1 It has not been thought necessary to burden these pages with a mass of bibliographical references as some writers are so fond of doing. The data on which the present study is based are taken for the most part from the well-known publications of Bury, Kenney, O’Rahilly, Grosjean, Bieler and Carney, which, it is assumed, are in the hands of all Patriciologists. The writer desires to record his indebtedness to R. I. Best, L. Bieler, Paul Grosjean, A. Gwynn, and to the late T. F. O’Rahilly, for the gift of many recent publications, which he would otherwise not have seen.

2 Professor Carney has stated recently that ‘All the Lives of Patrick, from those of the seventh century down to his most recent biographies, have been written upon a false hypothesis and are necessarily faulty’; cf. also O’Rahilly’s animadversions on Dr Bieler’s opinions in I.H.S., viii (1953). 268-79.

3 This is the title found in A, the oldest and the best MS. In the recent edition (Dublin, 1952) it has been needlessly altered to Libri Epistolarum.

4 Tirechan (Vita, § 1, ed. Hogan, , in Anal. Bolland., ii (1883). 35-6CrossRefGoogle Scholar): ‘Tirechan episcopus haec scripsit ex ore vel libro Ultani. Inveni IIII nomina in libro scripta de Patricio apud Ultanura … ambulavit et navigavit per Gallias atque Italiam totam atque in insolis quae sunt in mari Terreno, ut ipse dixit in commemoratione laborum. Erat autem in una ex insolis, quae dicitur Aralanensis, annis XXX, mihi testante Ultano episcopo. Omnia autem quae evenierunt invenietis in plena [plana A] illius [i.e. Patricii] historia scripta’.

5 Afterwards, according to O’Rahilly (Early Irish history and mythology (1946), p. 253) embodied in the ‘Ulster Chronicle’ compiled about 740.

6 Cf. Hogan, , loc. cit., i (1882). 543-4Google Scholar.

7 Vita, § 56, ed. Hogan, , loc. cit., ii (1883). 67 Google Scholar: ‘Palladius episcopus primo mittitur, qui Patricius alio nomine appellabatur, qui martirium passus est apud Scotos, ut tradunt sancti antiqui. Deinde Patricius secundus ab anguelo dei, Victor nomine, et a Celestino papa mittitur, cui Hibernia tota credidit, qui eam pene totam babtizavit’. Seeing the contradiction and confusion that reign in the ranks of our modern Patriciologists, we are hardly justified in blaming Tirechan for having mixed up two different persons. In the ‘Hymn of Fiacc’, believed to have been composed in the eighth century, there is reference to two Patricks, but the name Palladius is not mentioned.

8 That Pelagius was an Irishman and not a Briton is now generally admitted, cf. Hermathena, xx (1929), 227—8; James, M.R. in Cam. med. hist., iii (1922). 503 Google Scholar; P. Courcelle, Les lettres grecques en occident (1943), pp. 133, 390; and the excellent articles by Ince, W. in Dict. Christian Biogr., iv (1887). 282-95Google Scholar, by Pohle, J. in Cath. Encycl., xi (1911). 604-8Google Scholar, and by Dinkier, E. in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopädie, xix (1937)Google Scholar. cols. 226-42. Warren, F.E. in Camb. med. hist., ii (1913)Google Scholar. 504, holds that both Pelagius and his famous disciple Caelestius were Irish. Hyde (Lit. hist. Ire. (1899), p. 106) had anticipated Bury’s theory of the Irish ancestry of Pelagius.

9 See on this point Morin, G. in Revue bénédictine, xxxviii (1926). 177, n.Google Scholar; and Hermathena, xx. 228.

10 Kenney, Sources (1929), pp. 290, 293-304, especially p. 303. Possibly the importance of the epoch-making works of Saintyves and of Plummer has not been sufficiently appreciated, but no better pages on the nature of these ‘saints’ and on the primitive ‘Lives’ than those of Kenney have as yet been written. ‘Celtic Christianity’ was, in the words of Ernest Renan (Essais de morale et de critique (1859), p. 442), the most mythological form of Christianity that has ever existed, and one of the ‘highest forms’ was (ibid., p. 457) Pelagianism.

