Roman Martyrs Alexander

ON THE HOLY ROMAN MARTYRS ALEXANDER, BISHOP, AND THEODOLUS, DEACON. LIKEWISE NICANDER, THEODORUS, ARTEMIUS, SISIANUS, POLLIO, AND CRESCENTIANUS.

Alexander, Bishop, Martyr at Rome (S.)

Theodolus, Deacon, Martyr at Rome (S.)

Nicander, Martyr at Rome (S.)

Theodorus, Martyr at Rome (S.)

Artemius, Martyr at Rome (S.)

Sisianus, Martyr at Rome (S.)

Pollio, Martyr at Rome (S.)

Crescentianus, Martyr at Rome (S.)

[1] A manifold controversy has arisen in the ordering of these holy Martyrs, in the discussion of which we first set forth the genuine spelling of the names. There is a fourfold copy of the Martyrology of S. Jerome, Roman Martyrs in ancient manuscript Martyrologies: namely ours, written about a thousand years ago in British script; another from an ancient Corbie codex printed at Paris in volume IV of Luc d'Achery's Spicilegium; a third which we found at Lucca in the possession of D. Francesco Maria Fiorentini, who printed it there; a fourth discovered in Germany by the distinguished Heinrich Julius Blume. We add four other older Martyrologies, different from the preceding ones and from each other: one of these is preserved in the monastery of Reichenau, or Augia Dives, in German Swabia near the city of Constance: another we found at Paris transcribed from an ancient Corbie codex; a third, though lacking its beginning, but very notable, is kept in the Barberini Library: a fourth is among the codices of Queen Christina of Sweden, from which the last months are missing. In these eight codices, one and the same reading is as follows: Alexander the Bishop and Theodolus the Deacon: At Rome: Alexander the Bishop and Theodolus the Deacon. Lucas Holstenius proposes this reading as the more certain in his Observations on the Roman Martyrology, chiefly using the last of the indicated codices. Notker in the tenth century of Christ listed the same, with only a single vowel changed: At Rome: Alexander the Bishop and Theodulus the Deacon. In the Martyrology of the monastery of S. Cyriacus, which Baronius used most extensively, they are listed thus: At Rome: Alexander the Bishop and Theodore, with the word "Deacon" omitted, perhaps through the fault of copyists, and Theodore written in place of Theodolus. The bare names of Alexander and Theodolus are also found in the Tamlacht and Labbé manuscripts, and Alexander alone in the Augsburg manuscript; as is customary in those Martyrologies to propose the bare names of Martyrs. Greven in the Supplement to Usuard at March 16 has: At Rome: S. Alexander the Bishop. But the Prague manuscript has S. Theodore the Deacon.

[2] And these things concern the more certain reading of these Roman Martyrs, from which it is established that Alexander is considered a Bishop, and S. Theodolus, otherwise called Theodulus or Theodorus, is called a Deacon in nine codices. Now among the Bishops or Pontiffs of Rome who were Martyrs, there is one S. Alexander, about whom and his companions the following is read in the Roman Martyrology under the 3rd day of May: At Rome on the Via Nomentana, the passion of the holy Martyrs Alexander the Pope, Eventius and Theodulus, Presbyters, etc., where Baronius observes in his Notes that their Acts exist in Surius, but many errors have crept in. Hence, being more anxious, we sought out the Acts of these Martyrs: and first, in the library of the most Serene Queen Christina of Sweden, there is a parchment codex in large folio, marked number 58, in which is contained a Catalogue of the Roman Pontiffs, ascribed to Pope Damasus, but carried beyond his time to John I and Felix III (others say IV), after whose brief eulogy follow the bare names with the duration of the pontificate of twelve others up to Pelagius, the predecessor of S. Gregory the Great. From this catalogue we give the following eulogy: Listed in the Catalogues of the Roman Pontiffs: VII. Alexander, a Roman by nationality, from his father Alexander, of the Caput Tauri district, sat for 10 years, 7 months, and 2 days. He lived in the times of Trajan, up to Helianus and Vetus. He mixed the Passion of the Lord into his preaching to the priests: he was crowned with martyrdom, and with him Eventius the Presbyter and Theodolus the Deacon. He instituted that water of sprinkling with salt be blessed in the dwellings of men.

He performed three ordinations: six Presbyters, two Deacons, five Bishops for various places, in the month of December: he was buried on the Via Nomentana, where he was beheaded, seven miles from the city of Rome, on the fifth day before the Nones of May, and the episcopate was vacant for 37 days. Nearly the same things are read in Anastasius the Librarian, and, what matters most here, Eventius the Presbyter and Theodorus or Theodulus the Deacon are said to have been crowned with martyrdom together with him. We have other very ancient Acts under this title: And in very ancient manuscript Acts: Here begins the passion of Alexander the Bishop and Theodolus. And the beginning of these is as follows: When the most blessed Bishop Alexander was arrested in the city by the tyrant Aurelian. In these Acts there is no mention of S. Eventius, but when S. Alexander was unharmed in a fiery furnace, a certain young man from the crowd, weeping, named Theodulus, cried out saying: A just and great man, a Bishop and Doctor, dies without cause, because he confesses his God. And after other things: I was made a Christian by him in my homeland... Both were sent into the furnace... A voice came from heaven: Behold the heavens are opened; Alexander and Theodolus, come and receive the rest that has been prepared for you from the beginning of the world, and immediately their spirits were received. Finally, near the end, the following is found: The most blessed Bishop Alexander and Theodolus the layman suffered martyrdom at the city of Rome on the fifth day before the Nones of May under the Emperor Aurelian, that is, the Judge or Governor. Other Acts were formerly published by Mombritius, and afterward by Surius but with altered style, which we have from various manuscript codices and with roughly this beginning: In the fifth place from Blessed Peter the Apostle, Alexander received (others say held, or sat in) the Chair (others say the governance) of the Church of the City of Rome, a man of incomparable holiness, young indeed in age but senior in faith. In these Acts mention is made of SS. Eventius and Theodolus: and both are generally called Presbyters, but those Acts were noted by Baronius as being sprinkled with errors. As to what bears on our matter, from the ancient Catalogue of the Roman Pontiffs, afterward transcribed by Anastasius the Librarian, it is established that S. Theodolus was considered a Deacon; and in the very ancient manuscript Acts he is set down as the companion of S. Alexander the Bishop without S. Eventius: which plainly agrees with the Martyrologies cited above. From all of which we seem to have been able to refer these two holy Martyrs to the 3rd of May, To be treated more fully on May 3: on which day in the older manuscript codices his companion is called Theodolus, more rarely Theodulus or Theodorus. However, a Translation of the relics of him and S. Alexander, or some other solemnity, may have been celebrated on this day: all of which will need to be examined more carefully on the said 3rd of May.

[3] With these things established, we proceed to the Roman Martyrology: in which at March 17 the following is recited: At Rome, SS. Alexander and Theodore, Martyrs. Baronius adds in the Notes: Of Alexander, Others from these are Nicander and Theodore, Martyrs: otherwise Nicander and Theodore. These have been restored from the old manuscript copy we mentioned. The bodies of Nicander and Theodore, Martyrs, were translated by Pope Sergius the Younger to the title of Equitius, as an old inscription carved in marble placed there testifies. So says Baronius. And first, the old manuscript, on the occasion of which he restored and listed these Martyrs for this day, is the Martyrology of the monastery of S. Cyriacus, in which we said the following is read, and indeed without mention of any other saint: The sixteenth day before the Kalends of April. At Rome: Alexander the Bishop and Theodore, for which, with one letter changed, eight codices of the best quality have Theodolus the Deacon: and many more at the 3rd of May have Theodulus, on which interim day in the genuine Bede and other manuscripts, Theodorus is read. Since Alexander is also designated Bishop in the codex of S. Cyriacus as in the other eight manuscripts, we do not see how he can be considered to be Nicander, whose body is said to have been translated by Sergius to the title of Equitius. Ferrari in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, on account of this annotation of Baronius, writes the following: Alexander, or as other codices have it, Nicander and Theodore, earned the palm of martyrdom at Rome (although under which Emperors is unknown), whose bodies, together with others, were translated by Pope Sergius II around the year of salvation 846 and rest in the title of Equitius, as a marble inscription indicates. So says Ferrari, by whom those other codices should have been identified: as we have cited above ten, all venerable in antiquity, in which S. Alexander is designated Bishop. This being established, one who is distinguished from other Bishops in the cited inscription cannot be substituted in his place. Listed with others for this day: Ferrari first lists several of the Martyrs named in that inscription in his General Catalogue with these words: At Rome, SS. Martyrs Crescentianus, Sistanus, Pollio, Anthemus, Theodore, and Nicander; and he cites the registers of the Church of S. Martin in Montibus. The antiquity of this Church of SS. Sylvester and Martin de Montibus was published at Rome in the year 1639 by Giovanni Antonio Filippini, Prior of the Carmelite Convent to which the said church belongs, who on page 77 has the cited inscription: in which these Martyrs are expressed thus: Artemius, Sisianus, Pollio, Theodore, Nicander, Crescentianus. But we add the inscription itself.

[4] Inscription of the translation made under Pope Sergius II: In the times of the Lord Sergius the Younger, Pope, there were placed in this holy altar the bodies of Blessed Sylvester and Martin, Pontiffs: likewise the bodies of the most blessed Fabian, Stephen, and Sotheris, Martyrs and Prelates. There are also present the bodies of Asterius and his most holy daughter, as well as the bodies of Saints Cyriacus, Papias, Maurus, Largus, Smaragdus, and their companions: likewise the bodies of Sisinius, Anastasius, and Innocentius, Pontiffs, together with the holy Bishops Quirinus and Leo, and likewise the Martyrs Artemius, Sisianus, Pollio, Theodore, Nicander, and Crescentianus: with whom there were also deposited the bodies of the Blessed Virgins and Martyrs Sotheris, Paulina, Memia, Juliana, Quirilla, Theopistis, and Sophia, as well as the Blessed widow Quiriaca, and the Blessed Justa, with many others of both sexes whose names are known to God alone: whose bodies he placed in the holy altar, dedicating it to them. These bodies of the Saints were translated from the Cemetery of Priscilla on the Via Salaria, and the said Pontiff granted to all who come devoutly to this church of Saints Sylvester and Martin on the feast days of these saints, three years and three quarantines of true indulgence. So it reads there; and if Filippini had added the feast days themselves, that is, the days on which these saints were formerly accustomed to receive their veneration, he would have shed light on our inquiry. We ourselves venerated those relics at Rome in the year 1661 and read the said inscription there, which some consider not very ancient: however, from it one cannot infer that S. Nicander there mentioned is S. Alexander, the Bishop or Pope and Martyr, or that S. Theodore joined with him is Theodolus his Deacon. They also differ in place of burial, because SS. Alexander the Pope and Theodolus had their cemetery on the Via Nomentana, and these bodies are said to have been translated from the Cemetery of Priscilla on the Via Salaria.

[5] Tamayo Salazar brings the final controversy when in his Spanish Martyrology at March 17 he writes the following: At Rome, S. Alexander, Martyr, A body of S. Alexander brought from Rome to Madrid: who completed his struggle with Theodore, and whose body was translated by Pope Sergius the Younger, and afterward brought to Madrid, where it is preserved with due honor in the Convent of S. Bernardino of the Discalced Friars of S. Francis, in the chapel of D. Martin de Cordoba. In the Notes he says that monastery was built in a solitary place by Francisco de Gornica, a counselor in the royal accounts to the Catholic King Philip II, in the year 1572, and that in a corner of this convent D. Martin de Cordoba, General Commissary of the Crusade, Lord and Prior of Junquera, erected a distinguished chapel: in which he placed with honor several bodies of saints brought from Rome. Ægidius Gonzalez Davila in the Theatre of Madrid, book 1, chapter 8, asserts that there are three sacred bodies of SS. Alexander, William, and Eustace, sent by Pope Paul V with various other relics. Hieronymo Quintana, book 3 of the History of Madrid, chapter 113, says that S. Alexander is venerated on March 17, William on February 10, He is venerated there on March 17: Eustace on September 20, and Jocundus on January 9, whose body he also adds is there. It appears that the Discalced Friars of the said convent, without further reflection, adopted the days for their veneration from the Roman Martyrology, as if all saints were enumerated in it. Hence, because Jocundus and William, who suffered at Rome, were missing from it, they took the former as an African Martyr, and the latter as a hermit and founder of their own Order, whose body we have shown at length on the said February 10 to be preserved at Castiglione della Pescaia in Sienese territory, and his head at Antwerp in the church of the Society of Jesus. But Tamayo, fearing greater difficulty regarding S. Eustace, having cited Quintana's History of Madrid at September 20, adds that by the authority of this author he considers himself free from further proof, which he could also have done for this day, Another must be established distinct from S. Alexander and Nicander: omitting the old inscription, in which, since there was no mention of any Alexander, he thrust in the name of Alexander or Nicander. But the sacred relics of the latter are detained there, and were not extracted thence and brought to Madrid, as he writes.

[6] In the same way, the Theatine Fathers of Bologna, in their church dedicated to the Apostle Bartholomew, have the body of S. Theodore the Martyr, received from Pope Paul V, for whose veneration they also chose March 17, Body and relics of S. Theodore the Martyr at Bologna: because on this day S. Theodore the Martyr is inscribed in the Roman Martyrology. In the church of S. Gabriel at the Ravenna Gate of the same city, some relics of S. Theodore the Martyr can also be seen: about all of which Anthony Paul Masini treats on this day in his survey of Bologna.

ON THE MARTYRS OF ALEXANDRIA IN THE TEMPLE OF SERAPIS.

YEAR 390.

The Alexandrian Martyrs (SS.)

The reign of the Emperor Theodosius was distinguished by many other things, and especially by the remarkable advances of the Christian religion, with the superstition of profane idols being completely overthrown and eradicated throughout the entire Empire: Under Theodosius idolatry is eradicated: the followers of which in Egypt, devoted to madness by the abominable rites of their ancestral gods, undertook the most desperate measures in a deranged fury on account of Theophilus: who in the ninth year of Theodosius, the year 387 of the Christian Era, had been appointed as successor to Timothy of Alexandria, and, driven by zeal for religion, had dragged the profane mysteries of paganism into public view to be ridiculed, in the third year after his consecration. For they finally broke out into open sedition, seizing arms and perpetrating great slaughter: then, withdrawing into the temple of Serapis, But at Alexandria not without the blood of Christians: from among the Christians they had taken captive and could not drag into communion with their impious rites, they sent many, crowned with glorious martyrdom, to heaven. God, the faithful rewarder of the brave,

has in the book of life the number and names of their combats inscribed: but so that at least their confused memory might be annually recalled, the Roman Church brought this about when she gave them this place in the Roman Martyrology revised by Baronius. Sozomen, a writer close to those times, set forth the matter as it occurred in the following manner, in his Ecclesiastical History, book 7, chapter 15.

The mob, first incited to sedition, killed them: During this time the Bishop of Alexandria transformed the temple of Bacchus which was among them into a church: for he had received it as a gift, having requested it from the Emperor. While the images were being cleaned out, while the inner chambers were being opened, as he eagerly sought to ridicule the mysteries of the Pagans, he was exposing these very things: and Priapi, and whatever else was ridiculous or seemed so in the secret sanctuaries, he brought publicly into view. Then the Pagans, dismayed both by the truth and by the novelty of what had been done, could not endure to remain quiet, but forming a conspiracy among themselves, they attacked the Christians, and killing some and wounding others, they occupied the temple of Serapis. This temple was most illustrious both in beauty and in size, situated on a small hill. From there, therefore, as from a kind of citadel, making sudden raids, they seized many of the Christians, and having applied torments, compelled them to sacrifice: Then they variously killed captives in the temple of Serapis: those who refused to do this, some they crucified, others they dispatched by breaking their legs, and others by other methods. When this sedition had lasted a long time, the authorities came to them, reminded them of the laws, and ordered them to cease from war and to leave the temple of Serapis. At that time Romanus was in command of the military cohorts in Egypt, while Evagrius was Prefect of Alexandria: who indeed, when they accomplished nothing, reported what had happened to the Emperor... The Emperor, They are to be numbered among the martyrs: when these things that had been done were announced to him, declared those Christians who had been killed to be Blessed, as having attained the reward of martyrdom, having risked their lives for their faith: but he ordered that pardon be granted to the killers, so that out of gratitude for the benefit received they might more readily be converted to Christ: and the temples that were in Alexandria, since they were kindling for seditions among the people, he wished to be destroyed. Socrates relates nearly the same things in book 5, chapter 16, and from both of them Nicephorus Callistus in book 12, chapter 25, in whose accounts the title of Martyrdom for those who were killed before the occupation of the temple of Serapis is more doubtful: In comparison with those who were killed first: because these were not voluntary victims for Christ, but were killed while repelling force with force. For when the Gentiles began to rage with indiscriminate slaughter without warning, the Christians also girded themselves for defense: and the fight grew to such an extent that the tumult subsided only when they had had their fill of killing. And in that battle, few of the Gentiles perished, very many of the Christians, and from both sides the wounded were almost innumerable. Repelling force with force: There is no doubt, however, that among those many, the greater part was of unarmed people whom sudden violence overwhelmed; many also, divinely strengthened and illuminated, laid down their lives even joyfully and willingly, and glory in heaven with the true titles of Martyrs. These therefore, joined to those whom not the impulse of boiling wrath removed from their midst, but the deliberate fury of impiety, not yet sated with so much blood, extinguished, the Church commemorates on this day.

About the mysteries of Serapis and the temple that rivaled the Roman Capitol, and its overthrow, whoever wishes to see more things collected from various sources may consult the Annals of Caesar Baronius at the year 389, number 84 and following. We have assigned these events to the following year, Acts more briefly from Theophanes: following the more accurate chronography of Theophanes, who narrated the same events more briefly in these words under the twelfth year of Theodosius: Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria, having obtained permission from the Emperor Theodosius, exposed to public ridicule the phallic images of the gentile shrine, and whatever was more profane and obscene; whence the populace of the Gentiles, covered with shame, perpetrated very many murders. When Theodosius heard of these things and was informed of such great slaughters, he decreed that the Christians who had been put to death should be reckoned among the number of the Blessed Martyrs: to the Gentiles, however, if they would transfer themselves to the Christian religion, he offered pardon: and he commanded that the temples be destroyed and the idols melted down and the proceeds distributed to the needs of the poor.

ON S. AMBROSE, DEACON OF ALEXANDRIA IN EGYPT.

AROUND THE YEAR 400.

Ambrose, Deacon of Alexandria (S.)

Ambrose of Alexandria, a disciple of Didymus, wrote against Apollinaris a volume of many lines concerning dogmas: and, as has recently been reported to me by a certain narrator, Praise from his written works, from S. Jerome: commentaries on Job. He survives to this day. So says Jerome in his book on Ecclesiastical Writers: from which we learn that he flourished around the beginning of the fifth century under Theodosius the Younger, as Constantine Ghini asserts in the Birthdays of the Holy Canons, enrolling him in his own Order: as also before him Giovanni de Negravalle, the Apostolic Librarian, had done, generously bestowing on him the title of Cardinal: nor is this surprising, since they also enroll Didymus, his teacher, among their own. And indeed we make less of this; we esteem more highly the fact that he is enrolled among the number of the Saints in so many ancient manuscripts, His veneration and the title of glorious Confession: among which are two very ancient and illustrious English ones, one in the Altemps Library at Rome, the other in our museum, written over six hundred years ago: that, I say, in such manuscripts the following is read: At Alexandria, the birthday of S. Ambrose, Deacon of the same Church, who was distinguished by the glory of the Lord's confession. The same things are read in two others, From ancient Martyrologies: hardly of lesser antiquity, manuscript copies of Ado, found at Queen Christina of Sweden's and in the monastery of S. Germain des Prés: as well as in Usuard augmented and printed by the Carthusians of Cologne in the year 1490; and again in 1521 by Hermann Greven: with which the most ancient manuscript Ado of the church of S. Lawrence at Liège agrees. Others, such as the manuscript of the Church of SS. Timothy and Apollinaris at Reims, and our manuscript Florarium, and Molanus, omitting the eulogy of confession, have only the title of Deacon: but the Cologne Carmelite manuscript also has that of Martyr. To these are added Whitford in the English and Canisius in the German Martyrologies, gloriously extolling the aforesaid eulogy of Confession.

ON S. AGRICOLA, BISHOP AT CHALON IN GAUL.

YEAR 580.

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

Agricola, Bishop at Chalon in Gaul (S.)

[1] Saint Gregory of Tours, to whom alone the history of the Franks owes as much as to all other writers before him taken together, gave us nearly all the knowledge we have about S. Agricola, Bishop of Chalon; From S. Gregory of Tours, a contemporary: and this in brief words, but ones that are indicative of no small virtue, which we transcribe here from his fifth book of Histories. This fifth book ends in the likewise fifth year of King Childebert, who succeeded in the year 575, when Sigebert died on December 25, as we have demonstrated with the most manifest evidence on February 1, Section 9 of the Prolegomena to the Acts of S. Sigebert, King of the Austrasians. Therefore whoever thinks that Gregory made an error of memory when he assigns the death of S. Agricola to this fifth year is vainly mistaken: as if this corresponded to the year of Christ 583, The year of death is established with certainty: when it is in fact the year 580, in which no one has hitherto doubted that this holy Bishop died. Indeed, since the writer of whom we treat, from his own testimony, was ordained Bishop 172 years after the death of S. Martin, and ceased writing his history in the 21st year of his ordination, and therefore in the year of Christ 589: it is remarkable how it could enter anyone's mind to think that one who was virtually an eyewitness to events that occurred when he was writing should be accused of error; although no other arguments were available to support his authority: but now, since there are very many such arguments, and, as we have said, convincing ones, let us hold without any scruple of doubt that all the things he wrote about the bishop who was his contemporary are true and solid.

[2] And the eulogy of S. Agricola: Under the fifth year of Childebert therefore, the year of Christ 580, he records the following: Agroecula of Chalon died at this time: he was a man of great elegance and prudence, of senatorial family. He built many structures in that city, arranged houses, constructed a church which he supported with columns, diversified with marble, and decorated with mosaic. He was a man of great abstinence: for he never took lunch, but only dinner, at which he sat down so early that he rose while the sun was still up. He was small of stature, but great of eloquence. He died in the forty-eighth year of his episcopate, and the eighty-third of his age: Flavius, the Referendary of King Guntram, succeeded him. From which it follows that he came to the episcopal rank in the year of Christ 532, and was born in the year 498. What else the same Gregory wrote about him in his book on the Glory of Confessors, chapters 85 and 86, Acts of the invention and elevation: is inserted in the Acts of the invention, which we give from an old Legendary of Chalon formerly transcribed for us by Claude Perry of the Society of Jesus, and afterward printed at the end of his History of Chalon, as also by Pierre Cusset after volume 2 of the same history: we have compared what was thus received with another manuscript found at Dijon in the possession of Father François Chifflet.

[3] Of him and of others: This invention is indeed common to several other saints of Chalon; namely Saints Lupus and Silvester, likewise Bishops of the same Church: but concerning S. Agricola the account treats especially and more carefully, and it concludes with a miracle performed in the very year in which Pope John exposed his sacred body to public veneration. But which John? The author designates the year 879, Not the year 879: writing of an event that occurred in his own time, as he prefaces: but that 878 ought to have been written we demonstrate from the timing of the Council of Troyes as follows: the body was found on the day before the Nones of May, and in the same year the Pontiff came to Chalon, and from there departed for the Council convoked at Troyes, and returning again to Chalon, he canonically enrolled the recently discovered saints among the company of the Saints: But done in 878: and when he had reached Turin on the eighth day before the Kalends of December, returning to Italy, he wrote a letter to the Bishops of Lombardy, which is number 142 among the published letters, in which he ordered them to come to Pavia for the celebration of a Council on the fourth day before the Nones of December: so that the Pope's double visit to Chalon cannot be assigned to two different years, such that the last fell in the year 879. For the Pope's stay in Gaul was only four months, as is clear from what has been said, and this in the year 878, Indiction XI, as is stated multiple times in the Acts of the Council of Troyes and in the letters preceding and following its celebration: As also the miracle that followed: but since the French began the following year 879, of Indiction XII, not from January but from Easter, which then fell on the last day of April, it follows that the illumination of the blind man, which is narrated as having occurred in the very year of the Canonization, must be said to have happened in the eighth year as we have stated, although it would have belonged to the first four months of the ninth year according to the modern reckoning beginning from January.

[4] The name of S. Agricola in Councils: Besides these things, which are the principal ones, the memory and name

of S. Agricola were commended to posterity both by various Gallic Councils celebrated in his time and by ancient manuscript Martyrologies which confirm his title of Saint. The Councils are the Third Council of Orleans, held in the year 538, at which Avolus the Presbyter, directed by his Lord Agricola, Bishop of the Church of Chalon, subscribed; then those to which he himself appended his name in person, the Fourth and Fifth, in the years 541 and 549: likewise the Second Councils of Clermont, Paris, and Lyon, in the years 549, 555, and 567 of the same century. The Martyrologies we have found are these: And in Martyrologies: the Vatican and Prague; then Usuard variously augmented in the ancient manuscripts of Anchin, Trier, and Paris (S. Victor); also printed and augmented by Molanus and Greven, as well as the manuscript Florarium of the Saints: all of which use the same words: At Chalon, otherwise Cabilone: S. Agricola, Bishop and Confessor: and with this title the Church of Chalon instituted that he be honored with an Office of double rite, and composed two proper Lessons for him, A feast at Chalon: printed in the year 1620: which, taken from the aforesaid passage of Gregory of Tours with only the words changed, have the following about his body: His body, first buried in the church of S. Marcellus, was reverently exhumed by Bishop Gilbardus and reposed in a fitting and honorable place, in the year of salvation 879; in which same year Pope John VIII enrolled him among the number of the Saints, his holiness being attested by miracles. We have found nowhere any miracles preceding the Canonization: we have already demonstrated that for the ninth year one should write the eighth.

[5] Claude Perry testifies with sorrow that nothing more of his relics survives, which can be attributed to the detestable iconoclasts of the preceding century, to the execration of that most impious sect. The same author says that in the aforesaid church of S. Marcellus an episcopal tomb is pointed out, And a cenotaph: which is said to be that of S. Agricola, joined to the wall of the aisle which is to the left of those entering, at the Gospel side, next to the partition of a smaller chapel: but he adds that no inscription appears to confirm this, and therefore he cannot pronounce anything one way or the other. It had nearly escaped us that our Agricola was not only a contemporary and close friend of Venantius Fortunatus, the distinguished poet of his century; but also that the one who was father to Agricola had been a teacher of learning and virtue to Venantius; and that this is attested by the poem which is read in book 3 of his poems, number 22, A poem of Venantius Fortunatus addressed to him: and which invites Agricola to succeed to the same role:

O Bishop, summit of honor, pinnacle of family and faith, Mighty tiller of the field, most bountiful shepherd of the flock. Since my land was once plowed by the hand of the father, Let it be cultivated now under the name of his son. For your father, sweet in affection, memorable to the world, Nurtured us both with one love together. A parent in heart, a nurse in nourishment, a good teacher in speech, He loved, tended, guided, and gave what was honorable. With pious zeal he sowed the plowed fields; What the father poured forth, nourish this seed for me. That he would be his teacher in place of a father:

ACTS OF THE ELEVATION

OF S. AGRICOLA AND OTHERS

SS. Lupus, Silvester, and Desideratus.

From an ancient manuscript Legendary of the Church of Chalon.

Agricola, Bishop at Chalon in Gaul (S.)

BHL Number: 0169

FROM MANUSCRIPTS.

[1] Desiring to proclaim the glorious merits of the blessed Fathers, The author trusts in God: the heavy burden of a conscience laden with sin terrifies us from undertaking to set forth their examples for others, from whose works we, entangled in the snares of errors, are entirely estranged. But while we behold them shining with celestial light on account of their distinguished deeds, let us not, having fallen into despair on their account, omit to seek pardon: rather let us with every effort of body and heart lift up the confidence of our mind toward their most salutary contemplation: so that he may be the most merciful pardoner of our crimes, who was the most abundant recompenser of their endurance and their struggle. He will also give us, intent upon this work, the support of the Saints for speaking, who willed us to undertake this not from a zeal for boasting, but from the vow of obedience, which he made admirable in himself to all. He writes of the invention of S. Agricola and others: Now therefore let a reverential account set forth how the precious bodies of the most sacred Confessors and Pontiffs of Christ, Silvester and Agricola, and the most blessed Presbyter Desideratus, came to be revealed by divine inspiration in the age of our time.

[2] For although a certain writer had included in his works many wonderful things about them that were always readily available, nevertheless negligence and carelessness caused it to be doubted in which specific places their glorious ashes were buried. Under Bishop Girbald: Whence, so that they would not forever remain unknown to the faithful, it pleased the Divinity to manifest them to the clergy and people who had long desired them, in the manner noted below. While the venerable Girbald, Bishop of the city of Chalon, was administering the pontificate of the Church, among other pursuits of sacred activity, he was searching with frequent investigation for the bodies of the holy Bishops of the same city; especially of those whose memorials some writers had inserted in their books. Moved by sufficiently pious solicitude, so that, with their tombs known and laid open, a greater devotion of veneration might inflame the people.

[3] He first exhumes the body of S. Lupus: First, therefore, using the consultation and counsel of other Bishops, he took the most blessed Confessor of God, Lupus, about whose grave there was no ambiguity (because, as the account of his Life indicates, buried in the suburban basilica of Saint Peter, at the right side of the altar, he was venerated with frequent miracles), so that greater veneration might be added and easier access might lie open to visitors; taking with him the Bishop of the neighboring city of Macon, and summoning throngs of the faithful people, he reverently exhumed him from there, and carried by the hands of Priests, with exultant choirs chanting psalms, he buried him behind the altar in a worthy place, and erected a bier above in the customary manner. In the year 877: This was devoutly done on the fourth day before the Kalends of September, in the eight hundred and seventy-seventh year of the Lord's Incarnation. Afterward, the aforesaid Bishop burned with great desire to find the bodies of the holy Bishops Silvester and Agricola, and of Blessed Desideratus the Presbyter. About whom the magnificent Gregory, Bishop of Tours, writes briefly but splendidly in his books of miracles as follows. He also turns his attention to seeking others:

[4] The most blessed Silvester governed the Church of Chalon, who, having served in the priesthood of that city for forty-two years, Eulogy of S. Silvester the Bishop: departed to the Lord full of days and virtues. For he had a bed hung by ropes, under which when the sick, whether suffering from quartan fever or oppressed by various fevers, were placed once or twice, they were immediately healed by the power divinely bestowed upon it. Therefore this bed, carried into the sacristy of the Church, shines with the same power. For many, as I have seen with my own eyes, used to cut pieces from the ropes of that bed and carry them far away, and when placed upon the sick, they witnessed the benefit of healing. For my mother had such a cut piece hung on the neck of a girl suffering from fevers and chills, and when the disease was immediately suppressed, she saw the girl healed.

[5] And of S. Desideratus the Presbyter, translated by S. Agricola: There was also in this city a Presbyter Desideratus, whom I saw in the monastery of Guerdon, a man magnificent in holiness, who often put an end to quartan fevers, toothaches, and other ailments by praying. For he was even completely enclosed, that is, he did not go out from his cell: but whoever wished to see him, saw him in his cell. He, as we have said, shone forth in his age, distinguished by extraordinary virtues. When the blessed Bishop Agricola heard of this, he sent his Archdeacon to bring the blessed body to the city's cemetery. But when the monks resisted, what had been ordered was not carried out. After this, when a hospice for lepers had been built in the suburbs, the Priest gathered the citizens and all the Clergy in its basilica, transferred the blessed body, and buried it in the basilica mentioned above with the greatest care: and he now manifests by great virtues that he lives with Christ.

[6] The Acts have been lost: And indeed, that written accounts were composed of the distinguished deeds of each of these venerable Fathers should be doubted by no one, wherein the succession of their birth, the order of their holy way of life, the dignity of their priesthood, and the marks of their miracles were more clearly recorded: these, however, were consumed by the frequent fires of the same city, as is well known. Their memorial in Martyrologies: For in several martyrologies the sacred days of their deaths are found noted. But in the epitaphs on the tombs at the Church of Saint Marcellus the Martyr, across the Saone River, clearly written verses reveal how laudably they had been distinguished by miracles during their lives: which the oft-mentioned Bishop, reading them aloud, burned with a great and continual desire to find them. At last, laying open the desire long enclosed in his mind, he went there, and reading the epitaph of Blessed Silvester, and lifting up from the left side of the altar the marble with its inscribed verses, taking a hoe, the Priest himself was the first to begin digging, The body of S. Silvester is exhumed: and afterward all others who had gathered together from every side; covering the fulfillment of this vow with psalms to the Lord and with whatever praises they could.

[7] Now when the mass of earth had been removed, a sarcophagus appeared, filled within with divine honor: this was immediately reported to the Bishop who was especially waiting for it, and he ran up, led by joy. Without delay, when the covering of so great a treasure had been opened by the Priests and Deacons, they inhaled, by a divine gift, an immense fragrance of sweet ointment as they touched the sacred relics. There lay bones more precious than any treasure; the flesh itself was still felt as fresh and moist. The Priest, bathed in tears, beholding them with reverent eyes, permitted others to look upon them as they wished. And thus, covering them with a sacred veil, he continued that day with the night in praises and hymns.

[8] Then of S. Agricola the Bishop: Meanwhile, while the Priests with the other ministers attended to this duty, the Lord Bishop hastened with some of the clergy to Saint Agricola: the reason for translating his body was as follows. The same most blessed man had been buried at the feet of S. Marcellus, separated by only a single wall. In that place afterward, a crypt was built by devout and religious people, of wonderful workmanship and ornament, adjoining the side of the building on the outside, adorned with marble panels and columns, extending upward to the height of the basilica: Whose tomb had once been splendid: and the sepulcher was covered by a beautiful marble slab, containing an inscription written upon it, by which it was revealed how greatly he whose lifeless remains were preserved there ought to be venerated.

[9] But the entire fabric of this work had already perished through the negligence of the elders of that place, to such an extent that the Saint's sepulcher, covered by no roof, was drenched by rains and showers. The devout Priest, no longer enduring this disgrace, on the same day, as he had long intended in his mind, uncovered the slab of the sepulcher, inspected the blessed bones with the sacred ashes, and cared for them with what diligence he could; wrapping them in linen cloths and placing them in a casket, he carried them the following day to the altar of Saint Peter inside the church, A solemn translation of both: with the clergy and people rejoicing. And there, exhilarated with great joy, he celebrated Masses. When these had been celebrated in the ecclesiastical manner, taking a portion of the relics from each, he covered Blessed Silvester again with earth and marble as he had been before: but the precious remains of Blessed Agricola, secured with seals and covered with palls, he left upon the aforesaid altar. These things concerning the Saints of God were done on the day before the Nones of May: on which same day their relics, with crowds of people coming from every direction, were brought into their proper city.

[10] In that same year, which is the eight hundred and seventy-ninth from the Incarnation of the Lord, the Lord John, Apostolic Pontiff of the supreme See of Rome, entered Gaul to treat with Louis the Stammerer concerning the insults inflicted upon that Church, John VIII passes through Chalon: and to hold a General Council with the Bishops. And while he was reaching the cities along his route, he came to Chalon, where, while he lingered for twelve days, the Bishop reported to him about the discovery of the blessed bodies. But then, weighed down by a manifold burden of affairs, he deferred going there. Having departed from Chalon, he sought the Augustan city of Troyes, where he deliberated at length with a great assembly of Bishops, and there with them he confirmed Louis as King by the anointing of sacred oil.

[11] And returning that way, he enrolls them among the Saints: When these things and others for which he had come had been accomplished as time and circumstance permitted, as he prepared to return, he revisited the city of Chalon: and as he was departing from it, he was led by the aforesaid Bishop to the monastery of Saint Marcellus. Then, when the sarcophagus had been brought beside the altar of Blessed Agricola, the Lord Pope therein deposited with worthy honor his precious body, and by Apostolic authority enjoined that henceforth these most Blessed Confessors of God should be held in veneration, and that the days of their glorious deaths should be celebrated festively. And that we ought to fulfill this with great reverence, a miracle performed there not long after demonstrated.

[12] A blind man is given sight at the body of S. Agricola: For in that same year, a certain man in the district of Tours named Solomon, who had been without the light of his eyes for ten years, was often admonished in dreams to hasten to Burgundy, to the monastery of the Blessed Martyr Marcellus, and there, approaching the tomb of Saint Agricola, to obtain by his merits the joy of his illumination. Having obtained a certain man familiar with the roads as a guide for his steps, carrying as an offering a small piece of wax, he set out to hasten on his way. Swift heavenly medicine of mercy attended him on his journey: for in the middle of the road, the sight of his eyes, long closed, was opened as the darkness somewhat receded. Rejoicing in daily progress, it brought the man to the Saint's tomb seeing perfectly, where spending three days he revealed in order to the brothers of that place the joys of his salvation. And thus, having offered the little gift of his devotion that he had brought with him, giving thanks to God who had illuminated him by the merits of His Saint, he returned to his homeland, no longer needing a guide.

f. April 30.

p. In the same manuscript, the following was added:

He should be compared in all respects to that leper of the Gospel, who was sent with the others to the Priests, and being cleansed along with them on the way, alone returned to the Lord for his cleansing, falling on his face at his feet and giving thanks. This man, hastening to the place designated for him and being granted health along the way, did not return to his home before he went there and offered to his illuminator whatever gift he could.

ON S. PATRICK, BISHOP, APOSTLE AND PRIMATE OF IRELAND.

YEAR 460.

Preliminary Commentary.

Patrick, Bishop, Apostle and Primate of Ireland (S.)

Section I. S. Patrick, together with the Christian faith, was the first to introduce the use of letters into Ireland.

[1] While in Greater Britain, drained by Roman levies and deprived of the protection of its military youth, the Christian cause was being worn down and afflicted by the incursions of the Scots from Ireland and the Picts from northern Albania, Patrick destined as Apostle of Ireland: destined to rise more happily under the dominion of the Anglo-Saxons through the auspices of the Great Gregory; God brought to the other of the British Isles (which Ptolemy called Iouvernia, the more ancient writers Ierne, the medieval writers Ira; and which by the more customary name the ancients called Scotia, and by the name now most common among all, Bede called Hibernia) a Master and Teacher of the faith, who would join the farthest West to the Christian empire, to which the Romans had never extended their arms: namely Patrick, the great Thaumaturge of the fifth century, descended from the ancient Britons; in that region which, being the first to receive the force of the Scots, and with varying fortune now subject to them, now fortified against them by the Romans, at last so joined the kingdom of New Scotland that it is left midway between it and England itself. Venerable to the Scoto-Britons: Wherefore the Scoto-Britons rightly call him their own and celebrate him with singular worship: by whom, born within the boundaries of what is now their territory, they remember that their ancient homeland of Ireland was so illuminated with the light of faith that they themselves were also bathed in it, while from time to time receiving auxiliaries crossing over for the consolidation of the new empire in Britain, partly accepting as companions in arms those who had been taught the faith in their homeland; partly receiving from the school of Patrick masters of sacred things and true piety. Even more so to the Irish-Scots: But with far greater right the Irish Scots venerate him as their Patron, to whom alone they owe it that their country became the Island of Saints and was once a school of letters and learning. For although we know that some seeds of Christian teaching began to be sown in Ireland before him, and that S. Palladius is therefore said to have been sent to the Scots believing in Christ, and that he himself also attempted something in Leinster: yet the glory and title of the conversion of Ireland is owed to Patrick alone, through whom not a few or common people, but Kings and Princes and peoples in crowds, bathed in the saving waters of baptism, submitted their necks to the yoke of faith.

[2] Converted to Christ chiefly by him: It was not, therefore, without reason that, whereas in the most ancient Martyrologies, both of Bede and others, only this was read: In Scotia, S. Patrick the Bishop, it was afterward added by later writers: who was the first to preach Christ there: and who was illustrious for the greatest miracles and virtues: for although he was not absolutely the first in time, he was nevertheless the first in the power of signs, in the authority of his Apostolic mission, and in the fruit and success of his most efficacious preaching throughout the whole kingdom. Before we proceed to demonstrate this, a scruple must be removed from the minds of some, Whose homeland was known only by the name of Scotia until the 12th century: which is commonly raised concerning the Irish saints in general, some fearing that many of those who, taught the Christian faith by S. Patrick, are celebrated among the Irish for their holiness, ought rather to be ascribed to the Britons; and that the conversion of Ireland itself, a true but not the chief and greatest praise of S. Patrick, was not his: because in present-day usage we now call no other Scots or Scotland than what occupies one part of the British island, a kingdom equal in title to England itself. It is indeed also beyond doubt for us that from the third century onward the Scots began to cross over into Britain: yet it must be fully acknowledged that the chief dignity of the Scottish name remained with the Irish until the eleventh century: because to Bede and all the ancient writers, as Ussher rightly states on page 734 of his Antiquities of the British Churches, Scotia is always one and the same as Ireland. For neither did Dalriada, which was the seat of the Scots of Britain until the year 840, obtain the name of Scotland; nor even all of Albania itself immediately after the defeat of the Picts: but only then when, as both peoples coalesced into one nation, the memory of the Pictish nation became completely obsolete. And just as this was by no means accomplished before the year 1100, so we believe that scarcely any can be produced who lived during the entire span of the preceding years who designated Albania by the name of Scotland.

[3] To those Scots who are now in Britain: Moreover, so far is it from being possible to say that this name was merely shared with Ireland because some colonies of Scots were propagated there from Britain, whose name and nation existed first in Britain and has been preserved there to this day: that before the third century, as we have said (although under Augustus and his successors the world began to be so carefully described), no ancient geographer or historian is found to have named Scots in Britain. For after this matter was fiercely debated between the learned men of both nations, as if fighting for hearth and home, the British Scots could produce nothing in support of the antiquity of their sojourn in Albania except the inventions of more recent writers and the flimsiest conjectures, such as this one drawn from a certain delusion of the dreaming Scaliger, by which the poet's verse "And the blue-painted shield-bearing Brigantes" is called into suspicion of error, as if "Scoto-Brigantes" had been written from the beginning. But for Scaliger to suspect this with any foundation, it would not have sufficed to say that regions neighboring modern Scotland were occupied by the Brigantes, but above all it had to be shown that Scots were known in Britain as inhabitants in the age of Claudius Caesar, when that verse was written: Vainly contending about the antiquity of the name: which, however, is as incredible as it is certain that none of the Roman Emperors, eagerly seeking even fictitious titles of victories, although they fought many wars with the indigenous barbarians excluded by that most famous wall beyond the Roman province, assumed the title of "Scottish," but all were content to be called "British." But if something is corrupted in that verse, by a far more plausible conjecture we would be told to read "blue of skin, the Brigantes"; This name was given to the nation from painting the body: since nothing is better known among the ancients in both prose and verse than that the Britons, of whom the Brigantes were no small part, were accustomed to paint the skin of their body with a woad or blue color. Because this was common to all these islands, each took its name from that practice in its own language: for the Britons

were indeed so called because in their old language Brith means colored or written upon, whence even today "writh" means for the English to write letters: but concerning the Scots, Isidore writes in book 9 of the Etymologies, chapter 20, that they have a name in their own language, because they are marked with tattoos of various figures using iron points with ink. For Scotha in Irish signifies a flower or flowery variegation of color: so that those who derive the origin of the name from the Scythians labor in vain, although King Alfred calls the Scots Scyttan when translating Orosius's history from Latin into Saxon: but if Camden had known this signification of the Irish word, he would have been less astonished by the quoted words of Isidore.

[4] To whom, utterly ignorant of letters: Moreover, as skilled as the Scots or Irish of whom we speak were at tattooing and painting the body with ink or any other color in the time of Paganism, so were they ignorant of letters, of painting them on paper or any other material for the sake of memory; equally with the Iberians, Gauls, Britons, Belgians, and Germans, before they were subjected to the Roman Empire and received letters and learning from them, a not inconsiderable consolation for the loss of liberty. Of all the liberal arts, the Scots, who were not even attacked by Roman arms, nor subjected to any yoke before the Christian one through Patrick, knew only rhythmic poetry and held it in esteem. This one thing (as Tacitus says in chapter 2 of the Manners of the Germans) was their sole form of memory and annals. But only their Druids and Bards practiced this discipline: and whoever among them knew by heart the most and oldest verses of barbaric composition was considered the more learned; and whoever was more successful in composing new ones, his reputation was highest among the common people and among the leading men. It is pleasing to hear the Great O'Donnell, Prince of Tyrconnell, at the beginning of book 3, which he composed in Irish on the Life of S. Columba, And suspecting only the memory of their own poets: speaking thus through the interpretation of Colgan: That nation, eager for praise and most zealous for its antiquity, from the very first origin of the race was accustomed to hold in great price and number the professors of antiquarian knowledge, whom in the time of Paganism they called Druids, Seers, and Bards; and from the reception of the faith of Christ, Antiquaries and Poets. It was incumbent upon these by office to celebrate the deeds, wars, and triumphs of Kings, Princes, and Heroes; to studiously observe and note the genealogies and prerogatives of noble families; to mark and distinguish the boundaries and limits of regions and fields. But because, partly for the sake of consulting memory, partly so that they might not stray too freely and fabulously in prose, it seemed more advisable to compress deeds and the praises of heroes mostly within the narrower bounds of meter; hence, accustomed to verses and augmented in honors, and abusing the indulgence and favor of Princes, they often turned their poems into excessive praises of those nobles whose favor and gifts they were hunting; often into satirical invectives against others to whom they were not equally attached and allured by benefits. By which insolence they deserved that King Aed, son of Ammyre, should think of expelling them from the whole island and of completely abolishing the discipline: and he would have done so had S. Columba not interposed his authority at the Assembly of Drumceat.

[5] Patrick was the first to communicate letters: But these, as we have said, had no instruments or aids for preserving their antiquity and propagating their art beyond memory. Patrick, cultivated in Roman learning, was the first to introduce the use of letters (without which the sacred Christian rites cannot be conducted) into Ireland: and since he did not have such an abundance of auxiliary companions from Britain and the Roman world that he could supply the needs of all the churches; he privately instructed and taught the natives whom he found suitable for the churches he had erected: for whom he wrote and delivered an Alphabet with his own hand, from which they themselves might instruct new disciples. Thus in the Tripartite Life it is said that he stayed one week with Loarnachus, to be instructed in the rudiments of letters and piety, and wrote an Alphabet for him: which is afterward repeated of many others in the same Life. Having established churches by himself: Bale numbers among Patrick's works certain Abjectoria, 366 of them, almost as many as the Bishops who are commemorated as having been consecrated by Patrick. But not understanding the force and origin of the ancient word signifying such Alphabetical tablets, and thinking that writings of some rather base kind of work were meant, he deflected from the orthography by which, from Ware in book 2 on the Writers of Ireland, chapter 1, drawing from Nennius, we learn that Abgetoria should be written.

[6] Ware confirms his correction from Tirechan, whose words are as follows, book 1: He baptized men daily and read them letters and abgatoria. And again, book 2: He wrote abgatoria for him and blessed him with the blessing of a Bishop. Writing Abcatoria: What these mean can be understood from other passages of the same Tirechan, where he calls them "elements" which elsewhere he calls Abgatoria; and specifically in book 2, speaking of Mac-erca: And he wrote elements for him and blessed him with the blessing of a Presbyter. From which it is clear that the tablets are called Abgatoria, just as we say Abecedaria; the name being taken from the first three letters of the Latin Alphabet, A, B, C, the last of which, now habitually pronounced differently by most people so that before E and I it sounds like S, while before other letters it has the sound of K, is known to have been uniformly pronounced by all the ancients: which the Irish still preserve, for whom there is no difference in sound between C and K. Hence it happened that they first called them Abcatoria or Abketoria: but as usage (as it does) gradually softened the rough word to a gentler sound, they began to be called Abgatoria or Abgetoria. Moreover, we believe that to the forms of characters thus expressed in Alphabetical order there was added a certain compendium of Christian doctrine and the customary formulas for performing the Sacraments: indeed, these two things were sometimes the only or chief contents of such tablets, to which nevertheless the name derived from Grammar was aptly retained, to signify that these were the first elements and, as it were, a certain alphabet of a Christian man and teacher.

[7] Why the earliest Irish antiquities are uncertain: Whoever considers these things will not be surprised when he reads of the principal saints of Ireland being attended by such a great multitude of disciples: since it was the custom, and necessity demanded it, that the same men should be Bishops, Abbots, and schoolmasters. Nor will it seem strange to anyone that we have little confidence in Irish genealogies and histories, especially concerning the centuries before Patrick: and in those matters which depend largely on the discipline of the Antiquaries, not even very great confidence in the periods after him. Furthermore, the reader will without difficulty observe the source from which so many things have crept into the Lives of the Irish Saints that are either fabulous or very similar to fables: and also why, from the very beginning of the nascent Church in Ireland, not only in the Latin language (which alone all the nations of the former Roman Empire, And why many of the early Lives were written in Irish? even long after its extinction, used for writing public monuments of events, whether sacred or profane) but also in the Irish vernacular, Lives of Saints began to be written; as Jocelin testifies concerning the authors contemporary with Patrick. For the Latin language, which had become natural (though not without manifold corruption) to the provinces subject to Roman rule in the West and Africa, their ancient native tongue having been abolished, was entirely foreign to the Irish, and known only to those who dealt with sacred matters and were more laboriously educated at home or abroad: while elsewhere even women knew how to speak and write in Latin.

Section II. The homeland, parents, and relatives of S. Patrick.

[1] The Alcluyd region is the homeland of S. Patrick: The author of the Tripartite Life writes that Patrick was born among the Britons of Alcluyd: their region is now commonly called Clydesdale, which the author of the fourth Life in Colgan calls Strathclyde, a word signifying the same thing: the Life of S. Gildas mentions Arecluta. The river Clyde or Clota generated these names: of which the last three are especially suited to the region itself; the first and oldest is derived from the steep rock, situated at the confluence of the Clyde and the Leven, about which Bede writes in book 1 of his Ecclesiastical History, chapter 1: There is a very large arm of the sea which anciently separated the nation of the Britons from the Picts, where there is a most strongly fortified city of the Britons to this day, which is called Al-cluit; to the northern part of which the Scots came and made a place of homeland for themselves. That Al signifies "Rock" in the Scottish language is known to all who know Irish: so that it is surprising that Camden should doubt in whose language Bede says in chapter 12 that Alcluit signifies "Rock of the Clyde." However, when the Scots were expelled from that fortress and the Britons recovered and restored the place, it was thenceforth called Dun-bretan, and gave the name Dunbretannian to that strait which Bede mentions, a name preserved to this very day.

[9] In which is the plain of Taburnia: What particular place in this region Patrick made illustrious by his birth, he himself left expressed in his Confession, and from it Probus and also Jocelin, but in names now completely antiquated. These are the words of Jocelin: There was a certain man... a Briton by nation, in the district of Taburnia, that is, the field of tents, because the Roman army (encamped to guard the frontiers and that famous wall, drawn from sea to sea to exclude the Picts from the Roman Province) had pitched its tents there, dwelling near the town of Nemthor, bordering on the Irish Sea in its habitation. Nemthor signifies "heavenly tower," The town of Nemthor: and Harding in his description of Scotland takes it for the very place which is now the town of Dunbritton. But (if Jocelin correctly recognized the place, number 8, where he says: On a certain promontory overlooking the aforesaid town of Nemthor there was a certain fortification, of which even smaller traces still appear), the Dunbritton or Alcluyd citadel was and is even now more elevated than the town of Nemthor itself.

[10] It is established that Patrick grew up in this town: for his maternal aunt lived there, who, lacking children of her own, raised the holy boy as her own: The village of Bannawen: yet he was not born there, but near it; as Jocelin correctly and clearly wrote. Probus, however, not equally familiar with the places, wrote very obscurely and erroneously that the village of Banawen, which was Patrick's birthplace according to his own confession, he says he has determined without doubt to be in the province of Nentria: he meant or should have expressed Nemthuria: but he wrongly called a province what was a town, unless he took province in a narrower sense for a district, comprehending only the suburban villages, of which Banawen was one. However, although we did not have the clear passage about Alcluyd Britain which we cited above: from this alone, that Probus places the village of Bannave not far from the western sea, it would be sufficiently clear that there is no way to understand here Bannavenna or Benaventa, which, before the English dominion in Britain, Wrongly sought elsewhere by some: is believed by learned men to have been in the very heart of the island and in the province of Northamptonshire, around the sources of the Ouse: and those more recent English writers who place this village in the territory of Pembroke among the Demetians, begrudging the Scoto-Britons the glory of Patrick having been born in what is now their territory, I do not know whether they have any other

authority from Camden: who nevertheless had added with prudent caution, "as some, I know not whether truly, have written."

[11] Patrick had Calphurnius as his father and Concessa as his mother: The paternal genealogy of S. Patrick: the former was the son of Potitus, or (as Fiacc writes in his hymn) of Otidus, and by the Scholiast of Fiacc, who weaves the rest of the genealogy, he is brought through these steps to the fabulous progenitor of the British nation: Patrick, son of Calphurnius, son of Potitus, son of Odissius, son of Gornia, son of Menchidius, son of Leo, son of Maximus, son of Hencretus, son of Ferinus, son of Britus, from whom the Britons are named. Let the reader direct his attention to this conclusion, and he will not be much stirred by the authority of the Genealogical Sanctology which Colgan cites, composing a similar series through more generations and some different names; which we do not think it worth lingering over to report or examine. His mother was from Gaul: Most of the more recent writers, following Sigebert, Florence of Worcester, and others cited by Colgan in Appendix 5, chapter 3, write that Concessa, the mother of Patrick, was the sister of S. Martin, Bishop of Tours. Jocelin simply says "a kinswoman"; the Irish word Siur is indifferent to either meaning, says Colgan, and with Ussher on page 822 he judges it more probable that she was Martin's niece through a sister: A niece rather than a sister of S. Martin of Tours: for since S. Martin was a Pannonian, by what reasoning could it happen that he had a sister born among the Gauls (the biographers wrote "Franks" by misuse)? as is read not only here but also in the Scholiast of Fiacc and in Jocelin. Moreover, when Patrick was born, S. Martin was about sixty years old: who would believe that so old a man had a sister so young that, even when carried off into foreign servitude, she could win her master's marriage by the excellence of her beauty?

[12] The most blessed fruits of this most happy marriage Colgan took pains to place under a single view in Appendix 5, chapter 4; as well as the numerous and saintly posterity of Patrick's three or five sisters: in which matter, since that diligent writer fulfilled all his duties, and the matter is not of great moment for understanding the Patrician Acts, His brother Sennanus the Deacon: we do not think it needs to be re-examined here; but it is enough for us to indicate briefly that Patrick had another brother, Sennanus by name, a Deacon by rank, and before he received sacred Orders, the father of the younger Patrick, who held the Primacy of Armagh as the second after his holy uncle, and, as will be said below, was called S. Sen-Patrick, not as if "senior Patrick" (although the meaning of the word sen tends that way) but "Patrick of Sennanus." One of the sisters, Among his sisters, S. Lupita the virgin, S. Tigrida married to a Gaul: Lupita by name, a sharer and companion of her brother's captivity, seems to have maintained perpetual virginity: Tigrida and Darerca bore several children of both sexes to their husbands, from whom others also may have been born: who now greatly augment the catalogue of Saint Patrick's nephews and nieces, when they should be listed in the third place among great-grandchildren. Tigrida seems to have had a Gallic husband; called Gollit elsewhere, it is uncertain whether by a personal or a family name: Darerca had two husbands: one was Restitutus Huabaird, that is, Longobard, And Darerca, wife of Restitutus and Conis: says Colgan: but although this is now the same for the Irish and authors accept it as the same, we nevertheless do not think it can be doubted by one who knows the Lombard times and their origin, that according to the etymology of the word Huabaird it should be understood as "grandson of a Bard," so called either by a personal name or from the poetic profession among the Britons or Gauls. The other husband of the same Darerca was a noble Briton named Conis; Many nephews and nieces from these: who without controversy was the father of the holy Bishops Mel, Munis, Melchuo, and Rioch, about whom we treated on the 6th of February. The remaining nephews and nieces of Patrick from the aforesaid sisters: who they were, how many, by what names and parents, in such confusion of the Irish authors as can be seen in Colgan, it is not easy to explain; nor does it bear on our subject.

Section III. The first and older Acts of S. Patrick: by whom and when they were written.

[13] 66 treatises on the Acts of S. Patrick: Before the Normans devastated Ireland with fire and sword in the ninth century of the Christian Era, sixty-six books existed about the deeds and miracles of the great Patrick, written partly in Irish and partly in Latin, as Jocelin testifies, drawing this from the Interpolator of the Tripartite Life. The author of Life 3 numbers sixty-three: not counting either the second Life or the Tripartite, written after himself, says Colgan, which together with his own book make sixty-six. Whether that book should be counted among them which he himself composed about his own life and conduct, Is his own Confession among these? as the author of Life 4 says in Colgan, transcribing from it a whole paragraph, is uncertain: this is certain, that it is older than all the others, and, if it could be found sufficiently complete and corrected, should be preferred to all. We give it as we were able to have it from a most ancient manuscript codex, unearthed in the library of the most celebrated monastery of Nobiliacum at Saint-Vaast of Arras, Whence we give it: by the care and labor of the Reverend Father Andrew Denys of our Society, and cleaned up as well as possible of the very many errors with which it swarmed: which although it bore no other title than the Life of S. Patrick, we were nevertheless unable to doubt that this was that book which all the older authors cite under different titles, in such a way that they report the same words from it in all the appropriate places. We have given it the title of Confession, which the Saint himself gives it at number 36: and under which title Ware testifies in his Writers of Ireland, book 2, chapter 1, that it exists in manuscript in the Library of the Church of Salisbury in England, together with the admonitory Epistle to the tyrant Coroticus: With the epistle to Coroticus? which, as an appendix to the Patrician Confession, is found transcribed together with it in the Arras manuscript. James Ussher saw and cited these more than once among his Antiquities of the British Churches, chapter 17; the other biographers, whenever they bring forward some passage from here, cite the Book of Epistles, The Book of Epistles of S. Patrick: which if they all now survived, would doubtless shed great light on the Patrician Acts.

[14] About the time when that Confession was written, we cannot speak except by conjecture, At what time: that it seems to have been written after the erection of the See of Armagh, and therefore after the year 454, when he himself had already passed the seventy-seventh year of his age: for he seems to have wished to leave this as a kind of testament to his disciples, on the occasion of certain persecutions stirred up against him by the envy of those who looked with unfavorable eyes upon his great authority in that Island, On what occasion was the Confession written? further strengthened by the erection of the See of Armagh; whether they were from the remaining Pagans, or from the more tepid Catholics, who complained that the wealth and power of the Princes were diminished by the endowments and immunities of the churches. We think the epistle to Coroticus was written in a similar old age: and if to anyone it seems, as also the Confession itself, not sufficiently Latin, and therefore by no means to be attributed to Patrick, who had the best masters in Gaul and Italy; let him know that the style is the same that is found in the fragments cited by the biographers from the Confession, Whether it should be rejected on account of the barbarism of style: and that among barbarians completely ignorant of the Latin language, over twenty and more years at such an age, whatever purer Latinity he learned as a young man could most easily have been lost: and therefore in number 3 of that Confession he confesses that he had long been deterred from writing, because he could see that he would not write as others who had never changed their study from childhood are accustomed to write. For our speech and language, he says, has been translated into a foreign tongue. Jocelin saw four contemporary writers:

[15] Among those whose writings Jocelin testifies still survived in his own time, four disciples of the Holy Bishop were doubtless first in authority: namely Benignus his successor, Mel the Bishop, Lomanus his nephew, and Patrick, the godson of the great Patrick; all Saints, all eyewitnesses of the events they committed to writing — would that we had these themselves: for we scarcely doubt that the remaining mass of sixty and more booklets was nothing other than various abridgments of the Lives written by the aforesaid four authors, as each individual Bishop and disciple of Patrick wished to have them, more briefly or more extensively, for his own and his Church's use. To whom the Hymn of S. Fiacc should be added, if it is his: Thus S. Fiacc, Bishop of Sletty, appointed by S. Patrick as head of all the Bishops of Leinster, is believed to have composed a hymn about his Life, which Colgan, regarding it as the most certain and most ancient monument concerning the great Apostle of Ireland, had translated from Irish into Latin and published in both languages in the first place in his Thaumaturgic Triad, containing all the Acts of SS. Patrick, Columba, and Brigid that he could obtain, not without learned and useful annotations, by which we acknowledge ourselves to have been greatly aided; always saving, however, the freedom to embrace a greater probability wherever it might appear. We too would willingly give the aforesaid hymn here: but we frankly confess that we fear it may not be by Fiacc himself, at least not by the one who was first appointed Bishop at Sletty by S. Patrick: for how would such a man begin in this fashion: "Patrick was born at Nemthur, as is reported in the Histories"? We are scarcely induced to understand by that name the Patrician Lives written immediately after his death, and that a poet so familiar with the Saint himself inserted so many things smelling of fable into this poem of his, and therefore we think it more advisable for it to be omitted here: since it can also be read in Colgan. Colgan, in order not to lose Fiacc as its author, or to make him more than reasonably aged, prefers to believe that those words of the hymn in which the desolation of Tara, which occurred after the year 540, is treated, were spoken in a prophetic spirit as about a future event; but for us this overly violent explanation increases the concern already noted. Moreover, the scholia written on that hymn do not seem to us to be as ancient as some think: since in them not a few things occur which suggest an author later than the seventh century.

[16] Two other ancient and reliable Lives: After the hymn attributed to S. Fiacc, Colgan gave with the best will all the other ancient Lives he could collect from manuscripts: of which he rightly preferred the second and third to the other four. He attempts to ascribe the second to the younger Patrick, and the third to S. Benignus. The first twelve chapters of both are so identical that it is evident to anyone comparing them that they cannot be by different authors, unless one completely transcribed from the other: which, however, is surprising as it did not also happen in the quite many subsequent chapters. Therefore it seems to us by far most probable that the copyists who obtained the third Life headless, took from the second what they lacked: which second, if we had obtained it complete, we would gladly have preferred to the rest: for it has very many signs of exceptional and more genuine antiquity; and in the part that remains for us nothing

occurs which you could rightly suspect to have been stuffed in by the audacity of interpolators. Now because we have in it the smallest and most confused portion of the Patrician life, we believe it sufficient that by Colgan's effort care has been taken that it not entirely perish.

[17] That certain things about the Life of S. Patrick were also written by S. Columba Writers of Acts from the 6th to the 8th century: the Interpolator of the Tripartite Life teaches us, enumerating the authors he used: Columba-kille, Ultan son of O Conchobar, Adamnan nephew of Tinne, Ernan the Wise, Kieran of Belachduin, Ermed Bishop of Clogher, Colman of Huamach, Collat the Presbyter of Druimrelgeach; about whose age and sanctity Colgan writes more fully in his notes to that passage. To whom should be added Tirechan and Maccuthenus: The same author later re-examines the same catalogue, passing over in both places S. Tirechan, a disciple of Ultan, whom Ussher also indicates wrote a Life of S. Patrick, using it, still surviving in manuscripts, more than once: passing over also Maccuthenus, who wrote a work about the deeds of S. Patrick addressed to Aed, Bishop of Sletty, who died at the end of the seventh century; of which, although Ussher writes on page 818 that only the titles reached him, elsewhere he produces substantial fragments from it: who this person was Colgan investigates with various conjectures in Appendix 4, part 3. Passing over finally, which you may especially wonder at, Evin, about whom nevertheless Jocelin writes at number 163: Nevertheless Evin in a similar manner compiled the acts of S. Patrick into one volume, Evin, perhaps the author of the Tripartite Life: which he composed partly in the Latin language and partly in Irish: taking, as we at least think, some passages from the older Latin writers, and transcribing from them now paragraphs, now periods, and rendering these into Irish, and in the same language adding the rest which he himself had learned from elsewhere and judged should be added.

[18] The reason for Evin's omission from that catalogue of authors seems to have been none other than that he himself was the author of that Life which the aforesaid Interpolator was presenting divided into three parts and greatly augmented from the authors he enumerated: nor did Jocelin see it other than thus augmented, as we conclude from the interpolations transcribed by him indiscriminately together with the text. Colgan judges that none of these interpolations was added after the year one thousand: Interpolated by others: which even if true (and there is indeed no lack of what might cause scruple), we nevertheless did not think it necessary to reprint here the Life thus interpolated, nor to dispute at greater length about its author. And indeed, the bulk of this work, growing ever larger with new additions, could have persuaded us to do neither: but a greater impetus was given to this decision by the fact that we saw it would be tedious for the reader to encounter so many Irish words, and such a minute account of the churches founded by S. Patrick and his disciples appointed by the Master to administer them: especially since the suspicion concerning these, as well as concerning the miracles and prophecies, was so great and so just that perhaps the greater part was added by the Interpolator, and not just one: The order of events rather than of times was preserved: who may also seem to have indulged somewhat too much the desire of the churches themselves, by which each one was eager to trace its own origins back to the great Patrick, and to insert the saints they venerated into the catalogue of his disciples. We therefore observe here only that by this author and his interpolators no consideration seems to have been given to time: but the churches were mentioned by him as the occasion presented itself while he was describing the conversion of each province in a continuous narrative; and the Bishops and Presbyters named were not always those to whom Patrick first entrusted the care of them, but the more illustrious of those whom he ordained for their administration, whether when he first established them or when, upon the death of one of those first appointed, it happened that the place became vacant. For the text itself indicates this when speaking of Connaught as follows: Having crossed the River Shannon three times, he came into Connaught; and there he remained in the preaching of the word of God and in the work of the Gospel for seven years. The latter point is not obscurely inferred from the fact that Patrick is nowhere mentioned as having substituted a successor for any Bishop or Presbyter who had been snatched from the living; which, however, it is credible he did frequently during the span of the twenty-eight years he lived in Ireland.

Section IV. On Probus, Jocelin, and other medieval writers of the Life of S. Patrick.

[19] The fourth and fifth Life in Colgan: Besides the second and third Life, about which we spoke above, two others exist in Colgan, and are therefore harmlessly omitted by us: one, of uncertain date and author, holds the fourth place among the Lives published by him; the other holds the fifth, written in two books by Probus, addressed to a certain Paulinus of unknown date and rank, and falsely attributed to Bede, among whose works it once appeared. Colgan attributes the former to Eleran the Wise, Was the former written by S. Eleran? since it was written after the deaths of Brendan, Senan, Columba, and Baithen, who all departed this life before the year 600; not long, however, after the beginning of the seventh century, he says; but before the year 630, inasmuch as in chapter 50 it says: I will keep faith everywhere, so as to commit nothing else to my pen except what I have found scattered in ancient books, or what I have learned from the account of truthful men. For who would be, says Colgan in his general Preface, those truthful men from whose account he learned what he reports, except those who either saw the events themselves, or heard them from those who saw them, and who consequently related them before the year 630? To which it can be replied that his truthful reporters could have been trustworthy men testifying that certain miracles of S. Patrick, even if not written down, were nevertheless believed in certain provinces and places among the inhabitants from the undoubted tradition of their forebears. Therefore, since we find nothing in that Life which bespeaks great antiquity, much less proves Eleran as the author even by a shadow, and since Colgan admits that it was interpolated with thirty-four whole chapters taken from elsewhere, as the diversity of style and other not obscure indications show, we do not believe it to be such that the reader would greatly desire it in this place.

[20] Was the latter by Eluodugus Probus? Treating of the author of the latter Life, Ussher on page 817, having dismissed the delirium of Dempster, who made Mellonus or Melanius, Bishop of Rouen, to whom Possevinus, Pitseus, and others add the surname Probus, the author of this life — that is, a hundred years before S. Patrick was born — says: If any account were to be taken of such surnames devised by Bale, Eluodugus Probus could with much greater reason have been so called by him than Melanius Probus: for among the literary monuments left by his Eluodugus, Bale names a History of the Britons, from which his pupil Nennius annotated many things; whom we know to have inserted into his British chronicle many things about Blessed Patrick, and those of poorly proven reliability. And then Colgan adds that one might suspect the person to whom the work is dedicated to have been S. Paulinus of Rochester, who according to Matthew of Westminster died in the year 646; but it would have to be asserted that those words of chapter 10: Scotland and Britain, England and Normandy, and the other nations of the islanders, you will baptize, were thrust into this text of Probus, at least in part, by some interpolator no less foolishly than falsely, into a text that is otherwise not the most reliable: since here he is frequently found to be faulty in the names of the most well-known places of Ireland. Or even by someone younger and foreign: Indeed, in the interpretation of Irish words, this author sufficiently proves himself ignorant of the language, so that Colgan rightly suspects that Probus was English, either by birth or by origin and language, which the English transplanted into Ireland did not change, but rather introduced their own into Dublin and other cities facing England.

[21] Jocelin was certainly English, and as the title of the aforesaid Life has it, a Monk of Furness; Jocelin, a monk of Furness in Lancashire: which is a monastery in Lancashire built in the year 1128 by Stephen, Count of Boulogne and Mortain, afterward King of England, and dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary; and committed to Ewald of Avranches as the first Abbot under the Rule of S. Benedict and the Order of Savigny or Tiron: This monastery, first of the Benedictine Order: but the Venerable Serlo, the fourth Abbot of Savigny, which is the mother house of Furness, surrendered at Cîteaux in general chapter his house of Savigny with its daughter houses from the Order of Tiron to the Cistercian Order into the hands of S. Bernard, then Abbot of Clairvaux: as is read in the English Monasticon from the records of the Furness monastery. For this reason the Furness monastery, with Abbot Peter of York striving and Pope Eugenius III assenting, withdrew from its mother house, permitted to remain in perpetuity in that Order in which it had first been founded: Then it was transferred to the Cistercian Order: and it would have remained so, had not Peter, returning from the Roman Curia and captured by the monks of Savigny, yielded the abbatial dignity: and with him removed, it was easy for the new Abbot Richard de Bayeux, taken from among the Savigniac monks, to lead the monastery of Furness back to its mother Savigny and the Cistercian Order, and thus from Grey monks they became White, as you find in the poem on the foundation of the same monastery.

