Confession

St Patrick, tr. White, 1918

d1

St. Patrick’s Confession and Letter are the two oldest writings connected with Christianity in Ireland. St. Patrick went there as missionary bishop in A.D. 432, and died in A.D. 461. The Confession, which is the Saint’s self vindication, seems to have been composed towards the close of his career, perhaps about A.D. 450, and the Letter may be later than the Confession. The Letter is a manifesto called forth by a piratical raid on Ireland by a British Chieftain, Coroticus or Coriticus.

There can be no reasonable doubt as to the authenticity of these writings. They have a ring of unmistakable sincerity and genuineness, and contain strong internal evidence that they belong to the fifth century A.D.: (1) The text of the Latin Bible used by the author is, in the O.T., that current before St. Jerome published his retranslation from the Hebrew (A.D. 391-404); while the quotations from the N.T. seem to follow partly St. Jerome’s revision (A.D. 383) and partly the earlier versions. The author’s N.T., in fact, was of the type current in South Gaul, where there is reason to believe St. Patrick was educated. (2) The Franks are alluded to as heathens in Letter, c. 14; in A.D. 496 they followed their king, Clovis, into the Christian Church. (3) There are polemical allusions to sun-worship in Confession, cc. 20, 60. This was a prominent feature in the religion of Mithraism, which was popular all over the Roman Empire during the first four and five centuries of our era. Other points more or less favourable to the date claimed

for these writings are: the style of Latin, the references to the Roman organization of Britain, the casual mention of a married clergy (Confession, c. 1), and the application of the term “apostate” to the Picts (Letter, cc. 2, 15). St. Ninian’s mission to the Picts is dated A.D. 398-432 or earlier. The Latin text underlying this translation is a revision of that published by the present writer in 1905 (Proceedings, Royal Irish Academy, xxv., C. 7). The manuscripts known to exist are seven in number; the oldest being that contained in the Book of Armagh, transcribed between A.D. 807 and 846. The other MSS. belong to the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries. The Book of Armagh does not contain the Letter; and the copy of the Confession followed by the scribe was mutilated and in parts illegible. A critical account of these MSS. will be found in the edition mentioned above, and also in a paper on the Paris MS. published in Proceedings, R.I.A., xxv., C., 11.

Apart from their value as an expression of religious experience, these two little books have a special historical significance. St. Patrick was a great Christian missionary, and, as such, an agent in the spread of Christian civilization. Ireland, unfortunately, never came under the moulding influences of the Roman Empire; and it was the mission of St. Patrick, consciously undertaken, to bring Irish Christianity into line with that of the Roman Empire, and thus undo the unfortunate consequences of the Cæsars’ negligence or impotence. St. Patrick, a British Celt, was proud of his citizenship in the empire of Rome, which, even in its decadence, was to him conterminous with Christian civilization.