I
1. The Confession
Our most important sources, the only first-hand sources we possess, for the life of St. Patrick are his own writings, two in number, namely, the document which is fitly known as his Confession (from its last words, haec est confessio mea antequam moriar), and his Letter against Coroticus. The motive and contents of the Confession are dealt with in the text and in subsequent notes. Its tradition and genuineness may be considered here.
The Confession is preserved in the Codex Armachanus (ff. 22-24) along with other Patrician documents which will claim our attention. But the text is not complete. Considerable portions are missing, which are found in later MSS. There is nothing in these portions to excite suspicion of their genuineness; in fact we have positive evidence that one of these missing parts was read in the text of the Confession in the seventh century, for Tírechán (310₅) refers to a passage (372₃₃) which is not found in the Armagh MS., and on the other hand there is not the slightest reason to suppose that the text of these later MSS. does not represent the full extent of the original work.[227] The question arises, How are the omissions in the oldest MS. to be accounted for? The theory that the scribe omitted passages which were illegible in his exemplar cannot be seriously entertained, as there are no proofs to support it. The statements made by Todd,[228] Haddan and Stubbs,[229] and Zimmer[230] as to the obscurity or defectiveness of the copy used by the Armagh scribe are not borne out by the alleged evidence.[231] The nature and subject of the omitted passages give us no clue, for, though it might be just conceivable that one passage was deliberately left out because it refers to a fault committed by Patrick in his boyhood, the omission of the other portions cannot be similarly explained; and an explanation which does not apply to them all will carry no conviction. It seems that the imperfect state of this text of the Confession may be due to no more recondite cause than the haste and impatience of the scribe to finish his task. There may have been some external motive for such haste and carelessness; and as a matter of fact there is positive evidence that he stopped before his proposed task was finished. The heading of the Confession is: Incipiunt Libri Sancti Patricii Episcopi. This shows, as has often been observed, that the scribe intended to copy both the Confession and the Letter against Coroticus. But he did not fulfil his purpose; he never copied the Letter. The Confession ends on f. 24 vᵒ b; the second column is a blank; and therefore it is certain that the Letter was never included in this MS. Further, the paragraph[232] which the scribe has attached to the end of the Confession ought, possibly, to have followed the Letter, though of course the autograph volumen may have contained only the Confession. It seems then most simple to suppose that the scribe was hurried, and that in writing out the Confession he “scamped” his work for the same reason which impelled him to omit copying the Letter.
It is perhaps superfluous now to defend the genuineness of the Confession, especially as Professor Zimmer, the most important critic who impugned it, now admits it. Two considerations are decisive. (1) There is nothing in the shape of an anachronism in the document, nothing inconsistent with its composition about the middle of the fifth century. (2) As a forgery it would be unintelligible. Spurious documents in the Middle Ages were manufactured either to promote some interest, political, ecclesiastical, local, or simply as rhetorical exercises. But the Confession does not betray a vestige of any ulterior motive; there is no reference to Armagh, no reference to Rome, no implication of any interest which could prompt falsification. And what Irish writer in the sixth century[233] would have composed as a rhetorical exercise, and attributed to Patrick, a work written in such a rude style? But besides these considerations, which are decisive, the emotion of the writer is unmistakable; and I cannot imagine how any reader could fail to recognise its genuineness.[234]
A critical edition (the first accurate text) has been published by Rev. N. J. D. White in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 1904, to which I may refer for an account of the MSS. and previous editions.
2. The Letter against Coroticus
The other extant work of St. Patrick is the Letter, which may be most conveniently called the “Letter against Coroticus.” It is addressed to Christian subjects of Coroticus, a ruler in north Britain; its motive and contents will be dealt with App. B, p. 316. It is not contained in the Armagh MS., but it was known to Muirchu in the seventh century; and that the scribe of the Armagh MS. knew it and intended to copy it may (as pointed out above, p. 226) be justly inferred from the heading before the Confession: incipiunt libri sancti Patricii episcopi. The document is preserved in a St. Vaast MS., from which it was printed in the Acta Sanctorum (March 17); in two Fell MSS., which were collated for the edition of Haddan and Stubbs (Councils, ii. 314 sqq.); and in a Cottonian MS. (Nero EI), the text of which is given in Stokes’s edition (Trip. vol. ii. 375 sqq.).
The genuineness of the document[235] seems to be written on its face, as in the case of the Confession; that a falsification should have taken this form would be inexplicable. An analysis of the language and style points clearly to the same authorship as the Confession; and the occurrence of such phrases in both documents as certissime reor or the favourite utique is characteristic of a writer who was indoctus and had no great command of language. It is noteworthy, and need not excite suspicion, that in both documents he uses the same formula in describing himself:—
Confession, 374₃₆, Patricias peccator indoctus scilicet Hiberione conscripsit.
Letter, 375₁₁, Patricias peccator indoctus scilicet Hiberione constitutus episcopum me esse fateor.
[Critical edition by Rev. N. J. D. White, in Proc. of R.I.A. 1904.]
3. Dicta Patricii
Besides these two works of St. Patrick, there is preserved (in the Liber Armachanus) a brief section entitled Dicta Patricii, consisting of the three following utterances:—
I. Timorem Dei habui ducem itineris[236] mei per Gallias atque Italiam etiam in insolis quae sunt in mari Tyrreno.[237]
II. De saeculo recessistis[238] ad paradisum,[239] Deo gratias.
III. Ecclesia[240] Scotorum, immo Romanorum, ut Christiani ita ut Romani sitis, ut decantetur uobiscum oportet, omni hora orationis, uox illa laudabilis Cyrie[241] lession,[242] Christe lession.[243] Omnis ecclesia[244] quae sequitur me cantet Cyrie lession, Christe lession. Deo gratias.
