48 FOUKTH PEKIOD. A.D. 590 TO 1049.
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 Ada Sanctorum.
Critical Note on St. Patrick.
We have only one or two genuine documents from Patrick, both writ ten in semi-barbarous (early Irish) Latin, but breathing an humble, devout and fervent missionary spirit without anything specifically Eoman, 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 con tained 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 Haddan & Stubbs, note on p. 296. The Epistle to Coroticus is much shorter, and not so generally accepted. Both documents were first printed in 1656, then in 1668 in the Acta Sanctorum, also in Migne's Patrologia (Vol. 53), in Misa Cusack's Life of St. Patrick, in the work of Ebrard (I. c. 482 sqq.), and in Haddan & Stubbs, Councils (Vol. II., P. II., 296 sqq.).
There is a difference of opinion about Patrick's nationality, whether he was of Scotch, or British, or French extraction. He begins his Confession : " I, Patrick, a sinner, the rudest and the least of all the faithful, and the most contemptible with the multitude (Ego Patricius, peccator, rusticissimus et minimus omnium fidelium et contempt ibilissimus apud plurimos, or, according to another reading, contemptibUis sum apud plurimos}, had for my father Calpornus (or Calphurnius), a deacon (diaconum, or 'diaconem], the son of Potitus (al. Photius), a presbyter (filium quondam Potiti presbyteri], who lived in the village of Bannavem (or Banaven) of Tabernia; for he had a cottage in the neighborhood where I was captured. I was then about sixteen years old ; but I was ignorant of the true God, and was led away into captivity to Hibernia." Bannavem of Tabernia is perhaps Banavie in Lochaber in Scotland (McLauchlan) ; others fix the
I 14. THE CONVERSION OF IRELAND. 49
place of his birth in Kilpatrick (i. e. the cell or church of Patrick), near Dimbarton on the Clyde (Ussher, Butler, Maclear) ; others, .-,omewhere in Britain, and thus explain his epithet "Brito" or "Briton" (Joceline and Skene) ; still others seek it in Armoric Gaul, in Boulogne (from Bononia), and derive Brito from Brittany (Lanigan, Moore, Killen, De Vinne).
He does not state the instrumentality of his conversion. Being the son of a clergyman, he must have received some Christian instruc tion;, but he neglected it till he was made to feel the power of reli gion in communion with God while in slavery. "After I arrived in Ireland," he says (ch. 6), "every day I fed cattle, and frequently during the day I prayed ; more and more the love and fear of God burned, and my faith and my spirit were strengthened, so that in one day I said as many as a hundred prayers, and nearly as many in the night." He rep resents his call and commission as coming directly from God through a vision, and alludes to no intervening ecclesiastical authority or episcopal consecration. In one of the oldest Irish MSS., the Book of J Mirrow, he is styled a presbyter. In the Epistle to Coroticus, he appears more churchly and invested with episcopal power and jurisdiction. It begins : " Patricius, peccator indoctus, Hiberione (or ffi/bcrlonc) constiiutus episcopus, certissime reor, a Deo accept id quod sum: inter barbaras utique gentcs proselytus etprofuga, ob amorem Dei." (So according to the text of Hacldan & Stubbs, p. 314; somewhat different in Migne, Patrol. LIII. 814; and in Ebrard, p. 505.) But the letter does not state where or by whom he was consecrated.
The "Book of Armagh" contains also an Irish hymn (the oldest monu ment of the Irish Keltic language), called /S. Patricii Canticum /Scotticum, which Patrick is said to have written when he was about to convert the chief monarch of the island (Laoghaire or Loegairc).1 The hymn is a prayer for the special aid of Almighty God for so important a work ; it contains the principal doetrincs of orthodox Christianity, with a dread of magical influences of aged women and blacksmiths, such as still prevails in some parts of Ireland, but without an invocation of Mary and the saints, such as we might expect from the Patrick of tradition and in a composition intended as a breast-plate or corselet against spirit ual foes. The following is the principal portion :
1 The Irish was first published by Dr. Petrie, and translated by Dr. Todd. Haddan & Stubbs (320-323) give the Irish and English in parallel columns. Some parts of this hymn are said to be still remembered by the Irish peasantry and repeated at bed-time as a protection from evil, or " as a religious armor to protect body and soul against demons and men and vices."