But the statement of facts is not correct. There is another document which, though also dating from the second half of the seventh century, may claim (see above, [p. 248]) to have some slight advantage in point of priority over the Life of Muirchu. This is the Memoir of Tírechán. He had nothing whatever to do with Laigin; he was connected with Connaught and Meath. His spiritual master, Ultan, was a bishop at Ardbraccan, and had in his possession a book concerning the life of Patrick. We might therefore, if we adopted Professor Zimmer’s method of argument, conclude that the sphere of the true Patrick’s activity was confined to a part of the kingdom of Meath. The mere existence of Tírechán’s work forbids us to attach to the provenance of Muirchu’s work any significance of the kind which Zimmer attributes to it.
It must also be observed in what a strange light Zimmer’s theory would place the work of Muirchu. We should have to suppose that this writer, taking upon himself to be Patrick’s biographer because he belonged to the province in which Patrick had worked, ignores entirely Patrick’s connexion with that province (merely mentioning that he landed on the coast of Laigin), and devotes all his space to legendary adventures in other parts of Ireland.[446] As a matter of fact, a critical analysis of his work shows that a large amount of material depends on ancient local traditions of the Island-Plain in Ulidia.
This brings us face to face with the great difficulty which Zimmer has to meet. How, and why, and when was the obscure Patricius of fact transmuted into the illustrious Patricius of tradition? Zimmer’s answer to the question, when? has at least the merit of precision. He finds the motive of the glorification of Patrick in the Roman controversy of the seventh century, and he dates the appearance of the legend about A.D. 625. His own words must be quoted (Celtic Church, p. 80):—
It would not require a long stretch of imagination if we assume that, about 625, Ireland’s pious wish of having an apostle of her own was realised by reviving the memory of this Patricius, who had been forgotten everywhere except in the south-east. It was in this way, I think, that the Patrick legend sprang up with its two chief premisses: first, that Ireland was entirely pagan in 432, as the lands of the Picts and of the Saxons had been in 563 and 597 respectively; and secondly, that Patrick converted Ireland within a short time and introduced a Christian Church, overcoming all obstacles and winning the favour of King Loigaire, incidents analogous to Columba’s conversion of King Brude, or Augustine’s of Ethelbert of Kent.
Pointing out that the first mention of Patricius is in connexion with a Paschal cycle, in Cummian’s letter to Segéne, Zimmer proceeds:—
Thus the Patrick legend is characterised on its first appearance as serving the endeavours of the Southern Irish to enter into the unitas Catholica by yielding to Rome on the Easter question.
It is to be observed that Zimmer does not categorically allege that the Patrick legend was invented by the Roman party in south Ireland. He leaves this open. He says: “If this legend was not expressly invented by an Irish member of the party in favour of conformity, it was, at any rate, utilised at once by that party.” Let us take in turn the two alternatives, (1) that it was invented expressly by the Roman party, (2) that it was otherwise invented, but precisely in time for them to utilise.
(1) This alternative implies that the legend was manufactured in south-eastern Ireland (the only place where, ex hypothesi, Patricius was remembered) for the purpose of bringing about the conformity of the northern Irish. But the legend itself, as developed in the seventh-century sources, as developed in Muirchu’s work, on which Zimmer lays great stress, repudiates this origin. Southern Ireland, south-eastern Ireland, do not appear in the legend at all (except the single reference to Fíacc and the mention of the landing in Wicklow); and it would require the strongest direct evidence to prove that, in spite of this radical fact, the legendary story originated there. The theory implies that the south-eastern Irish, while they resuscitated Patricius, made him over entirely, and transferred all their rights in him, to the north of the island—severed him entirely from themselves. So far as the single circumstance of the conversion of Loigaire and the incidents of the first Easter is concerned, that might pass; for in Loigaire, as High King, the south as well as the north of Ireland had part. But the point is that the whole setting connects Patrick with the north and not with the south. Zimmer’s hesitation shows, I suspect, that he was to some extent conscious of this difficulty; and so he leaves open
(2) The other possibility that the rise of the Patrick legend may have had another origin. The only motive he suggests is “Ireland’s pious wish of having an apostle of her own.” Now if the origin of the Patrick legend was independent of the Roman controversy, why need it be placed in A.D. 625? How are we to determine its date? The answer, which seems to be implied by Zimmer, is that it must have been subsequent to the times of St. Columba and St. Augustine, the object being to set up a primitive apostle, to be for Ireland what Columba and Augustine were for Pictland and for England. This is, of course, the purest speculation; but setting aside the question of date, we should have to suppose—if we are not to fall into the same difficulty as in the case of the first alternative—that the idea arose in north Ireland, and that the legend was invented there. This would imply that the northern ecclesiastical mytho-poets had recourse to south-eastern Ireland to find an obscure ecclesiastic to glorify; that they detached him ruthlessly from his home and appropriated him entirely. We need not, however, consider this improbability, as Zimmer himself does not contemplate it. His view is that Patrick was resuscitated “in the district of his special activity,” “with the help of his own writings and of documents about him.”
It would seem far more natural that if the Irish were in search of a founder, they should seize on Palladius, whose mission was recorded by Prosper. Zimmer therefore identifies Palladius with Patricius; but the Irish had no idea of such an identity.[447] For in the oldest Life, Patricius and Palladius are distinguished. If, as Zimmer thinks, the creation of an apostle was due to a “specific tendency,” namely, approximation to Rome, it would be strange if Palladius, for whose direct mission from Rome there existed the record of Prosper, were not chosen. The legend of the conversion, the story of the first Paschal celebration, could as easily have been spun round him as round the author of the Confession. Zimmer avoids the difficulty by identifying them.