[22] Since these things occurred under the pontificate of the aforesaid Eugenius, and therefore before the year 1153, it is clear that Jocelin was not among those Black monks whom John de Courcy, having summoned them from Chester to Ireland in the year 1182, installed in the Cathedral Church of Down, expelling the secular Canons from there. An obscure passage of Camden on folio 766 deceived Colgan, writing thus: In this Down, The monastery of Inch in Ireland: John de Courcy, that warlike Englishman, and devout toward God beyond a soldier, when he had made this region his own right, first introduced Benedictine monks and transferred the monastery of Carrick, which Mac-Neel, Mac-Eulef, King of Ulster, had built in Erinaich near the fountain of S. Finan, to an island, called by him Inis Courcy, and enriched it with assigned estates. And how and when the aforesaid monastery became a daughter house of the House of Furness and was attached to the Cistercian Order is added in the same English Monasticon, folio 710, to the first foundation pertaining to the year 1127: After the death of the first Abbot S. Evodius, who, foreseeing the future translation of the monastery, ordered his body to be carried to the said island for burial, the said monastery of Carrick remained of the Savigniac Order through the times of three Abbots, namely Odo, Devincius, and John; in whose time the monastery itself was returned to the Cistercian Order, A daughter of Furness: on the condition that henceforth it should be in perpetuity a daughter of Furness: but at the time of the conquest of Ulster, the aforesaid Lord John de Courcy utterly destroyed it, because it was a fortress and greatly troubled him: but in compensation he founded, or rather transferred it to his island of Inis-Cushcre, and gave to his mother house of Furness the same lands for building it which it had held in the prior location from the gift of the aforementioned King MacNeill:

and thus the said Abbey of Inch became a daughter of Furness, just as it had been before in the prior location:

In the year one thousand, one hundred, and twice forty, Courcy founded Inch: thence he overcame his enemies.

[23] In which Jocelin was a Cistercian: Jocelin, therefore, a monk not of the Benedictine but of the Cistercian Order; not an inhabitant of the Priory of Down, but of the Abbey of Inch; after the year 1180 undertook to collect the Life of S. Patrick (which, dictated by many and, as he says, by the unlettered in manifold ways, was neither approved nor pleasing to most on account of the confusion and obscurity of its style), to collect it when dispersed, arrange it when confused, and season it with the more palatable flavor of the Latin language; moved both by his own piety toward the Saint, and by the commands of the most Reverend Thomas, Bishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland, and Malachy, Bishop of Down: as well as by the petition of the most Illustrious John de Courcy, Prince of Ulidia. Ussher refers the beginnings of that Thomas in his Chronological Index to the year 85 of the twelfth century. In which same year, since the bodies of SS. Patrick, Columba, and Brigid were discovered at Down: He began to collect the Acts of S. Patrick: this very discovery might seem to have given the aforesaid Bishops reason for imposing such a work on Jocelin and urging its hasty completion, so that once published, minds might be kindled to the veneration of so wonderful a Saint and to more devoutly celebrating the intended translation, for which a legation had been sent to Rome: but Jocelin nowhere mentions either the discovery that was made or the translation that was to be made; which moved Colgan to believe that these were composed by Jocelin in those few months which could have intervened between Thomas's promotion and the exhumation of the said bodies.

[24] In the few years before the discovery of the body: Since in such a brief span of time it does not seem that so great a work could have been completed; and yet, if Jocelin had written later, events so memorable could not have been passed over in silence: the reliability of the Irish Annals becomes suspect to us, from which Ussher writes that in that year, upon the death of Amlanus O Muiredach, this Thomas (called Tomaltach O Connor by the Irish) succeeded in the Archbishopric of Armagh; and we greatly fear that he was promoted to this degree of dignity some years earlier, and that Jocelin found him already established in it when he first set foot in the recently founded monastery of John: and we suspect that not long after the year 80 a beginning was given to this work: a splendid one indeed, if it had been collected with greater discrimination and prudence. However, the names of places and persons are brought forward more sparingly in it than in the Tripartite, and Jocelin professes at number 80 that he refrained from describing them, indeed that he wished more studiously to avoid them on account of the uncouth barbarism of the words, lest he create disgust or horror for Latin ears: for which reason he is not once called a "Fastidious author" by Colgan. That work was first submitted to the press of Adrian of Bergen at Antwerp in the year of our Lord 1514 by Cornelius Hugonis, Which was printed at Antwerp, Paris, and Louvain: Provincial Vicar of the Friars Minor of the Observance of the Province of Ireland. The same Thomas Messingham wished it to be reprinted from a manuscript codex of the monastery of Dungal of the Order of Friars Minor in Ireland, in his Florilegium at Paris, where it came to light in the year 1624: from both Colgan received his edition; and we shall receive it: if, however, two editions should be so called which appear to have flowed from the same manuscript, as the same errors are plainly found in one and the other.

[25] Just as Jocelin augmented the bulk of the Life he collected chiefly from the Tripartite mentioned above: The author of the Tripartite Work according to Ussher: so the same seems to have been followed by the one who also composed a Tripartite work in Latin about the Acts of S. Patrick, frequently cited by Ussher, about whose antiquity and authority we can establish nothing certain. But older than that manuscript and Jocelin himself is Nennius, Nennius is older, and than Jocelin: the author of the History of Britain, which circulates falsely under the name of Gildas, around the year 859: in which the deeds of S. Patrick are described at length. Older also than William of Malmesbury, who in the Preface to his book on the Antiquity of Glastonbury, not yet published And than Malmesbury: but often cited by Ussher and often by Michael Alford, professes that he wrote the Life of S. Patrick and the miracles of the Venerable Benignus; which he should be believed to have done around the end of the twelfth century, when the body of a certain S. Patrick, exhumed at Glastonbury, and of another Benignus different from the one of Armagh (which he writes was done in the year 1186), gave occasion for writing these Lives and the aforesaid Antiquities. From Malmesbury we furthermore think the Lives of the same Saints were drawn and contracted by John of Tynemouth, Tynemouth and Capgrave transcribed him. Other writers about S. Patrick: an English Benedictine monk, related in his work on the Saints of England, which John Capgrave published in print, compiled around the middle of the fourteenth century, which we shall see below are of no authority whatsoever.

[26] We pass over reporting that Patrick's Acts are summarily recorded in the Historical Mirror of Vincent of Beauvais, Bishop, book 20, chapter 23; in Jacobus de Voragine, Bishop of Genoa, in the so-called Golden Legend; in S. Antoninus, Bishop of Florence, in his Chronicle; in Peter de Natalibus in the general catalogue of Saints; and other writers of the same class. We should not, however, omit David Rothe, Bishop of Ossory, David Rothe: and Vice-Primate of all Ireland; who, having published eight elucidations on the Office of S. Patrick, reduced to the rite of the Roman Breviary, in which he endeavored to free from suspicion of falsehood some points of the Patrician Life that would find credence with greater difficulty, Thomas Walsingham appended and adapted them to the text of Jocelin in his Florilegium. Philip O'Sullivan: The Patrician Decade was also written by D. Philip O'Sullivan Beare, an Irishman, who comprised the deeds and miracles of S. Patrick in ten books, to which he appends much in defense of the Irish Catholics, and much in persecution of the Anglo-heretical faction, with an appendix of bitter refutation against James Ussher, not on account of what he learnedly and modestly wrote in Latin about the antiquities of the British Church, often cited with honor by Colgan and deservedly dear to us as well: but on account of a certain English pamphlet, in which he had treated the same O'Sullivan's history of Irish affairs more harshly and insultingly.

[27] Richard Stanihurst: This book of O'Sullivan came out at Madrid in the year 1629: but much earlier there had appeared at Antwerp from the press of Christopher Plantin a Life of the same S. Patrick, more concisely comprised in two books by Richard Stanihurst, and published in the year 1577, and dedicated to Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma and Piacenza, then governing Belgium for the Catholic King: who, since he had seen no published book about the Life of Patrick except the one which circulated falsely inscribed with the name of the Venerable Bede, which the conclusion indicates is really by the above-mentioned Probus: and since he believed it was therefore omitted by Surius, who was collecting approved Lives of the Saints, because it contained very many things joined with old-womanish futility and some things entirely foreign to Gospel truth, he himself composed a new one with a more felicitous style and greater selectivity. A censor of Probus more severe than is fair: While he should be pardoned for not being able to accomplish what he wished, being deprived of the resources of ancient records, without committing grave and numerous errors in chronology: he nevertheless seems rightly to be accused of youthful rashness for that acrimony of censure with which he chastises the undeserving Probus; whom, if he had been accustomed to reading and perusing ancient writings, he would have found to contain more resources for ordering the Patrician history; as can be known from what follows: but what should be entirely foreign to Gospel truth, we confess we were unable to detect in it.

Section V. The chronological order of the entire Patrician history.

[28] Although the great Apostle of Ireland had so many writers of his life, all of them, however, especially the older ones, so treated it that they expended great effort on heaping up wonderful prodigies, sometimes exceeding belief, How important this is for the entire history of Ireland: but bestowed no care on distinguishing and ordering the times. Meanwhile the entire Irish history, however great it may be, entangled in the Cimmerian darkness in which it is involved, depends upon this beginning, never to be unraveled unless the reader receives light from here: for the obscurity of the ancient writers in this respect was doubled by certain Irish traditions concerning the calculation of years, and the calculations of the Antiquaries resting on the most uncertain foundations, wrapped in new darkness. Many things therefore will need to be established by us contrary to the opinion of more recent writers, and many things will need to be otherwise arranged: and so that this may be done more distinctly and conveniently, we first exhibit here the series of the whole Patrician chronology, which we shall then attempt to establish through various succeeding paragraphs, with as much solidity as possible, as to each obscure or controverted point: prepared nevertheless to submit our judgment to that of others, as soon as anyone, having produced more certain documents, shall have taught us that we have strayed from the truth. We therefore reckon the chronology as follows.

[29] The childhood and youth of S. Patrick: In the year of Christ 377, when it was not very far advanced, S. Patrick is born among the Alcluyd Britons.

392: In his sixteenth year, not yet completed, he is carried off by Scottish raiders with his sister Lupita and taken to Ireland, and there sold to Milcho in Dalriada.

397: Near the end, in the sixth year of his servitude, and the twenty-first of his age, he escapes by flight, and being admitted free of charge by sailors sailing to Britain at the mouth of the Boyne, after wandering for nearly a month he is restored to his father's house: where he is called back to the conversion of Ireland through a vision, and from here begin the sixty years of his apostolic life, which led others, placing its beginning in the sixtieth year of his age, to think he had lived 122 years.

398: Having stayed three months in his homeland, he sets out with his parents for Armorica, and when they are lost there to a barbarian incursion, he is again captured and carried off to the Picts; and after two months returns to his homeland: and being captured a third time, is carried off to Bordeaux; where, restored to liberty, he betakes himself to Tours, His pilgrimages in Gaul and Italy: and there, tonsured as a Cleric and Monk in the Greater Monastery of S. Martin, he spends three years.

402: In the fourth year of his monastic life, the twenty-fifth of his age, called again by frequent visions to the Island of Temera, that is, the Irish island, he goes to Britain, and despairing of the crossing, returns to Gaul.

[30] In the year 403, Patrick, having set out for Italy, undertakes a seven-year pilgrimage through the mountains and islands of hermits and monks.

410: There, by angelic warning, he is ordained a Presbyter and studies for three years with S. Senior the Bishop (perhaps the Bishop of Pisa).

413: Encouraged by new visions, he betakes himself to Ireland: but since the barbarians stopped their ears to his preaching, judging that a legitimate mission from the Roman Pontiff and greater authority was necessary, His first journey to Ireland, unsuccessful: he determines to go to Rome.

414: While he is returning through Britain, seized by love of solitude, he would almost have remained in the Valley of Rosina, had he not understood that the place was destined for S. David who was to be born. Therefore, ordered to reserve himself for Ireland, he goes to Auxerre and there attaches himself to the Bishop (whom we shall show to have been S. Amator).

418: Patrick, in his forty-first year, is commended by an Angel to S. Germanus when he is elevated to the episcopate, and adheres to him for four years.

421: At the command of an Angel, Patrick goes to the island of Arles (which we think to be Lérins), and there he stays for nine years.

430: Warned that the time has arrived to seriously undertake the Irish mission,

he confers about this matter with S. Germanus, who was perhaps making an excursion to Arles and thence to Lérins after the British legation: by whom he is ordered to go to Rome: arriving there shortly after Palladius's departure, he suffers a refusal from S. Celestine and returns to S. Germanus.

[31] In the year 431, S. Palladius, despairing of the conversion of the Irish, returns and dies in Britain among the Picts on July 6. Patrick is sent back to Rome with letters of recommendation and the Presbyter Segetius by S. Germanus.

432: S. Celestine, having heard of Palladius's death, a few days before his own death commits the Irish legation to Patrick: The beginning of the Apostolic mission: which Sixtus, succeeding Celestine, confirms: therefore with nine companions he sets out on his way; and at Ivrea, having met the disciples of Palladius, with the certain news of his departure now known, he is consecrated Bishop by a nearby Bishop, perhaps that of Turin: other companions are promoted to lower Orders. Finally, passing through Gaul, he bids farewell to S. Germanus, and with the year well advanced into autumn, having landed in Leinster, where Palladius had made some beginnings, he first of all baptizes Sinell.

433: He crosses into Dalriada, to preach the faith of Christ to his former master Milcho, and returning thence converts various people in Ulster, and among his fruitful labors there founds the monastery of Saball near Down.

[32] In the year 436, the fifth year of King Loegaire (for his years are reckoned from Patrick's arrival), Patrick seems to have first met with the King and by miracles to have wrested from the obstinate man permission to publicly disseminate the faith, Progress: and not long after the Bishopric of Athtruim is established, and S. Loman is consecrated as the first Bishop in Ireland. Afterward, as the peoples embraced the faith in eager rivalry, with Patrick preaching and traveling through the whole island, very many other churches are founded in various places, and Bishops ordained in them.

445: Returning from Rome, he meets S. Kieran of Saigir and five other Clerics who had set out for the same place for the purpose of study. About to cross over to Ireland, he preaches in western Britain, organizes monasteries, and carries across with him into the Irish harvest many auxiliary companions, especially from his father's family.

450: S. Brigid is veiled by S. Patrick at the completion of her fourteenth year of age.

453, or thereabout: He institutes the forty-day fast on Mount Cruachan Aigli, receives S. Munen returning from Rome with relics, and foretells S. Kieran, the founder of Clonmacnois.

454: Armagh is founded, to be erected as a metropolis: and councils are celebrated, with the place solemnly dedicated. The acts of one or another council survive in Spelman from ancient manuscripts. The first has this title: Here begins the Synod of Bishops, that is, of Patrick, Auxilius, and Iserninus: of whom the latter two, because they are named beyond the rest, Colgan considers to have borne the role of Apostolic legates. Spelman conjectured that these should be assigned to the year 450 or 456.

455 or 456: At angelic command, Patrick again goes to Rome: and he brings back relics and the confirmation of the metropolis he had established. Secundinus again acts as his Vicar.

458: Spending his last time with S. Brigid, Patrick asks her, who foreknew his death and burial, to weave his burial garment, and foretells that she will survive him by many years.

459: S. Secundinus composes a hymn about S. Patrick, and after completing it dies on November 27, in the seventy-fifth year of his age.

And the end in the 83rd year of his life: 460: Patrick, having completed eighty-two years of age, in the course of his eighty-third year, while Loegaire was completing the twenty-eighth year of his reign, dies and is entombed at Down; to whom S. Sen-Patrick is appointed as his successor as Bishop of Armagh, counted as the first by those who placed the Holy Apostle above the number because of his universal care for all the churches.

[33] And so far indeed the life of S. Patrick arranged by years, without those 50 years which those who defend them must confess he spent almost in idleness: now let us append certain remaining points of Irish chronology, greatly profitable for illuminating the history of this and other Saints.

In the year 462, therefore, Loegaire dies, and Ailill Molt, son of Nathi, rises to the kingdom by force or by election. The Life of S. Patrick is written by various of his disciples.

Successors in the Primacy of Armagh: 464: At Rome, Bishops are ordained by Pope S. Hilary: SS. Ailbe and Declan, who, proceeding to found churches among the Munstermen and Decies, are at length induced by S. Sen-Patrick to submit themselves to S. Patrick, that is, to the Primacy of Armagh; which concord does not seem to have been accomplished before the fourth or fifth year after their return.

470: S. Sen-Patrick dies abroad among the people of Glastonbury: to whom S. Mocteus of Louth arranges for S. Benignus, thirty-five years old, to be substituted. Meanwhile S. Fiacc, Bishop of Sletty, composes his hymn about S. Patrick: the notes of the ancient Scholiasts on which belong not to the sixth but to the eighth century, so that earlier than them is both the Life which Evin wrote and the other which Tirechan composed; both of whom flourished in the seventh century.

480: S. Benignus dies on November 19: Iarlath is substituted for him, counted among the Saints by Colgan at February 11.

482: Oilill Molt, King of Ireland, is killed in a great battle in the region of Meath, as Ussher reports on page 947 from a manuscript Life of S. Patrick, book 3. It is credible that the most powerful family of Niall universally rose up against him in favor of Lugaid or Lugdach, son of Loegaire: so that what Patrick had granted to the pleading mother might be fulfilled, namely that at least this one, whom she was carrying in her womb, should not be subject to the common curse on Loegaire's posterity and excluded from the ancestral kingdom.

[34] In the year 498, upon the death of Iarlath, Cormac is installed in the See of Armagh.

508: When Lugaid is struck by lightning for blasphemy against S. Patrick, for a full five years there is strife over the kingdom among his paternal cousins.

512: Upon the death of Cormac, Ailill succeeds: the rest thereafter are most obscure, and from then until the death of S. Celsus in the year 1119 and the election of S. Malachy, nothing is known to us about the Bishops of Armagh, except what Colgan has indicated to us in Appendix 7 to the Acts of S. Patrick, part 3.

513: Muirchertach, son of Erc, from Muiredach, son of Eugenius, great-grandson of the great Niall, obtains the kingdom, The remaining succession of Irish Kings up to the year 664: promised to the posterity of Eugenius by S. Patrick.

534: Tuathal Margarb began to reign for 10 years: of whom mention is made in the Lives of S. Finan and S. Kieran of Clonard.

544: Diermit I, son of Cearbhall, began to reign: against whom S. Columba aided with his prayers his kinsmen the Conallians in the battle of Cuildremhne, with about three thousand of the adversaries slain: and on that occasion, being considered guilty of such slaughter by the counsel of the Irish Clergy, he undertook voluntary exile in the name of penance, and migrated to the island of Iona: whether these are rightly assigned to the years 561 and 562 we shall see on June 9. Diermit reigned twenty-one years.

565: Fergus and Donald, sons of Muirchertach, grandsons of Erc, held the empire jointly for one year.

[36] In the year 566, Ainmire, son of Setna, reigned three years: who summoned S. Gildas, whose Life we gave on January 29, from Britain to Ireland for the purpose of restoring the Christian discipline that was already almost collapsed, when he was already an octogenarian.

569: Baetan and Eochaid, having begun a joint reign, held it for three years.

572: Aed, son of Ainmire, reigned: to him, already known from the Life of S. Aidan at January 31, twenty-six years are attributed.

598: Aed II, surnamed Slane, and Colman, son of Diermit I, reigned together for six years.

604: Aed III, son of Donald I, eight years.

612: Malcolm, son of Aed III, three years.

615: Suibne, son of Menn, thirteen years.

628: Domnall or Donald II, son of Aed I, grandson of Amureg, is named in Adamnan in the Life of S. Columba, and is thought to have reigned fourteen years.

642: Conall and Cellach, sons of Malcolm, ruled together for sixteen years.

668: Dermot II and Blathmac, sons of Aed II, who perished together in the seventh year of their reign, which was the year of Christ 664; in that great pestilence which Bede accurately describes as spreading through the British Isles in book 3, chapter 27.

[37] Why these are given, taken from the Annals of Ulster: And we have inserted these here on account of the whole of Irish history, from Ussher: because all three orders of Irish saints are contained within the times of these kings: kings indeed only of Meath, but among the four others of the other kingdoms (the absolute kings of Ulster, Connaught, Munster, and Leinster, who themselves also had various sub-kings under them), preeminent in common assemblies of all Ireland, in dignity and authority as well as in central position: for which reason they were called Kings of Ireland absolutely by foreigners. If the successors of Colgan should produce from ancient monuments the catalogues of all of them, they will perhaps bring great light and convenience for examining Irish affairs: Ussher confesses that those we have given he received from the Annals of Ulster: Colgan also calls them the Annals of Senagh, Written around the year 1480? and citing them often under both names, praises their author Cathal Maguire, a Canon of Armagh, who died at age sixty in the year 1498. If this author had the time or span of each king from certain monuments, he paved a sufficiently safe road for those wishing to ascend from the noted year of the pestilence to the equally well-known year of Patrick's arrival, by which the rest might be examined, although his own calculation deceived him in computing the years of the Primates of Armagh: but he does not seem to have determined all of these, perhaps because he was finding testimony of the catalogues that did not agree concerning the span of time during which each one held his seat: and about the time of Patrick's death he had nothing established.

[38] But to return to S. Patrick, the year 1171 should be especially noted, in which Henry I, King of England, Events concerning the life and body of S. Patrick after the year 1171: by papal indult and under the title of restoring ecclesiastical, indeed Christian discipline that had utterly collapsed, entered Ireland, torn by internal discords and civil wars, and was received by all the Primates of Ireland, with the sole exception of the King of Connaught who refused to swear fealty to him. From which time the Cistercians and Regular Canons, then flourishing from their recent foundation, having been introduced into Ireland, began to devote much effort to restoring and rendering into Latin the Lives of the Irish Saints, or to collecting them from the narratives transmitted by the hands of the common people.

1176: John de Courcy, having besieged and captured the city of Down, obtains the Principality of Ulidia: and four years later founds the monastery of Inch, and subjects it to the monastery of Furness in England, having brought Cistercian monks from Furness, among whom was Jocelin, the compiler of the Patrician Life.

1185: The bodies of SS. Patrick, Columba, and Brigid are exhumed; once exhumed, they are most solemnly translated by Apostolic authority into the Cathedral church of Down on June 9, under the direction of Malachy, Bishop of Down.

Section VI. On the year of the birth, mission, and death of S. Patrick.

[39] Those things in this Patrician Chronology which need more mature examination, being destined to serve as a foundation for the rest of the history of the Irish Saints, we now proceed to treat individually. And first we divide these commentaries of ours into two parts: Patrick was sent to Ireland in the year 432: of which the first should precede

the Acts and pave the way for them: the latter should complete the remaining matters which we have found worthy of observation concerning the preaching, episcopate, miracles, prophecies of this apostolic man, and what is commonly called the Purgatory: by which we hope to give some satisfaction to those who will require our judgment on these matters. Now above all, in determining the span of the Patrician life, two things especially must be established, and these not very difficult to investigate: namely, in what year of his life and of the Christian Era Patrick was sent to Ireland and arrived: and then in what year he departed from this life. The resolution of the first point must rest on that which no one calls into doubt: namely that Pope Celestine, by whom the Irish legation is known to have been entrusted to Patrick, departed from this world in the year 432, on the 6th of April: and that the same Celestine had previously imposed this office on Palladius, and that when things did not go well in Ireland, Palladius, upon returning, met his death in Britain on the 6th of July, on which day his feast is celebrated: After the death of S. Palladius: in the year preceding the death of the said Celestine. From this immediately collapses what John Major wrote in book 2 of the Deeds of the Scots, chapter 2, that Patrick followed five years after Palladius was sent. Perhaps he wished to write two years: for he places the mission of Palladius in the year of Christ 429, after which only one year and three months remained to Celestine in the pontificate. The opinion of Marianus Scotus and Sigebert, assigning the mission of Palladius to the year 32 of the fifth century, is also inconsistent with the same foundation: since the Patrician mission cannot be deferred beyond this year: and this could not have been made by Celestine while still alive after learning of the death of Palladius, unless the latter had set out for Ireland at least in the preceding year.

[40] With these rejected, what Prosper has in his Chronicle remains firm, and from Prosper, Bede in chapter 13 of his Ecclesiastical History: that under the consuls Bassus and Antiochus, who mark the year 431, Palladius was sent to and arrived in Scotland: it also remains what the author of the Tripartite Work asserts in Ussher on page 813, that he was ordained Bishop in the year 30 of the said century for the conversion of the Scots: it remains finally that deliberations about substituting Patrick in the place of Palladius could not have been undertaken except around the beginning of the year 32 or around the end of the preceding year. This time of the Irish legation entrusted to Patrick is excellently confirmed from the ancient Scholiast of Fiacc in these words: In the last year of Celestine, the first of Sixtus: Celestine lived only one week after Patrick was ordained: Sixtus however succeeded him, and in his first year Patrick came to Ireland. And for the same first year of Sixtus are cited by Colgan in Appendix 5, chapter 17, the Annals of Inisfallen and of Senagh, expressly stating it, to which are added the Four Masters, cited by Colgan almost innumerably and often by us, and to be cited from him until they come to light: who you should know were selected from the Order of the Friars Minor of S. Francis of the Observance and of the Irish nation, around the beginning of the seventeenth century, as those more skilled in their country's antiquity, who from all the manuscript monuments of their nation that they could obtain, should arrange in a brief chronology by years of Christ the entire sacred and profane history of that island from the creation of the world to these times. Concerning whom see Colgan in his Preface to the Acts of the Saints of Ireland; and what we shall say below about such compilations.

[41] Now let us see what the age of the holy man was Born not in 372: when he arrived in Ireland. Nearly all authors agree that Patrick was then sixty years old: but just as in measuring the other parts of the Patrician life they are found to have used rather round numbers, so here too, and indeed quite confusedly, since they say he came to S. Germanus at thirty years of age and spent another thirty under his tutelage: Jocelin alone subtracts five years from this number, when after number 168 he says: He was fifty-five years of age when, decorated with the episcopal rank, he entered Ireland for the sake of preaching. And although he is alone in this assertion, he nevertheless seems to deserve greater credence than the rest: But 377: for this number of years leads us back from 432 to 372: ascending from which again through 82 years we arrive at the year of Christ 459, at whose completion and with the year 60 begun, S. Patrick died, as we shall presently show. As for the Sliguntine codex saying in Ussher on page 882 that he was born, reborn through baptism, and taken by death on a Wednesday, we cannot divine how true this may be, nor can we draw any light from it for establishing the chronology; as long as we do not know on what day and of which month the Saint was born and baptized: for the 5th of April, marked as Patrick's Baptism in the Calendars, refers to something else, as we shall presently see. How abundantly sufficient the 55 years are for the deeds performed before the episcopate will be demonstrated in the following paragraphs.

[42] On account of the 60 years commonly attributed to his apostolate: It remains to inquire how many years Patrick then lived: and in this most of the Life Acts and Irish writers agree that he died in the 60th or 62nd year of his apostolate, which, joined to the previous 60 years, they attribute to S. Patrick a total of 120 or 122 years of life: and lest Jocelin dissent from these, he who had diminished the earlier life by five years, he adds them to the apostolate. Of these, however, he wishes only 35 years (others are content with a round number) to have been spent on preaching, the rest in quiet contemplation in his monasteries: whence this from the author of the Tripartite Work in Ussher, page 873: He lived sixty years in Ireland: thirty years preaching and baptizing through the various provinces of Ireland, and the other thirty years he lived contemplatively in his cells and monasteries: which the author of the Irish poem called the Testament of S. Patrick, on page 887 in Ussher, rendered into Latin thus expressed:

For three decades I traveled through Ireland with joy, For three more decades I dwelt in the house of Saull, They commonly wish him dead in the year 493: One hundred and twenty years I lived through.

Patrick would therefore have died according to these in the year 493: which year above others (which various writers variously assign, and it is not necessary to laboriously enumerate) is confirmed by the Four Masters with an ancient Irish verse, whose sense in the Latin language is this: From the birth of Christ (reckoning correctly) four hundred with ninety and three years until the death of Patrick, our chief Apostle.

[43] This year would indeed be provable above the rest, insofar as the character of Wednesday falling on March 17 occurs in it. But a life of such length, although it wonderfully suits the taste of the Irish, nevertheless seems incredible to us: not because we believe no one at all attained or even surpassed that age; But because only King Loegaire is named in the Acts: but because we cannot persuade ourselves that in so great a mass of affairs, as the organization of a new Church and the office of Primate necessarily accumulated, absolutely nothing was done by S. Patrick during thirty and more whole years which the authors of his Life would consider worthy of the memory of posterity, and on account of which another King should have to be named in the Acts than the one under whom S. Patrick entered Ireland. By such reasoning indeed, convinced, we judged that the age of S. Romuald, which others extended to 120 years, should be enclosed within a space of 70 years, as we did on the 7th of February: and now too we think that, as there, so here, the similarity of neighboring numerical letters could have crept upon someone so that he wrote C for L: And those 60 years can be begun from the captivity: the more easily because it was commonly said that Patrick, chosen by God at sixty or sixty-six years of age for the conversion of Ireland, began to preach the faith in it. For this, as will appear below, said of his first entry into Ireland, when as a youth sold into servitude he taught the faith to the children of Milcho, and understood of his apostolic and more famous arrival, could have given occasion for errors: so that rightly, instead of 132 years of the Patrician life, as Probus counts, Baronius and Petavius order that 82 be read. And by this reckoning Patrick would have died in the year 460, when with the Dominical letters CB the 17th of March would have fallen on a Wednesday, had that year not been a Leap Year: We say he died in the 83rd year of his age, the year of Christ 460: which not having been observed by those who had heard from some source that Patrick was born and baptized on a Wednesday, gave occasion for writing that he also died on a similar day: for this character should not hold us in suspense, so that we labor greatly to save it, since it is found expressed in none of the Acts of S. Patrick. By this same calculation S. Patrick would have died in the 28th year of King Loegaire: for the Annals of Ulster in Ussher begin the years of this King from Patrick's entry into Ireland, taking no account of the other years he perhaps had previously in the kingdom. Wherefore, as for the Tripartite Life at number 43 placing that entry in the 5th year of Loegaire, we fear this was done because only in the fifth year, with the foundations of the Christian faith already laid elsewhere, did the Saint come to Meath to deal with this King: although the authors describe it as though it had been done in the first year. And indeed there are so many and such great things which are said to have been done by Patrick before he engaged with the King, that a space of five or six months between the Saint's arrival and the first Easter (to which that meeting seems to be referred) is too narrow for them.

[44] Whatever the case, we cannot trust that passage of the Tripartite; for the whole collection of foreign characters taken from the years of the Pontiff and Emperor is manifestly thrust in by an interpolator, (Whatever others have fabricated, rashly interpolating the ancient Acts): and this after the times of Galasius, who presided over the Church of Armagh in the twelfth century, as will be clear to one weighing the passage itself, which is as follows: At that time there ruled over the Irish a pagan King, cruel and fierce, named Loegaire, son of Niall, who had the seat of his kingdom in the city of Tara. (In the 5th year of Loegaire, the 8th of the Emperor Theodosius, the sixty-fifth from Augustus, which was also the 8th of Pope Celestine, as Galasius says, Patrick, sent by Apostolic authority, came to Ireland: and in the 18th or 8th year — for the manuscripts vary — of Lugaid, son of the aforesaid King Loegaire, he exchanged this life for the heavenly one.) This King Loegaire had many druids, etc. These last words so aptly cohere with the first, with all the intermediary words omitted, that it is superfluous to weigh the faults of the characters rashly collected in the parenthesis in order to persuade that neither Evin nor any other ancient author wrote this, but some sciolist from the school of the Antiquaries: who, seeing that it was inconsistent with the supposed longevity that Patrick should have died in the 28th year of Loegaire, substituted Loegaire's son Lugaid,

whom he substituted, who having begun to reign after thirty years of his father and twenty years of Ailill, is said to have ruled for only twenty-five years, and therefore in place of the 28th year of Loegaire which he perhaps found among the ancients, he put the 18th or 8th of Lugaid: paying little attention to the fact that not even thus did the calculations balance. For thus Patrick would have died in the 58th or 68th year after his entry into Ireland, the year of Christ 490 or 500, neither of which is consistent with what was said above. And in the 28th year of King Loegaire: But who would believe that the Saint accomplished nothing toward the conversion of Ailill and Lugaid if he lived, or suffered from the obstinate anything that ought to be commemorated in his Life above many other things? Let it therefore remain that nothing of the sort was written, because nothing of the sort was done; and that the ancient author who added a preface to the hymn of S. Secundinus, composed a few months before the death of the Saint himself and of Saint Patrick, truly wrote in Colgan that that hymn was composed in the time of Loegaire, son of Niall, King of Ireland: so that our opinion remains confirmed also by the assent of this author. But if in treating of S. Winwaloe on March 3, number 3 of the preliminary commentary, and of S. Kieran on the 5th, number 9, we seemed to concede 99 years of life to S. Patrick, as if he had died in the year of Christ 476: we confess that this opinion held with us for some time, as being suitable for resolving most difficulties; but afterward, more carefully weighing how great was the force of the negative argument drawn from the silence of the authors about the evil or good death of Loegaire, and about the conversion or obstinacy of his successor Ailill, as well as about Lugaid, the son of Loegaire, we judged that even from this number sixteen years should be cut off.

Section VII. The triple captivity of S. Patrick, and the beginnings of his monastic life.

[45] The difficult question about the years of the Patrician life is followed by another more difficult one concerning the distribution of years The chronology of Patrick up to the year 432 is confused: spent before the solemn mission of the year 432, among the various hardships of captivities and pilgrimages: about which years there is a remarkable confusion among the authors of his Life, because they did not sufficiently distinguish the triple captivity, the double sojourn in Gaul, the twofold journey to Ireland, and the priestly Ordination from the episcopal one: which we shall now attempt to explain as best we can, partly from his own Confession, and partly from the Life that exists under the name of Probus: which because Colgan judged it should be esteemed less, he entangled himself in inextricable difficulties. For that crude division of the Patrician years into four groups of thirty, which nearly all Irish writers maintain, confused everything; while it is asked how Patrick could have been a disciple of S. Germanus for thirty years, when Germanus led a secular life as a married man, a judge of the province and a leading man of his city, until the year 418, conspicuous indeed for his outstanding legal expertise; but so insanely addicted to hunting and other noble amusements that he demanded the death of S. Amator the Bishop, who opposed his custom, in which there was something of profane superstition, with a monstrous sacrilege.

[46] Patrick therefore, born in the year 377, where, as he says, He is sold in Ireland in the year 392, at age 16: I fell into captivity when I was then about sixteen years old: wherefore we place the year 392, extended to summer, so that he had entered his sixteenth year by some months. The reason, says Life 2 and 3, for this first pilgrimage and his coming to Scotland was this: A Scottish army, having assembled a fleet as was their custom and accompanied by a great number of ships, having frequently sailed across to Britain, was leading many captives from there, and doing this also in the customary manner, chance brought it about that the boy with his sister was led as a captive among others to Scotland: seized, that is, in the field where he was tending cattle. And lest any dispute about the name of Scotland be raised, he himself says more expressly: I was brought to Ireland in captivity. Here, sold to Milcho in Dalriada, he had already been spending his sixth year tending pigs in the wilderness, He flees from there in the year 397: and the whole year of Christ 397 had not yet expired, when an opportunity divinely offered itself to escape by flight to a ship about to set sail for Britain: which he used to reach the mouth of the Boyne River, and fell in with a pagan man, who (as Life 4 has it) seeing a youth walking through the desert, took him and sold him to a certain merchant of that ship, to which he himself was heading at the Angel's command, and received a great bronze cauldron from the merchant in exchange for him. But soon experiencing divine vengeance upon himself and his household, he rescinded the unjust transaction and released Patrick as a free man.

[47] And returns to his homeland: Who in his Confession, number 9, narrates by what means he was then freely received into that ship, and adds: After three days we reached land, and for twenty-seven days we traveled through the wilderness... On our journey God provided us with food, fire, and dry weather daily, until on the fourteenth day we reached people, as we have indicated: for twenty-eight days we traveled through the wilderness, and on the night when we arrived, we had nothing to eat: but by a new miracle through Patrick, God provided so that from a herd of pigs offered and from wild honey, from that day the companions of the voyage had food in abundance: who, having left their ship in some Welsh port, were making a journey on foot with Patrick toward the North. But what shall we say that wilderness was, Devastated by Scots and Picts: or that great vastness of solitude, as Probus speaks, on which so many days had to be spent? We think it was none other than the desolation brought by the continuous incursions of the Picts and Scots upon the lands which, as Gildas writes, had been stripped of every armed soldier and great youth by Maximus; and thenceforth were trampled by overseas nations from the northwest and north: among which especially were those first exposed to the plundering of barbarians and pirates: through which, however, one had to travel to reach the Alcluyd region. And if it was the winter season (which it is credible was chosen as being more secure from the barbarians who otherwise ravaged all Britain; yet not so that all fear from this quarter was absent), it is no wonder that the journey was of longer duration (otherwise easily completed in a space of eight days) and that sometimes they arrived where neither people nor food could be found.

[48] Again after three months: He had been three months in his homeland, as we find in the Tripartite Life: and he had already entered the year of Christ 398, the twenty-second of his age: when his parents, having crossed over to Armorican Britain with their household (whether for the sake of visiting relatives who had previously migrated there, or out of weariness from hostile harassments), and there killed by the sons of Fectmagius who were invading the Armoricans, received the end of their lives, while Patrick received the beginning of a new servitude: by which he was again led into a distant land and one entirely foreign to his own language, says Probus. On the first night that I stayed there, he himself says in his Confession, I heard a divine response saying to me: You will be with them for two months: but Probus adds: And after this you will come to your homeland: but when you have stayed there for a short time, you will suffer captivity a third time; then you will go to Rome; from there, having returned, you will subdue the whole land to me; and after these things I will take you up with honor. And is captured a third time: The other authors are silent about the third captivity, and Probus himself is very confused here: yet he clearly expresses the new nation by which he was carried off on this third occasion, and the place to which he was deported. For first, captured by the Scots in his homeland, he was led to Ireland; second, he was carried off by British exiles invading the Armoricans, from whence, fleeing with other captives on the sixtieth day of his captivity and setting out on a journey, he arrived on the tenth day among the people of his homeland; so that it seems entirely necessary that in that second captivity he was sold among the Picts, enemies of the Britons and differing from them and the Irish in language.

[49] And is led to Gaul: On the third occasion, however, it was Gauls who, either having captured him themselves or having bought him from his captors, carrying him in their ship to their own land, had a contrary wind for many days, until Patrick obtained a favorable one for them; and after twelve days he came to Brotgalum, And flees to Tours: thence to Traiectum. Where he was freed from captivity by Christians, and fleeing from there he came to Martin the Bishop at Tours, and stayed with him for four years, and being tonsured, was ordained by him as a cleric, and received instruction and teaching from him. So says Probus; in which we conceive the following chronology, that in March of the aforesaid year Patrick set out for Armorica with his parents: in April he was carried off; in June he returned to his relatives in his homeland: and being carried off again in the autumn, he arrived at Tours in the tenth or eleventh month after his uncle's death: for we demonstrated that S. Martin died in the year 397 in our treatment of the Acts of S. Sigebert, Section 7, February 1.

[50] That Patrick went to S. Martin all writers state: but mostly after narrating his journey to Germanus of Auxerre, as a matter of entirely uncertain date: but Germanus was ordained Bishop nineteen years after the death of Martin. Where in the monastery of S. Martin, recently deceased: Probus alone expressly makes the sojourn at Tours prior both in time and in the order of narration to the one at Auxerre: although deceived by the common way of speaking, by which people are said to go "to S. Martin," "to S. Germanus," and other saints, when they visit the bodies and churches or monasteries called by their names. Patrick could certainly have been unaware of his uncle's very recent death in that disturbance of public affairs, and could have hastened to Tours as if for the help of one still living: yet frustrated in this expectation, he should not have departed from there, nor could he have more conveniently laid the foundations of a more religious life elsewhere than in that monastery which Galbertus was governing according to the rule of life received from S. Martin, having been appointed Abbot by him while he was still alive. For not only was Patrick tonsured at Tours as a Cleric, which it is credible was done by S. Brictius, the successor of Martin; but also admitted to the monastic Order, even if the author of the Tripartite Life did not say so, his observed abstinence from meat according to rule and other exercises enumerated at number 36 would indicate it. He receives the tonsure at the monastery: And when he says that up to that day Patrick had been tonsured only in the manner of servants, he makes plain that immediately after the narrated captivities this tonsure was received by S. Patrick: and not at that time when he was reckoned a disciple of S. Germanus. As for the fact that this author also says this office was performed for him by S. Martin himself, this is as pardonable as the fact that, with the common error of the rest, he leads the youth recently freed from captivity, or at least a thirty-year-old, to the school of S. Germanus.

[51] And this about the time: about the place we scarcely think there can be doubt that Probus's Brotgalum is Bordeaux, today Bourdeaux, as it were Bord-des-gaulx, that is, the bank or port of the Gauls. The name Traiectum left no trace of itself in those parts: yet we cannot doubt that a name taken from the thing, meaning a crossing-place, was once given to some village situated on the opposite bank of the Dordogne River, where now perhaps the Burg or Port of Cuzac is. And from there, if Patrick had wished to direct his journey to his homeland, he necessarily had to pass through Tours: And stays for four years: for no more direct route can be conceived to the Port of Ictium, where the crossing to Britain is the shortest. But why would he return there, with his parents dead and having experienced so many calamities in his homeland? Especially when, with God directing, he understood that he was called to a higher kind of life. And where would he take himself if not to Tours? Where he believed he had an uncle as Bishop, who would be the best teacher of the spiritual life. He therefore remained there, and indeed for the first forty days with the Bishop who succeeded, frequenting the cell erected by him over the tomb of the recently deceased predecessor, famous for daily miracles: then he betook himself outside the city to the Greater Monastery of S. Martin, so called afterward, when the second one near the body of the Saint within the city itself began to be counted among the monasteries: and thus the various passages of the authors about the sojourn with S. Martin are reconciled, and we arrive at the autumn of the year 401, which was the twenty-fourth of S. Patrick's age.

Section VIII. The pilgrimages of S. Patrick: the first unsuccessful expedition to Ireland: the sojourn at Auxerre.

[52] Around this time we think occurred what Life 3, number 22, narrates: He stayed four years with S. Martin, and the Angel said to S. Martin that Patrick should go to the island of Tamara. Afterward, by angelic warning: And here indeed S. Martin being named is understood to mean the Abbot of S. Martin's, from what has been said. Colgan and Ussher seek the island of Tamara throughout the Mediterranean Sea and do not find it, and indeed it is an obscure passage, especially because it is added: Having spent nine years there, Patrick wished to visit Rome. But it is clear from what follows that by this last passage the journey to Pope Celestine is meant: therefore about twenty-six years must be interposed between that journey and the four years spent in the monastery of S. Martin: and consequently the island to which Patrick is here ordered to go from the monastery of S. Martin is different from the one he inhabited for nine years before going to Rome on S. Germanus's advice. Therefore we shall not fear to dismiss all the conjectures of others, by which some wish to understand at the aforesaid passage either Gallinaria, or Capraria, Patrick is ordered to return to Ireland: or Camaria island (although we can believe that Patrick, wandering through the islands of the Mediterranean Sea, visited them) and we think nothing more probable than that Tamarensem has crept in for Temorensem or Temoriensem, that is, Ireland itself: whose royal and chief city, commonly called Temoria by those writing in Latin, is named Temair in Fiacc's Irish hymn in Colgan. And we believe this the more easily, the more it is established from the Confession of S. Patrick himself and other authors about his life that the Saint was admonished by frequent visions to return to Ireland, wherever he might be, immediately after his captivity and long before he was directed there by the Pontiff.

[53] He stays briefly in his homeland: Having received such a mandate through Galbertus, the Abbot of S. Martin, who is here improperly called Martin, Patrick seems to have sailed to Britain to arrange the crossing to Ireland, and also to bring along some auxiliaries from among his relatives for that expedition: and we think this is what is referred to in the Confession at number 13: Again after a few years I was in Britain with my parents, that is, my relatives, who received me as a son and earnestly asked me that now at least, after such great tribulations as I had endured, I would never leave them: but stirred by frequent visions in his nightly rest to attend to the salvation of the Irish, when, with wars then especially raging between the Britons and Scots, he saw no convenience for executing this plan at present, he turned his mind to an Italian pilgrimage: and as Tirechan wrote, cited by Ussher on page 835: And despairing of the crossing, he travels for 7 years: For seven years he walked and sailed in waves and in flat places through Gaul and all of Italy, and in the islands which are in the Tyrrhenian Sea, as he himself said in the commemoration of his labors: the Tripartite Life has the same seven-year span at number 38: but as if spent on some one island: Probus indeed enters upon the same path: and says Patrick lived among the barefoot solitaries for eight years and among certain island hermits for nine years. But that island stay of nine years belongs to later times, immediately preceding the journey to Pope Celestine: the other seven or eight years, whether they were spent in one or more places, we cannot trust anyone more certainly than Patrick himself, who indicates multiple places in Tirechan.

[54] We therefore believe that the year 402 was partly given to friends and relatives Again admonished: in Britain and partly spent on the return to Gaul: whence after a repeated forty-day stay perhaps at the tomb of S. Martin, as well as some time in the monastery where he had first made his novitiate in the religious life, it suffices if we bring him to Italy after the beginning of the year 403: which, with seven full years of a more austere life added among mountain solitaries and islanders, becomes 410. In this year, drawn almost to its end, He becomes a Priest in Tuscany: the Angel of the Lord again appeared to S. Patrick, saying: Go to S. Senior the Bishop, who is on Mount Hermon on the right side of the Ocean sea, and his city is walled with seven walls. So says Probus, and similarly certain other Lives; for the explanation of which some Oedipus is necessary; or rather pardon must be given to the Irish, little skilled in the knowledge of foreign regions. Thus the ancient Scholiast on Fiacc, speaking of Auxerre, says: Burgundy is the name of the province in which that city is: or in the southern region of Italy is that province: but it is truer that it is in Gaul. To say something by conjecture, however, there is suspicion that some mountain of Tuscany, which the Arno River flows past, is meant here by the corrupted word Hermon, and perhaps the Pisan mountain, long known for the habitations of very many hermits in its vicinity: perhaps also the Bishop of the City of Pisa was the said S. Senior or Senator, one of those who intervened between Gaudentius (known at the beginning of the fourth century at the Roman Council under Pope Melchiades) and Alexander (named when the seventh century was reaching its midpoint), their names having been obliterated by the injury of time.

[55] And from Ireland again approaches: What happened next? Probus continues: And when he had come there, he stayed with him for some days; then that Bishop ordained him a Priest, and read with him for many periods: perhaps two or three years. While he was staying there, on a certain night he heard the voices of children from the bosom and from the womb of their mothers who were in Ireland, saying: Come, holy Patrick, save us from the wrath to come. At the same hour the Angel also said to him: Go to Ireland and you will be the Apostle of that island... Rising therefore, Patrick came to Ireland, and immediately the prophets of Ireland prophesied that Patrick had come there. When, however, the islanders scorned him as he preached day and night, though they could not resist the ordinance of God, S. Patrick poured out prayers of this kind to the Lord: Returning after an unsuccessful attempt: Lord Jesus Christ, who hast directed my journey through Gaul and through Italy to these islands, lead me, I beseech thee, to the See of the Holy Roman Church, so that having received authority to preach with confidence, the peoples of the Irish may become Christians through me.

[56] The year 413 was already under way, or perhaps had even passed, when Britain received the Saint returning by the same route he had come, a guest for at least one year, which was 414 of the century: where we entirely think those things occurred which Rhygyfarch wrote in Ussher on page 843, and which Giraldus Cambrensis and Capgrave, who copied Rhygyfarch, wrote in the Life of S. David of Menevia: although all using the same anachronism, and recognizing only a single Irish expedition, they attribute them to times that followed much later. These are the words of Rhygyfarch: Patrick, educated in Roman languages and disciplines, accompanied by troops of virtues, having been made a Bishop, sought out the people among whom he had been exiled: And seized by love of solitude: among whom, restoring the lamp of fruitful work with the oil of twofold charity with unflagging labor, and wishing to place it not under a bushel but upon a candlestick, so that it might pour upon all, with the Father of all being glorified; he visited the region of the Ceretic people: in which, having lived for a little while, he entered the Demetian countryside: and surveying it, he at length arrived at the place which was called the Valley of the Rose, and recognizing it as a pleasing place, he vowed to serve God faithfully there. But while he was revolving these thoughts in meditation, an Angel of the Lord appeared to him: God has not appointed this place for you, he said, Lest he remain in Britain: but for a son who is not yet born; nor will he be born until thirty years have passed. Hearing these things, S. Patrick, mourning and marveling, deliberated and said in his heart: Since my labor is reduced to nothing before the sight of my Lord, and one who is not yet born is placed above me: I will go and henceforth not submit to such labor. But while he was thinking these things to himself, soothed by such words from the Angel, he received consolation: It will not be so: but the Lord has appointed you as the chief of the Irish Islands; He is warned by an Angel: for it has not yet received the word of life (that is, wholly and fully, as through Patrick); for there you must be of service; there the Lord has prepared a seat for you; there you will shine with signs and virtues, and you will subject the whole people to God. I will be with you: let this be a sign for you: I will show you the whole island: let the mountains be bent, let the sea be humbled, let the eye raised above all things from the place where you stand see what has been promised. When these things were said, and his eyes were raised from the place where he stood, which is now called the Seat of Patrick (Tynemouth adds: And there was a rather large valley, in which is a stone upon which he stood, before the door of a certain ancient chapel, which I saw with my own eyes and touched with my hands), he surveyed the whole island.

[57] So far Rhygyfarch: Predicting the birth of S. David: which things can by no means be believed to have been done in the year 432, in which, consecrated as Bishop with full power to exercise the apostolic office, with as great a company of men and equipment as the Life describes, he crossed over to Ireland: for how, after having excited such great expectation of himself at Rome and in Gaul, and with matters after so many delays and

obstacles, matters having been at last so happily brought to this point, could the desire of remaining in Britain have entered Patrick's mind even in a dream? At this time, however, those things could have occurred quite easily, since Patrick was disposed, as was natural, to be afflicted at seeing himself almost entirely cast down from the hope which so many preceding oracles had created, and being thirty-seven years of age, eminently suited for accomplishing deeds and bearing labors. This reasoning, Which would be born after 30 years: being most probable from the very context of events, also becomes more plausible in that light is thus shed on the otherwise most intricate chronology of S. David of Menevia, making it clear how, after thirty years had elapsed, returning from Rome and passing through Ceretic territory as before, in the year 446 of the same century, he predicted concerning the boy then already conceived how great he would be: and David, who died in the year 544, If indeed so many were determined: would have completed 97, not 147 years of life, as was stated on March 1 before his Life. If, however, anyone on account of what will be said below does not think the determined number of 30 years should be trusted (as indeed it is suspect to us lest it was fabricated by divination for the same reason as elsewhere), nothing will prevent the same S. David, foretold for a more distant or no certain time, from having been conceived in the year when Patrick, returning from Rome for the last time, passed through Britain, and from having lived only 84 years when he died.

[58] Probus continues his narrative, and passing over in silence the things done in Britain, A disciple of S. Germanus: says: Having crossed the British Sea, he came, as he had purposed in his heart, to a most holy and proven man in faith and doctrine, an outstanding Primate of almost all the Gauls, namely Germanus, Bishop of the Church of Auxerre: with whom he stayed for no small time in all subjection, with patience, obedience, charity, chastity, and all purity of both spirit and mind, remaining a Virgin in the fear of the Lord, walking in goodness and simplicity of heart all the days of his life. For seeing that the Irish harvest was not yet ripe for his labors, by angelic warning, as it is fitting to believe, he suspended for a time the plan of approaching the Roman Pontiff, until he should find some man of great authority through whom he might have access to the Pontiff, and the episcopal consecration most necessary for so great an undertaking might be obtained; meanwhile, however, he would devote some time to acquiring fuller knowledge. But for how long? Most wish thirty years, For how long was he there? dividing the entire life of Patrick into four equal portions: others assert forty, says the author of Life 2: but from what has been deduced so far, it is clear that both exceed the entire time that intervened between the last captivity and the arrival in Ireland. Jocelin therefore more correctly counted eighteen years from the arrival in the city of Auxerre: although these too are excessive if we look precisely at Germanus alone.

[59] Colgan twists himself in every direction in order to bring together at Rome, where it is known that the young Germanus devoted himself to jurisprudence, youths most dissimilar in birth, manners, and whole manner of life, Was it in Italy? at least for some short time, and he is moved to this by the Hymn of S. Fiacc, in which it is said: He set out, that is Patrick, across all the Alps, having crossed the sea, which was a fortunate expedition, and he remained with Germanus in the southern part of Latium: to which passage the Scholiast of Fiacc, who himself perhaps did not sufficiently grasp the author's meaning, says: Latium is what is called Italy: but Germanus was then in Gaul. But in the Irish the word "leta" occurs once, twice, and more often: By no means: but in Gaul: which I do not know why the interpreter so consistently renders as "Latium"; when Letavia, that is, Armorica, lying opposite Britain to the south, is so much nearer, and under that name, signifying a part of Gaul more familiar to the Irish, the whole of Gaul could be understood to be meant: in the southern part of which there is an island, about which we shall presently speak, to which Patrick withdrew at Germanus's suggestion: unless you prefer to say that because of the use of the Latin language, then still common throughout all the Gauls, the Gauls are called Latium, just as that part of Brabant where the French language now prevails, derived from the Latin speech of the Romans, is called Roman Brabant. The sense of the aforesaid verses will therefore be this: Ordered by the Angel, having left Ireland, to betake himself across the sea, he set out across all the Alps; not the Italian Alps, but the British ones (from which the island itself has the name of Albion, as it were Alp-eyo, that is, Alpine or mountainous island), and he set out having crossed the sea which separates Ireland from Britain. Whatever the sense of this passage may be, it is certain that there is no time at which it can be demonstrated that Patrick was at Rome before he came to Celestine: for the Breviaries of the Regular Canons, composed in this or the preceding century, in which, in order to enroll Patrick in their Order, they affirm that he studied at Rome and dwelt with the Lateran Clerics, we do not think should necessarily be followed in so ancient a matter.

[60] But he did not find Germanus as Bishop immediately at Auxerre, First of S. Amator: since he was not consecrated until the year 418; but S. Amator; whose memory it is not surprising was obscured among the Irish by the brilliance of the much more famous Germanus. With this bishop, therefore, Patrick stayed for the remaining four years of his episcopate, and then continued with his successor, whom Jocelin writes was warned by a divine oracle to retain the Saint with him, who at the time he himself was ordained was in his forty-first year of age: and he kept him with himself for, it seems, four or five years; Then of Germanus: until Patrick withdrew to the island of Arles, in which Germanus is said to have taught him, that is, to have arranged for him to be further taught, while he himself was meanwhile occupied with his own and the whole Church's public and very great affairs at home and abroad. An angelic apparition, which we think was designated by Probus, also contributed to persuading him to make this move, where he says: The Angel of the Lord came to him again and said: Go to those who are on the island between mountains and sea... and so he remained with those islanders for nine years, held by them in great veneration. So we think, although Probus has these things in a reversed order, that is, before he brings Patrick to the familiarity of S. Germanus.

Section IX. S. Patrick withdraws to Lérins, and having finally obtained the mission from Celestine, enters Ireland auspiciously.

[61] Patrick departs from Germanus to Lérins: Here moreover a not insignificant question arises: what is that island of Arles, or (as it is written elsewhere) of Aralan? For although there is a small island one mile from Arles, which the reflux of the Rhone surrounds in a broad bay resembling a lake, and in which a monastery is now seen, called Montmajour from the place: yet the brothers Sainte-Marthe teach in volume 4 of the Christian Gaul that its beginnings should not be sought before the tenth century. Colgan suspects Camargue at the mouths of the Rhone: but that there were any monasteries there at that time we learn from no ancient author; there is, however, near to the east the island of Lérins, most celebrated for its outstanding reputation of holiness from the time twenty years before Patrick came to Gaul, inhabited mostly by monks of Arles, so that it could have been called "of Arles" by foreign writers who did not fully grasp the proper name of the place, unless one prefers to suspect that Laranensis was erroneously written for Lerinensis. We could say much about this island: but it suffices here to hear what S. Eucherius, Bishop of Lyon, wrote about it to S. Hilary of Arles in his little work in praise of the desert. The location described by Probus, between mountains and the sea, is favorable: namely the Maritime Alps, and the Gallic Sea, which proceeding from there toward Etruria is called the Etruscan and Upper Sea.

[62] Abounding in holy men: Indeed I owe reverence to all desert places which are illuminated by the retirement of the pious; yet I embrace my Lérins with especial honor, which had received me, cast forth by the shipwrecks of a stormy world, in its most pious arms: worthy to have been founded by Honoratus as author (he was, according to the Life given on January 16, Bishop of Arles, and departed this life in the year 429: and he is written by the Sainte-Marthe brothers to have given the beginning to the monastery around the year 375)... worthy to nourish the most excellent monks and to bring forth Priests to be sought after. This place now holds his successor Maximus (afterward promoted to the See of Riez)... this had Lupus of reverend name (then Bishop of Troyes): this had his Vincentius Germanus (surnamed of Lérins, and celebrated for his truly golden work written against heresies)... this now possesses the venerable Caprasius, equal in gravity to the ancient Saints (the teacher of S. Honoratus himself). This has those holy men who, in separate cells, brought the Egyptian Fathers into our Gaul. To these add Eucherius and Honoratus themselves, all now enrolled in the catalogue of the Saints, all living at that time when S. Patrick was at Auxerre, and most of them still dwelling on that island.

[63] Hence ordered to return to Ireland: Meanwhile, while he stayed there through many years, according to Probus, the Angel of the Lord, who had appeared to Patrick unceasingly, also now visited him with frequent visions, saying that the time had now arrived for him to come to Ireland and by his evangelical mouth to convert to Christ the fierce and barbarous nations for whose instruction he had been destined. Having therefore seized the opportune time, he undertakes what the Lord deigned to call him to. That is, he communicates what was happening to him to his teacher S. Germanus, who had opportunely returned in the year 430 from the British legation, in which we cannot believe, on the sole authority of the Scholiast of Fiacc, that Patrick went as his companion, since he appends to it a fable that derogates all credence from this his statement: we rather think that S. Germanus, whom we know from his Life set out for Arles immediately after the British legation Once, on Germanus's advice: to visit Hilary, used the same occasion to make an excursion to the island of Lérins, celebrated throughout all Gaul for the well-known holiness of its inhabitants: or certainly that Patrick came to Arles itself for the purpose of seeking counsel, upon learning of his arrival in that city. Germanus, however, hearing what S. Patrick narrated as having often happened to him while sleeping and waking, the same things now being impressed anew by recent admonitions, said, as the Scholiast has it: Go therefore to the successor of S. Peter, namely Celestine, so that he may ordain you; because this duty falls upon him. Patrick therefore came to him, and he did not give him the honor: because he had previously sent Palladius to Ireland to teach it: from which we infer that the year 431 was under way before Patrick arrived at Rome.

[64] But after Celestine refused to ordain him Bishop, says the same Scholiast as above, And approaches Pope Celestine a second time: he turned aside to the islands of the Tyrrhenian Sea, and then found the Staff of Jesus, in nothing inferior, as the Acts will show, to the Mosaic rod, and held afterward in great honor among the Irish. And Patrick came again to S. Germanus

... Germanus therefore sent Patrick again to Celestine, and Segestius with him, to bear witness on his behalf... Afterward Celestine learned that Palladius had died, and then he said: No man can receive anything on earth unless it has been given him from above. Then Patrick was ordained in the sight of Celestine... And Celestine did not live more than one week after Patrick was ordained, as they say: Sixtus succeeded him, and in his first year Patrick came to Ireland, And obtains the mission: and he treated Patrick most graciously, and gave him a portion of the relics of Peter and Paul and many books. So far the Scholiast: who, since he adds that Amatorex, Bishop of Auxerre, was the one who ordained Patrick, as is clearly known to have been erroneous and to have confused events, persons, and times; so he should not move us more when he says Patrick was ordained in the very sight of Celestine, than when he adds "and of Theodosius the Younger, King of the world": for it was not Theodosius the Younger but Valentinian who ruled in the West: therefore for "in the sight of" take the time of the Pontificate and the Empire: and by "ordination" understand the appointment by which, through Apostolic letters, he was given the faculty of going to Ireland and receiving episcopal consecration, when he should more certainly learn of the death of Palladius.

[65] He departs for Ireland with 9 companions: Thus instructed, Patrick departs from Rome with nine companions, as the Irish manuscript related by Ussher on page 838 has it: nor do the Acts themselves list more, when they treat of the Saint's approach to King Loegaire, and grant the ninth place to the boy Benignus recently recruited in Ireland, in the place of Loman left behind to guard the boat. We know that the author of the Tripartite Work and the author of Life 3 give Patrick 24 companions crossing from Britain to Ireland, and Tynemouth and Capgrave 34: but we rightly suspect that this crossing was confused by the authors, who did not sufficiently distinguish everything, with the other one made after the twelfth year; when Patrick also preached for some time in Britain, and having gained a great name there from such prosperously begun enterprises, could easily have attracted more auxiliaries into the work of the Gospel, especially from his paternal family the sons of his sisters together with their mothers; whom it is scarcely credible all joined their uncle sooner. But lest we dispute further about this matter, which is not really of great moment: let us see from Probus how, returning from Rome, he received the episcopal rank or ordination on the journey.

[66] Hearing therefore of the death of the Archdeacon Palladius, And when Palladius's death was learned: his disciples, who were in the Britains, came to S. Patrick at Eboria, and announced to him the death of Palladius. Patrick and those who were with him turned aside on their journey to a certain man of wonderful holiness, a chief Bishop named Amator, dwelling in a nearby place: and there S. Patrick, knowing what was to come upon him, was elevated to the episcopal rank by the same chief Bishop Amator. But also some other Clerics were ordained to the office of a lower rank. On the very day on which S. Patrick was consecrated with sacred blessings, this canticle of the Psalmist was fittingly sung in the choir of the chanting Clerics: You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. From the fact that the author of the fourth Life says Patrick, having received Apostolic permission, walked through Italy and Gaul by a direct route to the sea situated between Gaul and Britain; and after the interposition of one miracle narrative adds: Having therefore heard of the death of Palladius in Britain, which his returning disciples reported at Eboria. From this, I say, Colgan thinks it necessarily follows that the city of Eboria must be sought between the Morini and Britain, and was either Boulogne (here erroneously called Eboria) or the Augusta of the Eburones itself, now (as he falsely believes) called Liège, or the once very great city of Tongres: as if the Eburones and Morini were not distant from each other at all, and indeed should be taken as the same. At Ivrea in the sub-Alpine region: But the person who observes with us how much in reversed order the deeds of Patrick are related by the authors will not have recourse to such poorly coherent suggestions, moved by the authority of that single passage alone: and will rather confess himself to be uncertain and hesitant.

[67] Why, however, should we confess this? When in the Life of S. Malachy of Down which S. Bernard wrote, chapter 10, we read the following about him going to Rome: When he had come beyond the Alps to Iporia, a city of Italy? That this is the same as what is today called Ivrea, and was called Eporedia by the ancients, a very ancient city of Insubria, is established from the documents reported by Ughelli in volume 4 of Sacred Italy: in which after the year 1000 the Bishops of Ipporia and Yporia are frequently read, as well as Yporedienses. Through this city the route from Gaul to Rome, or from there in the other direction, is direct. The place, however, to which Patrick turned aside to be consecrated, we judge to have been Augusta Taurinorum (Turin) itself, He is consecrated Bishop at Turin: as being distant from Ivrea only one day's journey, deflecting somewhat to the left; in which city the Church believes there was an episcopal see from about the beginning of the preceding century, referring to the year 310 its Bishop S. Victor, through whom the chapel of SS. Solutor, Adventor, and Octavian, Martyrs, was enlarged with buildings and enriched with an annual income: although the names of the Bishops who preceded and followed Victor have been erased by oblivion, down to S. Maximus, who is known to have held the pontificate in the year 465, from the fact that he is found to have been present at the Roman Synod under Pope Hilary. Of the intermediate bishops, therefore, some one may have had the name Amatus, or Amator, or even Amatorex (for various authors have it variously); and the Scholiast of Fiacc who makes him Bishop of Auxerre strays enormously from the truth: for this one had already departed this life sixteen years ago.

[68] Jocelin, supposing the consecration was done at Rome by Celestine, omitting all those things, proceeds to the angelic address and the divine vision on the journey, by which Patrick was inspired to bring to completion the ministry divinely imposed on him and also committed to him by the Lord Pope, He visits S. Germanus: and hastened his return toward Ireland with twenty men (we believe there were fewer) distinguished in life and wisdom, deputed to him for assistance by the Supreme Pontiff himself. He turned aside, as the same author says, to Blessed Germanus, his foster-father and teacher; from whose gift he received chalices and priestly vestments, a supply of books, and other things pertaining to worship and ecclesiastical ministry. So says Jocelin: but the author of the fourth Life continues: And walking through Gaul by a direct route, he came to the sea situated between Gaul and Britain; on whose shore he found two men fighting with each other: whom Blessed Patrick, admonishing them to live peacefully, answered saying that no one could make peace between them unless he could make one stone from the fine grains of sand sticking there. Hearing this, S. Patrick, with the Staff of Jesus which he held in his hand, drawing a circle around the sand, transformed it into one stone. The men, seeing the miracle and giving glory to God, were reconciled. The stone, however, followed S. Patrick, and adorned with gold and silver, it is held in great honor to this day in a certain small city. Finally (to conclude with Probus's words) then the venerable Priest of the Lord, Patrick, quickly boarded a ship, He crosses to Ireland: and came to Britain, and omitting all winding detours, with all speed on a favorable tide he approached our sea in the name of the Holy Trinity and landed in Ireland, before the winter, as it is fitting to believe, of the year 432, when he was in the fifty-fifth year of his age.

[69] He begins to preach the faith in Leinster: This was the end of Patrick's longer pilgrimages in the regions on this side of the sea; this was the beginning of his apostolic labors. He landed first in Leinster, where Palladius had laid certain foundations: where we are entirely persuaded the remaining year was spent along with the beginning of the following year; for the faith could not be so hastily planted among an especially rude people. For the first Baptism celebrated there, in which Sinell was baptized, we believe the 5th of April was chosen: which was the tenth day after the Easter of that year, celebrated on March 26 according to the Canon which was afterward called the Victorine one, as is understood from the epistle of the Irishman Cummian to Segienus, Abbot of Iona, about the Paschal controversy, the eleventh in the collection of Irish epistles published by Ussher: in which, after saying that all the computations of the Cycles were contrary to the one which the British and Scottish schismatics held, and whose author, place, and date he says elsewhere are uncertain, he begins to enumerate them all, and And celebrates the first baptism there on April 5: first cites that Cycle which S. Patrick, our Papa, brought and made; in which the moon from the 14th to the 21st is regularly observed, and the equinox from the 12th before the Kalends of April. Nor did we assign the aforesaid day of April 5 to this first baptism without reason: for we think nothing else is designated by these words from the Calendar of Oengus reported for this day: The baptism of the great Patrick began in Ireland; which in the Martyrology of Tamlacht is read thus: The baptism of Patrick came to Ireland. Surely the joy of these firstfruits deserved to be celebrated with a perpetual memorial.

[70] But since the obstinacy of that people did not receive the seeds of the divine word readily enough, From there he goes to Ulster: the holy man believed it could happen that he would have greater success in Dalriada, where he had served as a captive and had more familiar knowledge of the places and the dispositions of the people, and perhaps also of the language, at least in its different dialect. Therefore he directed his journey thither, and there he did not labor fruitlessly, and at last he also founded for future monks the monastery of Saball, which he always held most dear and finally enriched with the possession of his body. If you wish to believe that three years were spent on these matters, you will indeed have taken a fitting amount of time, and that Easter celebrated with so many contests against King Loegaire and his druids, performed on the Plain of Brega with the King watching, will have fallen in the fifth year of Loegaire, the year of Christ 436, And in the year 436 at Easter he engages with Loegaire: on the 13th day before the Kalends of May. In this or the next year followed the foundation of the Church of Athtruim, wrongly assigned by others commonly to the year 433 itself: then the remaining deeds of the holy man, which it is impossible to arrange in chronological order, since the first reporters of them neglected this. It only remains here to observe that Patrick interrupted all the remaining time spent on the conversion of Ireland with a double journey to Rome: And returns to Rome once: one indeed after twelve years spent in the apostolate, when, meeting Clerics returning to Ireland, he gave as a gift the skin he had long used during sacrifice: And again: the other in decrepit old age at eighty years, when, after establishing the church of Armagh, he was warned by an Angel to go to the City for the purpose of obtaining relics; both of which journeys fell within the pontificate of S. Leo the Great: and if you add to these two pilgrimages the first one under Pope Celestine for obtaining the mission, when the time was finished which God wished to be spent on ascetic

and literary instruction in Gaul and Italy, you will find that Rome was visited a third time by this apostolic man, as is said in his Life: indeed a fourth time, if with Probus you double the first journey to Celestine within the space of one year: for which reason it ought to have been taken by the other authors as only a single one.

Section X. Certain fabulous chronologies of the Patrician Acts are rejected.

