with them, although not further expanded in the Book of Armagh, is here fully detailed. He desired to found a church at a place not now known in the northern part of Ulster, at that time ruled by Saran, who opposed hh wishes. Saran was king of Ulster, in succession to his father, Coelbadh, whose period is the better fixed because he was for one year full king of Ireland, until slain by his successor, Eochaid Muidhmedhon, A.D. 367. This, it will be seen, brings Saran into quasi parity of date with Sinell (sup. xxx.), the sons of Cathbod (xxvii.), and Enna Cennsalach (ib.) more than half a century before the reign of Leoghaire. The only mode of reconciling these dates with a post- Palladian mission is by supposing that the story of the Tripartite ought to have been told of 94 THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. some otlier Sarau of the same family ; and Shearman, in his Dalaradian Descents (Loc. Pat. Tab. 5), passing over the son of Coelbadh, and following the authority of O'Flaherty (Ogyg. iii. c. lxxvii.), has transferred the incident to Saran son of Coelbadh's grandson, Maine. XLY. But the son of Maine does not appear, like the son of Coelbadh, to have had a brother Nathsluaig, as to whose relations with Patrick the Tripartite is equally explicit as it is in respect of Saran's. Nathsluaig having commended himself to the Saint by an offered donation of land for a church at Coleraine, Patrick accepts the gift in these ambiguous terms : "It shall be mine, yet not 3ease to be yours ; for a grandson of yours as well as of mine shall have his seat and his place of rest therein ; " "which language," adds the author, "though it seemed an enigma, yet proved to be a most true oracle ; for that bishop Carbre who, in this same place, which ever since that day and event is called Cuil Rathain, that is, Ferny Close, did afterwards set up his episcopal seat, was grandson of (the same) Nathsluaig, by his son Diguill, in the way of fleshly generation, and likewise in the order of spiritual procreation, was spiritual grandson of the holy Patrick; for bishop Brugach, who is (xvi.) in Eath Mugeonach, ordained bishop by holy Patrick, is he who afterwards ordained Carbre bishop " (Tr. Th., 147, 7 a; Vit. ii., c. cxxxvi. ), which Carbre, it may be observed, is also indirectly noted in the Irish Index (Hog. Doc, 112) as filius deculli, in connection with the Coeibadian LIFE SEVEN. 95 family. It is hard to read the prediction otherwise than as referring to an event to occur after the deaths of both grandfathers ; which would quite agree with what is above observed respecting Coleraine (sup. xxv.). XLVI. The unduly early connexions above mentioned, are balanced in the Tripartite by others equally late as compared with the accepted Patrician epoch. Patrick having made his first convert amongst the Hy-Garrchon of Wicklow, in Sinell, numbered 59, and also his first convert amongst the Dalaraidhe of Down, in Dichu, son of Trechim, numbered 63, returns to the region of Hy-Garrchon, where he receives the hospitality of Killen, and bestows his blessing on Killen's infant son Marcan, being great-grandson of the same Sinell who had been his first convert in the same district (Tr. Th., 152, c. 17). Thence proceeding into the borders of Leix, he escapes the danger of certain pitfalls through the warning of a pious matron, Eriga the daughter of Fergnat, son of Cobthac, names of note in the genealogy of the Hy-Ercain or descendants of Ercan grand-uncle of St. Brigid of Kildare (Loc. Pat., Tab. v.). Proceeding thence into northern Munster, he baptizes Eochaid Baldearg, son of Carthen, of the line of Olioll Oluni. While Sinell in these Tables of descent is 59 in generation- order, Eochaid is 66, and Briga is 69. Patrick is thus during his missionary career brought in contact with ten successive generations. It might be possible for an individual, in the course of a long life, and under excep- 98 THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. tional circumstances, to converse with persons perhaps so far removed in order of birth as the sixth or seventh generation ; but there appears no ground for supposing Patrick's ministry in Ireland to have extended through half so great a length of time, much less to have comprised so excessive a range of cotemporaries. XLVII. Life Six, by Jocelyn of Furness, dates from about a.d. 1185. It relates, in amplified phraseology and not inelegant Latin, the same matters already dealt with, save that it passes by the double series of adventures recorded by Probus ; and contributes large additions to the general acta, drawn apparently from Tirechan and the Tripartite, or Seventh Life, in reference to which it seems misplaced. So far as concei-ns this enquiry, it will suffice, to note, that Jocelyn evidently understood Nemthor, or Nemphthor, " Mari Hibernico collimitans " (Tr. Th., Go, c. iv.), to be in North Britain; because, in relating Patrick's journey from the residence of his family towards Gaul, he describes him as " natale solum pertransiens " (Tr. Th., 69, c. xxii.). It contains nothing apposite to the other heads of inquiry not to be found equally at large and probably from earlier sources in the Tripartite, save that (c. 150) it designates Coroticus Ceretic, and places him " in finibus quibusdam Britaniae, quse modo Vdllia dicitur," a designation in coteni- poraneous use for the Britain of Strathclyde (Chron. Ang-Sax., passim). LIFE SIX. C