in the fifth century; that he was a most zealous and efficient evangelist, and that he is eminently
entitled to the honorable designation of the Apostle of Ireland."^53
The Christianity of Patrick was substantially that of Gaul and old Britain, i.e. Catholic,
orthodox, monastic, ascetic, but independent of the Pope, and differing from Rome in the age of
Gregory I. in minor matters of polity and ritual. In his Confession he never mentions Rome or the
Pope; he never appeals to tradition, and seems to recognize the Scriptures (including the Apocrypha)
as the only authority in matters of faith. He quotes from the canonical Scriptures twenty-five times;
three times from the Apocrypha. It has been conjectured that the failure and withdrawal of Palladius
was due to Patrick, who had already monopolized this mission-field; but, according to the more
probable chronology, the mission of Patrick began about nine years after that of Palladius. From
the end of the seventh century, the two persons were confounded, and a part of the history of
Palladius, especially his connection with Pope Caelestine, was transferred to Patrick.^54
With St. Patrick there is inseparably connected the most renowned female saint of Ireland,
St. Bridget (or Brigid, Brigida, Bride), who prepared his winding sheet and survived him many
years. She died Feb. 1, 523 (or 525). She is "the Mary of Ireland," and gave her name to innumerable
Irish daughters, churches, and convents. She is not to be confounded with her name-sake, the
widow-saint of Sweden. Her life is surrounded even by a still thicker cloud of legendary fiction
than that of St. Patrick, so that it is impossible to separate the facts from the accretions of a credulous
posterity. She was an illegitimate child of a chieftain or bard, and a slave-mother, received holy
orders, became deformed in answer to her own prayer, founded the famous nunnery of Kildare (i.e.
the Church of the Oak),^55 foretold the birth of Columba, and performed all sorts of signs and
wonders.
Upon her tomb in Kildare arose the inextinguishable flame called "the Light of St. Bridget,"
which her nuns (like the Vestal Virgins of Rome) kept
"Through long ages of darkness and storm" (Moore).
Six lives of her were published by Colgan in his Trias Thaumaturgus, and five by the
Bollandists in the Acta Sanctorum.
Critical Note on St. Patrick.
We have only one or two genuine documents from Patrick, both written in semi-barbarous
(early Irish) Latin, but breathing an humble, devout and fervent missionary spirit without anything
specifically Roman, viz. his autobiographical Confession (in 25 chapters), written shortly before
his death (493?), and his Letter of remonstrance to Coroticus (or Ceredig), a British chieftain
(nominally Christian), probably of Ceredigion or Cardigan, who had made a raid into Ireland, and
sold several of Patrick’s converts into slavery (10 chapters). The Confession, as contained in the
"Book of Armagh," is alleged to have been transcribed before a.d. 807 from Patrick’s original
autograph, which was then partly illegible. There are four other MSS. of the eleventh century, with
sundry additions towards the close, which seem to be independent copies of the same original. See
(^53) Killen, Vol. I. 12. Patrick describes himself as "Hiberione constitutus episcopus." Afterwards he was called "Episcopus
Scotorum," then "Archiapostolus Scotorum," then "Abbat of all Ireland," and "Archbishop, First Primate, and Chief Apostle of
Ireland.’ See Haddan & Stubbs, p. 295.
(^54) Haddan & Stubbs, p. 294, note: "The language of the Hymns of S. Sechnall and of S. Fiacc, and of S. Patrick’s own
Confessio, and the silence of Prosper, besides chronological difficulties, disprove, upon purely historical grounds, the supposed
mission from Rome of S. Patrick himself; which first appears in the Scholia on S. Fiacc’s Hymn."
(^55) The probable date of foundation isa. d.480. Haddan & Stubbs, p. 295.