Chapter II
[P. 16.]—Calpurnius: Confession, 357₄ (Armagh MS. has Calpornum; Cotton MS. Calpornium; Brussels MS. of Muirchu, Cualfarni, 495₇). Properly a nomen, but, like other nomina, adopted as a cognomen. As such, however, it does not seem to occur often. Cp. C.I.L. xiv. 570; iii. Suppl. Pars post. 14354²⁸; viii. 9157.
[Ib.]—Potitus: Confession, 357₅ (Armagh MS. Potiti presbyteri, and in the margin filii Odissi added in the same hand. It is to be noted that the copy of the Confession used by Muirchu seems to have had simply Potiti presbyteri, 494₇. Hence the inference is suggested that filii Odissi was not in the original text of St. Patrick’s work, but was added in the margin from some other source, and inserted by the scribe of the Cotton MS. in the wrong place—before, instead of after, presbyteri. Potitus, not Odissus, was the presbyter. In the hymn Genair Patraicc, l. 4, Odissus is described as a deacon). Potitus was a common cognomen in the Roman empire; examples will be found in almost any volume of the C.I.L. (e.g. v. 834, 970, 6125, 7436; ii. 1172, 3799, 4006; xiv. 1332₁₁,₇, 3964, etc.).
[P. 16.]—Calpurnius a decurion: Corot. 377₂₀ decorione patre nascor. That Patrick’s family were British provincials and lived in Britain there can be no question: Confession, 370₁₀,₁₂, and 364₁,₂ (cp. Corot. 375₂₃), passages which prove that Patrick regarded Britain as his native land, and that his family lived there continuously from the time of his captivity till his old age. There is no evidence whatever that they had come and settled in Britain during his boyhood, and his biographer in the seventh century writes unhesitatingly that he was Brito natione, in Britannis natus (Muirchu, 494, 6). Patrick does not say himself that he was of British descent, but the presumption that his family was British is confirmed by his Celtic name Sucat (see below, [291]).
[P. 17.]—Decurions in smaller towns. The evidence is collected in Kübler’s article Decurio in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft. The canabae which grew up at military stations sometimes received self-governing privileges and had decurions (the evidence is for Apulum in Dacia, Moguntiacum, and Brigetio). There is also evidence for decurions in pagi, but only for Africa. Vici and castella were attributed to the larger towns near which they were situated, and had no ordo decurionum (see Cod. Just. 5. 27. 3. 1; 10. 19. 8). We can therefore infer that Calpurnius was a member of the municipal senate of some town in the neighbourhood of the vicus Bannaventa.
[Ib.]—The condition of decurions or curiales in the fourth and fifth centuries. Chief source: Codex Theodosianus, esp. xii. 1. The subject is well treated and elucidated in Professor Dill’s Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire, Bk. iii. chap. 2 (On the Decay of the Middle Class).
[P. 18.]—“Sixteen acres or upwards”: ultra uiginti quinque iugera priuato dominio possidens, Cod. Th. xii. 1, 33.
[Ib.]—“Sinews of the republic”: nerui reipublicae, Novell. Maioriani, vii. 1.
[P. 19.]—Curials who took orders. Julian’s rescript: Cod. Th. xii. i, 50. Enactments of Theodosius I., ib. 121 (A.D. 390); 123 (A.D. 391; cp. esp. § 5).
[P. 20.]—Married clergy. Calpurnius and his father are instances of married clergy, belonging to the period of transition, before the principle of celibacy had been generally recognised. Enjoined by the Spanish Council of Elvira in A.D. 305, this principle had not been universally accepted even in Spain, for it was in answer to an appeal from a Spanish bishop that Pope Siricius wrote his Decretal of A.D. 385, laying down the necessity of celibacy. This ruling expressed the rapidly growing tendency in the western churches, yet at a much later time Gallic councils found it necessary to legislate against married clergy. There is therefore nothing surprising in finding married deacons and presbyters in Britain in the fourth century. It is open to any one who chooses to believe that Calpurnius and Potitus gave up family ties before they took orders; but such a belief would be a pure act of faith, superfluous and ungrounded.