In considering the question of the authenticity of these dicta we must take into account their position in the Liber Armachanus. The section occurs between Muirchu’s life and Tírechán’s Memoir (see below), immediately before the beginning of the latter, and consequently I used to think that the scribe (Ferdomnach) had found them at the end of the book from which he copied Muirchu’s Life. This assumption, however, falls to the ground through a brilliant discovery of Dr. Gwynn. Immediately before the Dicta Patricii, occupying the upper and middle part of the same column (fol. 9 rᵒ a), is a paragraph (Patricius uenit ... aeclessiae uestrae) describing acts of Patrick in Connaught. Dr. Gwynn recognised this as a section belonging to Tírechán’s Memoir (see below, [p. 250]), and drew the conclusion that it had been accidentally omitted from its context by the scribe of the exemplar of Tírechán which Ferdomnach used, and had been afterwards inserted by that scribe at the beginning of his MS., whence it was copied by Ferdomnach just as he found it. The external indications fully confirm Dr. Gwynn’s discovery. (1) The text of the preceding column (fol. 8 vᵒ b), containing the end of Muirchu’s Life and some brief additions (obviously entered at the end of the Muirchu exemplar), terminates before the foot of the column, leaving seven lines blank. (2) The first word, Patricius, in fol. 9 rᵒ a, has an enormous initial (the type in Dr. Gwynn’s edition fails to do justice to its size), evidently marking the commencement of a new document.
It follows that the section of the Dicta Patricii was copied into the Liber Armachanus from the Tírechán exemplar. We must suppose it to have been written, in that exemplar, on the first page, in a blank space which still remained after the scribe had written the omitted paragraph of Tírechán. Now the entry of these Dicta in the book containing Tírechán’s Memoir may not be without significance, for a passage in this Memoir furnishes direct evidence bearing upon the first Dictum.
Tírechán (see below, [Appendix A, ii. 1]) consulted a book which was lent to him by Bishop Ultan of Ardbraccan, and from it he derived a number of details regarding Patrick’s life before he came as a missionary to Ireland. We may refer to this book as the Liber apud Ultanum,[245] and its great importance lies in the fact that it is (after the Confession) the earliest work bearing on Patrick’s life for which we have a direct testimony. In it Tírechán found Patrick’s four names, and doubtless the summary sketch which he gives of his captivity and travels,[246] and probably the date of his death. This book existed in Ardbraccan in the first half of the seventh century.
The account of the captivity in this book depended partly on the Confession. The notice of Patrick’s travels on the Continent is as follows:—
Uii aliis annis ambulauit et nauigauit in fluctibus et in campistribus locis et in conuallibus montanis per Gallias atque Italiam totam atque in insolis quae sunt in mari Terreno, ut ipse dixit in commemoratione laborum.
The italicised words are identical with words in the first of the Dicta Patricii; and the expression ut ipse dixit permits us to infer that this Dictum Patricii was accepted before the Liber apud Ultanum was written (latest date, first half of seventh century).
It has been suggested that the words in commemoratione laborum refer to some lost work of Patrick. Such an assumption is quite unnecessary. The words admit of two other explanations. (1) I formerly suggested[247] that in the Liber apud Ultanum the phrase commemoratio laborum occurred in reference to the autobiographical details in the Confession, and that Tírechán, not knowing the Confession at first hand, thought that all the biographical facts furnished by his source were derived from Patrick’s own account. But (2) I now think that the words ut ipse ... laborum, “as he said himself in describing his labours,” merely refer to the utterance preserved in the Dicta Patricii, and that the first Dictum was the source of the compiler of the Liber apud Ultanum.
I think we may go a step farther, and attempt to answer the question, How did the Dicta Patricii get into the copy of Tírechán’s Memoir? It seems not unlikely that they were preserved in the very Liber apud Ultanum which Tírechán used. One would judge from Tírechán’s extracts that it contained miscellaneous entries about Patrick’s life, and it may well have contained the Dicta Patricii. If so, we can easily understand that they might have been copied at Ardbraccan from the Ardbraccan book into a MS. of Tírechán—possibly by Tírechán himself.
It is obvious that these dicta could in no case be correctly described as a work of Patrick. So far as they were genuine utterances they must have been remembered, and handed down, or put on paper, by one of his disciples. The second dictum is certainly Patrician, for it occurs in the Letter against Coroticus (379₂₂, Deo gratias: creduli baptizati de seculo recessistis ad paradisum). It may be said that it was simply transcribed from this context. But this assumption is in the highest degree improbable. If any one conceived the idea of making a collection of dicta, why should he have included only this particular excerpt?[248] It seems far more likely that these words were a favourite phrase of Patrick, and that he made use of his favourite phrase in the Letter.