[71] Just as those who divert waters received from every source to their own use easily offend against public or private rights; so it is difficult for writers, who so study the glory of their own country that, content to have glimpsed in a doubtful light any shadow of right, they do not hesitate to seize upon it immediately, to guard against sometimes running counter to truth, The Episcopate of S. Patrick among the Morini: and to prevent their conjectures or the spurious monuments on which they relied from being convicted of manifest falsehood, when more certain ones are later produced. Against this rock, among others, Jacques Malbrancq was dashed; who, if he had seen the years of the Patrician life arranged in the manner we have ordered them, we do not doubt would have omitted from his first volume on the Morini that chapter 26 of book 1, in which he endeavors to claim Patrick as Bishop of Boulogne for eight years. He had read the name of Patrick in the manuscript catalogues of the Bishops of this diocese: but as he himself confesses at the end of the chapter, it was added out of order in the margin; and he believed he had abundant testimony from the Life of S. Arnulph of Soissons that Patrick held an episcopal see at Boulogne. This testimony, he writes, at last gained his credence, which had long been ambiguous, when, as he turned over various things, the proper time for fixing a see there dawned upon him. It dawned in this way: Patrick, Asserted by Jacques Malbrancq: he says, had passed thirty years of age when he came to Germanus, he stayed with him eighteen years: therefore in the year 424 he was sent to Rome and sent back to Germanus by Pope Celestine with the episcopal character, so that Germanus might use him wherever the greater need of the Church seemed to require. Hence Malbrancq consequently deduces that Patrick, by Germanus's command, first exercised his fervor in winning souls among the Morini, who were all the more in need of help because there was danger that the Pelagian pestilence would infect this region nearest to Britain. Then in the year 429 of that century, he says that Germanus, passing through there with Lupus, encouraged Patrick to pursue his fruitful labors: but lest Ireland be entirely deprived of the aid destined for it, he pressed upon Celestine to send Palladius: but when Palladius was cut off by a premature death, he finally recognized that it was God's will that Patrick should go. This is the sum of the fable, which will perhaps find credence when no ancient monuments are extant. Without any foundation: Therefore we do not linger over it, as it stands on its own and is sufficiently refuted by what preceded; we only say that we do not know what that Life of S. Arnulph is which so abundantly testifies to what Malbrancq says. In the one printed in Surius and which we have seen in manuscript, we can find no word about Patrick. What catalogues of Bishops of that diocese he cites we cannot divine, since he nowhere produces them, and in his entire work he does not name a single Bishop who had a see at Boulogne before the destruction of Thérouanne: and the Bishops, if there were any before the sixth century, when Antimundus or Aumundus was sent by Blessed Remigius to announce the faith of Christ to the Morini, remain unknown.

[72] From the fables of the Glastonbury monks: With a similar zeal for honoring his homeland, Michael Alford in his Annals of the British Church derogates credence from all Irish authors of the Patrician Life, and prefers to them the Glastonbury tablets, or more truly fables: although he is compelled to confess that grave parachronisms concerning S. Patrick are found in them. Having been persuaded that a fiction most unskilfully contrived under the name of Patrick was of undoubted faith, he could not be drawn away from this prejudice, even though he detected a manifest error in the very first line; for no one, he says, have we hitherto seen who would raise an objection against it. Capgrave first published it in print and appended it to the Patrician Life, And a fictitious epistle of Patrick: under this cautionary formula, however: The things that are set out below I have excerpted from the books of that monastery at Glastonbury, and whether they savor of truth I leave to the reader's judgment: thus when Gerard Voss was unaware that it had been published, and had found a copy of it from the same books among the collected papers of Marianus Victorius, Bishop of Rieti, thinking he had found a gem, he sealed and enclosed the same in the Miscellanea of the Holy Fathers appended at the end of the works of S. Gregory Thaumaturgus. Whence into volume V of the Great Library of the Fathers there passed that part which Voss had published, under this title: The mission of S. Patrick, directed by Pope Celestine I for the conversion of Ireland, or the epistle of S. Patrick, Apostle of Ireland, from the library of the monastery of Glastonbury, in which he himself was Abbot before he was Bishop of Ireland: which last words, since they are diametrically opposed to the text which is appended to them (for in it Patrick is feigned to testify that, after having converted the Irish to the faith of truth, he at last returned to Britain to the island of Avalon, where, although unwillingly, he was elevated as pastor by the twelve hermits he had found there), we not obscurely infer that Voss himself found the credibility of this fragment suspect, and did not wish to add to it the authority of his own name.

[73] Which is produced in full by Alford: I said "fragment": because from two manuscripts in the Cottonian Library, Alford boasts that he unearthed the entire epistle at the year 439; where he places it, six times more extensive than what had been published so far: but the collector of the English Monasticon, coming to light eight years earlier, anticipated Alford's edition: at the very beginning of which that book of William of Malmesbury, so often cited by Alford, excerpted by John the monk and Adam de Domerham, and transcribed by them under the title of Glastonbury Antiquities, is found in its entirety. The common opening of that Epistle everywhere is expressed in these words: except that in place of the year of Christ 430, the aforesaid Antiquities have the year 425. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. I Patrick, humble little servant of God, in the year of His Incarnation 430, sent as a Legate to Ireland by the most holy Pope Celestine, by the grace of God converted the Irish to the faith of truth: and when I had established them in the Catholic faith, I at last returned to Britain. As for the year, however, And is shown to be false from the year of Christ 430: Alford himself confesses that it was impossible for Patrick to have come to Ireland in the year 30 of that century; much less in the preceding 25, which Stanihurst had followed: but he suspects that Patrick, setting out for the first time from his homeland, to which he had clung after being restored from captivity, sailed to Gaul out of eagerness to learn the Sacred Scriptures under Germanus of Auxerre. But if he had understood that in the Patrician age no one had yet thought of marking the years from the Incarnation of Christ, he could have extricated himself with a brief reply, saying that this error should be attributed not to Patrick but to whoever intruded this note of time into the text: a reply which would doubtless have prevailed among all experts in Chronology, and would have freed the credibility of that epistle from suspicion, were it not that it contained many other things of equal absurdity.

[74] With indulgences fabricated under the name of Celestine: For after, according to the text of the Glastonbury Antiquarians, having found on Ynis-witrin (others have the island of Avalon) the chapel dedicated to the Blessed Virgin and having joined himself to twelve Brothers there living the eremitic life (whose names the same Antiquarians recite individually), he says: In more recent writings (says this fabricated Patrick) I found that S. Phagan and Deruvian obtained ten years of indulgence (in another reading thirty) from Pope Eleutherius who had sent them: and I Brother Patrick acquired twelve years from Pope Celestine of blessed memory. For who is that Celestine? Is it the Second, more than six hundred years younger than Patrick? Or the First, in whose last year Patrick was sent to Ireland? So that it would have been impossible for these indulgences to be obtained from him after the return from Ireland: but they ought to have been obtained after the return, if they were granted for the Church of Glastonbury; and indeed on the occasion of those which Eleutherius was found to have granted, not in more recent writings, as is said here, but in the very writings of SS. Phagan and Deruvian (as the Glastonbury Antiquarians preferred to pretend), shown to them by the aforesaid Brothers. Add that the name "Indulgence," in the sense of a relaxation of penances imposed on penitents, cannot be shown to be older than the eleventh century, although no Catholic has ever denied that the thing itself is most ancient: so that from this too the falsity of that spurious writing is demonstrated.

[75] The Antiquarians then proceed to narrate more extensively, as if from the mouth of Patrick, how on the summit of the mountain he himself found an oratory erected to S. Michael the Archangel by SS. Phagan and Deruvian, endowed with similar indulgences, Under the names of Arnulph and Ogmar: and commended by Christ himself appearing to Patrick in a dream, in which a most ancient codex was found containing the Acts of the Apostles and the deeds of the two aforesaid Saints: from which Patrick learned about the dedication of the aforesaid oratory: and finally near the end the following is read: To the Irish Brothers Arnulph and Ogmar, who came with me from Ireland, because they humbly began to stay at the said oratory, I committed the present document, keeping another similar one in the ark of S. Mary as a memorial for posterity. From this you may detect the author of the fable as someone from among the Anglo-Saxons, who, thinking it mattered little by what name, so long as by some name, the companions of Patrick were called, took names familiar to his own Germanic nation; with no consideration that it was Irishmen on whom he was imposing them, and who were feigned to have entered Britain at a time when no Saxon had yet set foot there with any authority. For all writers agree that the first arrival of the Saxon race on the island fell in the year 450, which for many is an epoch for marking dates.

[76] The occasion for these fabrications seems to the Glastonbury monks to have been none other than some obscure memory of a certain Patrick who, known for having held an episcopate in Ireland, ended his last day at Glastonbury; and the material for embellishing the fable was supplied by the ancient tradition of the inhabitants about SS. Phagan and Deruvian: as well as the pyramids of twenty-six and eighteen feet, standing before the church of Glastonbury from time immemorial, about which Malmesbury writes in Camden on folio 167, which, because they had inscribed upon them various names of unknown persons of an uncertain nation, could also have contributed something to the same purpose. For the Irish and English had begun to contend among themselves about S. Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland: which contention received its greatest increase when it happened that the bones of both Patricks were elevated in both places almost at the same time, around the year 1185: after which we believe both that epistle and all the other fabrications were composed, which the Glastonbury fable-mongers, badly stitched together from Irish writers, turned to their own advantage: and so that they may be briefly examined, we append them here from Capgrave. Blessed Patrick died in the 111th year of his age: and of the Lord's Incarnation 472, which was the year, And with the errors of a fabulous chronology: since he was sent to Ireland, the 47th. Indeed in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 361, Patrick came into the world:

and in the year of the Lord 425 he was sent to Ireland by Pope Celestine: for this was the 64th year of his age (he should have said 66th, so as not to contradict the calculation previously given) and in the year of the Lord 433 he converted Ireland to the faith of Christ, and afterward, having returned to Britain, he endured for 39 years on the island of Avalon, and as stated above, Conceding only 14 years to Patrick in Ireland: in the year of the Lord 472 he departed to the Lord. From which it would follow that Patrick returned from Ireland in the year 447, and consequently labored in the conversion of Ireland for only 14 years: which how false it is, both the beginnings of the See of Armagh and the entire life of Patrick prove: not that life indeed arranged by writers according to years, but yet sometimes enumerating those years which, collected together alone, far exceed this span of 14 years.

[77] From which Alford removes six years: Although a span of fourteen years is insufficient, it nevertheless seems too long to Alford: for since he sees it said by the Glastonbury writers that Patrick was sent to Ireland in the year 25 of the fifth century and that in the year 33 the island was converted: although he rejects both, he nevertheless infers from their opinion that Patrick remained in Ireland for only eight years: and therefore he refers to the year 39 of the century those things which we refuted above when we were dealing with the epistle: when he places Patrick, returning from Rome, where he had gone for the purpose of confirming the See of Armagh, as having remained there; yet in such a way that when necessity called him, whether for the sake of a Synod, leaving the embraces of the Spouse, he would go out to water the garden which he had made his own by Apostolic beneficence: and so he refers to the year 450 And introduces Benignus to the See of Armagh in 453: that Synod of Ireland which is found under the title of the Bishops Patrick, Auxilius, and Iserninus in Spelman among the British Councils. Then at number 9 he adds: It is probable that Patrick on this occasion stayed in Ireland for several years, and after three years consecrated Benignus as Bishop of the See of Armagh: and perhaps celebrated another Synod in the meantime. How probable this is concerning Benignus is clear from what was said above: and it seems absurd in itself even to imagine that a youth scarcely of age for the priesthood should have been elevated to that primary See, since he was a mere boy when Patrick came to Ireland. Meanwhile let the reader note that the year 472 assigned to the Patrician death by the Glastonbury writers does not depart much from the year in which we have established that Sen-Patrick died, on the assumption that he governed the Church of Armagh for only 10 years after his uncle; and would approach even much closer to the truth if we grant that, after the ten-year period was completed, he abdicated that episcopate and transferred it to Benignus, either by himself or through his friend and familiar Mocteus.

Section XI. On the body and church of S. Patrick at Down in Ulster.

[78] From what has been said and demonstrated in the preceding paragraph, it is and will henceforth be beyond doubt, as we believe, that from so imprudently fabricated a writing nothing whatsoever can be derived to prejudice the Irish, who maintain that their Apostle died and was buried among them; and that the body which was exhumed in the year 1185, together with the bodies of SS. Columba and Brigid, is his: about which discovery and the translation that followed it, a fuller treatment would be needed here, had we not done so most fully in the preliminary commentary to the Acts of S. Brigid, Section 10. There should not, however, be omitted here the ridiculous evasion of William of Malmesbury, Whether S. Patrick was buried at Glastonbury: cited by Alford at the year 472, number 7, by which he seeks to claim for his Glastonbury the body of S. Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland, by virtue of a similar discovery and elevation made at Glastonbury in the year 1186. It should be known, he says, that there are three Saints of this name, each of whom was a Bishop and Confessor: one of Clermont, another in Ireland; and the one now in question resting at Glastonbury. This Patrick resting in Ireland was born in Ireland, who held the pontificate there around the year 850, who also was buried there and was translated in the time of King Henry II, son of the Empress Matilda, together with SS. Columba and Brigid.

[79] And that in his place another Patrick found at Down is venerated: In the year 851 indeed, when Farannanus, the Coarb of S. Patrick, was taken from the living, a certain Moel-Patrick, or Patricianus, is found to have succeeded: but we have found no one up to now who has numbered him among the Saints, except this William. The authors of the Patrician Life write that S. Patrick died in the monastery of Saball and was buried at Down: no one says Moel-Patrick was brought to the same place for burial: and even if someone said this, it does not appear with what plausibility one could think that into that very tomb in which the latter was buried in the year 861, the monks of Iona would have wished to bring the shrine of S. Columba in the year 875, fleeing the arms of the Normans. For Who flourished after the year 851? could the opinion have grown strong within fifteen years that the one buried there was S. Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland? Not to mention that the relics of S. Brigid seem to have been brought to the same place before Moel-Patrick was made Bishop, namely around the year 833, when Kildare was invaded and the church of S. Brigid was first burned by the Normans, and again twice within the following two years. And for the body of this great Thaumaturge, removed to safer quarters, the Downspeople considered it should be joined to the body of the Great Patrick; the great reason was the Apostle's own prediction of a shared tomb that would one day be common to him and the Saint: but that they should have wished to join Moel-Patrick to so illustrious and miraculous a Virgin, there could have been no reason, but rather the greatest irreverence. Moreover, with the relics of the two principal Saints of Ireland already joined, to add the third, S. Columba, was a matter of the highest piety and propriety, which cannot be conceived if it was not the great Patrick but some other non-Saint who had been buried there. And these things indeed suffice to overturn the subterfuge of the Malmesbury writer: whom we believe would not have looked to times so remote from the Patrician age if he had known that the other Patrick of the Irish, Or at least S. Sen-Patrick? also numbered among the Saints, was the immediate successor and nephew of the Apostle: and would have said altogether that this one was buried not at Glastonbury but in Ireland, and that as the memory of this distinction faded, he was subsequently venerated by the Irish in place of his uncle. But no one should assume even this unless he is prepared to produce more ancient and more reliable documents than all the ancient Lives of the Great Patrick; which the Glastonbury monks have sufficiently demonstrated they cannot do, seeking their defense from fables.

[80] But what about that immense contention between the people of Armagh and Down over the burial of the deceased body, Not for these, but for the great Patrick himself to be buried: which the authors of the Life recall was resolved by a manifold miracle? Could not this alone persuade a sensible reader that the dispute was not about some ordinary Saint, but about the one whom the whole Island regarded as the teacher of the Christian religion? Add that the place of burial at Down is reported to have been divinely designated for the great Patrick and foreknown to Blessed Brigid through a special revelation. All of which things, The place had been designated from heaven: and the whole history of Patrick's death, for someone to say they pertain to S. Sen-Patrick, would it not need to rest on great and evident testimonies of contemporary authors? It certainly would, nor is there need to argue further here on behalf of the Downspeople: let us rather see how they obtained the holy body. The Angel of the Lord, says Probus, appeared to all who had gathered for his burial and said to them: See that the relics of this most holy man's body are not furtively carried off from the earth by you: and therefore let his body be buried in the earth at a depth of one cubit. And there he was buried deep under the earth: Other Lives indeed recall this angelic command as given to Patrick before his death; yet all agree that the sacred relic was deposited in a very deep pit, and specifically Jocelin says: Entering the Ultonian city of Down, they buried the venerable body in the place previously shown by light... at a depth of five cubits beneath a stone in the heart of the earth. Jocelin, at number 165, had narrated that this place was marked by a celestial light, not far from the mother church of the city of Down... on the eastern side of the cemetery... where, he says, by what and how many miracles his most sacred bones flourished, we have not found written, perhaps because they were not committed to pen by the negligent, or because such writings were repeatedly destroyed by fire by the pagans ruling in Ireland.

[81] And indeed, in the course of time, a church was built over this place, as Probus and the author of the fourth Life agree, and the latter at number 104 indicates it was consecrated in honor of the name of Patrick. Not treated with sufficient reverence at the beginning: But Probus writes that this was done in very recent times, and for so long — which you may marvel at — that great treasure, or at least the mound erected over it, lay open and exposed to the injuries of weather: and not only this, but the Downspeople, who had fought so hard to have it, needed to be admonished by a new miracle to treat the place more reverently. For as the aforesaid fourth Life in Colgan has it at number 34: One day when boys were playing near the tomb of the Saint, a ball went through a certain hole into the tomb. Then one of the playing boys, putting his hand in, wanted to retrieve the ball, but wanting to pull his hand back, he was utterly unable to do so. Having taken counsel, they sent to Bishop Loarnus: who, coming boldly, said: Afterward a church is built over him: Why do you hold the hand of an innocent, O Elder? And immediately the hand was released from the tomb. This Loarnus was one of Patrick's disciples, and about his bishopric near the fortress of Down, the Tripartite Life treats. But afterward, when a church was being built, says Probus, men digging the ground saw fire rising from his tomb: terrified by which fear, they ceased digging and, withdrawing from this intention, began to venerate his memory with greater veneration.

[82] Which being destroyed: But this church was subject to the same fortune by which Down itself was burned and devastated in the years 988, 1015, 1040, 1069, and 1111, as Colgan writes in Appendix 5 to the Acts of S. Brigid, chapter 20: To the cathedral, restored by John de Courcy: so that it is not surprising if in the year 1185, under Malachy, Bishop of Down, it was utterly unknown where the sacred bones of the great Patrick and the two Saints who were remembered as having been joined to him should be sought. That these might be revealed by a divine miracle seems to have been merited both by the piety of the Bishop himself, and also by the notable devotion of John de Courcy, Prince of Ulidia, toward S. Patrick: for when he had, with Hoveden as witness, besieged in the year 1176 and on the 11th day before the Kalends of June captured the city of Down, which is the capital of Ulvestria: and thus having obtained peaceful possession of all Ulidia or Ulster, with the title of Count received from the King of England under whose auspices he had conquered it; he used his victory nobly, and many

monasteries he built and rebuilt for God and His saints; as he himself testifies in his prayer to God after the year 1204 in an English prison, about which the Irish Annals in Camden, drawn from the year 1162 to 1370. Among these there is no doubt that the monastery of Down was included, since it is said in the same Annals that, having expelled the secular Canons who were maintaining that place with insufficient propriety and reverence, And called the church of Patrick: he brought in Black monks from Chester and placed them in the Cathedral Church of Down. And since this church, dedicated to the Most Holy Trinity, had an image of the same placed above the high altar and was called the Church of the Holy Trinity, the same John gave reason for changing the name when he removed that image from the church and arranged a chapel for it, and in the great church he placed an image of S. Patrick. And so in the History of the Translation, The body was translated there: the church of S. Patrick in Down is named. Before that translation took place, however, and through it the prophecy of S. Brigid would be fulfilled, who in Jocelin at number 244 had foretold that in the course of time there would be a transfer from the place where Patrick was first to be buried; the Life of S. Patrick had been written by Jocelin, at the request of the aforementioned Bishop Malachy and John de Courcy, who would otherwise undoubtedly have made mention of this discovery and translation.

[83] That there was nevertheless something in this piety of Courcy that displeased God, The captivity, restoration, and pious death of John de Courcy: the aforesaid Annals narrate at the year 1204, and add that he was warned in a vision that it had come about because of the translated image of the Most Holy Trinity that on a Friday, on Good Friday, unarmed and with bare feet and in linen garments, visiting the thresholds of churches as a pilgrim, he was treacherously seized and handed over to his rival, whom he had defeated in war, Hugh de Lacy, and carried off to England, where by order of King John of England, he was confined in perpetual imprisonment to be wasted by hunger and thirst, because he refused to do homage to the King and had reproached him for the death of Arthur, the legitimate heir. Indeed it is also said that it was divinely revealed to him that because of the aforesaid change he would never enter into his lordship in Ireland: but because of the other good things he had done, he would be freed with honor from prison. How this was then accomplished is next added, and finally the narrative about him is concluded thus: The King of England restored his lordship to him, namely Ulster: but John de Courcy attempted fifteen times to come by sea to Ireland: but he was always in danger and the wind was always against him, wherefore he waited a while among the monks of Chester. Finally he returned to Gaul and there rested in the Lord.

[84] The dismal end of the sacrilegious Grey: A happier fate certainly than that of Leonard Grey, Marquis of Dorset, who, governing Ireland for King Henry VIII, demolished the noble monument of the three Saints, erected with such piety by Courcy; and he paid the due penalties for so great an outrage in 1541, submitting his head to the axe: as we noted in our treatment of S. Brigid. The years of that Saint, arranged somewhat carelessly from the common opinion at February 1 until the matter should be better examined, you may order in this way, A more plausible conjecture about the years of S. Brigid: so that she was born in the year of Christ 436 or 437, and died on February 1, coinciding with a Wednesday, after either 70 years of life, as the older Martyrologies in Colgan following her have, and therefore in the year 506; or, as certain authors of her Life have it, after 80 years, and therefore in the year 517; surviving Patrick himself (or more truly his prediction about himself made when the Saint bade her farewell at about the age of twenty) not by thirty but by fifty or sixty years: so that here too the Irish Antiquaries maintained their custom of restricting the Patrician Prophecies to 30 years. For this entire assertion about 30 years rests on a certain Irish poem called the Testament of S. Patrick, and it is such that Colgan, scraping together everything about Patrick, did not consider it worthy to be produced in Latin translation, much less even to cite throughout all of Appendix 3. In that Testament, however, Patrick is feigned to prophesy that Brigid would die thirty years after his death and would bless Ireland: against which Nennius expressly, an author perhaps more ancient than the authors of the Life who have 30 years and than that very poem, flourishing around the year 854, has 60 years; and this is followed by Sigebert in his Chronicle, the author of the Waverly Annals, and the English edition of the Golden Legend in Ussher on page 883.

THE CONFESSION OF S. PATRICK CONCERNING HIS LIFE AND CONDUCT.

Which Andrew Denis of Arras, of the Society of Jesus, unearthed from the most ancient codex of the Nobiliac monastery of S. Vaast.

Patrick, Bishop, Apostle and Primate of Ireland (S.)

BHL Number: 6492

FROM THE MANUSCRIPT OF S. VAAST.

CHAPTER I

On his birth, captivity, and this confession.

[1] I Patrick, a sinner, most unlearned and the least of all the faithful and most contemptible in the eyes of many, Patrick the Briton: had as my father Calpornius the Deacon, son of the late Potitus the Presbyter: who was from the village of Bannavem Taberniae: for he had a villa nearby, where I fell into captivity. I was then about sixteen years old: for I was ignorant of the true God; and I was brought to Ireland in captivity with so many thousands of people, according to our deserts: Carried off to Ireland in his 16th year: because we had withdrawn from God and had not kept his commandments, and had been disobedient to our Priests who admonished us about our salvation: and the Lord brought upon us the wrath of his indignation and scattered us among many nations, even to the ends of the earth, where now my littleness is seen to be among strangers; and where the Lord opened the sense of my unbelieving heart, And there illuminated by God: that I might at last, however belatedly, remember my offenses, and that I might turn with my whole heart to the Lord my God, who regarded my lowliness and had mercy on my youth and ignorance, and guarded me before I knew him and before I could discern or distinguish between good and evil, and admonished me and consoled me as a father does his son.

[2] Whence indeed I cannot be silent, nor is it expedient, about such great benefits and such great grace In captivity he confesses the divinity of God: which the Lord deigned to bestow upon me in the land of my captivity: because this is our repayment, that after the correction or acknowledgment of God we should be exalted and confess his wondrous works before every nation that is under heaven. For there is no other God, nor ever was, nor will there be after him, except the Lord, the Father unbegotten, without beginning, from whom is every beginning: through him indeed all things visible and invisible were made who begot a Son consubstantial with himself made man, and having conquered death, received in heaven by the Father: and he gave him all power over every name of those in heaven, on earth, and in hell; that every tongue should confess And the faith: that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father: whom we believe, and we await his coming, soon to be the judge of the living and the dead, who will render to each one according to his deeds: and he poured into us abundantly the gift and pledge of immortality of the Holy Spirit; who makes believers and the obedient to be sons of God the Father, whom we confess and whom as one God we adore in the Trinity of the most holy name: for he himself said through the Prophet: Call upon me in the day of your tribulation, and I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me. And again he says: It is honorable to reveal and confess the works of God.

[3] He considers a truthful confession: Nevertheless, although I am imperfect in many things, I wish my brothers and kinsmen to know my character, and that they may be able to perceive the vow of my soul. For I do not ignore the testimony of my Lord, who testifies in the Psalm: You will destroy all who speak falsehood. And again: The mouth that lies kills the soul. And the same Lord says in the Gospel: For every idle word that men shall speak, they shall render an account on the day of judgment. Whence I ought vehemently with fear and trembling to dread this sentence on that day when no one will be able to withdraw or hide himself; but all of us absolutely will render an account even of our smallest sins before the tribunal of our Lord Jesus Christ. To write about himself: Wherefore I long ago thought of writing, but have hesitated until now: for I feared lest I should fall under the tongue of men: because I have not read as others who have been most excellently steeped in sacred letters and have never changed their study from childhood; but have always added more toward perfection: for our speech and tongue has been translated into a foreign language.

[4] But it can easily be proved from the flavor of my writing (Although with some embarrassment: how I have been instructed and educated in the art of speech: for the Wise Man says: By the tongue is the understanding known, and knowledge and the teaching of truth. But an excuse according to the truth is profitable, especially with presumption, since I now desire in my old age what I did not acquire in my youth. For my sins were an obstacle to my confirming what I had not previously read through. But who believes me? Even though I should say what I have already stated: as a youth, indeed almost a boy in understanding, I gave myself up to captivity, before I knew what I ought to seek or what to avoid. Whence today I blush and vehemently fear to lay bare my want of skill, On account of his uncultivated speech: because I am unable to set forth with the brevity of an eloquent speech, as the spirit yearns and the mind and understanding dictate: but if it had been given to me as to others; yet I would not be silent, on account of the recompense. And if it seems perhaps to some that I put myself forward in this with my ignorance and slower tongue (for it is written: Stammering tongues will quickly learn to speak peace), how much more ought we to desire, who are an epistle of Christ to the ends of the earth, though not eloquent, but written in your hearts, not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God.

[5] Rusticity was created by the Most High, as the same Spirit of the living God testifies: Lest he be ungrateful to God: whence I, first a rustic, a fugitive, unlearned; who indeed does not know how to provide for the future. But this is most certain, that before I was humbled I was like a stone lying in deep mud: and he who is mighty came and in his mercy lifted me up: and indeed raised me up on high and placed me

on the top of the wall. And hence I ought indeed to cry out to make some return to the Lord From whom he had been so greatly exalted: for such great benefits of his, here and in eternity, which the human mind cannot estimate. Whence then? Marvel therefore, both great and small, who fear the Lord, and you, ignorant Lords and Rhetoricians: hear therefore and examine who it was that aroused me, a fool, from the midst of those who seem to be wise and skilled in the law and powerful in speech and in every thing. And me indeed, detestable in this world above all others, he inspired, even though I was such; provided that with fear and reverence and without complaint I might faithfully serve the people to whom the love of Christ transferred and gave me in my life, if I should be worthy at last, to serve him with all humility and truthfulness in measure.

CHAPTER II.

Having escaped from servitude by flight, Patrick returns to his homeland.

[6] To whom does he write these things? Therefore, the things that belong to the faith of the Trinity must be distinguished, and the gift of God and eternal consolation must be made known without the reproach of danger and without fear, and the name of God must be confidently spread everywhere, and also after my death to leave to my brothers and my sons whom I baptized in the Lord, so many thousands of people; even though I was not worthy, nor such that the Lord would concede this to his servant; and after hardships of so great a mass, after captivity, after many years in that nation, to grant so great a grace, which once in my youth I had never hoped for nor thought of. But after I had come to Ireland, In servitude, wonderfully devoted to prayer: every day I was tending cattle, and frequently during the day I was praying, and more and more the love of God and fear of him and faith increased, and the spirit was increased, so that in a single day I would make up to a hundred prayers, and in the night nearly as many: and I even remained in the woods and on the mountain, and I was roused to prayer before dawn, through snow, through frost, through rain; and I felt no ill effect, nor was there any sluggishness in me, as I now see: because then the spirit was fervent in me. And there indeed one night in my sleep I heard a voice saying to me: He is warned of liberation: You fast well; soon you are going to return to your homeland. And again after a little while I heard a response saying to me: Behold, your ship is ready. And it was not nearby: but perhaps it was two hundred miles away: and I had never been there, nor did I know anyone among the people there.

[7] He flees, trusting in God: And afterward I turned to flight; and I left the man with whom I had been for six years; and in the power of God, who directed my way, I came to the Boyne, and I feared nothing, until I reached that ship. And immediately when I reached it, it had set out from its place; and I spoke in order to have passage to sail with them. And was admitted free of charge by the sailors: But the helmsman was displeased, and he responded sharply with indignation: By no means should you seek to go with us. And when I heard this, I separated myself from them to go to the little hut where I was staying, and on the way I began to pray: and before I had finished my prayer, I heard one of them shouting loudly after me: Come quickly, for these men are calling you. And immediately I returned to them, and they began to say to me: Come, for we have received you in faith, and make friendship with us in whatever way you wish. And on that day I had to board their ship for God's sake: yet I did not hope that they would say to me: Come in the faith of Christ, for they were pagans; and I obtained this from them: and we set sail immediately.

[8] When they were afterward suffering from hunger in the wilderness: And after three days we reached land: and for twenty-seven days we traveled through the wilderness. Food and drink failed us, and hunger prevailed over us. And on the next day the helmsman began to say to me: What is this, Christian? You say your God is great and omnipotent: why then can you not pray for us? Pray for us, because we are in danger from hunger: for it is difficult that we should ever see any man. I indeed said to them plainly: Turn with your whole heart to the Lord my God; He obtains food by praying: for nothing is impossible to him, that today he may send us food on our way, until you are satisfied: for he has abundance everywhere. Therefore, with God's help, so it was done. Behold, a herd of pigs came on the road before our eyes, and they killed many of them: and there they stayed for two nights, well refreshed. And their dogs were restored, because many of them had collapsed and been left half-dead along the road. And after this they gave the highest thanks to God; and I was honored in their eyes.

[9] And from the infestation of a demon: From that day they had food abundantly: but they also found wild honey and offered me a portion: and one of them said: This has been offered in sacrifice. Thanks be to God, from then on I tasted nothing of it. On that same night I was sleeping and was strongly tempted by Satan, which I shall remember as long as I am in this body: for he fell upon me like a huge rock and took away the strength of all my limbs. But whence it came I do not know, that in the spirit I should invoke Elijah. And amid these things I saw in the sky the sun rising; Freed by invoking Elijah: and while I was crying out "Elijah! Elijah!" with all my strength, behold the splendor of that sun fell upon me and immediately shook off from me all heaviness. And I believe that I was aided by my Christ, and his spirit was already then crying out for me: and I hope it will be so in the day of my distress, as the Lord testifies in the Gospel: In that day, he says, it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you. On our journey he provided us with food and fire and dry weather every day until on the fourteenth day we reached people. As I indicated above, for twenty-eight days we traveled through the wilderness, and on the night when we arrived we had nothing at all to eat.

CHAPTER III.

The calling of Patrick to Ireland, various contradictions.

[10] And again after not many years I fell again into captivity: After the second captivity: on the first night indeed I stayed with them: but I heard a divine response saying to me: You will be with them for two months: which was so done. On the sixtieth night therefore the Lord freed me from their hands. By a nocturnal vision: Again after a few years I was in Britain with my parents, who received me as a son; and earnestly asked me that now at least, after such great tribulations as I had endured, I would never leave them. And there indeed I saw in a vision of the night a man coming as it were from Ireland, named Victricius, with innumerable letters: and he gave me one of them, and I read the beginning of the letter, which contained: The Voice of the Irish. And while I was reciting the beginning of the letter, I thought I heard at that very moment the voice of those who were near the wood of Foclut, which is near the Western Sea, and they cried out as if with one voice: We beg you, holy boy, come and walk among us again. And I was greatly stung in my heart, and could read no more: and so I awoke. Thanks be to God, because after many years the Lord granted them according to their cry.

[11] And on another night, I do not know, God knows, within me or beside me, And invited to Ireland by an interior voice: I was hearing in most skilled words certain ones from the spirit chanting within me, and I did not know who they were whom I heard; and I could not understand, except at the end of the prayer, it spoke thus: He who gave his life for you. And so I awoke. And again I heard within myself one praying: and it was as if within my body, and I heard above me, that is, above the interior man, and there he prayed strongly with groans. And amid these things I was astonished and marveled and thought who it might be that was praying in me? But at the end of the prayer he said that he was the Spirit; and I remembered the Apostle saying: The Spirit helps the weakness of our prayer: for we do not know what to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with unutterable groans, which cannot be expressed in words. And again: The Lord is our advocate, and he himself intercedes for us. He overcomes temptations offered: And when I was tempted by some of my elders, who came on account of my sins, against my laborious episcopate, on that day indeed I was strongly driven to fall here and forever: but the Lord spared the convert and stranger for his name's sake, and most graciously helped me in this trampling, so that I did not come badly to stain and disgrace. I pray God that

it may not be imputed to them as sin on this occasion: for after thirty years they found me, against the word which I had confessed before I was a Deacon.

[12] Anxieties: On account of my anxiety, with a sorrowful mind, I intimated to my dearest friend what I had done one day in my boyhood, indeed in one hour, because I was not yet able to prevail. I do not know, God knows, whether I was then fifteen years old, and I did not believe in one God from my infancy: but I remained in death and in unbelief until I was severely chastised: and in truth I was humbled by hunger and nakedness; and every day I was going against my will toward Ireland, until I nearly perished. But this was rather good for me: because from this I was corrected by the Lord, and he prepared me to be today what was once far from me, so that I should have cares or be concerned for the salvation of others, when I did not even think about myself. Therefore, on that day when I was rejected by the above-mentioned persons, And contradictions: in that night I saw in a vision of the night a writing against my face, without honor, and amid these things I heard a divine response saying to me: We have seen with displeasure the face of the one designated, with his name stripped bare. He did not say: "You have seen with displeasure," but: "We have seen with displeasure": as if he joined himself there; as he said: He who touches you touches the apple of my eye. Therefore I give thanks to him who strengthened me in all things, so that he did not hinder me from the journey I had determined upon, and also from my work which I had learned from my Christ: but rather from that I felt in myself no small power: and my faith was proved before God and men.

[13] Whence I say boldly that my conscience does not reproach me. I have God as my witness, that I have not lied in the words I have reported: but rather I grieve for my dearest friend, why did we deserve to receive such a response, And injuries: whose authors he forgives: to whom I trusted even my soul. And I learned from certain brothers of mine, before that defense (at which I was not present, nor was I in the Britains, nor did it originate from me), that even he in my absence was being attacked on my behalf. He himself had said with his own mouth: Behold, you are to be promoted to the rank of the Episcopate, of which I was not worthy: but whence did it come to him afterward that before all, good and bad, he publicly dishonored me, regarding what he had previously granted spontaneously and gladly? The Lord is he who is greater than all. I say enough: but yet I ought not to hide the gift of God which he bestowed in the land of my captivity; because then I sought him earnestly and there I found him, and he preserved me from all iniquities, on account of his indwelling Spirit, who has worked in me to this day. But the Lord knows, if a man had spoken these things to me, perhaps I would have been silent for the sake of the love of Christ.

[14] And gives thanks to God in all things: Whence I give unfailing thanks to my God, who kept me faithful in the day of my temptation; so that today I confidently offer him a sacrifice, and I consecrate my soul as a living sacrifice to my Lord, who preserved me from all my distresses; so that I may say to him: Who am I, Lord, or what is my calling, who hast revealed to me such great divinity? So that today I should exalt and magnify your name in whatever place I may be; not only in prosperity but also Who manifested himself to him: in afflictions; so that whatever may happen to me, whether good or bad, I ought to receive equally, and always give thanks to God; who showed me that I should believe him without doubt and without end, and who would hear me: so that I also in the last days should dare to undertake this work, so pious and so wonderful; so that I might imitate those whom the Lord had already long ago foretold would proclaim his Gospel as a testimony to all nations before the end of the world. Which, as we have seen, has thus been fulfilled. Behold, we are witnesses, because the Gospel has been preached even to where there is no one beyond.

CHAPTER IV.

The fruits of the Patrician Apostolate.

[15] He praises God who preserved him from sins: It is tedious to narrate my whole labor in detail or even in parts: I shall say briefly how the most pious God often freed me from servitude, from the twelve perils in which my soul was endangered; besides many plots and things which I cannot express in words, lest I do injury to readers. But I have the Lord as author, who knows all things even before they happen, so that me, a poor little one, the divine response very frequently admonished. Whence did I have this wisdom, which was not in me, who did not even know the number of days, Grace instructed him in preaching: nor had knowledge of God? Whence did I have afterward so great and salutary a gift, to know and love God, so that I might lose my homeland and parents, and many gifts which were offered to me with weeping and tears? And I offended there against the will of some of my elders: but with God directing, in no way did I consent or yield to them: not I, but the grace of God which conquered in me: and I resisted all of them, so that I might come to the Irish nations to preach the Gospel, and to endure insults from unbelievers, and to hear the reproach of my pilgrimage, and many persecutions even to chains, and that I might give myself and my noble birth for the benefit of others.

[16] And with an equal zeal for propagating the Gospel: And if I am worthy, I am ready even to give my soul without hesitation and most willingly for his name: and I desire to spend it for him even to death, if the Lord should grant it. Because I am very much a debtor to God, who gave me such great grace that many peoples through me should be reborn in the Lord, and afterward should be perfected, and that Clergy should be ordained for them everywhere, for a people newly coming to belief, which the Lord took from the ends of the earth; and they will say: Our fathers acquired false idols for themselves, and there is no profit in them. And again: I have placed you as a light of the nations, that you may be my salvation to the ends of the earth. And there I wish to wait for his promise, who indeed never fails, as he promises in the Gospel: They will come from the East and from the West and will recline with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, as we believe they will come from the whole world.

[17] And of bringing the gentiles to the Church: Therefore it is indeed necessary to fish well and diligently, as the Lord forewarns, saying: Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men. And again he says through the Prophets: Behold, I send many fishers and hunters, says the Lord, etc. Whence it was very necessary to cast our nets wide, so that a great and copious multitude and crowd might be caught for God: and that everywhere there might be Clergy who would baptize and exhort the needy and desiring people; as the Lord says in the Gospel, admonishing and saying: Going therefore, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I shall say to you. According to the command of the Lord: And behold, I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world. And again he says: Going into the whole world, preach the Gospel to every creature; he who believes and is baptized shall be saved. And this Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world, as a testimony to all nations; and then the end shall come. And again the Prophet of the Lord, foretelling, says: And it shall be in the last days, says the Lord, I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh, And the oracles of the prophets: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your elders shall dream dreams: and upon my servants and handmaids in those days I will pour out of my spirit and they shall prophesy. And Hosea says: I will call those not my people, my people, and her who had not obtained mercy, one who has obtained mercy. And it shall be in the place where it was said: You are not my people; there they shall be called sons of the living God.

[18] With such fruit that very many embraced evangelical perfection: Whence then the Irish, who had not yet had knowledge of God, and until now had always worshipped only unclean idols, how have they recently become a people of the Lord and are called sons of God? Sons of the Scots and daughters of chieftains are seen to be monks and virgins of Christ. And there was even one blessed Irish woman, of noble birth, most beautiful, of full age, whom I baptized: and after a few days she came to us for one purpose: for she intimated to us that she had received a response from a messenger of God, who advised her to remain a virgin of Christ and to draw near to God. Thanks be to God, on the sixth day from this she most excellently and most eagerly seized upon that which all the virgins of God similarly do; not with the consent of their fathers; indeed they suffer persecutions and false reproaches from their parents

their own, And nevertheless many virgins emulate them: and nevertheless the number increases more: and of those born of our race who were born there for Christ, we do not know their number, besides the widows and the continent. But those especially labor who are held in servitude: they continually endure even terrors and threats: but the Lord has given grace to many of his handmaidens: for even though they are forbidden, yet they bravely imitate.

[19] He denies that for any reason he could abandon the work he has begun: Whence could I, even if I wished, dismiss them and go to the Britains; even though I was most gladly prepared for the same, as if to my homeland and parents: and not only that, but even to go as far as the Gauls to visit my brothers, and to see the face of the saints of my Lord: God knows that I greatly desired this. But I am bound by the spirit (which protests to me that if I do this, he designates me as one who will be guilty) and I fear to lose the labor I have begun; and it is not I, but Christ the Lord who commanded me to come and to be with them for the remainder of my life; if the Lord wills and guards me from every stain, so that I may not sin before him. But I ought to have hoped for this: yet I do not trust myself as long as I am in this body of death: because he is strong who daily strives to subvert me from the faith and the proposed chastity of a religion not feigned, Which I will keep: even to the end of my life, for Christ my Lord: but the hostile flesh always draws toward death, that is, toward allurements to be enjoyed in wretchedness. Even though he acknowledges his own imperfection: And I know in part that I have not lived a perfect life, as other believers have: but I confess to my Lord, and I am not ashamed in his sight, because I do not lie: from the time I knew him in my youth, the love of God and fear of him grew in me, and until now, by the Lord's favor, I have kept the faith.

CHAPTER V.

He testifies with what integrity he preached the Gospel.

[20] Let him who wishes laugh and insult, I will not be silent nor hide the signs and wonders which were shown to me by the Lord many years before they happened, as one who knows all things even before the ages of the world. Having hesitantly undertaken the Apostolic work: Whence I indeed ought to have given thanks to God without ceasing, who often pardoned my foolishness and my negligence... and of the place not in each one, so that he would not be vehemently angry with me, to whom I was given as a helper, and I did not quickly comply, according to what had been shown to me and the spirit nevertheless suggested. And the Lord had mercy on me And not a little disturbed by the slanders of others: in a thousand thousands: because he saw in me that I was ready; but that I knew nothing more about my state or what I should do: because many were forbidding this mission, and certain ones among them were telling tales behind my back and saying: This one, why does he throw himself into danger among enemies who do not know God? Not from a cause of malice; but it did not seem right to them, as I myself also testify, that journey, because of my rusticity. And I did not quickly recognize the grace that was then in me: now I understand what I ought to have done before. To obey the calling God:

[21] He testifies to his integrity among the nations: Now therefore I have simply declared to my brothers and fellow-servants, who have believed me: for which reason I foretold and foretell, to strengthen your faith: Would that you also may imitate greater things and do more excellent things. This will be my glory: for a wise son is the glory of his father. You know, and God knows, how I conducted myself among you from my youth; in the faith of truth and sincerity of heart, even toward those nations among whom I dwell; I have shown them good faith and will continue to do so. God knows, I have defrauded none of them, nor do I think of it, for the sake of God and his Church; lest I stir up persecution against them and against all of you, and lest through me the name of the Lord be blasphemed: for it is written: Woe to the man through whom the name of the Lord is blasphemed. For even though I am unskilled in all things, yet I have tried to keep myself pure, And contempt of gifts: even toward the Christian brothers and the Virgins of Christ and the religious women, who gave me unsolicited little gifts and threw some of their ornaments upon the altar, and I would return them to them again; and they were scandalized against me because I did this: but I did it for the sake of the hope of eternity, so that I might preserve myself carefully in all things; so that the unbelievers might not find any pretext to criticize me, or even the ministry of my servitude: and so that I might not give even in the smallest things an opportunity to the unbelievers to defame or disparage me.

[22] And gratuitous administration of the Sacraments: Perhaps when I baptized so many thousands of people, did I hope for even half a scruple from any of them? Tell me, and I will return it to you. Or when the Lord everywhere ordained Clergy through my lowliness, did I distribute the ministry freely to them? If I asked from any of them even the price of my shoe, tell me, and I will return it to you rather more. I spent for you, that they might receive me; and among you and everywhere I went for your sake in many perils, even to the remote parts where no one was beyond and where no one had ever come who would baptize or ordain Clergy or confirm the people in the faith: by the Lord's gift, I did all things diligently and most willingly for your salvation. In the meantime I was giving rewards to Kings; Not without unjust loss of his own property: besides the wages I was giving to their sons who walked with me: and nevertheless they seized me on one occasion with my companions, and on that day they most eagerly wished to kill me. But the time had not yet come, and whatever we had with us they plundered, and they bound me in iron, and on the fourteenth day the Lord released me from their power, and whatever was ours was returned to us on account of God and the necessary friends whom we had previously provided.

[23] You yourselves have experienced how much I disbursed to those who judged throughout all the regions which I more frequently visited: And liberal expenditure: I estimate that I distributed to them no less than the price of fifteen men. So, that you may enjoy me and I may always enjoy you in the Lord (nor do I regret it, nor is it enough for me), I still spend and will spend beyond measure: for the Lord is powerful to give me afterward, so that I may spend and be spent for your souls. Behold, I call God as a witness upon my soul, that I do not lie, that I have written to you neither, as happens, for the sake of flattery or avarice, nor because I hoped for honor from you: for the honor which is not yet seen but is believed in the heart suffices for me: Preferring to be poor for the love of Christ: and faithful is he who promised, he never lies. But I see myself already in the present world exalted beyond measure by the Lord; and I was not worthy nor such that he should bestow this upon me: since I know most certainly that poverty and calamity suit me better than delicacies and riches. But Christ the Lord too was poor for our sake. I indeed, wretched and unhappy, even if I wished for wealth, I no longer have it, nor do I judge myself worthy: because every day I expect either destruction or to be circumvented or to be reduced to servitude, without any cause whatsoever. But I fear none of these things on account of the promises of heaven: because I have cast myself into the hands of Almighty God; who rules everywhere, as the Prophet says: Cast your thought upon the Lord, and he himself will nourish you.

[24] For whom he desires to suffer anything: Behold, I commend my soul to my most faithful God, for whom I serve as ambassador in my ignobility: but because he does not accept persons and chose me for this office, that I might be one of his least and lowliest ministers. Whence shall I make return to him for all that he has returned to me; or what shall I say or what shall I promise to my Lord? Because I have no power unless he himself gives it to me: but he searches hearts and minds; because I desire sufficiently and more than sufficiently, and I was ready that he should grant me to drink the cup, as he granted to the others who love him. Even martyrdom: Wherefore may it not happen to me from my Lord that I should ever lose his people, which he acquired at the ends of the earth. I pray God therefore that he give me perseverance, and deign that I render myself to him as a faithful witness even to my passing, for the sake of my God. And if I have ever imitated anything good for the sake of my God whom I love, I ask him that he grant me to pour out my blood with those converts and captives for his name's sake, even though I should lack burial itself, and my corpse should most wretchedly be divided limb by limb and thrown to the birds, the dogs, or the wild beasts to devour it. I most certainly believe that if this should be my lot, I have gained my soul in my body: because without any doubt on that day we shall rise in the brightness of the sun, that is, in the glory of Jesus Christ, redeemed, we shall all be as sons of God and co-heirs of Christ, and conformed to his image: for from him and through him and in him are all things: to him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

[24] Certain of the glory stored up for him for such things: For in him we shall reign: for this sun which we see, at his command rises daily for us, but it will never reign nor will its splendor endure: but also all who worship it will come miserably to punishment. But we who believe and worship the true sun, Jesus Christ, who will never perish; nor will he who has done his will perish, but will remain forever, even as Christ remains forever, who reigns with God the Father Almighty and the Holy Spirit before the ages and now and through all ages of ages. Amen. Behold, again and again I shall briefly set forth the words of my Confession. The repeated Confession of S. Patrick: I testify in truth and in exultation before God and his holy Angels that I never had any motive beyond the Gospel and its promises for ever returning to that nation from which I had previously escaped. But I pray those who believe and fear God, whoever shall have deigned to look upon or receive this writing which Patrick, a sinner, unlearned, wrote in Ireland; that no one should ever say that it was owing to my ignorance if I did anything small

or demonstrated according to the good pleasure of God: but judge and most truly believe that it was God's doing. And this is my confession before I die.

TO THE FOLLOWING EPISTLE

Patrick, Bishop, Apostle and Primate of Ireland (S.)

In the Arras manuscript, with no distinguishing mark of a new title, an Epistle is appended to the Patrician Confession, which Ussher on page 818 cites as written to the tyrant Coroticus. The Epistle to Coroticus does not survive: In reality, however, Patrick wrote not to Coroticus himself, but to his Christian ministers and subjects, so that they might know that he, having been cut off from the communion of the faithful, was to be avoided. For the one he had previously written to Coroticus himself, which the authors to be cited shortly and Patrick himself here at number 2 recall, does not survive, as far as we know. About this tyrant, the following is read in Life 3 in Colgan: The evil deeds of a certain King of the Britons, Coritic, a cruel and ruthless tyrant, were reported to S. Patrick, so that he might convert him to the way of truth (for this Coritic Who was this Coroticus? was a persecutor and killer of Christians), and Patrick sent him an epistle: but that King derided the teaching of Patrick. What cause he gave as a pretext for his cruelty against Irish neophytes is nowhere clear: Why a persecutor of Christians? for the one passage which alone could give us light here, number 45, is desperately corrupted or mutilated and itself needs to be illuminated from elsewhere. That this Coroticus was, at least nominally, a Christian, along with his followers, the principal argument of this epistle does not allow us to doubt. Jocelin writes that he reigned in certain borders of Britain which is now called Wales, and calls him Cereticus, whom Probus calls Chairtio, and the Tripartite Life Corthecus. So that one may rightly doubt whether this is his proper name: or whether it perhaps attached to him from the nation over which he ruled. For the Ceretic region, about which we spoke in the Life of S. David of Menevia at March 1, is a part of Wales. Some suspect, in Colgan, that S. Finbar, otherwise Guignerius, was killed by the same tyrant in Cornwall, together with his companions: and they have some foundation for the suspicion. Was he the one under whom S. Guignerius suffered? For what Anselm says he arranged according to the faith of the narrators, for the use of the place where the Patron is venerated, these things agree in neither the time nor the cruelty with this Coroticus: nor does it stand in the way that he calls him Theodoric and makes him a King of Cornwall and a pagan. For just as in the course of time the names of Finbar, Clitus, and Piala deflected not a little from the genuine form of Irish names, so also the name Theodoric, foreign to Britain in those times, may seem to have been born under the Anglo-Saxons, as the use and legitimate pronunciation of the earlier and itself barbarous name gradually faded: and one who, as a raider making incursions into Cornwall, perhaps used an offered occasion and committed this slaughter out of hatred of the Irish race or Christianity, Was he a pagan? could have been thought to have done it as a king of the place: although it is not credible that his territories or kingdom extended that far. Nor is it surprising that he was considered a pagan by later generations, since he committed things equal to or even more detestable than those of pagans against the innocent Christians of the Irish race: so that Patrick says his accomplices in crime are not his fellow citizens and those of the holy Romans, but citizens of demons, allies of the Scots and Picts and apostates: of whom the latter had indeed deserted the faith preached by S. Ninian, but suppressed for lack of cultivators who would follow up what had been well begun; the former had not yet recognized it, having crossed earlier from Ireland to Britain and joined with the Picts before Patrick brought it to the remaining Scots in Ireland: whence it happened that neither had any regard for the Christian name, and, as the ministers of demons are wont to do, more readily reduced its professors to servitude.

THE EPISTLE OF S. PATRICK to the Christians subject to the tyrant Coroticus.

Patrick, Bishop, Apostle and Primate of Ireland (S.)

BHL Number: 6493

FROM THE MANUSCRIPT OF S. VAAST.

[1] Inflamed by the zeal of God: Patrick, a sinner, unlearned, established as a Bishop in Ireland, I most certainly believe that I received from God what I am: among barbarous nations, a convert and a fugitive, on account of the love of God. He is my witness, if it is so. Not that I desired to pour forth from my mouth something so harshly and so roughly: but I am compelled, aroused by the zeal of God and the truth of Christ, for the love of my neighbors and sons, for whom I gave up my homeland and parents and my soul, because even to death, if I am worthy, I vowed to my God to teach the nations, even if now I am despised by some. He sends an epistle to Coroticus: And with my own hand I wrote and composed these words to be given and delivered to the soldiers to be sent to Coroticus — I do not say my fellow-citizens and fellow-citizens of the holy Romans, but citizens of demons, on account of their evil works, who in the manner of barbarians live in a hostile death; allies of the Scots and apostate Picts, as though wishing to glut themselves on the blood of innocent Christians, whom I have begotten for God in countless numbers and confirmed in Christ. Who after cruelly vexing the neophytes:

[2] On the day after the chrismated neophytes in their white garments, while the faith was blazing on their foreheads, were cruelly slaughtered and butchered with the sword, I sent to the above-mentioned an epistle with a holy Presbyter whom I had taught from infancy, together with Clerics, that they might grant us something from the plunder or from the baptized captives they had taken: Had scorned his admonition: but they laughed at them. Therefore I do not know what I should mourn more: whether those who were killed, or those whom they captured; or those whom the devil has grievously ensnared, who will be enslaved together with him to eternal punishment in hell: because truly he who commits sin is the slave of sin and is called the son of the devil.

[3] And therefore he with his followers should be avoided as excommunicated: Wherefore let every man who fears God know that they are strangers to me and to Christ my God, for whom I serve as ambassador: parricides and fratricides, ravenous wolves, devouring the people of the Lord as the food of bread, as it says: The wicked have destroyed your law, O Lord: which in the last times he had most excellently and benignly planted and instructed in Ireland. By God's favor, I do not usurp what belongs to others: but I have a share with those whom he called and predestined to preach the Gospel amid no small persecutions even to the ends of the earth; even though the enemy is envious through the tyranny of Coroticus, who does not fear God nor his Priests, whom he chose, and to whom he granted the supreme and divine power, that those whom they bind on earth are bound in heaven.

[4] Whence I beseech you most earnestly, And execrable: you who are holy and humble of heart, it is not lawful to flatter such men, nor to take food or drink with them, nor should their alms be accepted, until by pouring out cruel tears and doing penance they make satisfaction to God and free the servants of God and baptized handmaids of Christ, for whom he died and was crucified: for the Most High rejects the gifts of the wicked, and he who offers sacrifice from the substance of the poor is as one who sacrifices a son in the sight of the Father: The riches, he says, which he has gathered unjustly shall be vomited from his belly; the angel of death drags him; he shall be punished by the wrath of dragons; the tongue of the serpent shall slay him; inextinguishable fire shall consume him: and therefore woe to those who fill themselves with what is not their own. And what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses himself and suffers the loss of his soul? A transgressor of the divine law: It is tedious to run through individual points or to insinuate through the whole law piecemeal testimonies about such covetousness. Avarice is a mortal crime. You shall not covet your neighbor's goods. You shall not kill. A murderer cannot be with Christ: for he who hates his brother is accounted a murderer. And: He who does not love his brother remains in death. How much more guilty is he who stains his hands in the blood of the children of God, whom he has recently won at the farthest ends of the earth through the exhortation of our littleness?

[5] Who does not reverence his Apostolate: Was it without God or according to the flesh that I came to Ireland? Who compelled me? I am bound by the spirit so that I should not see any of my kindred. Is it from myself that springs the pious mercy that I exercise toward that nation which once seized me and devastated the servants and handmaidens of my father's house? I am freeborn according to the flesh, for I was born of a father who was a Decurion: but I sold my nobility (I am not ashamed nor do I regret it) for the benefit of others: in short, I am in Christ, delivered to a foreign nation for the sake of the ineffable glory of eternal life which is in Christ Jesus our Lord: and if my own do not recognize me, a prophet has no honor in his own country. Perhaps we are not of one father, nor of one fold: as the Lord says: He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters. It is not fitting if one destroys and another builds. Do I seek what is mine?

[6] Not my grace, but God gave this solicitude in my heart, And under his very eyes you commit such things: that I should be one of the hunters or fishers whom God once foretold in the last days. I am envied; what shall I do, Lord? I am greatly despised. Behold, your sheep around me are torn and plundered by the above-mentioned petty thieves, at the order of Coroticus the enemy: for a betrayer of Christians into the hands of the Scots and Picts is far from the love of God in his mind. Ravenous wolves have swallowed up the flock of the Lord, which indeed in Ireland was growing most excellently with the greatest diligence; and the sons of the Scots and daughters of chieftains were becoming monks and virgins of Christ

whom I cannot count. He who does not appease you, Lord, on account of the injury to the just, will not appease you even to the depths of hell.

[7] Contrary to the custom of other Christians: What saint would not shudder to make merry or feast with such men? They have filled their houses with the spoils of dead Christians; they live by plunder; they know not how to show mercy. They drink poison; they offer lethal food to their friends and children; just as Eve did not understand that it was death she was handing to her husband: so are all who do evil; they produce eternal death and perpetual punishment. The custom of the Roman and Gallic Christians is to send holy and capable Presbyters to the Franks and foreign nations with so many thousands of solidi to ransom baptized captives: you kill them all and sell them to a foreign nation ignorant of God: as if to a brothel you hand over the members of Christ; what hope therefore do you have in God?

[8] He who agrees with you, or who shares in your alien words and flattery, God will judge: for it is written: He laments the scattering of his flock: Not only those who do evil but also those who consent are to be condemned. I do not know what to say or what to speak further about the dead among the children of God, whom the sword has touched beyond measure: for it is written: Weep with those who weep. And again: If one member suffers, all the members suffer together. Wherefore the Church weeps and mourns her sons and daughters, whom the hostile sword has not yet killed, but who have been carried away through vast tracts of land. So that the sin may be aggravated by manifest shamelessness: there shamelessness dwells and abounds: there freeborn Christian people have been sold and reduced to slavery, especially to the most unworthy and worst and apostate Picts.

[9] Therefore with sadness and grief I shall cry out: O most beautiful and most beloved brothers and sons, whom I begot in Christ and cannot count, what shall I do for you? I am not worthy even to help men. The iniquity of the wicked has prevailed over us. Perhaps they do not believe that we received one baptism and have one God: it is unworthy in their eyes that we were born in Ireland: for so they say... Therefore I grieve for you, my dearest ones: And he congratulates those who attained glory through martyrdom: but again I rejoice within myself, because I did not labor in vain and my pilgrimage was not for nothing: and a crime occurred at that time, horrible and unspeakable. Thanks be to God: as believers and baptized you departed from the world to paradise. I see: you have begun to migrate to where there will be no night, nor mourning, nor death any more: but you will exult like calves set free, and you will tread upon the wicked, and they will be ashes under your feet.

[10] You therefore will reign with the Apostles and Prophets and Martyrs and will obtain the eternal kingdoms, as he himself testifies, saying: They will come from the East and West and will recline with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and murderers and liars and perjurers: their portion is in the lake of eternal fire: Threatening eternal punishment to tyrants: for the Apostle does not say in vain: Where the just man will scarcely be saved, the sinner and the impious and the transgressor of the law, where will he find himself? Where will Coroticus be with his most wicked rebels against Christ? Where will they find themselves, who distribute baptized women and the estates of orphans to their most sordid henchmen for the sake of a wretched temporal kingdom, which in a moment passes like a cloud or smoke, which is indeed dispersed by the wind: so sinners and the fraudulent will perish from the face of the Lord: but the just will feast in great constancy with Christ and will judge nations and will rule over wicked kings forever and ever. Amen.

[11] I testify before God and his holy Angels that it will be as my unskilledness has declared. These are not my words, but those of God and of the Apostles and Prophets, who have never lied, He asks that these be read aloud: which I have translated into Latin; and whoever believes will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned: for God has spoken. I earnestly beseech that whoever servant of God is willing may be a bearer of these letters, that they may in no way be withdrawn by anyone, but rather that they be read before all the people, and in the presence of Coroticus himself. In the hope that they may perhaps be converted: That if God should inspire them to come to their senses concerning him, so that even belatedly they may repent of having acted so impiously. They have been murderers toward the brothers of the Lord: but let them repent and free the baptized captives whom they previously seized; so that they may deserve to live for God and be made whole here and in eternity. The peace of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

LIFE

by Jocelin, Monk of Furness.

Patrick, Bishop, Apostle and Primate of Ireland (S.)

BHL Number: 6513

BY JOCELIN THE MONK.

PROLOGUE.

The Life of S. Patrick, just as the Lives of other Saints: It was the purpose and study of very many, from ancient days, to perpetuate with their pen the lives of holy men and their virtues; lest the fervor of sanctity worthy of emulation should be buried in the tomb of oblivion, but rather, set up prominently in the open, should shine forth to posterity for imitation, as if in a mirror. Whence also, in the Rational of the High Priest, it was divinely commanded that the names of the twelve Patriarchs, sons of Israel, be engraved on twelve gems; so that by the guidance of inspection all the faithful might be reminded to imitate the deeds of the holy Fathers. It is indeed fitting that we should strive to be conformed to the morals and strengthened by the examples of those in whose titles we glory, in whose praises we delight, and by whose patronage we are protected. But because the poverty of learning was growing ever greater and the abundance of laziness in learning was overflowing, very many uneducated persons, ignorant of the art of composition, were writing Lives of the Saints, Written in a rather inelegant manner: with pious intention indeed, but in uncultivated language, lest they be erased from the memory of the faithful. For which reason nausea or disgust is provoked in many when reading the Lives and deeds of Saints arranged in an uncouth style or barbaric speech, and a slowness to believe is more often generated. Hence it is that even the Life of the glorious Bishop Patrick, Patron and Apostle of Ireland, most illustrious in signs and prodigies, dictated by many unlettered persons in manifold ways, neither lies open to nor pleases most people on account of the confusion and obscurity of its style; but is held in tedium and contempt. Compelled therefore by charity, we shall endeavor to collect what is confused by reducing it to order, to store what is collected by forging it into a volume, and to season what is stored with the flavor of, if not the most Latin, at least Latin speech. To be arranged in a more Latin and orderly fashion: This our endeavor is aided by the instruction of the triple instrument which is written to be part of the candlestick of the tabernacle. For we read in it a snuffer, an extinguisher, and a filler: which we are accustomed to use competently, if in describing the Lives of the Saints, who shone by word and example like a candlestick before the Lord, we strive to trim away what is superfluous, extinguish what is false, and clarify what is obscure. Which things, although we are bound to do them from the devotion which we have toward S. Patrick; nevertheless we are constrained by the commands of the most Reverend Thomas, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland, and of Malachy, Bishop of Down, to undertake this work: and the petition of the most Illustrious John de Courcy, Prince of Ulidia, is also added, By whose authority Jocelin undertook it: who is known to be a most special lover and venerator of S. Patrick; to whom we deem it most worthy to comply. If any serpent in the way, a horned viper in the path watching our heel, should accuse us of presumptuous rashness in this matter and attack our hand with its venomous tooth; we nevertheless, like Blessed Paul, gather sticks for kindling a fire and throw the viper into the fire. Because indeed, describing the deeds of the Saints clinging to the true vine, whose members have dried to dust, by which the minds of the faithful may be inflamed to the love and faith of Christ, we think little of the tongues of the envious and detractors: because if we are judged by such, holding it with the Apostle as of little account, we commit the whole to the divine judgment.

CHAPTER I.

The birth of S. Patrick; miracles performed from boyhood.

[1] There was a certain man named Calphurnius, son of Potitus the Presbyter, a Briton by nation, Born of Calphurnius the Briton and Concessa the Frank: in a district called Taburnia (that is, the field of tents; because the Roman army had pitched its tents there), dwelling near the town of Nemthor, bordering on the Irish Sea in his habitation. He had married a young woman of Frankish origin named Concessa, a kinswoman of Blessed Martin, Archbishop of Tours, distinguished for her beauty and elegance of manners. For having been carried off from Gaul with an elder sister to the northern parts of Britain, and sold into the service of his father, he fell in love with her; and delighted by her manners, charmed by her attentions, allured by her beauty, he promoted her from servile servitude to conjugal partnership. Her sister, however, was given to another man and lived in the aforementioned town of Nemthor. For they were both just before the Lord, From pious and chaste parents: walking without blame in the justifications of the Lord; distinguished in birth and faith, hope and religion. And although in external appearance and dwelling they seemed to serve under the compulsion of Babylon, they showed themselves citizens of Jerusalem in their deeds and conduct. After they had advanced somewhat in their days, having completed their happy generation, by mutual consent they devoted themselves to chastity and rested in the Lord with a holy end. Calphurnius, however, first served the Lord for a long time in the Diaconate and finally ended his life in the Presbyterate. From the earth of their flesh, therefore, cleansed of the rubble of criminal sins and the noxious burdens of vices, Patrick was born: cultivated by the ploughshare of Gospel and Apostolic teaching, fruitful with the shoots of virtues, they brought forth as the best fruit, by begetting, a son: whom, when he laid aside the spoils of the old man in the sacred font, they caused to be named Patrick, destined to be the Father and Patron of very many nations: who, a most pure boy, a vessel of election, how devout a worshipper he would be of the Holy Trinity, immediately God himself, three and one, deigned to declare in him once baptized by the token of a triple miracle.

[2] A certain man named Gormas, condemned from his mother's womb to the prison of blindness, He is distinguished by a triple miracle: heard in his dreams a voice commanding him to take the right hand of the recently baptized boy Patrick and imprint the sign of the Cross on the ground; adding that at his touch a spring of a new fountain

would burst forth; and if he bathed the orbs of his eyes with its water, he would consequently recover his sight. Of a fountain produced: Instructed therefore by the divine oracle, the blind man approached the child, with his right hand impressed the sign of salvation upon the ground, and immediately in that same place a new spring burst forth and flowed. From the healthful liquid of that same water, the orbs of his darkened brow, being bathed, perceived the flooding daylight, as if experiencing a repeated miracle of Siloam. Of a blind man illuminated: And so that they might more abundantly confess to the Lord his mercies and his wonders to the children of men, while externally, with the darkness wiped away, the blind man is illuminated, his inner sight, revealed by the gift of knowledge, is also illuminated: and he who had never known letters, having experienced the powers of the Lord, read and understood Scripture. And of the same gifted with knowledge of letters: Just as by the external benefit he had been made seeing from blind, so by the internal grace he was made literate from a layman. The aforesaid fountain, moreover, enlarged by a more abundant flow, emanating clear waters to the present day, is distinguished by the name of S. Patrick; sweet to drink and healthful to taste, and, as is said, imparts health or relief to those laboring under various ailments. For it rises near the edge of the sea, over which the diligence of later generations built an oratory, having an altar constructed in the form of a cross. There is a stone placed near the spot, which the inhabitants call Patrick's rock; The stone retains its name from him, miraculous against perjuries: because some think he was born upon it, some that he celebrated Mass there. Whenever any dispute arises among neighbors or townspeople, which is to be concluded by oath, they go to the aforesaid rock, and the oath being corporally sworn, the case is settled. But if a perjurer or false witness stretches his hand over it, the stone is accustomed to pour out water immediately; and how execrable the crime of perjury or false testimony is, the sanctity of Patrick makes plain to all: otherwise it is not accustomed to sweat even a drop, but remains in its natural dryness and hardness. Which opinion of the people about the stone is more probable is unknown to us: although the latter seems closer to the truth. Let it suffice therefore to have recorded the miracle which S. Mel the Bishop testifies he frequently witnessed.

[3] A flood is repelled: As his age grew, grace also seemed to grow, and as from a store full of spiritual ointments, with the divine fragrance emanating from within, it spread its sweet scent abroad through an abundance of manifold miracles. For the boy of the Lord, Patrick, was being raised in the town of Nemthor in the house of his maternal aunt, with his sister named Lupita. It happened that in wintertime, when the ice dissolved, the floodwater rose; and threatening the ruin of very many houses within the town, the overflow of waters also occupied the dwelling in which Patrick was living and overturned all the furnishings and made all the vessels float away. Meanwhile the little child, hungry, was asking for bread in the manner of an infant, and there was no one to break bread for him; but rather in a reproachful voice the nurse answered that he was closer to drowning than to refreshment. Sparks were seen scattering from his fingers: The boy, however, dipped three fingers into the swelling water and, standing on dry ground, having first prayed, three times sprinkled as it were the flood of water in the form of the Cross, and in the name of the Holy Trinity he commanded the flood to recede as quickly as possible. A wonderful thing! Immediately with a reflowing current that entire flood receded, dryness returned, and no injury or damage appeared in the vessels or contents of that dwelling. For in the eyes of those watching, from the fingers of the holy little boy praying, instead of drops of water, sparks of fire seemed to be scattered, and the water seemed to be wiped away and absorbed by them. Thus the Lord, gathering together as into the waters of the sea, placing the abysses in storehouses, is praised by all, who worked such great things in his beloved, the little S. Patrick: and the little one is magnified, who was able to do so many and such great things in the great and praiseworthy Lord.

