Introductory Notes on Patrick’s Life
What we know about Patrick is limited. We know neither the date of his birth nor that of his death, though it seems he was active in the fifth century. We are not sure where he was born; there are claims for Cumbria (most likely near Carlisle), Scotland, and Wales. His Roman name was Patricius but he is known in Welsh as Padrig and in Irish as Padraig. His father was a deacon named Calpurnius and thought to be wealthy. His grandfather was a priest in Britain named Potitus. He was kidnapped by pirates at sixteen and taken to Ireland where he served a benevolent owner for about six years, when he fled Ireland and shipped back to Britain. His location in Ireland was probably in County Mayo, in the west of Connaught; we think this from his note in the
Confession (ch. 23) that he was in the “Wood of Foclut near the western sea.”[1] In any case, his faith was lit up when he was in Ireland and he returned thence as a missionary after living with his parents again for a time.
The magnificent poem and hymn known as
St. Patrick’s Breastplate
(Lorica in Latin, also known as the Deer’s Cry—Fáed fíada in Irish) was not written by him and is usually dated in the eighth century, long after his lifespan.[2] The Irish title
fáed fíada also translates as “concealing mist,” which may refer to the
caim prayer at the heart of the Lorica. A
caim is a “circling” or “compassing prayer,” in which Christ is invoked to surround the person with divine protection. Mists play a significant part in Celtic mythology.
Patrick probably studied in Gaul at Auxerre and was ordained priest by St Germanus of Auxerre, but it is uncertain when he was named bishop, although he would not have been able to ordain priests without such consecration. His episcopal seat is believed to be Armagh, but this too may be legendary although he is identified with that site to this day. He is credited with being the Enlightener of Ireland in the hagiographies, but it is certain that there was Christian activity in Ireland prior to his work.[3] We know that there were British bishops present at the Synod of Arles in A.D. 314.
Two lives of St. Patrick, one by Murchíu and one by Tirechán, come from the late seventh century and rely upon an earlier work known as the
Book of Ultán. In both of these Patrick appears as a heroic figure, battling Druids and pagans and prevailing over them in a manner such as Elijah prevailed over the prophets of Baal or Moses against the Pharaoh. However, Patrick is not mentioned in the logical place where he should be; namely, in Columbanus’s letter to Pope Boniface IV in A.D. 613, where Palladius—a contemporary of Patrick—is cited as the main missioner to Ireland. Palladius was named first bishop of Irish Christians in A.D. 431 by Pope Celestine I, which is attested in the
Chronicle of Prosper of Acquitaine, sentence 1305, a well-known and reliable source.[4] Indeed, one other bishop may have been in Ireland prior to our St. Patrick; namely, St. Ciaran, bishop at Seir-Keiran (now the Diocese of Ossory). This Ciaran, though, should not be confused with the better-known Ciaran, who founded the Abbey of Clonmacnoise in A.D. 548 (and who was educated by St Finian of Clonard).
The current theory, initially proposed by the Irish scholar T. F. O’Rahilly, is that Patrick and Palladius had been conflated into one figure and that there were thus two Patricks, who covered the same territory in the service of Christian mission.[5] The first one was Palladius, who reposed in A.D. 461. Our St. Patrick, the author of the
Letter to Coroticus and the
Confession, arrived in Ireland to continue the work of Palladius, possibly in that same year of 461. This may be a problem that will never be solved but the proposition seems sensible and has been more readily accepted over the years.
Patrick admitted that he was not a good writer of Latin. One reason may have been his abduction at age sixteen, which doubtless interfered with his education. His lack of facility in Latin is not surprising, however, since at this time Great Britain was thoroughly Celtic in both language and ancestry. The language, prior to Anglo-Saxon infiltration in the Northeast of Britain, was Brythonic, which divided into two primary dialects, known as P- and Q-Celtic. Q-Celtic is the source for Irish, Manx, and Erse, or Scots Gaelic; P-Celtic is the source for Welsh, Cornish, and Breton. All of these are Romano-British languages, a fact traceable in the contemporary vocabulary of Wales and Ireland. According to Professor Antone Minard of Simon Fraser University, B.C., in earlier times the basic language of the whole of Great Britain was uniformly Brythonic until the eighth century, with the exceptions of the Picts above Hadrian’s Wall and eastern outposts of Anglo-Saxons.[6] Brythonic we know primarily as Welsh today.
