But the longest and most important life of St. Patrick is that known as the Tripartite, or Triply-divided Life, which is really a series of three semi-historical homilies, or discourses, which were probably delivered in honour of the saint on the three festival days devoted to his memory, that is, the Vigil, the Feast itself, on March 17th, and the day after, or else the Octave. This Tripartite life, which is a fairly complete one, is written in ancient Irish, with many passages of Latin interspersed. The monk Jocelin, who wrote a life of the saint in the twelfth century, tells us that St. Evin[36]—from whom Monasterevin, in Queen's County, is called, a saint of the early sixth century—wrote a life of Patrick partly in Latin and partly in Gaelic, and Colgan, the learned Franciscan who translated the Tripartite in his "Trias Thaumaturga,"[37] believed that this was the very life which St. Evin wrote. Colgan found the Tripartite life in three very ancient Gaelic MSS., procured for him, no doubt, by the unwearied research of Brother Michael O'Clery in the early part of the seventeenth century, which he collated one with the other, and of which he gives the following noteworthy account:—
"The first thing to be observed is that it has been written by its first author and in the aforesaid manuscript, partly in Latin, partly in Gaelic, and this in very ancient language, almost impenetrable by reason of its very great antiquity, exhibiting not only in the same chapter, but also in the same line, alternate phrases now in the Latin, now in the Gaelic tongue. In the second place, it is to be noticed that this life, on account of the very great antiquity of its style, which was held in much regard, used to be read in the schools of our antiquarians in the presence of their pupils, being elucidated and expounded by the glosses of the masters, and by interpretations of and observations on the more abstruse words; so that hence it is not to be wondered at that some words—which certainly did happen—gradually crept from these glosses into the texts, and thus brought a certain colour of newness into this most ancient and faithful author, some things being turned from Latin into Gaelic, some abbreviated by the scribes, and some altogether omitted."
Colgan further tells us that, "of the three MSS. above mentioned, the first and chief is from very ancient vellums of the O'Clerys, antiquarians in Ulster; the second from the O'Deorans, of Leinster; the third taken from I know not what codex; and they differ from each other in some respects; one relating more diffusely what is more close in the others, and one relating in Latin what in the others was told in Gaelic; but we have followed the authority of that which relates the occurrences more diffusely and in Latin." O'Curry discovered in the British Museum a copy of this life, made in the fifteenth century, and it has since been admirably edited by Dr. Whitley Stokes, who, however, does not believe for philological and other reasons, that it could have been written before the middle of the tenth century. If so it is no doubt a compilation of all the pre-existing lives of the saint, and it mentions distinctly that six different writers, not counting Fiacc the poet, had collected the events of St. Patrick's life and his miracles, amongst whom were St. Columcille, who died in 592, and St. Ultan, who died in 656.[38] It is hardly necessary, however, to say that in the matter of all anonymous Gaelic writings like the present, it is difficult to decide with any certainty as to age or date. The occurrence, indeed, of very old forms, shows that the sentences containing those old forms were first written at an early period; the occurrence of more modern forms, however, is no proof that the passages containing them were first written in modern times, for the words may have been altered by later transcribers into the language they spoke themselves; nor are allusions to events which we know were later than the date of an alleged writer, always conclusive proofs that the work which contains them cannot be his work, for such allusions constantly creep into the margin of books at the hands of copyists, especially if those books were—as Colgan says the Tripartite life was—annotated and explained in schools. In cases of this kind there is always considerable latitude to be allowed to destructive and constructive criticism, and at the end matters must still remain doubtful.[39]
So much for the more important lives of St. Patrick, the first known littérateur of Ireland.
[1] "Contemporary Review."
[2] So Tirechan, in Book of Armagh, fol. 9. "Et secum fuit multitudo episcoporum sanctorum et presbiterorum, et diaconorum, ac exorcistarum, hostiarium, lectorumque, necnon filiorum quos ordinavit."
[3] So many English were attracted to Armagh in the seventh century that the city was divided into three wards, or thirds, one of which was called the Saxon Third.
[4] See Dr. Healy's "Ireland's Ancient Schools and Scholars," p. 64.
[5] There is a curious poem on St. Patrick's family of artificers quoted in the "Four Masters" under A.D. 278.