[P. 23.]—The names Patricius and Sucat. The statement of medieval biographers that the name Patricius was first assumed on the occasion of ordination must be regarded as a conjecture to explain the tradition that he had four names. The earliest mention of the four names (Sucat, Magonus, Cothrige, and Patricius) is in Tírechán (p. 302), who found them in a written source. There is no difficulty about Cothrige; it has been recognised (by Todd, Rhŷs, Thurneysen, Zimmer) that it is simply an Irish equivalent for Patricius, with the regular mutation of p to c, which we find in early loan words from the British language (e.g. casc = pascha, cruimthir = premter for presbyter, cp. Zimmer, Early Celtic Church, p. 25). I have pointed out traces of an older (labio-velar) form: Qatrige (“Tradition of Muirchu’s Text,” p. 200). I have also shown (ib. p. 201) that, in early tradition, this name was specially connected with Patrick’s captivity, and this supports the view that he was named Patricius as a child (his Irish captors rendered it Qatrige or Qotrige). The genuineness of the name Sucatus (also recorded by Muirchu, Sochet, p. 494), which corresponds to the modern Welsh hygad, “warlike” (cp. Stokes, Trip. p. 616, and the explanation in the scholia on the hymn Genair Patraicc, l. 3), is generally admitted and derives some support from a similar consideration (Bury, ib. p. 201). It is probable that when Patricius went to Ireland as a bishop his name was generally rendered Patraicc (with p), because it now came in its Latin form, and not as a Brythonic word (Patric?). But we have traces of the use of the other form in petra Coithrigi at Uisnech (Tír. 310₂₅) and petra Coithirgi at Cashel (ib. 331). Before the seventh century, the Sprachgefühl for the mutation of foreign p to c had so completely disappeared that the equation Cothrige = Patricius was not recognised, and an absurd derivation for Cothrige was invented (Tír. 302); but it is significant that this etymology was connected with the captivity.
The fourth name Magonus (Tír.: Magonius in later documents) appears in the Historia Brittonum as Maun. It seems to me to be simply the Roman cognomen Magonus (see C.I.L. v. 4609; viii. 9515).[347]
[P. 23.]—Concessa. There is no reason to doubt the tradition (Muirchu, p. 494) that this was the name of Patrick’s mother. No credit can be attached to the names or existence of numerous sisters (Lupita, etc.) mentioned in later documents. The tradition that Secundinus (Sechnall) was his sister’s son might be regarded as a ground for assuming that he had at least one sister. But it is to be observed that the tradition appears in an extremely suspicious form. In the preface to the Hymn which is called by his name (Lib. Hymnorum, i. p. 3), Secundinus is described as “son of Restitutus of the Lombards of Letha and of Darerca, Patrick’s sister.” But a woman named Dar-erca must have been an Irishwoman, not a Briton; and the expression “Lombards of Letha” for Italy suggests that the statement was not derived from a very ancient source. Secundinus does not appear in Muirchu; in Tírechán he is only mentioned in a list of bishops ordained by Patrick; and in the Additional Notices (p. 346), where he occurs once, nothing is said of kinship. But he is mentioned twice in the Annals.[348] In A.D. 439 (Ann. Ult.) he arrives in Ireland, already a bishop, to help Patrick; and this record must be preferred to Tírechán’s statement that Patrick ordained him. Under A.D. 447 his death is recorded (Ann. Ult. A.D. 448, Ann. Inisf.), in the seventy-fifth year of his age. At that time Patrick cannot have been much more than fifty-eight (see [Appendix C, 3]), so that he would have been about seventeen years younger than his nephew. This is impossible, except on the supposition that the mother of Secundinus was half-sister of Patrick, daughter of a former wife of Calpurnius.
