But it would hardly have been necessary to make such a declaration in writing if it had not seemed to him that his life and work were partly misunderstood. It was inevitable that a man of Patrick’s force of character and achievements should have aroused some feelings of jealousy and voices of detraction; and the Confession is evidently a reply to things that were said to belittle him. One charge that was brought against him was his lack of literary education. His deficiency in this respect was probably urged as a disqualification for the eminent position of authority which he had won by his practical labours. Compared with most of the many bishops in Gaul, compared perhaps with most of the few bishops in Britain, Patrick might well have been described as illiterate. In the eyes of his countryman, Faustus, in the eyes of Sidonius Apollinaris, the Bishop of Armagh would have seemed, so far as style is concerned, unworthy to hold a pen. On this count Patrick disarms criticism by a full admission of his rusticitas, his lack of culture, and acknowledges that as he grows old he feels his deficiency more and more. It was even this consciousness of literary incompetence that had hitherto withheld him from drawing up the Confession which he has at length resolved to write. Then he goes on to explain by passages from his life how it was that, though he missed the early training which is to be desired in a religious apostle, he had nevertheless presumed to take in hand the work of converting heathen lands. His narrative is designed to show that it was entirely God’s doing, who singled him out, untrained and unskilled though he was; that there were no worldly inducements to support the divine command, which he obeyed simply without any ulterior motive, and in opposition to the wish of his kinsfolk. Here he is meeting another imputation, which stung him more than the true taunt of illiteracy. His detractors must have hinted that it was not with perfectly pure and unworldly motives that he had gone forth to preach among the Scots. He does not conceal that the island in which he had toiled as a captive slave had no attraction for him; he implies that he always felt there as a stranger in a strange land.[206] “I testify,” he says, summing up, “in truth and in exultation of heart, before God and His holy angels, that I never had any motive save the gospel and promises of God, to return at any time to that people from which I had formerly escaped.”[207] He repudiates especially the imputation that he won any personal profit in worldly goods from those whom he converted, or that he sought in any way to overreach the folk among whom he lived. To show how discreetly he ordered his ways, how careful he was to avoid all scandalous suspicion, he mentions that when men and women of his flock sent him gifts, or laid ornaments on the altar, he always restored them, at the risk of offending the givers.
PATRICK’S DETRACTORS
It is easy enough to read between the lines the kind of detraction that wounded St. Patrick; it may seem less easy to determine in what quarter the unfriendly voices were raised. But there are certain indications which enable us to suspect that it was in his own country and by his own countrymen that the charges to which he obliquely refers were brought against him. At the end of the composition he says that he wrote it “in Ireland”; and this gives us a reasonable ground for supposing that it was addressed mainly to people outside Ireland. When he speaks of “those peoples amidst whom I dwell,” when he mentions “women of our race” (not “women of my race”), in contrast with women of Scottish birth,[208] we can hardly be wrong in thinking that he is addressing not his Irish disciples, but some of his British fellow-countrymen. And we may well believe that if this “apology” for his life had been meant in the first place for Ireland, he would have taken some care to veil his feeling of homelessness; he would not have shown so clearly that he felt as an alien on outlandish soil, and that he was abiding there only from a sense of duty, doing despite to the longings of his heart. This inference is borne out by the writer’s express statement that he wishes his “brethren and kinsfolk” to know his character and nature.[209] Nor is it contradicted by the fact that he closely associates those whom he addresses with his own work.[210] On the contrary, this enables us to identify more precisely the origin of the detraction which evoked the Confession. The unfriends who disparaged him were clearly some of those British fellow-workers who had laboured with him in propagating the Christian faith in Ireland. That jealousy and friction should occur between the chief apostle and some of his helpers is only what we might expect, as in any similar case; and it may be that some of those who felt themselves aggrieved returned in disgust to Britain, and indulged their ill-will by spreading evil reports about Patrick’s conduct of the Irish mission. It was for the communities in Britain where such reports were circulated, it was to refute those who set them afloat, that the Confession was in the first instance intended.