The two writings that we have from Patrick’s pen are the
Letter to Coroticus, a stern work reprimanding the addressees, British soldiers and their military commander, with excommunication because of cruelty and abuse to the Irish people. The other writing is the
Confession, to which we will turn later.
Three Kinds of Martyrs: the Celtic Innovation
Christianity came to the western Islands of Britain, Man, and Ireland with very little incidence of martyrdom. Both Origen (A.D. 184-253) and Tertullian (A.D. 160-240) mention in their writings that Christianity had made it to Britain.[7] Tertullian mentions that Christianity was fairly long established there in his
Adversus Judaeos. Major mission activity would continue in the period following the Edict of Milan (ca. A.D. 315), which legitimized the church in the Roman Empire, of which Britain was part. Britain was largely spared from the last persecutions, with most of the antipathy to Christians being exhibited in the areas closest to Rome.
Because of the paucity of red martyrdom (the witness giving his or her life for the faith), the Celtic mind, desiring to witness in a disciplined and intense manner, gave rise to the idea of green or blue and white martyrs (in Welsh, e.g., the word for blue is
glas, but it can also be used for green, as in
glaswellt, the word for “grass”).
Blue martyrdom is centered in acts of self-denial and penitence. The Ceilí Dí (also known as the Culdees), an austere monastic movement in Celtic regions, attached themselves to cathedral or collegiate churches. Mostly active in Ireland and Scotland, they are models for blue martyrdom.
White martyrdom is centered in acts of pilgrimage and separation from what and who you know and love, and it could involve permanent exile. The term was apparently first used by St. Jerome and it is found in the
Cambrai Homily
(7th-8th c.), which uses all three colors to designate the types of martyrdom.[8] The missioners who went out from Ireland to the continent and founded monasteries were white martyrs. Patrick serves as a model for white martyrdom.
The Irish Penitentials as Counterpoint to Patrick’s Confession
The confessional practice of the church grew slowly out of the necessity to enable people to seek forgiveness for sins committed after baptism. Earlier in the history of the church was a period in which no repentance was permitted after baptism, but this proved unworkable, so an ameliorating practice began. St. John Chrysostom refers to the practice of repentance and absolution as a return to baptism, which gives weight to the centrality of the sacrament of initiation and preserves its centrality by making of confession, practically, a satellite. This understanding continues today in Orthodoxy: “A Christian, having received forgiveness of sins, again becomes innocent and sanctified, just as he (or she) came out of the waters of baptism.”[9]
The Irish Penitentials developed around the time of St. Patrick and are instrumental in understanding the austere profile of the Celtic churches. Penitentials are lists of sins with an appropriate punishment and penance attached to them. The Anglo-Saxon Penitentials of the period demonstrate companion practices to the Celtic ones.