[4] From collected pieces of ice: S. Patrick in his boyhood years, although he sometimes thought and acted as a child, how precious he was in the eyes of that child who was born for us was declared by the most brilliant works. On a certain day, when winter was freezing everything, the boy Patrick, mingled with the groups of his playmates of the same age, collected many fragments of ice in his lap, and carrying them home threw them in the yard. His nurse, seeing this, said it would be more useful for him to gather wood for building a fire than to play with icy bits. The boy answered with the tongue of an old man: that it would be easy for the Lord the Creator, with the law of nature changed, to make a fire for his needs from such things, and by his will, if faith be not lacking, fire would prevail over water. He lights a fire by praying: And so that you may know, he said, all things are possible to one who believes; you will prove by the faith of your own eyes what I tell you. He therefore heaped up a pile of ice pieces like firebrands, and prayed; and having made the sign of the Cross, he blew upon it: and immediately fire came forth, kindling the ice, and extended a crest of flames far and wide. For that fire not only offered the benefit of warmth to those approaching, but also furnished matter for great admiration. A flame seemed to have proceeded from the mouth of the boy Patrick instead of breath, so that it might clearly appear that he was inwardly illuminated by the immense light of divine grace. Prelusive to the conversion of infidels: Nor does this miracle degenerate much from that ancient one which Scripture narrates as having been done under Nehemiah. For when he was leading back the Hebrew people, granted freedom from the long captivity by Cyrus King of the Persians, to the land of Judah, he ordered the place to be searched where their Fathers in the exile had hidden the fire of sacrifice: and when they arrived there, no fire was found but thick water, which Nehemiah ordered to be brought and the sacrifice to be sprinkled with it. A copious fire immediately kindled devoured the holocaust and burned the hardest stones. By the same power, therefore, fire consumed frozen water, which coming from water consumed victims and stones by reducing them to ashes. The novelty of the miracle is therefore to be admired, the sanctity of Patrick to be venerated, and in all these things the power of Almighty God to be adored. For by this brilliant prognostic sign the Lord glorified S. Patrick: whose preaching afterward inflamed very many, frozen in unbelief, with the fire of faith and the love of God.

[5] He heals his injured sister with the sign of the Cross: One day the sister of S. Patrick, the aforementioned Lupita, already a bigger girl, while running about at the command of her maternal aunt to separate lambs from their mothers at the time of weaning, collapsed and fell, and striking her head against a very sharp flint, with a most grievous wound inflicted on her forehead, she lay as if dead. Several from the household ran up, acquaintances and friends gathered, grieving for the wounded and afflicted girl; her brother too was present with the others, compassionate toward his sister but trusting in the divine remedy. For approaching, he raised her up, and with the thumb of his right hand dipped in the saliva of his mouth, he impressed the sign of the Cross on the girl's bloodied forehead and restored her to health immediately: yet the scar of the inflicted wound remained, as an indication, I believe, of the miracle that was performed, and as proof of the sanctity of him who did it in the faith of the Cross of Christ. The husband of S. Patrick's maternal aunt, He restores his foster-father to life: who was accustomed to carry the infant frequently in his arms, was overtaken by sudden death and expired. His wife, however, rushed up with the others running to the scene, and breaking forth in these words to Patrick, who was standing nearby, she said with weeping: Behold, Patrick, your foster-father and the bearer of your infancy lies dead: show in him your life-giving power, which is accustomed to heal others. Therefore, the youth of holy disposition, moved by compassion for the tears of his nurse and the misery of his foster-father lying thus, approached the lifeless man, and pouring out a prayer over him with a blessing and the impression of the life-giving sign, embracing his head and neck with his own hands, and raising him up, he restored him alive and unharmed. All who saw this sign praised God working in Patrick.

[6] Assigned to the custody of sheep: The custody of sheep had been delegated to the young S. Patrick by his maternal aunt; to which he devoted all diligence, together with his sister mentioned above. For at that time among that people, works of this kind were not attributed to idleness or disgrace: because the sons of the best families were formerly assigned to the office of shepherd. Whence Jacob and his sons the Patriarchs before Pharaoh testified, as venerably as truthfully, that they were shepherds of sheep, like their fathers: and Moses the Lawgiver and David the most illustrious King are read to have labored long in pasturing sheep. On a certain day, therefore, when the boy Patrick was in the pastures with the sheep entrusted to him, a wolf came forth from the neighboring forest and snatched one little sheep, He receives one snatched by a wolf when the same wolf returns it: and carried it away: in the evening, however, when Patrick returned with the flock to the homestead, the aforesaid maternal aunt attributed the damage to the negligence or laziness of the boy. The boy, however, although he blushed at the voice of the one rebuking and complaining, yet bore those words patiently, and poured out prayers for the return of the sheep. On the next day, when he drove the flock to pasture, the aforementioned wolf came to meet him, deposited the little sheep carried in its mouth before the footsteps of Patrick, and sought the familiar places of the forest. The boy gave thanks to the Lord, who, just as he kept Daniel untouched among the roaring lions prepared for food, so now for his consolation preserved the sheep unharmed from the wolf's teeth. He heals a cow seized by a demon: The mistress of the household, who raised Saint Patrick, had several cows, one of which a demon entering tormented: she, made aggressive from fury, by trampling with her feet and goring with her horns, disemboweled five cows and scattered the rest of the herd in every direction. The owners of the herd grieved at the accident that had occurred: men and beasts feared the onslaught of the furious one, as from the face of a lion. The boy Patrick, however, armed with faith, went forth to meet it, and producing the sign of the Cross, freed the cow from all demonic vexation. And raises five others: Going then to the wounded and prostrate cows, having first prayed, he blessed them and restored their former health to all. The calf freed from the demon, not unaware of its liberator, approached more closely with lowered head and, licking the hands and feet of the boy, turned all who saw it to the praise of God and the veneration of Patrick.

[7] Water changed into honey: The nurse of saint Patrick, laid low by illness, desired honey, in whose taste she was confident she would improve. Honey was sought by those around her but was not found; the impossibility of finding it was announced to the desiring woman. Whence it happened that from not obtaining what she craved, her appetite was sharpened by a greater eagerness, and she complained that no one was mindful of her or came to her aid. Hearing this, the nourishing youth, her foster-child Patrick, grieved for her; and trusting in the Lord, he ordered a vessel to be filled with fresh water from the spring and brought to him: and he himself knelt in prayer, and rising, blessed it with the sign of the Cross and handed it to the woman who desired honey. He heals his nurse: A wonderful thing! Immediately that water was changed into the finest honey. The woman therefore tasted it, and her soul was satisfied, and consequently she was healed of her illness. Thus Patrick changed water into honey in the name of him who changed water into wine at Cana of Galilee.

[8] He frees the same woman from servile labor: Now there was on a certain promontory overlooking the aforesaid town of Nemthor a certain fortification, of which even now the ruinous traces of the walls still appear.

Now the lord of that place had subjected the nurse of Saint Patrick to himself under the yoke of harsh servitude, pressing her down into bondage. Among the other servile tasks imposed upon her, he commanded her daily to sweep clean all the workshops within the town, and even to carry out manure from the horse stables. But the woman, understanding with a noble mind that all power is from God, and that all things which exist are ordained by God, turned necessity into virtue and patiently endured the servitude imposed upon her. The boy Patrick, however, moved with compassion for his nurse's affliction, besought the Lord the place to be cleansed by her that he would deign to free her from the laborious toil of such servile work. While Patrick prayed, therefore, all those dwellings were seen to be cleaned without human hand, and no trace of any manure was found within or around them. The townsman marveled, as did all who had heard or seen this sign: the nurse was released from the yoke of servitude on account of her foster-child's merit. Nor did this miracle seem momentary rendering perpetually free from dung and filth or annual; for even to the present day it is known to have continued. For as the inhabitants of that place and its neighbors attest, if within the circuit of the aforementioned fortification as many beasts of burden as the place could hold were gathered and kept there, not the slightest particle of dung would be found.

Now this place is situated in the celebrated valley of Clyde, called in the language of that people Dunbreatan, that is, the Mount of the Britons; the sign does not allow those who thirst for knowledge to remain ignorant of it, having been so often published abroad by all the people of that land.

[9] The virtues of the boy Patrick: Patrick, the precious boy, was making progress in the sight of the Lord, with hoary wisdom of mind and maturity of character, and the number of his merits increased in him more than that of his years. An abundance of spiritual charisms overflowed in his youthful breast; in his young body a company of virtues had established its dwelling place. Entering therefore and advancing upon the slippery path of adolescence, chastity, he kept his feet from falling, and the garment which nature had woven, knowing no stain of snowy modesty, he preserved uncut; persevering as a virgin in flesh and spirit. And although the anointing taught him concerning all things, yet when the time suitable for learning came, he was handed over by his parents to be instructed in sacred letters. He himself applied his mind to the study of letters, but especially to learning and memorizing psalms, and the practice of prayer, hymns and spiritual canticles, and to singing them continually to the Lord. Whence from the very flower of his earliest youth he was accustomed daily to sing the entire Psalter to the Lord, and from the vessel of his most pure heart to offer up the fragrant incense of many prayers. Wearing down his tender body with many fasts and vigils and pious exercises of holy labors, he offered himself as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; and thus living in the flesh contrary to and above the flesh, he represented an Angel in his manner of life.

CHAPTER II.

He is carried away captive to Ireland and after six years is liberated, once and again.

[10] Since, as Scripture testifies, the furnace proves gold, and the furnace of tribulation proves the just, so that Patrick might receive the more proven crown of life, the hour of temptation came upon him. Wisdom 3:6. For when the illustrious boy had completed three lustra, reaching his sixteenth year, together with many other compatriots, Led captive to Ireland, he was seized, captured, and brought to Ireland by pirates plundering those regions: and then he was sold into servitude to a certain most pagan chieftain named Milcho, ruling in the northern part of that same island, sold to Milcho, at the very age at which Joseph is recorded to have been sold in Egypt. Joseph, however, having been sold, after his humiliation was exalted and received power and dominion over all Egypt: Patrick, after his sale and affliction, merited the primacy of a special and spiritual principality over Ireland. Similar to the patriarch Joseph in many things, Joseph fed the Egyptians laboring with famine with grain: Patrick in the course of time fed the Irish, perishing in idolatry, with the saving nourishment of the Christian faith: yet for both, the affliction that was inflicted served for the advancement of the soul, as the flail serves the grain, the furnace the gold, the file the iron, the winepress the grape, the press the olive. By the command, therefore, of the aforementioned prince, Patrick was assigned to the custody of pigs, and in a wondrous manner under his care the herd multiplied more abundantly with fruitful offspring. From which it can be rightly conjectured and inferred that the substance of the lord or head of household is often increased or improved on account of the grace and diligence of a careful and fortunate servant or steward; he becomes a swineherd just as, conversely, it diminishes or deteriorates under the hand of a lazy and unfortunate one. The youth of holy disposition, therefore, embracing in his mind the judgment of the Lord, turned that necessity into virtue; and having obtained solitude through the diligence of the swineherd's work, he labored for his own salvation. He dwelt in the mountains and forests and caves of the wilderness, devoting himself to prayer: and seeing how sweet the Lord is, he more freely and willingly offered at his pleasure the incense of prayers in the sight of the Most High. And in this office strenuously exercises his spirit: For a hundred times in the day, and as many times in the night, on bended knees he adored the Creator, and prayed for some time entirely fasting; sometimes sustaining himself on roots of herbs or the lightest foods, he mortified his members which were upon the earth. Neither heat nor cold, snow, hail, ice, nor any other inclemency of the air could keep him from his spiritual exercises. He went therefore daily increasing and advancing, more robust than himself in faith and love of Jesus Christ; indeed, the weaker and more feeble he appeared, the stronger and more powerful he was in carrying out the commandments of the Lord.

[11] Milcho's dream about himself The aforementioned Milcho was watching in a vision of the night; and behold, Patrick, as if entirely on fire, was entering his house, and a flame proceeding from his mouth and nostrils, eyes and ears, seemed to burn him. Milcho, however, pushed away from himself the flaming head of hair, nor could the spreading flame touch him at all; [but] it turned to the right and seizing two of his little daughters sleeping in one bed, it burned them to ashes: then the south wind blowing lifted those ashes upward and carried them to many parts of Ireland. Milcho, awakening, pondered within himself on his bed what weight this terrible vision bore or what portent it foretold. On the next day, having summoned Patrick to himself, he related the dream in order, beseeching and adjuring him that, if he knew, he would untangle for him its interpretation. Patrick, full of the grace of the Holy Spirit, answered Milcho: he himself explains it: The fire which you saw going forth from me is the faith of the Holy Trinity, by which I am wholly illuminated, which I shall also endeavor to preach to you: but my word will find no place in you, because with a blind mind you will repel from yourself the light of divine grace, and you will die in the darkness of your unbelief: but your daughters will believe in the true God at my preaching, and they, serving God in holiness and justice all the remaining days of their lives, will rest in the Lord with a holy end: their ashes also (that is, their Relics), the Lord revealing and working signs, will be carried to many regions of Ireland, and will impart the benefits of healings to very many of the sick: and the dream is true, and its interpretation, which will be fulfilled in their proper time. Having said these things, Patrick went away to his accustomed work; and all things afterward came to pass for Milcho and his daughters according to the word of Patrick.

[12] When six cycles of years had elapsed, since by the Lord's arrangement he had thoroughly learned the Irish language for the conversion of that same nation, with tears and groaning he unceasingly begged God to grant him deliverance from servitude and return to his homeland. As he was praying one day, the Angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing upon the precipice of a certain prominent rock, He is advised of his imminent liberation by the Angel, announcing that his prayers and fasts had ascended as a memorial before God. He added also that he would soon shake from his neck the yoke of servitude, and would arrive safely at his homeland and his own parents, having completed the voyage. The servant of the Maker beheld the Angel face to face, with whom he was accustomed to speak familiarly; and speaking with him mouth to mouth as familiarly as with a friend, he inquired who he was and by what name he was called. The heavenly messenger professed that he was an Angel of the Lord, a ministering spirit sent into the world for the sake of those who inherit salvation; that he was called Victor, specially assigned to his own guardianship: he promised that he would be his helper and cooperator in all his undertakings. And although it is not necessary for celestial spirits to be called by a human name, yet the Angel, beautifully clothed in human form assumed from the air, called himself Victor: for he received from the most victorious King Christ the power of conquering and binding the aerial powers and the princes of this darkness, who is also accustomed to grant to his servants, formed from the dust, the power of treading upon serpents and scorpions, and of conquering and crushing Satan. After mutual conversation, the Angel showed Patrick a furrow in the earth dug up by pigs, and gold shown by the same and commanded him to seek in it gold, the price by which he would be redeemed from the hand of his cruel lord. He added also that a ship, prepared for crossing to Britain, was standing in a port two hundred miles distant from that place, and could not have a favorable wind without his presence by the divine will. The vision and speech of the Angel saying these things disappeared; and his footprints impressed upon the rock are remembered to the present day, in the regions of Dalaradia, on Mount Mis, as the assertion of the inhabitants attests: for there is built there an oratory in honor of S. Patrick, in which the devotion of the faithful is accustomed to keep vigil and pray.

[13] He finds it, and redeems himself with it: Patrick proceeded to the place designated by the angelic indication, and found there no small weight of gold: he then approached his harsh and cruel lord concerning his manumission, and bent his soul, greedy for gold, to consent to granting freedom, by offering and giving the gold of the tawny metal of refined quality. Solemnly emancipated, therefore, from the servitude of the slave of mammon, he went on his way rejoicing, and took the road toward the sea, desiring to return to his homeland. Milcho, however, grieved that he had let go a servant most necessary to him; and violating the agreement, in order to bring Patrick back and subject him to his former servitude, like Pharaoh pursuing the Hebrews, he followed close behind the departing one: but by divine will, wandering in mind and foot, he did not find the one he sought, but the gold, when the master retracts the pact, disappears, frustrated in every effort, and returned to his own home with shame and sorrow. To the increase of his distress there was also added the fact that, just as Patrick, having been given his freedom, fled, so the price of his freedom, namely the gold, did not appear to him when he returned home. The sanction of the legal decree also agrees with the liberation and freedom of S. Patrick: for the law decreed that one subjected to servitude for six years should be restored to freedom in the seventh.

Deuteronomy 15:12. Holy Patrick, led by angelic escort, came to the sea, and there found a ship, in which there were pagans, prepared for crossing to Britain, who gladly admitted him, and committing their sails to winds blowing according to their wishes, they landed after three days.

[14] Having come out to dry land, they found that region deserted and uninhabited. Having landed in Britain, with his companions laboring from hunger They began therefore to traverse that land by journeying for a space of twenty-four days, and for lack of provisions they were suffering the extremity of hunger in a place of horror and vast solitude. Throughout that entire journey Patrick preached the word of God to the pagans, disputing and persuading concerning the faith of the Holy Trinity and the kingdom of God. But they, like the deaf asp that stops its ears to the voice of one wisely charming, closed the ears of hearing the word of God, until vexation should give understanding to the hearing. He obtains that a herd of swine be sent: For when the famine pressed more sharply and grew heavier, the chief among them is reported to have burst forth in these words: Behold, you see, O Christian, that we are wasting with want and misery, and our eyes languish from need: therefore entreat your God, whom you teach and assert to be Almighty, on our behalf, that he may refresh us with his munificence, and that his magnificence may be adored and glorified by us. To this S. Patrick replied: Believe, said he, and confess to the God of heaven, who gives food to all flesh, at whose opening of his hand you shall be filled with his goodness. While Patrick was speaking at greater length in this manner and praying for them, suddenly a herd of swine appeared, and wild honey, the abundance of which indeed sufficed them to satiety; nor from that day throughout that whole journey did the sustenance of refreshment fail. Seeing therefore so great a miracle, they gave thanks to God and held S. Patrick in the highest veneration. With prosperity following, Because they sacrificed them to idols, and abundance of provisions smiling upon them, those men quickly forgot God, who had saved them from the straits of famine. For unmindful of God, and ungrateful for the benefit bestowed upon them by divine generosity, they sacrificed some of their food to demons and not to God: they imitated in this respect those Samaritans He himself fasts for twenty consecutive days, whom the Book of Kings relates to have worshipped God, yet not to have abandoned the worship of their idols. 4 Kings 17. Whence it came about that S. Patrick ate no earthly food for twenty continuous days: because, although earnestly asked, he was by no means willing to share in their banquet, lest he should seem to be contaminated by things offered to idols. For the Lord gave Patrick the strength to endure this abstinence, who once gave the Prophet Elijah the facility of fasting for forty days.

[15] The wonderful ruler of all things, God, very often illumines with signs and wonders his elect whom he loves most closely: but sometimes he allows them to fall into various temptations, according to the Apostle: so that they may learn and know to keep their strength for God, who is their protector, and to place no confidence in themselves or from themselves. James 1:2. Whence also the elect and beloved of God, Patrick, was permitted by divine judgment to be most severely tempted by the angel of Satan; for the greater confusion of the tempter and the increase of the crown of the one tempted; and lest perhaps the greatness of signs or fasts should exalt him. For at night, upon him as he slept, the prince of darkness rushed violently, Gravely tempted and oppressed by Satan and oppressed him with the weight of an enormous rock; falling also upon him, he took from him all motion and function of his limbs and the effect of his senses, and bringing upon him darkness and torpor for three days, he did not cease to vex and strike him beyond the measure of human endurance. But the Saint in his tribulation cried out to the Lord, twice invoking in the name of the Lord Elijah the Prince of Prophets to his aid. Freed by the invoked Elijah: Elijah was therefore sent by the Lord with an immense light and freed him from all the pressure of the enemy which had surrounded him, and illuminating him wonderfully within and without, he restored to him the powers of all his limbs and senses. The enemy of the human race, confounded, was compelled to confess that he had been conquered by him, and that he would by no means hereafter have the power of prevailing against him.

[16] Now Patrick, departing from the company of his fellow travelers, so that he might experience that many are the tribulations of the just, Again captured by barbarians through which we must enter into the kingdom of heaven, fell into the hands of strangers: and while he was captured and held by them, and his spirit was in anguish within him, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, according to his accustomed manner, sent the Angel Victor to comfort him, predicting and promising that he would shortly be delivered from the hands of those detaining him. How firmly founded in truth the angelic promise was, his swift deliverance proved, which followed after only two months had elapsed. For the barbarians sold him to one of the neighbors for a certain cauldron, He is sold for a cauldron, which when placed on the fire could not be heated, a trifling enough exchange for so great a matter. Yet the vessel purchased for such a price, when filled with water and placed on the fire in the usual manner for cooking food, admitted no heat from the fire: indeed, the more copiously the fire was kindled, the more it grew cold. The flame raged everywhere around it with fuel applied externally; but the water was felt to be frozen within, as if ice rather than fire were placed beneath it. For a long time, therefore, they labored at this task but in vain, and the report was spread all around. The buyer, estimating that what had happened was done by some witchcraft, And therefore he is dismissed free, returned the cauldron to its seller, and received Patrick again into his jurisdiction. The vessel in question, therefore, having received heat, naturally rendered its accustomed service: and it was clear to all that the miracle had occurred on account of Patrick, who had been unjustly harassed; and immediately those who had captured him released him free.

CHAPTER III.

Having traveled in Gaul and Italy, Patrick at length, having obtained his mission, lands in Ireland.

[17] Freed therefore by divine power from the hands of the sons of strangers, Returned to his parents: after a long captivity he was restored to his own parents. Seeing him, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy, and their spirit revived, as of those awakening from a deep sleep, at the arrival of their son returned from a distant region. He was asked by them with great insistence of prayers and abundance of tears not to deprive his own people of his presence any longer. He, however, in order to render due honor and obedience to his parents, remained with them for some days. When some space of time had passed, while established in his father's home, in a vision of the night he saw a man of comely face and bearing, He is invited through a vision to preach to the Irish, as if coming from Ireland, bringing many letters, and offering one to him to read: which he, receiving, read, and found written at the beginning of the letter: This is the voice of the Irish. For having read the beginning, when he wished to proceed in reading, he seemed to himself in spirit to hear Irish infants enclosed in their mothers' wombs, crying with a clear voice: We beg you, holy boy Patrick, that you come and walk among us, and free us. At this cry, Patrick, pierced to the heart, could not read through the letter: but awakened from sleep, he gave immense thanks to Almighty God. He held it therefore as fixed in his mind from the vision that the Lord, who had separated him from his mother's womb, was calling him through his grace to convert and save the Irish people, And is admonished by the Angel to seek Gaul: who seemed to invoke and desire his presence. He consulted the Angel of great counsel about this matter; and through the Angel Victor he received a divine oracle to leave his homeland and parents and go to Gaul, in order to learn the doctrine and discipline of the Christian faith.

[18] Taught and led forth by heaven, although both parents resisted and wanted to hold him, with faithful Abraham he went out from his land and kindred and his father's house, passing through his native soil of Britain, There he attaches himself to S. Germanus, and entered the territories of Gaul. And lest perhaps he should run in vain, or teach what he had not learned, he attached himself to Blessed Germanus, Bishop of Auxerre; and in order to advance more fully in Christian religion and learning, he remained with him for a space of eighteen years, reading and fulfilling the sacred Scriptures (as is contained in the deeds of the same Blessed Germanus). Both had received a divine oracle: Patrick, namely, to remain with S. Germanus; and the Bishop, to keep the same holy youth with him for instruction. This Prelate was most celebrated in family, dignity, life, doctrine, office, and miracles; from whom Patrick received each grade of sacred Orders, And likewise to S. Martin: and even the summit of the Priesthood according to the canonical institutions. With similar intent, for the sake of learning divine doctrine, he dwelt for some time with Blessed Martin, Archbishop of Tours, who was also said to be the uncle of his mother Conchessa. Under whom he was made a monk And because that most holy jewel among Priests was a monk, he gave to his kinsman Patrick the monastic habit and his institutes to observe: which Patrick, having devoutly received them, adorned with acts corresponding to the habit, and persevered in them. Bidding farewell to one another, they departed from each other, He is sent to the island of Tamar; because Blessed Martin was commanded by the Angel to proceed to the island of Tamar. Holy Patrick, however, returning to Blessed Germanus, remained with him for some days.

[19] Patrick, having become a monk, forgetting those things which were behind, stretched himself forward to what lay ahead: and as if making light of his past way of life, he hastened toward the heights of perfection. For with incredible abstinence, prolongation of vigils, and exercises of other virtues, he afflicted himself, Strenuously exercising himself, and bore continually in his heart and body the mortification of the Cross which his habit displayed. But the Supreme Pastor, who had disposed to raise him to the summit of holiness in the Church, allowed him to experience his own weakness, so that he might learn to have humble thoughts about himself, to agree with the humble, to have compassion on the weak. Thus indeed, the more firmly he would stand at the pinnacle of great perfection, Yet he is overcome by the temptation to eat meat: the more firmly he was fixed and placed on the foundation of true humility. For a desire to eat meat crept upon him; and at length, drawn away and enticed by such concupiscence, he acquired pork meat: what he had acquired, he hid in a certain barrel. He judged it better that, having found an opportunity, he should secretly satisfy his appetite, rather than doing this openly and becoming a stumbling block and rock of scandal to the other Brothers. He had not yet gone far from the place; and behold, a certain one having eyes before and behind stood before him; whom Patrick, seeing thus marvellously, indeed monstrously endowed with sight, wondered at, and inquired what he was, or what the eyes fixed before and behind portended. But corrected and repentant by a marvelous vision, To whom that one said: I am a minister of God; and with the eyes fixed in my forehead I see what is before me; and with the gaze placed in the back of my head

I behold a monk hiding meat in a barrel, in order to satisfy his belly. He said this and immediately vanished.

[20] Patrick, however, frequently striking his breast with his fist, fell to the ground, and drenched it with such a shower of tears as if he were guilty of all crimes. And as he lay prostrate, wailing and weeping, the oft-mentioned Angel Victor appeared to him in his accustomed form, He is comforted by the Angel, saying: Arise, let your heart be strengthened; for the Lord has taken away your sin: avoid henceforth such a fall. Rising therefore, S. Patrick forswore and cut off from himself all eating of meat for the remaining time of his life. Yet still he humbly besought the Lord to show him by some evident sign that his guilt had been forgiven. The Angel therefore commanded Patrick to bring forth those hidden meats into the open, and to place them, once brought out, in water. Patrick therefore did as the Angel commanded. The meats are turned into fish. A wonderful thing! Those meats, immersed in and extracted from the water, were immediately turned into fish. S. Patrick was accustomed frequently to relate this sign to his disciples, for the purpose of restraining the concupiscence of the palate. Very many of the Irish, however, perversely following this sign, were accustomed on the day of S. Patrick, which always falls within Lent, to immerse meats in water, to extract them once submerged, to cook them once extracted, to eat them once cooked, and to call them Patrick's fish. In this remarkable sign, let every religious person learn to repress gluttony, not to eat meat illicitly, and not to heed what the foolish and ignorant populace is accustomed to do.

[21] It settled in the mind of S. Patrick to seek the See of S. Peter, founded upon the rock, and to be more fully imbued with the canonical institutions of the holy Roman Church; Setting out for Rome desiring to have his journey and acts strengthened by Apostolic authority. When he had disclosed to Blessed Germanus what he had conceived in his heart, S. Germanus approved his holy purpose, joining to him Christ's servant Sergecius the Priest, with his companion Sergecius, a companion of the journey, a solace of the labor, a suitable witness of holy conduct. Setting out by divine instinct or angelic revelation, he withdrew to a certain solitary dwelling on a certain island of the Tyrrhenian Sea; a man of sacred life, of excellent reputation, of great merit, named and in deed Just: and when after a holy greeting they exchanged salutary words with one another, the same man of God gave Patrick a staff, He turns aside to the hermit Just: which he declared he had received from the hand of the Lord Jesus appearing to him for the purpose of conferring it upon him... S. Patrick, giving thanks to God, remained some days with the man of God, from whom he receives the Staff of Jesus, and profiting more and more in God by his example, at last having bidden him farewell, he set forth with the Staff of Jesus to where he had intended. O excellent gift descending from the Father of lights: outstanding blessing, remedy for the sick, effective in signs, a gift sent by God, a support for the weary, providing a prosperous journey to the traveler. For just as the Lord worked many signs through the rod in the hand of Moses, who was to lead the people of the Hebrews out of the land of Egypt; so through Patrick with the staff, which he had fashioned with his own hands and carried, he willed to work many and great things for the conversion of very many peoples. This staff is held in great veneration in Ireland, and to the present day is called the Staff of Jesus.

[22] Patrick, God of our salvation making his journey prosperous, arrived at the City, the capital of the world, By Pope Celestine visiting with due devotion of veneration the memorials of the Apostles and Martyrs, having obtained acquaintance and familiarity with the Supreme Pontiff, he found grace in his eyes. At that time Celestine the First presided over the Apostolic See, both in name and manner of life, the forty-third from Blessed Peter the Apostle. He, keeping S. Patrick with him, having found him proven and perfected in faith, doctrine, and holiness, at length consecrated him as Bishop; and decreed to send him to convert the Irish people. The aforesaid Pope had previously sent before him to Ireland another teacher for the purpose of preaching, named Palladius, Palladius is replaced, having been sent before him to Ireland, namely his own Archdeacon, to whom, having joined companions, he gave a supply of books; namely, both Testaments together with relics of the Apostles Peter and Paul, and of very many Martyrs. But since the Irish did not believe the preaching and most obstinately opposed it, he departed from their region, and heading for Rome, he died within the borders of the Picts in Britain. He nevertheless converted and baptized some to Christ in Scotland, and founded three churches built of timber; over which he left his disciples as Prelates, namely Augustine, Benedict, Silvester, and Solomus, having given them his books and relics of the Saints. To this man, with a more fruitful legation and labor, S. Patrick succeeded, because as the Irish proverb says: Not to Palladius, but to Patrick did the Lord grant Ireland to be converted. The Lord Apostolic, having been informed of the death of Palladius, precisely commanded Patrick to undertake the journey and work of the saving legation, which he had previously delayed doing, having used stricter counsel.

[23] By angelic exhortation A short time after receiving the episcopal grade, the oft-named Angel of the Lord, Victor, appeared to Patrick while he was staying in Rome, and commanded him to hasten his journey to Ireland, and to gain the people of that island for Christ by preaching, as the Lord had disposed. But Patrick, declaring himself unequal and inadequate for so great a burden and so arduous a work, replied: that he was by no means willing or able to attempt this, unless he could first see and greet the Lord. He was therefore led by the Angel to Mount Morion, near the Tyrrhenian Sea, situated near the city of Capua, and there, like Moses, he merited to see and greet the Lord according to the desire of his burning love. Who, I ask, could measure in the mind the merit of Patrick, And is strengthened by the Lord's address: or what tongue could fully express, to whom while dwelling on earth it was granted to behold face to face the King of glory, whom in his beauty the Angels desire to look upon, and to be taught from the mouth of the Most High what he would preach to men? The Lord promised him that he would hear his prayers and would be his helper in all his undertakings. Strengthened and emboldened therefore by the divine vision and conversation, he eagerly desired to complete the work of the ministry divinely enjoined upon him and also committed to him by the Lord Pope, and hastened his return toward Ireland with twenty men, distinguished in life and wisdom, assigned to him in aid by the Supreme Pontiff himself. He turned aside, however, to Blessed Germanus, his nurturer and instructor; from whose gift he received chalices and priestly vestments, a supply of books, and other things pertaining to ecclesiastical worship and ministry. About to sail for Ireland Blessed Patrick, hastening his journey toward Ireland, when in a port situated on the borders of Britain he was about to board a ship with his companions to cross the sea, a certain leper standing on the shore presented himself to the Saint, beseeching and adjuring him in the name of the Lord Jesus that he would take him aboard the ship and convey him to Ireland. The man of God, overflowing with the bowels of compassion, A leper not admitted into the ship, assented to the prayers of the pitiable poor man: but the sailors objected, and the others who were in the ship, asserting that the ship was sufficiently laden, and that he would be a burden and horror to all. The Saint, trusting in the clemency of the Lord's power, cast into the sea a consecrated stone altar, given to him by the Lord Pope, upon which he was accustomed to celebrate the divine mysteries, and made the leper sit upon it. But the mind shudders, the pen falters to express what happened by divine power. That stone slab, thus laden, was borne upon the waters, He makes him cross upon a stone altar, guided by the cornerstone; and floating against nature, and running alongside the ship, it kept pace with it in equal course; and so at the same moment, at the same place, it reached the shore. When all had landed safely and the altar was found with its burden, the sound of thanksgiving arose, and the voice of praise in the mouth of the holy Bishop, and he reproached his disciples and traveling companions for their unbelief and hardness of heart, seeking to soften their stony hearts into hearts of flesh, for the practice of works of charity.

[24] When the Saint with his companions had drawn near the land while sailing, Swarms of demons trying to impede his journey, he perceived a multitude of demons massed together in the form of a circle surrounding the entire island, and opposing themselves as if a wall, wanting to guard their domain strongly, trying to block his entrance. But the heart of the Saint was not troubled, nor did he fear before the faces of those deformed ones, knowing that those with him were more and mightier than those with them, for his protection and their overthrow. The Saint therefore stood immovable in faith, like Mount Zion; trusting in the Lord, because the angelic mountains were round about him, and the Lord was round about his servant, truly strong and mighty in battle. The holy Bishop, knowing that all those enemies were to be conquered by him in the power of the Cross of Christ, He puts them to flight with the sign of the Cross: raising his sacred right hand he made the sign of the Cross; and narrating what he saw, and confirming his companions in faith, he passed through unharmed and undaunted. Clothed therefore with power from on high, having received the weapons of God's might for crushing the aerial powers, against every height that exalts itself against the knowledge of the Lord, he manfully exercised himself, having in readiness to avenge all disobedience and opposition on their part, as will become more clearly evident in what follows.

[25] The man of God landed with his traveling companions within the borders of Leinster, in the port of Inbherdea, where a river flowing into the sea abounded at that time with a copious multitude of fish: Having landed in Ireland, and received unworthily, but the fishermen had then come up from the water and were dragging their nets full of fish behind them. The household of the holy Bishop, exhausted by hunger and the sea, earnestly begged them to share with them some portion of their fish: but the barbarians and inhuman people returned not only a refusal but also insults to those asking. The Saint, taking this badly, pronounced a sentence as if of malediction, saying: This river shall henceforth produce no fish, He renders a fish-rich river barren by a curse: from whose copious catch the worshippers of the Almighty, asking from idolaters, are sent away empty. From that day therefore to the present, this river is condemned to barrenness, so that the sentence uttered by the mouth of Patrick might be plainly proved to have gone forth from the face of the Lord his God. The holy Pontiff, proceeding to the place called Aonach Taillten, turned aside there: and disposed to refresh himself and his companions with some small relief of rest, and to begin the office of his preaching. But the idolatrous inhabitants of the place, not enduring the presence of the man of God, gathered together as one and violently expelled him from their borders: because the lamp of the sun is intolerable to bleary eyes. But God, whom Patrick bore and glorified in his body, did not allow the disgrace inflicted upon his servant for his name's sake to go unavenged; And he covers their fruitful field with the sea, but swiftly inflicted upon the inhabitants a fitting vengeance. For the Lord turned their fruitful land into a salt waste because of the wickedness of those dwelling in it, because the sea covered it with an unusual and new outflow of tidal waters: and so that it might become uninhabitable forever, it was turned into a marshy swamp. Then turning aside to a certain small island, he stayed there for some days for the sake of recreation, which, not far from the land, is called the Island of S. Patrick to the present day.

[26] Having vainly attempted to return to Milcho, Blessed Patrick, boarding a ship with his companions, turned aside to the northern parts of the island, intending to vanquish the northern enemy, and to expel him from the hearts in which he had established his seat. Thus indeed, with the north wind departing, the south wind would blow in and arrive, and on the sides of the north he would plant a garden of the Lord flowing with spices. It was also his desire to bring to the knowledge of the truth the chieftain Milcho, still living, to whose service he had once been subjected, and to make him a servant of the true King, whom to serve is to reign. But because the way of a man is not in his own power, but his steps are directed by the Lord, he landed in the borders of Vlagh, He is brought to Ulidia: which is now called Ulidia, so that vessels of mercy might be gathered there. As Patrick was about to come ashore, a multitude of pagans, awaiting his arrival, met and opposed him. The druids resisting, For the druids and soothsayers of that region, by conjecture or prophecy, had foreknown that the island was to be converted through Patrick's preaching, and had long before predicted his arrival in these words: There will come one tonsured in a circle on his head, with his curved staff; whose table will be in the east of his house, and his people will stand behind him, having long before prophesied his coming, and he will sing impiety from his table, and all his household will respond, so be it, so be it. When he comes, he will destroy our gods, overturn our temples and altars, seduce the crowds to follow him, subject the kings who resist him or remove them from the midst, and his teaching will reign for ever and ever. It should therefore not seem strange or incredible if, by the Lord's inspiration or even permission, the druids put forth such presages about the coming and acts of S. Patrick: since Balaam the soothsayer and King Nebuchadnezzar prophesied clearly about the coming of the Lord, and demons bore testimony to the Son of God. But what they said, that he would sing impiety from his table, it is clearly evident that he who did not stand in truth, but from the beginning was a liar and the father of lies, uttered these things blasphemously through their mouths.

CHAPTER IV.

He sets out for Dalaradia to preach the faith to Milcho; Leogarius rages against the hostages of Dichu.

[27] By the inhabitants, prepared to hinder him at the King's command, Now the principal King of Ireland, Leogarius by name, son of Niall, remembering the aforementioned prophecy, commanded his countrymen to immediately eliminate Patrick from those parts the moment his foot touched the ground. But Holy Patrick, being in the port called Innbher-Slan, came out alone from the ship, from the sea to the land: and immediately the faithless people, savage in their ways, incited a most ferocious dog to inflict a deadly bite upon the Bishop. A dog sent against Patrick grows tame; But the dog, upon seeing the man of God, fell utterly silent, stiffened entirely like a stone, and stood completely motionless as if fixed: by clear evidence showing that its instigators, worshippers of stones, were like their own gods. When a certain man, powerful in strength, gigantic in stature, fierce in spirit, called Dichu, saw this, he swiftly brandished his sword for the destruction of the holy man: Dichu stiffens but with the Lord opposing the arm of his protection, all strength withered in him, and he stiffened completely, so that he could move neither foot to advance nor hand to strike. That man, having experienced such a sign in himself, was suddenly changed into a different man; from proud, humble; from fierce, gentle; from an idolater, he became a believer, and at Patrick's preaching, believing in Christ with his whole household, he was baptized. Thus indeed, Dichu is converted, he who was the first and foremost opponent of the Christian faith in that land, became its first professor, and until the evening of his days its most constant practitioner. Just as he was absolved from the bonds of sins in his soul, so from all stupor of dullness his limbs were released, and to each joint the former functions of sensation and strength were restored. 3 Kings 13 Behold the sign which the Book of Kings relates was once performed in King Jeroboam: Patrick repeated it more beneficially in Dichu: for when that same King, sacrificing to idols, extended his hand to seize the Prophet who was rebuking him, his arm immediately stiffened, which the Prophet's prayer afterward restored to him when he repented. Yet having been made well, he did not abandon his error: but Dichu, having obtained the health of both the outward and inward man, And Patrick offers him the site of the monastery of Saul: for the increase and proof of the inner devotion which he had toward the faith he received, bestowed upon S. Patrick the place with its appurtenances, in which that sign appeared, for the building of a new church therein.

[28] In the same place, at the request of Dichu himself (for what reason I do not know), the church was built by the Saint of God from the northern part facing the southern region; perhaps so that from the northern cold of unbelief to the southern fervor of faith and the love of Christ, the worshippers of idols might seem to be incited by the mystical structure of this building, which to the present day is called by the inhabitants Saul, that is, the Barn of Patrick. For in the course of time he built therein an outstanding monastery, into which he introduced accomplished monks, for whose use he produced by prayer a most necessary spring from the ground not far from the place. Over this monastery he appointed his disciple S. Dunnius as Abbot, Where S. Dunnius was Abbot, where he himself also, having returned from preaching, spent not a few days with him. On a certain day when the gracious Bishop Patrick was standing at the altar in the same church, performing the divine mysteries, a certain maleficent son of perdition, a satellite of Satan, with execrable approach and audacity, standing outside, A sorcerer who overturned the chalice is swallowed by the earth, overturned the chalice through the window with a rod and sacrilegiously spilled the most holy offerings upon the altar. But the Lord immediately and terribly avenged so horrible a crime, and removed the nefarious man from the midst in a new, or rather renewed manner. For the earth, opening its mouth with a terrible gaping, just as once Dathan and Abiron, swallowed that sorcerer, and he descended alive to the depths of hell. When the sorcerer was swallowed, the rent and broken earth closed its gaping by contracting; but a pit remaining there shows to beholders the sign of divine vengeance. The holy priest, however, grieving over the spilled chalice, while he was afflicting himself with the most grievous laments, The Blood of Christ is restored in full to the chalice, the chalice with the divine offerings intact was composed in its place and by divine power stood erect before him, nor did any trace of the spilled libation appear anywhere.

[29] The aforementioned Dichu had a brother by blood, named Rius, advanced in age and in unbelief, He urges Dichu's brother, who opposes him, whose bodily tabernacle was felt to be bowed and near to ruin from old age; who grieved most severely over the death of the sorcerer and the conversion of his brother. For this man savored entirely of the earth, believed there was no life other than the present one, and considered that he had even lost his brother, who, believing in Christ, was striving with all his might toward the future glory which will be revealed in his servants. For this reason, assailing Patrick every day, he troubled him and strove to shut his mouth, lest he should disseminate the word of God through that region, so that the number of believers might be increased in the Lord. To convert him But the Saint, wishing to gain the man for Christ, approached him with living and true arguments of rational assertion, persuading him from the very species and natures of creatures to believe in the Creator of all: and in order to lead him more effectively into the way of truth, giving credibility to his words, he pledged that a sign would follow, saying: When all the functions of your limbs and senses are lulled into death within you, and the light of your life lies at its threshold, if Christ should restore to you the vigor and beauty of flourishing youth, would you not then be bound to believe in him? He answered: He restores him to flourishing age: If you accomplish in me through Christ the display of so great a miracle, I will consequently believe in him. S. Patrick therefore prayed, and laying hands on him he blessed him, and immediately, putting on beauty and strength, he bloomed again into the state of youthful age. All who were present were therefore surrounded with amazement at such a sign performed, and it opened the mouths of these people to the praises of Christ and the reverence of S. Patrick.

[30] The above-mentioned Rius, therefore, as he was renewed outwardly in body, so also inwardly renewed in the spirit of his mind, Who, baptized, together with three of his brothers and many others, merited to be purified in the saving font. After this, seeing the man entirely purged from sin, and that sin stood at the door for one crossing the muddy and slippery way of mortal life, the holy Bishop, at the dictation of the Holy Spirit, said to him: Choose now whether in this vale of tears, in the land of tribulation and distress, your years shall be prolonged; or presently, with the misery of this present life ended, taken up by the Angels of light, you shall enter into the joy of the Lord your God. He, however, Chooses to die soon, believing that he would see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living, said: I choose, and I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ forever, rather than to dwell in the tabernacles of sinners. He received therefore from the hand of the holy Bishop the saving Viaticum: and immediately, commending his spirit into the hands of the Lord, he was brought into the refreshment of everlasting rest. Holy Patrick, commending his possessions to the keeping of his beloved Dichu, Milcho, lest he be compelled to believe, began to set out to visit Milcho, his former lord, indeed his torturer, as he had conceived in his heart; in order that by preaching he might truly convert him, now grown old and evil of days, to the infancy of the Christian faith. But Milcho, a man of malicious mind and a minister of death, feared that Patrick's preaching could penetrate any heart of stone: he feared being compelled to believe by a bright and fiery word, or by an irrefutable miracle; he considered it unworthy, indeed ignominious, to be subjected to the teaching of his former servant, and to be yoked to the unaccustomed worship of the Creator rather than to deep-rooted idolatry. When he heard that the Bishop of the Most High was approaching, given over to a reprobate mind, this son of perdition He gives himself and his possessions to the flames: gathered all his substance together and consigned it to the flames, and throwing himself upon the midst of the fire,

like Judas, he made himself a holocaust to the infernal furies.

[31] The holy Bishop, viewing from a nearby mountain the fatal end of the chieftain consumed by the pyre, saw his soul in the form of a fiery serpent plunging into the abyss, and perceiving the great depth of God's judgments, he burst forth with tearful sighs in these words: The seed of this king, who has doubly damned himself lest he believe in the Creator of heaven and earth, shall not possess the land by inheritance; but shall be forever oppressed by indissoluble servitude. His posterity is predicted never to reign: What therefore happened according to the word of the man of God: for none of his stock ascended to the throne of the kingdom after him; but in a short time his line perished from the land, as it is said, by the sword, or by famine, or by captivity under the harshest yoke of servitude. Thus, thus the Lord visits and avenges the sins of the fathers upon the sons; and the axe is laid to the root of the death-bearing tree, lest it put forth branches of wickedness. But because God many times raises up children of Abraham from stones, and is accustomed to produce roses from a thorn, by the Lord's own inspiration, His daughters are converted and become renowned for miracles, the two daughters of the above-mentioned Milcho were converted to the faith by Patrick's preaching. Both were named Emeria when they were washed in the saving water, and they lived holily and devoutly, and after death were buried in the place called Cluainbroin, and as Patrick himself had long before predicted, they became renowned for many miracles. Returning thence, the Saint stayed at the house of Dichu for not a few days, and by preaching and working signs and wonders to receive the Christian faith, he benefited many peoples.

[32] There was a certain youth of good disposition, named Mochua, tending pigs, whom S. Patrick found near the town of Brettan, Mochua from a swineherd making his way through those parts preaching; understanding by the Spirit's revelation that he would be a vessel of election, he preached to him the way of salvation. At the voice of his preaching the boy believed and received baptism: the Saint immediately taught him the alphabet; having given his blessing, he committed him to be instructed in letters, Quickly taught letters, and so went on his way. The youth, however, with the anointing as his teacher, within the space of one month learned the Psalter, and before the year was completed, he attained to a knowledge of the holy Scriptures. After some time had passed, S. Patrick was returning to the aforementioned town, and the above-mentioned Mochua came to meet him. When they sat down together and conferred with one another about heavenly things, a staff sent from heaven fell in their midst; By a staff sent from heaven, its head lay in the lap of Patrick, and its point rested in the bosom of Mochua. The Saint, rejoicing at the gift sent so marvelously to the youth, said to him: Know, dearest son, that with this pastoral staff the custody of souls is to be committed to you. When he demurred, however, and alleged the poverty of his knowledge and the imperfection of his age, the Saint is reported to have said to him: Do not say, I am a boy: for to all things to which the Lord shall send you, you shall go, and whatever he shall command you, you shall speak in his name. Having duly promoted him through each sacred grade in proper order, he at length consecrated him as Bishop with the aforementioned staff bestowed upon him, He is designated Bishop, the future Bishop of Aendrum, and placed him over the Church of Aendrum. He indeed was of much profit in the Church of God by word and example, and illustrious in virtues and signs, he departed to the heavenly kingdom: buried in his church, in which he had worthily ministered to God, and shining with frequent miracles, he is accustomed to prove that he lives with Christ. The aforementioned staff is preserved in the same church and is called by the Irish the flying staff: and because S. Patrick promoted that man from the care of swine to the Pontificate, a pig from his territory was accustomed to be paid annually to the Church of Down.

[33] Leogarius, a man of leonine ferocity, walked with a proud and insatiable heart in great and wonderful things beyond himself, Leogarius, angered at the converted Dichu, because it seemed to him that he possessed the land by the strength of his arm and the vigor of his might. For he held hostages of all the great men of the neighboring provinces bordering on his kingdom, and he also held the sons of the blessed Dichu in his possession, lest any of them should dare to raise his head in rebellion, or kick his heel against him. For he was a most ardent lover of druids and soothsayers, rooted and grounded in the error of idolatry; moreover, stiff-necked and of untamable heart in believing and obeying sound doctrine. When he learned that Dichu with his whole household, kindred, and family had been converted to Christ and had renounced the gods of his fathers, or rather demons, his eye and mind were troubled with the fury of his wrath and indignation. He punishes his hostages with thirst and prison: Moved in spirit therefore, he commanded his hostages to be punished in a most pernicious manner; for he forbade drink to be given to them, so that they might perish of thirst. The holy Bishop learned this through the teaching of the Spirit and informed Dichu himself. He advised him therefore to seek from Leogarius a truce of at least ten days, until Patrick himself should present himself before the King. The man therefore sought according to the admonitions of the man of God, and by no means obtained a respite of even one day; but rather by his request, as by a more vehement blast, he inflamed the heart, already kindled, with a fiercer fire of wrath. When this reached the ears of the Bishop, he had recourse to the accustomed weapons of prayer: and behold, on the following night, the Angel of the Lord appeared to the imprisoned hostages, gave them drink, and quenched their thirst, Who through Patrick's prayer are freed by an Angel, indeed more marvelously, by extinguishing it he banished it away. From that hour no suffering of thirst seized them, until after a few days had passed, with Patrick praying, again the Angel came and freed them from the prison house and from the hand of the enemy: for from the place where they were held imprisoned, which was at a great day's journey from the city of Down, through the expanse of the air, just as once the Prophet Habakkuk, he transported them, setting one of them in the place where the church of S. Patrick at Down is now built; the other on a nearby hillock, enclosed by a marsh of the sea; and he broke apart the chains with which they had been bound: and both places to the present day have derived their name, namely Dun-da-leth-glas, from the broken chains.

On another day, S. Patrick, with the Lord revealing it to him, said to his friend: Your hostages have been taken and are very thirsty: for Leogaire son of Niall has forbidden drink to be given to them, because you received me and believed in Christ. Go therefore to him and tell him that at least for ten days let drink and rest be given to the hostages, until I come to him. Then Dichu went to King Leogaire and announced these words to him. King Leogaire, greatly angered, said: Not one day's rest or drink will be given to them. Then Dichu returned. On the following night the Angel came and gave drink to the hostages, and from that night they never thirsted, until afterward Patrick arrived.

CHAPTER V.

The encounters of S. Patrick with King Leogarius and his contests with his druids.

[34] Easter was near, the feast day of Christians, on which the Life that died rose from the dead, and gave the firstfruits and proof of the resurrection of the dead: and it settled in the heart of the holy Bishop to solemnize this solemn day, which the risen Lord had made a day of rejoicing for the citizens of heaven and the inhabitants of earth, in the beautiful and spacious plain of Bregh; and there, by preaching the kingdom of God and baptizing a people of his own possession, to gather a chosen race to Christ. Boarding a ship, he came by sailing to a certain port near the aforementioned plain, and going ashore, having entrusted his ship to his nephew S. Lumanus, he turned aside for the purpose of spending the night in the house of a certain venerable man, who was called Sesgnen. Sesgnen is baptized with his household, The head of the household gladly received Patrick as a guest, hoping that salvation would come to his house from so great a guest: nor did his hope deceive him; for at Patrick's preaching the word of salvation, he believed and was baptized with his whole household. That man had a son, His son Benignus whom the Saint, washing in the saving water and giving him a name fitted to the reality, called Benignus. And truly, as in name so in life and character, he was Benign, beloved of God and men, worthy of glory and honor on earth and in heaven. He firmly adhered to the side of the holy Bishop, nor could he be torn from him in any way: for when the Saint, about to give his limbs to rest, had retired to bed, that most pure boy, fleeing from his father and mother, threw himself at the feet of the Saint, and clasping them to his breast with his hands and frequently kissing them, he rested there. On the next day, when the Saint, equipped for the journey, with one foot in his sandals and the other on the ground, was mounting his vehicle, the boy seized his foot with his hands tightly gripped, He clings to Patrick, beseeching and adjuring him not to leave him. And when both parents wished to remove him from the Saint's footsteps and to keep him with themselves, the boy cried out with great weeping and wailing, saying: Stand back, I beg you, stand back: let me go, that I may proceed with my spiritual Father. The Saint, seeing so great devotion in the tender heart and body, blessed him in the name of the Lord, commanding him to be lifted into the vehicle with him, and predicted that he would be the successor of his ministry, And is predicted to be his future successor, as indeed he was. For the same Benignus succeeded S. Patrick in the governance of the Pontificate and Primacy of all Ireland; illustrious in virtues and miracles, he rested in the Lord.

[35] The holy Bishop on the most sacred Saturday, the vigil of Easter, turned aside to celebrate the illustrious solemnity at a suitable and pleasant place, called Feartfechin, On account of the Paschal fire he lit, in the aforementioned plain: and there, according to the custom of the holy Church, he lit the lamps from the blessed fire. It happened on that same night that the idolaters were keeping a certain solemn festival, which is called Rach, which they who walked in darkness were accustomed to consecrate to the prince of darkness. It was the custom among them that all fire should be extinguished all around, Against the law of the festival which the pagans were celebrating, nor should it be relit by anyone in the surrounding province until it first appeared lit in the royal hall. King Leogarius, however, established in the place called Teamhair, at that time the principal seat of all Ireland, with his courtiers, was gazing at the fire lit by S. Patrick, marveling and growing indignant; and he inquired who dared to presume such a thing. A certain druid was among the rest, and seeing the fire, he said to the King as if prophesying: Unless that fire is extinguished this very night, the one who lit it will rule with his followers over the whole island. Hearing this, Leogarius goes forth to suppress Patrick, the King, assembling and bringing with him a multitude of his men, proceeded in the fury of his wrath to extinguish the fire. For he had brought three times nine chariots with him: because the delusion of folly, seducing his heart, had persuaded him that with such a number he would always triumph everywhere: he also turned the faces of the men and beasts to the left of Patrick, according to the tradition of the druids, believing that his effort could not be impeded by him. The Saint, seeing the multitude of chariots, began this verse: Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we will call upon the name of the Lord our God. Psalm 19:8. But when the King drew near to the place, Having summoned him, he forbids anyone to rise, the druids dissuaded the King from approaching Patrick, lest he should seem to honor him by his presence, and by showing reverence seem to adore him. The King halted, and at the magicians' advice, sending messengers to Patrick, he commanded him to present himself before him: and he forbade all his people that anyone should rise for the one approaching. The Bishop, having completed the divine office, came when called, and no one rose for the Saint because of the King's prohibition. Which Ercus nonetheless did: But a certain Hercus by name, son of Degha, who spoke many things about S. Patrick, rising in the sight of all, received him with honor. The holy Bishop blessed him and promised him eternal life: and he, believing in God, received the grace of Baptism, and leading a life renowned for virtues and signs, afterward became a Bishop and departed for heaven in the city of Slane.

[36] The blasphemous druid Lochu There was a certain druid, acceptable and most friendly to the King, named in that place Lochu, speaking wicked things against the Lord and his Christ: for, demented by demonic arts, he declared himself to be God, and the people, bound fast by his illusions, stubbornly adhering to his pernicious doctrine, worshipped him as some divinity. He continually blasphemed the way of the Lord, and strove to subvert or turn away from the faith of Jesus Christ those who wished to withdraw from idolatry. In almost the same manner he opposed S. Patrick as Simon the Magician is read to have resisted the Apostle Peter. For on a certain occasion, when he was being lifted from the earth into the air by the princes of darkness and the aerial powers, and the King and the people were watching him as if going up to heaven, At the prayers of the Saint he is hurled down, S. Patrick, seeing this, is reported to have poured forth a prayer to the Lord in this manner: Lord God Almighty, take away this druid who blasphemes your holy name from the midst, so that he may no longer be an impediment to those believing or about to believe in you. Without delay, brought down from on high to the earth with a mass of snow, he fell before the feet of the man of God, and with his head dashed against a flint, shattered and broken he expired, and surrendered his foul spirit to be buried in hell.

[37] The King, greatly distressed over the death of the druid, The unbelievers rushing upon him was entirely inflamed with wrath, and with his populous band rose up against S. Patrick to destroy him. Psalm 67:2. S. Patrick, seeing their onset, began to chant in a clear voice that verse from the Psalter: Let God arise and let his enemies be scattered, and let those who hate him flee before his face. But the Lord, the helper and protector of his own for salvation, saved Patrick his faithful servant in all his house, in this manner. For by stirring up a terrible earthquake and a horrible thunder, They are scattered by a sudden tempest, and also by the stroke of flashing lightning, the Lord struck down some, prostrated others upon the ground, and turned the rest to flight. Thus, thus, according to the Prophetic word: The Lord sent forth his arrows and scattered them, he multiplied lightnings and confounded them. Psalm 17:15, Isaiah 19:14. For he sent among them, according to the prophecy of Isaiah, the spirit of confusion, and made those idolaters turn against one another, as Egyptians against Egyptians. For each one rushed upon the other, and man turned his weapons against his brother; chariots and their riders were cast down across the plain and thrown headlong: forty-nine men having been struck down, the rest barely escaped half-alive. The King, dismayed, The King, however, trembling at the rebuke of the Lord and at the breath of the spirit of his wrath, fled and hid himself with only four men in a certain chamber, to conceal himself from the face of the Lord's fury. The Queen, however, coming to beg for the King's reconciliation, reverently approached on bended knees before S. Patrick, promising that her husband would come to him and adore his God. The Saint consented, and prayed to the Lord, and the destruction ceased, and fair weather returned. The King, according to the agreement, yet with a double heart, With feigned repentance he obtains pardon; approached the Saint, bent his knees, pretended to adore him in whom he did not believe. With deceitful lips and a dishonest heart also he besought the Bishop to deign to visit his house on the morrow, and promised that he would be obedient to his admonitions and precepts. But the man of God, although he was not ignorant, the Lord revealing it, of the iniquity which that most wicked man was meditating in the chamber of his heart, yet confidently dwelling in the help of the Most High, he acquiesced to his request.

[38] The King, bidding farewell to the Bishop, was returning to his own quarters, and in various places through which Patrick would have to pass, he set ambushes to deprive him of life when he arrived. And he places ambushes for the Saint coming to him: And indeed many rivers flowed between them, which could be forded at various places, beside any ford of which he hid nine chariots with deadly henchmen, so that if he should escape one he would fall into another, and thus by no means pass through unharmed. On the morrow, however, Patrick with only eight men and the boy Benignus mentioned above, heading directly for Themaria, that is, Teamhair, where the King was then staying, was passing through the midst of those lying in wait for his life; but their eyes were held so that they neither saw nor recognized him. Which he crosses unharmed, For to their sight there appeared eight deer with one fawn, leaping on the mountains, bounding over the hills, fording the waters: and thus the Saint with his companions, under God's protection, escaped those who were plotting his death. He himself arrived at the royal city and found the King dining with his men. When the Bishop entered the King's house, none of the diners rose, except a certain poet of the King, named Dubthach, that is, Dubrach mac Valubair, And he makes the poet Dubtach, who rises to greet him, a Christian: who rising, devoutly greeted the Saint and sought and obtained from him to be made a Christian. Dubthach, the first of those reclining at table, believed in the Lord, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness: for having been baptized and confirmed in the faith of Christ, the poems which he had formerly composed with a flourishing talent in praise of false gods, now changing his mind and tongue to a better use, he composed more brilliant poems in praise of Almighty God and his holy heralds.

[39] The oft-mentioned King Leogarius, fermented with the gall of wickedness and fraud, learning and marveling how the Saint had escaped the ambushes, turned to other devices, and him whom he could not strike with the iron of the strong, he wished to poison. For through the hand of his sorcerer, named Lugaich-Mael, he offered a cup to Patrick as he sat, for drinking: into which that same satellite of Satan, with the King's assent, mixing poison with the wine, He separates the poison from the drink offered and drinks it unharmed: presented it to Patrick. But the man of the Lord, taking the cup and invoking the name of the Lord, tilted it, and whatever was pestiferous in the drink he poured into his own palm without any admixture of the remaining liquid: then having impressed the sign of the Cross, he blessed the remainder; and to the confusion of the sorcerer and the amazement of all who sat by, drinking from it, he felt no injury or distress whatsoever. He is challenged to a contest of signs by the druid: The druid, therefore, suffused indeed confounded with shame, was all the more grieved, and lest he should seem conquered, he challenged Patrick to work signs from heaven. The holy Bishop responded that he was unwilling to attempt anything contrary to the divine will; the druid with his sorceries covered those regions and their confines with snow and afflicted the inhabitants with cold. The holy Bishop insisted, admonishing and compelling the druid to remove the snow from the land and the cold from the people. The druid, compelled, confessed publicly that he could by no means do this until the morrow by his arts. From your own mouth, therefore, said the Saint, I judge you, wicked man, and I convict you of being an artificer of evil, a minister of the devil; who can only inflict evil, Snow but can confer no good on anyone. Then the most holy priest, raising his consecrated hand, blessed the plain and the surrounding places white with snow, in the name of the Holy Trinity; and all the snow, being indeed phantasmal and not seeming to melt in the usual manner, immediately vanished. All marveled, confessing and crying out that in Patrick was the hand of the Lord, and detesting the deceptive works of the druid.

[40] The sorcerer, seeing the powers of his art becoming worthless and despised, covered the same places which he had previously whitened with snow, again by his incantations, with an induced palpable density of darkness. And darkness Fear and trembling came upon those people; whom the darkness covered: experiencing at least then how far they were darkened from the brightness of pure and true faith. Nor should it be wondered at if those alien from the knowledge of the true light, which enlightens every man coming into this world, could be wrapped in magical darkness, who with blind hearts adhered in belief to the prince of darkness. Again Patrick approached the sorcerer about the expulsion of the gloom, as before about the removal of the snow: but he repeated, asserting the same things as before. Therefore the son of light poured forth a devout prayer to the brightness of the eternal light, the sun of justice; and immediately, with the material sun arising and shining, the darkness was banished. The people therefore of those nations, He dispels the induced darkness: who had sat in darkness, now seeing a great light, resounded with acclamations of thanksgiving and praises of song to the supreme light; and magnified Patrick, the herald of eternal light. But the oft-mentioned druid, Lugaich Mael by name, the malignant dispeller of light, loving darkness more than light, growing dark in the artifices of darkness, obstinately persevered in his malice, and still contentiously acting, affirmed that his own corrupt and perverse doctrines prevailed and surpassed the teaching of Patrick.

[41] But the King was dismayed that the works of the druid were thus overthrown: whence, proposing a certain trial for them to undergo, he said to both: The trial suggested by the King, of books to be committed to fire or water Let your books be plunged into water, and whoever's writing is effaced or obliterated, let the teaching of his preaching be despised: but in whose books no obliteration shall appear, let his preaching be devoutly received and confirmed. Patrick assented to the King's judgment, but the druid objected: for he affirmed that Patrick worshipped the element of water as God, He offers to undergo it: because he had baptized believers in water in the name of his God. The King, again changing the mode of trial, judged that the books of both should be cast into the fire, and whoever's books remained unharmed, to his teaching all should submit. The Saint gave his assent to this definitive sentence and condition; but the druid, distrusting himself, by no means agreed: When he refused for he said that Patrick worshipped now water, now fire by turns, and therefore had both elements favorable to himself. Patrick replied that he adored no element, but worshipped the Creator of all elements. When therefore in the assembled congregation the contention grew, with the people wavering to one side or the other, by the Lord's inspiration, for discerning the light of true faith from the darkness of idolatry, the truth of sound doctrine from the vanity of magical frivolity, [He proposes a trial by fire to be undergone by his man in a hut under green timber,] a new kind of trial by fire was devised and sought. By the common counsel of all, therefore,

with the consent also of both parties, namely Patrick and the sorcerer, a new house was built in a novel manner, of which one half was constructed of green timber and the other of dry and rotten material: the two, with hands and feet bound, were placed opposite each other — Benignus, the aforesaid boy of Patrick, dressed in the druid's garment in the dry part of the house; and the druid in the green part, dressed in the chasuble of S. Patrick — and fire being applied, they set the house ablaze. [Benignus, under the dry part in the druid's garment, undergoes the same peril and prevails.] A marvelous and most unusual thing. The fire rising up savagely burned the druid together with the green part of the house in which he stood to ashes: and in the chasuble of S. Patrick, with which he was clad, no trace of burning or corruption appeared: but the blessed boy Benignus, standing on the opposite side with the dry part of the house, the fire did not touch at all, nor did it inflict any harm; but the garment of the druid, with which he was clothed, it consumed and reduced to ash. Behold, in this remarkable sign wrought in fire, the miracles that are read inscribed in the canonical books are repeated in a double manner; just as once in the three youths cast into the Chaldean furnace, the fire exercised its power to burn their bonds while they remained unharmed; so it incinerated the druid with the green part of the house while Patrick's chasuble was unharmed; and the garment of the sorcerer, while the boy with the rotten part of the house was untouched.

[42] The heart of King Leogarius was hardened, as once that of Pharaoh before Moses regarding the commandments of the Lord: The obstinate King's ministers, prepared for slaughter for despite so many signs displayed, he did not fear to provoke the God most high and to exasperate his servant Patrick. Representing as it were a new Nero, another indeed but not altered, for the purpose of avenging the death of the sorcerer, he prepared many of his own men for Patrick's throat. And because, according to the testimony of Sacred Scripture, a wicked king has all his ministers impious, Proverbs 29:12 very many of his satellites presented themselves as inclined, willing, and ready for perpetrating such sacrilege. But God Almighty, the most powerful protector and champion of his own, armed the zeal of creation against those senseless idolaters: for the earth was opened by the Lord's vengeance, The earth swallows them, and swallowed them and very many others of the people of Temrach who consented with them: and hell enlarged, as it is written, its mouth, and swallowed them as if alive. Isaiah 5:14 But the survivors of these, and all the inhabitants of that land who saw or learned of these things, were struck dumb with horrible fear, and lest they be punished with a similar penalty, believing in Christ they hastened to Baptism. Isaiah 5:14

[43] The trembling King, casting himself at the feet of S. Patrick, begged for pardon and promised that he would henceforth obey his commands in all things. The King humbled The merciful Father therefore graciously pardoned what had been committed against him: and although he had long instructed him about the faith of the Lord Jesus, he could not induce him to undergo the saving washing. The Saint, however, released him to himself, to go in the devices of his own heart using his free will, lest he should seem to be compelled to the faith by him; yet concerning him and his posterity, the Spirit revealing it within, what he had learned he predicted to him openly. Because, he said, you have always resisted my teaching, and have not ceased to afflict me beyond measure, Yet he does not receive the faith, and moreover you have scorned to believe in the Creator of all, you are indeed a son of death, and with the rest, indeed above all your associates, you would deserve by right to perish with perpetual punishments in the present: but since you came humbly to me, sought pardon, and like King Ahab humbled yourself before my God, the Lord will not bring upon you immediately the evil And therefore the kingdom is taken from his posterity, that you have deserved. Nevertheless, none of your seed after you shall rise to your throne; but your younger brother, who will believe in my God, and his seed for generations of ages shall be served by yours. The Queen, however, believed in Christ, and baptized and blessed by S. Patrick, rested in the Lord with a holy end. Patrick, having set forth, preached with his companions throughout the entire region, baptizing believers in the name of the Holy Trinity, with God cooperating and confirming the word with signs following.

CHAPTER VI.

The beginnings of Athtruim: the obstinacy of Coirbre: the conversion of Conall and the daughters of Leogarius.

[44] There were three sisters of S. Patrick, memorable in holiness and justice, pleasing to the Lord: their names were Lupita, Tygridia, and Darercha. Tygridia, enriched with fruitful fecundity, brought forth excellent fruits; for she bore seventeen sons and five daughters; all the males were of great merit, most holy Bishops, excellent Priests, The three sisters of Patrick and their holy offspring, and Monks: the women, moreover, having become nuns, completed their days in great holiness. The names of the Bishops were Brochadius, Brochanus, Mogenocus, and Lumanus; who, coming with S. Patrick their uncle from Britain to Ireland, and strenuously laboring together in the field of the Lord, gathered a great harvest to be sent to the heavenly barns. But Darercha, the last of the sisters, was the mother of the holy Bishops Mel, Rioch, and Munis; whose father was called Conis. These likewise accompanied Blessed Patrick in his preaching and journeying, and obtained Pontifical dignity in various places. Truly the generation of these women appears blessed, according to the order of sacred eloquence, and the holy heritage of the grandchildren of S. Patrick.

[45] S. Patrick, conveyed by ship from the parts of Ulidia, landed in the borders of Meath at the mouth of the Boyne, among barbarians and idolaters; His nephew Lumanus is ordered to wait for his uncle and he committed his ship with its equipment to the keeping of his nephew S. Lumanus. For he enjoined upon him to remain in those parts for at least forty days, bearing this obedience, while he himself meanwhile went on to more distant places of the region to preach. But Lumanus, remaining a messenger of light, made obedient by the hope of obtaining martyrdom, doubled the period of days enjoined upon him while staying there; which none of his companions dared to do, fearing for their lives. He himself, a son of obedience, was not cheated of the fruit of his reward in this matter: for while receiving the seed of obedience, He obeys, he brought forth in himself the fruit of patience, and merited to make foreign lands fruitful with the seed of the divine word and to produce the flowers of faith and the fruits of justice: and the more devoutly he obeyed his spiritual father, the more wonderfully the elements obeyed him. For when two periods of forty days had been completed, when he was wearied by his long waiting for S. Patrick's return, Then he sails against the force of wind and river: on a certain day, with the blasts of the winds blowing more violently from the opposite direction, he unfurled the ship's equipment, and burning with faith and trusting in the merits of S. Patrick, by his authority he commanded the ship to carry him to a suitable place. O sign hitherto unheard of and unknown! The ship, with no one steering, sailed against the river and the wind at the wish of the man of God, and from the mouth of the river Boyne all the way to Athtruim it conveyed him with a prosperous course. For he who once, converting the streams of the Jordan backward, turned them back with a retrograde course into the source of their own channel, carried the ship against the blast of the breeze without rowing in the contrary river, on account of the merits of S. Patrick.