11 Acta Sanctorum, ed. Boll., , Martii tom. ii (1668). p. 540 Google Scholar. Despite his good intentions, Jocelin has left us merely a vast and tedious compilation (ibid., pp. 540-80), of no more value historically than the other Lives. Curiously enough it was the only one of the Vitae Patricii that the Bollandists thought fit to publish. We find them, in fact, frequently complaining of the unsatisfactory nature of the Lives of the Irish saints, ‘more apt to induce laughter than veneration for the saints’ (loc. cit., Febr. tom. i (1658), pp. xvii col. 1, and 101).

12 To the modern exponent of Quellenkritik such documents are naturally disappointing, but to folk-lorists such as Plummer they have proved invaluable; cf. Hermathena, xxiv (1935). 122-3, 163, and Classica et Mediaevalia, xiii (1952). 70-2.

13 Ailred of Rievaulx refers to a Liber de Vita Niniani ‘barbarice scriptus’. This probably means ‘written in barbarous Latin’, and Jocelin’s sermone barbarico digesta must mean ‘compiled in barbarous language’, i.e. bad Latin.

14 In this respect the Irish Lives are often more daring than the Latin originals; compare for example the peculiarly irreverent manner in which the incident of the carrying off to Armagh of the Pope’s most precious relics is told in the Irish, with the prudent and non-committal version given in the Latin texts (cf. also Hermathena, xxiv. 138-40).

15 Lit. hist. Ire. (1899), pp. 500-13; cf. also Renan, op. cit., pp. 433-4.

16 Cf. Kenney, p. 417 (no. 204); Hermathena, xxiv. 164-5.

17 No less than seventy MSS of this production are enumerated in Hermathena, xxv (1936). 162-7, and many others are doubtless in existence. Even at the present day this legend enjoys wide credence.

18 In the words of Hogan, Edmund (in Anal. Bolland., i (1882). 538 Google Scholar): ‘ex eo [MS A] folia 2-24 edidit, ita inaccurate ut omnium peritorum stomachum adversus se moverit’. In justice to Betham it may be recalled that his was pioneering work. Many years later, B. MacCarthy undertook to correct—with equally disastrous results—Muratori’s defective edition of the Antiphonary of Bangor, and the censure of Whitley Stokes was not less severe than that of Hogan on Betham.

19 ‘The St Patrick myth’, in North American Review, cxxxvii (1883). 358-68Google Scholar. The sun-god hypothesis was revived many years later by Czarnowski.

20 In Zeitschrift für deutsches Alterthum, xxxv (1891). 76-8.

21 ‘Patricks, Die Schriften S.’, in Neue Heidelberger Jahrbücher, iii, i (1893) pp. 71–87 Google Scholar.

22 In his edition of Ven. Baedae Opera Historica, ii. 25, 26, 76.

23 Cf. especially pp. 112-44. In recent biographies of Patrick (Kenney, Gougaud, Bieler) Hyde’s name will be searched for in vain.

24 In I.E.R. (Aug. 1887, pp. 723-31).

25 Among the few who accepted in part Zimmer’s point of view was W. J. D. Croke (in I.E.R., Nov. 1902, pp. 442-50).

26 The indignation has not yet, after fifty years, entirely subsided. Recently Dr Bieler (Life of Patrick, 1949, p. 127) has charged Zimmer with ‘slandering’ Patrick. But is it ‘slanderous’ to accuse someone of having never existed?

27 It is sad to think that no second edition was ever called for. Curiously enough the same fate would appear to have befallen all the Lives of Patrick from Stanihurst to Bieler. Does this mean that the interest in the national apostle is confined to the celebrations of March 17?

28 Dr L. Bieler in his well-known challenge to O’Rahilly, (‘Vindiciae Patricianae’, in I.E.R., lxxix (1953). 185 Google Scholar) proclaims himself a defender of the traditional history of ‘our national apostle’, but his book is based entirely on Bury, and John Healy’s traditional outlook is dismissed with the words ‘Back to the pre-critical stage’! Whatever failings German critical scholars may find in the works of Archbishop Healy, they cannot at least deny that he wrote excellent and clearly comprehensible English.

29 It is only fair to mention that in 1919 a writer of the mythological school, S. Czarnowski, published a book at Paris with the object of showing that Patrick was no more than a solar divinity transformed by popular imagination into the national hero of Ireland. Kenney (op. cit., p. 321) regards this work as ‘a contribution of the highest importance to the study of the Patrick legend’, but Dr Bieler takes a very different view (Life, pp. 110-3, 141).

