Happy St. Patrick's Day! Aside from all the Irish blarney, the real-life story of St. Patrick is an incredible tale. Born into Roman Britain, he was captured at 16 by raiders, and taken to Ireland, where he was sold into slavery. He escaped after six years, returned to the Roman world, became a priest, went back to Ireland, and converted the nation to Christianity. If you believe Thomas Cahill, Patrick's conversion, and in turn, Ireland's, made the salvation of Western civilization through the Dark Ages possible. Here's a Celtic hymn from the seventh or eighth century that tells the tale of Patrick's life.
Brian Kaller writes about celebrating St. Patrick's feast in Ireland, as an Irish-American expat. John Farrell remembers what it was like for his Irish immigrant ancestors to the US.
Below the jump, a short biographical account of Patrick's life, from our Orthodox parish's e-mail newsletter today (yes, nearly all Western saints prior to the Great Schism are Orthodox saints too)...
Saint Patrick, the Enlightener of Ireland was born around 385, the son of Calpurnius, a Roman decurion (an official responsible for collecting taxes). He lived in the village of Bannavem Taberniae, which may have been located at the mouth of the Severn River in Wales. The district was raided by pirates when Patrick was sixteen, and he was one of those taken captive. He was brought to Ireland and sold as a slave, and was put to work as a herder of swine on a mountain identified with Slemish in Co. Antrim. During his period of slavery, Patrick acquired a proficiency in the Irish language which was very useful to him in his later mission.
He prayed during his solitude on the mountain, and lived this way for six years. He had two visions. The first told him he would return to his home. The second told him his ship was ready. Setting off on foot, Patrick walked two hundred miles to the coast. There he succeeded in boarding a ship, and returned to his parents in Britain.
Some time later, he went to Gaul and studied for the priesthood at Auxerre under St Germanus (July 31). Eventually, he was consecrated as a bishop, and was entrusted with the mission to Ireland, succeeding St Palladius (July 7). St Palladius did not achieve much success in Ireland. After about a year he went to Scotland, where he died in 432.
Patrick had a dream in which an angel came to him bearing many letters. Selecting one inscribed "The Voice of the Irish," he heard the Irish entreating him to come back to them.
Although St Patrick achieved remarkable results in spreading the Gospel, he was not the first or only missionary in Ireland. He arrived around 432 (though this date is disputed), about a year after St Palladius began his mission to Ireland. There were also other missionaries who were active on the southeast coast, but it was St Patrick who had the greatest influence and success in preaching the Gospel of Christ. Therefore, he is known as "The Enlightener of Ireland."
His autobiographical Confession tells of the many trials and disappointments he endured. Patrick had once confided to a friend that he was troubled by a certain sin he had committed before he was fifteen years old. The friend assured him of God's mercy, and even supported Patrick's nomination as bishop. Later, he turned against him and revealed what Patrick had told him in an attempt to prevent his consecration. Many years later, Patrick still grieved for his dear friend who had publicly shamed him.
St Patrick founded many churches and monasteries across Ireland, but the conversion of the Irish people was no easy task. There was much hostility, and he was assaulted several times. He faced danger, and insults, and he was reproached for being a foreigner and a former slave. There was also a very real possibility that the pagans would try to kill him. Despite many obstacles, he remained faithful to his calling, and he baptized many people into Christ.
The saint's Epistle to Coroticus is also an authentic work. In it he denounces the attack of Coroticus' men on one of his congregations. The Breastplate (Lorica) is also attributed to St Patrick. In his writings, we can see St Patrick's awareness that he had been called by God, as well as his determination and modesty in undertaking his missionary work. He refers to himself as "a sinner," "the most ignorant and of least account," and as someone who was "despised by many." He ascribes his success to God, rather than to his own talents: "I owe it to God's grace that through me so many people should be born again to Him."
By the time he established his episcopal See in Armagh in 444, St Patrick had other bishops to assist him, many native priests and deacons, and he encouraged the growth of monasticism.
St Patrick is often depicted holding a shamrock, or with snakes fleeing from him. He used the shamrock to illustrate the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Its three leaves growing out of a single stem helped him to explain the concept of one God in three Persons. Many people now regard the story of St Patrick driving all the snakes out of Ireland as having no historical basis.
St Patrick died on March 17, 461 (some say 492). There are various accounts of his last days, but they are mostly legendary. Muirchu says that no one knows the place where St Patrick is buried. St Columba of Iona (June 9) says that the Holy Spirit revealed to him that Patrick was buried at Saul, the site of his first church. A granite slab was placed at his traditional grave site in Downpatrick in 1899.
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Many people now regard the story of St Patrick driving all the snakes out of Ireland as having no historical basis.
Strewth!
And Patrick and his contemporaries preached beyond the borders and influence of Rome which was unprecedented.
Irish monks were also probably influential in helping lay the foundations for what would become Carolingian miniscule, another beautiful and easy to read script from the Early Middle Ages.
And, thanks to its subequent revival by the Italian Humanists, it became the basis of many early printed type fonts.
Patrick's letter to Coriticus is also considered to be the first (that we know of) protest against slavery.
Cecelia, while slavery was widely accepted in the ancient world, Aristotle attests to the fact there there were those who opposed it.
But this right many jurists impeach, as they would an orator who brought forward an unconstitutional measure: they detest the notion that, because one man has the power of doing violence and is superior in brute strength, another shall be his slave and subject. Even among philosophers there is a difference of opinion. (Pol. 1.1255a)
Aristotle himself distinguished between slaves justly and unjustly acquired, and on a relationship between master and slave based on the greater excellence of the master and one that depended on law and force to enforce the relationship. So perhaps even these unnamed opponents would recognize that certain men were by nature slaves and other by nature masters. So that's a bit unclear.
But I do think that Aristotle himself would have disapproved of Coriticus' methods as a case where power and violence were used to enslave St. Patrick's followers. Aristotle defended slavery (like nobility) as a consequence of unequal amounts of virtue and excellence, but also believed that there were cases were unjust force and violence could pervert that natural order.
In his letter, St. Patrick would appear to have the same objection: not that slavery in itself was immoral, but that the attack that resulted in the slavery was:
With my own hand I have written and composed these words, to be given, delivered, and sent to the soldiers of Coroticus; I do not say, to my fellow citizens, or to fellow citizens of the holy Romans, but to fellow citizens of the demons, because of their evil works. Like our enemies, they live in death, allies of the Scots and the apostate Picts. Dripping with blood, they welter in the blood of innocent Christians, whom I have begotten into the number for God and confirmed in Christ!
The day after the newly baptized, anointed with chrism, in white garments (had been slain) - the fragrance was still on their foreheads when they were butchered and slaughtered with the sword by the above-mentioned people - I sent a letter with a holy presbyter whom I had taught from his childhood, clerics accompanying him, asking them to let us have some of the booty, and of the baptized they had made captives. They only jeered at them.
Later he laments that "freeborn Christians" should be made the slaves of the Picts, which would be an upheaval in Patrick's view of the social order (much as Aristotle is aghast that Greeks might be made slaves of barbarians).
There people who were freeborn have, been sold, Christians made slaves, and that, too, in the service of the abominable, wicked, and apostate Picts!
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