|
|
|
|
Saint Patrick
Saint Patrick (died c. March 17, 461) is the patron saint of Ireland,
along with Saint Brigid and Saint Columba.
Saint Patrick was born somewhere along the west coast of Britain in the
little settlement or village of Bannavem of Taburnia, which has never been
identified with certainty. The tiny Welsh village of Banwen has often been
suggested as his birth place. It was clearly occupied in Roman times,
sitting on the Neath-Brecon Roman road and next to the two Roman forts in
Coelbren. Other sites suggested include Dumbarton, Furness and Somerset, or
the coastline of Wales or northern France. Another possibility put forward
for his birthplace is the settlement of Bannaventa in Northamptonshire.
Early life
In the Confessio Patrick mentions his father Calpornius, a deacon, civil
official, and a town councillor, son of Potitus, who was a Romano-British
priest. An old tradition makes his mother from the upper-class Gaulish
family of Martin of Tours, though Patrick himself makes no such claim.
According to his Confessio, at the age of about sixteen Patrick was captured
by raiders and taken to Ireland, then sold as a slave to a Druidic chieftain
named Milchu in Dalriada, County Antrim. Some speculate that Fochill in
County Mayo is the more likely setting.
Although he came from a Christian family, he was not particularly religious
before his capture. However, his enslavement markedly strengthened his
faith. It was at this time he learned the native celtic language and the
customs of the druids, as his master was a druidic high preist.
He escaped at the age of twenty-two, as legend has it under the direction of
an angel, and spent twelve years in a monastery in Auxerre, where he adopted
the name Patrick (Patricius, in Old Irish spelled Pádraig).
His Mission
One night he heard voices begging him to return to Ireland, and he thus, by
now in his thirties, became one of the first Christian missionaries in
Ireland, being preceded by Palladius (died c.457/461).
His first converted patron was Saint Dichu, who made a gift of a large
sabhall (barn) for a church sanctuary. This first sanctuary dedicated by St
Patrick became in later years his chosen retreat. A monastery and church
were erected there, and there Patrick died; the site, Saul County Down,
retains the name Sabhall (pronounced "Sowel").
Patrick set up his see at Armagh and organized the church into territorial
sees, as elsewhere in the West and East. While Patrick encouraged the Irish
to become monks and nuns, it is not certain that he was a monk himself. It
is even less likely that in his time the monastery became the principal unit
of the Irish Church, although it was in later periods. The choice of Armagh
may have been determined by the presence of a powerful king. There Patrick
had a school and from this base he made his missionary journeys. There seems
to have been little contact with the Palladian Christianity of the
southeast.
One famous story relates that at the annual vernal fire that was to be lit
by the High King at Tara, when all the fires were extinguished so they could
be renewed from the sacred fire from Tara, Patrick lit a rival, miraculously
inextinguishable Christian bonfire on the hill of Slane at the opposite end
of the valley. The season was associated with Easter by chroniclers who
followed Patrick's own account in his Confessio.
Patrick was not the first Christian missionary to Ireland, as men such as
Secundus and Palladius were active there before him. However, tradition
accords him the most impact, and his missions seem to have been concentrated
in the provinces of Ulster and Connaught which had never received Christians
before. He established the Church throughout Ireland on lasting foundations:
he travelled throughout the country preaching, teaching, building churches,
opening schools and monasteries, converting chiefs and bards, and everywhere
supporting his preaching with miracles. He threw down the idol of Crom
Cruach in Leitrim.
Patrick wrote that he daily expected to be violently killed or enslaved
again. His Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus protested British slave
trading and the slaughter of a group of Irish Christians by Coroticus's
raiding Christian Welshmen, and is the first surely identified literature of
the British or Celtic Catholic Church. Patrick gathered many followers,
including Saint Benignus, who would become his successor. His chief concerns
were the raising up of native clergy, and abolishing paganism, idolatry, and
sun-worship. He made no distinction of classes in his preaching and was
himself ready for imprisonment or death.
Pious legend credits Patrick with banishing snakes from the island, though
post-glacial Ireland never actually had snakes; one suggestion is that
snakes referred to the serpent symbolism of the Druids of that time and
place, as shown for instance on coins minted in Gaul, or that it could have
referred to beliefs such as Pelagianism, symbolized as "serpents."
Legend also credits Patrick with teaching the Irish about the concept of the
Trinity by showing people the shamrock, a three-leaved clover, using it to
highlight the Christian dogma of 'three divine persons in the one God' (as
opposed to the Arian belief that was popular in Patrick's time).
In his use of Scripture and eschatological expectations, Patrick was typical
of the 5th-century bishop. One of the traits which he retained as an old man
was a consciousness of being an unlearned exile and former slave and
fugitive, who learned to trust God completely.
Patrick died in 461 AD according to the latest reconstruction of the old
Irish annals. The compiler of the Annals of Ulster stated that in the year
553:
"I have found this in the Book of Cuanu: The relics of Patrick were placed
sixty years after his death in a shrine by Colum Cille. Three splendid
halidoms were found in the burial-place: his goblet, the Angel's Gospel, and
the Bell of the Testament. This is how the angel distributed the halidoms:
the goblet to Dún, the Bell of the Testament to Ard Macha, and the Angel's
Gospel to Colum Cille himself. The reason it is called the Angel's Gospel is
that Colum Cille received it from the hand of the angel." This would seem to
place his death in 461, or at least somewhere in that decade.
It is believed that March 17 was his death date (according to the
Encyclopedia Britannica) and it is the date popularly associated with him as
his feast, known as St. Patrick's Day.
|
|
|
|
|