ATTACKS ON PATRICK
But Patrick had been exposed to one direct attack, which seems to have caused him more distress and agitation of spirit than any experience during his work in Ireland. Before he was ordained deacon, he had confessed to a trusted friend a fault which he had committed at the age of fifteen. His friend evidently did not consider it an obstacle to ordination, and subsequently supported the proposal that Patrick should be consecrated bishop for Ireland.[211] But afterwards he betrayed the secret, and the youthful indiscretion came to the ears of persons whom we may perhaps identify with some of Patrick’s foreign coadjutors.[212] “They came,” he says in his rude style, “and urged my sins against my laborious episcopate.” The words prove that he had already laboured for some years—other indications suggest fifteen or sixteen years[213]—when this attack was made. He does not tell us how he met or weathered the danger; he ascribes his escape from stain and opprobrium to Divine assistance. We can sympathise with him in his deep resentment of an attack so manifestly unjust, of a friend’s treachery apparently so inexcusable; but the incident clearly shows that there existed a party distinctly hostile to him, men who were ready to seize on any handle against him. His want of culture had been hitherto the chief reproach which they could fling; when they discovered a moral delinquency, though it was more than forty years old, the opportunity was irresistible.
But while the vindication was addressed to an audience beyond Ireland, it was intended also for the Irish. It might almost be described as an open letter to his brethren in Britain, published in Ireland. He describes it himself as “a bequest to my brethren, and to my children whom I baptized,” for the purpose of making known “the gift of God,” donum Dei.
The spirit and tone of this work are so consistently humble from first to last, that it almost lends itself to a misconstruction, in the sense that the measure of Patrick’s achievements was smaller and the sphere of his work more restricted than our other sources give us to suppose. It has even been said that the Confession is a confession of a life’s failure.[214] Any such interpretation misreads the document entirely. On the contrary, the main argument, as we have already seen, is that the success which Patrick had been led to hope and expect—through divine intimations as he believed—had been brought to pass. If success is not proved by vaunting, failure assuredly is not proved by the absence of boasts. But the proud consciousness of the writer that his life had been fruitful and prosperous comes out more subtly in the implied comparison which he suggests between himself and the first Apostle of the Gentiles, by quotations and echoes from Paul’s epistles.[215]
It is pathetic to read how the exile would fain visit Britain, his home, and Gaul, where he had many friends, but feels himself bound by the spirit to spend the rest of his life (residuum aetatis meae) in his self-chosen banishment, to maintain his work, and especially to protect by his influence the Christians, whom dangers constantly threatened. His energy and undismayed perseverance had accomplished a great work, and he decided not to desert it till death compelled him.
REAL AND MYTHICAL PATRICK
His two writings furnish the only evidence we possess for forming an idea of his character. The other documents, on which we depend for the outline of his life and work, preserve genuine records of events, but reflect the picture of a man who must not be mistaken for the historical Patrick. The bishop, of British birth and Roman education, is gradually transformed into a typical Irish saint, dear to popular imagination, who curses men and even inanimate things which incur his displeasure. He arranges with the Deity that he shall be deputed to judge the Irish on the day of doom. The forcefulness of the real Patrick’s nature is coarsened by degrees into caricature, until he becomes the dictator who coerces an angel into making a bargain with him on the Mount of Murrisk.[216] The stories of the Lives, so far as they characterise Patrick, present the conception which the Irish formed of a hero saint. The accounts of his acts were not written from any historical interest, but simply for edification; and the monks, who dramatised both actual and legendary incidents, were not concerned to regard, even if they had known, what manner of man he really was, but were guided by their knowledge of what popular taste demanded. The mediaeval hagiographer may be compared to the modern novelist; he provided literary recreation for the public, and he had to consider the public taste. In regard to the process by which Patrick was Hibernicised, or adapted to an Irish ideal, it is significant that the earliest literature relating to his life seems to have been written in Irish. This literature must have been current in the sixth century, and on it the earliest Latin records are largely based.