Several of these Penitentials survive, including one attributed to St. Gildas (A.D. 500 – 29 January 570), who also wrote a rather scathing pseudo-historical treatment called
de excidiu et conquestu brittaniae (the overthrow and conquest of Britain). Gildas’s Penitential is primarily aimed at errant priests and monastics, and the penances are quite stringent (e.g. a priest who has committed fornication or sodomy shall do penance for three years, with a lot of additional penitential notes thrown in). The first Penitential was that of St. Finian of Clonnard (A.D. 470 – 12 December 549), a learned cleric who based his confessional on the models of St. John Cassian (A.D. 360-435), a monastic leader closely tied to Celtic spirituality and monasticism. The Penitential of Cummean (ca. A.D. 650) also follows the list of vices outlined by Cassian. Cummean was writing a handbook for clerics to hear confession and his text contains chapters on gluttony, fornication, avarice, anger, depression, apathy, vanity, pride, and “the sinful playing of boys.” We need not review the texts, but it is important to note that they differ in spirit from Patrick’s
Confession.[10]
In Ireland, practical considerations separated confession from the granting of absolution because of the absence of local priests and the difficulty of visitation. Remember that there were few roads in the ancient lands and that villages were small and usually oriented in a circular pattern like a hillfort. As a side note, the village configuration became in time the configuration for the early monasteries. Within the villages, then, a spiritual guide, someone of deep spiritual insight, filled the role of an
anam chara. Such people assisted in the praxis of confession but did not offer absolution, which was the province of the priest. They provided for spiritual conversation between and among persons in a parish community.
Anam chara means “soul friend” or “spiritual friend,” and this practice has continued in refined modes throughout the history of the church until our present day, particularly in liturgical churches where a person’s connection to the liturgy and the sacraments is an assumed part of the conversation.
The
anam charae did not impose penances upon their conversation partners. They served more as guides and as encouragement for people in their spiritual development. Patrick may be seen as an example of
anam chara, particularly in light of the idea of the “wounded healer,”[11] one who uses his or her own history, particularly the wounds carried, as an entry into spiritual depths for and with others.
Patrick’s Confession as Praise and Thanksgiving
With this model of the
anam chara in mind, we can approach Patrick’s
Confession. We can see this through the lens of St. Columbanus (A.D. 540 – 21 November 615), the great planter of monasteries on the continent, chiefly at Luxeuil in southeast Gaul and Bobbio in northern Italy, where he died. Columbanus wrote:
monks must everywhere beware of a proud independence and learn true humility… by which, according to the Word of the Lord, the yoke of Christ may be sweet to them and his burden light. … For humility is the repose of the soul when wearied with vices and effort, its only refuge from so many evils… so that even bitter things are sweet to it and things which it previously found difficult and demanding it now feels to be plain and easy.[12]
These words could have been written about St. Patrick, whose death likely anticipated the first of the Penitentials by a century, but whose humble demeanor served as a model of the Christian life. His
Confession is not oriented in the same way as we might expect from the austerity of the Penitentials that dominated so much of later Christianity in the islands. It may, in fact, be misnamed. Other penitential rituals did not contain penances as do the Irish Penitentials. It is thought that the penances, and their severity, entered the Irish tradition through the Druids.[13] Other rules such as that of John Cassian, Pachomius, and Basil all refer to the practice of confession with no penance attached.
Although Patrick doesn’t write against the practice, Patrick’s confession has none of this notion of severe penance in it. It is misnamed if you’re looking for this heightened penitential sense. However, confession has another meaning as a positive act, as a practice of giving thanks for your aliveness, looking around and enjoying your specific place in the world, and increasing your humility before others. That’s the scope of Patrick’s confession. Sure, Patrick is aware of his inadequacies, failures, and trespasses, but these things do not dominate his confession. He loved the Irish people among whom he served, though he was not himself Irish. The hallmarks are joy, praise, thanksgiving, and a sense of connectedness to the earth and its creatures. No wonder the Breastplate is credited to him; it’s full of these same hallmarks.
Patrick’s confession is more a paean of praise to the Holy Trinity and of God’s mercy upon His people; it is a clinging to the work of Christ in cross and resurrection, the Christ who has brought all people to the presence of the Father, as in John’s Gospel: “And I, when I am lifted up, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32; John’s verse is a double entendre: it means both the lifting up on the cross and the lifting up in exaltation, which is John’s approach to the resurrection). Christ is like a magnet or like YHWH, who at Hosea 2 says of Israel, “I will allure her,” drawing Israel back to Himself like a lover.