The first dictum is, I have no doubt, genuine also. It is not at all the sort of thing that any one would think of inventing; there was no motive. And perhaps readers of the Confession and Letter will not think me fanciful if I detect a Patrician ring in the words timorem Dei habui ducem itineris mei.[249]
The third saying presents more difficulty. The genuineness of the first two does not establish any strong presumption in favour of the third; because if any one desired to father the introduction of a liturgical practice on Patrick, nothing would have been more natural than to attach it to the two genuine dicta. (In any case, we should be inclined to reject the second part of the dictum, which repeats the first; the expression omnis aeclessia quae sequitur me suggests a period when Patrician were strongly contrasted with non-Patrician communities.) The question turns on the date of the introduction of the Kyrie eleison into the liturgy. We know that it was not introduced into Gaul till not long before the Council of Vaison in 529. Its use is enacted by the third canon of this Council, where it is stated that the custom of saying the Kyrie had been already introduced (est intromissa) tam in sede apostolica quam etiam per totas orientales atque Italiae provincias. This shows that if Patrick introduced it, he got it not from Gaul but from Rome.[250] Now M. Duchesne observes (Origines du culte chrétien, 3rd ed. p. 165, note 2) that the Council seems to regard the chant as having been recently introduced in Rome and Italy. “Recently” is vague, but the inference cannot be pressed, since the same phrase est intromissa embraces the Eastern Churches, where the Kyrie was in use before the end of the fourth century. The question of the introduction of the Kyrie in the west has been discussed by Mr. Edmund Bishop, in two papers in the Downside Review (December 1899, March 1900), to which Mr. Brightman kindly called my attention. His general conclusion is that “it spread to the west through Italy, its introduction into Italy falling in the fifth century at the earliest; probably in the second half rather than in the first.” The truth is that there is no evidence what the Roman divine service was, in its details, in the fifth century; and therefore it is possible to hold that the dictum of Patrick may be genuine, and a testimony that the Kyrie was used at Rome in the first half of that century.
But while we admit this possibility, we can hardly build upon it. It must be acknowledged that the expression aeclessia Scotorum immo Romanorum suggests seventh or eighth century. If it is Patrician, Romanorum ought to mean the Church of the Roman Empire. For it is very difficult to conceive Patrick associating the Irish Church with Rome as opposed to Gaul and the rest of western Christendom. But in this context Romanorum (and Romani) supplies the ground for using the Kyrie, and would therefore logically stand in contradistinction to Gaul and other parts of the Empire where the Kyrie was not in use.
Again, the tenor of this dictum is in marked contrast to the other two. It is not an emotional expression of Patrick’s experience, but an ecclesiastical injunction. The Deo gratias at the end is out of place.
On the whole I am strongly disposed to think that the third dictum is spurious and was added, perhaps, after A.D. 700, to the two genuine dicta.
I may refer in this connexion to the important discussion of the Stowe Missal by Dr. B. MacCarthy in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, 1886, vol. xxvii. 135 sqq., a paper which seems to have entirely escaped the notice of M. Duchesne. His general conclusion is that the mass, which is the oldest part of the MS.—and which he separates as Bₐ—is as old as the first half of the fifth century (pp. 164-5), and he considers it to be the mass introduced by Patrick. He dates the transcription to the seventh century (after A.D. 628).
4. Ecclesiastical Canons of St. Patrick
It would be strange if the organisers of the Church in Ireland in the fifth century had not held synods, or some substitute for synods, and committed their resolutions to writing;[251] and if so, there would be every probability that the Acta or canons would have been extant in the eighth century, and would have been perfectly well known to the bishops and clergy who sat in the synods of the seventh and eighth centuries; for it was not till the ninth century that the destruction of books began through the devastations of the Northmen.
It was clearly one of Patrick’s duties to take measures to establish and secure harmony and unity of ecclesiastical administration between the north of Ireland, the special field of his own activity, and the south, which lay outside his immediate sphere of operations.
As a matter of fact, we possess evidence which, if it is genuine, records a “synod” or meeting in which Patrick was concerned; but it has been called in question, and is generally rejected. Nevertheless the last word has not been said.
The evidence is twofold.
(1) We have thirty canons preserved in a MS. which once belonged to the cathedral library of Worcester, and is now MS. 279 in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. It was written on the continent in the ninth or tenth century, and an account of it and its contents will be found in The Early Collection of Canons known as the Hibernensis, two Unfinished Papers, by Henry Bradshaw, 1893. These canons are usually described as the acts of a synod—Synodus I. Patricii—and were printed inaccurately in the collections of Spelman (i. 52 sqq.) and Wilkins (i. 2-3). An accurate text is given in Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, ii. 328-30.
The document begins thus:
Gratias agimus Deo patri et filio et spiritui sancto. Presbiteris et diaconibus et omni clero Patricius Auxilius Isserninus episcopi salutem.
Satius nobis negligentes praemonere [quam] culpare que facta sunt, Solamone dicente, Melius est arguere quam irasci. Exempla difinitionis nostrae inferius conscripta sunt et sic inchoant.
The canons follow.
Thus the document professes to be a circular letter addressed by Patricius, Auxilius, and Iserninus to the clergy, and embodying ecclesiastical rules and penalties on which the three bishops agreed. It seems misleading to describe these rules as the canons of a synod; they are canons laid down by a conclave of three bishops whose authority was acknowledged, and a conclave of three bishops is not a synod in the usual sense of the term.
It may be observed, before going farther, that the preface, instead of arousing suspicion, prepossesses us in favour of the genuineness of the document. Conferences and co-operation between Patrick and the southern bishops Auxilius and Iserninus are, as I hinted above, just what we should expect; and a forger who, say in the eighth century, desired to foist upon Patrick canons of later origin would have been much less likely to associate Patrick with these two bishops than with others, such as Benignus, who appeared more conspicuously in the story of his life. We may fairly argue that, if the canons themselves should turn out to be spurious, at all events the forger must have founded his superscription on the fact that genuine canons had been issued by the three bishops. Consequently, the superscription seems to me, in any case, to be evidence for the co-operation of Patricius, Auxilius, and Iserninus in organising the Church in Ireland.
