PATRICK
who struggled to express himself in a language he
could not master, his two extant Letters are, not by
Ciceronian standards, but certainly by Biblical stan-
dards, masterpieces. If Patrick was a homo unius libri
“a man of one book,” that book was the Latin Bible,
which he quoted both economically and brilliantly,
using its phrases to claim identity of his vocation and
mission with those of the Lawgiver Moses and the
Apostle Paul, relying upon readers’ knowledge of the
unquoted contexts of his quotations and allusions to
clarify his explicit meanings, to suggest implicit over-
tones and undertones, and to attack his critics. To
establish his literary credentials he composed in Cice-
ronian clausular rhythms, which he arranged by type,
only in the paragraph of the Confessioin which,
addressingdomini cati rethorici“lords, skilled rheto-
ricians,” he appears to proclaim his ignorance. Else-
where his cursus rhythms, like his Biblical orthogra-
phy, diction, and syntax, are faultless. His prose,
arrangedper cola et commata “by clauses and
phrases,” exhibits varied forms of complex word play.
Every paragraph is both internally coherent and bound
in larger patterns within comprehensively architec-
tonic compositions, in which every line, every word,
every letter has been arithmetically fixed. His prose
consistently evokes Biblical typology, an effective
means of linking the events of his personal life with
sacred and universal history.
Patrick nowhere states that he brought any ecclesi-
astical assistants with him from Britain, but he affirms
repeatedly that he is a bishop in Ireland, referring often
to those converted, baptized, confirmed, ordained as
clerics, and admitted to the religious life as both monks
and nuns in Ireland. He never describes his education,
nor does he name any authoritative teacher or ecclesi-
astical patron. In stating at the beginning of the Epis-
tolathat he is indoctushe does not lament that he is
“unlearned;” rather he proclaims that he is “untaught”
by men, and he continues directly Hiberione constitu-
tus episcopum me esse fateor. Certissime reor a Deo
accepi id quod sum“established in Ireland I confess
myself to be a bishop. Most certainly I think I have
received from God what I am.” He mentions his deal-
ings with Irish kings, praemia dabam regibus“I habit-
ually gave rewards to kings,” with the sons of kings in
his retinue, dabam mercedem filiis ipsorum qui mecum
ambulant“I habitually gave a fee to the sons of the
same [kings] who walk with me,” with the lawyers or
brehonsqui iudicabant“who customarily judged,” to
whom he distributed non minimum quam pretium quin-
decim hominum“not less than the price of fifteen men,”
with noble women, una benedicta Scotta genetiua
nobilis pulcherrima adulta erat quam ego baptizaui
“there was one blessed Irish woman, born noble, very
beautiful, an adult whom I baptized,” and with others
quae mihi ultronea munuscula donabant et super altare
iactabant ex ornamentis suis, et iterum reddebam illis
“who habitually gave to me voluntary little gifts and
hurled them upon the altar from among their own orna-
ments, and I habitually gave them back again to them.”
Though Patrick mentions no absolute date, he
makes it abundantly clear that the milieu in which he
lived and worked was late-Roman and post-Roman
Britain and Ireland of the fifth century. From at least
the sixth century onward Patrick has been revered as
the effective founder of the Church in Ireland, cele-
brated in the panegyric “Saint Sechnall’s Hymn”
Audite Omnes Amantes Deumcomposed probably dur-
ing the fourth quarter of the sixth century and quoted
during the seventh. Patrick is cited as papa noster“our
father” in Cummian’s Letter about the Paschal con-
troversy written in the year 633 to Ségéne, Abbot of
Iona, and the Béccán the Hermit. There are references
to three lost Lives of Patrick written by Bishop
Columba of Iona, Bishop Ultán moccu Conchobuir of
Ardbraccan, and Ailerán the Wise, Lector of Clonard
by the middle of the seventh century. From the end of
the seventh century a hagiographic dossier in support
of the metropolitan claims of the church at Armagh
includes memoranda, Collectanea, by Tírechán, a
pupil of Bishop Ultán, and a Vitaby Muirchú moccu
Macthéni, a pupil of Cogitosus of Kildare. By the end
of the eleventh century or the beginning of the twelfth
there were four additional Vitae.
TheSynodus Episcoporum or “First Synod of Saint
Patrick,” extant in a single manuscript copied from an
Insular exemplar and written at the end of the ninth
century or the beginning of the tenth in a scriptorium
under the influence of Tours, may have issued from
a synod between 447 and 459 by the missionaries
Palladius, Auxilius, and Isserninus, the former sent in
431 by Pope Celestine ad Scotos in Xpistum credentes
“to the Scots [i.e., Irish] believing in Christ,” the text
attracted to the Patrician dossier by propagandists at
Armagh in the seventh century.
Patrick is commemorated on March 17.
DAVID ROBERT HOWLETTReferences and Further Reading
Bieler, Ludwig, ed. Libri Epistolarum Sancti Patricii Episcopi,
introduction, text, and commentary. In Classica et Mediae-
valiaXI (1950), XII (1951). Irish Manuscripts Commission.
Dublin: Stationery Office, 1952. Reprinted as Clavis Patricii
II, Royal Irish Academy, Dictionary of Medieval Latin from
Celtic Sources, Ancillary Publications IVDublin: RIA,
1993.
———“The Hymn of St. Secundinus.” Proceedings of the
Royal Irish Academy LV C. (1952–1953), pp. 117–127.
———.The Works of St. Patrick, St. Secundinus Hymn on St.
Patrick, Ancient Christian Writers XVII. London: Longmans,
Green & Co. and Westminster MD: Newman Press, 1953.