In Add. Notices Lomman (p. 335) is described as his sister’s son, and four brothers of Lomman are named as bishops in Ireland; and (p. 340) a brother of Patrick is mentioned as father of Náo and Naí. It is to be observed that none of the names are Latin. Does Patrick’s statement in the Letter against Corot. 377₁₅ (quis me compulit—alligatus spiritu—ut non uideam aliquem de cognatione mea?) justify the inference that none of his cognati were in Ireland?
[The story which places Patrick’s capture in Armorica (Vit. Trip. p. 16; Probus, i. 12; Schol. on hymn Gen. P., etc.) has obviously no historical value, being clearly prompted by the motive of connecting Patrick with Brittany. It has an interest, however, in preserving the name “Sechtmaide, king of the Britons”—a reminiscence apparently of the Emperor Septimius Severus.]
[P. 26.]—Men-servants and maid-servants. This addition to the data of the Confession comes from the Letter against Coroticus, 377₁₉.
[P. 31.]—Port to which Patrick escaped. He mentions the distance himself: ducenta milia passus (Conf. 361₃₃). Wicklow would suit either theory of the place of captivity. Of course the distance must not be pressed too closely, but it is to be remembered that Patrick wrote when he had fuller knowledge of the geography than he can have had at the time of his escape. The reason for conjecturing Wicklow is that it seems to have been a port where foreign ships might be looked for; both Palladius and Patrick landed there. Muirchu calls it portum apud nos clarum (275₁₂).
[P. 32.]—Suck their breasts: sugere mammellas eorum, Conf. 362₁₈. I conjecture that the origin of this remarkable phrase, which clearly means to enter into a close intimacy, was a primitive ceremony of adoption. Among some peoples, when a child is adopted, a rite of mock-birth is performed; for instance, the child is placed under the dress of the adoptive mother, and creeps out. For the custom of mock-suckling see Frazer’s Golden Bough,² vol. iii. p. 380, note. The make-believe suckling is analogous to, and has the same emblematic meaning as, a make-believe parturition; and it will be admitted that this explanation satisfies perfectly the present context: “I declined to let myself be adopted by them.” It is not necessary to infer that a literal adoption was proposed to Patrick by any of the crew; the expression is merely figurative for a close and abiding intimacy (just as we use colloquially the phrase “to be adopted”).
It has been thought that the expression is taken from the Vulgate rendering of Isaiah lx. 16: suges lac gentium et mamilla regum lactaberis. Even if it were so, the point of the phrase would not be explained, but Mr. White has shown on other grounds the improbability of such a reference. There are no other vestiges of the use of the Vulgate in Patrick’s citations from the O.T., whereas there is unmistakable evidence of his use of an Old-Latin version (see White, Proc. of R.I.A. 1905, p. 231, and the note on the passage).
[P. 34.]—They came to the habitations of men: Conf. 363₃₁,₃₄ ad homines. This is certainly the right reading, and stood in the MS. used by Muirchu (495₃₂). The Cod. Arm. gives omnes, which is unsuitable in the context.
[Ib.]—“Thou shalt remain with them two months.” Patrick refers here to a second captivity (363₂₅), and his words (which are not lucid) misled his biographers (beginning with Muirchu) into supposing that he was captured on some later occasion. But I cannot think that his words: et iterum post annos multos adhuc capturam dedi, refer to the two months which he spent with the traders. They come in curiously after the incident of the dream, and before the mention of the two months. Post annos multos cannot naturally be taken of the six years of his captivity in Ireland, but must mean a term of years after his escape. I believe that the sentence is a parenthetical reference to his life-work in Ireland, conceived as a second captivity. “And again, after many years, my captivity was continued.” The motive of this abrupt observation was the preceding dream, to which he attributes great significance; it furnishes, in fact, the interpretation of the dream. The second banishment to Ireland is prefigured by the great stone which lay upon his body, and which he could not resist; the sun which lightened its weight is the divine guiding which made that banishment endurable.