[46] S. Lumanus, having landed near the above-mentioned town of Athtruim, first converted to Christ the son of the chief man ruling there, named Forkernus, who came to him while he was reciting the Gospel; He baptizes Forkernus with his parents: then his mother, a Briton by birth; and finally his father, named Fethlemius: and in a spring which he produced from the earth by his prayers before their eyes, he baptized them and many others. Having accomplished these things, the holy Priest, twenty-five years before the foundation of Armagh, built a church there; for the endowment and enrichment of which Fethlemius, having become a faithful servant of Christ, by solemn donation bestowed Ath-truim and Meath with many estates and their appurtenances: he himself, withdrawing across the river, made a dwelling for himself and his people, and completed his days in goodness. Lumanus, having become Bishop in the aforesaid church, committed his neophyte Forkernus to be instructed in letters, and in a short time, when he was sufficiently lettered, promoted him to the Priesthood. When the day of his departure from the body was approaching, he set out with the aforesaid Forkernus to his brother Brocadius, and commanded Forkernus in the virtue of obedience to take up the governance of the church over which he presided after his own death. The humility and obedience of this man. But when he refused, alleging that it was not consonant with reason or justice that he should take up the governance of souls in the church or patrimony of his own father, lest he should seem to possess the sanctuary of the Lord by inheritance, the father and pastor again pressed him with a command. What more? He would not bless him until he gave his assent to this burden. When at last holy Lumanus migrated from this light to the perpetual dwelling of the light-bearing homeland, Forkernus, taking up the care enjoined upon him of the aforesaid Church, presided over it for only three days, and then committed its governance to a certain pilgrim, a Briton by birth, named Cathladius. In accepting and resigning the Episcopate. Thus indeed the man of God fulfilled his Father's command, and took every care to avoid giving others an example of claiming any right in the churches or inheritance of their parents. All the estates of this Church, however, with the consent of the Princes, were bestowed by S. Lumanus on Blessed Patrick and his successors, and pertain to the jurisdiction of the Church of Armagh to be possessed in perpetuity.

[47] King Leogarius son of Niall had two brothers, of whom the elder was called Coirbre, similar to him in cruelty and unbelief, The obstinate Coirbre if indeed in that region one was found similar to him who despised and condemned the law of the Most High: the younger was called Conallus, deriving nothing more from his generation than what a fish derives from the sea or a rose from a thorn. S. Patrick, setting out to convert the aforementioned Coirbre, who was then staying in the place of royal contest called Taillten, preached the truth of the Catholic faith, trying whether in any way he might raise up from that stone a son of Abraham: but he, having become adamantine of heart toward believing, plotted death for the one preaching salvation to him: indeed in the midst of a nearby river he scourged the servants of S. Patrick. S. Patrick, knowing the man to be obstinate in his error and rejected by God, calling him an enemy of God, His seed is cursed, said to him prophesying: Since you have refused to bear the yoke of Christ the heavenly King, whom to serve is to reign, none of your posterity shall obtain the throne of your kingdom, but shall be subjected by perpetual servitude to the seed of your younger brother Conallus. And this shall be to you a sign that the Lord will fulfill the word which he has spoken through my mouth. The river near your dwelling, in which you so cruelly struck down my servants,

which was accustomed to feed you and yours from its abundance of fish, shall from this day to eternity produce no fish. The word of the man of God therefore stood firm, because all his posterity served the seed of his brother Conallus, who held the scepter of the kingdom, and that river called Seyle has lacked fish to the present day.

[48] Leaving the sons of wrath and darkness in the blindness of their heart and the depth of their error, Conall, easy to the faith, S. Patrick turned aside to the above-mentioned Conallus, a future son of truth. He received S. Patrick joyfully and with praise, as an Angel of peace and light, and opening the ears of hearing to his saving preaching, he believed, and through the washing of regeneration and the renewal of the Holy Spirit he merited to be incorporated into Christ. In which deed we are clearly taught that the heavenly potter can form from one mass certain vessels, according to his will, for wrath and dishonor; and certain ones for honor and grace. Conallus, strengthened and confirmed in the Catholic truth, offered his entire dwelling with its land and estate to S. Patrick, and with frequent prayers urged him to build there a city for himself and his people for the spreading of Christianity: And Patrick blesses his house: he himself declared that he wished to build another habitation for himself on the border of the city. The holy Bishop, congratulating his neophyte on such great charity, lest he should seem to have spurned his prayers, built the city which is now called Domnach Padraig, that is, the city of Patrick; and he designated a habitation for Conallus, which is now called Rathyrtair, with a trace of his staff. The Saint then blessed him in the name of the Lord and among the other things that were to come upon him, he predicted with a prophetic mouth: Fortunate and happy will be this habitation, and many will dwell happily in it, nor will the blood of any man be shed in it except that of one alone: the Lord will bless you with blessing and will establish your throne for you, he will multiply your dominion, and the seed of your brothers will serve your seed forever. All these things which the Saint uttered with a prophetic mouth were not frustrated in their outcome and effect.

[49] It settled in the heart of S. Patrick to visit the region of Connacht; and especially, on account of the oracle once given to him in dreams, by which he had been invited by little children enclosed in the wombs of mothers of that region, he desired to preach the kingdom of God to those countrymen. He then proposed to go around the entire island At his departure and traverse it, in order to convert it to Christ. The Saint, equipped for the journey, fortified his dearest Conallus with a blessing, and in the aforesaid city, as a certain pledge of his holiness and as a memorial of himself, He leaves his altar to Conallus: he left his stone altar, effective in signs, for conferring health upon the sick: and when he set out on his journey, that altar followed him as he departed, nor was it perceptible to any man's eyes by whom it was being carried: but (as I believe) by the power and virtue of him by whose command the Prophet Habakkuk was transported from Judea to Chaldea, that stone was being carried after S. Patrick on the way. For that cornerstone, Jesus Christ, wished to show to all the holiness of Patrick, and caused that holy stone to be carried without human hand. The holy Bishop, looking back and seeing the altar being carried after him in so miraculous a manner, exulted in the Lord, and returning, placed it in a suitable spot. From that day therefore to the present it has remained fixed, but it has not ceased to shine with miracles, as if the power of Patrick had remained in it or had emanated from it.

[50] King Leogarius, devoted to the worship of demons, together with the greatest part of the people eager to please him, The idols of King Leogarius worshipped a certain idol magnificently covered with gold and silver; and erected in a plain whose name was Magsecht: for it was called Keancroithi, that is, the head of all the gods; because it was thought by the foolish and senseless people who worshipped it to give oracular responses. Twelve little bronze deities also stood around the same image, as if subject and devoted to it. S. Patrick turned himself to that place, in order to overthrow that image and to convert its worshippers to the worship of the Creator by holy preaching. But when by preaching or working signs he made little progress and did not recall the idolaters from the madness rooted in their hearts, he had recourse to the accustomed weapons of prayer. When therefore, viewing the idol from a nearby hill, He destroys it: he stretched forth his pure hands in prayer to the Lord for its overthrow, and raised the Staff of Jesus against it in a threatening gesture; suddenly by the power of God it fell upon its left side, and all the gold and silver flowed from it, utterly shattered and reduced to dust. There was seen also in the hard stone the trace of the staff as if impressed upon it, although it had not touched it, as if it had been pressed into soft wax or butter. All the little deities erected around it the earth also swallowed up to the neck, and their heads still protrude from the ground. Thus, thus, what human force could not accomplish, divine power had achieved. Many who saw what had happened believed in the living and true God, and consequently, having been baptized, according to the Apostle they put on Christ. In that place S. Patrick produced by prayer an excellent spring from the earth, in which he afterward baptized many.

[51] The Saint, having overthrown the images, was making his way where he had intended, and the fame of his sanctity, flying ahead, announced his presence in advance. He dispels the three-day darkness induced by his druids: When he was approaching the borders of Connacht, two druids, sons of Niall, dwelling in those places, one of whom was called Mael and the other Caphlait, heard of his arrival. Both were enslaved to the dominion of demons, brothers no less in the practice of sorcery than in the seed of their natural birth: these with their sorceries had wrapped the entire region in the densest darkness continuing for three days, by which they supposed they could bar Patrick's entrance into those borders. But the son of light, in whose heart the unfailing morning star was constantly shining, while he raised heart, hands, and tongue in prayer to heaven, and wasted his most innocent body with sacred fasts, brought about the destruction of the magical darkness scattered through that region by the light-bearing rays of the emerging sun: and having obtained free entrance and passage into Connacht, he strove with all his might to open the door of faith to the unworthy enemies of truth.

[52] The oft-mentioned King Leogarius had two daughters, like roses sprung from a rose garden, And his own daughters called Ethne the Red and Fidella the White, and raised and educated by the aforementioned druids; who, when one morning, with the sun already risen, they had come to a certain clear spring for the purpose of washing, they found Patrick seated upon the margin of the same spring, with other holy Priests and men religious in deed and habit. Beholding the face and habit of each one, they were struck with the greatest wonder, and diligently inquiring about their race and place of dwelling, they supposed them to be phantoms. S. Patrick admonished them rather to believe in their God By his exhortation than to inquire anxiously about the place of their dwelling and their race. The maidens, however, desiring more certain things about God, persisted in inquiring more insistently about his power, riches, and glory. The Saint taught them about the Catholic faith, affirming with true assertions that the God of heaven and earth, the sea and all things that are in them, was their maker and ruler: and that he had a Son coeternal, coeval, and consubstantial with him, reigning everywhere, governing all things, possessing all things: he also promised them a heavenly and eternal kingdom to be exchanged for an earthly and transitory one; asserting that they, if they would submit to his admonitions or counsels, would contract a chaste and indissoluble marriage with the heavenly King.

[53] When the excellent Pastor had preached many things in this manner with the persuasive words of divine doctrine, the maidens believed in Christ, Inflamed with love of the heavenly spouse, and were baptized by him in the same spring. Having therefore become Christians, they asked S. Patrick, according to his promise to them, to show them the face of Christ their Spouse. To whom the Saint said: you must first devoutly receive the flesh and blood of your Spouse with the mouth of heart and body, so that, nourished by so life-giving a Viaticum, having tasted death, you may be able to pass from this unclean world to his starry bridal chamber. The Virgins, giving credence to the word of the man of God, devoutly requested and received the sacred Eucharist; He sends them to Christ by a happy death, and immediately, falling asleep in the Lord, going forth from the pure dwellings of their bodies, they arrived at the nuptials of the heavenly spouse. Their friends and relatives came running and mourned them according to the custom of the land for three days: and thus they laid those sacred remains in the womb of the mother of all. In that place a church was built, which, having been bestowed, the See of Armagh possesses: the two above-named druids, who had raised them, distressed over their death, assailed the holy man with very harsh and bitter words: but with Patrick touching the Davidic harp and preaching to them the kingdom of God, He converts the druids, they were converted to the faith and baptized in Christ.

CHAPTER VII.

The miracles of S. Patrick among the Connachtians. The Ultonians are converted.

[54] After this, a great and solemn council was being held in a solemn place by the provincial people gathered together, With the opposing druid destroyed, in which were present the seven sons of Amhlaidh, a man distinguished in birth, dignity, riches, and power, with a copious band of their followers standing with them. The Saint, therefore, in order to gain many for Christ in the multitude, betook himself into the midst of the assembly, and seized the spiritual weapons of God's power for the cutting down and uprooting of idolatry. When the renowned preacher had unsheathed the sword of the spirit for the destruction of demons and the salvation of men, a certain druid named Rochait, rising in the midst, strove with all his might to remove Patrick from their midst: but lest the effort of that wicked man should burst forth into a more wicked act, the hand of the Almighty, sending fire from above, consumed the son of gehenna, struck by lightning in the sight of all. Seeing therefore so great and so wondrous and terrifying a miracle, the seven sons of Amhlaidh with twelve thousand men, believing in Christ,

were baptized and faithfully and firmly remained in the Catholic faith which they had received. Also two daughters of a certain nobleman named Glerann, He converts many: who were said to have invoked S. Patrick while enclosed in their mother's womb, were converted together with the rest and baptized in Christ. These afterward, living holily and devoutly, rested in the Lord with a holy end, and after death, by frequent signs, they showed that they had received a seat with the Saints in the heavenly realms. Holy Patrick also appointed over this people, recently converted to Christ, the teacher Mancen, a religious man and excellently trained in the holy Scriptures.

[55] The Lord gave S. Patrick a strong and frequent contest against the druids, so that he might conquer and know that wisdom is more powerful than all things, Another druid is swallowed by the earth, in whose name all their efforts were crushed and emptied. For just as Jannes and Mambres, according to the Apostle, resisted Moses, so very many sorcerers resisted Patrick. 2 Timothy 3:8 For on another day in the place of the above-mentioned council, at Satan's instigation, another sorcerer approached, not changed from his malice; rising up against the holy Bishop with similar madness, intending to hand him over to death. But the right hand of the Lord, magnified in strength, with which he had struck the former enemy of his name with consuming fire, destroyed this following one in an approach and departure of no less power, wiping him from the face of the earth: for the earth, gaping open, opened its mouth and, enclosing within itself that druid who had many times defiled himself with sorceries of many kinds, plunged him into the abyss. And almost his brother too. The brother of the aforementioned sorcerer, seeing his fatal end, being his brother in flesh and sect, groaned: and he who could not help his perishing brother or come to his aid, wished to avenge his brother's death upon Patrick, as if he were his killer. Enraged therefore against him, he strove to inflict death upon him: but with the Lord fighting on Patrick's behalf, the gaping of the earth swallowed the druid himself up to his ears. The man, almost entirely swallowed by the ground, cried out and begged pardon from the Saint; and promised that he would believe in Christ and would obey the teaching of S. Patrick. Good Pastor Patrick, moved with mercy, poured forth prayers to God for him, and immediately the earth, disgorging, released and raised him up. That wretched man, therefore, mercifully freed, gave thanks to his liberator, and believing in Christ received the grace of baptism. Thus, thus the Lord, dividing between light and darkness, condemns some who are incorrigible and obstinate in evil more strictly; and saves mercifully some who flee to mercy.

[56] S. Patrick, passing by on a certain day, saw a multitude of people gathered to remove from its place a certain very large stone. S. Patrick alone raises an immovable rock and transfers it to its place. They labored long at this task but in vain, because with futile effort, as if drained of strength and exhausted, they could not lift or raise it. The nourishing Bishop approached the place, a praiseworthy mason of the temple of the living God, to be built in the Lord; and having made a prayer and given a blessing, he alone moved, raised, lifted, and placed in a suitable spot that huge rock which could not be stirred by a hundred men. Those men marveled at that wonderful work and were converted to the God of S. Patrick by believing: and those who until then, having hearts of stone, worshipped stones, on the occasion of this stone raised by the Saint, believed in the living, precious, corner, and chosen stone, laid in the foundations of Zion. This stone they had long rejected: but now, as living stones cemented together by the mortar of Catholic faith, cut and polished by sacred doctrine, and washed by baptism, they were growing into a holy temple in the Lord. Wherever the man of God Patrick went forth preaching, his lips disseminated saving knowledge, the number of believers in the Lord increased from day to day: for the Lord, cooperating with his faithful servant, confirmed his word with signs following; because he, not adulterating the word of God, in preaching or working signs sought not his own glory but the Lord's glory and praise everywhere. On a certain day also, having gone forth to preach, he came to a certain place called Fearta, where on the rounded surface of a certain hill he found two dead women who had been buried. He restores two women from the sepulchre to life: The man of God, approaching the tomb, had the mound of earth removed, and invoking the name of Christ, he raised the buried women. Those raised to life, crying out that the idols were vain and the gods were demons, asserted in the sight of the believers that Christ was the true God, and asked to be baptized in his name and obtained it. All who stood by therefore glorified God and devoutly received his faith and baptism. Thus the most holy Bishop, having set forth, vivified two dead women in the flesh from a double death, and their bodily resurrection caused many to rise from the death of the soul.

[57] There was in those parts a certain woman, called Fedelina, ignorant of the Christian faith: she was pregnant and had a son in her womb: but when the labor was at hand and the strength for bearing failed, she breathed out her soul. But, just as a city set on a mountain cannot be hidden, He likewise raises two pregnant women nor a lamp raised upon a candlestick, nor the sweet fragrance of an aromatic garden; so, though he wished to be hidden, neither was the presence of Father Patrick concealed. For the power going forth from him drew many who were sick to himself, and the odor of his ointments made many run after him. By the grace of these things, therefore, the friends of the deceased woman, attracted, brought her lifeless corpse to S. Patrick; and with tearful prayers they asked that he would repeat in this latter case the power which he had displayed in the former ones. To life and childbirth: The man full of God immediately gave himself to prayer and brought back the deceased woman to the living air: and she, restored to life, bore a son, and at the proper time after the birth she received baptism together with her offspring. Both were therefore vivified by Patrick from the death of both the outward and inward person before the people, and all the multitude, as they saw, believed and gave praise to God. The deceased woman narrated what she had seen about heavenly glory and infernal punishment; and her testimony, made very credible, converted many thousands to Christ. In the same manner shortly afterward, by raising another woman who was pregnant and dead, and baptizing her together with her offspring, he repeated this sign.

[58] S. Patrick was going around the borders of Connacht, disseminating the word of God throughout the entire region, and he did not cease from preaching and the working of signs until its inhabitants were converted to the Christian religion. He built churches in many places; he appointed Priests and other ecclesiastical ministers for the governance of souls and the performance of the divine office in them. When he was giving his attention to his accustomed work, he came to a certain plain suitable in situation and pleasantness for building a church, but lacking in timber and stone: for the forest was at a great distance from the place, and no quarry was found in those parts, or if one was found anywhere, the inhabitants lacked the skill to work it. [He fashions a church from clay, which remains in its original condition permanently:] The Priest of Christ, having first prayed, built a church there, as is believed with heavenly aid, made entirely of clay, at that time of a most beautiful design and endowed with divine power. For it is known to have been damaged by no wind, frost, hail, rain, or any inclemency of weather; but from that time to the present, it is observed to remain in the same condition. The seat of S. Patrick, near that same church, in which he was accustomed to sit while preaching, is shown: and many miracles glorifying S. Patrick are said to have shone forth there. Two rivers are mentioned as being in those parts, one of which is called Dubh and the other Drobhais: one of them, Dubh namely, was accustomed to abound in fish; He renders a fish-rich river barren, and another barren one fruitful with fish: but the other produced no fish. S. Patrick, passing along the bank of the fish-rich river, asked the fishermen to share with him some portion of the copious multitude they had taken. The fishermen, lacking charity, dismissed the dearest Lord's Patrick empty, utterly denying him fish: but God, the author and lover of charity, withdrawing from the constricted and frozen hearts of avarice the profit of the accustomed abundance of fishing, emptied that river of perpetual production of fish: and the other, until then barren, namely the Drobhais, he henceforth enriched with abundant fecundity. For this river, as it is more fruitful than the rest, so its water is clearer than all waters in Ireland: in which matter any wise person can consider with what charity each person ought to gather the members of Christ, and to receive and sustain with benefits the friends of God. For whatever honor or benefit is bestowed upon them is without doubt rendered to Christ: just as, conversely, whatever is unjustly taken from them or denied, God attests that he himself is defrauded.

[59] The holy standard-bearer of the Lord's banner, as he himself was accustomed to do, established the practice of placing a Cross at the head of every Christian buried outside a cemetery; He establishes that a Cross be erected over the tombs of Christians: because in a region recently converted to the faith, on account of the scarcity of churches, he knew that not all the dead could be buried in cemeteries. The excellent Pastor also wished by so happy a mark to distinguish sheep from goats, that is, buried Christians from Pagans: thus indeed Christians coming, seeing the sign of life, would be able to recognize by the sign of the Cross of Christ that a servant of the faith had been buried, and would not delay to offer prayers to the Creator of all for his soul. A truly faithful custom, and a constitution worthy of all acceptance, that he who was baptized into the death of Christ and died in his faith should have the marks of his death beside him or above him when buried. It happened, however, to Patrick, that true Israelite, on his departure from Connacht, on his exit from that barbarous people, now estranged from the abyss and made a member of God's household, And removes one erroneously placed over a Pagan, to behold the tombs of two men recently buried, and he saw at the head of one of them the sign of the Cross erected. Sitting therefore in his chariot, as the custom of the country at that time required, he commanded his charioteer to pull back the rein, and he himself, having prayed, speaking to the buried one as if to a living man, inquired who he was and of what sect he had been. A voice emitted from the tomb answered that he had been a man pagan in sect, utterly ignorant of divine worship. What have you, said the Saint, to do with the Cross of Christ, of which you were never a worshipper or confessor? And the voice to him: He who is buried next to me was a Christian; and a certain professor of your faith came and, led by ignorance, placed the Cross at my head. The voice uttered these things and fell silent. The man of God immediately descended from his chariot, removed the Cross from that place, and fixed it at the head of the baptized one, prayed, and departed thence.

[60] Patrick, going forth from the borders of Connacht, having been founded and confirmed in the faith, turned aside to the northern part of Ireland, Preaching through Ulster and Meath called Dalaradia: and the peoples dwelling in those parts he converted to the faith of Christ and the Sacraments of the faith by his words, examples, and miracles. Then he crossed Mount Ficoth as far as the great plain of Bregh; thus progressing through Meath to Leinster, everywhere

he preached the faith and kingdom of God, and raised some of his disciples in suitable places to the episcopal grade. With how many miracles he shone throughout that entire journey, and to how many sick he provided the remedy of health, the pen of anyone, even the most eloquent, could not easily describe one by one. Not only by touching or praying, but even by passing by, from the shadow of his body he provided health to many, as if he were another Peter. Whomever he recognized as not yet washed in the saving water, He is distinguished by infinite miracles, he strove to draw to undergo baptism: but those he knew to be already baptized, lest they should be turned away from the faith by the ancient enemy, or subverted under the guise of faith by some heretical doctrine, he confirmed in the faith. James 2:26 And because faith, as the Apostle James testifies, without works is dead, and dead faith is not faith; the good preacher was zealous to urge believers to the good works of a holy and sincere faith working through love. Furthermore, those who, having come to the depths of wickedness, despised his teaching and with obstinate persistence remained rebels to God in the worship of demons; at Patrick's prayer or imprecation, the sudden judgment of divine justice often removed them from the midst; as our narrative will make clear in the preceding and the still following passages.

CHAPTER VIII.

Patrick's prophecy about Dublin, the Martyrdom of S. Odranus, the conversion of King Oengus and the Munstermen.

[61] Departing from the borders of Meath, Patrick was directing his steps toward Leinster for the sake of preaching: Having predicted the future greatness of Dublin and when, making his way, he had come across the river called Finglas, to a certain hill which is about one mile distant from the town of Athcliath, which is now called Dublin, considering the place and its surroundings, and blessing it, he is said to have burst forth prophesying in this voice: This town, now small, will be outstanding, it will be enlarged in riches and dignity, and will not cease to grow until it is raised to the throne of the kingdom. Which word indeed, how firmly established in truth it was, the manifest evidence of the present time proves. A short time later he entered the aforesaid town, and its inhabitants, having heard the signs which the Lord had worked through his hand, came out to meet him with joy. There he vivifies a dead man, But the only son of the lord of that place was laboring at the point of death, so that he was already said by many to have expired. The Saint, however, at the request of his father and the rest who came running, approached the sick man's bed, knelt on the ground, poured forth prayers, blessed the half-dead man, and having snatched him from the jaws of death, immediately showed him healthy in the eyes of all. The people, seeing this sign, believed in the author of life, and were baptized in his name by the holy Bishop. And for the inhabitants laboring from a lack of fresh water S. Patrick was lodging in the house of a certain matron dwelling in the aforesaid town, who complained greatly in his presence about the lack of fresh water: for the river flowing past the town was made utterly bitter by the approach of the sea tide; nor before the retreat of the ebb could fresh water be brought to her, unless drawn from afar. The holy Patrick, who continually thirsted for God, the living fountain, having compassion on the complaint of his hostess, and also on the labor of the multitude recently reborn in Christ, and rather so that they might more ardently yearn for the fountain of life, he deemed it fitting to declare his power. On the next day, in the presence of many standing by, approaching a certain suitable spot, having first prayed, he struck the earth with the point of the Staff of the Lord Jesus, He draws forth a spring with his staff: and in the name of the Lord produced from it an excellent spring. In almost the same manner the Lord repeated the sign through the staff in the hand of Patrick, his herald, as he once deigned to work through the rod in the hand of Moses the lawgiver, when he struck the rock. There the rock, struck twice, sent forth most copious waters; here the transfixed earth poured forth a clear spring. That spring in Dublin is therefore joyful in its flow, most ample in its current, pleasant to the taste, which, as they say, is a remedy for many infirmities, and to the present day is rightly called the Spring of S. Patrick.

[62] Setting out thence he arrived at a neighboring town, which by modern people is called the castle of Cnok, Feigning sleep so as not to hear Patrick, where a certain man, then a son of Belial and an unbeliever, named Murinus, ruled. The holy preacher wished to lead him into the way of life and truth: but the son of death, hearing the fame of his virtues and wisdom, which he thought no one could resist, absented himself from him, as from a most savage enemy. The Saint sent word to him that he should at least present himself. He sent word back, hiding in a certain chamber, that he should let him sleep. He is punished with a mortal sleep, When these things had been frequently repeated on both sides, the Saint, taught by the Holy Spirit, understanding that man to be a son of gehenna, in accord with the justice of God he added, saying: Let him sleep, let him sleep; nor awake or rise before the day of judgment. Saying this, the Saint departed thence; and that wretched man, oppressed by the sleep of both deaths, perished. Thus indeed, he who, sleeping, scorned to rise from the dead at the voice of the friend of the bridegroom calling him, that Christ might enlighten him; wrapped in the darkness of unbelief, descended to a dark land, covered by the shadow of death, to remain there forever. Whence also to one snoring in unfitting slumber, it is customary to say in Irish imprecation: May you sleep thus, as Murinus slept at the word of the sentencing S. Patrick.

[63] There was in the borders of Leinster a certain idolatrous man of Belial, Foilge the Red by name, an incomparable adversary of the name of Christ according to his power. The charioteer Odranus of S. Patrick is killed: He frequently sought an opportunity to lay his wicked hands upon Patrick the anointed of the Lord, because he was a burden to him, not only to see but even to hear. For he was goaded by deep-rooted hatred toward the man of God, because he had destroyed the idol Keancroithi named above; to whose detestable worship he had been especially devoted. But when that most wicked man was unable to bring his desire into effect, on a certain day he rushed upon S. Patrick's charioteer, named Odranus, sitting in the chariot, and slaughtered him before his eyes, so that his heart might be pierced by the sting of more bitter anguish on account of the death of the slain man. The Saint, wounded in his heart, hurled the javelin of a curse against that son of gehenna, and pierced by such a weapon, on the same day he stripped off his life and belched forth his foul spirit to be plunged into the habitations of hell. As certain writers have recorded, the same Odranus, foreknowing that the satellite of Satan was completely bent on the destruction of the holy Bishop, obtained from the man of God by his prayers The body of the murderer, moreover, that on the same day he should drive the chariot in his place. He did this so that, sitting in the Saint's place, he might lay down his life for him, lest, with such a lamp extinguished, the people of Ireland should again walk in darkness. The Saint beheld his soul being carried to heaven by Angels and receiving a place among the Martyrs.

[64] The ancient enemy, however, entering the dwelling of the dead body, A demon inhabiting it for some time, displayed him to people as if risen again, and that false and phantasmal Foylge, as if returned to his own and his people, dwelt in his own house. After some days had passed, S. Patrick, passing near that house, summoned one of the household to himself and inquired where Foylge was. When he replied that the man was at home, the Saint is reported to have said assertively: The soul of Foylge, from the moment he unjustly killed my charioteer, with the Lord justly judging and avenging my cause, immediately going forth from the body was buried in hell: but Satan has occupied his corpse for the deception and seduction of men by his entrance, remaining in it until now as in a vessel of his own. The Saint then forbade Satan to remain any longer in that vessel, lest men should be further mocked by so wicked a phantom. Immediately at the command of the man of God, the seductive spirit abandoned its earthen dwelling; Thence he is expelled, and it, swarming with worms, struck terror and horror upon the beholders, and, that it might be removed from the eyes of all, was quickly consigned to burial. Nor is it to be greatly wondered at if he displayed himself in the visible form of his accustomed instrument, with Foylge himself deserving it and the Lord permitting it, whose judgments are a great deep; but rather let him be feared who can destroy both body and soul in gehenna.

[65] Patrick, going forth from the borders of Leinster, prosperously hastened his journey to the region of Munster. Hearing of the approach of the gracious Bishop, the King of that land, named Oengus, When the idols fell at Patrick's arrival, came to meet him joyful and praising with the exultation of his heart. The matter for exulting and receiving the faith was supplied to him by the fact that on the dawn of that day, entering the temple to adore his idols, he found them all prostrate upon the ground on their face; and although they were frequently set up by him, they were divinely repelled, nor could they stand, but were continually cast down. For just as once Dagon could not stand beside the Ark of the Covenant, so neither could the idols at the approach of S. Patrick drawing near to those borders. For he can not unfittingly be called the Ark of the Covenant, who in his pure heart, like a golden urn, carried the manna of contemplative sweetness, the tablets of the divine law, and bore the rod of heavenly discipline. The aforesaid King therefore brought him into his house in the city of Cashel, He baptizes the King of Munster, with great reverence and honor; for from a long time his soul and eye had thirsted for him, on account of the many wonders which he had learned he had performed. At the preaching of S. Patrick the King believed in the name of the Holy Trinity, in which he was also regenerated by the water of the saving bath. Afterward, when he was blessing the King, touching his head, at his frequent and most devout request, the foot of that same King was pierced by the point of S. Patrick's staff. But the King, receiving the blessing from the Lord Bishop with the most ardent desire, felt no pain of the wound in his body, although wounded, because his mind, wounded with love, was rejoicing in the recovered health of his soul. Having given the blessing, the Saint, noticing the King's bloodied foot, He heals from the wound, blessed it by impressing the sign of the Cross and restored it to perfect health. When the King was exulting and giving thanks for the remarkable sign performed upon him, the Bishop, full of the prophetic spirit, predicted to him, saying with a truthful voice: The blood of no king who shall sit upon your throne in this place from your stock shall be shed, except that of only one. The inhabitants of that region assert that this prophecy is supported by irrefutable truth, since no king from his descendants up to the tenth generation, And he blesses in his posterity, the histories relate, was killed except one. There remained in that place a stone slab, upon which the Saint had perhaps celebrated the divine Sacraments; it is called by the Irish Leac Phadraig, that is, the Stone of Patrick: upon which, out of reverence for him, the Kings of Cashel are accustomed to be promoted to their principality and raised to the throne of the kingdom.

[66] After these things the Saint migrated to the borders of Ormond, in order to root out from those places the thorns and briars of error which had grown up by the cunning of the ancient enemy, and to scatter the Evangelical wheat therein. A certain man of Comdothan, named Lonanus, gladly received him as a guest and for him and his traveling companions

he prepared a great supper. The importunity of one shamelessly demanding food S. Patrick indeed deemed it worthy to distribute to them spiritual and eternal banquets, who had prepared temporal and transitory ones for him. When supper was made, while the Saint was striving to satisfy minds more than bellies with the word of life, a certain shameless man, named Dercardius, approached irreverently, and with rude and importunate speeches, indeed clamors, burdening the Bishop's ears, afflicting his mind, as it were stopping his mouth, demanded food. The Saint, however, not having at hand what he might give him, was embarrassed: he also took somewhat badly the rudeness that had been an impediment to his preaching. A certain man named Nessan, seeing the spirit of the just man distressed, offered him a ram: which the Saint immediately ordered to be given to the importunate petitioner. Having received the wether, he was returning to his people, exulting and boasting that he had penetrated the hardness of Patrick's stony heart by his importunity; just as drops of water continually falling are accustomed to hollow out stones. The man and his people therefore slaughtered Punished by death, the ram, and as they knew how to prepare it, they prepared and ate it. But while the mutton was still in their mouths, the wrath of God came upon them, and the eating of the flesh, like a deadly poison, when God avenged the injury to his servant, instantly killed them all. In which matter we are sufficiently warned to be more cautiously careful about causing disturbance to the servants of God, lest we offend Almighty God, their indweller and champion, by burdening them.

[67] Blessed Patrick, like an Angel of peace about to announce that peace which surpasses all human understanding, to those indeed who are near and far, in the blood of Jesus Christ, passed through the midst of the borders of Ciarraighe. And when he was making his way, he saw nearby two brothers, called Bibradius and Locradius, Two brothers about to fight each other with their father recently dead and buried, first sharpening their tongues in dispute over the inheritance to be divided between them, and shortly afterward fighting most fiercely against each other. When each was fiercely drawing his sword for the other's destruction, the Saint greatly feared lest the crime of fratricide should happen in his sight. They are restrained by a miracle, The Saint therefore moved his heart to compassion and mercy for the wretches, his mouth to prayer and his hands to a blessing; and making their hands with their arms immovable and inflexible like wood or stone, he suspended them in the air. Seeing themselves prevented by so miraculous an event, they quieted from the fury of the conceived crime, and at the arbitration of the Saint, who preached peace, announced good things, and proclaimed salvation, they returned to the mutual favor of brotherly love. When the brothers had been pacified, therefore, and the blessing given, the Saint restored the functions of their hands and arms: and they bestowed upon the holy Bishop a field in which this miracle had occurred, for building a church.

[68] The army of King Oengus After the sign-bearing Bishop Patrick had fortified the inhabitants of Munster with his most holy admonitions, whom he had already filled with the faith of Christ, he was striving to visit the northern parts of the land, namely the borders of the sons of Niall, in order to convert its inhabitants to the faith or confirm them in the faith. King Oengus, the aforesaid, together with twelve sub-kings and other magnates subject to him and a very great multitude of men, namely fourteen thousand, desiring to be refreshed with the bread of life and understanding, was following the Saint. When they had arrived at the river called Brosnach, where Bishop Triamus, a Roman by birth, S. Patrick's companion in journey and labor, dwelt at a place called Choibeach, the Saint desired to refresh both the outward and inward man of the entire multitude. First, therefore, he satisfied all who had flocked to him with a desire for learning with spiritual nourishment, then he commanded them to recline for supper. The entire army is fed by Patrick from the flesh of five animals: The aforesaid Bishop Triamus, however, had only one cow, from whose milk he was accustomed to be sustained, and he had it slain for the preparation of the supper. But what was this among so many? Patrick, therefore, the beloved of the Lord, directed his prayer to the heavenly sanctuary, and behold, suddenly two deer from one part of the nearby wood and two boars from another came rushing forth, as tame and domesticated as if divinely sent, and came to him. Giving thanks to the most high Giver, he ordered these to be slain in similar fashion, and having poured forth a blessing, to be served. All ate and were copiously satisfied, and the remnants, lest they perish, were collected. From five animals, therefore, Patrick fed fourteen thousand men in the name of him who from five loaves and two fishes satisfied five thousand men. For he himself said: He who believes in me, the works which I do, he also shall do, and greater than these he shall do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. Matthew 14 For these miracles do not differ, although they vary in number: because the same Lord worked both signs, the one in himself, the other in his servant. On the following day, however, a cow most similar to the one slain and eaten was found in the field, which served for the use of sustenance to Bishop Triamus, so that he might be nourished from her milk. For the report went forth among many affirming that it was the same cow, resurrected by S. Patrick. We, however, say that nothing is impossible for God; but that this was done, we neither deny nor assert.

CHAPTER IX.

Various dead raised by Patrick.

[69] More marvelous things succeed the marvels in the same place, and clearly show to all God as wonderful in his Saint: for the subsequent sign is deemed more worthy of admiration For the confirmation of his preaching than the preceding one. For when the man of God, Patrick, was threatening by his preaching perpetual punishments to those who despised God and his precepts, and was promising to those keeping his commandments the rewards of everlasting life, he gave credibility to his words by the irrefutable argument of an unheard-of miracle: but lest any scruple of doubt should thereafter arise in the hearts of believers, he raised nineteen dead and buried from their tombs under the eyes of all: S. Patrick raises 19 dead: of whom one named Fota, buried for many days, had lain incinerated for a decade in his sepulchral dwelling. All who were brought back to life, therefore, narrated in the ears of those standing by the punishments which they had suffered: and they unanimously proclaimed the true and living God whom Patrick preached. King Oengus and all the people, seeing these things, glorified the glorious God in his Saints, wonderful in his majesty, working signs and wonders such as had not been seen upon that land, and they honored Saint Patrick, as a Priest of the Most High God, as their own Apostle. Then they returned each one to their own homes, frequently saying: For we have seen wonders today. All those raised by S. Patrick were also baptized, and professing a penitential life, they received the monastic habit, and dwelling with Blessed Bishop Triamus, they remained in holiness and faith until the end of their lives.

[70] S. Patrick came to the region of Niall, in which a King named Echu ruled, having a daughter, named Cynnia, S. Cynnia obtains the faculty uniquely beloved, whom in due course he deemed it fitting to give in marriage. The maiden set aside her father's plan, and at Patrick's exhortation, she obeyed, to earn the hundredfold fruit of virginity: and nauseating carnal marriages, she resolved in her heart to offer and preserve herself inviolate to the heavenly Spouse. The father, seeing in his daughter an immovable pillar of mind concerning the keeping of virginal chastity, summoned the Saint to himself and said to him: I have deliberated and determined to extend my lineage through my daughter's body, by the procreation of grandchildren, for the strength of the kingdom and my own comfort: but the succession has been cut off, this hope of mine in this regard has been frustrated through you. If therefore for the loss of so great a stock you will promise me the heavenly kingdom, and you do not compel me unwilling to undergo baptism, my daughter will serve her Maker according to the form of your exhortation: otherwise I shall not be deprived of my desire, but the effect of your preaching will be frustrated. The Saint, trusting in the Lord, committed this entire matter to his disposition, and simply promised to the King what was asked. Of receiving the veil The maiden, veiled and consecrated by the Saint, serving the Lord in virginity and other exercises of virtues, led many by her example to the service of God, and shone with miracles both in life and after death. He had commended her to the custody of the holy Virgin Cethuber, Under S. Cethuber: who was the first of all Irish women to receive the veil from S. Patrick, to whom also, as Superior of a monastery called Cruimdubhchan, filled with a great multitude of Virgins serving Christ, the Saint himself wrote an exhortatory letter. In this monastery S. Cynnia lived her life, and rested in the Lord with very many companies of Virgins.

[71] After some space of time had elapsed, King Echu fell upon a bed of sorrow, and when, with the disease growing worse, he felt that the day of his death was imminent, And her father, who died without baptism, he sent a messenger to summon S. Patrick to himself. He also most strictly forbade his people to bury his body before the Bishop's arrival, because he had promised him the heavenly kingdom, and especially because he desired to receive the saving washing from him. Having said these things, he expired: and his body, according to his command, lay unburied for the space of a day and night in expectation of Patrick. S. Patrick, established in the monastery of Saul, which was two days' journey from the place where he lay, knew the King's death in spirit, and before the King's dispatched messenger arrived, he prepared himself for the journey to the house of the deceased. At length the Saint of God arrived and grieved over the King's death, He restores him to life: especially because he had departed from the body without receiving baptism. The Saint prayed to the Lord and released him from the bonds of double death. For because he had died without the Sacrament of regeneration, immediately upon being restored to life he instructed him in the rules of the faith and baptized him after instructing him. When the King had been baptized before the people, for their edification and the commendation of his preaching, he commanded him to narrate what he had more fully learned about the punishments of the reprobate and the joys of the elect. When he related many wonderful things about them, among other things he said that he had seen in the heavenly homeland the place promised to him by Patrick, And baptized, he sends him back to the glory he had chosen, and that because he had not yet been baptized, he could not enter it; and so at the Saint's prayer he had, by divine command, put on his body again. The Saint inquired of him whether he preferred to live longer in this world or to go immediately to the place prepared for him. The resurrected King answered that he regarded the dominion, riches, and delights of the entire world as the most inane smoke, in comparison with the heavenly joys which he had proved by the faith of his own eyes. But I beg, he said, that I may be released from this body of death and be brought forth as quickly as possible from this prison, because I most vehemently desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ. Having said these things, he received the Viaticum of the Eucharist,

and thus falling asleep in the Lord he departed to the place of immortality...

[72] A certain chieftain holding principality in Humestia believed at the preaching of S. Patrick with his people, and they were baptized. When the Saint He raises the grandfather of a certain chieftain, was instructing him about believing in the general resurrection, he did not easily give his credence; because he was by no means willing to believe that bodies dissolved into dust should be raised again to the former state of their own nature, though to be improved. But when the man of God produced many testimonies, examples, signs, and wonders from Sacred Scripture, in order to recall him from his error, he is reported to have given this answer to S. Patrick: If you raise my grandfather, long since incinerated, in the power of Jesus Christ, I will firmly believe in the resurrection of the dead, which you have asserted by preaching. S. Patrick, hearing this, with the chieftain himself and a great crowd walking with him, approached the tomb, and signed it with the Staff of Jesus, and had the earth dug up, and having prayed, raised the man to the amazement of all those standing by and the confirmation of the Catholic faith. For he was of tall stature and very terrible in appearance, yet different from his former self in height. The Saint also baptized him as he narrated at his command the infernal punishments and devoutly sought baptism in the name of Christ, and having baptized him, For establishing the faith in the resurrection: when he had received the sacred Eucharist, as he himself had also requested, falling asleep again, but in the Lord, he placed him in his own sepulcher. None of those present therefore were in doubt about the resurrection of the dead: since they had before their eyes that resurrection proved by so credible a testimony and so evident a sign. Of this sign and the preceding one, the Saint made mention in a certain letter which he wrote to a certain beloved friend of his dwelling in lands beyond the sea, in which among other things he says: The Lord has given to me, a lowly man, the power of working signs among a barbarous people, such as are not read to have been done even by the great Apostles, so that in the name of the Lord our God Jesus Christ I might raise from the dead bodies dissolved into dust for many years. Yet let no one, I beseech, believe that on account of these things or things like them I should be made equal to the Apostles or to any perfect men; since I am lowly and a sinner and contemptible. Let the hearer attend to the height of perfection in which this man had fixed his mind, who, working such great things, had such humble thoughts about himself. I truly admire more in this Saint his great humility than his raising of the dead.

[73] Another chieftain named Elellius strongly resisted the teaching of holy Patrick, and by no means opened an ear of hearing to him as he preached, Another's son, mangled by pigs, until vexation should give understanding to his hearing. For on a certain day his only beloved son was trampled by pigs, and was in great part crushed and devoured. When his father learned this, he tore his garments, and prostrating himself at the feet of S. Patrick, he set forth what had happened to him in a tearful voice: he also promised that he would believe in his God and would obey his commands in all things, if he would raise his son in his name. The Saint, however, He commands it to be raised by his disciple Malachy, commanded a certain one of his disciples named Malachy, a Briton by birth, to bring back the dead and torn boy from death to the living air. He, being disobedient and incredulous to the words of the man of God, out of pusillanimity of faith replied, saying: Who is there on earth who could reintegrate shattered bones, resolidify sinews, reform regrowing flesh, stretch skin over them, bring spirit into the body and life to the deceased? I shall not ask, and I shall not tempt the Lord about such rashness; nor shall I undertake a work which I cannot accomplish. And when he hesitated, And the Saint to him: Have you not read the promise of the Lord who says, If you shall ask the Father anything in my name, he will give it to you. And again: If you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, Remove yourself hence and cast yourself into the sea, and it shall be done? John 14, Matthew 17 When he replied that he had read this often, the Saint added, saying: Since, in so far as it lies in you, you have made void the word of the Lord and our faith, I predict to you that you will have a lowly and small house on earth, and there will be only the dwelling of one man in your church. He then enjoined upon two Bishops, Elbeus and Hibarus, his disciples, He accomplishes the miracle through two others, that they should restore the dead boy to the living; adding that he would assist them with his prayers in doing so. The Bishops obeyed their Father Patrick in his command, and aided by his prayers, they restored the torn and mangled boy not only to life but also to complete health and his former beauty and vigor. The chieftain therefore believed and was baptized with his entire household and the people subject to him. In the place of the performed miracle he built a church, and in memory of S. Patrick and the two Bishops and the resurrected boy, he erected four very large stones. He predicts punishment for him. What the Saint had predicted to the disobedient disciple consequently came to pass. But why he wished this miracle to be performed not by himself alone but by his disciples, I confess to be still unknown to me and those like me. Yet let any person of sound judgment understand that S. Patrick raised this dead man, as he did the rest, in the name of the Lord, by whose command they were bound and by whose prayers they were sustained, which is more excellent, and his disciples were able to perform this sign...

[74] A certain chieftain, traveling, heard with no small astonishment what seemed to be the voice of a little child weeping, emitted from a tomb: Olcanus born from a dead mother standing there, he ordered his men to open the sepulcher, and they found within, with great amazement, beside the dead mother, a living infant. By common counsel, therefore, they took him out from the sepulchral dwelling and brought him to S. Patrick: whom he, baptizing him, called Olcanus on account of the sorrow he had endured, and at an acceptable time committed him to be instructed in letters. He has him instructed in letters. When he had grown somewhat older, with an eagerness for learning he went to Gaul: and dwelling there for a long time, having acquired the knowledge of much literature, he returned to his homeland; having returned, he presided over schools: he advanced innumerable disciples, of whom many became holy Bishops, to an abundance of learning. He himself, an outstanding Doctor, ascended to the episcopal grade, and ending his life in great holiness, he also shone with many miracles. On a certain occasion the holy Patrick was crossing a certain river, called Dabhall, with his sacred retinue; and because the day was growing late and had already declined, he pitched his tent beside the bank in a most beautiful level meadow to spend the night. The Bishop approached the water, S. Patrick's tooth falls into the water, washed his hands and mouth, and while washing he rubbed his gums and teeth with his most worthy fingers: and while rubbing, he cast one tooth, loosened by old age or infirmity, into the water by a chance spitting, or rather by divine will. When this was discovered, his disciples diligently sought the tooth in the water; but though they searched for a long time, they could not find it. But in the darkness of the following night, the tooth lying in the river shone forth like a most brilliant star; the radiance of which drew all those lodging nearby to behold and find it. Found shining with nocturnal light. The tooth, thus found by so miraculous an event, was brought to the Father, and thanksgiving was offered to Almighty God by him and by all for the thing that had happened: and the Saint built a church in that same place and placed the aforesaid tooth beneath the altar: which place indeed became renowned for many miracles, and to the present day is called Cluayn fiacal, that is, the church of the tooth. By the power therefore of the same Lord, the tooth of S. Patrick shone like a radiant star, by which, from the molar tooth of the jawbone of an ass, at the prayer of Samson triumphing over the Philistines, a spring of water flowed forth. That church is distant about five miles from the Metropolitan city of Armagh.

CHAPTER X.

Certain prophecies of S. Patrick: an excursion to Britain.

[75] Blessed Patrick at a certain time, when he had washed a certain Magnate named Cartanus and his wife in the saving bath, S. Treha, according to the prophecy of Patrick indicated to the woman that she had a daughter in her womb, whom he himself would veil and consecrate in virginity to the heavenly Spouse. At the appointed time the woman bore a daughter, whom they called Treha at baptism: who, when her tenth year was completed, undertook the journey of coming to S. Patrick for the purpose of receiving consecration; but an intervening lake impeded her intended arrival. Weary, therefore, and distressed, she sat on the bank, and looked from afar with a thirsty eye and mind at the place where the holy Bishop was. The holy Bishop, At ten years of age she is consecrated by him, by the revelation of the Holy Spirit, recognized the Virgin's journey and desire; and having prayed, he removed the lake from that place; and thus, crossing with dry footsteps with her companions, she came to her. When S. Patrick had consecrated the aforementioned Treha as a Virgin, a veil was placed on her head by an Angel of the Lord, reaching down to her nostrils and covering her eyes. The most holy Bishop put forth his hand, wishing to remove the veil from her eyes; but the maiden humbly forbade him, saying: A veil placed by an Angel is never removed from her eyes. I beseech you, my Lord, let the veil be left as it has been placed upon the head of your handmaid, lest my eyes see any longer the vanity of this world; but rather let my inner person contemplate the brightness of my Spouse with a purer gaze. And the joyful Bishop left the veil as the maiden's most pure intention; and as it had been placed from heaven, covering her turtle-dove cheeks and dove-like eyes for all the time of her life, as if it had been glued to her face, it remained. Thus, thus by the barrier of this sacred veil, every enticing appearance was kept from access to her, lest death should in any way enter through her windows.

[76] Patrick blesses Fergussius more devoutly, A certain Prince named Conallus sought and obtained a blessing from S. Patrick. His brother, or rather his younger son, named Fergus, approached the Saint with a similar intention, being one indeed the foremost of the Magnates of the land. The most holy Bishop, having first prayed, blessed the man, laying his hands upon his head with great deliberation and the utmost devotion. His older brother, seeing that he was blessing the younger one more carefully and devoutly than himself, was greatly astonished and displeased. Patrick, perceiving the man's face to be gloomier than usual on account of the blessing, revealed the reason for so lengthy a blessing, saying: On account of S. Columba, to be born from his descendant, I have blessed your brother Fergussius with abundant blessing on account of a blessed son to be born from his seed: for his son Fedhleminius will beget a boy named Columba, who will receive a name corresponding to the reality: because he will be filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother's womb. For he will be enriched with the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, and will be a singular lamp of his generation, burning and shining, and will rightly be called a Prophet of the Most High: for from the time he reaches the age of understanding, no voluntary falsehood will ever go forth from his mouth. How truly that prophecy about S. Columba, who was the founder of Columkille and of a hundred monasteries, was uttered, he can know more fully who reads the volume written about his life.

[77] S. Patrick came on a certain occasion for the purpose of crossing to a certain great and unfordable river, He divides the Boallum and makes it rich in fish called Boallum: and when all means of navigation was lacking, having prayed, he divided the river and provided free passage for himself and those following him. Then raising his right hand, he blessed that river, and in a wondrous manner to the present day it can be forded on the eastern side by horsemen and those on foot; and on the western side no crossing except by boat can be found: the river also, blessed there by the Saint, abounds in fish more copiously than in other places. When the disciples marveled and asked that the reason and cause of so great a miracle be explained to them, S. Patrick replied: A son of life named Columba, In favor of the same S. Columba, not yet born, after the course of many years will dwell in that place, and the water thus divided will be necessary for him and his fellow soldiers in Christ for various uses: an abundant catch of fish will also furnish the sustenance of provisions for the Brothers who will stay there. S. Columba, indeed, born after much time, from the time he was grown, built an outstanding monastery there, and proved by his habitation and work that Patrick's prophecy was supported by truth.

[78] S. Patrick visited the borders of the Turturians, in which places he stayed for seven weeks, and building seven churches in that brief span of time, he called each of them Dominica. Among the Turturians he founds seven churches, For the Saint had this custom, that wherever he stayed on the Lord's day, if he had founded a church there, he would call it Domhnach, that is, Dominica. Over one of the seven aforesaid churches he placed a certain one of his disciples, named Connedus, a good and holy man, a Priest by grade, learned in the divine law. He, taking up the governance of that church, Over one of them he places Connedus, rather from the motive of obedience than the desire for his own ambition, completed only one week there, and consequently leaving it, returned to S. Patrick. When the holy Bishop inquired from him the reason for his so hasty return, he answered that he could not bear with equanimity the absence of that so beloved Father. Nor is that to be wondered at, replied S. Patrick: because sons of life are not in that place; but men of blood and devourers of cattle, whose sword you fear and whose blood you fear to be shed. Return, return safely, and do not fear before their face; for no man's blood will be shed in that place, even unto generations of generations. Having received such an answer from S. Patrick, the venerable Connedus returned to govern that Church, and the word of S. Patrick was proved to be true by many compelling arguments, as the local people assert.

[79] S. Patrick, seeing in Ireland that the harvest indeed was great but the laborers few, crossed over to Britain to acquire helpers and co-workers for the Lord's field: and because the plague of the Pelagian heresy and also the Arian perfidy had defiled the borders of Britain in many places, he himself, by preaching and working many signs, was leading his countrymen back to the way of truth. He cleanses Britain of the Pelagian heresy: There still exist in Britain very many places aware of his miracles and fragrant with his holiness through frequent miracles. Having collected many literate and religious men, he brought them with him; of whom he afterward elevated thirty to the height of episcopal office. Sailing back to Ireland, he turned aside to convert the islands of the sea: of which Eubonia, that is, Man, He preaches to the adjacent islands: then indeed subject to Britain, he converted to Christ by saving preaching and the display of signs. Among which signs, that one shone forth remarkably, that a certain sorcerer called Melinus, asserting himself to be God, like Simon the Magician, and taking to the air in diabolical flight, was hurled headlong from on high by his prayers, shattered, and perished. He placed a certain disciple of S. Patrick, a holy and wise man named Germanus, promoted to the episcopate, as governor over the Church of that people recently established, and on a certain promontory (which is still called the Island of Patrick, In Man and elsewhere he ordains many Bishops: because he himself stayed there for a little while) he placed the episcopal See. Over other islands converted to the faith of Christ, he placed over each one or even more Bishops from his disciples: and thus he returned to Ireland. S. Patrick was indeed accustomed to appoint Bishops not only in cities but also in towns and more prominent places, lest the baptized should in any way be deprived of episcopal confirmation. This was also provided by the Saint, that the faithful might have in their presence one who would administer the Pontifical office to them, while the diocese, not excessively extended, would not deprive them of the presence and care of their Pastor. The inhabitants of certain islands rejected the law of God preached by S. Patrick, alienated from the faith backward: and therefore to this present day they are deprived of the special gift of God, which is known to have been conferred upon the other islands persevering in the faith, concerning the banishment of venomous animals, through the prayers of Patrick.

[80] Six Clerics, Irish by nation, led by a unanimous desire for learning Scripture and visiting the holy places, undertook a journey toward lands beyond the sea; Having encountered seven Clerics and by a happy chance they met S. Patrick returning from Britain. When they knelt and asked for a blessing, the Saint blessed them and predicted that they would all become Bishops. The Bishop, recognizing one of them, who seemed older and more robust than the rest, carrying all their little books in his bosom because he had nothing else at hand in which to carry them; he ordered that they be given a seal-skin, upon which he was accustomed to stand during the celebration of Mass, for making a satchel from it. He helps them and predicts that all will become Bishops. Having received the holy man's gift with thanksgiving, they crossed the sea prosperously; nor from that day did any serious want seize them; but whether journeying or staying in the schools, an honest sufficiency always smiled upon them. They recognized therefore the Saint as their benefactor through his blessings, and the Lord as preserving for them his mercy through his merits. In the course of time, excellently trained in letters, they returned to their homeland; and within a short time, according to the word of S. Patrick, all became Bishops. The names of these holy Priests are Lugacius, Columbanus, Meldanus, Lugadius, Cassanus, Ceranus: the names of whose episcopal Sees we forbear to describe for good reason. In many instances we also avoid the names of places and even of persons on account of the rough barbarism of the words, lest we cause annoyance or horror to Latin ears. The aforesaid Bishops, however, profited greatly in the Church of God by word and example, and ended their lives in great sanctity. They were also accustomed to narrate many miracles performed upon the aforesaid skin: which still remains intact and has been preserved as a relic in memory of S. Patrick.

[81] S. Patrick was preaching to very many peoples coming together from various parts into one place, in a place in Ireland called Finnabhair, which in Latin is interpreted White Field. While he preaches continuously for three days, He was reading and interpreting to them in order the most sacred volumes of the four Evangelists for three continuous days and nights; and all those present estimated that no more time had elapsed than the space of only one day; so happily deceived and so healthfully delighted by the words of grace which proceeded from his mouth. O healthful and delightful deception, by which falsehood is excluded, truth is brought in, time is mocked, night is withdrawn, day is seen to continue for three days! Let the reader not complain that I have named this a deception; since the Prophet cries out to his Creator: You have seduced me, Lord, and deceived me, and the Apostle Paul says to certain of his disciples: Being crafty, I caught you by guile. Jeremiah 20, 2 Corinthians 12. Good is the guile that acquires the salvation of souls; excellent is the seduction that leads to God.

[82] Blessed Brigid was present at the aforesaid gatherings, who, reclining her head, was sleeping. A wonderful vision is offered to S. Brigid; The holy Bishop forbade anyone to rouse and awaken God's beloved until she herself wished. For as became clear from the outcome, that passage in the Canticles well suited her: Canticles 5. I sleep, and my heart watches: because her Spouse was revealing his secrets to her. Afterward, when the same holy Virgin had awakened, the holy Bishop commanded her to narrate to all what she had seen in her dreams. She, obeying the words of the Saint, said: I saw a Synod of white-robed ones and plows and oxen and harvests, all white: then all those same things spotted, afterward all black: lastly I beheld sheep and swine, dogs and wolves, quarreling with each other and fighting. Which Patrick expounds concerning the future state of Ireland, S. Patrick, however, was expounding the vision, and said that all the aforementioned whiteness pertained to the state of the world at that present time. For all in it, both Prelates and subjects, were fertile and fervent in faith and good works according to Evangelical teaching and Apostolic doctrine. He said that the spotted things pertained to the time of the following generation, in which they would indeed be white in faith but would blacken it with wicked works. The subsequent blackness he asserted corresponded to the time of the generation to follow, in which men would profane their lives not only with wicked works but also by the renunciation of the Christian faith. The discord of sheep, swine, dogs, and wolves he declared to be the future controversy of innocent and unclean Prelates, of good and wicked, to come in the days of a later generation, after the course of very many years. Having said these things, the Saint departed from the place, having dismissed the assembly, and I think no one doubts the Virgin's vision and the most holy man's interpretation, supported by irrefutable authority.

[83] Blessed Patrick was accustomed to visit frequently the individual regions of Ireland, And while visiting the provinces and to make sojourns in them as the opportunity of the time demanded and reason dictated. Whence he stayed for seven continuous years in the region of Munster, and likewise in the region of Connacht; but he dwelt longer in Ulster, in which he had first preached the kingdom of God and led its inhabitants to the faith of Christ, whose every border he more frequently illuminated by his holy presence in visiting. Wherever he traveled, he either converted his hearers to the faith of Christ or confirmed them in the faith of Christ. On a certain occasion, therefore, S. Patrick, visiting that region of the Ulstermen called Dalaradia, Another prophecy of S. Benignus passing through a certain place called Muccomuir, was progressing, and his disciple named Benignus, mentioned above, fixing his step, was contemplating something wondrous in the heavens. For he saw light-bearing choirs of Angels surrounding that place with heavenly brightness, and he heard them singing praises to the Creator with inestimable melody. Standing, a devout contemplator of these marvels, he was filled with a dancing of inner sweetness: yet he did not understand what the angelic presence, the flashing light, and the heavenly hymnody displayed in that place portended. After a brief interval of time, however, that wonderful vision entirely vanished from the eyes of Benignus; and he, following the footsteps of the preceding Father Patrick, hastened his steps to reach him. When the Saint inquired the reason for his delay, he related the vision shown to him from heaven. The holy Bishop, divinely taught what the flooding of light and the angelic song meant or indicated, expounding said before those present: Know,

and what had been given to him by the wealthy, he was accustomed to distribute to the needy. With this blessed man, as her nephew, S. Lupita, the sister of Patrick, dwelt in one house, in the manner of the primitive Church, so that she might profit by his word and example in the exercise of divine service. After some time had elapsed, when the holy Priest rose at midnight according to custom to give praise to the Lord, that holy woman was accustomed to place herself to sleep and cover herself with the furs in the holy Bishop's bed. He suspected no sinister suspicion from this deed, because he measured the minds of others by the purity of his own conscience. A certain person, discovering the woman's habit, denounced the familiarity with the Bishop as wicked, and having denounced it, spread it abroad among the common people: and since the door for spreading infamy lay open to the tongues of the populace, the matter could not remain hidden from Patrick any longer. S. Patrick, wishing to ascertain more clearly whether the matter was truly so, directed his steps to the dwelling of the aforesaid Bishop.

[92] Before S. Patrick they prove their innocence by miracles: S. Mel judged it better to prove his innocence by a sign than by an oath; plowing the earth on a certain hill, he caught great and many fish from the plowshare on dry ground, even in the sight of Patrick himself. He offered those thus caught to the Saint of God, as it were for a miracle, so that no suspicion might remain in the hearts of those who saw it, since such a sign is not accustomed to be performed by an unchaste person. The sister of S. Patrick also filled the fold of her gathered garment with live coals, which she carried sufficiently and shook out in the sight of her brother, without any sign of burning or injury, and proved herself innocent. S. Patrick, approving the innocence proved by such evident signs, pronounced them clean and free from guilt: nevertheless, he took care to proclaim publicly what would be salutary for them and for many others. First, therefore, meeting with the Bishop, he admonished him to plow on land and to fish in water, lest he seem to tempt the Lord his God. Who nevertheless decreed that women should be separated from Clerics. Next, that he should not presume to glory in any miracle wrought in him by divine grace. Finally the Saint decreed that women should be separated from men, and that distinct buildings and oratories should be constructed for each sex. Thus indeed, as the same Patrick says, the name of God would not be blasphemed through them among the nations to whom they preached it; nor would any occasion of scandal be given to the weak in such a case, nor material for detraction. What therefore S. Patrick decreed and established, he caused to be observed.

[93] On a certain occasion S. Patrick veiled, consecrated, and betrothed to the heavenly Spouse four Virgins standing upon one stone. Virgins consecrated to God leave their footprints impressed on the rock. A wondrous and very unusual thing appeared. The footprints of the Virgins dedicated to God, impressed on the hard stone, are visible to the present day; so that it may be clear to all that the prayer or preaching of the blessing Patrick could penetrate and soften even stony hearts. It is given to us moreover to understand in this matter that those who despise the world for the love of Christ ought to keep to hard paths: so that they may be able to reach him to whom they have proven themselves. The place in which they were consecrated is called Tedna, where a church was built for them to serve the Lord, which today pertains to the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan See at Armagh. S. Patrick came for the purpose of crossing to a certain very great river, situated between Meath and Connacht, called the Sinna; which was always impassable to all except those traveling by boat. He sought a vessel for a long time but did not find one. He therefore prayed to the Lord, Earth raised up in the deep river provides Patrick means of crossing. who once made a way in the sea and set a path in the deep: and immediately in the middle of the river earth was raised up by divine command and provided free passage for the Saint of God and his companions. When they reached the bank of the river, the charioteer of the Saint died; and there a church was built, which is known to pertain to the jurisdiction of the Church of Armagh. In that place where S. Patrick by praying dispelled the darkness brought on by the sorcerers, a church was built; At his indication an altar and four glass chalices are found in a cave. in which he promoted a certain one of his Clerics called Ailueus to the priestly grade, so that he might minister there. The ordained Priest complained to S. Patrick that the necessities for priestly ministry were lacking to him: the Saint, divinely instructed, indicated to the Priest a certain altar of wondrous workmanship, having in its four corners four glass chalices, in an underground cave; and lest they be broken, he commanded him to dig more carefully and to remove the earth. The Priest did as the Bishop commanded, and found everything just as he had said. By what persons, however, that altar had been made, or deposited there with the chalices, remains unknown to us to this day. Certain people believe that all those things belonged to Bishop Palladius or his companions and were left there after his departure.

Colgan thinks Brendan crept in for Manius, who is said to have done a similar thing in the Tripartite Life in favor of the wife of Corbreus. But why should we not believe the prophecy of a plainly different outcome to have been about a different person; especially since other circumstances also vary?

Tedna would be more correctly and completely written Teg-na-ningain, house of the maidens.

CHAPTER XII

Alfinnium erected: events in that diocese. Concerning the holy Bishops Munius and Fiechus.

[94] [On two occasions gold found in the digging of a pig, he gives it for a church site.] It seemed good to the man of God to build a church in a certain field, in which he might gather a people of acquisition to God: for this reason he asked the possessor of the land to prepare that place for him, promising him a portion in the land of the living. But that man, accustomed to magical arts, held the desirable land promised to him as nothing, and rather demanding gold as a price, he endured an exceedingly execrable hunger for it. The Saint replied that he did not have any at present, but had spent everything he had on the building of churches or the necessities of the poor. But since the man would by no means assent to the requesting Bishop, he went, after offering a prayer, to the digging of a certain pig; and there found as much gold as was demanded; having found it, he gave it in exchange for the land. There was also another neighbor, having a field bordering on the land which he had purchased, which the Saint humbly and earnestly begged to be granted to the aforesaid church. When that man responded with words similar to the former, he again went to the digging of the pig, and found gold equal in weight to the former, which he gave to the man for the purchase of the field. Now for a third time the Lord revealed to S. Patrick in the earth, torn open by the snouts of pigs, gold: once for his own redemption, and twice in this place for enriching and endowing the church. Afterward the younger of the two brothers, named Ono, S. Assicus ordained Bishop of Alfinnium, moved in his heart, not only returned the gold to the Saint of God, but also contributed his house, estates, and property for founding and building the church. The place is called Elfind, where an episcopal See is held today.

[95] Blessed Patrick then consecrated a certain disciple of his named Asycus, a monk in habit and deed, as Bishop, and placed him over the aforesaid Church: he himself, at the admonition of S. Patrick, introduced an outstanding community of monks into the church of his See, over which he presided with the authority of an Abbot. On a certain occasion, A wondrous penance expiates a slight lie, when he should have spoken the truth assertively, slipping through a fault of the tongue he uttered a falsehood. Having come to himself, afterward he set himself against his own face; from the great bitterness of his remorse he went far away, and fleeing from the face of men, he remained in solitude; and dwelling there for seven years, he was seen by no one. His monks, seeking him for a long time; at the end of the seven years they found him in a hollow of a certain valley, and wished to forcibly extract him from the place and lead him back to his church, as a bridegroom to the bosom of his bride. The Bishop by no means acquiesced to them, judging himself unworthy to exercise the Pontifical office any further, from whose mouth a voluntary falsehood had proceeded, which the sacred Canons define as sacrilege on the tongue of Priests. In which matter it must be considered how much those who have fallen into the gravest crimes ought to repent of their great transgressions, As an example to others, especially Bishops. if this Saint repented and made satisfaction so strictly for a mere falsehood. O how many bear hearts that are clay for resisting sin, but stone for repenting! For many men who are wicked, criminal, and abominable in their lives (which cannot be said without grief) thrust themselves into the governance of souls, and with polluted hands desire to wash away the stains of others, and bound themselves by the ropes of mortal crimes, they itch to loose others who are bound: whose desire, when fulfilled by divine judgment, they become much worse than they were known to have been before. For those placed under governance can repent and make satisfaction for their own offenses alone; those placed in the pastoral seat are held to render an account for the transgressions of each one committed to them. Because therefore the words of Priests are either true or sacrilegious, the judgment is dreadful for those Priests and other Prelates of the Church whose tongue is polluted by continual falsehoods or perjuries. We have said these things as if by way of digression, to show not only that wicked deeds and crimes, but also falsehoods, must be avoided by all Christians, and especially by Pastors of souls. Now let us return to the course of the sacred history. For the aforesaid monks, unwilling to be separated from S. Asycus, remained there until the end of his life; and having buried him, they built a monastery there and served the Lord in holiness and justice. S. Patrick judged that what he had learned by the revelation of the Holy Spirit concerning each of the two brothers should by no means be left unsaid to either. He predicted to the elder that he, who had preferred mammon to Christ and gold to his petition, would shortly lose dominion over that land together with his offspring. A diverse prophecy concerning Ono and his brother, To the younger he predicted many good things that would come to him on account of the devotion of his spirit, and that he would be a helper of Kings in the land, and that the best Priests of God would be born from his holy lineage. All those things which the Saint uttered in prophetic speech were by no means frustrated in their fulfillment.

[96] S. Patrick was preaching on a certain occasion to the gentiles, and was staying longer in that place instructing and baptizing them. Benignus, however, the Saint's disciple, was bearing with some annoyance so great a delay in those parts. Patrick sympathizes with his disciples in danger The Saint said that he was unwilling to depart from those places before his disciples and students came to him from remote parts. The next day the sky was seen to darken, and the sea to be stirred and shaken by a violent wind. S. Patrick, however, with a clouded face of sadness, indicated to those staying with him that his sons begotten in Christ, making their way by ship, were suffering a great burden; and he said he greatly sympathized with the afflicted, and especially with his boy, the son of Erchus, his student who was exceedingly frightened. When those present asserted that the ship could not endure such a tempest, the holy man more earnestly turned to prayer. After a brief interval, in the hearing of all who were present, He calms the tempest, he commanded the winds and the sea, that they should cease from their fury by the power of his God. O

stupendous thing and worthy of admiration! Immediately the wind ceased, the sea was silent, the storm was pacified, and a great calm was made. On that same day the aforementioned Brothers arrived safely enough, and related before all how, when the elements had previously turned to their peril but were unexpectedly pacified, they experienced the most powerful prayer of Patrick their Father. At another time also the same Brothers, And again he frees them by commanding the sea to recede: for the purpose of visiting S. Patrick, were traveling the road on foot through the sandy places of a very great shore, in order to come to him. While they were proceeding together and conversing as they walked, behold, the incoming tide of the sea enclosed them, and taking away all hope of escape, struck the fear of death into all. S. Patrick, however, divinely instructed, recognized the straits of those approaching, and indicating to the disciples present what he had recognized, said he sympathized with the afflicted. Then, having first offered prayer, he commanded by the mighty power of his words, in the name of the Lord his God, the surge of the sea to recede as quickly as possible and to provide free and quiet passage for his sons who were visiting him. The sea immediately obeyed the voice of the man of God and receded: and so that company of Brothers, joyful and praising God, reached Patrick, and by narrating so great a miracle dissolved the hearts of all who heard it into the praise of God, who works wonders in his Saints.

[97] At a certain time, having completed a necessary voyage, S. Patrick with his religious men landed, By whom he also commands that his cowl be kept untouched: and going out to dry land, by chance he left his cowl on the shore. The Saints, having landed, sat and conferred with one another about heavenly things, and refreshed themselves with the consolation of mutual conference: but the sea, rising as usual, covered the surface of the sand, and was near to drawing the Bishop's cowl to itself and carrying it away. The Saint, seeing this, forbade the surge of the sea to touch or take it, in the name of him who has power in heaven and on earth, in the sea and in all the depths. A wondrous thing! The flooding of the sea, filling the entire place, occupied its accustomed space: only that place in which the cowl was contained it left untouched. After the ebb and recession of the tide, he had the cowl brought to him, and the sign roused all who were present to the praise of God and the veneration of Patrick. Henceforth all were more ready to obey him, who had observed a mute element obey his commands.