30 O’Rahilly was averse to hasty publication and to the ‘showing off’ of irrelevant and pedantic learning, and it was only in 1953, not long before his death, that he partly replied to critics in a review of the Life by Dr Bieler, who had in the meantime unwisely challenged him (cf. I.H.S., viii (1953). 268-79). In a letter written in the spring of 1953, O’Rahilly informed the present writer that he had terminated a Life of St Patrick in about 500 pages, and was looking for a publisher—in England.

31 Cf. Ireland: Weekly Bull. Dept. Ext. Affairs (1956), no. 315. Cf. Studies in Irish literature and history, pp. 324-73, 394-412.

32 If Secundinus came from Italy, as Carney states, he cannot have been a Lombard, for it was only in 568 that the Lombards entered Italy.

33 This fact had been pointed out many years ago in Hermathena, xx (1929). pp. 229-30.

34 Cf. op. cit., p. 403.

35 The arguments advanced by this writer have been ably refuted by N. J. D. White (The date of St Patrick, Dublin, 1932) and by L. Bieler. It is well to recall, however, that the latter’s frequent use of Latinity as a means of dating texts is open to serious objection.

36 Patricius (Confessio, § 50) speaks of having baptized many thousands of people. It is impossible to estimate the population of Ireland in the fourth and fifth centuries.

37 Palladius was already known as an active opponent of Pelagianism. As first official Roman bishop of the Irish, he was simply reaping the fruits of his predecessor’s activities. Prosper’s words ‘fecit barbaram insulam christianam’ are a mere rhetorical flourish. Stokes, G.T. (Dict. Christ. Biog., iv (1887). 176-77)Google Scholar has well remarked: ‘ His birthplace has been disputed, some placing it in England, others in Gaul, others in Italy; some even making him a Greek. The fact is that we have no information at all on the subject; and as the name Palladius was common enough in those times, every author has a sufficiently wide field on which to exercise his power of identification or imagination’. Verbum sapienti …

38 This confusion is thus summed up by G. T. Stokes (loc. cit., p. 200): ‘Patricius has been the subject of much controversy … His existence has been doubted, his name has been ascribed to seven different persons at least, while the origin and authority of his mission have been warmly disputed between what we may for convenience call the adherents of the Roman and Protestant views’.

39 It has been recently recalled with approval by Professor K. Mulchrone (in I.E.R., Mar. 1956, pp. 155-70); cf. also Olden, T. (in D.N.B., xv (1909). 484)Google Scholar, who proposed to adopt the date given by Nennius—405—for Patrick’s coming, but this date has no historical value.

40 Cf.

Tillemont, (Mémoires, t. xvi (1712), p. 782)Google Scholar; Hyde (op. cit., p. 142); Kenney (op. cit., i, p. 167).

41 The Two Patricks, p. 68; cf. also A. W. Wade-Evans (The emergence of England and Wales (1956), p. 85).

42 Some writers (e.g. Tillemont, op. cit., t. xvi, p. 457, Moran, etc.) believed that Patrick landed in the barren wastes of north Britain or Scotland, and this seems not improbable. Olden (loc. cit., p. 484) informs us that the ‘desert’ was a forest extending from the mouth of the Loire to Marseilles. Obviously Patrick and the sailors could never have undertaken a month’s journey in barren or devastated territory without having previously accumulated supplies and organised means of transport.

43 L. Bieler, The works of St Patrick (1953), pp. 5-6.

44 The author, who stated (p. 3) that Patrick was born about 385, has apparently overlooked the fact that Germanus only became bishop in 418 when Patrick would have been already more than thirty-three—an unusual age for commencing to study. G. T. Stokes (loc. cit., p. 203) had already suggested that Patrick, born c. 372, had gone to Germanus c. 395. Olden (loc. cit., p. 484) states that Patrick’s teacher was Martin of Tours.

45 After presenting us with these precise details, the author states on the same page that in the sources the ‘truth is almost inextricably mixed with legend’. The facts appear to be that Patrick when very young had become a deacon (Conf., § 27) in Britain. More than thirty years later (Conf., §§ 26, 27, 32), when he was in Ireland, an attempt to make him an official bishop, also in Britain, failed.