The early date of the canons was rejected by Todd, who assigned them to the ninth or tenth century (pp. 486-8), by Haddan and Stubbs, who place their origin between A.D. 716 and A.D. 777 or 809 (ii. 331, z), and by Wasserschleben (Die irische Kanonensammlung, ed. 2, p. 1.). Todd brought forward three arguments: (1) the injunction in canon 6 that clergy should wear the Roman tonsure; (2) the implication of “a more near approach to diocesan jurisdiction, as well as a more settled state of Christianity in the country than was possible in the days of St. Patrick”; (3) the reference in canon 25 to the offerings made to the bishop (pontificialia dona) as a mos antiquus. Haddan and Stubbs add as another argument a point noticed by Todd, but not pressed by him as an objection, that (4) canon 33 must have been enacted “when the Britons and the Irish had become estranged, scil. by the adoption of Roman customs by the latter (north as well as south) while the former retained the Celtic ones”; and hence they derive their limits of date mentioned above.
Now, if we admit that all these objections are valid, it would not necessarily follow that the whole document is spurious. There is the alternative possibility that the document as a whole is genuine, but interpolated. The interpolations would amount to canons 25, 30, 33, 34, and a clause in canon 6.
Before I proceed to criticise the arguments of Todd, and Haddan and Stubbs against the genuineness of the document, it will be convenient to state the other evidence for Patrick’s activity in the shaping of ecclesiastical canons, as it has a close and immediate bearing on the present question.
(2) The Collectio Canonum Hibernensis, which has been admirably edited by Wasserschleben (Die irische Kanonensammlung, ed. 2, 1885), was put together, it is generally agreed, at the end of the seventh or in the first years of the eighth century. The external evidence is that two of the thirteen manuscripts which contain the collection were written in the eighth century. The internal evidence is that the latest authors cited are Theodore of Tarsus (ob. 690) and Adamnan (ob. 704);[252] none of Bede’s works are cited. As for the place of its origin, Wasserschleben and Bradshaw, though they differed otherwise, agreed that it originated in Ireland, while Loofs (De antiqua Britonum Scotorumque ecclesia, p. 76) argued for Northumbria on the insufficient grounds that the headings Hibernenses, Synodus Hibernensis, implied an origin outside Ireland, and that an Irish compiler would hardly have been acquainted with the Penitential of Theodore. A rubric in a Paris MS. (which came from Corbie and was written in Brittany) may contain a clue:
Hucusq; Nuben et cv. cuiminiae & du rinis.
Bradshaw infers that the collection was compiled by “an Irish monk or abbot of Dairinis” near Youghal. Dr. W. Stokes acutely saw that the name of Cucummne, a learned ecclesiastic (ob. 742 or 747, Ann. Ult.) is concealed in the corruption; and also amended Ruben (Academy, July 14, 1888). Mr. Nicholson, in an ingenious article in the Zeitschr. für kelt. Philologie, iii. 99 sqq. (1899), amends thus:
Hucusq; Ruben et cucuimini iae et durinis,
and finds the names of Rubin (ob. 725) and “Cucuimne of Ia” (Hy). He concludes that the collection was compiled in Hy and probably by Adamnan. The question need not be discussed here, since for the present purpose it is indifferent whether the compilation was made in Ireland or in Hy.
The Collection has been characterised by Bradshaw as “an attempt, and there seems good ground for looking upon it as a first attempt, to form a digest of all available authorities, from Holy Scripture, from the decisions of Councils, native and foreign, and from Church writers, native and foreign, arranged methodically under sixty-five several titles; though the method has not been carried out so fully as to produce an arrangement of the titles themselves in any but the most accidental sequence” (Early Collection of Canons, p. 6).
A survey of the sources will be found in Wasserschleben’s Introduction. Native sources are referred to under the headings Hibernenses, Sinodus Hibernensis, Patricius, and also with other superscriptions which will be mentioned below.
Among the canons attributed to Patricius we find fourteen items which are contained in the circular epistle of Patricius, Auxilius, and Iserninus:
| Patr., Aux., Is. | Hibernensis. |
|---|---|
| Preface | 66. 18. a, b |
| 1 | 42. 25. c |
| 4 | 42. 26. a |
| 5 | 42. 26. a |
| 6 b | 52. 7 |
| 8 | 34. 2. b |
| 11 | 39. 10. b |
| 12 | 40. 8 |
| 14 | 28. 10. c |
| 20 | 33. 1. e |
| 24 | 43. 4 |
| 28 | 40. 9 |
| 31 | 10. x |
| 34 b (cp. 3) | 39. 11 |
It is to be observed that 43. 4 = 24 is quoted as from Sinodus Patricii. Another canon of the Patrician conclave is also cited in the Hibernensis, but under a different title, which will be noticed below.
Thus the evidence of the Hibernensis establishes that a considerable portion of the matter in the circular letter of the three bishops was held to be of Patrician origin (c. A.D. 700), and consequently it would be impossible to accept the date assigned by Haddan and Stubbs for the circular letter except in the sense that some interpolations might have been introduced in the course of the eighth century.