On a certain occasion, when S. Patrick had consecrated two Virgins in a field situated in the borders of Cregrus, a certain veil sent from heaven fell into the lap of Patrick: which the Saint, receiving it with the greatest devotion, afterward offered it to the consecrated Virgin: but she, judging herself unworthy of such a gift, so holy a blessing, said to the holy Bishop: Since this best gift, A veil sent from heaven he places upon a Virgin consecrated by him. this perfect gift descending from the Father of lights, was not sent to me a sinner, I think it fitting that you yourself should have it, to whom it was brought; or confer it on another, who is better than I. The Saint, applauding the Virgin's humility, placed that veil upon her head, commanding her to wear it continually, until she should be led into the chamber of her Spouse. The Virgin acquiesced to the command of the Bishop, and living holily, she rested in the Lord with a most holy end.

[98] S. Patrick, led by holy custom, kept a certain leper with him, to whom he ministered all necessities for Christ with great devotion; The leper's life he washed his ulcers with his own hands, and was accustomed to refresh both the inner and outer man with suitable food. For the leper, having utterly lost bodily health, strove to be watchful in every way for the salvation of his soul, to devote himself continually to prayer, and in all things always to give thanks to God. When, however, cut down by the squalor of leprosy, he brought a stench upon those living with him; he feared lest he be a horror to the others, and secretly and humbly he withdrew from the company of the rest, and in a certain hollow tree found by chance he dwelt alone by himself. While he sat alone, observing a certain passerby, he called him to himself and inquired what his profession was. And a pious death honored by a miracle: When the man replied that he was a Christian, he begged the man, for the love of him in whom he believed, not to be reluctant to go to a nearby reedy place, and to pull up the rushes there by the roots and bring him a bundle. At the voice of the one asking, or rather adjuring, the man went to the place, pulled up a rush, and immediately a clear spring burst forth: he brought the bundle of rushes to the leper, and reported what had happened at the spring of the new fountain. The leper gave thanks and praises to God, and then said to the man: Know, dearest brother, that our Lord Jesus Christ has led you here, so that in the water of that fountain you may wash my body and bury me in that place. Having said these things, raising his eyes and hands to heaven, he expired: and the aforesaid man washed his body in the fountain, and seeing no trace of leprosy on it, but finding it most healthy, he committed it to burial there and departed. After some days had passed, S. Munis, The body revealed and elevated, a devout bearer of many Relics of the Saints, was returning from Rome, and compelled by necessity, was staying overnight in the aforesaid place. Under the silence of the night he saw a great light surrounding that place, and heard Angels singing and keeping watch until morning around the tomb of the buried man. He narrated all these things to S. Patrick, saying he wished to remove that holy body from that deserted place. S. Patrick forbade this to be done, predicting that a certain son of life, not yet born, named Kieran, would dwell there, who would fill that place with a distinguished company of Saints, and would honor that holy body with much sublimity. For what he predicted came to pass in the course of time: for that place is between Meath and Connacht, in which is situated the city of Clonensis, in which an episcopal See is held today.

[99] The aforementioned S. Munis, having returned from Rome, wearied by the fatigue of a long journey, wishing to travel no further, In favor of S. Munis fearing for his rest begged S. Patrick that, just as he had provided rest for his brothers who had churches, so he might procure for him a place of habitation suitable for contemplation. Holy Patrick therefore, knowing that man, although a lover of inner quiet, would be profitable for the salvation of many, offered him a suitable and excellent place, saying: Behold the hill, behold the valley; build and dwell where it seems more pleasing to your eyes: but know this, that if you dwell in the valley, you can lead more souls to the Lord: but if you remain on the hill you will acquire fewer, on account of the vanities and pleasantries presented to the eyes, and other many causes and circumstances. Munis, forewarned and forearmed by the Holy Spirit, is said to have replied to S. Patrick: I do not complain about the hill or the valley; but about the nearby lake; since there a royal habitation exists: for the frequent attendance of courtiers and other secular persons will be troublesome to me, and will bring impediments to the sabbath of my mind. Patrick transfers the lake elsewhere: S. Patrick, confirming him, asserted that it would be easy for God to remedy this annoyance; and withdrawing a little, he poured out devout and efficacious prayers in the sight of God. On the following night, therefore, the Lord transferred that lake with its habitations and inhabitants so far away, that his servant should sustain no trouble or burden from it. For holy Munis, remaining there, built a church, to which S. Patrick gave Relics of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul and of very many other Saints, and certain insignia necessary for ecclesiastical ministry. He himself afterward, though unwilling, shining with virtues, was promoted to the height of Pontifical office, and shining also with many signs, he finally migrated to the Lord.

[100] There was a certain well-mannered young man, subtle in intellect, eloquent in speech, beautiful in form, named Fiechus, He baptizes S. Fiechus, a disciple of the poet Dubthach. He had married a certain maiden a few years before, who had now recently died, by whom he had also begotten an only son. S. Patrick met this man dining with his aforementioned master, and in a moment and the twinkling of an eye, by the revelation of the Spirit recognizing his conscience, he said before all: Behold a man of one wife only, who according to the Apostle may be worthily promoted to the Priesthood and even the Pontificate. 1 Timothy 3:2 He therefore began to explain to him the reason of the faith, and to admonish him to receive baptism. The young man marveled at the words of grace which proceeded from the mouth of S. Patrick, and especially because he was able so quickly to penetrate his secret and discern his life. Believing, therefore, he received baptism, and though his master long resisted at first but afterward consented, he gave himself to the discipleship of the holy Bishop. The Saint blessed him and gave him an Alphabet written by his own hand. He himself, having obtained the blessing of S. Patrick, learned the Psalter in one day, and within a brief span of time, by the inspiration of the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, Then he establishes him as Bishop of Slept. he sufficiently understood the sacred Scriptures. For there is no delay in learning where the Holy Spirit is present as Teacher. S. Patrick promoted him to the Ecclesiastical grades, and when he ministered worthily in each one, he finally consecrated him Bishop and placed him over the Church of Slept. He himself appeared conspicuous in life, doctrine, and miracles, and taught by an Angelic oracle, he took the monastic habit and built an outstanding monastery of monks in his episcopal See.

[101] Blessed Patrick decided to send a certain chariot to S. Fiechus, A chariot destined for him because, being weighed down by infirmity, he was unable to visit his diocese on foot or exercise the office of a Bishop: for he was weakened by excessive abstinence, and moreover he suffered from the affliction of a fistula on his hip. S. Secundinus, seeing this, suffering something human, took it ill, and asserted that the chariot should more justly be given to himself than to him. The pious Father, understanding that he was vexed, sought to satisfy him by a sign rather than a speech, saying: Be not grieved, dearest brother, over a small gift to be given to our fellow brother and fellow Bishop, lest occasion be given to the devil to mock us: because that brother has more need of a vehicle than any of us. But lest we seem to have erred in our judgment, let the discussion of this matter be left to Angelic examination. For an Angel appearing to both at the prayer of S. Patrick, Horses without a driver convey it on a three days' journey: commanded that horses be harnessed and the chariot yoked, and sent without a driver, and decreed that to whomever the post-horses stopped and remained, the chariot should be given to him. It happened therefore as the Angel commanded, and the Saint had the chariot yoked: and the horses, with no one guiding them through trackless places and winding roads, first arrived at the habitation of Secundinus himself in the evening, and being unyoked were sent to pasture. In the morning, however, with no one yoking them, they were harnessed to the chariot, and in a similar manner reaching the dwelling of the other Saint, they spent the night there. On the third day, finally, they approached S. Fiechus and stopped, and clearly gave to be understood that they had been sent to him. That Saint, however, did not wish to mount that chariot until an Angel certified him about the gift sent to him. On another occasion this same miracle was repeated in the same manner with two horses

sent by S. Patrick to the same S. Fiechus, to be yoked to his chariot.

[102] On another occasion an Angel commanded the aforesaid Fiechus to build a monastery across the river, The same monastery prescribed by an Angel assigning to each workshop its proper and suitable place: where a boar appeared to him, there the refectory; and where he saw a doe, there he ordered the oratory to be built. The Saint replied to the Angel that he would by no means begin such a thing unless S. Patrick, his Father and Pastor, should come and approve the work enjoined. The word did not displease the Angel of the Lord, because he knew in him the affection of love and obedience which he had in Christ toward the man of God. He does not presume to found it without Patrick's assent, After some days had passed, at the Angel's admonition, Patrick presented himself to Fiechus, and in that place which is called Forrach they built a monastery according to the pattern which the Angel had shown them. S. Fiechus himself presided over this monastery in the capacity of Abbot, and nonetheless fully exercised the Episcopal office in his diocese. The same Bishop was accustomed every year at the beginning of Lent to go out alone from the monastery, and bringing with him five barley loaves mixed with ashes for his sustenance, to remain in a more remote desert for all that sacred time. On Palm Sunday, And he shines with wondrous abstinence. or sometimes on Maundy Thursday, he was accustomed to return to perform his office, still having with him half of one loaf uneaten. He also sent sixty Saints before him to God; following them himself, he was buried at Slept. His son mentioned above resembled his father in knowledge and holiness; and having obtained the episcopal grade elsewhere, he rested in the Lord.

Perhaps what is said elsewhere about the relics left by S. Munis in the hollow of a tree is to be understood only of the body of this leper, although others have transferred this to the relics brought from Rome.

CHAPTER XIII.

Those who resist Patrick are severely chastised.

[103] S. Patrick prophesies concerning the Calregians: When the most holy Patrick was manfully pressing on with the preaching of the divine word, certain armed men from Calregia met him and violently expelled that Angel of peace from their borders. The man of God, however, judged that what he saw concerning them in spirit should by no means be left unsaid: Because, he said, you have borne arms against an unarmed man, and have driven from your borders one who announces peace to you and preaches salvation, you and your offspring will turn your backs in the day of battle. Those men, hearing this, greatly feared before the sword of his mouth, and repenting of their rashness, all except five, on bended knees before the Saint of God, with tearful prayers sought to be pardoned. The Saint deliberated briefly with himself, and again spoke to them with prophetic words: The word stands fixed, which by the dictation of the Holy Spirit has gone forth from my mouth concerning you and your offspring: nevertheless, since you have repented from the heart, although you will be turned to flight, not more than five of your number will fall in any battle's peril. The Irish relate that this prophecy of S. Patrick has been fulfilled by frequent experience.

[104] Certain very wicked and malicious men dwelling in the land of Ferrois, plotting to extinguish the life of S. Patrick, offered him freshly made cheeses infected with poison, as if for a blessing. The Saint blessed them when they were offered to him, and immediately, to the amazement of many, the praise of God, his own veneration, and the ignominy of the poisoners, he turned them into stones. He converts poisoned cheeses into stones: These stones remain to the present day in the place of the miracle performed, and even mute they proclaim Patrick's merit, because they were thus changed. Those same poisoners, seeing their machinations had advanced the glory of the Saint and their own confusion, gathered fifty armed men from their own number for the shedding of innocent blood. Massed together, therefore, against the Bishop, they entered the ford of a certain river, along whose bank the man of God was journeying and coming toward them: He drowns the fifty who lay in ambush: when he saw their faces, he understood their thoughts, and raising his left hand against them, he said in a clear voice: You shall not come to us, nor will you return to your own; but in this water your corpses will remain until the day of judgment. According to the word of the sentencing man of God, they were immediately submerged like lead in the rushing waters: nor have their bodies been found by the living to this day, although long and much sought. Water wrought this by divine judgment upon this band of fifty conspiring to kill S. Patrick, just as heavenly fire did upon the two proud bands of fifty sent by King Ahab to Elijah the Prophet. For the place where they were drowned is called the ford of the submerged to this day.

[105] Certain sons of darkness in a field called Liffe made deep pits in various places of the public path, which they covered with little branches and green turf, so that the Saint might unexpectedly fall into them while traveling. He passes unharmed through treacherously constructed pits; A certain maiden, however, understood the prepared ambush, and took care to indicate them to the man of God, so that he might carefully guard himself from them. The Saint, trusting in the Lord, ordered his men to mount horses, and having given his blessing, he passed through with his men with unimpeded foot. For the fragile and thin grass, as if it were solid ground, sustained those riding upon it: because that sacred cavalcade carried in their hearts and bodies him who carries all things. The Priest of God then sent the aforesaid maiden to her father, And he rewards the family that was kind to him, to bring him to his presence for the purpose of receiving the salvation of his soul. The maiden did as the Saint commanded, and presented her father in his sight. When the Saint preached the word of God, the man believed, and Patrick baptized him with his ten sons and three daughters: the baptized Virgins, having been given the sacred veil, he consecrated to the Lord: and he proclaimed with prophetic voice that of his sons five would be blessed and prosperous in this world, and the other five would live and die holily, first in the clerical grade, then in the monastic habit. He also predicted to those who had treacherously prepared pits for him and his companions, that they and their offspring would pass their lives sustaining themselves by continually digging in the earth, and that want would seize them, according to Scripture, like water. Job 27:20. All these things which the Saint predicted were proven by the outcome of events.

[106] S. Patrick came to a certain village within the island of Incheeen, and found a place suitable for building a church; when he had begun it, He curses those who oppose him. a multitude of country-folk burst forth from the village and impeded the work begun. The Saint, however, filled with the spirit of prophecy, predicted to them with truthful voice: Since you are an impediment and obstacle to me, that I may not build a house for the Lord my God, smoke shall not go forth from the houses of your generation completed in this place. This saying of S. Patrick eyewitness testimony proves to be most true to the present day. For many people many times began to build houses there, but on account of pressing difficulties they could never complete them. A certain depraved and perverse man, powerful in iniquity, called Oengus, prevented S. Patrick from building a church in a suitable place by prohibiting it: to whom S. Patrick, swearing by his Judge, or rather prophesying, said: In a short time your house will be destroyed, and your substance scattered, and your sons proceeding from your profane loins will for the most part defile each other with mutual fratricide: the rest who survive will never obtain any height of dignity or power; but to the day of their death they will be wanderers and fugitives upon the earth. This presage of S. Patrick was fulfilled, and the experiment of the described misery inflicted upon the aforesaid man and his sons proved it.

[107] A certain powerful man on his own estate, while enriching a church to be built with lands and possessions: for the governance of which S. Patrick wished to appoint a certain one of his own men suitable for winning souls; Harsh punishment of a Bishop presumptously consecrated and of the consecrator. the man resisted, saying that he had a Cleric of his own whom he wished to place over his church. The Saint, thinking it unworthy to act contentiously about this matter at present, withdrew from the man. The next day the man brought his son to S. Patrick, wishing him to consecrate the boy as Bishop, to be placed over the church: and because the Saint was withdrawn from his own, attending to prayers and studies in more secluded places, the man, turning away from him, went to two Bishops established elsewhere from the Saint's disciples, and approached them about the consecration of his son. One of them, not assenting to the man's petition, replied that he wished to attempt nothing of the sort without the consent or command of S. Patrick: but the other, swayed either by entreaty or by bribery, presumed to do what was asked. When S. Patrick learned of this, striking the presumptuous one with a blow of rather harsh penance, he also predicted that he would suffer want of bread for all the days of his life. He also asserted that the Bishop thus consecrated was worthy of deposition and contemptible, and that his Church would be very poor, so that it could not defend itself from two men assaulting it. What therefore the Saint predicted came about irrevocably. In which matter every wise person is warned not to presume, blinded by ambition, to attempt anything similar.

[108] A certain man long condemned to blindness, called Domhnaldus, hearing S. Patrick passing by, presented himself before him, trusting that through him he would obtain the desired light: Domhnald's blindness is transferred to a mocking Cleric: and because his eyelids did not precede his steps, nor was the light of his eyes with him, running and rushing toward him he fell: he rose again, but there was no one to lead him by the hand. A certain Cleric from the retinue of S. Patrick, seeing him fall, laughed at and mocked the misfortune of the falling blind man. S. Patrick, learning of this deed, bore it indignantly, and restraining his folly by word and the stroke of retribution, lest anyone in his discipleship should presume such a thing again, he said: Amen I say to you, because in the name of my God the eyes of this man, closed by darkness, will be opened, and your sight, open to evil and provoking laughter, will be closed by blindness. Saying this, having impressed the sign of the Cross, he wiped away the darkness from the blind man, and struck blindness upon the one who had been seeing badly. In which deed that saying of sacred Scripture, uttered by the Savior's mouth, is fulfilled: That those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind. John 9. On that same day also, by divine power, he raised up three lame men begging for help, and according to the Prophetic oracle, he made them leap and exult like deer, to run the way. Isaiah 35.

[109] Sorcerers, nine in number, plotting death against S. Patrick the herald of life, simulated monks and ministers of justice, Sorcerers plotting death for Patrick are punished: and in order to more easily do away with the Saint who was dressed in a similar habit, they put on white cowls. They imitated, indeed, the Prince of darkness, their master, the Angel of Satan, who transforms himself into an Angel of light, to whom they frequently paid the service of servitude in their deeds and arts. A distinguished man, friend of the holy Bishop, named Enda, perceiving the plots of the impious, for the defense of the Saint,

placed his son, named Conallus, among the sorcerers; commanding him to thwart their attempt and to keep them away from the man of God. The son did what his father enjoined; and among the sons of night the son of light stood. S. Patrick, divinely instructed, at length recognized the ravens under the feathers of the dove, and the wolves lurking under the fleece of sheep; under the cowls, daggers hanging at the side: he knew nevertheless that the Ethiopian cannot change his skin, even if covered with fine linen; nor those sorcerers wish to abandon their ingrained malice, even if whitened with cowls. First, therefore, with the sign of the Cross he fortified himself on every side, and set it against the enemies of the Cross of Christ. In a wondrous manner, therefore, fire descending from heaven consumed the sorcerers in the sight of all: leaving Conallus standing among them as unharmed by the fire's injury as he was free from consent to their wickedness. The Cross of Christ, therefore, just as it was a protection for the pious and faithful unto salvation, so it was a judicial punishment for the impious idolaters unto destruction. Afterward the holy man impressed the sign of the Cross on that very spot, and produced a clear and health-giving fountain from the earth. He also built a church in the place of the miracle wrought through the Cross, which is called to this day the Cross of Patrick.

[110] On another occasion another sorcerer, but no less altered from his malice, binding himself by a vow with the consent of the profane populace assembled for wickedness to perpetrate a sacrilege, rose up for the destruction of S. Patrick. The Saint, however, striking the execrable sorcerer before his approach, with his left hand raised, cursed the sorcerer in the name of the Lord: and he was immediately consumed by fire sent from heaven, in the eyes of all, and perished like the previous nine. The populace, however, which had assembled for the spectacle of the holy Bishop's death, fearing it would perish in a similar destruction, escaped by the benefit of flight, or rather by the permission of divine mercy. When S. Patrick one day was hastening his journey for the ministry of his customary preaching with the utmost urgency, the wheel of the chariot in which he sat was found broken in two parts. They therefore ran to a nearby forest, a piece of wood suitable in appearance and fitting by estimation was cut down, hewn, and adapted for repairing the wheel: nevertheless, they labored long in vain, because the wheel appeared dissolved and broken as before. A grove sacred to the gods withers at the Saint's curse. Again and again the repair of the carriage was attempted, but the break was continually renewed, as if it had happened from heaven. The man of God, therefore, understood that this accident had not happened without cause, and inquiring more carefully about the forest, whose it was or what it was, he learned from those reporting that it had been consecrated to the gods, or rather to the demons. The Saint, cognizant of divine secrets and in agreement with the heavenly sentence, raising his left hand cursed the aforesaid forest. O miracle! That entire grove, like the fig tree of the Gospel, immediately withered: nor did it ever afterward produce any bush fit for any useful purpose or work, other than for fire.

[111] A petty king and his people dwelling in a place called Na-Dese, within the borders of Munster, The sluggishness of the Desians in settling their affairs is chastised. appointed a day and hour at which they ought to assemble and discuss the founding of churches before S. Patrick's presence. S. Patrick came according to the agreement to the appointed place and day, and waited the entire day until evening, and no one, not even a representative, appeared. In this manner those men many times made a fool of the man of God. For the Holy Spirit, dwelling in Patrick, did not conceal from those men through his mouth the recompense of such contumacy: but on a certain occasion when they came to him in the evening, he said openly: Since you have mocked not only me but the Holy Spirit so many times, neither you nor your offspring after you unto the generations of ages will finish fitting business before evening in this place. And as is proverbially said by the voice of the people, this saying by S. Patrick is fulfilled in the people of that place to the present day. For if they assemble in the early morning for any particular business, they never complete it before evening.

[112] There was a certain perverse man among the Magnates of Munster, named Cearbhallus, who was always an impediment to S. Patrick, preventing him from building a church in the land of his dominion: for there was a certain lake beautiful in appearance and delightful to behold, situated not far from his dwelling: but a great and high mountain interposed and by its obstruction removed from his eyes all the pleasure arising from it. A high mountain reduced to a plain. The Saint urged and besought him to found and build a church: the man resisted, refusing for a long time. Finally on a certain occasion that wicked man, wishing to circumscribe the petitioning Patrick with a crafty reply, said to him: If you will transfer this mountain from this place in the name of the Lord your God, so that my eye may be satisfied with a free view of the desired lake, let it be permitted to you to build a church in whatever place you think fit. He asked this because he believed it to be entirely impossible. The Saint, however, having poured out prayer, raised the eyes of faith and love toward the mountain prepared and elevated at the summit of mountains: and immediately that mountain, humbled and absorbed by the earth, presenting a plain, gave the man the free ability to see the lake. But when S. Patrick had begun to build, the hardened man prohibited him from completing it: because, fearing that the building of a church would disinherit him and expel him from that land, he trembled where there was no fear. The Saint again prayed to the Lord: It is soon restored to its former height: and the mountain grew back to its former state of loftiness. He predicted moreover that the man would shortly lose dominion over that land, and that no Magnate or Bishop would come from his stock. Consequently the prophetic word of the most holy Bishop was fulfilled: because just as his eye was barred from the sight of the lake by the obstacle of the mountain, so his life was ended by the departure of death. A certain most wicked tyrant, named Euchodius, reigned in the borders of Ulidia: who ordered two holy Virgins, because they had spurned marriage, The kingdom of Ulidia to be transferred to another family, to be bound with iron and drowned in the waters, and he scorned Patrick who was interceding for them. For which reason the Saint punished him with a sentence of malediction, and predicted that none of his offspring would reign after him, but that the kingdom would rather be transferred to his younger brother, named Carellus. The wife of the excommunicated man, being pregnant, approached S. Patrick, earnestly seeking to be blessed by him together with the offspring she carried in her womb. S. Patrick blessed them both, and prophesied with prophetic voice that she would bear a most holy child, And the birth of Douengardus is predicted, whose end would be uncertain and whose tomb would be undiscoverable. The woman bore a son, whom they had called Douengardus. For he was most illustrious in holiness and in signs; concerning whom many and great wonders are reported by the Irish. Moreover Euchodius shortly lost both his kingdom and his life, and none of his offspring succeeded him: but his aforesaid brother, and his offspring, according to the word of S. Patrick, possessed the kingdom of Ulidia for many generations.

CHAPTER XIV

The efficacy of Patrick's imprecation: The sanctity of certain disciples.

[113] Holy Patrick founded and built a church in a place called Achadhfobhuir, and endowed it with bestowed possessions: Senachus's piety and humility bring him a blessing, he also appointed a certain one of his disciples, named Senachus, to govern it, and consecrated him Bishop; whom on account of the innocence of his heart he called the Lamb of God. Having been consecrated, he asked S. Patrick to endeavor to obtain from the Lord through the power of his prayers, that he might be kept unharmed under the grade received from the commission of any criminal sin: he added moreover, humbly entreating, that the Church which he would serve should not be called by his name, as was the custom in many places among the Irish people. For he did this out of the guardianship of great humility, and to avoid vain glory, which is accustomed to be the moth of virtues. Holy Patrick therefore, thinking of the Lord in goodness, promised Senachus, who in the simplicity of his heart was seeking him and the things that are his, that his requests would be fulfilled by the Lord: blessing him and his descendants, he prophetically predicted that many Saints and excellent Priests would proceed from them. Senachus, however, served the Holy of Holies in great sanctity, and distinguished by signs and virtues, he happily entered the heavenly sanctuary.

[114] As S. Patrick was passing, traveling with his men through a certain forest in Mudornia, he found certain slaves cutting wood (for they were under the yoke of a most cruel master, Blunted tools are restored to sharpness by a sacred blessing. called Tremeus, oppressed by dire and harsh servitude) and they were cutting the hardest oaks with blunt axes, and had neither whetstones nor any other sharpening tool. Whence it happened that as their strength failed, their arms stiffened, and their hands, with the skin stripped and the flesh torn, appeared bared to the sinews, and they sometimes chose death rather than life. The man of God, as soon as he saw them, moved by mercy over them, by touching he blessed their hands and arms and tools. At the touch, therefore, and the word of the blessing one, strength was restored to them all, full health was returned to their arms and hands: the tools were felt to be very sharp; the hardest timbers, like the tenderest twigs, were cut without any difficulty. This continuous sign persevered in them as long as S. Patrick miraculously acquired liberty for them.

[115] The pious Father Patrick frequently approached the master, or rather the torturer, of the aforesaid slaves concerning their manumission, Tremeus, inexorable toward his slaves, and found him bold and inexorable. Holy Patrick, having recourse to his customary weapons, after completing a three-day fast with prayers, approached the man rather humbly to plead for the freedom, or rather liberation, to be conferred on the slaves, and found a new Pharaoh in him. Holy Patrick therefore spat upon a stone lying before them by chance; which immediately, to intimate, or rather to confute and confound the hardness of his heart, split into three parts before the eyes of those present: but the hardened man, made harder by what ought to have softened him, mounted his chariot and departed, scorning the pleading Patrick, and ordered the aforesaid slaves to be afflicted with heavier labors. A dire death. But the Lord, not allowing the contempt of his new Moses, namely Patrick, to go unavenged, in the same manner as he once visited Pharaoh and his army, so now he took vengeance on the reckless scorner of his servant. For the yoke-horses harnessed to the chariot, making a headlong rush, cast themselves into a certain nearby lake, and submerged and drowned the chariot and its rider in the waters. When that man of Belial was submerged and overturned, S. Patrick without any opposition freed the afflicted, leading them out of the house of bondage, and bestowed upon the liberated the long-desired liberty.

[116] Blessed Patrick proposed to build a church in a sufficiently pleasant and suitable place called Lugh. But an Angel appearing to him commanded him to desist from what he had begun, Admonished by an Angel, Patrick leaves Lutha to S. Moctheus: saying: A certain servant of the Lord named Moctheus will arrive presently from Britain, who, having left his homeland and parents for the Lord, has sought Ireland for the sake of pilgrimage. He will build and inhabit this place, and will finish his days here in goodness. The Saint of God, obeying the Angel, turned aside to the eastern part of the place: and there he erected a place for the Lord, a tabernacle for the God of Jacob, still bearing the name of S. Patrick himself. Moctheus, however, a man of great virtue,

coming to the place, built an oratory and other workshops suitable for himself, and leading a life there full of virtues, he spent it. Holy Patrick was frequently accustomed to visit him, and to confer with him about the things that pertain to God. For on a certain occasion when they were sitting together and conversing about God, an Angel appearing to both of them offered a letter to be read: which Patrick, receiving and reading, found that it contained a certain admonition, or rather a command, specially directed to him, enjoining that the place which he had built he should fully confer upon Moctheus with all its appurtenances, and that he himself should establish his Cathedral See at Armagh. Patrick therefore did gratefully what the Angel, or rather the Lord through the Angel, had commanded, conferring upon S. Moctheus all And commends to him his twelve lepers: that he possessed there. He also commended twelve lepers, whom he served for Christ's sake, to the aforesaid man of God, and departed: and Moctheus, receiving all things, took up the care and custody of all of them.

[117] After some days had passed, when the book of Genesis was being read before S. Moctheus, hearing that the holy Fathers before the flood had lived for the space of nine hundred years or more, His incredulity, and after the cataclysm many had lived for more than three hundred years, he did not easily give credence to the sacred History, because he asserted that the earthen tabernacle of the human body, clothed in such fragile flesh and skin, compacted with bones and sinews, could by no means endure for so long a time. When this became known to S. Patrick, he went to the man, so that by true arguments of reason he might remove every such scruple from his mind. For S. Patrick said that the entire Canonical Scripture was dictated and written by the finger of God; and therefore in no way should it be disparaged or disbelieved. He also asserted that it was no more difficult for the Maker of all things to prolong the life of a man for the space of a thousand years than for one day, if he wished; since, as the Psalmist testifies, a thousand years before his eyes are as yesterday which has passed. Psalm 89 But when the man still wavered about what had been said by S. Patrick, the holy Bishop is said to have pronounced by way of sentence, or rather prophecy: Since, he said, you have been incredulous of sacred Scripture, He punishes him with extreme old age: you will learn by your own experience that the things contained in it are true: for three hundred years shall your years be prolonged upon the earth, nor before the completion of so great a space of time will you enter into the joy of the Lord your God. The servant of the Lord afterward repented of the error of his doubt, but the sentence, pronounced by the mouth of Patrick at the dictation of the Holy Spirit, stood irrevocable: for three hundred years S. Moctheus lived, and thus paying the debt of nature, shining with virtues and signs, he passed from this world to Christ.

[118] S. Patrick, coming into the borders of Dalnardia, began to build a church in a place called Elom; where at that time twelve brothers, the sons of Cylladius, held dominion. One of these, named Saranus, held the principality in that land: who, seizing the hand of the holy Bishop as he began the holy work, By the eldest of the twelve sons of Cylladius violently ejected him from the place lest he complete what he had begun. Holy Patrick, although he bore patiently the injury done to him, nevertheless taking it ill that the holy work was impeded, and knowing by God's vengeance what would come to him, said prophetically: Yet a little while and you will be expelled from this land, He transfers the kingdom to the younger: and the power of ruling in it will be given to one better than you. The younger brother of Saranus, called Colladius, bestowed upon the Saint the place called Domhnachcombuir, and sufficiently provided assistance for the construction of the church until the work was completed. The holy Bishop therefore blessed him, predicting to him what the Lord had disposed to do: In the near future, he said, you will rule in this land, and Kings will come forth from you, and for many generations they will reign similarly. In that same place also S. Patrick, by his prayers, produced an excellent fountain from the heart of the earth, which is called in Irish Slan, that is, healing, to this day: because it confers remedies of health upon those who drink from it, even those laboring with manifold infirmity. Saranus afterward, on account of his perversity, was expelled from that land, and according to the word of the man of God, his kingdom was bestowed upon his brother Colladius.

[119] Twelve brothers, their father who had ruled in Dalredia having recently died, came together as one to divide the inheritance among themselves, and holding their youngest brother, Fergussius excluded by his brothers named Fergussius, in contempt, they dismissed him without a share and empty of the portion that belonged to him. The young man therefore begged S. Patrick to make him, through the power of his prayers, a participant in his paternal inheritance, promising that he would give the better part of his portion for the construction of a church of God. When the holy Bishop was interceding and pleading his cause for him, Fergussius, numbered among his brothers, Is made a sharer in the patrimony, received a fitting portion of the paternal possession, the better half of which he offered to the most holy Bishop for building a church: which the Saint, lest he seem to have sold his intercession, refused to accept, but ordered it to be conferred upon the aforementioned Olcanus. Holy Olcanus, within the territory bestowed upon him, in a place called Der-Chon, built a church, And he blesses his offspring, and having become Bishop there, he persevered in holiness and justice. Holy Patrick blessed the aforesaid Fergussius, and said to him with a prophetic voice: Although today you seem humble and despised in the sight of your brothers, you will shortly be the Prince of them all: for from you the best Kings will go forth, who will rule not only in their own land, but also in a distant and foreign region. After no great space of time had elapsed, therefore, Fergussius, according to the prophecy of the man of God, obtained the principality over all that land, and his offspring reigned in it for many generations. From his stock proceeded the most valiant Aedanus, son of Gabranus, who subdued Scotland, which is called Albania, and other islands; whose successive posterity reigns in them to this day.

[120] S. Patrick met his dearest Prince Conallus; As also to the posterity of Conallus having asked him whether he wished to put on the habit of a monk. The petty king replied that he had his heart prepared to do whatever the Saint wished to enjoin upon him. The Bishop, rejoicing at the devotion of his heart, is said to have spoken to him thus: You shall carry a shield and a staff, as a sign of princely power and protection, and an indication of monastic merit. You will present the name and habit of a layman; but you will possess the spirit and merit of a monk: for many Saints will be begotten from you, and many nations of the earth will be blessed in your seed. With the staff of Jesus he also impressed the sign of the Cross on his shield, Victor is gained by illuminating the nocturnal darkness asserting that any of his stock carrying it in battle would never be conquered by anyone. The Irish histories and songs assert and proclaim that this promise, or rather prophecy, of S. Patrick came true for Conallus and his successive offspring.

[121] S. Patrick, coming into the borders of Mogdhorna, was heading toward the town of Domnach-Maghin: a certain man of that place, called Victor, was its lord. He, hearing of Patrick's approach, still loving darkness more than light, made the darkness of a dense wood his hiding place: for he greatly feared that if he appeared in his presence, he would be stripped of the darkness of his infidelity, and would be drawn, even unwillingly as it were, to believe in the true light. The darkness of nightfall came on, yet Patrick, the minister of light, did not abandon the journey he had begun. When, therefore, the mantle of deep night had covered all things with blindness, the darkness did not obscure Patrick, the preacher of the luminous word, as he traveled the road, because the night was as day, and as light so were the darkness around him. The light therefore shining in the darkness surrounded the man hiding himself, nor could he any longer hide himself from the face of the light. Victor, vanquished and as it were bound by the bonds of the fear of the Lord by so remarkable a sign, was led to S. Patrick, He is gained for the faith and the church. and with great devotion he sought and obtained the saving bath. Having been baptized, therefore, with his entire household and the people subject to him, he bestowed upon S. Patrick his estate with all its appurtenances for building a church, and he himself remained in the discipleship of S. Patrick. In the course of time, however, he advanced in holiness and knowledge of the divine law, and finally consecrated Bishop by the Saint, he shone illustrious in that same church by the office and merit of episcopal honor.

[122] A certain one of those who served S. Patrick lost his cymbal through carelessness, searched for the lost one, He prophesies concerning his lost cymbal: long sought and did not find it, made penitential satisfaction for not finding it: and the Bishop clemently pardoned the one making satisfaction; and he indicated that it would by no means be found until a church was built there. After a long time had passed, a certain Religious named Dicullus built a church in that place, and there found the aforementioned cymbal, and placed the found cymbal in the new church. From the water used to wash the cymbal placed there, the sick who drank or were sprinkled frequently obtained swift health, and in an instrument composed for emitting an outward sound, they experienced the resounding and persevering holiness of Patrick.

[123] There was a certain disciple of S. Patrick named Volchanus, distinguished in faith and religion, He commands Volchanus to build a church but especially excelling in the virtue of obedience. For S. Patrick, wishing that what was known of him to God and to himself or his fellow disciples might be made manifest to other men as an example: he enjoined upon him to build a church wherever God might deign to provide for him. He obeyed at the hearing of the word of the holy Bishop, carrying an axe placed on his shoulder, to seek a place suitable for building a church. The spiritual Father, seeing the axe carried on the shoulder of the departing one, said to him with a consolatory, or rather prophetic, word: Do not, dearest Volchanus, despair of finding a place, but wherever the axe falls, build there confidently and dwell; and you will be there a great nation, God being propitious. In the place where the axe falls. Having heard these things, he departed from the presence of his dearest Father, knowingly unknowing and wisely untaught; having firmly persuaded in his mind that what the most truthful Doctor had said to him would be fulfilled. All day therefore he walked before his face, and did nothing except pour forth prayers, lifting his hands in holiness. When it grew toward evening and the day was now declining, the axe fell unexpectedly, as if cast or shaken from his shoulder by heaven, in a place certainly not foreseen nor premeditated. For the heavenly axe, sharp from the edge of divinity, capable of cutting to the root of any thought, and graspable by the handle of humanity, designated for his servant by the fall of the axe, as S. Patrick had predicted, a place of habitation. The man of God, understanding the place designated to him by the Lord, with great labor built a monastery there, and gathered many sons of God who had been scattered into one holy community. Spending the rest of his life in that same place, therefore, he completed it holily and religiously, and illustrious with virtues and miracles, he rested in the Lord there.

[124] S. Patrick had a certain herdsman, very Religious, The sanctity of S. Rodanus the herdsman named Rodanus: he, under the Pastoral

care led a life that was in a way eremitical, and devoting himself to the pursuit of prayer, he pastured cows with calves in one pasture: and in a wondrous manner, by the command of S. Patrick, keeping the entire herd under discipline, he allowed nothing restless or undisciplined in his care. For the calves never approached except at the nod of Rodanus: and he did this by the authority and power of S. Patrick his father. He afterward, learning letters, sufficiently attained knowledge of them, and ascending to the Pontifical grade, he flourished with many miracles both in life and after death.

[125] A certain one of S. Patrick's disciples, named Certhennus, S. Kerthennus, now an old man on a certain occasion of pressing necessity, was carrying him on his shoulders when he was worn out with old age, and with frequent panting demonstrated his weakness or weariness. To whom S. Patrick said: You have carried me often, and I have never felt you struck with such labored breathing. And he: Do not wonder, holy Father, because I have now grown old, and nearly all my companions of equal age have obtained the refreshment of some rest from the generosity of your providence. I now, with my head sprinkled with gray hairs, toil in the daily labor of the active life, and henceforth I desire the rest of the contemplative, because I am more in need of it. He is appointed Bishop of Clochorensis S. Patrick, having compassion on the divine labor of S. Certhennus, promised a place suitable for the contemplative life, yet not alien from the pious exercises of the active life. And because S. Patrick loved the presence of such a disciple, he provided for him a church neither too far from the Archiepiscopal see, which he was going to build at Armagh at the Angel's command, nor too near to that metropolis, lest perhaps he be burdened by succeeding Archbishops. Thus it was done, so that the man of the Lord would not be vexed by the distance of the road in frequenting the first See and visiting S. Patrick; nor would his church seem contemptible on account of excessive proximity. After some days had passed, he placed him over the Church of Clochorensis, which S. Patrick himself then governed, and having consecrated him Bishop, he bestowed upon him the chrismatory which he had received as sent from heaven. There, therefore, S. Certhennus, dwelling and exercising the office of Abbot internally and of Bishop externally, nurtured his gray hairs and ended his life in great holiness.

[126] A certain faithful mother of a family delivered her tender son, S. Lonanus, with Patrick's blessing named Lonanus, to be instructed in letters, and humbly asked holy Patrick to anticipate the boy with the blessings of his sweetness: because she believed that by his blessing he would be more capable of learning and more docile. Nor did her faith deceive her: because the divine grace, aspiring to the blessing of S. Patrick, anticipated the boy and accompanied him with its help. Blessing him, he impressed the sign of the Cross on his mouth and commended him to S. Cassanus to be instructed and imbued in morals and letters. The boy, therefore, having obtained the blessing of S. Patrick, He learns the whole Psalter in fifteen days: learned the entire Psalter fully in fifteen days. He himself was also afterward a man of most holy life: shining also with signs, he migrated to Christ. A certain nobleman named Euchodius, whose wife, called Ethra, lay dead, came with her corpse placed on a vehicle to meet S. Patrick near a certain ford in Connacht. Pouring forth prayers, he approached the holy Bishop concerning the resuscitation of his wife: and promised that he with his household would believe in Christ, whom he preached. Ethra is restored to life. The holy Patrick without delay resuscitated the dead woman; and her husband, having seen so wonderful a sign, now believing, he baptized with his household. The ford is called the ford of Ethra; from the name of the one resuscitated to this day, and the flowing element, providing passage to travelers, proclaims the merit of the resuscitator. The Saint frequently visited Connacht and Munster, performing miracles in them: and he spent seven years in each region.

How deceptive the Irish numbers are we have already seen: and we shall see further in the Appendix: but we shall treat of the time of the Life of S. Moctheus at August 19.

Colgan shows that the prophecy was fulfilled in eight Kings.

CHAPTER XV.

The innocence and sanctity of Patrick proven and honored by signs: The punishment of Cereticus, the conversion of Machaldus.

[127] The man of God went out to his accustomed work, and to the operation customary for him until the evening of his days, Patrick is accused by rivals namely to fertilize the Lord's field with the seed of the divine word, from whose fruit he might reap eternal life. The satellites of Satan, seeing and envying this, gnashed their teeth and wasted away, saying to one another in their malice: What shall we do? This man, destroyer of the gods, persecutor, or rather mower down, of our sect, works many signs. If we let him go thus, all the Irish will believe through him in his God, and Christians will come and take away our law. They therefore took counsel together to destroy him and his men by guile, and as if under the pretext of justice to condemn him to death. They therefore approached a certain woman softening flax, washing it near the place where the holy Priest was to pass, inducing her to this end: that she should hide the greater part of the flax in the hollow of a certain tree, and should cry out that it had been stolen by the passing Patrick and his companions. Accused of theft, The woman did as she was instructed, or rather seduced: crying out she called the aforesaid men of Belial to herself, and with her wicked tongue she charged S. Patrick and his companions with theft. Those wicked and deceitful men, therefore, just as they had previously agreed, sprang from their hiding places, and consenting to the woman's complaint, they cried out that S. Patrick and his disciples had been caught in the act of theft and were guilty of death. He calls a dead man from the tomb: Now in the place where all that tumultuous crowd had assembled, there was a tomb and a man buried in it. S. Patrick, having first offered a prayer, raised this man from the sleep of death before all, and commanded him, by the power of Truth, which is God, to bear true testimony concerning the complaint imposed upon him and his men. He himself publicly proclaimed the innocence of S. Patrick and his disciples, and laid bare one by one the fraudulent contrivances of the impious: and demonstrated before the eyes of all the place where the flax was hidden by the faction of the fanatics. Thus Patrick went forth with his men, miraculously freed from the hands of the malicious, and the innocent blood was preserved on that day, and is narrated to have profited many who were guilty unto salvation. For those who plotted death against the herald of eternal life, converted to God by this miraculous event, obtained mercy from him.

[128] S. Patrick had a custom that wherever the triumphal sign of the holy Cross was displayed to him while traveling, Accustomed to venerate Crosses he encountered, even if he sat in a chariot, he would immediately descend from the vehicle, and adore it with suppliant heart and bowed head, touch it with his hands, embrace it with his arms, and as an indication of devout love, press frequent kisses upon it. On a certain day, however, when he was traveling seated in a chariot, he passed by a Cross placed beside the road without saluting it, contrary to his custom: because his eyes were held that they should not see it. His charioteer, however, seeing it, He passes one unseen, wondered that S. Patrick, contrary to his custom, was proceeding as if the Cross were unseen: yet he suppressed the matter in silence until they had been received as guests. When, however, they had begun to pray in the customary manner before dinner, he indicated that he had seen a Cross on the road, designating also the place. Patrick, the preacher of the Cross of Christ, immediately interrupted the prepared meal, left the lodging, and returned by the same road by which he had come to the aforesaid place. Because it had been placed at the tomb of a pagan: By diligent investigation he sought the sign of life, and found near it a certain tomb. Drawing closer, he poured out prayer in the sight of the Lord; and inquired who was buried in it. A voice from within replied that he had been a pagan, and that a Christian had been buried beside him, whose mother, residing outside the province, had not been present for her son's death, nor for his return to the womb of the mother of all. After some days had passed, she came here to mourn him; not knowing the place, she placed the standard of the Lord's Cross beside me. The man of God said that he had not seen that Cross because it had been placed next to an enemy of the Cross of Christ, a pagan man. Removing that Cross from there, therefore, he raised it at the head of the baptized man, and having commended his soul to God, he returned to his lodging.

[129] Blessed Patrick had a he-goat assigned to the service of carrying water for him, He detects and punishes the thief of his goat. adapted to this task either by artifice or rather by a miracle. A certain man, a glutton from Omeith, stole it by theft, killed the stolen animal, and ate it. The author of the theft or its accomplice was investigated: a certain person subject to suspicion was found by some fairly clear indications: but the crime was not only denied; indeed, heaping perjury upon theft, he tried to exonerate himself from the charge by an oath. Marvelous to tell, but more marvelous in the deed: the eaten goat, by a foul-sounding bleat in the belly of the thief, revealed the theft in the ears of those standing by, and by its miraculous cry proclaimed the merit of S. Patrick to be celebrated. To the augmentation of this miracle also it is added that, at Patrick's imprecation, or rather sentence, the entire progeny of that man was accustomed to grow a goat's beard.

[130] The Saint was accustomed to love the company and conversation of holy men, and to associate them more closely to himself in familiarity and friendship, so that he might profit more fully and more perfectly toward God by their words and examples. For as Solomon testifies, iron is sharpened by iron, because the life of the Saints, that it may become firmer and more fervent in faith and love of God, is more effectively inflamed by mutual words and examples. A pallium sent from heaven he attributes to the merits of S. Vinnocus: That this indeed is pleasing in the eyes of God, he himself deigned to demonstrate by the evidence of a glorious miracle. For on a certain day, when Blessed Patrick and a man of venerable life named Vinnocus had sat down together; and had conferred with each other about the Lord and the things of God, and having distributed their garments for the use of the poor, they commended the works of mercy by word and deed: and behold, divinely sent from heaven, there descended between them a certain pallium, as a present token of the divine gift and an earnest of the future reward. Those Saints, therefore, rejoiced in the Lord, and each ascribed what had happened to the merit of the other. For Patrick asserted that this had been sent to Vinnocus, who had perfectly left all the things of the world for the Lord: and conversely Vinnocus alleged that it had been bestowed upon S. Patrick, In its place two pallia are sent from heaven, who, as if possessing all things, had nothing, and clothing innumerable poor and naked, had left himself naked for the Lord. As they were contending so amicably on both sides, the pallium, taken up into heaven, suddenly disappeared; and the Lord, for one pallium, two pallia, one for each, lest they contend further even charitably, sent through an Angel in their place.

[131] In certain borders of Britain, which is now called Wales, there reigned a certain tyrant named Cereticus, Cereticus the tyrant wicked, fraudulent, injurious, everywhere blaspheming the way of the Lord, a most cruel persecutor and killer of Christians. S. Patrick, hearing of the unbridled tyranny of that beast in striking the Saints; he endeavored to recall him to the way of salvation, directing to him an admonitory letter for his conversion from his worst vices: he himself, however, given over to doing evil, becoming worse day by day than himself, derided and despised the admonition of S. Patrick, and extended his wicked deeds,

crimes, fabrications of fraud, and bloody slaughters. When Patrick had learned this by truthful report, At the prayers of Patrick divinely instructed, he understood the vessel of dishonor, hardened in wickedness, prepared for no correction but rather for perdition; he is said to have prayed to the Lord in this manner: Lord, God almighty, as you know and are able, cast this fox-like man, monstrous in his vices, from the face of the earth in a monstrous manner, and put an end to his consummate malice. The Lord, inclining his ears to the voice of his servant, on a certain day when the aforesaid tyrant was standing in the midst of the forum, with a multitude of his people surrounding him, suddenly transformed him into a fox, He disappears, and he, fleeing from the sight of all, never again appeared on earth. No one can rightly disbelieve this deed who has read of the wife of Lot changed into a pillar of salt, or the histories of King Nebuchadnezzar.

[132] There was in the borders of Ulidia a certain man, a pagan by sect, called Magiul, who is also called by the other name Machaldus; Patrick falls among robbers, greatest in crime, most notorious for cruelty, and because like seeks like, he gathered to himself no small band accustomed to thefts, robberies, and bloody murders. He placed certain diabolical signs, which are called Dibercc, upon his own head and upon each of his companions, so that it would be manifest to all that that entire fellowship was from the retinue of Satan. It happened one day that blessed Patrick, traveling through that place with his men, was passing through the place where the assembly of the malicious sat, united in iniquity, watching and spying for some traveler upon whom they might rush to plunder and despoil. Seeing S. Patrick, they first considered killing him, as a seducer of souls and destroyer of the Gods: but immediately, their counsel changed by divine nod, they thought it ignominious to go against the blood of that unwarlike, weak, unarmed old man. By common consent, finally, for the purpose of investigating, One of whom simulates death to mock him, or rather mocking, the power of Christ and the sanctity of Patrick, they placed one of their companions named Garbanus, though healthy in body, simulating death, laid out in their midst under a cloak, and with mocking insistence they begged the man of God to perform funeral rites over the corpse, or to restore life to the deceased, as was his custom. The Saint, however, by revelation of the Spirit, recognized what had been done; and pronounced that those mockers had suggested to him something concerning the death of their companion that was indeed deceitful, yet not false: and nonetheless lending his ear to their prayers, And he is found truly dead, he interceded with the Lord for the soul of the mocker, and going on his way he departed from there.

[133] When the Saint had not yet gone far, the companions uncovered their fellow from the cloak, and found him dead not imaginarily or in jest, but truly. Those men, terrified by such an event, or rather downfall, fearing that something similar threatened them, followed S. Patrick closely, and throwing themselves at his feet, confessed their error, and by repenting and making satisfaction, they obtained pardon. Their companions having been converted, he is raised. For all believed in the Lord, and consequently were baptized in his name. Holy Patrick also, at their devout entreaty, returned and resuscitated the deceased, and washing him in the saving bath, he united him with them in the faith of Christ. Machaldus, their Prince, falling before S. Patrick, having confessed his sins, Their leader Machaldus, having the form of penance prescribed to him asked with tears that a form of penitential life be imposed upon him, by keeping which he might attain eternal life. The Saint, divinely inspired, enjoined upon him to leave his native soil, that is Ireland, irrevocably, and to distribute all his substance to the poor: he also clothed him in a vile and rough garment, bound him with iron shackles, and threw the key into the sea: he then commanded him to enter alone a boat made of hide without any oars, and wherever God might lead him to land, in that country he should serve the Lord until the end of his life. The man, truly penitent, did what the commanding Pastor enjoined upon him: for alone, with iron binding his feet, having on his head the tonsure as a sign of penance, he entered the boat, and under the protection of the God of heaven committed himself to the sea, and with God guiding him, he landed at the Island of Eubonia, which is called Man. He fulfills it in Man:

[134] There were also there two holy Bishops, called Connidrius and Romulus, whom Patrick himself had consecrated and sent there, to rule and instruct the people of that island in the faith of Christ, after the death of S. Germanus, the first Bishop of that same island. They, seeing the man, marveled and pitied his misery in such a condition, and learning the reason for his state, they took him into their hospitality and kept him with them. While he was staying in that place for a long time, one day a fish caught in the sea was brought to his lodging: which when it was cut open before him, a key was found in its intestines, which, being applied and inserted into the shackles, opened their lock: Where he is consecrated Bishop and he, set free, giving manifold thanks to God, walked about freely. He afterward, growing in great sanctity, after the death of the aforesaid holy Bishops, earned the episcopal grade, and illustrious with signs and virtues, he rested there. There was also on that island a city once of no small size, whose walls' remains are still seen, named after him. His tomb is illustrious with miracles. There is also in the cemetery of the church of that place a sarcophagus of hollowed stone, in which water continually exudes, or rather sufficiently springs forth, which is sweet to drink, healthful to taste, and is accustomed to heal many infirmities, and especially those infected or poisoned by venom: for after drinking the water, anyone will either feel swift health, or will end life by a speedy death. The sacred bones of S. Machaldus are also said to have rested in this sarcophagus, in which nothing but clear water is found. Many persons on many occasions, and even the King of the Norsemen, who had subjugated the island, in order to have fresh water perpetually at sea, attempted to remove that stone from the place; but they were entirely frustrated in their desire. And the deeper they dug to unearth the stone, the more firmly and deeply it was found fixed in the heart of the earth.

[135] At another time also Blessed Patrick, weary from travel, The field of a certain man unjust toward the Saint turned aside into a grassy little field near Roscommon in Connacht, for the sake of resting a little and pasturing and refreshing his horses. When S. Patrick had sat down, however, and his beasts were grazing beside him, a certain lowly possessor of the place, depraved and perverse, ran up in the impulse of his anger to drive him out. First he harassed the holy Bishop with insulting words, then swelling and turbulent, he drove the beasts from the field by throwing stones. But the injury inflicted by the blows upon the beasts redounded to the insult, indeed the contempt, of their usual rider: and because the Saint himself, Patrick, was one and foremost of those horses upon whom the Lord, according to the Prophet Habakkuk, made a way in this sea, carrying the Lord in a pure heart and body by holy preaching, making known his name in this world, he naturally took ill the molestation inflicted on his bearer. Habakkuk 3. By God's vengeance, therefore, the field immediately dried up, and the sea covering it, Covered with water it is rendered useless. it remained unarable for the future. By a fitting enough manner, therefore, and the just judgment of God, it was done that he who begrudged a patch of turf to the man of God, the people of that land, hateful to God, should lose their harvest in perpetuity: and because he acted contentiously toward the Saint of the Lord to remove him from his little field, that place should be deprived of all fruit in perpetuity, for which a contention might arise.

Life III says a round pit. Thus Life IV says round pits were made by Patrick for the burial of the daughters of King Leogar: from which you may gather that such was the form of Irish tombs in ancient times.

The same Life IV makes three persons guilty of this theft.

In all the Lives of S. Brigid mention is made of these, and in them they are called malign stigmata and bonds: and it is indicated that they were customarily assumed with an execration, that those who assumed them would not lay them down before they had perpetrated the designated crime, which they believed could be perpetrated certainly and safely with these signs.

Saying, as Life IV has in the cited passage, Behold one of us has now fallen ill: come therefore and sing over him some of your incantations, that he may be healed.

Rather of the Norsemen: for these are very different peoples: even though both derive their name from Nord, the north, so that "norich" simply means northern, and "Nor man" means man of the north in compound: the Norici are now the Bavarians, while the Normans are understood to be the Danes. The Norici here seem to mean the Norwegians.

CHAPTER XVI.

Various miracles of S. Patrick: The conversion of S. Mumessa: The erection of the Metropolis of Armagh.

[136] A certain man for many days had devoted himself to sorcery, but hearing the fame of the virtues and miracles of S. Patrick, he came to him for the purpose of competing with him in the working of signs. A certain sorcerer, seeing He therefore, in the presence of S. Patrick, multiplied many false signs: which Patrick immediately, having poured out prayer and made the sign of the Cross, annulled. The sorcerer, seeing all his fabrications frustrated, demanded that the man of God perform signs to declare the power of his God. The Saint did not hesitate to do what could demonstrate the power of Christ and likewise instruct Christians in the faith; A flint turned into a mass of curd, and a part of the milk into rock he changed the hardest flint into a most soft mass of curdled milk; and two little masses of this milk again he converted into the hardest stones in the name of Christ: but lest these signs be thought phantasms, similar to those of magic; those stones are proven to remain in the same natural solidity in which they had been transmuted. What was done corporally before the eyes of men, this divine power does spiritually in the conversion of believers every day: for worshippers of stones, stiff-necked men, are softened to the faith and love of Christ; and as if newly born infants, they desire the milk of Apostolic doctrine, that they may grow in it unto salvation. He becomes a Christian: And so it happened with that sorcerer, since having seen the aforesaid sign he believed in the Lord and received baptism. S. Patrick requested a certain man to bring him two carts loaded with sticks, because the cause of a necessary matter so required. That man complied with S. Patrick's request, and brought the sticks to the designated place. Fire, however, invading the place in which the sticks were contained, One cart of sticks being burned, the other remains unharmed: surrounded the two aforementioned carts, and consumed one of them, leaving the other entirely unharmed from any burning. Those beholding this marveled that in one cart the fire exercised the forces of its nature, and in the other it was unable to have power; just as once happened in the Chaldean furnace to the three bound youths, who were loosed from the fire without any harm to them. We admire the merit of Patrick to be proclaimed in this miracle; yet we by no means think the cause of the sign needs to be investigated.

[137] The man of God was accustomed to celebrate the Lord's Day with

singular devotion, For reverence of the Lord's Day: on account of the remembrance of that greatest solemnity, which life, dead through his revived resurrection's melody, made exultant to heaven, earth, and the underworld. Whence by holy custom he also established as fixed in his mind, as if by law, that wherever Saturday evening found him, out of reverence for the following Lord's Day, he would remain there overnight and through the next day, deeply devoted to divine contemplation in hymns and canticles and spiritual psalms, The place where he spent the night under the open sky until the morning of the second day of the week. On a certain Lord's night, on account of this holy custom, it happened that the most blessed Patrick, placed under the open sky, celebrated sacred vigils with his companions, and the violence of inundating rains drenched the flatness of the surrounding field: but the place in which that holy watchman, Is not moistened by rain. the guardian of the walls of the city of Jerusalem, was with his companions, not even a single drop of falling rain moistened. Thus indeed in S. Patrick a sign shone forth again that once appeared in the fleece of Gideon; when with the whole earth wet with dew, it remained dry and unmoistened.

[138] So that the splendor of eternal light might show how much it had illuminated its vessel within by the light of its grace, making his Saint wonderful with the prior sign, And to search for the beasts through the darkness it added the more wondrous one following. For on that same night, which the all-night Patrick spent in divine praises, the thickest fog covered the breadth of the field in which he himself was situated. The charioteer of the holy Bishop was seeking for a long time the horses to be yoked to his chariot, which he had sent out to pasture in the field: but unable to find them on account of the fog, he bathed his face with much weeping. When the kindly Bishop recognized this, having compassion on the tears of the anxious charioteer, he drew his right hand from his sleeve and raised his lowered fingers upward. A wondrous thing, His fingers shine like the sun. and unheard of through the ages. Immediately his five fingers shone forth like five rays of the most brilliant Sun; and in a wondrous and new manner, illuminating the entire province, they turned darkness into light and night into day. By the aid, therefore, of this wondrous brightness, the charioteer found the yoke-horses; marveling and exulting he led them back to his father, and harnessed them to the chariot. For he himself, the bearer and preacher of heavenly light, his fingers ceasing to shine outwardly, but by no means ceasing to distill the finest and most excellent myrrh, in his customary manner at daybreak of the second day of the week mounted the vehicle; and hastened wherever the will of the one carrying it and sitting in it called. By a most beautiful but signifying sign, his fingers, with the finger of God worthily working in him, shone outwardly, who so frequently exhibited in public the works of light, the benefits of healings, and the graces of cures.

[139] S. Patrick was preaching the word of God to a certain powerful man, and it seemed to him that a flame issuing from Patrick's mouth Fire is seen to come forth from his preaching mouth. was entering his ears and mouth, and that all his inner parts were filled with its heat; for that fire was not consuming but illuminating; not burning but shining; which he who experienced this took care to make known to the Saint, saying: I see flame-spewing fire issuing from your mouth, and penetrating the innermost parts of my heart and body. To whom the Saint replied: Our God is the true light, illuminating every man who comes into this world, who also came to send fire upon the earth, which he wills to burn in the hearts of believers: for the word of the Lord is luminous, and his speech is exceedingly fiery: of which, as I preach, you have the proof within yourself.

[140] There was a certain maiden, of illustrious birth and beauty, named Memessa, S. Memessa, having known the Creator from creatures, daughter of a certain Prince reigning in certain borders of Britain. She, anticipated by the grace of the Holy Spirit, from the power of good nature implanted in her, and from the distinct species of creatures themselves, understood their Creator, and loved the one she understood with her whole heart and soul; for the love and desire of this beloved one, she despised riches, delights, beauty, and the love of this worldly glory, trampling them under the heel of her heart. For she had not yet been washed in the saving bath, yet by her sacred morals she represented a certain whiteness of Christian faith: her parents, being Pagans, strove to annul and shatter her purpose, She persists in her purpose of virginity, with every effort of words and blows: but the column of her virginal heart, set upon the rock of Christ, could not be undermined by blandishments, shaken by terrors, or moved in any way from the state of its stability by magical sorcery. When her blooming age adorned her, and the elegant proportion of her limbs beautified her, and she bore in her face lilies mingled with roses, many Princes of royal blood sought her hand in marriage. Both parents and the greater part of the rest of the kindred strove to advise or compel her to contract matrimony: but in no way were they able to incline her to consent to entering the marriage bed. Having therefore toiled over her in vain for a long time, She is brought to Patrick by common counsel at last her parents brought the maiden to S. Patrick, whose fame of holiness, proven and proclaimed by signs and prodigies, extended throughout the whole world. They made known to S. Patrick the maiden's purpose, most earnestly imploring him to strive to bring her to the sight of his God, for whom her soul had longed and failed. S. Patrick, hearing this, exulted in the Lord, giving thanks to him who breathes where and as he wills, and who calls to himself those whom he has predestined to life, many times without a preacher. Having shown the rules of the Christian faith, therefore, he catechized her, baptized her after she confessed her faith; and fortified the baptized with the Sacraments of the Lord's Body and Blood. She, however, having received the Viaticum, prostrate on the ground, Having received the Viaticum after baptism, she departs to the Lord. breathed out her spirit amidst the words of prayer: and thus ascending from the bath, made white, and escorted by Angelic hands, she departed to the sight and embrace of her beloved, white and ruddy. Holy Patrick, therefore, and all who were present glorified God, and honorably committed the clod of her sacred body to burial.

[141] At a certain time S. Patrick landed in a port situated in the northern part of Ireland, near a town called Druimbo, as the Lord's Day was at hand; and not departing thence, but resting there in the ship, he celebrated that day with his customary devotion. On that day, however, in the midst of the feast, he heard no small sound; A work done on Sunday by whose judgment he recognized that pagans, contrary to the holy Father's custom and decree, were desecrating the Lord's Day with their profane labors, and were performing a certain work which they called Rayth, that is, a wall. Patrick, somewhat moved by this, had the laborers summoned to him, and imperatively forbade them the exercise of bodily labor on that day: but to the profane and senseless heathens, the prohibitory sentence of the most holy Priest was not only treated with contempt, but was also held by all in derision and mockery. Holy Patrick, however, understanding the reckless obstinacy of the scoffers, after the prohibition added, saying: Although your labor may sweat toward its completion, it will never be brought to perfection, nor will you earn any profit from it. How truthful the word of the most holy man was, the event proved immediately: It is scattered by the sea. for on the following night, the sea, wonderfully raised and expanded by a stormy tempest, scattered all the work of the pagans, and dispersed it with irreparable division so that it could never be collected and rebuilt again.

[142] A certain illustrious man named Darius bestowed upon S. Patrick a place of habitation with a small field, where he might take refuge with the company of his holy companions. The place, however, is narrow, situated near Armagh, called in modern times the Feast of Miracles. After some time had elapsed, A dead horse the charioteer of the aforesaid Darius sent his post-horse at night into S. Patrick's little field to graze it; and the next morning, when he wished to lead it out, he found it dead. When he reported this to his master Darius, that man of blood, moved by bile, And Darius falls ill commanded Patrick to be slain, as the killer of his horse, with every obstacle of excuse or delay or retraction removed. But scarcely had this kind of utterance come from the man's mouth into the wind, when behold, suddenly an illness warning of death, or rather threatening it, pressed him to his bed. From him, therefore, together with the sentence of the bloody command, his ready feet and hands accustomed to evil were immediately recalled from the shedding of innocent blood: because affliction alone gave him understanding. They are healed by the sprinkling of blessed water. When these things had been announced to the most holy Bishop, he ordered both (namely the dead beast and the sick man) to be sprinkled with the sprinkling of water blessed by him. Both being sprinkled, therefore, rose up; the horse from death, and Darius from his sickness, healthy. Darius, therefore, having been made well, Patrick bears gifts given and taken away with the same spirit and response sent to S. Patrick through the hands of servants a very large bronze cauldron, holding three measures, which was most necessary for his own and his companions' use in cooking food: which he, being in need of it, accepted gratefully, and said only, I will give thanks. When the servants returned to their master, he inquired from them the response of the man of God. When they reported that Patrick had said nothing else except I will give thanks; the man, marveling at such a response, charged S. Patrick with rashness and incivility; wishing, however, to investigate the power of that word, he ordered his servants again to take that vessel from the Saint and bring it back to him: which when they had done, again he said, I will give thanks; which he was accustomed to do frequently in his words and deeds. Darius again inquired from the servants what Patrick had then replied: when they asserted that he had spoken his customary word, namely I will give thanks, marveling and embracing in his mind his constancy, he pronounced him to be a stable and most constant man, and that an excellent word had sounded from his accustomed mouth. Truly, he said, this man is magnanimous and immutable; On account of that constancy he also receives a field, whose face or voice were neither varied nor changed by the bringing or the taking away of the given vessel, but were always seen to remain in the same state. Darius therefore ordered the cauldron already given to be brought back and returned to the Saint of God: and he himself, following the footsteps of the preceding bearer, greeted him with peaceful words; and bestowed upon him the field neighboring his habitation, from which a controversy might arise.

[143] After a short time, the noble man Darius, wishing to show greater favor to the holy Bishop, led him from a low place to a lofty one, from a narrow to an august and pleasant one, called Druimsaileach, which was afterward called Armagh, the miracle having been shown to him beforehand by an Angel. And a place for building the Church of Armagh: S. Patrick, considering and going around the pleasantness and opportunity of the place, found a doe lying down with her fawn, which those accompanying S. Patrick wished to kill, but the pious Father forbade this from happening. For to show the bowels of piety which he had toward the creatures of God, the holy Father himself carried the aforesaid fawn in his own arms, caressed and handled it, and transported it as far as a grove situated in the northern part of Armagh. The doe also, like a most gentle sheep, followed the merciful bearer, until she received her offspring set down and released. Where he produces a fountain, On that same day, to the praise of God and the benefit of the people,

the Saint, by the power of his prayers, is said to have produced a glorious fountain from the earth, now for the seventh time. When the lamp of daylight was being extinguished, buried in nocturnal darkness, the man of God beheld in a vision of the night Angels measuring the form and size of the city to be built in that lofty place. One of them, however, enjoined upon Patrick that on the next day, near the fountain situated on the side of Armagh, which is now called Tobar Patraic, that is, the Fountain of Patrick, in the name of his God he should undertake to cure sixteen men foul with leprosy, gathered there from many places into one for the purpose of experiencing and receiving the power of the Lord's faith. Patrick therefore obeyed the Angelic voice at the hearing of the ear, and in the morning, At the Angel's admonition he undertakes to cure sixteen lepers at the fountain, finding the men, he converted them to the faith by preaching, baptized the converts in the aforesaid fountain; and presented the baptized clean and sound from the leprosy of both the inner and outer man.

[144] This miracle, therefore, spread to the knowledge of many, was a glorious and auspicious omen and a present support for the city to be founded. An Angel also, at Patrick's prayer, moved further away a very great stone standing in the road, which could scarcely be raised by human effort or ingenuity, lest it ever become an impediment to those approaching the city. Patrick therefore founded the distinguished city, He founds a city as designated by the Angels, designated by Angelic indications in its site, form, size, and circuit, and built it and with divine assistance brought it to perfection: he also introduced citizens, twelve in number, whom he had studiously collected from everywhere and discreetly selected, to inhabit it, and diligently instructed those introduced in the Catholic institutions and dogmas of the Christian faith. Having adorned the same city with churches fabricated in an honorable and spiritual fashion, And furnishes it with monasteries. he also ordained in them a Clergy for the service of divine worship, for the governance of souls, and for the instruction of the Catholic people: he filled monasteries with monks, and others with nuns, and instructed them in the practices of all perfection. In one of the monasteries, however, there was a certain Brother, unwilling to take any food or drink before the hour appointed according to the Rule of S. Patrick, who died of thirst, whose soul S. Patrick saw ascending to heaven and being placed among the Martyrs. In the monastery of the handmaids of God, there was a certain Virgin, the daughter of the King of Britain, with nine holy maidens, who had come there with her to S. Patrick, of whom three, in the sight of Patrick, migrated to the heavens. One of them was accustomed to milk a doe and to present a wondrous spectacle to those watching. He placed the Archiepiscopal Chair in the same city, and determined that that See should be the primary metropolis and mistress of all Ireland: and so that his purpose might remain ratified and unshaken for the future, it settled in his heart to go to the Apostolic See and to fortify it with its authentic privileges.

Perhaps two hundred.

CHAPTER XVII

S. Patrick sets out for Rome: he fasts and prays for Ireland: he orders the present state of the Church and foresees the future.

[145] An Angel of the Lord, appearing to S. Patrick, approved the purpose of the journey to be undertaken, To erect the metropolis at the command and with the help of an Angel and also indicated that the Lord Pope should transfer and distribute Relics of the Apostles Peter and Paul and of other Saints to many churches: and because vehicles were perhaps lacking at that time for the old man, he provided him with four chariots, as if sent from heaven, which transported him and his companions to the sea in an instant. The glorious Bishop Patrick, therefore, after, by the urgency of his laborious preaching and the superabundance of so many and such signs, he had converted the entire island to Christ, having ordained Bishops and Priests and other ministers of the church in individual places where he thought more opportune; He sets out for Rome, blessing and bidding them farewell, accompanied by certain sons with the support of Angelic guidance, he set out for Rome. Arriving there, when he had explained the reason for his coming in the presence of the Supreme Pontiff, he found the highest favor in his eyes. First of all, therefore, Where with the Archiepiscopal Pallium embracing and declaring him the Apostle of Ireland, he adorned him with the Pallium, and committing to him his own authority and appointing him his Legate, he confirmed by the support of his authority whatever he had done, established, and arranged in Ireland. He also bestowed upon him many gifts and precious presents which pertained to the adornment, indeed the strength, of the Church, among which were Relics of the Apostles Peter and Paul and of Stephen the Protomartyr, and of very many other Martyrs. Moreover, And endowed with many Relics of the Saints: he also presented a certain linen cloth stained with the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ (which surpasses all). And returning to Ireland with these most holy blessings, the Saint fortified the Metropolitan Church of Armagh for the salvation of souls and the protection of the city and country, and placed them behind the high altar in a shrine. A custom also took root in that Church from the days of S. Patrick, that on the days of Easter and Pentecost they are brought out from that place and produced to be adored in the sight of the people.

