[440] In his treatment of the Muirchu narrative Todd does not go below the surface, but he recognises that the first part embodies a concession on the part of Armagh. The question is discussed in Reeves, Eccl. Antiquities, 223 sq.
[441] The simplest case is when an incident is reduplicated, as in the Cyclops story in the Odyssey (Book 9), where the second stone-casting of the Cyclops at the escaping ship is a later addition by an expander who sought to outdo the original incident but failed in his effect.
[442] I may note here that the river Cabcenne, where the Orior men discovered the deception, has not been identified, but ought naturally to be sought near their destination, Armagh. So Todd, p. 195.
[443] In his article “Keltische Kirche” in the Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie u. Kirche, 1901; translated by Miss Meyer (The Celtic Church in Britain and Ireland), 1902.
[444] In Bede’s Martyrology, under March 17, we find in Scotia S. Patricii Confessionis. Zimmer (p. 10) accepts this, without question, as Bedan. I should like to know how far we can distinguish in this document what is Bede’s from later additions.
[445] There is, however, another consideration which may be taken into account by those who wonder at the absence of any reference to Patrick in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History. The Latin literature concerning St. Patrick only began to appear in Bede’s time. Tírechán’s Memoir cannot have been written long before his birth; and he was nearly thirty years old when Muirchu’s Life was composed. The older Patrician literature, as we have seen reason to believe, was in Irish, and inaccessible to Bede. The Columban church in north Britain was not concerned to propagate the fame of Patrick. There was rivalry between the Columban and Patrician communities in Ireland (cp. Tírechán, 314₈).
[446] As I observed above ([p. 262]) if Muirchu’s work were anonymous and nothing were said of Aed, we should never suspect that the author belonged to the south of Ireland; we should certainly connect him with north Ireland.
[447] The particular passage on which Zimmer relies—the only positive evidence—is in the “Additions” to Tírechán in the Liber Armachanus (p. 332, Rolls ed.), where Palladius is said to have been called Patricius alio nomine, but is distinguished from the second Patrick. But this can be otherwise explained. The double date of Patrick’s death (see [Appendix C, 7]) led to a duplication—a first and a second Patrick, and one attempt to fix the personality of the earlier Patrick was to identify him with Palladius.