Saint Patrick

Irish patron saint

• Born: Probably between 418 and 422
• Birthplace: Britain (now possibly in England, Scotland, or Wales)
• Died: March 17, 0493
• Place of death: Saul, Ireland

Saint Patrick is a semilegendary figure who served as a missionary bishop to Ireland and converted large numbers of pagans to Christianity. He is the patron saint of Ireland.

Early Life

It is difficult to be certain about specific details and dates in Saint Patrick’s life. The main sources for information are his very brief autobiography entitled Confessio (c. 489; Confession , 1918); the Epistola ad milites Corotici (471; Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus, 1918), in which he excommunicated Coroticus, an Irish tyrant who had killed several Irish converts to Christianity; and a fanciful seventh century biography by Muirchu.

The first part of Muirchu’s Vita Sancti Patricii (seventh century; Life of St. Patrick, 1920) is based almost exclusively on Saint Patrick’s Confession; for this reason, historians have tried to rely almost exclusively on Saint Patrick’s autobiography in an effort to establish the major details of his life. However, Saint Patrick did not always include detailed information about specific dates and events. His main concern in writing Confession was to leave a record of his spiritual transformation from a young man uninterested in Christianity into an active missionary.

Saint Patrick was born probably between 418 and 422 somewhere in Britain. In his Confession, written in Latin, he wrote that his hometown was “Bannaventa Burniae,” but no one has ever been able to identify this village. His father was a deacon named Calpurnius, and his grandfather was a priest named Potitus. At that time, celibacy was not required of priests in the Catholic Church, but Saint Patrick did not reveal his mother’s name. In Confession, Saint Patrick wrote of his indifference to religion during his early years, and he spoke also of a terrible sin that he had committed at the age of fifteen. He never explained the nature of this sin, but it still disturbed him years later when he wrote his autobiography. When he was sixteen years old, Saint Patrick was seized by marauders and taken into slavery in western Ireland. He was sold to a landowner in County Mayo. During his six years of slavery, he became a believing Christian. In Confession, he described his amazing escape. He left Mayo, walked on foot across Ireland, and escaped by boat to either Britain or Gaul (now France). There he was once again enslaved, but he had a series of dreams that he interpreted as meaning that God would free him from slavery so that he could return to Ireland as a missionary. After his second escape from slavery, he studied in England and became a priest. In his Confession, he states that when certain “senior” clergymen learned of the sin he committed at the age of fifteen, he was criticized, and another priest was appointed the bishop of Ireland, a position that Patrick would, nevertheless, eventually assume.

Life’s Work

Although there is still some disagreement among historians, it is now generally assumed that Saint Patrick began his missionary work as the bishop of Ireland in 456. It is believed that he remained in Ireland until his death or until shortly before his death (when he may have retired to a monastery in England) on March 17, 493. In Confession, Saint Patrick reveals himself to be a modest priest devoted to converting pagans to Christianity and to the spiritual guidance of new Christians in Ireland .

Muirchu and other biographers of Saint Patrick told imaginative tales about Patrick’s missionary work in Ireland. They claimed that Saint Patrick proved the superiority of Christianity over paganism by defeating pagan magicians in a wrestling contest. They also asserted that, just as Christ had fasted and prayed in the mountains for forty days, so, too, had Saint Patrick climbed Croagh Patrick, a mountain in County Connaught, where he spent forty days in prayer and direct communication with God. These legends are still popular in Ireland, and each July thousands of pilgrims climb Croagh Patrick and pray in the small chapel located at the top. However, it is not necessary to believe in such legends to recognize the significance of Saint Patrick’s central role in spreading Christianity throughout Ireland.

Ireland (or Hibernia, as it was known during Roman times) was outside the boundaries of the Roman Empire. Although earlier missionaries had made great efforts to proselytize those living under Roman domination, similar efforts had not been made outside the Roman Empire. Saint Patrick’s major contribution to the spread of Christianity was his determination to consecrate his life to bringing the word of God to people living in countries that had been long neglected by Rome.

In 431, Pope Celestine appointed Palladius the first bishop of Ireland, but he specified that Palladius was to serve as bishop to the “Irish who believe in Christ.” This remark suggests quite clearly that the mission of Palladius was to serve as spiritual leader to Christians in Ireland and not to undertake missionary work. Between Palladius’s appointment in 431 and Patrick’s nomination twenty-five years later, another bishop had continued the pastoral work of Palladius. The name of this bishop is unknown.

Saint Patrick broke with tradition because he targeted those who were not Christian. He realized that many to whom he spoke were hostile toward Christianity. He could not coerce them to convert, as the Roman Empire had attempted after Christianity had become the state religion during the fourth century. Instead, he had to persuade men and women that they should abandon their gods and accept Christianity. Because he had lived in Ireland as a slave, he knew the local language and had no difficulty communicating in Celtic, the only language spoken by the vast majority of people in Ireland at that time. He accommodated Christianity to local traditions so that new converts would not feel threatened.

He quickly realized that he needed the help of local priests so that new converts would remain faithful to their new religion. In {I}Confession{/I}, he wrote at great length of the joy he experienced each time he persuaded a pagan to accept Christianity. He did not limit his activity to one region of Ireland. He traveled extensively, and his personal missionary efforts definitely extended from the area around Dublin to as far north as Armagh and as far west as the Atlantic coast in counties Clare and Connemara. He may not have reached the southwestern and southeastern regions of Ireland, but priests whom he had ordained soon spread Christianity throughout the island.