[146] The signs, however, which S. Patrick performed on the journey, either setting out for Rome or returning and going home, it is not within our ability to describe each and every one in detail: On his return he performs innumerable miracles. for almost everywhere he spent the night or made a halt, he left behind him signs of his holiness in the exhibition of healing for others: for there exist churches and oratories dedicated to his name in those places, which to the present day are fragrant with his holiness, and where the faith of the petitioners merits it, they exhibit the benefits of miracles. The Saint himself also, on his return, staying for some time in Britain his homeland, He organizes monasteries in Britain. founded many monasteries and repaired those destroyed by Pagans: he filled them with sacred communities of monks according to the form of religion which he prescribed for them, with their assent: he also pronounced by prophetic spirit and mouth many adversities and prosperities which were to come upon Britain: he also foresaw and foretold the holiness of Blessed David while still enclosed in his mother's womb. There still exist rural areas and towns whose inhabitants, because they violently expelled the itinerant Saint [He leaves those to whom he turns a various memory of himself according to their merit,] so that he could not lodge overnight among them; their posterity to the present day have been unable to prosper or become wealthy in those places, but foreigners and strangers are always accustomed to be preferred over them in wealth and dominion. Those memorable places, however, in which the Saint, expelled by the worst men, was lodged while spending the night, which previously produced only small and few shrubs, by the blessing of so great a guest were seen to become wooded and to bear fruit with such an abundance of growth that they cannot be utterly destroyed by the hands of those who cut them down. In the rivers also, where deceitful scoffers, with treacherous mind and voice, pointed out an abyss to the Saint as a ford when he inquired about the certainty of the crossing; having given his blessing and crossing unharmed, he turned that abyss into a ford; and the ford previously passable to all, he made thenceforth an impassable abyss.

[147] Blessed Patrick, having completed the long journey from a distant region, gladdened his people with his presence, and sent forth thirty Bishops gathered from overseas parts and consecrated by him He provides for the needs of the Church of Ireland, into the Lord's harvest (because it was great and the laborers few). He therefore began to convene holy Synods of Bishops more frequently, to celebrate Councils solemnly, and to uproot and destroy whatever he found contrary to the Catholic faith or adverse to ecclesiastical institutions: and what was consonant with Christian law, with justice, with the sacred Canons, and consistent with the best morals, he strove to plant and build. Meanwhile he shone daily with innumerable miracles, and confirmed what he taught or established by word with following signs to be observed. Among which he performed a certain work, at which all rightly marvel; from whose benefit all the inhabitants of that island From Ireland, teeming with venomous creatures, rightly congratulate themselves forever, of which we endeavor to speak more fully in what follows. Ireland, from the primordial habitation of the peoples in it, labored under a triple pestilence; namely, the abundance of venomous creatures, whose number was without count; and the manifest oppression of demons appearing visibly; Spectres of demons, and the multitude of sorcerers and magicians. For so many virulent and monstrous creatures had prevailed upon the island, emerging from land and sea, that they not only infected men and animals with their poisons; but also killed them with bloody and deadly bites, and many times tore apart and devoured their limbs: demons also, Magicians and sorcerers who through idolatry dwelt in superstitious hearts, displayed themselves visibly in various forms before their eyes; and inflicted many and varied injuries upon many, as if visibly offended; whom likewise they seemed to grant the favor of relief or health when appeased by sacrifices or gifts or wicked deeds, when they ceased from their injuries. So great a multitude flying in the air or walking on the ground was frequently seen, that the island itself was thought to be unable to contain them: and through this Ireland was considered the domestic domicile and proper possession of demons. The throng of magicians also and sorcerers and soothsayers had grown so great in every border as no history of any other region of the lands records.

[148] The most holy Patrick applied the utmost effort and diligence to eliminating the triple pestilence, and both by saving doctrine and by the power of his most fervent prayer, He drives all venomous things into the sea he rendered Ireland free from this raging venom: for the most outstanding Pastor himself carried in his hand the staff of the Lord Jesus, and by its threatening elevation, supported by Angelic assistance, he gathered together from all parts of Ireland into one all venomous creatures: then he drove them all in flight to the most lofty promontory of the island (which was called Cruachan-aigle at that time, but is now called Cruach-phadraig), and there he hurled the entire pestiferous throng from the precipitous edge of the mountain, to be swallowed by the Ocean in a headlong fall by the power of his command. O magnificent miracle, unprecedented from the beginning of the world, now known to tribes, peoples, and tongues, notorious to almost all nations, especially necessary to the inhabitants of Ireland! At so miraculous and so useful a spectacle a numerous people was present, the greater part of whom had flocked from all sides to see the signs, and some to receive the words of life. Likewise from the islands converted by him. He then turned his face toward Man and the other islands, which he had imbued with the faith of Christ and the Sacraments and blessed; and by the power of his prayers he at last rendered all those islands free from venomous reptiles: but other islands, which had not believed at his preaching, still produce venomous creatures. He also converted innumerable sorcerers to the Christian faith; and many who were obstinate in perversity and incorrigible, as we have already said, he terribly destroyed from the earth. He also demanded and obtained from the Lord that the visions and customary injuries of demons be warded off and taken away from the men whom he had initiated with the Sacraments of Christ in Ireland and subjected to the living and true God.

[149] The most excellent Pastor Patrick, so that no trace of any venomous reptile might remain in Ireland or the other Islands blessed by him, By a forty-day fast or that a renewed seedbed might spring up, or customary habitation be conceded to hosts of demons, without earthly provisions he spent a forty-day fast. For the beloved of the Lord desired to imitate in mystic fasting Moses, still bound only by the natural law, or rather Elijah the Prophet, established under the law; but most especially he desired to please the Maker of nature, the giver of the law and of grace,

Christ Jesus, Undertaken on the mountain of Cruachanaigle, who sanctified such a fast in himself. He therefore ascended a lofty mountain, called Cruachanaigle, situated in Connacht, at the Lenten time before Easter: deeming it more fitting in those saving days to offer the holocausts of fasting to the Lord, who desired and determined it. He arranged five stones placed in the form of a Cross, in whose middle, as in a center, he himself sat; and by the manner and form of his sitting, as well as by the mortification of his abstinence, he showed himself a servant of the Cross of Christ. He sat therefore solitary, lifting himself above himself, glorying only in the Cross of Christ, which he continually bore in his heart and body; he yearned unceasingly toward his beloved one, white and ruddy. For he persisted fasting in body continually, but his inner man was satiated, fattened, and pierced by the sweetness of holy contemplation, by the consolation of Angelic visitation, and by the sword of the love of God: For the word of God is living and effectual, and more piercing than any two-edged sword, reaching unto the division of body and soul, by which he himself was wounded by love. Hebrews 4:12.

[150] The demons grieved that their dominion in Ireland had been destroyed through Patrick, He is greatly troubled by demons, and most hostile, they pressed upon him fasting and praying, massed together against him in the likeness of the blackest birds, horrible in form and size, and in their multitude, they flew above and around him, and with their horrendous cries, eagerly seeking to impede his prayer, they troubled the man of God for a long time. Patrick, at length anticipated and protected by the grace of God and his aid, having made the sign of the Cross, drove those death-dealing birds far from himself, and by the continual and frequent striking of his cymbal he put them to flight from the borders of Ireland. He drives them all across the sea: The demons, therefore, driven across the sea by S. Patrick, fled, and divided into battalions in islands alien from the faith and love of God, they have been accustomed to dwell and exercise their phantasms. From that time, therefore, to the present day, venomous creatures have entirely ceased to exist in Ireland, by the merits and prayers of the most holy Father Patrick; and the phantasms of demons and their illusory apparitions are not accustomed to appear as they do in other regions. By the striking of his cymbal, The Saint's cymbal also appeared broken on one side from the frequent blows, which was afterward re-solidified by an Angelic hand; whose scar still appears to the eyes of those who look upon it. On the summit of this mountain, therefore, many are accustomed to fast and keep vigil, thinking that they will never afterward enter the gates of hell: because they believe this was obtained from the Lord by the merits and prayers of S. Patrick: some also report who have spent the night there that they suffered the most grievous torments, by which they believe themselves purged from sins, whence some of them call that place the Purgatory of S. Patrick.

[151] By the mercy of God, the ruler of all things, who after clouds brings fair weather, immediately after the evil spirits were expelled, a multitude of Angels flooded the place with the greatest radiance and soothed the Saint with wonderful melody: he himself, having completed the fast, offered sacrifices of thanksgiving and praise to God, who gave mortal man the strength to complete such abstinence, and deigned to bestow such great benefits through his intercession; moreover, he also gladdened him with an Angelic visitation. Led down from the mountain, therefore, with an Angelic escort, he struck his cymbal, Heard throughout all Ireland: whose sound the Lord caused to be heard throughout all the borders of Ireland on every side: from which no faithful person should doubt that every human being will hear the sound of the last trumpet. Then S. Patrick, having raised his hands, blessed the entire island with its inhabitants and commended it to Christ. It was moreover the custom of S. Patrick, as of the other ancient Saints dwelling on the islands, to have cymbals, both for the expulsion of demons, and for the rousing of bodily sluggishness, and for announcing the hours of the day by day and by night, or perhaps for some other reason I do not know. One thing, however, is known for certain, that many miracles are known to have been performed by the sound or touch of such cymbals. Blessed Patrick of the Lord, therefore, on Maundy Thursday, going forth from his retreat to public life, Which he then traverses and blesses in its entirety. gladdened the entire Church of the Saints with his presence, whom he had begotten for Christ through his Gospel. He therefore performed the Episcopal office which was fitting for those most sacred and imminent days; and so he girded himself for the journey and the work of the salvation of souls. Having therefore celebrated the Easter solemnity with his customary devotion, he went around the entire island, and traversed it with the most holy multitude of his sons, whom he had brought to birth in Christ; teaching the way of the Lord in truth everywhere, he either converted to the faith or confirmed in the faith the inhabitants by the efficacy of his preaching. All the islanders, therefore, to whom even the knowledge of his name had come, on account of the new and remarkable and so useful miracle, giving themselves and their possessions to him, yielded; and devoutly obeyed his doctrine, institutions, and precepts, as an Angel of light and their own Apostle.

[152] The best farmer, seeing the hardness of the Lord's field softened, strove, with thorns gradually uprooted, thistles torn out, He consecrates to God tithes of men and lands, rubble removed, to make it more copiously fertile with the increase of the most wholesome seed, so that it might bear fruit more abundantly, not only thirty or sixty, but even a hundredfold. He therefore had the entire island divided by the line of distribution, the divided island with all its inhabitants of both sexes tithed, and every tenth head, both of men and of cattle, he commanded to be sequestered for the Lord's portion. Making all the men monks and the women nuns, therefore, he built numerous monasteries, and assigned the tenth portion of lands and cattle for their sustenance. Whence Ireland began to be called the Island of Saints: Within a short space of time, therefore, no desert, scarcely any corner or place of the land in the island was so remote that it was not filled with perfect monks or nuns; so that Ireland was rightly called everywhere by the special name of the Island of Saints: for they lived according to the rule prescribed for them by S. Patrick, in contempt of the world, desire for heavenly things, holy mortification of the flesh and renunciation of their own will, equal to the Egyptian monks in merit and in number, so that they illuminated foreign and distant regions by word and by the example of their religion. No one in the days of S. Patrick, or for long afterward in the time of his successors, was promoted to the Pontificate or the governance of souls, unless he was demonstrated worthy by divine revelation or by some evident sign.

[153] The man of God desired more attentively and prayed more urgently to be informed about the present and future state of Ireland, that he might know with what devotion of faith it burned, And the future state of Ireland or how much his labor was valued in the sight of God. The Lord heard the desire of his heart, and what he sought he made manifest to his eyes by a glorious revelation. For while he was engaged in prayer, with the bosom of his mind relaxed, he saw the whole of Ireland as if on fire, By a wonderful vision of light and the flame extending to heaven; and he heard the Angel of God clearly saying to him: Such is Ireland at present before the eyes of the Lord. After a brief interval, he contemplated on all the borders of the island mountains as if on fire reaching to the sky. Afterward, with a brief delay interposed, he beheld in many places what seemed to be candelabra shining, and a little later, as the darkness grew stronger, small lamps, and finally scattered coals covered with ashes, yet alive, appearing in hidden places. It was also added by an Angelic voice that in future times the Irish peoples would be in the various states thus expressed. At last entirely suppressed, Holy Patrick, however, wetting his face with a shower of tears, frequently repeated that verse of the Psalmist, saying: Will God reject forever, or will he be favorable no more? Psalm 76. or will he cut off his mercy forever from generation to generation? or will God forget to have mercy, or will he in his anger shut up his mercies? And the Angel said: Look toward the northern region, And at last restored to their first splendor, and you will see the change of the right hand of the Most High, and the darkness to be dispersed before the face of the light that is to come. The Saint therefore raised his eyes, and behold he saw a small light first arising in Ulidia, contending long with the darkness, then finally, having driven them out with its radiance, illuminating the entire island. Nor did that light cease to grow and strengthen, until it seemed to restore Ireland to its first fiery state. Then indeed the heart of S. Patrick was filled with joy, and his tongue with exultation, recounting all these things shown to him with thanksgiving. The man of God understood and uttered with his mouth, in the magnitude of the fiery ardor, the devotion and zeal of religion of the Christian faith and love He recognizes: with which the islanders burned: by the fiery mountains, the Saints illustrious in signs and virtues, words and examples: by the diminution of brightness, the detriment of holiness: by the darkness spread over the whole land, the infidelity prevailing in it: by the intervals of delay, the intervals of succeeding times.

[154] The Irish reckon that the time of the darkness was when first Gurmundus and afterward Turgesius, pagan Norwegian Princes, The Irish, concerning the times of S. Malachy, reigned in conquered Ireland: for in those days, the Saints lurked in caves and dens, like coals covered with ashes, from the face of the impious, who mortified them all day long as sheep for the slaughter. From which it happened that various rites contrary to ecclesiastical institutions were introduced into Ireland, and new Sacraments were confected by Prelates of the holy Church ignorant of the divine law, contrary to its form. The light first arising from the northern part and, albeit by a long conflict, exterminating the darkness, the Irish assert to be S. Malachy; who first presided over the Church of Down, then over the Metropolis of Armagh, The English interpret it of their own arrival, and restored Ireland to the state of Christian law. On the contrary, the English think that light is to be ascribed to their own arrival, because then the Church seemed in their judgment to be advanced to a better state; Religion to be planted and propagated, and the Ecclesiastical Sacraments and institutions of Christian law to be observed with a more fitting rite. I, however, neither carry nor cut the rope of contention between them; but I think the discussion and definition of this matter should be left to divine judgment.

See what we shall say on this matter in the Appendix, and observe meanwhile that all these things have been written with great exaggeration.

We shall treat most fully of this Purgatory below, and shall show that Jocelin erred only in the designation of the place.

We are fully persuaded that this tithing was not fabricated by Jocelin, but was published without a reliable witness.

Nor do we know where he got this: if it were true, we think many examples of this matter should have been brought forward by the author of the Tripartite Life.

The things which Ussher treats concerning the threefold order of Saints in Ireland and this very vision on page 913 and following may be consulted.

Namely

around Dublin toward the East and around the peninsula of Eugenius toward the North, whence they ravaged the whole island. Giraldus Cambrensis however, distinction 3, chapter 39, says that Gurmundus was either never in Ireland, or having left Turgesius in it, stayed only a short time. Then in chapter 40 he writes that Turgesius was cunningly killed by young men, sent in maiden's dress to the lustful tyrant on a certain island of the lake of Rie, and that the whole of Ireland soon afterward expelled the Norwegians, who had occupied it for about thirty years, around the year 842.

Ussher, page 916, more fully from a manuscript, says S. Caelestinus (whom others commonly call Celsus), the Archbishop of Machina and Primate of all Ireland, who followed the footsteps of S. Patrick with more diligent study, or S. Malachy.

CHAPTER XVIII.

The hymn composed by S. Secundinus about S. Patrick, the visions and Apostolic virtues of the latter.

[155] S. Secundinus sometimes sat in a gathering of saints mutually conferring about the deeds and virtues of S. Patrick. [S. Secundinus complains about Patrick that he refuses many things offered to him,] When a certain one of them had affirmed that he was the holiest of all living upon earth, S. Secundinus is said to have said to him: He would truly be the holiest, were it not that he had less fraternal charity than is fitting. This word, however, spoken in the ears of so many of his disciples, did not long remain hidden from S. Patrick. When S. Patrick and Secundinus later came together, the Master inquired of the disciple, the Metropolitan of the Suffragan, why he had uttered such a word about him or rather against him. Secundinus replied: Because you refuse to receive the gifts and estates divinely offered to you, by which you could sustain the collected multitude of saints. To whom S. Patrick said: For the sake of fulfilling charity I do not accept this work of charity: for if I were to receive what is offered to me, I would not leave even the pasture of two horses for the Saints who will come after us. S. Secundinus, repenting of the word which he had spoken, sought pardon from S. Patrick: and he, with his customary kindness, clemently pardoned the penitent.

The oft-mentioned S. Secundinus, wise and learned, told S. Patrick And about the same while still living that he wished to compose a poem about a certain Saint still living: and because that Saint was Patrick about whom he planned to write, he suppressed his name in silence. To whom S. Patrick said: Truly it is worthy and just, right and salutary, that the peoples should narrate the wisdom and glory of the saints, and the Church should announce their praise; but indeed more worthily and conveniently after the end of light, with all matter of vainglory removed. Praise therefore the serenity of the day, but when evening has come; the valor of the soldier, but when he has triumphed; the prosperity of the sailor, but when he has landed. For Scripture says: Do not praise a man in his lifetime. If, however, it has been entirely fixed in your heart, He writes a hymn as he is about to die: do quickly what you plan to do, because death is at your door: for of all the Bishops who are in Ireland, you will be the first to depart from this world. Ecclesiasticus 11. He therefore composed a hymn in praise of S. Patrick, and a few days later, according to the word of S. Patrick, he closed his last day: and buried in the church of his See, in the place called Domhnach Seachlainn, he showed by frequent miracles that he lives with Christ.

[156] Many of the Irish are accustomed to sing that hymn daily, The usefulness of this hymn, as many others and they relate that many and great wonders have happened from its frequent use: for many singing this hymn passed unseen through the midst of enemies thirsting for their blood. For they were struck by that kind of blindness which the Physicians call aorisia. A certain Saint in Ireland, named Kannechus, on a certain occasion saw battalions of demons armed with infernal instruments passing by: As S. Kannechus also learns whom, having adjured them in the name of the Holy Trinity, he compelled to reveal to him the reasons for their expedition. Adjured, therefore, though unwilling, they confessed that they had set out to carry away the soul of a certain most wicked sinner, who had merited being buried in the infernal caverns. S. Kannechus commanded them in the name of the Lord to return to him and report to him what they had done. After some intervals of hours, the demons returned in confusion, and protested that they had lost their prey through Patrick. When S. Kannechus inquired the cause of the snatching of that soul, the demons said that the man during his lifetime had celebrated a great banquet every year on the feast of S. Patrick, The salvation of one otherwise to be damned, and had frequented daily certain parts of the hymn composed in honor of S. Patrick; and for such a reason they affirmed that Patrick had snatched him from their hands, as his own bondsman. Saying these things, the demons vanished into shadows. S. Kannechus rejoiced in the things that were said to him; and relating these things, he incited many to frequent the hymn in veneration of S. Patrick. A certain Abbot from the disciples of S. Patrick, named Colmanus, As also S. Colmanus. was accustomed to frequently repeat the aforesaid hymn: who, when he was asked by his disciples why he did not rather chant the appointed Hours or Psalms, and it was said that the hymn once sung ought to suffice for him, he replied that whenever he had sung the hymn, he had continually seen the longed-for face of his beloved Father Patrick, nor had he been able to be satiated from its contemplation. We have written these things, done long after the death of S. Patrick, in order to show how much this hymn is valued among the Irish; and how ready a helper in times of need, in tribulation, S. Patrick is to those who honor him and frequent his memory.

[157] S. Patrick, the preacher of truth, while still living in the flesh, just as he recalled and summoned many who were living dead to true life by word and example; S. Patrick's frequent vision of Christ so he brought many of those who had been purchased from the earth to the land of the living by his prayers. He also powerfully snatched many stripped of the flesh from the pit of perpetual destruction, prepared for food by those who were roaring, by his prayers, and restoring them to places of purification to be cleansed, he gave them back to salvation. He himself, often made a contemplator of heavenly secrets, beheld the heavens opened and the Lord Jesus standing in the midst of a multitude of Angels; and sometimes, And enjoys the sight of the Angel: while he was offering the Son to the Father, or devoutly chanting the Apocalypse of John, he merited to see this: for while he meditated on those wonderful visions, in a wondrous manner he was raised up by the Lord to a similar contemplation of some of them. The Angel of the Lord, Victor, often named, was accustomed to appear to him three times in each week, and to refresh him with the conference and consolation of his conversation.

[158] Many times the Saint of God saw souls departed from the tabernacles of their bodies, destined for various places of punishment or joy: And learns of the state of the deceased. one example of which we have thought worthy to commit to writing, which the Saint was accustomed to relate for the sake of edification. There was a certain man having a great name, according to the name of the great ones who were in that land; and he had flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, Thus of a certain rich man and his possessions grew in that land. The aforesaid man departed this life; and a very numerous kindred, celebrating the obsequies of his funeral with great pomp and honor according to human estimation, with a following crowd of sons, consigned him to the belly of all. The men who were accustomed to call the man blessed who had these things, asserted that the buried man who had so flourished in his life and at his departure had been so honorably buried, was happy; seeing the mornings and evenings of his departure to be delightful, they very much thought him pleasing to the Lord. And of a poor man's soul. Another, however, dwelling nearby, a beggar all the days of his life, miserable in wretched poverty, entered the way of all flesh: and his corpse lay unburied for some time without the ministry of funeral rites, and was torn by birds; at last, dragged by the feet, it was thrown into a certain pit and covered with turf. Those who judged according to appearance pronounced him entirely most wretched and most unhappy. But the man of the Lord, responding, said: that the judgments of men disagree from the equity of him who searches the reins and hearts, whose judgments are a great abyss. He added indeed, reporting that he had seen the soul of the aforesaid rich man hurled into the abyss by the ministers of the underworld; [He testified that he had seen them judged by God otherwise than men are accustomed to judge.] but the spirit of the poor man, whose life was considered madness and whose end without honor, was counted among the sons of God and had received a place of blessedness among the Saints. Truly vain are the sons of men, and mendacious in the scales of their judgments: but the Lord is just, he has loved justice, and his face beholds equity: for, weighing in the balance of equity on the one hand the delights and riches of the rich man, on the other hand the sins of the poor man by which he perhaps merited wrath, and the calamity which he was enduring; he strictly judged the one to torments from present glory and honor; and the other, purified in the furnace of poverty and affliction, he mercifully sent to heavenly joys. Nor only did the Saint see and relate these things about these two, but he frequently saw and was accustomed to relate them about many others. Thus, indeed, what the Truth deigned to narrate with his own mouth about the rich man clothed in purple and the ulcerous Lazarus, this the friend of truth attested with truthful mouth that he had seen concerning others.

[159] There flourished in lesser Britain a man of venerable life, named Vinwaloeus, illustrious in signs and prodigies from the very rudiments of his infancy. S. Winwaloeus's desire to see him For as his written deeds testify, very many very great miracles performed by him are recorded. He, moreover, with the South wind blowing through his garden so that its spices might flow, had heard the sacred reputation of S. Patrick, and with burning heart had desired to run in the fragrance of his ointments. He deliberated for a long time and desired, and at last fixed in his mind he resolved to leave his parents and homeland, and by traveling to Ireland to serve Christ in the discipleship and under the discipline of S. Patrick: but on the preceding night, on the morrow of which he proposed to gird himself for the journey, he saw in a vision a most brilliant man, adorned with Pontifical vestments, standing before him, He appears in Armorica. and saying to him in the word of the Lord: Know, dearest Winwaloeus, that I am Patrick to whom you plan to go, and do not weary yourself, nor seek one whom you will not be able to find: for the time of my dissolution is at hand, and it is near that I enter the way of all flesh: it is the will of God that you do not leave your place, but by word and example in this land you strive to acquire for God an acceptable people, a follower of good works: for the crown of life remains, which God has promised to those who love him. Saying these things, the vision vanished, and holy Winwaloeus did as he had been divinely taught. Let the hearer note with what perfection the holy man, cleaving to the Lord, was one spirit with him, who saw in the spirit the desire of the holy man remaining in Armorican Britain, recognized it, and so wonderfully turned him from his proposed journey, which was opposed to the profit of the one about to profit.

[160] The cloud of infidelity having been expelled, by whose obstruction the Irish had long lacked the brightness and warmth of the true sun; the tongue, life, and power of Blessed Patrick, as long as there was breath in him and the Spirit of God in his nostrils, profited all those on the way of the Lord, S. Patrick's daily whether progressing, advanced, or perfected,

in giving the knowledge of salvation, in exhibiting the example of holiness, and in conferring upon the sick the remedy of all manner of health. And these things indeed were the form set before all and lay open, apart from what lay hidden within. Indeed the singular manner of life which he practiced in secret was such a daily and continuous one: for every day he was accustomed to chant strenuously and assiduously to the Lord the entire Psalter with canticles and hymns, and the Apocalypse of the Apostle John, and two hundred prayers: he bent the knee three hundred times a day in adoring the Lord: at each canonical hour of the day he signed himself a hundred times with the character of the Cross. He was accustomed moreover to offer the Son most worthily to the Father daily, nor did he fail to preach to the peoples or teach his disciples. Distinguishing also the nocturnal time by parts in a supernatural manner, the most vigilant cultivator and guardian of the Lord's vineyard was accustomed to spend it thus: the first part of it he would pass through, under two hundred genuflections, with two sets of fifty psalms of divine praises offered, with vigilant study: And nocturnal exercises. in the following part, immersing himself in cold waters, with heart, mouth, eyes, and hands fixed on heaven, he would complete the third set of fifty with multiplied prayers: afterward, however, stretched upon a bare stone, with another stone placed under his head in lieu of a pillow, he would refresh his most holy body with the refreshment of light and brief sleep; or to speak more clearly, he would repair it for the labor of his accustomed and continual conflict. Yet indulging his limbs in such slumber, he would place around his loins a piece of the harshest haircloth dipped in freezing waters, lest the law in his members, warring against the law of his mind to the detriment of his spirit, should perhaps kindle any spark of the old leaven. He also, with strict and dry food and rough garment, offered himself a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, and did not permit the captain of the cooks to breach the walls of Jerusalem within him. He inflicted punishment upon his blessed barren flesh; and lest it be able to beget children worthy of being dashed and killed, he made his spirit fruitful with manifold fruit.

[161] In the manner of the Apostles, until the fifty-fifth year of his age, at which he came to Ireland elevated to the episcopal grade, he continually walked on foot; The manner of his journeys, and from then on he used the vehicle of a chariot, in the manner customary in that region at that time, on account of the difficulty of travel in preaching. Over his other garments he was clothed with a white cowl, so that the very habit by its form and color The form of his dress, might seem to represent the appearance of his monasticism, and the whiteness of humility and innocence. Whence also the monks in Ireland, following the footsteps of S. Patrick, for many long periods of time were content with a simple habit, which the wool of sheep provided, with any extrinsic dyeing removed. He shook his hands free from gifts; always judging it more blessed to give than to receive. His zeal for poverty, If therefore at any time a gift was bestowed upon him by a wealthy person, as quickly as he could he endeavored to distribute it to the poor, relieving himself of it as of a heavy burden. In his face, in his gaze, in his speech, in his gait, in every movement of his limbs, and in the bearing of his entire body, he produced edification for those who beheld him: and his speech, seasoned with salt, was suited to every age, every sex, His knowledge of languages, every grade, every condition. For he was skilled and fluent in four languages, namely British, Irish, Gallic, and Latin. He also knew Greek in part. There exists a little book of his Proverbs written in Irish, full of very great edification. He also wrote a great volume called Canoin Phadruig, Books written, that is, the Canons of Patrick, which quite suitably serves any person, whether secular or even ecclesiastical, for the exercise of justice and the obtaining of the soul's salvation. Whenever he was consulted on profound questions to be resolved or on hidden and doubtful cases, he was accustomed first out of the habit of humility to reply: I do not know, God knows. Yet whenever driven by great necessity he was compelled to certify his word by swearing by his Judge, he was accustomed to confirm it. The gift of prophecy He therefore excelled in the spirit of prophecy, so that he would predict innumerable future things as if present, know absent things; and what went forth from his lips would come to pass without any scruple of doubt. Concerning the saints of Ireland, and especially those of Connacht and Munster to be born up to a hundred years later, he had woven a prophecy so brilliantly that he designated their names, merits, and the places of their habitation.

[162] Whomever he bound and loosed, divine justice proved to be bound or loosed by evident signs: The efficacy of his blessing or cursing well or ill, for just as in giving a blessing he would extend his right hand, so in delivering the contrary he was accustomed to raise his left. Whomever he blessed, the blessing of the Lord came upon him: and upon whomever he laid a curse, he appeared filled with maledictions. Whatever sentence had been uttered from the mouth of S. Patrick remained so immovable and fixed, as if it had proceeded from the tribunal of the Supreme Judge. Whence it clearly appears that the holy man, cleaving to the Lord, Supreme humility, was one spirit with him. But although in individual or many virtues he equaled or excelled other Saints, he nevertheless surpassed himself in humility: whence also in his letters he was accustomed to call himself the last, the least, the most contemptible of all sinners. Even the signs and prodigies which he performed, thinking little of them, he considered himself unworthy of being compared to any perfect man: and because he was not of great stature, he frequently called himself a homunculus. He often toiled also at manual labor, in the manner of the Apostle Paul, namely fishing and agriculture, but especially in building churches, and he incited his disciples to such exercise by word and example. Apostolic zeal. He also insisted most urgently on baptizing peoples and ordaining ministers of the Church. For he consecrated three hundred and fifty Bishops by his own hand: he founded seven hundred Churches: he promoted five thousand Clerics to the priestly grade and office. Of the other ministers established in lower grades, and of monks and nuns whom he applied to the divine service, God alone knows the number.

[163] Running therefore under this most holy norm of the present life toward the prize of the future, he shone with so many and so great miracles The frequency of miracles. that in these he appears second to none of the preceding Saints: for he restored to their natural functions and complete health the blind and the lame, the deaf and the mute, the paralytic, the lunatic, the lepers, the epileptic, and those deprived of the use of any limbs, or burdened with any kinds of diseases, in the name of the Holy Trinity: and in such matters he had a kind of daily and customary practice everywhere. For he is recorded to be the magnificent resuscitator of thirty-three dead persons, some of whom had been reduced to ashes after the course of many years, about whom we have narrated at greater length above in their proper places. 66 books written about these, Whence, concerning the things which he performed wonderfully in the world, booklets or treatises are said to have been written sixty-six in number, the greater part of which perished by fire during the reigns of Gurmundus and Turgesius. Four codices, however, concerning his virtues and miracles, written partly in Latin and partly in Irish, are found, Of which four, composed by disciples, Jocelin compiled. which at various times four of his disciples, namely Blessed Benignus his successor, and S. Mel the Bishop, and S. Lumanus the Pontiff his nephew, and S. Patrick his godson (who, returning to Britain after the death of his uncle, departed this life and was honorably buried in the church of Glastonbury) are said to have written. S. Evinus likewise in a similar manner compiled the acts of S. Patrick into one codex, which he composed partly in the Latin language and partly in Irish. From all of these, whatever trustworthy things I was able to find, I have thought it pleasing to communicate, collected in this work, to the knowledge of posterity.

Of visions of this sort, Probus narrates one at the beginning of book 2 in these words: At a certain time when he was going to the accustomed place for the sake of prayer through the nocturnal spaces, with the aforesaid boy as companion, he saw a great miracle in the sky, and wishing to test his dearest and most faithful holy boy, he said: My most beloved son, tell me, I beg, whether you perceive and see those things which I perceive and see. Then the aforesaid boy Stephen, who is also Benignus, without hesitation said: Already, dearest father, presuming upon your merits, by the Lord's grace those things which you perceive and see are known to me: for I see heaven opened and the Son of God sitting in majesty, and his Angels before him. Then S. Patrick said: Already I perceive that you, my son, will be a worthy future successor. Without delay, hastening their step, they reached the accustomed place of prayer.

Such is what is narrated in Life IV in Colgan at number 89 in this manner: At a certain time, when Blessed Patrick gave his holy limbs to rest, an Angel of God came and roused him. The Saint, however, questioned the Angel saying: Is there perhaps something in my works that does not please my Lord? The Angel replied: There is not; but I have been sent to consult you, whether in the country which you have led from the error of paganism to the faith of Christ, the honor and reverence of you alone will be maintained: or whether other Saints with your assent will share with you? The Saint, responding, said: Mo-de-broth (for he always had this expression), how many elect of God after me in this country! I wish that they should have honor with me. Then the holy Angel said: Your response is full of charity: but nonetheless the almighty Lord has determined that your name, most celebrated and honorable in these regions which through many struggles and many labors you have turned from the filth of idols and the miserable error of paganism to the inviolable faith of the holy and undivided Trinity through the word of preaching and the bath of baptism, should be held more honorably than the other Saints. With Blessed Patrick giving thanks to almighty God, the Angel of God returned to heaven.

See what has been said partly in his Life on March 3, partly in these Prolegomena at number 79.

By that name we understand the daily office of the ecclesiastical Office, which is rightly called the Psalter: for otherwise all 150 Psalms cannot be read in less than six hours. In the number of prayers also, unless they were ejaculatory, we recognize hyperbole.

Nor do we believe these were daily, but we think they were observed only in the Lenten retreat or at a similar time of extraordinary prayer.

That is, by saying Mo-de-broth, as above from Probus, that is, My God is the judge.

CHAPTER XIX.

The departure of S. Patrick from life, foreknown by himself and S. Brigid: his obsequies and the miracles that attended them.

[164] After these things the beloved of the Lord, Patrick, full of days and merits, when he had now faithfully and bravely finished the course of the administration entrusted to him; both by divine revelation and by the dissolution of the earthly habitation Patrick sets out for Armagh to die: which he bore, he saw the evening of his life approaching: and when he was situated in the borders of Ulidia, he hastened his steps toward Armagh, the city of his See. For it was his desire to enter the way of all flesh in that place, having deposited the remains of his sacred body, and to be laid to rest in the womb of the mother of all under the eyes of the sons whom he had begotten in Christ. But the holy man's purpose was changed by an unexpected turn of events: so that each may know that, as Scripture testifies, the way of man is not in his own power,

but by the Lord are his steps directed: But he is stopped by an Angel, for the Angel Victor met him as he was heading where he had proposed, and speaking from a bush that burned beside the road without any loss from combustion, he said: Stop, Patrick, your foot from the journey begun, for it is not the divine will that your life be exchanged for death in Armagh, and your body enclosed in a sepulchral resting place. In the region of Ulidia, which you first converted above all the borders of Ireland, the Lord has foreseen that you will die, And he is advised that he is to be buried in Ulidia, and be honorably entombed in the city of Down: there indeed will be your resurrection; but in the city of Armagh, which you love, the successive administration of the grace bestowed upon you. Remember your word, in which you gave hope to the sons of Dichu, the first neophytes of the Irish, when, taught from heaven, you predicted and promised that you would die and be buried in their land. The holy Bishop, at first taking this somewhat ill, was astonished: but suddenly coming to himself, he embraced the providence of the divine disposition with great devotion of heart and great thanksgiving: and submitting his will to God's, he returned to the parts of Ulidia.

[165] And the place of burial is marked beforehand by heavenly light: A few days after these events, the most holy old man Patrick was sitting in a place not far distant from the mother Church of the city of Down; with him was Brigid, the pearl of Ireland, and no small crowd of Religious and Ecclesiastics: and as the Saint was preaching to them about the glory of the Saints and the mansions of the light-flowing homeland, a copious light sent from heaven flooded a certain place in the eastern part of the cemetery: which those present, beholding it, marveled, and they asked the Saint what that light portended. The holy Father, however, commanded Blessed Brigid, who was sitting beside him, to reveal to those asking the mystery of the appearing divine light. The Virgin, however, What it meant S. Brigid explains, openly in the ears of all asserted that that brightness had designated and sanctified the place of burial of a certain most illustrious and most beloved of God Saint, to be buried there shortly. Holy Ethembria was also present, who was the first of all nuns in Ireland to have been consecrated in virginity by S. Patrick; and she inquired more privately from Brigid who that Saint was. She, however, replied that he was the Father and Apostle of Ireland, S. Patrick, soon to be entombed in that place, but in the course of time to be transferred from there: and she also pronounced herself blessed if his most sacred body should be wrapped in a linen cloth which she herself had prepared by spinning and weaving with her own hands for that same service. The Virgin uttered these things in the ear of her fellow virgin; and she thought no one had heard that hidden word. The light also which had appeared from heaven, received back from the eyes of all, disappeared, and by its ascent it showed beforehand that the Saint of God was about to migrate to the heavens.

[166] S. Patrick, divinely instructed, knew the desire of Brigid's heart, And bringing a shroud in which to wrap the body of the Saint, and the words of her mouth and the preparation of the garment; and he commanded her to return home and bring the garment and wrap his body, as a spiritual token of mutual love in Christ. He himself, however, was returning to the monastery of Saul, which he had filled with an outstanding company of monks; and there, lying on a bed of suffering, he awaited the end of life, or rather of the journey, and the beginning of life with blessed hope. The venerable Virgin, however, obeyed the word of the Father and Bishop at the hearing of the ear: she went to her monastery, took up the garment, and with four Virgins joined to her she hastened back to the Saint: but since they were afflicted by excessive abstinence and the difficulty of the long road, they stopped on the way from weariness; She is received by chariots sent to meet her when exhausted, and were unable to come to the Father with swift step as they had proposed. The Saint, however, situated at Saul, knew by the revelation of the Holy Spirit of the fatigue of the Virgins, and commanded his charioteer to quickly meet Blessed Brigid and her companions in that place with five vehicles. He, fulfilling the commands of the holy Bishop, found them in the place designated by him, five in all, very weary, and placing each one in a separate vehicle, brought them to the monastery of Saul. They themselves, presented to the man of God, offered the garment to him who received it gratefully, and kissing his feet and hands they merited to be blessed by him.

[167] As the distress of his body grew worse, old age pressing upon him, S. Patrick is fortified with the Sacraments or rather the Lord calling him to the crown, blessed Patrick felt death to be at his door, or rather rejoiced that he had already hastened and arrived at the port of death and the gate of life. Admonished therefore by the Angel, the guardian of his person, with S. Thasach the Bishop, his disciple, ministering, he fortified himself with the divine mysteries, and raising his eyes he beheld the heavens opened and Jesus standing in a multitude of Angels. With his hands raised, therefore, blessing his people and commending them to the Lord and giving thanks, he passed from this world, from faith to sight, from the journey to the homeland, from present affliction to eternal glory. O how happy is Patrick; who saw the Lord face to face, and his soul was saved: blessed I say is the man to whom the heavens stood open, who also penetrated into the holy place, having found eternal redemption; whom Blessed Mary received with the white-robed choirs of Virgins; whom the hosts of Angels admitted to their fellowship, whom the prudent chorus of Prophets accompanies, whom the judiciary Senate of Apostles embraces, whom the laureled army of Martyrs adorns, whom the white-robed company of Confessors embellishes, and whom the innumerable multitude of all the elect accompanies with glory and honor.

[168] Nor is it wondrous, nor undeserved; To be joined to each company of Saints as an Angel, Prophet, Apostle. because he himself was an Angel of the Lord, not by nature yet by virtue and office, whose lips kept knowledge, and the law of life sought from his mouth he sincerely proclaimed to the people of God. He is also rightly called a Prophet of the Most High, who recognized so many absent things and predicted so many and so great future things, as rarely any of the Prophets is found to have prophesied. He is also rightly called and is the Apostle of Ireland, since all the Irish and other islanders are signs of his Apostolate. He is also fittingly called a Martyr, who continually bearing the Cross of Christ in his body and heart, offered himself as a living sacrifice to the Lord: who having suffered so many ambushes and conflicts from sorcerers, from idolaters, from Kings, from demons, always had his heart prepared to undergo any kind of death. How fittingly also he ought to be called a consecrated Confessor of the Lord, Confessor almost no one is ignorant; since indeed, continually confessing the name of Christ, he preached it, and by words and examples and innumerable signs he led peoples, tribes, and tongues to the confession of that same name and of their own sin and the praise of God. He also remained a Virgin Virgin in body, a virgin in heart, and a virgin in faith; and therefore he was pleasing to the Spouse of virgins, and the virgin of virgins, by this threefold integrity. Rightly therefore he merited to be joined to the Angelic choirs and the companies of all the Saints, who was a partaker of the virtues of all the Saints.

[169] As S. Patrick breathed his last, the surrounding Crown of monks commended his spirit into the hands of the Lord, The obsequies honored wrapping the sacred body in the linen cloth prepared by S. Brigid: a copious multitude also of people and Clergy flowed together in throngs; they mourned the death of Patrick their Patron, as the desolation of their country, with tearful sighs; they devoted devout obsequies to the funeral in psalms and hymns. On the following night, however, the light-bearing chorus of Angels displayed heavenly vigils around the body, flooding the place and all those present in it with brightness, By Angelic singing, delighting them with fragrance, soothing them with the modulation of honeyed psalmody, and pervading everything with spiritual joy. Therefore upon all who had gathered, the sleep of the Lord fell, and kept them in slumber until the Angelic obsequies were completed, By heavenly fragrance, until morning. In the morning, however, the Angelic host, returning to the heavens, left behind them a most sweet fragrance surpassing all spices; which those awakened from sleep and all those arriving could experience for a continuous space of twelve days: for the sacred body was kept unburied for that many continuous days, because the Clergy, hindered by the controversies of the peoples, were not permitted to bury it in the place designated by heaven.

[170] Indeed a great and wondrous sign appeared, which had never been seen from the beginning of time: And continuous light for twelve days, for throughout that entire region for twelve days, without the interpolation of any night, the light continued; because the night shone like the day, illuminated. In which it is openly given to understand that the darkness of death did not obscure Patrick, the son of life, the inhabitant of eternal light; since the night was illumination in his delights, and he ascended, brilliant, to light without failing, day without night, sun without eclipse. For this remarkable sign seems to be compared to that ancient miracle, performed under Joshua on the day of Gibeon, although it is proven to be longer in duration: for the sun, as it is written, against Gibeon, and the moon against the valley of Ajalon, extending one day to the space of two, by divine power provided victory for the faithful people: The peoples contending over the body the unfailing continuity of twelve days' light, with equal power, showed the merit of Patrick triumphing over the world and the prince of the world. Joshua 10. Seeing so great a miracle, the diverse peoples could not be restrained from contention; because what the fury of their anger and the impulse of their spirits commanded, they ascribed to their devotion toward the Saint of God. On the twelfth day, therefore, between the two peoples, namely of Ulidia and Armagh, a quite grave and dangerous contention arose over carrying away the clod of the most holy body: and when they rose up girded with warlike arms for the conflict, they heard a voice from above, forbidding them to go in blood, which they thought the spirit of S. Patrick had uttered. The sea also, transgressing its accustomed boundaries, The sea intervening separates them. erect like a wall, divided the two peoples adverse to each other, so that they could not see each other with their eyes or strike each other with blows: having divided them bodily, it united them for the time being to the harmony of mutual peace. When the peoples had been calmed from their fury, the sea also immediately stood calm from its fury.

[171] When the swelling waves of the sea were led back and broken within themselves, two oxen were seen drawing a cart loaded with a noble burden, The body is placed on a cart which is divinely directed to Down. namely the clod of the most holy body, toward Down; which the Clergy and Ulstermen followed with unanimous devotion, with psalms, hymns, and spiritual canticles. He surely was driving that cart who once was leading the Ark of the Covenant from Ekron to Gath. But in all these marvelous things seen or heard, the fury of the people of Armagh was not turned away; but their hand was still stretched out for battle, lest they be deprived of the presence of the body of their first Bishop, indeed their Primate and Patron. A similar appearance of a cart appearing for the Armachians to follow, But so that no further occasion for fighting or disputing over this matter might be moved, divine providence looked to the definitive peace of both peoples: for a certain cart, led by oxen, preceded the people of Armagh, appearing like the former which was carrying the sacred body toward Down: for they did not cease to follow the leader, thinking it laden with the desirable treasure, until they came at the border of the Province of Armagh

to a certain river called Caucune. Then indeed that imaginary cart disappeared, and the aforesaid people, frustrated in their hope, returned empty and vain to their homes. Meanwhile the Ulstermen, having entered the city of Down, celebrated the solemnities of the Masses, and buried the venerable body with due veneration in the place shown by light; And he is buried at Down. and they placed the desirable treasure and precious stone of great value, beneath a stone, at a depth of five cubits, in the heart of the earth, lest it be stolen away by stealth. With how many or what kind of miracles the most sacred bones of his sprouted from their place, we do not find written, perhaps because they were not committed to writing by the negligent; or because such writings were often destroyed by fire during the reigns of pagans in Ireland.

There followed a division of the entire Patrician life composed in these words: In the one hundred and twenty-third year of his age, on the sixteenth day before the Kalends of April, he departed from this world: The corrected division of the Patrician age. whose years of life are distinguished and computed in this manner. He flourished for sixteen years before he was taken by pirates plundering his entire homeland to the island of Ireland. He was oppressed by a most severe servitude for six years, tending flocks of pigs: for with the most sweet pasture of the four Gospels he pastured those who had previously been pigs, having laid aside the filth of idolatry, like white flocks of lambs. After a space of eighteen years spent under the mastership of Bishop S. Germanus, he was fifty-five years old when, adorned with the episcopal grade, he entered Ireland for the sake of preaching. In the space of thirty-five years he converted all of Ireland with certain other islands to Christ: then for the remaining thirty-three years, intent on the sweetness of the contemplative life, he was accustomed to dwell chiefly at Saul or in the monastery established at Armagh: nor was he easily accustomed to go out from the holy places, unless he was drawn by some unavoidable cause of business. Once a year, however, he celebrated a council, so that he might bring back to the rule those things which he recognized needed correction. Which the prudent reader placed in this location will correct thus.

In the eighty-second year of his age he departed from this world... at fifty-five years he entered Ireland, in a space of twenty-five years he converted it, for the remaining three years he was intent on the contemplative life.

We omit the conclusion, based on the earlier error about Patrick's longevity, and we give it here. Errors committed in assigning the year of death S. Patrick died in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 493, with Pope Felix presiding, in the first year of the reign of the Emperor Anastasius (in which there is more than one error: for Felix died on January 30 in the year 492; Anastasius assumed the Empire on April 7, 491); with Aurelius Ambrosius ruling in Britain, until the year 498 as some maintain; and Forchernus in all Ireland: but from what source, since he is absent from the catalogues of Kings? Perhaps at that time there was some petty king of that name in Ulidia, mistakenly believed by Jocelin to have ruled the whole Island? With Jesus Christ holding the monarchy over all and above all things: to him be glory, praise, honor, and dominion through infinite ages of ages. Amen.

APPENDIX.

Patrick, Bishop, Apostle, and Primate of Ireland (Saint)

[1] Thus far the Acts of S. Patrick collected by Jocelin: which could not without profit have been compared with the text of the Tripartite Life itself, from which most of them were drawn: but fearing the length, by the same reasoning by which we omitted the Tripartite Life itself (although we had it prepared with great study and most extensive annotations and ready for the press), we thought we should also refrain from this diligence: since both have been so published by Colgan that one is referred to the other, with the chapter of the other Life noted at each chapter of both, in which the same matter is treated. On what day each of the Patrician disciples (who are named many in this Life, more in the Tripartite) were inscribed in the Irish Calendars, Colgan inquires at length in his Annotations, and decides many things from conjectures, which are not of such importance to us in this place that we would wish to examine them: since this can be done in their proper places regarding those who are proven to have some cult; about the rest it does not greatly concern us to be anxious. Now we give the Appendix we promised, divided into various paragraphs: which we desire to be read the more carefully, in proportion as the matters to be treated in them have a greater connection with the other Acts of the Irish Saints.

Section I. Whether and what Christians Patrick found in Ireland: and concerning the arrival of SS. Kieran, Albeus, Declan, and Ibar in it.

[1] Colgan, about to treat this question in Appendix 5, chapter 15, denies that he calls into question in this place Whether any of the Irish were already Christians? whether some of the Irish embraced the faith of Christ outside their homeland long before these times: for he supposes, and says he shows more fully elsewhere, that S. Mansuetus, a disciple of S. Peter, S. Beatus, the Apostle of the Helvetians, S. Eliphius and his brother Eucherius, and many other outstanding heralds of the Christian faith among foreign nations, were Scots or Irish by race: which will be enough for us to examine when the arguments by which he promises to show this have been brought to light. Therefore, omitting that discussion, let us ask whether Prosper truly said in his Chronicle, and from him Bede in chapter 13 wrote, that in the eighth year of Theodosius the Younger, Palladius was ordained by Celestine for the Scots believing in Christ and sent as their first Bishop. Whether at least before Palladius? Alford, with the remaining Scoto-Britons, lays his hand on this passage, and believes he demonstrates that Palladius was not sent to the Irish, and perhaps never even set foot in Ireland. But if, as he himself maintains, no Scot in Ireland believed in Christ before Patrick, much less can it be shown that Scots did so in Britain, where they did not yet have any stable settlements; but only by piratical incursions, joined with the Picts, they harassed the Britons.

[2] In Ireland, therefore, some Scots believed, if any believed before Palladius: and that some believed, there is no reason why we should refuse to admit when Prosper asserts it: [Thus it is gathered from the ordination of Palladius and the similar mission of S. Augustine.] especially since from the mission of Augustine to the English, as Bede reports, we can learn that it was not the custom of the Roman Church to ordain a Bishop for any nation before the Christian faith had fixed some roots among it: for thus we read in chapter 23, Struck with idle fear... they send Augustine home, whom Gregory had planned to ordain as Bishop for them (if they should be received by the English). But when the King of Kent was converted, and not a few of the people were brought to the faith: Augustine went to Arles, and was ordained Archbishop of the English nation by the Archbishop of that city, Aetherius, according as they had received the instructions of the holy Father Gregory; as is recorded in chapter 27: finally in chapter 29 there are presented letters of the same Gregory, in which he signifies that he has directed the Pallium to him, and at the same time suggests how he should establish Bishops in Britain, and institute another Metropolitan at York, to whom he has also determined (if life be his companion) to bestow the Pallium with the Lord's favor.

You see by what steps the Roman See proceeded to the constitution of the English Church, Who were they, and where? and no cause appears on account of which we should presume a dissimilar arrangement regarding the Irish. Who, however, and where they laid these foundations of the Christian Religion which moved Celestine to the ordination of Palladius, all ancient monuments are silent. It is credible that, when such a great multitude of British Christians, not only islanders but also Armoricans, were carried off by various incursions into Scottish servitude, in the more cultivated parts of that island, especially Leinster and southern Munster, some knowledge of our mysteries was communicated to the natives: and so it came about that the seed of faith, sown by private efforts and growing not altogether unhappily by the conversion of some from among the common people, seemed worthy of Apostolic care and cultivators, especially since from that nation some would from time to time come to Rome for the purpose of learning the faith more fully. The return of Palladius, With matters thus constituted, Palladius, sent into Ireland, landed in Leinster: but encountering the lord of the place more stubbornly opposing Evangelical preaching, and perhaps foreseeing his own approaching death, he was content to leave two of his men, Silvester and Solonius, as a support for the few Christians whom it is more credible he found there than made, on account of his short stay in those parts; and having consecrated three oratories for their use, he set sail to return with his companions, and having sailed around northern Britain (driven perhaps by storm and divine counsel, not his own), he reached a port on the eastern part of the Pictish regions, and there exchanged life for death. If the Irish were content with these things, we would have no controversy with them on behalf of truth: but ungrateful to Prosper and Bede, from whom alone it is solidly proven that some believing Scots existed before Palladius and Patrick; He was not the first Bishop sent to the Irish. they simultaneously overturn both their own foundation and the authority of those writers, while they deny that Palladius was the first Bishop sent to Ireland, and that when he quickly failed, Patrick followed: which nevertheless those same authors say so expressly, and on account of which the entire Church calls Patrick the Apostle of the Irish. On what grounds do they deny this? From the most ancient, says Colgan, Acts of our Saints, written about a thousand years ago, we have But four others before him, that not only did very many believe in Christ in various parts of Ireland; but also many illustrious in holiness, such as Kieran, Albeus, Declan, and Ibar, Bishops: likewise before these S. Colman the Bishop, and S. Dyma, S. Declan's teacher, S. Corbreus the Bishop, S. Mochellocus, S. Bean, S. Colman, S. Lactin, S. Mobius, S. Finlug, S. Cuminian, hermits, and many others flourished in Ireland before S. Patrick and S. Palladius.

[4] But, with Colgan's good leave be it said: those Acts are not as ancient as he himself would have us believe, but most of them are patched together by the most fabulistic authors, and none are earlier than the twelfth century. What the Acts of S. Kieran of Saigir are like, which he brought forth from the Kilkenny codex, From what kind of Acts the Irish endeavor to prove this, we saw on March 5: although they falsely claim an eyewitness in some places. On October 27, where we shall perhaps distinguish two SS. Abbans, we shall necessarily need to mention S. Ibar, he who was uncle and master to S. Abban of Leinster, and disciple of Moctaeus, Bishop of Ludmed; whom from the Patrician Acts we know came to Ireland long after Patrick; and consequently we shall demonstrate that Ibar, both from this and from other grounds, along with his disciple Abban, belongs to the sixth century: although in the Acts of Abban he is read to have been one of the earlier preachers whom God chose to convert the Irish from paganism to the faith of Christ: The fabulosity of the Acts of S. Abban, for he who could either fabricate or believe to be true the most absurd fables that are there about Abbentonia; and among other things of the same sort, to prolong for the Saint about whom he wrote an old age of 317 years; can neither be considered a good author, nor so close to the times of the Saint himself as to have been a grandson of some person

recalled to life by the Saint, unless by taking the name of grandson for any descendant, however long the series of generations by which one traces one's lineage from someone: for we have scarcely any Lives of Irish Saints in our hands which we can believe to be older than six hundred years: and we think the same of the unpublished Acts of S. Brigid cited by Ussher on page 794, in which S. Ibar is said to have been a sower of the faith in many places in Ireland before S. Patrick.

[5] What shall we say of the Acts of S. Declan? For from these not only the four Bishops just mentioned, S. Declan's, but also the remaining company of Saints named above has come forth, about whom we are compelled to doubt whether they ever lived among men, while we see them introduced into the world a whole century before they could have existed. Those Acts swarm with the most portentous fabrications, of which, that you may have a specimen, behold for you from the very beginning, where the names and deeds of Declan's ancestors are related in a long series, one for many. Seeing Aeneas (he is here imagined to have been a most famous man in all ages and a second Irish Samson), seeing, I say, Aeneas the gates of the fortifications closed against him, struck with fury, in his strength and swiftness he lightly raised himself into the air, and stood upon the height of the outermost fortification, and leapt from fortification to fortification, until he was in the middle of Tara with his arms: and he entered the palace in which the King was, seeking to kill his son. He, however, with everyone fleeing, ran now this way, now that way before his father the King, wishing to defend both himself and him. And the Count of the city of Tara, a brave man, also wishing to defend the King, came and stood between the King and his son. But Aeneas reckoned their resistance as nothing: for he, powerfully brandishing his poisoned spear against them, fixed it in the breast of the King's son, and through him it passed into the breast of the aforesaid Count, and through his back it reached the eye of King Cormac: and the King's son and that Count immediately fell to the ground upon the spear: and if they had not already fallen upon the spear, it would have entered further with them through the King's head. The author of these Acts indeed pretends some antiquity toward the end, using this phrase: It is reported to us from his ancient disciples: but he sufficiently betrays his own age where he mentions verses to be written in leonine meter, and says a monastery of Canons was built by Declan: the learned know what century these things savor of.

[6] Finally, the Acts of Saint Albeus so harmonize with the Acts of Declan that both seem to be entirely by the same author: And S. Albeus. certainly they have nothing less of fables; of which it suffices to bring one forward: On the feast of the Apostles, in the sight of Pope Clement, the Angels of God ordained Blessed Albeus as Bishop: and when the ordination was completed, Albeus said to Clement: Let a feast be made for the people today: and you feed half the people, and I, with God's help, will feed the other half. To whom Clement said: I will not feed them: but you alone, on the day of your Ordination, feed us all. Then Albeus prayed to the Lord, and the Lord rained upon the city five showers: that is, a shower of honey, and a shower of fish, and a shower of oil, and a shower of the whitest loaves of the finest wheat, and a shower of the newest wine, and from this abundance the whole people of Rome was satisfied for three days and three nights, praising and blessing the Lord and S. Albeus. This is the feast of the Ordination of Albeus, famous among the Romans for many ages. After this S. Albeus went from Rome into the borders of the nations, and a great part of the pagans believed through him... then he came to the city of Dolomoir, while the Bishop of that city, named Samson, was offering the body of Christ, etc.

[7] These are the most ancient Acts, and upon which, as if they were beyond all exception, Colgan relies. Who would not marvel at the folly of the fabulists? Not considering that between Clement I, the disciple of S. Peter, and the year 1046, no Clement held the Pontificate at Rome: and that Samson, the Bishop of Dol, flourished in the sixth century of our era. However much, therefore, those Acts may agree in asserting the episcopate and preaching of the aforesaid four Saints before the arrival of Patrick: nevertheless, they will prove nothing with us against ancient and undoubted authors and the far more sincere Acts of S. Patrick. Who, moreover, is that S. Hilary the Bishop, These seem to have been first sent after the year 461, under whom Albeus and Declan heard the sacred Scriptures at Rome, as appears in both Acts? Unless our conjecture deceives us, we read here the time at which the said Saints were ordained and sent to Ireland, and at the same time we detect the cause of the error. For the celebrity of the Patrician name was so great that Patrick's successor of the same name, called Sen-Patrick by his father Sennan, was entirely obscured by the great Patrick; whence both here and in many other Acts of Irish Saints, written in Latin much later, that great confusion crept in, by which all the deeds of the latter were transferred to his uncle. These certainly, of whom we speak here, just as we deny that they preceded the great Patrick in preaching the faith to the Irish; so we willingly grant that, converted by him and ordained at Rome by Hilary, they returned to cultivate their own respective peoples before the primacy of the See of Armagh, to which Sen-Patrick had recently ascended, was received throughout all Ireland.

[8] For from the time the faith of Christ was preached throughout the whole island, By S. Hilary the Pope after the death of S. Patrick: the Irish were always held by a great zeal for Roman pilgrimage and for learning letters abroad, especially those who inhabited the southern provinces. From these it is probable that SS. Albeus and Declan were, who, having gone to Rome, when they had remarkably proven their progress in doctrine and virtue there, were found suitable to be ordained Bishops by S. Hilary the Pope, elevated to the Papacy in the year 441, to be sent as aid to their homeland with some selected fellow workers from the same nation: whom, however, we no more believe to have been, as the Acts report, twelve Colmans, twelve Domongenii, and as many Fintans: than that Albeus was baptized by Palladius preaching in Munster many years before Patrick (as the same Acts have), and that King Conchobhar was converted by the same. These, therefore, having returned to Ireland with their men, did not think it fair to subject themselves to one from whom they had not received ordination: especially after S. Patrick (to whom they would perhaps have willingly yielded on account of the prerogative of his Apostolate) ceased to live. And at last subjected themselves to S. Sen-Patrick. Therefore they refused to acknowledge the primacy of the Bishop of Armagh, although he called himself the Comorbhan of Patrick. And so, without any dependence on him, Albeus was ordaining the Munster churches, Declan the churches of the Desii: until Sen-Patrick moved them, not so much by authority and command as by acts of humanity and the weight of miracles and the example of his humility, to remove the seeds of future schism, and for the sake of the public good and common peace to allow the See of Armagh, by the Patrician ordinance approved by Papal letters, to be called and to be the first; S. Kieran was not in their company at Rome. on the condition that each should retain his own preeminence, Declan among the Desii, Albeus among the Munster Bishops, as Metropolitans subject to one Primate only, and governing their own suffragans by themselves. We do not treat of S. Ibar here; because we believe his ordination was posterior even to this second Patrick.

[9] As for S. Kieran, it remains that he met Patrick on his way to Rome, but not on his first journey before obtaining his mission from Celestine; rather on his journey after the twelfth year spent in preaching the Gospel had passed, in the year of Christ 445. If, however, we said in his Life that the number of thirty years is not to be trusted, after which Patrick is said to have foretold they would revisit each other in Ireland, we now urge this much more strongly, and could demonstrate it by many examples. Moreover, what we there somewhat dissimulated about the later return of S. Kieran to his homeland, we now entirely reject, and deny that Kieran came as a companion to SS. Albeus and Declan under the Pontificate of S. Hilary, unless on the condition that whoever wishes to maintain this must also maintain that this whole story, of the meeting of SS. Kieran and Patrick in Italy and their reunion in Ireland, pertains to S. Patrick, not the Great but the son of Sennan, like many other things. In a similar manner we wish to correct what, with similar indulgence, we dissimulated in the Acts of S. Winwaloeus, section 1, number 3: S. Winwaloeus was only visited by S. Patrick after his death. as though to this Saint, born around the year 455, and desiring to see S. Patrick, the still-living Apostle himself appeared around the year 475: because we now entirely believe that that apparition was of the Saint already long dead: which, however, either Winwaloeus did not know, or his desire was directed not toward seeing the living man but toward visiting the tomb and heavenly glory of the deceased by a religious pilgrimage: just as Patrick has been shown by us to have come to S. Martin his great-uncle, that is, to his body and monastery, and it often occurs elsewhere that this must be noted in those Acts of Saints which were written by authors of a later age than the one in which the Saints themselves flourished, without the greatest accuracy.

Section II. Concerning the Primacy of Armagh and the Comorbhans of S. Patrick in it.

[10] The mention already made above of the foundation of Armagh suggests that something also be said about it. Armagh was the last of the Irish churches in time That it was the very last work of S. Patrick is so manifest from the entire context of the Life that nothing could be clearer. Jocelin, at number 46, says the church of Athrumia was built twenty-five years before the foundation of Armagh; Tirechan in the Life of S. Patrick, in Ussher, page 854, has twenty-two instead of twenty-five. The Annals of Ulster or of Senatus refer the foundation of Armagh to the year 445: which Ussher seems to approve, and to believe the years in Tirechan were corrupted by a superfluous ten: Colgan adheres to the same, so that he can preserve the faith of the said Annals, which say that S. Secundinus (who is said to have been at least Vicar of the Bishop in that same church) died in the year 447. Not in the year 445, We, having learned well enough by experience in the chronicles of every nation how little trust is to be placed in Annals written after so many centuries (especially where they reduce events that took place before history was consigned to years numbered from Christ's nativity to the now customary Era), have no reason to think the Irish should be held as exceptional above all others; whom we rather believe to have stumbled the more often and more seriously in calculating years by the common Era ascending, the more they presumed to order in this way times that were more ancient and preceded even Patrick and Christ himself. The age of Secundinus himself manifestly convicts their error in this regard, since he is said in the same or similar Annals to have reached the age of seventy-five: for thus he would have had to be older than his uncle by several years, he himself born from Liemania, the youngest of Patrick's sisters.

in the same or similar Annals to have reached the age of seventy-five: for thus he would have had to be older than his uncle by several years, he himself born from Liemania, the youngest of Patrick's sisters.

[11] We therefore dismiss these Annals and rather adhere to all the biographers, with one voice following Patrick as he traversed the whole of Ireland, But with the whole island already converted intent on ordering and visiting churches, until, broken by old age and labors, they at last set him down here: from whose consensus Giraldus Cambrensis thus wrote, distinction 3, chapter 16, of the Topography of Ireland: After the peoples were baptized in throngs and the whole island was now converted to the faith of Christ, he chose his seat at Armagh; which he also established as the metropolis, and the proper place of the Primacy of all Ireland. But the Tripartite Life, book 2, chapter 108 and book 3, chapter 31, testifies that seven years were spent on Connacht alone, and as many on Munster. Therefore from the two characteristics set forth above (both of which, although they seem to be drawn from the building of Arthrumia, are in reality taken from the entry into Ireland, because those authors compress the encounter with Leogar in Bregia and the foundation of Arthrumia following it not long after into the first year of preaching), In the year 454 from the two premises, I say, we prefer the one taken from Tirechan: for thus six years still remain up to the last year of Patrick himself and of Secundinus: for in the ancient books of the Munsterians and the Catalogues of the Bishops of Armagh, Secundinus is found to have rendered at least vicarious service in governing the Episcopate for that many years, in Ussher on page 874, which years, noting only the years of governance, we trust more safely than the Annals presuming to add years of Christ.

[12] Armagh was therefore founded according to this calculation in the year of Christ 454; but probably in the third year after (when Patrick, at the Angelic admonition, had set out for Rome, vainly excusing his strength broken by age), it was fully established by a Papal decree; It is erected into a metropolis so that thus even Jocelin's calculation might have been true, deferring the beginning of Armagh to this point. Moreover, that the Cashel Calendar, in a similar catalogue of the Bishops of Armagh, assigns sixteen years to S. Secundinus, In which Secundinus sometimes acted as Vicar of the absent Patrick we suspect arose from the fact that the same S. Patrick, in the year 445, as we have said elsewhere, setting out for Rome, appointed him as his Vicar. He had, moreover, his own See named by himself Domhnach Sechnaill, in which he rests in death and lived while alive, when Patrick did not need his services, as is clear from the history found in book 3, chapter 86 of the Tripartite Life. And this was the reason why the author of the Annals of Ulster did not give him a place among the Bishops of Armagh. When Patrick returned, therefore, even on this last occasion from Rome, Secundinus again returned to his own Bishopric, and there, as his Scholiast reports, wishing to compose a hymn about S. Patrick while he still lived, He died in 459 when he had consulted Patrick about this matter, suppressing the name of the one about whom he wished to write, he received this response: If this has been entirely fixed in your heart, what you plan to do, do quickly: because death is at your door: for of all the Bishops who are in Ireland, you will be the first to depart from this world. He therefore, says Jocelin, composed a hymn in praise of S. Patrick, and a few days later closed his last day, on November 27 according to the Cashel Calendar in Colgan, in the year according to our reckoning 459, at which time if he was seventy-five years old, he was seven years younger than his uncle.

[13] Nor did Patrick long survive after this: but in the fourth month after Secundinus he himself also died, After Patrick in the year 460, Sen-Patrick succeeds, and had as his successor S. Sen-Patrick, who is called by others simply Patrick, but by Jocelin Patrick the younger, and was taken from the church of Rosdelana, which he governed as Bishop and Abbot, in consideration no doubt of his holy uncle, whose name he bore and whose holiness he imitated. Ten years are assigned to him: and his Relics, as the scholiast of Fiechus says, some say are in Rosdela in the region of Maglacha: but it is more true that they lie in Glastonbury of the Irish, which is a city in the southern region of the Saxons. Jocelin also confirms the same, saying: After the death of his uncle, returning to Britain, he departed this life, and was honorably buried in the church of Glastonbury. Certain of his or the church's affairs called him there, He died and was buried at Glastonbury in the year 470 and on such an occasion, having died there, he deposited the remains of his body on the 24th day of August, on which he is venerated according to the Cashel Calendar. It is he, however, who, being of the same name as his uncle, led many Irish writers into errors and gave the Glastonbury monks the opportunity for raising a dispute with them about the body of their Apostle. We also do not doubt that the same person is simply called the first Bishop of Armagh, and that what is said of Patrick in the Life of S. Mocteus, given by Colgan for March 24, postponed by us to August 19, is to be understood of him: namely, that by a pact made between them, that whoever died first would take charge of the deceased's community, Mocteus himself ruled that See for some days and enthroned Benignus, his disciple, in his place.

[14] And this was what the great Patrick had prophesied about the seven-year-old boy (as Colgan teaches in the Life of S. Ergnata, January 8), After whom Benignus for ten years, that he would be the heir of his kingdom. He was then, which also follows from this, in the thirty-fifth year of his age, and by the consensus of all catalogues he held the Episcopate for ten years. Whether, however, having abdicated, he withdrew to England, as the Glastonbury monks claim, will be better examined in his Life on November 19. After Benignus came Iarlaithus, the third Bishop of Armagh, as Ussher reads in the Annals of Ulster, page 875; and his death is noted in the same Annals in the year 481, as well as after fifteen years, that of Corbmac, the Bishop of Armagh, heir of Patrick; Iarlaithus for 18 and consequently that of Dubthach, as if dead in the year 514; and of Alill, in 527; and of another Alill, who is said to have sat for ten years after the first. In these Annals, however, Ussher notes that the common era is always anticipated by one year, and therefore what is there 481 would be 482 for us, in which year Iarlaithus died, referred by Colgan to February 11, but by us placed among those omitted. In our reckoning, however, assigning twenty years to Sen-Patrick and Benignus, Up to the year 498. the said Iarlaithus would have sat after Patrick's death until the year 498.