46 Patrick repeatedly laments his ignorance (Conf., §§ 9, 10, 11, 34, 62; Ep. § 1). In § 9 of the Confessio he tells us that he had been compelled to change his original language (which must have been British) to Latin, of which he was not master, though he emphasises the fact that he was a Roman citizen (Ep. § 2), cf. I.H.S.j viii (1954). 11.

47 In I.E.R. (March 1956, pp. 190-7).

48 Life and legend of St Patrick, pp. 95-6.

49 Dr Bieler has stated recently (Works of St Patrick, p. 12) that the letter is ‘almost certainly earlier’ than the Confession, and he adds: ‘The demanded excommunication of Coroticus upon whom the Roman Christians of Britain looked as their protector, seems to have aroused anew the hostility to Patrick that had resulted in his rejection [as bishop]. The Confession might very well also be a reply to such opposition … Patrick before dictating his Confession, re-read his earlier manifesto. As in the Confession, there is a constant change of addressees’. All this is mere speculation. Had the Confessio been later than the raid of Coroticus, there would surely have been some mention in it of the occurrence.

50 Attention may be called to a phrase in § 16 of the Epistola, which in the Paris MS occurs as ‘Indignum est illis Hiberia nati sumus’. Obviously Patrick could not have said that he was born in Ireland, when he speaks repeatedly of Britain as his native country. Dr Bieler proposes with reason to read Hiberionaci sumus, but the explanation of the phrase he offers is unintelligible. Does it not simply mean ‘that we are dwellers in Ireland’?

51 A perusal of the pages devoted by Dr Bieler (Life of St Patrick, pp. 83-9) to the discussion of O’Rahilly’s hypothesis of ‘two Patricks’, is sufficient to demonstrate the extraordinary confusion to which the Patriciologists have succeeded in reducing this subject.

52 Annals of Ulster, edited by Hennessy, W.M., i (1887). p. 5 Google Scholar: ‘432. Patrick arrived at (sic) Ireland’. Under the date 441 (p. 11) is the entry: ‘Patrick the bishop was approved in the catholic faith’. Does this mean that this Patrick’s orthodoxy had been suspected?

53 Private communication to the writer.

54 Very much has been written about Patrick’s supposed birthplace, the mysterious Bannavem Taberniae (Conf., § 1). But he merely states that his father possessed a house near that locality, where he, Patrick, was, at the age of sixteen, captured by raiders from Ireland, and brought there as a slave. The locality is unknown, and scholars have for generations persisted in useless attempts to ‘emend‘ Patrick’s words. Palaeographically the best emendation would be Bannaventa Berniciae (but the latter name does not seem to have originated before c. 547). The worst is probably that proposed by MacNeill, which he attempted afterwards to ‘withdraw’. It is duly registered in Dr Bieler’s edition. This illustrates the danger of hasty publication alluded to above. Certain scholars rather than admit their blunders attempt later to ‘withdraw‘ them, but this is impossible, for the printed word cannot be withdrawn. Gougaud (op. cit., pp. 32-33) has given a list of the numerous proposed identifications. It includes Boulogne, Rome and Terracina.

55 Patrick mentions (Conf., §§ 51-3) that he had spent large sums of money in purchasing protection and permission to preach from the numerous local kings (Dr Bieler says there were at least 100 in Patrick’s time), and Kenney remarks that ‘where he obtained his revenues we are not told’. We may conjecture that this money came from the sale of his ‘nobility’ (Ep., § 10), and possibly also from that of the possessions inherited from his parents.

56 The silence of Prosper and of Bede concerning Patrick has been alleged as proof of his non-existence. G. T. Stokes (loc. cit., p. 206) explains Bede’s silence in this manner: ‘He was an adherent of the Roman party in England and had a horror of Celtic irregularities. He hated the Celtic Church, which he looked upon as schismatic if not heretical. He was a thorough Englishman, and hated the Britons with whom he identified the Celtic Church of Ireland’. So much hate in the ‘Venerable’ Bede! It may be that copies of the Patrician opuscula and of the Vitae by Tirechan and Muirchu did not reach England and the continent before the ninth century; and thus Patrick’s name and the work accomplished by him remained unknown to Bede. Yet, it is by no means easy to understand how it was that Anglo-Saxon visitors to Ireland in the seventh and eighth centuries had not made known in England the achievements of Patricius and Palladius.