Patricius (10) (St. Patrick), Mar. 17, the national apostle of
Ireland, has been the subject of much controversy. His existence has been doubted, his name ascribed to 7 different persons at least, and the origin and authority of his mission warmly disputed.
I. The Documents.—The materials for St. Patrick's history which have a
claim to be regarded as historical are, in the first place, the writings of the
saint himself. We have two works ascribed to him, his Confession and his Epistle
to Coroticus. Both seem genuine.
We have a copy of the Confession more than 1,000 years old preserved in the Book
of Armagh, one of the great treasures of the library of Trinity College, Dublin. This copy professes, in the colophon appended to it, to have been taken from the autograph of St. Patrick. "Thus far the volume which St. Patrick wrote with his own hand." Dr. Todd, in his Life of St. Patrick (p. 347), sums up the case for the Confession of St. Patrick: "It is altogether such an account of himself as a missionary of that age, circumstanced as St. Patrick was, might be expected to compose. Its Latinity is rude and archaic, it quotes the ante-Hieronymian Vulgate; and contains nothing inconsistent with the century in which it professes to have been written. If it be a forgery, it is not easy to imagine with what purpose it could have been forged." This strong testimony might have been made stronger and applies equally clearly to the Ep. to Coroticus. There are two lines of evidence which seem conclusive as to the early date. The one deals with the State Organization, the other with the Ecclesiastical Organization there alluded to and implied. They are both such as existed early in the 5th cent., and could scarcely be imagined afterwards.
To take the State Organization first. In the Ep. to Coroticus he describes himself thus: "Ingenuus fui secundum carnem, decurione patre nascor." We now know that decurions—who were not magistrates but town councillors rather, and members of the local senates—were found all over the Roman empire to its extremest bounds by the end of the 4th cent. Discoveries in Spain last century showed that decurions were established by the Romans in every little mining village, charged with the care of the games, the water supply, sanitary arrangements, education, and the local fortifications; while Hübner in the Corp. Insc. Lat. t. vii. num. 54 and 189, showed that decurions existed in Britain (cf. Marquardt and Mommsen, Handbuch der römischen Alterthümer, t. iv. pp. 501–516 and Ephem. Epigraph. t. ii. p. 137; t. iii. p. 103) This institution necessarily vanished amid the barbarian invasions of the 5th cent. Now, St. Patrick's writings imply the existence of decurions. Again, the Confession calls England Britanniae, using the plural, which is strictly accurate and in accordance with the technical usage of the Roman empire at the close of the 4th cent., which then divided Britain into five provinces, Britannia prima and secunda, Maxima Caesariensis, Flavia Caesariensis and Valentia, which were collectively called Britanniae (cf. Böcking's Notitia Dig. t. ii. c. iii. pp. 12–14). Further, the Ecclesiastical Organization implied is such as the years about A. D. 400 alone could supply. St. Patrick tells us in the opening words of his Confession that his father was Calpurnius, a deacon, his grandfather Potitus, a priest. A careful review of the councils and canons will shew that in Britain and N. Gaul there existed no prohibition of clerical marriage in the last quarter of the 4th cent. Exuperius, bp. of Toulouse, wrote in 404 to pope Innocent I. asking how to deal with married priests who had begotten children since their ordination. Innocent's reply, dated Feb. 20, 405, shews, first, that the prohibition of marriage was only a late innovation, as be refers to the decree of pope Siricius, not quite 20 years before (Mansi, iii. 670; Hefele, ii. 387, Clark's ed.); secondly, that Innocent permitted the clergy of Toulouse to live with their wives if they had contracted marriage in ignorance of papal legislation.