The question now arises as to how far we can, prima facie, trust the compiler of the Hibernensis as to the Patrician origin of the canons which he labels Patrician, and which are also found in the circular letter. In estimating the value of his evidence, one consideration, it seems to me, is very important. There is another set of canons (extant in more than one MS.) ascribed to Patrick, and generally referred to as Synodus II. Patricii.[253] Of these thirty-one canons, nine are quoted in the Hibernensis, but in no case attributed to Patrick; three others are quoted in one MS. of the later recension (B-text) of the Hibernensis, namely, in the Valicellanus (tenth century), and one of them is there ascribed to Patrick. The correspondence is shown in the following table:—[254]
| Syn. II. Patricii. | Hibernensis. | |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | 2. 23: | Sinodus Romana |
| 3 | 47. 8. d: | Romani |
| 4 | 40. 1. c: | Sinodus Romana |
| 8 | 28. 14. d: | Sinodus Romanorum |
| [10 | 11. 1. b: | Sinodus] |
| [11 | 47. 20: | Sinodus Romana] |
| 14 | 12. 15. c: | Sinodus |
| [17 | 47. 20: | Paterius (Patricius)] |
| 23 | 35. 3: | Dominus in evangelio |
| 24 | 16. 4: | Sinodus Romana |
| 25 | 46. 35. b: | Romani |
| 30 | 36. 8: | Sinodus |
The circumstance that the Hibernensis ascribes to Patricius the canons (with one exception) which it quotes from “Synodus I.,” and does not ascribe to him the canons which it quotes from “Synodus II.,” is a fact which places the two “Synods” on a different footing, and furnishes a certain prima facie evidence in favour of the circular letter known as Synodus I. For the claim of Synodus II. to authenticity is invalidated by the fact that one canon (27) is in direct contradiction with a passage in Patrick’s Confession.[255]
It will be observed that most of the quotations in the Hibernensis which correspond to canons of Synodus II. are ascribed to Romani or Sinodus Romana. These headings are frequent in the Hibernensis, and it is important to determine what they mean. There are, I think, twelve quotations of this kind[256] which have been identified in non-Irish sources, mostly in the Statuta ecclesiae antiqua. There are, as shown in the above table, six quotations corresponding to canons of Irish origin included in Synodus II. There is one quotation under Sinodus Romana, 33. 1. e, which is found in the circular letter of the three bishops. There are twenty-two (25) quotations which cannot be controlled.[257] There seems to be no case in which a canon referred to as Sinodus Romana can be discovered in the Acts of a synod held at Rome.
Thus out of forty-two (45) “Roman” headings, it is remarkable that only twelve can be identified in non-Irish sources, and of these four are from non-Roman councils, six from the Statuta eccl. ant., two from the decrees of a bishop of Rome. Seven others are from Irish sources. It seems, on the face of it, much more likely that most of the remaining quotations which have not been identified were derived from native sources, seeing that the Acts of the Irish synods before A.D. 700 have not been preserved; it is hardly likely that so many as twenty-two (25) citations of this kind from foreign sources would remain unidentified.
There is a particular indication which seems to me of some significance; 33. 1. e cites a canon found in the circular letter of the three bishops (can. 20), as from Sinodus Romana. 33. 1. f follows with a quotation, evidently from the same context and under the heading item, but not found in the circular letter.[258] The inference, I submit, is that both sections are quoted from the Acts of an Irish synod, in which the canon found in the circular letter was adopted, but without a reference to its origin.
The only theory which seems to me to cover all the facts is that in the Hibernensis, Sinodus Romana (or Romani) designates synods held in Ireland[259] in the seventh century in the interest of Roman reform, and under the influence of its advocates. This view will explain the two categories of canons which can be identified as of Irish origin, and canons which are unidentified. It is also perfectly consistent with the fact that twelve canons have been identified in foreign sources, only that we have to suppose that the compiler took them, not from the original sources, but from the Acts of Irish synods at which they were adopted.
We may infer that the document known as Synodus II. Patricii was taken from the Acts of an Irish synod of the seventh century.
Before we leave the Hibernensis, it must be mentioned that it contains a number of other canons ascribed to Patrick which do not appear in the circular letter. They are fourteen in number,[260] besides two which are found only in one or two MSS.[261] The two most remarkable of these quotations (chapters entitled de eo quod malorum regum opera destruantur and de eo quod bonorum regum opera aedificent)[262] are found in the pseudo-Patrician treatise De Abusionibus Saeculi, c. 9.[263] The most important is 20. 5. b, ordaining an appeal to Rome (cp. [chap. iii. § A], and [App. C, 16]).
The question has now to be considered whether the objections which have been urged against the circular letter of Patricius, Auxilius, and Iserninus amount to a valid proof that it is spurious or has been interpolated.
(1) The sixth canon of this letter enjoins, under penalty of separation from the Church, that the tonsure of clerics be more Romano. We know that in the seventh century the Celtic tonsure de aure ad aurem prevailed in the Irish, as in the British, Church, and this was one of the chief questions in the Roman controversy. The conclusion has been generally drawn that this was the tonsure of Irish clerics in the fifth century, and that the Roman tonsure, the corona (supposed to be an imitation of the spinea Christi corona), was not known in Ireland until the victory of the Roman party in the seventh century. This conclusion relies on the support of a text in the Catalogus Sanctorum Hiberniae, where it is said that in the first period of the Irish Church, including the time of Patrick, one tonsure ab aure usque ad aurem was worn (H. and S., Councils, ii. p. 292). The particular statements, however, of this document are not decisive. If this statement were entirely true, it would follow that Patrick permitted or acquiesced in the native form of tonsure, and cannot have promulgated the canon in question.
Another possibility, however, must be considered. It is equally conceivable that (as Ussher held)[264] the native tonsure might have been condemned by Patrick, Auxilius, and Iserninus—men who had been trained on the continent, under Gallic and Roman influences—and that after their time the prepossession of the Irish in favour of the native pagan tonsure prevailed, and the prohibition of the three bishops became a dead letter.