As Oliver Davies points out in
Celtic Spirituality, “If we look on Patrick’s account of what God did through him in this light, then his confession is but another part of his own service of God, which is the preaching of the gospel to those who have not heard it (cf. Rom 15:!6 and I Cor 9:12-3).”[14] In the words of another Irish writer on mysticism, Patrick experienced God as his
anam-cara in the years of his alienation and exile in a foreign land which was to become his homeland in time.[15] He, in turn, became a spiritual guide and friend to many as a wounded healer, one who used his own adversity and brokenness as a bridge to others.[16] Particularly charming is the judgment of John O’Donohue: “(Patrick) constructed no kingdom of the ego.”[17] “Patrick was a humble man, well aware of his own shortcomings, but he believed that grace is a transforming gift which enables the believer to do great things in God’s service.”[18]
We may see St. Patrick as a brilliant exemplar of the white martyr, the one who goes on pilgrimage and into exile to serve others. Patrick is an icon of Christ; it might be said of him, as we say of St. John Chrysostom, “he has disclosed to us the treasures of generosity and shown us the heights of humility.”[19]
[1] Davies, Oliver, trans. and introduction,
Celtic Spirituality, Classics of Western Spirituality (Mahwah NJ: Paulist Press, 1999), p. 75.
[2] David Adam,
The Cry of the Deer: Meditations on the Hymn of St. Patrick, (Harrisburg PA: Morehouse Publishing, 1995), p. xiv. See also Davies, op. cit., p. 31.
[3] On Christian activity in Celtic regions prior to Patrick, see Davies, op. cit., pp.17ff.; Liam de Paor,
St. Patrick’s World: The Christian Culture of Ireland’s Apostolic Age, (Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997).
[4] Deanna Brook’s,
Prosper’s Chronicle: A Critical Edition and Translation of the Edition of 445, (MA Thesis: University of Ottawa, 2014), p. 75. See also Damien Bracken, “Authority and Duty: Columbanus and the Primacy of Rome,” pp. 6 and 16. Available online at:
https://celt.ucc.ie/Columbanus%20and%20Rome.pdf
[5] Bronwen Hobie, “The Solution to the ‘Two St Patricks’ Theory,” available online at:
https://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/articles/the-solution-to-the-two-st-patricks-theory/. O’Rahilly’s 1942 essay, “The Two Patricks: A lecture on the History of Christianity in the Fifth Century,” presented to the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies was intended to provoke renewed scholarship into the life of St. Patrick.
[6] Lecture at the annual Cwrs Cymraeg sponsored by Cymdeithas Madog, 18 July 2018.
[7] David Petts,
Christianity in Roman Britain, (Stroud: Tempus Books, 2003), p. 9.
[8] Davies, op. cit., p. 369.
[9] Fr Michael Pomanzansky,
Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, p. 287.
[10] The definitive treatment of the material is John T. McNeill,
The Celtic Penitentials and their Influence on Continental Christianity, (Paris: Librairie Ancienne Honore Champion, 1923); and, with Helena M. Gamer,
Medieval Handbooks of Penance, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990).
[11] See the wonderful short treatment by Henri Nouwen,
The Wounded Healer, (New York: Doubleday Image Books, 1979). Henri’s book is considered a modern classic.
[12] Davies, op. cit., “Rule for Monks by Columbanus,” p. 255 (excerpted).
[13] McNeill, op. cit., pp. 90ff.
[14] Ibid., p. 29.
[15] John O’Donohue, “Prologue,” in John Skinner, trans.,
The Confession of St. Patrick, (New York: Doubleday Image Books, 1998), p. viii.
[16] Sellner,
Edward C., Stories of the Celtic Soul Friends, (Mahwah NJ: Paulist Press, 2004), pp. 51-89.
[17] O’ Donohue, op. cit., p. xiii.
[18] Leslie Whiteside,
The Spirituality of St Patrick, (Harrisburg PA: Morehouse Publishing, 1996), p. 14.
[19] Said at the conclusion of the prayers after communing in the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom.
