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).