It might therefore be argued that, if no other evidence is forthcoming, and if there are no other insuperable objections to the circular letter, the canon concerning the tonsure cannot be declared non-Patrician, but that, on the contrary, we are entitled to appeal to it as a proof that the foreign tonsure was introduced in the days of Patrick.
There is, however, a striking and interesting piece of positive evidence which has been quite overlooked because it requires some interpretation. It occurs in the Memoir of Tírechán, who, it is to be remembered, belonged to the north of Ireland, and wrote before that part of the island adopted Roman usages (see below, [p. 248]). The passage occurs in Lib. Arm. f. 12 rᵒ a (Rolls ed. p. 317). The conversion and tonsure of the two brothers Caplait and Mael is there recounted. Caplait believed first, et capilli eius ablati sunt. Then Mael was converted:
Et ablati sunt capilli capitis illius id norma magica in capite uidebatur airbacc ut dicitur giunnae.
This passage seems slightly corrupt, and it is not known what exactly the norma magica, called in Irish airbacc giunne, was. This, however, does not concern our present purpose. Mael, like Caplait, was shorn of his hair. As both Mael and Caplait were magicians or Druids, they already bore the native tonsure from ear to ear (the name Mael, tonsured one, implies this), and the Christian tonsuring must evidently have removed the hair from the back part of their head. Thus the story as told by Tírechán and his source implies the tradition of a distinction between the native and the Christian tonsure of Ireland in the time of St. Patrick.
But the explanatory remark which Tírechán adds to his story throws new light on the whole matter. He says:
De hoc est uerbum quod clarius est omnib[us] uerbis Scoticis: similis est caluus contra caplit.
The Tripartite Life (Rolls ed. 104₆) gives the proverb in the Irish form: “cosmail Mael do Chaplait.”
A moment’s consideration will show that Tírechán cannot be right in supposing that this saw “Mael is like to Caplait” arose out of the story which he tells. Both Mael and Caplait were magicians converted to Christianity and tonsured under Patrick’s direction; in this they resembled each other; but how could such a resemblance become enshrined in a popular saying, unless there were some typical contrast to give it a point? There is, however, no contrast in the story, except that Mael was more obstinate and aggressive, and was converted subsequently to his brother. We cannot hesitate to conclude that the saying did not arise from the story, but, as we should a priori expect, the story was invented (or adapted) to account for the saying. What was the origin of the saying?
The clue lies in our hands. Caplait is a loan word from the Latin capillatus “de-capillated, shorn”; and a proverb declaring that the mael is like to the caplait proves that the two were not the same. The mael being the man with the native tonsure, the caplait was the man with a foreign tonsure, as his foreign name implies. This proverb, which was current in the seventh century, preserves the memory of a Christian tonsure (distinct from the native) formerly used in Ireland.
But the proverb gives us still more information than this. It directly confirms the view, which I suggested above as possible, that the foreign tonsure was at first (in Patrick’s time) enforced, and afterwards yielded to the native one. The proverb is evidently a surviving witness of the struggle (probably in the latter part of the fifth century) between the two forms of tonsure. The clerics who clung to native customs cried: There is no distinction between a mael and a caplait—that is, the old national tonsure is as good a mark of his calling for the Christian cleric as the foreign tonsure which removes all the hair from the crown.
The story of the conversion of the two magicians, as told by Tírechán, was evidently designed to illustrate this proverb, but without any comprehension of the proverb’s real significance. In other words, it was invented, or reshaped, at a time when the native tonsure had so completely ousted its rival that men almost forgot that there had been a rival. The story indeed bears upon it an obvious mark of manufacture, in that it represents one of the Druids as named Caplait. He could not have borne this name till after his conversion. That the story was entirely invented for the purpose of explaining the proverb is extremely unlikely. I suggest as probable that in the original story there was only one Druid, who on his conversion received the Christian tonsure, and thus from being Mael became Caplait. The proverb suggested the duplication of Mael-Caplait into two brethren.
It is another question—and for the present purpose does not matter—whether the Christian tonsure of the fifth century was the tonsure of the seventh century, the corona, or not. It may have been a total shaving of the head, no fringe being left. The earliest mention of the corona seems to occur in Gregory of Tours, Liber Vitae Patrum, xvii. 1 (p. 728, ed. M.G.H.), and it may not have become general before the sixth century. We have no particulars as to the exact nature of the tonsure referred to in Socrates, H.E., 3. 1. 9, or in Salvian, De gub. Dei, 8. 21. Once the coronal tonsure was introduced in the west,[265] the total tonsure was distinguished as the Greek or St. Paul’s tonsure (see Bede, H.E., iv. 1); but it seems not improbable that the total tonsure was universal in the early part, at all events, of the fifth century. There is a passage in Tírechán which seems to me to preserve the memory of the practice of total tonsure in the days of St. Patrick. It is the name of Patrick’s charioteer, fol. 13 vᵒ b (322)₂₆:
Et sepiliuit illum aurigam totum id totmael caluum.
The hybrid name Tot-mael contrasts the Christian tonsure with the native semi-tonsure, but it suggests total rather than coronal tonsure. It is, in any case, another undesigned testimony to the difference between the ecclesiastical and the native tonsures in Patrick’s time; while it possibly indicates that the mos Romanus introduced into Ireland in the fifth century may have been partially different from the mos Romanus which was reintroduced in the seventh.