Converting so many pagans to Christianity was a massive undertaking. Historians now believe that Christian dioceses in Britain contributed significantly to support Patrick’s efforts. He did not want the Irish to believe that he was exploiting them for his own benefit. In his Confession}, he states clearly that he refused to accept any money from them. Although celibacy was not yet required of priests, Saint Patrick never married, and he states that he returned gifts that recent converts had given him. He strove to be a spiritual leader with whom all could identify. He demonstrated great personal courage. In one area, a local chieftain threatened to kill him, but Saint Patrick persuaded the chieftain to allow him to pay the chieftain’s sons to serve as his traveling companions. After just two weeks, he states, he had converted these men to Christianity. In his {I}Confession{/I}, he explains that his personal experience with poverty and slavery helped him to appreciate the dignity of all whom he encountered in Ireland. He was as proud of his conversions of family members of chieftains as he was of his conversions of impoverished peasants.

After Patrick had been working for fifteen years as a missionary in Ireland, a chieftain named Coroticus, whom he had converted to Christianity, abducted several converts and planned to sell them into slavery. Several people resisted, and Coroticus killed them. In his Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus , Saint Patrick not only excommunicated Coroticus but also instructed his soldiers that they need no longer obey him, because his orders were incompatible with Christ’s teaching concerning the dignity of human life. Saint Patrick showed complete disregard for the very real threat that Coroticus might attempt to kill him. His personal courage, high ethical standards, and his unrelenting efforts to spread Christianity throughout Ireland endeared him to people from all social classes.

Significance

More than fifteen hundred years after his death, Saint Patrick remains a revered figure in Ireland and elsewhere in the Catholic world. Before his arrival in Ireland in 456, there had been no systematic effort on the part of Christian missionaries to convert people who lived in countries that had not been influenced by Greco-Roman culture. Saint Patrick believed that Christianity would become a universal religion only if Christians reached out with respect and understanding to people from very different cultures. He was successful in his efforts to convert the Irish to Christianity largely because he spoke their language, respected their traditions, and did not attempt to impose his cultural values on them; instead, he simply tried to share religious values with them. He thus helped to broaden the scope of Christianity.

For the Irish, who have endured centuries of political domination and religious persecution, Saint Patrick represents a dignified man who discovered, through his own suffering, the essential dignity of each individual. Saint Patrick humbled himself to serve others, demonstrated inner courage, and remained faithful to his essential beliefs despite violent opposition from those opposed to him. Saint Patrick helped generations of Irish men and women cope with poverty, religious persecution, and economic adversity.

Bibliography

Bieler, Ludwig. Studies on the Life and Legend of St. Patrick. Edited by Richard Sharpe. London: Variorum, 1986. Contains nineteen essays that examine early biographies of Saint Patrick and describe the creation of the numerous legends connected with him. Bibliography, index.

Carney, James. The Problem of St. Patrick. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1973. Contains a solid historical study of what is known about Saint Patrick’s life. The author distinguishes carefully between fact and fiction. Bibliography.

Davies, Oliver, trans. Celtic Spirituality. New York: Paulist Press, 1999. A very useful sourcebook with a good historical introduction. Bibliography, index.

De Paor, Liam, trans. Saint Patrick’s World: The Christian Culture of Ireland’s Apostolic Age. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1993. Explores, through contemporary sources, Christianity in Ireland during the time of Saint Patrick and discusses his writings, including the Epistola ad milites Corotici. Bibliography, index.

Fletcher, Richard The Barbarian Conversion: From Paganism to Christianity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. A comprehensive study of the history of the development of Christianity in pagan Europe. Illustrations, bibliography, index.

Gogarty, Oliver St. John. I Follow Saint Patrick. 1938. New ed. London: Constable, 1950. A lyrical book by an important Irish poet and physician who describes quite eloquently why Saint Patrick is still so highly revered by the Irish, both in Ireland and in exile. Maps.

McCaffrey, Carmel, and Leo Eaton. In Search of Ancient Ireland: The Origins of the Irish, from Neolithic Times to the Coming of the English. Chicago: New Amsterdam Books, 2002. A history of Ireland that includes discussion of Saint Patrick, Celtic spirituality, sainthood, and monasteries. Illustrations, maps, bibliography, index.

MacMullen, Ramsay. Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1997. Surveys the relationship between paganism and the Christian world through the sixth century. Illustrations, bibliography, index.

O’Donoghue, Noel D. Aristocracy of Soul: Patrick of Ireland. Wilmington, Del.: Michael Glazier, 1987. Examines spiritual and theological aspects of Saint Patrick’s Confession and contains an excellent English translation of the Confession.

Proudfoot, Alice Boyd, ed. Patrick: Sixteen Centuries with Ireland’s Patron Saint. New York: Macmillan, 1983. Provides an excellent selection of literary and artistic works that evoke various aspects of the Saint Patrick legends and describe the evolving meaning of his life for generations of Irish writers.

Staunton, Michael. The Illustrated Story of Christian Ireland: From St. Patrick to the Peace Process. Dublin: Emerald Press, 2001. Discusses Ireland before Christianity and the lives of Irish saints, including Saint Patrick and Saint Brigit. Bibliography, index.

Thompson, E. A. Who Was Saint Patrick? New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1985. Contains a reliable historical study of Saint Patrick’s life as it is revealed in his Confessio and Epistola ad milites Corotici. Includes a solid bibliography of important historical studies and an index.