But the passage in Tírechán on which I have commented appears to me to demonstrate that the foreign tonsure had at one time been customary for clerics in Ireland; and therefore the objection to the genuineness of the circular letter, which has been founded on the inclusion of a canon on this subject, falls to the ground.
(2) The second objection urged by Todd is that some of the canons imply a nearer approach to diocesan jurisdiction, and a more settled state of Christianity, than was possible in the days of St. Patrick. (So far as a relatively settled state of Christianity is concerned, it must be remembered that Todd did not realise how far Christianity had spread in Ireland before St. Patrick; and if we take into account that the letter of the three bishops is designed both for those parts of the island where Christian communities had existed many years before, as well as for those (like Connaught) where churches had only recently been planted, there is nothing in the canons that need surprise us on this head).
The canons which imply spheres of ecclesiastical jurisdiction are 30 and 34:—
30. Aepiscopus quislibet qui de sua in alteram progreditur parruchiam nec ordinare praesumat nisi permissionem acceperit ab eo qui in suo principatu[m] est; die dominica offerat tantum susceptione et obsequi hic contentus sit.
34. Diaconus nobiscum similiter qui inconsultu suo abbate sine litteris in aliam parruchiam absentat [MS. adsentiat] nec cibum ministrare decet et a suo presbitero quem contempsit per penitentiam uindicetur.
The first of these canons implies that a bishop has a defined paruchia and that he cannot perform episcopal acts in another paruchia without the permission of its princeps. The second deals with the case of a deacon belonging to a monastic community, the head of which is not a bishop but a presbyter; he is forbidden to betake himself to another district without a letter from his abbot.
Canon 30 corresponds to the 22nd canon of the Council of Antioch (A.D. 341, Mansi, Conc., ii. 649), ἐπίσκοπον μὴ ἐπιβαίνειν ἀλλοτρίᾳ πόλει ... εἰ μὴ ἄρα μετὰ γνώμης τοῦ οἰκείου τής χώρας ἐπισκόπου.[266] Paruchia means an episcopal diocese[267] as in Eusebius, Hist. ecc. v. 33, 1 and 3. For the considerations which show that Patrick must have defined spheres of episcopal jurisdiction, I must refer to [Excursus 18 in Appendix C] on the Patrician Episcopate.
In canon 34 paruchia seems to have a different meaning, and refer to the district which the church of the abbot’s monastery served. It is the district of a presbyter, not of a bishop. This ambiguity would not be fatal to the genuineness of the canon. In the passage of Eusebius, cited above, παροικίαι also occurs in the sense of rural districts, several of which were under one bishop, as Duchesne has pointed out.[268] But the canon may well be a later addition to the genuine document, belonging to an age when the monastic communities had acquired greater importance.
(3) The mos antiquus of canon 25 may refer not to Ireland but to the Christian Church generally.
(4) Another objection is founded on canon 33, which enjoins:
Clericus qui de Britanis ad nos ueniat sine epistola etsi habitet in plebe non licitum ministrare.
It is suggested that this must belong to a period when the British and Irish churches were estranged by the latter’s adoption of Roman customs, that is, not earlier than A.D. 716. I cannot see the cogency of this argument. The canon does not seem to me to imply hostility to the British Church, but to be a natural precaution and safeguard against unauthorised and possibly heretical clerics coming over from Britain. It is an application to Irish circumstances of the 7th canon of the Council of Antioch (Mansi, ii. 644), μηδένα ἄνευ εἰρηνικῶν δέχεσθαι τῶν ξένων.[269] In Patrick’s time, when there was Pelagianism in Britain, some such precaution may have been specially necessary; and it is conceivable that a case of a heretic coming over to Ireland and attempting to propagate his views may have occurred and called forth this ordinance. The words sine epistola (ἄνευ εἰρηνικῶν) show that no hostility to the British Church is implied.
The outcome of this investigation is that the case for rejecting the circular letter of the three bishops on internal evidence breaks down; and otherwise an early date is suggested, as Todd admits when he says that some of the canons “were certainly written during the predominance of paganism in the country.” Hence, the external evidence being in its favour, we need not hesitate to accept the document as authentic.
[Note on the Liber de Abusionibus Saeculi]
This treatise[270] is ascribed to Patrick in some MSS., but the authorship has been generally rejected, on account of the Latin style, which is very different from that of the Confession and the Letter, and on account of the Scriptural quotations, which are taken from St. Jerome’s version. In itself, the difference in the quality of the Latin might not be decisive, for we have a conspicuous example of similar difference in style between the Historia Francorum and the Gloria Martyrum of Gregory of Tours.
In MSS. this treatise is variously ascribed to Cyprian and Augustine. The external evidence for Cyprian is best, because Jonas of Orleans, who lived in the first half of the ninth century, quotes it as Cyprian’s: De institutione regia, c. 3, Migne, P.L. 106, 288-9. This testimony and the testimonies of the MSS. are directly contradicted by the internal evidence, namely, by the Scriptural citations from the Vulgate, which render the authorship of Cyprian or Augustine untenable.
There is earlier evidence which points in a different direction. In the eighth century the tract was regarded as the work of Patrick both in Ireland and in Gaul. (1) The ninth Abuse is quoted almost entirely in the Hibernensis (above, p. 239) and ascribed to Patricius. (2) Extracts from the same section are quoted in a letter of Cathuulfus (apparently otherwise unknown), addressed c. A.D. 775 to King Charles the Great, and preserved in a ninth-century MS. (Epp. Karolini Aevi, ii. p. 503. The editor, E. Dümmler, leaves the quotation unidentified).
This evidence proves that the treatise is older than A.D. 700, and strongly suggests that its origin is Irish, that it was ascribed in Ireland to Patrick, and travelled to Gaul under his name. The twelfth Abuse, populus sine lege, is consonant with the origin of the work outside the Roman Empire.
5. Irish Hymn ascribed to Patrick
The Lorica of St. Patrick is an unmetrical quasi-poetical composition of great antiquity. It is called the Faeth Fiada, interpreted the “Deer’s Cry,” and hence the Preface in the Liber Hymnorum connects the hymn with the story of the deer metamorphosis in Muirchu (p. 282). But it seems (cp. Atkinson, Lib. Hymn. ii. 209) that the phrase really meant a spell or charm which had the power of rendering invisible, and that the story of the deer arose from a popular etymology.
We need not hesitate to identify this work with the canticum Scotticum which was current before the ninth century under Patrick’s name, as we learn from a note in the Liber Armachanus (p. 333₁₀). Whether Patrick was really the author was another question. The verdict of Professor Atkinson is as follows:—
“It is probably a genuine relic of St. Patrick. Its uncouthness of grammatical forms is in favour of its antiquity. We know that Patrick used very strange Irish, some of which has been preserved; and the historians who handed down mudebroth as an ejaculation of his would probably take care to copy as faithfully as they could the other curious Irish forms which the saint had consecrated by his use” (Lib. Hymn. ii. p. lviii).
If it can be proved that some of the forms in the Lorica could not have been used by a native Irish writer, this would be a very strong argument for its composition by Patrick. It seems possible that Patrick’s expression mudebroth was remembered as the solecism of a foreigner. “The oath dar mo De broth is mere jargon; De broth ought to mean something like ‘God’s doom-day’; but even then there would be a difficulty, because the genitive Dé could not precede its governing noun” (Atkinson, ib. ii. 179).
It may be said, then, that the Lorica may have been composed by Patrick; but in any case it is an interesting document for the spirit of early Christianity in Ireland.
The latest editions are Atkinson’s in the Liber Hymnorum (i. 133 sqq.) with translation (ii. 49 sqq.), and that of Stokes and Strachan in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus, vol. ii. 353 sqq.
6. Hymn of St. Sechnall
The Latin Hymn of St. Sechnall or Secundinus, the coadjutor of Patrick,[271] preserved in the MSS. of the Liber Hymnorum, is certainly very ancient. It might be rash to affirm that its ascription to Secundinus is correct; but Patrick is spoken of throughout as if he were alive, and the absence of all references to particular acts of the saint or episodes in his life confirms the view that it was composed before his death; hymnographers of later times would hardly have omitted such references. There is no mention of miracles. As the author thus confined himself to generalities, the hymn supplies no material for Patrick’s biography. It is worth while noticing that, if the hymn is contemporary, as it seems to be, the verse
Testis Domini fidelis in lege Catholica
may be allusive to the event commemorated in Ann. Ult. s.a. 441 (see below, [p. 367]).
The hymn, in trochaic metre, is unrhymed, and does not exhibit the characteristics of later Latin hymns composed in Ireland. It takes no account of elision, or quantity, except in the penultimate syllable of the verse, which is always short.[272]
The best text will be found in Bernard and Atkinson, Liber Hymnorum, i. 3 sqq. On the metre see Atkinson, ib. xiii., xiv.
7. Life of Germanus, by Constantius
Constantius, who wrote the Life of Germanus of Auxerre, has a place in literary history, for Sidonius Apollinaris published his Letters at his suggestion and dedicated them to him. Constantius (for whose character see Sidonius, iii. 2) composed the Life at the wish of Patiens, Bishop of Lyons (who also appears in the correspondence of Sidonius), and one of the two letters which are prefixed to the Life is addressed to Patiens. The other is addressed to a Bishop Censurius (see Sidonius, vi. 10). The episcopate of Patiens gives the years 450 and c. 490 as the limits for the composition of the work, but the author implies in the first prefatory letter that some time had elapsed since the death of Germanus. W. Levison (Neues Archiv 29, pp. 97 sqq. 1903) suggests (p. 112) c. 480 or some years later as the probable date.
The editions of the Life in the collection of Surius (iv. 405 sqq., ed. 1573) and the Acta Sanctorum (July 7, p. 200 sqq.) do not represent the original work, but a text with extensive additions. The older text of Mombritius (Sanctuarium, i. 319 sqq. 1480) comes much nearer to the original (Levison, p. 101). The original work is preserved, without the later interpolations, in various MSS., and its extent was recently defined by the Bollandists, Bibl. hagiographica Latina, i. 515, n. 3453, cp. ii. 1354. A critical edition is promised in the last volume of the Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum (M.G.H.), but in the meantime Dr. Levison has given not only the results of his researches on the MSS., but also a study of the Life in the important monograph cited above. The compass of the original work, and the subsequent additions, are set out clearly in tabular form on [p. 113].
The motive of the Life—its main interest for its author—was to represent Germanus as a miracle-worker; he states as his object (in the letter to Patiens) profectui omnium mirabilium exempla largiri. The Life accordingly is full of miracles, and largely of typical miracles, some of which have a pronounced family likeness to some recorded in the Life of St. Martin by Sulpicius Severus (Levison, pp. 114 sqq.). Constantius forms no exception to the general rule that authors of hagiographies did not condescend to trouble themselves with chronology; there is not a single date in the book. But the main outline of the biography—though there may be inaccuracies in detail (cp. note, [p. 297])—seems to be trustworthy, and has sustained the detailed criticism to which it has been subjected by Levison.