[15] But that difference of sixteen years could easily have crept in upon the authors of chronicles, ascending from some certain and known year, indubitably marked by the Christian era, to those years which usage had not yet taught to be marked by years from Christ's nativity. For when they found nothing noted other than how many years each Bishop or King had sat or ruled, and those not so scrupulously marked that months and days would not be lacking in one place, Which against their own Annals and be in surplus in another; nothing was more likely than that somewhat more or fewer years be counted, while either only full years come into the calculations, or all half years are received as full ones. Just as happened in these Bishops of Armagh: from whose catalogue if you remove that second Alill, whom Colgan admits at January 13 is considered by some to be surreptitious, only six years would be surplus: an excusable error indeed, in so many centuries to be measured through such uncertain traces; which those who want S. Patrick to have died only in the year 493, Colgan is compelled to extend it to 531 make entirely intolerable. For thus the number would have grown above the truth to thirty-eight years, placing the beginning of S. Sen-Patrick in the year 445: so that from this too our opinion may emerge as more probable, in that it departs less from the Chronology of the Irish Antiquarians; while those on the other hand, who would have us believe everything from their as-yet-unpublished Annals, seem the less tolerable in that they themselves impute a graver error to them.

[16] Colgan has the catalogue of the successors of S. Patrick at length, but (as he himself admits) not accurately for lack of records, Whence the Comorbhans, in Appendix 7, part 3, and almost entirely from the faith and calculation of the Four Masters, following those Annals which Ussher calls the Annals of Ulster. About all these you will note generally that in the Irish language proper to them they were called the Comorbhans of S. Patrick: which word, although by the force of its etymology (to be taken from the Irish horba or Forba, meaning territory, estate, district, as Colgan teaches) it has a broader meaning; has been restricted by usage, however, to designate the successor of some famous Saint in an Abbey or Church. The first designated by that title in the aforesaid Annals is Kele-Peter or Petranus, ascribed in the year 770, And when they began to be called Archbishops? and likewise in Colgan as if from the same Annals is written Archbishop. Whether by a hasty scribe's error, we do not know: we see this, that only after the year one thousand does this title recur in those Annals: when, namely, in imitation of the English, who began to have and name Archbishops after the year 668, the Primates of Ireland began to arrogate this title to themselves. And also the Archiepiscopal Pallium? Indeed Colgan contends so, and by the example of S. Patrick himself, because Jocelin writes that he was adorned with this by the Pontiff, to whom he had gone near the end of his life.

[17] We easily believe the fact (although we would wish to see it confirmed by the older testimony at least of the Tripartite Life, fearing lest Jocelin added this from the custom of his own time, meaning to signify that the Primacy was confirmed for Patrick at Rome) — we believe this, however: but whether his successors followed the example, to seek and receive the Pallium from the Roman Pontiff, we rightly doubt; and if they did, we think they did not do so for long: because on the occasion of the schism over the difference in the Paschal observance, that grace of the Roman Pontiffs seems to have ceased entirely: Whether they used the Pallium from the beginning? so that therefore either absolutely or with some restriction it is true what S. Bernard writes in the Life of S. Malachy from his mouth: The use of the Pallium was still lacking and had been lacking from the beginning: which was at last brought by the Apostolic Nuncio to four Metropolitans of Ireland in the Synod of the year 1152, namely to those of Dublin, Cashel, Tuam, and Armagh, and at that time also the latter was ordained Primate: which indeed had long been the case from the institution of S. Patrick, but with others, especially Dublin, opposing it, it had to some extent ceased to be through the non-use of jurisdiction. The arrogance of the Dublin men had indeed gone so far that their Bishop Samuel, fifty years before the Council, had merited being reproved by S. Anselm of Canterbury by letter, because he had a cross carried before him: because this does not belong to anyone other than an Archbishop adorned with the Pallium by the Roman Pontiff: from which whether Colgan rightly infers that he too used the Pallium, and that there were others in Ireland whose example he might follow, let others judge: since the discussion concerns only the Cross from Anselm, and even if it were also about the Pallium, Samuel could have received from England what he wished to imitate.

were in Ireland whose example he might follow, let others judge: since the discussion concerns only the Cross from Anselm, and even if it were also about the Pallium, Samuel could have received from England what he wished to imitate.

Section III. Concerning the miracles of S. Patrick.

[18] In the deeds of the Saints, They spoke nothing beyond the truth who first compared the Lives of Saints either to a meadow distinguished by flowers in bloom, or to a field rich in the best harvest: but just as these have their useless weeds and tares, so also those sometimes contain things which a truth-loving reader would prefer to be absent; often arising not so much from the fault of the original writer as from the blame of later persons. This happens both in other matters and not infrequently in miracles, especially of those Saints whose entire lifetime was known to have been full of the truest prodigies, and therefore whatever was narrated about them seemed, by facile credulity, to have to be admitted. Such were most of the Saints of Ireland, And S. Patrick's miracles, such above all was Patrick, to be numbered among the greatest wonder-workers. Many miracles are related of his boyhood, and far more of his Apostolate. The former were received from the account of those who had heard them from their mothers, Patrick's sisters, the Saint's own nephews: the latter could have been had by more faithful report from those who were either eyewitnesses themselves, or wrote his Acts from the mouth of such witnesses. In the latter, certain things are dressed up with inept circumstances to augment the appearance of the miracle; as that about the Priest blind and illiterate from birth, who baptized Patrick, in Tripartite, book 1, chapter 4, and in Jocelin, number 2. Most such things, however, are found in other Lives of Irish Saints entirely the same, so that they may rightly be judged to have been transferred to Patrick from those, so that all honors might be heaped into one; or from him to others, Certain things of uncertain reliability are found, as if it were shameful for those who in the rest of their Lives emulated the Apostolic virtues of the Saint not also to have been illustrious with the miracles of his childhood, to which, as being more remote from the knowledge of contemporaries, certain fables could more easily be attached, which we suspect about many of the miracles of Irish boys. Similar things could have crept in sometimes in the last kind of miracles as well: just as in the same works, by those who rashly interpolated the ancient writings, certain things from the tradition of the common people or someone's fiction were inserted, which are either entirely false or deformed by such circumstances that they can and ought to be judged mere fables.

[19] We earnestly wish that those who come upon such Acts had first read chapter four of our General Preface to the month of January, or at least did not neglect the preliminary Commentaries, We wish our Commentaries and Notes to be read: from which they might learn our judgment about them, and might themselves recognize in what degree of authority each should be placed. But very many are found who, passing over our Prefaces, commentaries, and notes (because many of them seem less suitable for devout reading at table, and require greater attention of mind), read only the text of the Life themselves or hear others reading it aloud; who, when they have struck against some such narrative, By which we instruct the reader. as a ship dashed against a rock, are in danger of withdrawing faith from our entire work. Thus we once heard that in a certain gathering of Religious men, with great pleasure and no less profit to the diners, the Acts of the Saints were read, but that displeasure arose when certain things, long since excused by others, reissued in this work, were read in the Life of a certain Irish Saint, which seemed not to obtain credence everywhere, as certain things are here: and the reading was suspended for some time: which would not have happened if, having tasted the antidote provided by the preliminary commentary, they had read that Life. It is indeed difficult to suit one and the same food to the palate of all the guests: but in writing books it is entirely impossible to satisfy all minds. We gave no Acts that we judged fabulous: those that seemed probable, if more certain ones were lacking, For the sake of the same we removed from the text, we did not shrink from giving them complete, even if they contained certain things less to be approved: believing this should be granted to antiquity, that having been content to warn the reader about the fault, we should otherwise abstain from truncating such monuments for any reason however just: because the common opinion of all the learned in this age urged that this should be done. Since, however, we do not believe it will displease everyone if, consulting the weakness of the more feeble, we remove certain things sure to cause offense from the text and refer them to the commentaries, where they may harmlessly be either read or passed over: we have judged that this liberty should sometimes be used in these Acts, of which we want you, Reader, to be advised here.

[20] Youth prolonged for hospitable men beyond the course of nature: First we removed the narrative which was found in Tripartite, book 1, chapter 36, and in Jocelin, number 21, which as little as it pertains to S. Patrick so much seems to have of fabulosity, and in Jocelin is as follows. There were on the same island certain other men, separated from the habitation of that solitary from whom Patrick had received the Staff of Jesus: of whom some seemed to be young men, others decrepit old men: with whom when Patrick had entered into conversation, he learned from them that the oldest were sons of those young men. And when the wondering S. Patrick inquired about the cause of so great a miracle, they replied to him: We from our boyhood, by the Lord's mercy, were continually intent on works of mercy, and our door was open to every traveler seeking food or lodging in the name of Christ. On a certain night we took in a certain pilgrim holding a staff in his hand, and according to our ability we showed him every kindness: and in the morning he blessed us and said: I am the Lord Jesus Christ, to whose members you have hitherto ministered, whom you have received this night in his own person. Then he gave the staff which he held in his hand to the man of God, our spiritual Father, commanding him to keep it: and to give it to a certain pilgrim named Patrick who would come to him after many days. Saying these things, he ascended into heaven, and we have remained in the same state of youthful beauty and vigor in which we then were, until this present day: but our sons, who were then small, as you see, have now become decrepit. Similar but even less like the truth is the text of the Tripartite about two spouses: of whose great-granddaughter, through their daughter, the entirely decrepit and bent old woman met S. Patrick. In both cases, however, the matter is such that it has nothing of impossibility, yet has so much of unusualness that, since it is not read elsewhere that God rewarded works of mercy with the benefit of doubled or tripled life, this account should not be the first to be believed to have done so.

[21] The resuscitation of a portentous giant Similarly, we removed from the number of miracles that resuscitation of a giant, who according to the measurement of his tomb was read to have been 120 feet tall in the Tripartite Life, part 2, number 71, and in Jocelin after number 71, which the author of Life IV also writes at number 62. The more moderate Probus counted 30, book 2, chapter 21. That this narrative is fabulous, at least in the main circumstances of the matter, you may see from Life 3, chapter 67, which more briefly encompasses the whole matter, here it is. On a certain day while he was walking on the road, he found a great tomb thirty feet in length, and the brothers seeing this said with great amazement: We do not believe that there was a man of this length. Patrick said to them: If you wish, you will see him. And they asked that they might see him. Then Patrick signed the tomb with his staff; and behold a great man arose and said: Well for you, holy man, who for even one hour have freed me from punishment: and he wept most bitterly. And he said to him: Shall I walk with you? And Patrick responded: We cannot permit you to walk with us, because men would not be able to see your face for fear: but he said to him: Believe in the God of heaven and receive baptism, and do not return to the place where you were: and tell us who you are. And responding he said: I am Glas, son of Cas, who was a swineherd of Lugar, King of Hyrote, and the warrior band of Mac-con killed me in the reign of Nothfer, one hundred years ago to this day. And Patrick baptized him and restored him to the tomb. We indeed do not wish to call into doubt whether it could have happened that, to confirm the faith of universal resurrection (about which the Tripartite indicates some had begun to doubt at that time), Patrick also resuscitated someone dead from ages past: nor do we set any limit to divine omnipotence in increasing the magnitude of the human body, in which Jocelin narrates Patrick's disciples sinned: nor (what Colgan assumes against those who deny assent to this miracle) are we of so little faith that we measure things heard and unknown only by things seen and known: but since we detect certain signs of fiction in this narrative, we will not easily allow ourselves to be induced, for the sake of a relation that wavers and totters in more than one place, to believe that this man grew to a height that no one we know of ever reached. Colgan heaps up many examples of portentous magnitude in his notes to Life 3: Vainly defended with examples, which all either contribute little to the matter, or nothing to credibility, since they themselves are things long since convicted of manifest falsity by learned men: such as the corpse of sixteen cubits from the time of the Cretan war, as Pliny testifies: the bodies visible in a certain cave of Dalmatia, whose ribs exceeded sixteen ells, mentioned by Phlegon of Tralles: the corpse of Turnus from Crantz and others, which when erect equaled the walls of the city of Rome, in whose breast a wound of four feet gaped, and other things of this kind; to which is added as a crowning touch that molar tooth mentioned by S. Augustine, book 15, On the City of God, chapter 9, which having been cast upon the shore of Africa, if cut up into the dimensions of our teeth, could have made a hundred.

[22] All these things do not contribute to gaining credibility for this monster, as they are themselves more fabulous than the matter in question: and the examples drawn from sacred Scripture are entirely irrelevant; for the greatest mentioned there, Goliath of Gath, did not exceed the magnitude of six cubits and one palm, and therefore stood below the tenth foot: nor anywhere is a living man read to have been seen who was taller: for that the iron bed of Og, King of Bashan, was nine cubits does not infer that this was his length, any more than the similar monuments left by Alexander the Great's soldiers among the Indians prove, done with the purpose of arousing wonder in posterity. Now, if the question were about the measurement of the body alone, And from the circumstances of places with the same ease with which Colgan admits that 120 crept in for 30, we could say 12 instead; and the man would still have had to be enormously large. But what do you do when the other circumstances make it almost certain that nothing of the sort was written by the first authors of the Patrician Life? For what

is here called the region of Hyrote, Colgan admits to be Norway, which the Irish still call Hiruoithe to this day, which he himself also followed when he translated the Tripartite Life into Latin. Who would believe the Norwegians were known to the Irish before Patrician times, of whom no mention exists in Irish histories or any other whatsoever before the eighth century? Just as there is no memory of any warlike or peaceful commerce of the Irish with any overseas nation before they were called into Britain by the Picts. Moreover, And from the circumstantial details of time convicted of fiction: the author of this fable was not sufficiently versed in the native histories, or rather traditions: for Carbreus Niathfear or Nuotfer, under whose reign the interpolator of the Tripartite Life, Jocelin, and Probus wrote that this giant was killed, one of two heroes whom Colgan says are celebrated in Irish histories, is said by the antiquarians of that nation to have been the brother of Kings Alill and Tinnius of Connacht and Leinster and to have held the kingdom of Meath, some years before the birth of Christ: while that man by whose hand the killing is said to have been performed, the second Irish hero Mac-con, is believed to have acquired dominion over that island near the end of the second century of Christ. Who, then, combined both with approximately the three hundred and fiftieth year of Christ? For this preceded by one century the time that was then being lived by Patrick. Therefore, since all these things are separated from one another by so vast a gap of times, there was no need for Colgan to tire himself further in order to show that there is nothing contrary to sound faith in the claim that some pagan is said to have been snatched from the punishments he endured after death by some Saint through recall to life.

[23] With no less right we expunged, as spurious and thrust into the ancient author of S. Patrick's Life by an imprudent, not to say impudent, interpolator, the metamorphosis of Prince Eugenius, which Jocelin, copying carelessly, was drawn into a similar absurdity. What it is like, we briefly subjoin from Life 4, number 71, 3. The metamorphosis of Prince Eugenius where the following is read. There was a certain nobleman, named Eugenius, who for some time was opposed to S. Patrick and did not wish to receive the Catholic faith. But because he frequently heard the word of the Lord from Blessed Patrick, he believed and was baptized. Then he asked Blessed Patrick to pray to the Lord that he might have a more beautiful form. To whom the Saint replied, saying: Whose form do you choose? Eugenius said: That young man from your household. The interpolator of the Tripartite in Colgan claims this was S. Riochus, who is venerated on the island of Inis-boven in Lake Rie, about whom Colgan writes on February 6; and we ourselves briefly, before we had leisure to subject the Patrician Acts to more mature examination, having dared to prejudge nothing of the opinion to be rendered in its time: therefore these things as they were in Jocelin we simply presented. The example of a similar miracle elsewhere fabricated Blessed Patrick then commanded that under one garment they should sleep in the bed: and rising from sleep they had no difference in bodily beauty. Eugenius, however, still asked the holy man to have a taller form. Blessed Patrick said to him: What kind do you wish to have? He extended his hand upward as far as he could against the spear which he held in his hand, and said to him: Such a height suffices for me: Eugenius therefore grew with wondrous speed to the desired height, in which he remained as long as he lived in this life. About the novelty of the prodigy itself we say nothing: because nothing is impossible with God. We believe, however, it was falsely attributed to Patrick, on the occasion of what is narrated as having happened to another Eugenius (or as the Irish write, Oengus), Prince of Brefnia, in the Life of S. Barachius, published by Colgan for February 15, postponed by us to December 4: as if it were shameful that there should have been any benefit obtained from God by any Saint, however rare and astonishing, to which Patrick had not obtained something similar. Yet lest he vary nothing except the rather similar names of Barachius and Patrick, the one who wove this patch into the Patrician Life added the part about S. Riochus's form, I know not on what foundation: but the manner (which in the Life of Barachius is expressed only honorably, when that deformed petty king is ordered to put on the holy man's cowl for a while, until God is entreated by supplicant prayers while the man sleeps) he contrived in such a way that chaste ears and eyes shrink from hearing and seeing, and which it would be entirely wicked to think was prescribed by the most chaste Bishop.

[24] These are the things we have deemed should be removed from the text itself: if in other miracles certain circumstances have sometimes been added that are suspect of falsity, as happens in the narrative about the leper following Patrick's ship on a stone cast into the sea, in Jocelin number 23; In miracles also concerning inanimate objects about those it will suffice to have said in general that not all present the same verisimilitude, and that not a few are such that it is probable they were believed on slight rumor, even if not of a kind to give serious offense. It would remain to say something about the great number of those prodigies that were performed upon inanimate things, in many of which we believe there happened to the Irish what was familiar to the Greek Poets; who, when they considered some wondrous or rare virtue or property of a river, spring, or tree worthy of human consideration, omitting the investigation of natural causes, they fabricated some God or Hero, for whose sake they pretended that what they wanted to seem novel had been changed in nature. So also the Irish, when they remembered not a few deeds of this kind performed by Patrick, Certain things accepted from the tradition of the credulous populace. seem to have been easy in saying, and in believing those who said, that this river was endowed with some special fecundity, that one condemned to sterility, by the blessing or cursing of some Saint: which things thus received from the tradition of the common people, later generations then mixed into the very Lives of the Saints. We deliberately abstain from examining these more scrupulously; and like the Evangelical servants, lest in wishing to pull up the tares of falsehood we uproot along with them also the wheat of ancient truth: for we know that such miracles were not rarely performed by holy men for the consolation of the good and the correction of the wicked, and that Christ himself, the master of the Saints, brought barrenness upon the barren fig tree.

[25] Ireland lacked venomous things before Patrick. Besides these, there are very many benefits which the natives attribute to the merits of their holy Patron as common to the whole Irish island; and blessings or privileges which some others also write that Patrick petitioned for his Irish and obtained: Because Jocelin passed over these in silence, we preferred to leave them here undiscussed: among these by far the most famous is that the soil of Ireland neither produces any venomous creature itself, nor sustains one brought from elsewhere. The thing itself is known and celebrated in all the schools and writings of natural philosophers. Solinus, who wrote at least in the third century of Christ, speaking of Ireland says: there is no serpent there. Many after him, especially Bede, most emphatically affirm the same about Ireland, with no mention made of Patrick. Meanwhile Jocelin and as many later biographers as followed him But Jocelin understood crudely, constantly assert that before the coming of Patrick no plague afflicted Ireland more than the multitude of venomous reptiles, until Patrick banished them all, not only from Ireland but also from the neighboring islands, in perpetuity; as you will read in the same Jocelin, number 148. About which, lest we speak from our own judgment, let us hear in what words Colgan concludes chapter 20 of Appendix 5. Behold, he says (after having presented the testimonies of the ancient writers about Patrick), Behold, neither in these very ancient writers, nor in any other who wrote before the times of Jocelin, do we read any mention of true serpents driven from this island by S. Patrick; What he had read about demons expelled was understood metaphorically. but only of demons appearing in visible form: which (because by the spiritual poison of their wickedness and illusions they often infected the minds of men, and by the bodily poison of ulcers, diseases, and other infections they not infrequently infected their bodies) could metaphorically be called serpents. And because plausibly either from the common people's usage he had heard, or in some written document Jocelin had read them being so called; hence he seems to have been deceived, so as to have transferred the name of serpent from that metaphorical usage to the proper signification of a true and corporeal serpent. The divine Offices cited above, and other cited authors, seem to have derived their account of this matter from Jocelin: whom I further detect to have erred in this, that he says Man was then freed from true serpents by S. Patrick: whereas it is established that that island today does not reject serpents and other venomous reptiles brought from elsewhere.

[26] Thus he. David Rothe indeed, in his Elucidation of Jocelin 4, rejects the authority of Solinus, on the ground that he not only says there is no serpent in Ireland, but adds that birds are rare and bees nonexistent, which Isidore, transcribing him, in book 14 of the Origins, chapter 6, adds: Did Solinus write that there was no bee in Ireland? so that if one were to scatter dust or pebbles brought from there elsewhere among beehives, the swarms would desert the honeycombs: in which it seems evident that they erred: since, as Bede testifies, book 1, chapter 1, the island is rich in milk and honey, abounding in the hunting of fish and birds. However, Solinus must have written these things at least from common talk about Ireland, by which it was reported that many things common elsewhere were not found in Ireland: and although he happened to err in some, something at least of all must have been true, so that the common talk would have some foundation. It occurs to us moreover, in order that Solinus may be cleared of blame and error, that perhaps he merely wrote: there is no serpent there, nor frog: which even now is perfectly true, but corrupted by copyists it could have led Isidore into error.

Section IV. Concerning the Prophecies of S. Patrick.

[27] S. Patrick was distinguished by the gift of prophecy. The gift of prophecy is no less proper to Apostolic men than the grace of miracles; nor did the name of Patrick shine less by the former than by the latter among the Irish: his prophecies, however, although they are narrated as formulated with nearly the same formula as the words of one praying well or ill, are not always to be taken in that sense; but, just as very many of this kind in sacred Scripture, especially in the Psalms, are found everywhere, so most of the Patrician maledictions are not to be called imprecations; but oracles uttered by the prophetic spirit, by which the barbarians' minds might be more effectively drawn to repentance for the crime committed, In those which he predicted about particular persons, made more certain of its gravity from the severity of the decreed vengeance. The rationale of those words is different by which he predicts favorable outcomes from God to the well-deserving, rejoicing and delighting with them in the same. Of both kinds very many occur throughout this entire Life: and they too must be distinguished into two classes: for some concern entire provinces and nations generally, while others concern individual families and persons. The last class admits of absolutely no difficulty, and therefore there is nothing in it that ought to be suspected of falsity by anyone: the effort is only in showing that what is said to have been predicted actually happened, and is proven not only by a true outcome; but also by the very time at which they occurred and for which they are said to have been predicted. Such are those which occur in various Lives of Saints, whose birth Patrick is said to have known and foretold many years before it happened. The numbers of years must be examined: Of these, we saw on March 1 that S. David, Bishop of the Menevia, could have been foreknown by Angelic revelation thirty years before he was born: and elsewhere we shall adduce other examples in which the time prophetically defined does not disagree with historical truth. We shall find, however, no fewer that involve great and palpable errors. In general, what makes us doubtful about the truth of most similar prophecies is that the Patrician prophecies, brought forward in various Lives of Irish Saints, Often corrupted or rashly fabricated. are for the most part all restricted precisely to thirty or sixty years. This, however, engenders the suspicion that writers of a later age transferred such numbers from one Saint to others, with no authority of ancient monuments preceding: and indeed sometimes even to those Saints about whom Patrick had said nothing specific: and this only so that some splendor might accrue to them from such a prediction, needing none of the fictitious light. They do not need such things to shine who shone sufficiently by their own virtue, much less Patrick: therefore we have not labored here to dispel the shadows cast over his name, by judging what and how he predicted or could have predicted about each Saint, especially since it is probable that the holy Apostle in many of his predictions used no determination of time: and such, where he was not so used, we find none that can rightly be held suspect.

[28] But this we shall see about each one in its own place: therefore about one most famous prophecy, in which he is said to have foretold the Scottish kingdom in Britain to the posterity of Fergussius, it will suffice to have defended it from the cavils of those The prophecy about the kingdom of Fergussius's posterity in Albania who would have themselves held prior to the Irish in the right to the Scottish name, as if they were ashamed of their very origin. Jocelin has that prophecy at number 119 in these words: Although today you seem humble and despised in the sight of your brothers, you will shortly be the prince of them all. For from you the best Kings will go forth, who will rule not only in their own land but also in a distant and foreign region. After no great space of time had elapsed, therefore, Fergussius, according to the prophecy of the man of God, obtained the principality over all that land, and his offspring reigned in it for many generations. From his stock proceeded the most valiant Aedanus, son of Gabranus, who subdued Scotland, which is called Albania, and other islands; Obscured by Irish glosses whose successive posterity reigns in them to this day. We do not deny that the prophecy was obscured by the interpreter's fault: for Aedanus neither subdued nor (as the interpolator of the Tripartite Life says) seized the kingdom of Albania by violent hand: but, excluded from his paternal kingdom by injustice, he was peacefully restored to it by the work of S. Columba, as all writers of both nations agree.

[29] We cannot, however, agree with the Scoto-Britons: when they wish even the narrative about such a prophecy to be considered fabulous, stubbornly maintaining that Fergussius the Great, And rejected by the Scoto-Britons without cause, the son of Erc (whom they say was not the founder but only the restorer of the Scottish kingdom in Britain), recovered the ancient seats for his Scots in Albania before Patrick was sent to Ireland. But to those who produce no ancient monuments by which they might confirm the chronological order of their Kings, Colgan not without reason opposes the most ancient writer of Scottish affairs that he has seen, who deduces the series of Kings and the years in which they reigned down to Malcolm, then reigning when he wrote, that is, to the year 1057. His words, composed in Scottish verses, are these:

Three sons of Erc, son of Euchodius, valiant; three enriched by the blessing of Patrick, they seized Albania with proud spirit: Loarnus, Fergussius, and Aengussius. It can be defended from the more ancient sources

For ten years Loarnus (a well-known matter) was in the principality of the borders of Albania: after the illustrious and spirited Loarnus, for twenty-seven years Fergussius.

Domangardus, born of Fergussius the great, for a space of five turbulent years:

For twenty-four years without opposition Comgallus, son of Domangartus, reigned:

For two auspicious years, without contempt. After Comgallus, Gobhranus: For three times five full years King was Conallus, son of Comgallus.

For twenty-four years more, King was Aidanus of many borders.

[30] Thus far that writer, whose years if all are computed ascending from the year 606 (after which it is established that King Aedan did not long survive, from the consensus of writers of both nations), the beginning of the fifth century will be reached: at which time nothing prevents the same Fergussius, still in the full vigor of his powers, from having flourished, to whom, as a very young man, some fifty years before, Patrick may have predicted these things. What, moreover, if the three just named were not sons of Erc himself but grandsons through his son Fergussius? Certainly even so the whole prophecy brought forward would stand perfectly well; for nothing else is said to have been predicted by Patrick about Fergussius the son of Erc than that he himself, then the least of all his brothers, would shortly possess the principality of all Dalriedia, and would have posterity some of whom would even extend their dominion to foreign regions. We do not have the means to declare that this is so: So that the beginnings of the Scottish kingdom remain uncertain, we can, however, say that the Irish have their liberty to think so, until the Scots produce older and more certain monuments to the contrary than they have done hitherto. Nor should great effort be made to determine who administered the commonwealth before the aforesaid Fergussius, whether son or grandson of Erc, in those first beginnings of the Scots establishing themselves in Britain through the indulgence of the Picts; for it was easy for these to be obscured and to slip from the memory of posterity: since it was enough for it to have the series of then-reigning Kings traced back to its beginnings. Meanwhile, from these things thus posited, that convenience emanates for us that we may thus more easily understand how Patrick considers the Scottish settlers in Albania as pagans in his letter to the tyrant Coroticus; No religion existed while Patrick lived. reproaching him that: It is the custom of the Roman and Gallic Christians to send, he says, our holy suitable men to the Franks and other nations with so many thousands of solids to redeem baptized captives: but he sells them to a foreign nation ignorant of God: and this nation he calls more than once in the same letter the worst Scots and the apostate Picts: all of which would not be consistent if, baptized by the same Patrick and imbued with the Christian faith, their Princes had already then possessed a pious and peaceful kingdom in Albania.

[31] Moreover, besides the prophecies that concern some public or private person and occur very frequently throughout the Patrician Acts, and are mostly of such a nature as to admit of no great difficulty in being believed to have truly proceeded from a spirit prescient of the future; there occur in the same Acts not a few others through which he is recorded as having foretold, by cursing or blessing various provinces and peoples, their future honors or dishonors, From popular sayings prophecies are sometimes attributed to Saints: which we confess are quite suspect to us: for we very much fear that most of them are from those expressions which peoples and nations everywhere either arrogate to themselves as exceptional in some respect, or attach to their neighbors in contempt, usually with some foundation in the thing itself, and always with hyperbolic exaggeration. Thus we have often heard that there is no building in the city of Mechlin constructed at right angles, because the masons there treacherously killed S. Rumold, now the patron Saint, which popular saying, arising from the frequency of that fault there, anyone will easily admit is neither true of all structures (many of which are most elegant) nor to be referred to the imprecation of S. Rumold, but to the bends of streets and lanes unequally distributed from the beginning. Meanwhile, very many such things occur throughout the Patrician Acts, There are many such in the Patrician Acts, which you may recognize from one or two examples here. Patrick was going to convert the people of the Calregians to the faith of Christ; they marched out armed to meet him as he approached their borders; in punishment for which crime Patrick is said to have foretold that those who had presented themselves armed against an unarmed man would never use arms against enemies, but would always turn to cowardly flight. Then those who were led to repentance and knelt as suppliants, he is said to have consoled by promising that never more than five of their number would be killed by enemies. Similar is what he is written to have predicted to the peoples of the Desians, whom he had awaited in vain all day, that before nightfall they would not conclude the business for which they would henceforth assemble.

[32] These, however, and similar patches inserted from the tongue of the witty populace into the Tripartite Life, and copied without discrimination by Jocelin, we have by no means thought should be cut from the text: Some also corrupted by inept explanation, but have been content here to have generally advised the reader about what seemed to us about such things, whose task it will be to separate the precious from the vile. Just as the Irish were liberal in attributing such things to Patrick, and the interpolators of the aforesaid Life were not sufficiently prudent when they augmented it with such fabrications: so in applying to the matter the prophecies which the Saint could truly have uttered, they were not always so fortunate as never to have erred. In Aedan, son of Gabran, King of Scotland, who neither was the first nor acquired the kingdom by arms, we have seen an example. More could be gathered from the Tripartite: but since we did not think it should be inserted into our work, we also abstain from the correction of such errors, which we had otherwise accurately arranged and prepared for the press.

Section V. Concerning the Purgatory of S. Patrick.

[33] The place which is called the Purgatory of S. Patrick, In western Ulidia, which was anciently Tirconallia, today the County of Donegal, not far from Lake Erne, there is another smaller lake, which the barely emerged Liffer (so Camden names it, whom Mercator calls Derget) forms from its springs, now most famous by the name that in it is said to have been the Purgatory of S. Patrick: a place (as the tradition of the inhabitants rather than any ancient monuments bid us believe) divinely shown to the great Patrick, so that certain appearances of those punishments which exist after this life, to be presented to the inner sense there, might bend the hard necks of the natives, which full remission of sins, or rather of the punishments due to sins, would follow in those who, truly penitent, had entered. Many are said to have entered there from the times of S. Patrick with various outcomes according to that same tradition: the story of one soldier Oenus, The soldier Oenus enters in the year 1153: attributed to the year 1153 by Matthew

of Paris, committed to writing by Henry, a monk of Saltrey, exists in very many manuscript codices; of which we have three or four copies, and Colgan had no fewer when he published the same in Appendix 6, part 1.

[34] How many and what witnesses confirmed the series of that story, the author had first received from the mouth of Abbot Gyrbert, who frequently narrated it With that success which the monk H. describes. and ordered it to be reported by Oenus himself, a companion and interpreter given to him for establishing a monastery in Ireland, the aforesaid Henry sets forth in the last four chapters: which, therefore, as to the principal substance of the matter narrated, we seem to be able to accept as truthful: for nothing is contained in that vision which cannot be confirmed by other similar visions of the Saints. We are content, however, to refer the curious reader to Colgan; we merely advise with him that visions of this sort should not be attributed to bodily eyes, but are of that kind which, presented to the imagination, so entirely affect a man as if they had been perceived by bodily sight. Which indeed can come from an evil spirit as well as from a good: but from which of the two, we can learn only from the effect: which, since in the present case of Oenus it was a serious and constant amendment of life and morals, there is no reason to suspect that diabolical illusion intervened in this matter.

[35] The fame of this event seems to have moved the Canons Regular of S. Augustine, shortly before happily planted and propagated in England, and translated together with monks of the Benedictine and Cistercian Orders into Ireland around the end of the twelfth century by the English victors of that island, That place was then handed over to the Canons Regular: to claim for themselves the monastery of Reglis, situated on another island of the same lake, in which all former discipline had already dissolved. We believe they obtained this without difficulty, although we have not yet seen any instruments of that foundation or donation: for the records of other monasteries granted to the same Order that reached the compiler of the English Canon sufficiently indicate that before the coming of the English to Ireland there were no Canons Regular living under the Rule of S. Augustine in it. Who, as if their Order had dwelt there from the beginning, Because, however, it has always been familiar to the Proficients of this institute, that usurping the ancient name of Canons, they believe that any congregation of Clerics living canonically and in common ought to be called by the name of Canons; and they wish to persuade that the form of this institute flowed from S. Augustine into all of Europe: therefore they also called those who had held the aforesaid place before them, whether Clerics or monks, Canons Regular of S. Augustine.

[36] They numbered S. Patrick among their own Saints, From that time Patrick began to be numbered among the principal Saints of that Order: and his solemn cult with the ecclesiastical Office began gradually to be propagated to the other convents of the Lateran Congregation in England and Italy; until, with those same men pressing for it, it was received for the whole Roman Church: for although the Glastonbury monks and many other monastic bodies in England, having later adopted the Rule of S. Benedict and been enrolled among the Benedictines, acknowledged S. Patrick as either their first founder or restorer: because, however, monasteries of this kind were not joined to each other by any bond of one congregation under one head, therefore the rite of venerating S. Patrick with a proper Office could not be propagated through the Benedictines all the way to Rome: which Office was first taken from the Canons Regular, and indeed as the custodians of Patrick's Purgatory had composed it in Ireland, is clear from the proper lessons And they procured that a proper Office be inserted into the Roman Breviary: admitted, shall I say, or intruded, into the Roman Breviary only in the year 1522? For the Breviaries that we have printed before that time, namely of the year 1479 and 1490, likewise Missals of the year 1484 and 1508, although they bear the name of Patrick in the Calendar, nevertheless have nothing about him among the Offices for March, not even a simple commemoration. But in that Breviary which we first named, printed at Venice by Antonius de Giunta, six lessons about S. Patrick are read: which (if you except the first lesson, containing a summary of the deeds performed by S. Patrick; and the first part of the second, in which his three petitions for Ireland are given) are all about that Purgatory, in this manner.

[37] But, since above all he wished to convert the people of that exceedingly beastly nation Whose lessons were almost entirely about this Purgatory, from error by the terror of torments and by the love of heavenly joys; they said to him that they would never be converted to Christ by his words and miracles unless one of them could behold both those torments of the wicked and the joys of the Blessed, so that they might become more certain by things seen than by things promised. ... The third lesson being omitted, concerning the Staff of Jesus and the Gospel text, received by divine gift on this occasion, contrary to what all the Patrician Lives concordantly write, namely that he received it in Italy, the remaining lessons are concluded thus: And so the Lord led his Saint to a desert place, and showed him a certain round pit, dark on the outside, saying to him: Because whoever, truly repentant and armed with true faith, should enter this same pit, and spend one day and night in it, would be purged from all his sins, and passing through it would see not only the torments of the wicked but also the joys of the Blessed. And so, with the Lord disappearing from his eyes, he joyfully immediately built a church in the same place, and placed in it Canons of Blessed Father Augustine. The pit, however, which is in the cemetery outside the front of the church, he surrounded with a wall and placed doors and locks, so that no one might rashly presume to enter it without permission. The key of entry to the said pit he commended to the Prior of the said Church for safekeeping. Moreover, in the time of Patrick himself, many led by repentance entered the pit. Those who came out testified that they had experienced and seen the greatest torments: whose revelations Blessed Patrick ordered to be noted down in the same church: and by their attestation others began to accept the preaching of Blessed Patrick. And because a man is there purged from his sins, therefore that place is called the Purgatory of Blessed Patrick: because it is commonly asserted by certain people of those parts that after their stay in that place of purgatory, for some brief time during which they endure great pains of purgatory, they make satisfaction for the punishments owed for their sins.

[38] Whether these lessons were inserted into the Breviary by legitimate command, Two years after they appeared they were expunged: or intruded by some surreptitious indult, we rightly doubt: for scarcely were they seen at Rome when a mandate for their expunging was expedited; as is clear from the repeated impression of the same Breviary by the same Antonius Giunta two years later, namely in the year 1524. Not only the lessons, but the very name of S. Patrick was thereafter excluded from the Calendars, until in our own memory it was restored by Urban VIII with a simple commemoration. Which was obtained by the pious zeal and effort of the Reverend Father Luke Wadding, as Arthur of the Monastery writes in his Franciscan Martyrology: recalling how in the General Chapter at Mantua in the year 1390 it was decreed that throughout the entire Seraphic Order the Office of S. Patrick, Apostle of Ireland, should be recited with the rite of feasts of nine lessons. More cautious, moreover, after the outcome we narrated above, those who composed their lessons for the Canons Regular, printed at Brussels in 1622 and at Mons in 1635, were entirely silent about the Purgatory: Nevertheless the proper cult was not abolished, and the Brussels ones were content to say that Patrick embraced the institute of the Canons Regular in the Lateran Church; the Mons ones, that the same was placed among the Clerics of the Lateran Church by the Pontiff in his observations: and it was not ungraciously to be indulged to them, except that those of Mons at the end of lesson 5 had written that Patrick, in three hundred and sixty-five churches erected by him, established Clerics Regular living according to the rule of Blessed Augustine, and that this is held by the constant tradition of that nation.

[39] Nor the memory of the Purgatory in private churches: Similarly, the Church of Avranches was silent about the Purgatory in lesson 4, which is the only one proper to Patrick in the rite of the semi-double Office: similarly in a single proper lesson the reformer of the Rouen Breviary was silent; and unless he had written that Patrick was born in Gallic Britain and died in the one hundred and thirty-second year of his age, there would be nothing that could be criticized in it: just as there is nothing in that Office which was printed entirely proper to the Saint at Paris in the year 1622; whose sixth lesson speaks indeed of the Purgatory, but so that nothing more prudently could be composed, when it says: The penitential cave is still seen, which is called by his name the Purgatory of S. Patrick. For as it is right that everything should be removed from ecclesiastical Offices in which even a suspicion of falsity might be present: so what is certain about this Purgatory, namely that it is called and seen by that name, this could be innocently commemorated.

[40] There was indeed at one time among learned men a not light controversy, Although there was dispute about its author: from which Patrick the Purgatory had received its origin and nomenclature: whether, namely, from the Great Patrick, Apostle of Ireland, or from another Patrick, likewise a Saint but merely an Abbot of Armagh, who flourished after the eighth century. The whole foundation of this controversy consists in the fact that the above-mentioned Henry of Saltrey begins the aforesaid history in this manner: Therefore the great Patrick, who is second from the first, who while he was preaching the word of God in Ireland, strove to recall the unfaithful souls of the men of that country from evil by the terror of infernal torments. Who, they asked, is this second from the first, unless that Abbot? To which others rightly replied: Who is the great one? Who the one recalling unfaithful souls from sin, Who, if he was not S. Sen-Patrick, unless our Bishop and Apostle? To whom alone could the Barbarians deny that they would believe in Christ, unless the things said by him were confirmed for their own eyes? To whom other than the same is the Staff of Jesus narrated to have been given by the Lord? All of which are contained in this very exordium, and cannot apply to the Abbot Patrick, under whom all of Ireland was flourishing, if ever, in the praise of both religion and the liberal arts. It is not he, therefore, whom Henry designates. It is not indeed: The Great Patrick could have been but if the Irish themselves did not sufficiently distinguish from his uncle S. Sen-Patrick, who truly was second from the first in the episcopate as well as in name, who will make us secure that the Acts of both are not confusedly attributed here to one Patrick? Whom, however, ancient tradition established truly was second from the first, although it was not sufficiently known how this should be understood, and therefore what belonged to the second was everywhere applied to the first. Lest, however, this be asserted with absolute certainty, there is the authority of Tirechan in Ussher, page 899, affirming that S. Palladius, who was the first Bishop sent to Ireland, was called by another name Patrick.

[41] In this sense, therefore, let the great Patrick be called second

either Patrick or at least a Bishop sent by the Pontiff (for it would not be surprising for Henry, a foreigner, to confuse these things) and, following the tradition of the Irish, Called second in respect to Palladius. let the opening of that pit be attributed to none other than the great Apostle of Ireland: not, however, without scruple, on account of the silence of all the ancient biographers on this matter, whom it was fitting not to have passed over so illustrious a matter in silence. But this scruple will become lighter upon considering that in the first five Lives which Colgan published, only those things are summarily related which were done either with King Leogar and other Kings, or in eastern Ulidia around the foundation of Down and Armagh: while in the Tripartite Life the whole of western Ulidia is covered in three words, in book 2, chapter 114, where it is said: Having undertaken a journey through that great valley which is called Bearnas-Mor of Tiraodha (this has the Purgatory of Patrick nearest to the east) and through the region called Mag-ithe, he came to a place of that region in which he founded a church commonly called Domnach-mor: this, however, pertained not to the territory of Conall but to Eugenius, who possessed northern Ulidia, in whose territory the author of that Life describes Patrick laboring thereafter.

[42] It certainly does not seem, although the Acts of the Life nowhere express it, It happened because of the small commerce of others with the Tirconallians, that it can be doubted that S. Patrick singularly cared to make fertile by the sowing of the Christian faith, for a harvest to be brought into the heavenly barns, the territories of Conall, fortified by such singular blessings on account of Columba to be born from him; and that all the more solicitously, and with a greater display of great miracles, in proportion as the natives of Tirconallia were more barbarous than the rest of the inhabitants of Ireland, in reality and in name to this very day wild Irish: but because the more cultivated others had very rare intercourse with these, on account of the dispositions of the men, harsher than the harshest mountains by which they are enclosed on every side; it was difficult for those collecting the Patrician deeds to report anything certain about those parts: and therefore they seem to have preferred to pass in silence over what was done there. Perhaps also the origin of that place was not altogether notable: And because a sufficiently certain origin was not handed down: but in the course of time the tradition handed down among barbarians of some forty-day fast there performed (as was customary in desert places) by Patrick, and of the great vexations which the Saint had sustained there from the demons; having new circumstances added, grew so much that it gradually became a matter entirely different: especially if, in order to terrify fierce minds with an image of infernal punishments, he caused a flame to burst from the earth there (which, however, we would marvel at rather in a small and inaccessible island than in an open field before a great multitude), whence a pit or chasm left thereafter began to be in veneration among posterity.

[43] And first indeed we think that the Irish Saints of the neighboring regions, Which seems to have been other than what is commonly reported especially from the nearby monastery, accustomed to emulate the example of the master in his honor, used to lead a similar austere life there for some days: and by this occasion others also were given the opportunity to seek admission into the same pit to expiate their sins there by salutary penance. Against those less worthy, because the devil was given greater license to harass them with horrible specters, so that some would die from it, the Superiors of those places thought it better to deter by the terror of almost certain death the common crowd that might rashly flock there: and so it came to be believed that the torments of the underworld and the joys of the blessed were truly seen there, but that of those who wished to experience this, most had hitherto not returned: and those who did return, purged indeed from all guilt of punishment, went back, but were never seen joyful and cheerful thereafter. And owes its celebrity especially to Oenus, And so either none or few entered thereafter, except the aforesaid Oenus, whose sincere religion God, wishing to reward with the favor of such a vision as is recorded, also provided by this same deed that the celebrity of the place's holiness might thereafter attract, from a new colony of Canons Regular from England, a frequency of pilgrims who would furnish them with the subsidies of this present life, and at the same time receive from them spiritual aids for obtaining eternal salvation. Yet so that none should be admitted any longer within the pit itself: After whom no one entered with equal success. for the aforesaid Canons do not seem (at least in the first beginnings of their new habitation, when everything was fervent and they had more frequent commerce with their countrymen, from whom they had recently departed) not to have consigned to writing, if anything of this remarkable kind had happened, by which the history of Oenus, about which there was such varied talk everywhere, might have been confirmed by new experience.

[45] Jocelin mentions the Purgatory For Jocelin, around the same time recently arrived in Ireland and beginning to collect the Acts of Patrick, since he found nothing about this Purgatory in the ancients, but had heard something in conversation, it was easy to be deceived by the homonymy of places: and for one who had heard that the Purgatory of S. Patrick was under the mountains of S. Patrick (by which name the mountains between Lake Erne and Deargh are called, according to Mercator in his maps); and who read that the loftiest mountain of Connacht, anciently called Cruachan Aichle, But on account of homonymy places it in Connacht. retained Patrick's name after he had fasted on it and was frequented by many; it was easy, not knowing the difference of the homonymous mountains, to confuse both, writing in this manner about the aforesaid mountain of Connacht, number 150: On the summit of this mountain, therefore, many are accustomed to keep vigil and fast, thinking that they will never afterward enter the gates of hell: because they believe this was obtained from the Lord by the merits and prayers of S. Patrick. So far about Cruachan Aichle perhaps truly: then about the other place on the island of Ulidia: Some also report who have spent the night there that they suffered the most grievous torments, by which they believe themselves purged from sins, whence some of them call that place the Purgatory of S. Patrick.

[46] Giraldus Cambrensis: Silvester Giraldus Cambrensis, a writer considered not very fair to the Irish name, in the Topography of Ireland, distinction 2, chapter 3, describes the place itself thus, pronouncing from uncertain rumor about unknown things, and so mixes false things with true that you recognize nothing less than the place itself from that description. While, however, he comes as a third witness to the two aforesaid authors Henry and Jocelin, writing before the year 1214, he makes us believe more certainly that much talk about this Purgatory was current at that time both in England and in Ireland. There is, he says, a lake in the parts of Ulidia containing a two-part island; one part of which, having a church of proven religion, is quite remarkable and pleasant, incomparably illuminated by Angelic visitation and the visible attendance of the Saints of that place: the other part, exceedingly rough and horrible, From uncertain rumor he mixes false with true. is said to be assigned only to demons; as that which remains almost always exposed to visible crowds and displays of evil spirits. That part contains within itself nine pits; in any of which, if anyone should presume to spend the night (which is known to have been attempted by reckless men on some occasions), he is immediately seized by malignant spirits, and all night long, as if tortured by grievous punishments, he is incessantly afflicted by so many, so great, and ineffable torments of fire and water and various kinds, that in the morning scarcely the smallest remnants of spirit are found in the wretched body. I omit the rest, which he involves in a similar kind of inconsiderate writing about Patrick, the author of this Purgatory: here it suffices to have observed that there is not one island in that lake; but, as eyewitnesses assert, among several smaller ones there are two larger ones, one of which contains not nine wells but one single cavern; nor one such as he says always exposed to visible displays of demons: the other stands two or three stadia away, on which a monastery with a church has been built, where neither before nor after him has anyone dreamed anything about the visible attendance of Angels and Saints.

Section VI. Concerning the manner of purgation or penance customarily performed there, both formerly and recently.

[47] It is further useful to hear from Henry of Saltrey by what method and with what ceremonies that cave was entered both by the aforesaid soldier Oenus, and by what method others were to be introduced, should perhaps the generosity of a penitent spirit of no ordinary kind, with danger scorned, persuade anyone to attempt the same: for if anyone had presumed this driven by curiosity, the mark of rashness would apply to him, which Cambrensis indiscriminately brands upon all rash persons. It is, says Henry, a custom established both by S. Patrick and by his successors, that no one should enter that Purgatory The rite observed in the entry of Oenus. unless he have permission from the Bishop in whose diocese it is; and that one who of his own will chooses to enter it for his sins. When he has come to the Bishop and indicated such a purpose, the Bishop first urges him to desist from such a purpose, saying that many have entered who never returned. If, however, he perseveres, having received the Bishop's letters he hastens to the place: which when the Prior of that place has read, he immediately dissuades the same man from entering the Purgatory, and diligently admonishes him to choose another penance; showing him that in it there are the torments of many dangers, and if he perseveres he brings him into the church, to devote fifteen days there to fasts and prayers. These completed, the Prior convokes the neighboring Clergy, the penitent is fortified with holy Communion and sprinkled with holy water for the said Office; and thus he is led with a procession and litany to the door of the Purgatory. The Prior again announces to him the harassment and the perdition of many in the same pit, opening the door before all: if, however, he is constant in his purpose, having received the blessing from all the Priests, and commending himself to the prayers of all, and with his own hand impressing the sign of the Cross on his forehead, he enters. Immediately the door is closed by the Prior, and so he returns with the procession to the church: who on the following morning again comes from the church to the door of the pit, and the door is opened by the Prior; and if the man is found, he is led back with joy to the church, in which he spends another fifteen days intent on vigils and prayers: and if he has not appeared by the same hour on the next day, most certain of his perdition, with the door closed by the Prior, all depart.

[48] For the rest, as I said, by no indication can we detect that after the entry of the Regular Canons into the island anything such as happened to Oenus occurred to anyone. Nevertheless the place retained its merited veneration, until, as vices grew stronger and increasingly deformed the fertile field of the Irish Church, the old observance of religion was made an occasion for base avarice; how this was exposed to the Roman Curia and restrained by an effective remedy, we have found copied from a certain ancient Codex among our notes, with this tenor: In the year of the Lord 1494, In the year 1494, a monk of Eymstadt, with Alexander VI presiding over the Roman Church, and Maximilian reigning in the Roman kingdom, and Charles, King of the French, entering the kingdom

of Naples, under Archduke Philip, son of King Maximilian, and with David of Burgundy presiding over the Church of Utrecht, there was a certain monk or Canon Regular in the parts of Holland, in the monastery of Eymsteede; devout to God, a most diligent observer of his rule and the statutes of his chapter of Windesheim. He, having long been in the Order, and having devoted himself more zealously than the other Brothers of his convent to mortification, prayer, and similar exercises; driven by what spirit is unknown, he persistently and importunely sought permission from his Superiors to be given to enter a stricter Order, or to wander through the provinces as a poor beggar.

[49] Having at last obtained his desire, he entered various countries and regions of Christians by begging, and came A pilgrim seeks and obtains admission there: at last into the kingdom of Ireland, to see and also to enter the Purgatory of S. Patrick, about which many things are told. Having reached the place and the monastery where the entrance to it was said to be, he spoke with the Superior of that place, telling him his desire. He sent him to the Diocesan Bishop, saying it was unlawful for him to introduce anyone without the assent of his Bishop. He went to the Bishop: and because he was poor and without money, he was scarcely admitted by the servants: and having fallen on his knees before the Bishop, he asked that permission to enter the Purgatory of S. Patrick be given to him. The Bishop, however, asked for a certain sum of money, which he said was owed to him by right from those entering. To whom the Brother replied that he was poor and had no money; which even if he had, he would not dare to pay for obtaining this on account of the taint of simony. After many prayers he at last prevailed upon the Bishop, and he produced certain letters of admission, sending him to the Prince of that territory, so that he might also obtain his permission. He also demanded money; which since he could not extort from one who had none, he at last admitted him, though with difficulty. Returning therefore to the Prior of the place of the Purgatory, he presented the letters of the Bishop and the Prince to him: which when the Prior had read, he said to him: It is necessary, Brother, that you also pay the customary fee to our monastery, announcing a certain sum to him. To whom the Brother replied that he had no money, as he was a beggar; and that it was not lawful for him to pay for such a thing, because it would be simoniacal: but that he was asking for God's sake to be introduced to the most famous place for the salvation of his soul. The Prior therefore commanded his Sacristan to introduce him to the place. The Brother, having made his Confession and received the most holy Body of the Lord, as he had read in the codices that others had formerly done before entering that lake, was let down by the Sacristan by a rope into a certain deep lake. Then, when he was already there, he extended to him by the rope a little bread and a small vessel of water, with which he might refresh himself, about to do battle against the demons.

[50] But experiencing nothing such as he had read happened to others He sat therefore in the lake throughout the whole night, trembling and shuddering; but also offering fiery prayers to the Lord, at nearly every moment dreading the demons about to arrive. And when he had sat from evening until morning, with the sun now risen, the Sacristan came to the mouth of the lake, calling to him and lowering the rope for his extraction. But that Brother was greatly astonished at the fact that he had seen, heard, or suffered nothing of discomfort or affliction; and he revolved various things in his mind about those things which he had read and heard about this Purgatory: for he did not know that the ancient miracle, now that the faith was established, had ceased: but nevertheless the inhabitants of the place, for the sake of profit and money, asserted to those arriving that the purgation of sins still took place there for them. Having therefore investigated everything, and wishing the aforesaid Brother to abolish this deception of simple people, By Apostolic authority he left Ireland and went to Rome; and since he could not approach the Supreme Pontiff, he recounted to his Penitentiary, a man sufficiently honest and ecclesiastical, all that had happened; asking that he make these things known to the Lord Pope. To which that man willingly offered himself, having received the firmest oath from the Brother that these things were so. The Penitentiary therefore approached the Supreme Pontiff and made all things known to him: who gravely bore that simple people should be thus deceived, and commanded the Penitentiary to send letters fortified with the Apostolic seal to the Bishop, Prince, and Prior of that place: commanding them to utterly destroy the place in which formerly the entrance had been to the Purgatory called S. Patrick's, He has the pit obstructed. and to certify by their letters and seals, through the same bearer of his letters, that it was destroyed. The aforesaid Brother was therefore sent back by the Pope to Ireland bearing the Apostolic writings: which having been seen, the Prince of the Province, together with the Bishop and Prior, destroyed that place of deception, and through their writings, with the aforesaid messenger reporting the same things, they notified the Supreme Pontiff at the Curia that it was destroyed.

[51] Such was the calamity of those times: such the corruption of religion among the wild Ulstermen declining toward their former barbarism: The island nevertheless began to be most frequented in the sixteenth century, until, having shaken off their lethargy, the ancient piety of the islanders seemed to resume its spirit and strength in the previous century; compelled, that is, to defend itself against the machinations of Heretics assailing from every side, not so much with corporeal as with spiritual arms; by which the anger of the offended Divinity is appeased, and pious faithful exact voluntary penalties for the offenses they have committed. Therefore the virtue of the Irish faithful in God, mostly driven back into Ulidia and hemmed in by the colonies of Protestant English, itself heated up as if by the compression: so that at one time fifteen hundred people gathered on the aforesaid island, who performed the customary barefoot walking and other penances there according to custom, while they waited in groups of nine for entrance into the well; except that some by commutation lay down on one of the seven penitential beds of other Saints that are found there, adjacent to the well of S. Patrick itself.

[52] And penitential exercises to be performed there by those approaching, So he writes, David Rothe, Bishop of Ossory, was told in the word of a Priest by a man of the best faith who had seen it, in his Treatise on the Purgatory of S. Patrick, after the Acts of the same as published by Jocelin, edited by Thomas Messingham in the Florilegium, chapter 1, who then in chapter 2 sets forth the manner of making the expiation customarily observed at that time; in which (just as neither in the ancient one which we reported above from Henry) the Christian reader will find nothing that does not represent those holy rigors of the primitive Church, so praised and recommended by the holy Fathers: let the novel heresy of Luther and Calvin laugh if it will, unable even to hear the name of penance: while in the meantime it is certain that that eagerness for penal works voluntarily undertaken in the Catholic Church of this time cannot be charged with superstition without blaming the holy Apostles and their disciples; in whom the first-fruits of the truly Christian spirit daily produced fruits worthy of penance that were much more to be admired. It should be observed, however, that the Well is here called by ancient usage what then was nothing; but either filled in or vaulted, with the pavement sunk slightly below ground, it still retained the vault originally built to cover the former pit; and was reduced to the figure of a low cell: as will appear more clearly from what is about to be said.

[53] The order, says David Rothe, of completing the entire journey is as follows. And by those who fast rigorously for nine days A period of nine days is consumed, so that the required circuits may be completed on the island itself, which is entirely surrounded by stagnant water, and that very deep, like a certain estuary, which is interspersed with other islands here and there: but this island of the Purgatory with the neighboring one of S. Avogus, on which the Monastery of the Canons Regular of S. Augustine is situated, two or three stadia distant to the west, is the most famous and celebrated of all. To this the pilgrims are conveyed in a dugout canoe, with rowing equipment prepared for this purpose. For the entire time they remain on the island itself, that is, for the nine days themselves, fasting must be observed on bread and water, not in any manner whatsoever; but with one meal of bread baked under ashes or cooked on a grill, or at least uncooked oatmeal flour; On bread and water: the water being lake water, but boiled, or at least warmed in a cauldron, without salt or any other seasoning: and this crude and meager nourishment, even though the intestines be rumbling, is to be tasted only once in the space of twenty-four hours, except that it is permitted to refresh parched throats more often when thirst presses. And such is the power of that water, although stagnant, that however much of it you might wish to guzzle, you feel no burden from it, just as if it flowed from a mineral vein, which they say about the water of Spa emanating from a sour spring, that those who have drunk it experience it without any burden or heaviness of the stomach.

[54] Who meanwhile make their stations During the day the pilgrims are obliged to go around the sacred stations three times, morning, noon, and evening; and weary, they lie down at night in hay or straw, without coverlet, pillow, or mattress, unless they wrap themselves in a cloak. The stations themselves are performed in this order. Having been admitted by the spiritual Father, who presides over the Purgatory by the institution of the Canons, to make the pilgrimage, they remove their shoes and stockings, With bare feet, and devoutly enter barefoot the church which is dedicated to S. Patrick: and there, having made their prayer, they go around the sacred circuits; seven times on the inside of the temple itself, and as many times on the outside in the cemetery. Having completed those, they betake themselves to the painful stations, or beds, which they call, or penitential cells of the Saints, which are arranged in a circle. They go around each of them seven times on the outside with bare feet, and on the inside on bended knees. Similarly they go around both a cross in the cemetery and another cross fixed in a heap of stones. And having completed so many circuits on a rough and mostly rocky path, they come to the lake: and on a stone submerged in water they fix the soles of their feet, sometimes torn but always tired: and for just under a quarter of an hour, while they recite the Lord's Prayer, the Angelic Salutation, and the Apostles' Creed, they feel so much refreshment and strength from the stone beneath their feet (on which S. Patrick himself is said to have prayed and to have left the impressions of his feet) that they would be ready on the spot to make the second circuits, which is not permitted, however, except after some interval of time.

[55] Having repeated this austerity for seven days, on the eighth day they double the stations or circuits, to satisfy for both that day and the following day, on which the well must be entered: And on the ninth day they are led into the well for on that well-day it is not permitted to go around, nor even to go out of the cave: which they must enter with this ceremony observed. That group of nine, whose turn it is to enter the cavern, is assembled before the spiritual Father: where, having delivered an exhortation, he warns them of the danger if they enter with polluted minds; and of the reward if they enter with purified consciences: and he recalls with words of specific formulation Fortified with the Sacraments. such examples of horror as could move the most stupefied, soften the most rigid, and terrify the most bold. He stirs up an admonition of penance and constancy, so that, with sacramental Confession offered beforehand and holy

Communion received, they may prepare and arm themselves against the princes and powers of darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Now contrite and absolved and refreshed with the most holy Eucharist, with the standard of the Cross going before, he leads them to the penitential obsequies, so that they may now pay the dues of a life negligently spent, and offer funeral rites to the old Adam with his deeds, in the funeral of sins and the interest of a better purpose. Those now about to enter, sprinkled with holy water at the door of the cave, as if in a crossing to another world, and hastening from the way to its end, placed in agony as it were, one can see groaning, sighing, offering and seeking pardon and peace from all, forgiving the whole world for whatever has been done against them. With sobbing, weeping, and tears most of them enter the cave: and with the door closed from outside, those who had accompanied the funeral depart.

[56] Description of the Well The cavern itself is a small stone dwelling, with such narrow sides and so depressed a vault that a man of tall stature could not so raise himself that he could not even sit without his neck inclined. Nine press themselves tightly together, sitting and leaning against one another; nor would a tenth remain with the others except with the greatest labor. The cave has a small window through which a slender ray shines through during the day. The length and width of the well is as much as would suffice for comfortably containing a man of just stature lying on his back: and the end part of the pavement is underlaid with a great stone, under which some say there lies the chasm and pit which God opened, at the Saint's prayer and the earth's gaping, for the terror of the obstinate. And although in our days, and from the longest memory of men, the floor of the cave has been leveled and made equal to the rest of the ground, yet it is the tradition of certain elders that in the first institution of the place it was deeper, and was gradually raised, with the Bishops sanctioning and the Apostolic See assenting. And just as the well itself is situated to the north of the island temple, so to the north of the well those stations or cells which we have called the Saints' cells are arranged around it: toward the west, however, there are certain huts or cottages of wickerwork and turf, which serve as lodgings for the pilgrims.

[57] How those who entered are brought out after 24 hours. After, therefore, those enclosed in this cave have remained fasting for twenty-four hours, having taken absolutely no food from the preceding midday (for it is not lawful to taste anything in the well itself, except perhaps a tiny bit of water to rinse the palate), they are revisited by the Director of the pilgrims, and are led to the edge of the lake, and there they immerse themselves naked in the lake waters, and washed by this lustral expiation, like new soldiers of Christ, born again and purged from the bath of penance, they proceed to the church; where according to custom, having given thanks to God for the completed penitence, they are renewed for the Christian warfare to be intrepidly pursued, and for the Cross of Christ to be generously borne. ... Thus far David Rothe, who still remembers in his own time that the care of that place was in the hands of the Canons Regular: The place passes from the Regulars to the Franciscans. in what year precisely they were either expelled from their ancient station by the violence of the heretics, or by voluntary cession left it to be maintained by the Friars Minor of S. Francis of the Observance, is unknown to us. There is at Louvain (as Father Thomas Sirinus writes to us) a lay Brother of that Order of advanced age, who asserts that even at that time when the Franciscans had the care of Patrick's Purgatory, it was very much frequented: And is destroyed by the heretics. until about thirty years ago everything was utterly overturned and destroyed by the heretics. Colgan treats at greater length and discusses the monasticism of S. Patrick in Appendix 5, chapters 11 and 12, wonderfully anxious to bring the various opinions into harmony: it would be easy for us to demonstrate that he properly belongs to none of the Religious Orders that now exist, if we were not studying brevity: and we would judge him rightly venerated by many.

ON S. GERTRUDE, VIRGIN, ABBESS OF NIVELLES IN BRABANT, IN THE YEAR 664

Preliminary Commentary.

Gertrude, Virgin, Abbess of Nivelles in Brabant (Saint)

Section I. Sacred cult: temples dedicated, translation of the body, Relics in other places.

[1] The origin of the ancient Franks, their earlier settlements, and various migrations we traced in the Life of S. Sigebert, King of the Austrasian Franks, on the Kalends of February, section 1, Nivelles and we showed that the Salian Franks, under the Emperor Constantius, son of Constantine the Great, migrated from Batavia to Roman soil near Toxandria and Tongres, and having established their royal seat at Disburg, that is Diest, on the river Demer, had to the south as their neighbors the Romans in Roman or Gallic Brabant: whose principal city is Nivelles, The domain of Blessed Pippin: in which lived Blessed Pippin, the father of S. Gertrude, Duke and Mayor of the Palace of the Kings of Austrasia, whose deeds we traced on February 21, his birthday, from which no small light accrues to the Acts of S. Gertrude to be given here. S. Gertrude was born of this father From what father S. Gertrude was born in the year 631 or the following, in the year of Christ 631, or the following: and when he died in the year 646, she had reached her fourteenth year of age, and was thereafter raised under the holy instruction of her most pious mother, Blessed Itta or Iduberga, and by her example received the sacred veil: afterward placed over the governance of the monastery built there by her mother under the direction of S. Amandus, Bishop of Utrecht. There is still a Chapter of both sexes, in which the most noble Canonical Virgins hold the worthier place, and the dominion of the city is in the hands of the Abbess of the same place. Blessed Itta or Iduberga, having died in the year 658, She died in the year 664 S. Gertrude survived until the year 664, in which she migrated to Christ, the heavenly Spouse, in the thirty-third year of her age, on a Sunday, the sixteenth day before the Kalends of April, as the author of her Life writes, who was present. It was the second Sunday of Lent, The second Sunday of Lent: with lunar cycle 19, solar cycle 1, dominical letters GF, on which Easter was celebrated on April 21. By which characteristics the Chronology ordered by us elsewhere is splendidly confirmed.

[2] The name of S. Gertrude was inserted into the sacred calendars, even the ancient ones, by authors close to her age. The Venerable Bede, as his genuine manuscript Martyrology indicates, Inscribed in the sacred calendars by Bede, wrote this: On the sixteenth day before the Kalends of April. In Scotland, the Birthday of Patrick the Confessor. On the same day, the death of S. Gertrude the Virgin. For death, in others, passing and birthday is read. Usuard indicates the place: On the same day, in the monastery of Nivigella, S. Gertrude the Virgin. In a Nivelles manuscript it is added: And others: daughter of Duke Pippin, whose illustrious deeds are recorded. In the Roman Martyrology this eulogy is read: At Nivigella in Brabant, S. Gertrude the Virgin, who, born of a most illustrious family, despising the world, and throughout the whole course of her life exercising herself in all the duties of holiness, merited to have Christ as her Spouse in heaven. She is honored with other eulogies by Notker, Maurolycus, Felicius, Galesinnius, Canisius, Witford, and others in their Martyrologies, and also by Saussay in the Gallican Martyrology, Molanus in the Birthdays of the Saints of Belgium, Miraeus in the Belgian Calendar, Gelenius in the Cologne Calendar, Ghini in the Birthdays of the Saints of the Canons, Wion, Dorganius, Menard, and Bucelinus in their Benedictine Martyrologies. On the immediately following day it is recorded in the manuscript Martyrology of S. Cyriacus and the Paris manuscript of Usuard of S. Germanus: Venerated with Ecclesiastical Office among the Canons Regular on which day the Ecclesiastical Office is recited under the double rite among the Lateran Canons Regular, because March 16 is impeded by the festal cult of S. Patrick. Gabriel Pennottus in his Notes to these Offices charges the Benedictines with ascribing S. Gertrude to their own Order. But S. Gertrude is venerated on her own day among the Premonstratensian Canons, and the Canons Regular of Windesheim, and in the entire Carmelite Order, and throughout almost all the provinces and dioceses of Germany, from Salzburg, In most Churches of Germany, Poland, and Belgium: Passau, and Regensburg as far as Schleswig, Ratzeburg, and Kammin on the Baltic Sea: through Bohemia also and Poland: so that it is no wonder if the Trier, Cologne, and other provinces closer to Belgium honor her with the Ecclesiastical Office: which in Belgium the Churches of Cambrai, Namur, Liege, Louvain, Antwerp, Brussels, Bruges, and other Churches subject to them perform, as does the entire province of Utrecht with its subject Bishoprics. In the Breviary of Burgos among the Spanish also a Commemoration of S. Gertrude is prescribed.

[3] At Nivelles the body and churches dedicated to her: There are moreover illustrious churches dedicated to her name, among which the first to be reckoned should be that of Nivelles, in which the body of the most holy Virgin Gertrude is kept enclosed in a most honorable shrine. At Louvain also there is the illustrious Abbey of the noble Canons Regular of S. Gertrude, with an annexed parish church: where she is honored on the feast day by the constitution of Honorius III, as Molanus indicates. At Landen also, where she is said by some to have been born in the once famous palace of her parent Pippin, she has a church and a most celebrated cult, in which innumerable cures effected through her intercession are reported by Joseph Geldolph van Ryckel, Abbot of S. Gertrude of Louvain, in his Studies on S. Gertrude, page 198 and following, where he easily lists forty churches especially in Belgium sacred to S. Gertrude with singular cult. We shall treat below of Gertrudenberg. Certain sacred Relics are claimed by the nuns of Vorst near Brussels, together with her pastoral staff. Relics elsewhere in Belgium, A tooth of hers is piously preserved by the Cistercian monastery of Salzinnes near Namur: the Premonstratensians of the monastery of Parc near Louvain have some of the sacred bones of the same Virgin: as these are read in the Belgian Hierogazophylacium of Raissius, pages 222, 402, and 459. Gelenius in the Agrippensian Calendar has this eulogy about S. Gertrude: S. Gertrude the Virgin, daughter of Blessed Pippin, Duke of Agrippina, who at Cologne is honored by a church and monastery of her name: At Cologne, a jawbone of S. Gertrude is at Cologne in the church of Monte Maria of the Carmelite Virgins. The same Gelenius reports that at Cologne a small bone from her hand is preserved by the Carthusians; other particles of Relics are in the Collegiate churches of S. Severinus and S. Mary ad Gradus, in the parish of S. Lupus, likewise among the Benedictines of S. Martin, among the Poor Clares, and other Conventual Virgins of the Third Order of S. Francis. We are not entirely sure, however, that these are Relics of this Virgin Gertrude, since from the revelation of S. Elizabeth of Schonau and Blessed Hermann of Steinfeld, and from the names from sepulchral inscriptions and indices of churches collected by Hermann Crumbach, many are found among the Ursuline Virgins and Martyrs who are called by the name Gertrude. Some Relics of S. Gertrude the Virgin are in the church of the Annunciation of the Virgin outside the walls of the city of Bologna, And at Bologna: as Masini indicates in his survey of Bologna.

[4] Besides this birthday, other festivities have been established in honor of S. Gertrude: among which on the second of December the consecration of S. Gertrude the Virgin is recorded at Nivelles from the proper Martyrology of the place, in Molanus in the Additions to Usuard and in his Index and Birthdays of the Saints

of Belgium: Consecration of S. Gertrude on December 2. which had long before been observed by the author of the manuscript Florarium, a Canon Regular, in these words: On the same day the consecration or veiling of S. Gertrude the Virgin of Nivelles, of the stock of the Carolingians, performed by Blessed Amandus, Bishop of Utrecht and Confessor, in the year of salvation 650. Canisius in the German Martyrology, Saussay in the Gallican, and others in the monastic ones also mention the same consecration. Another solemnity is celebrated on February 10 on account of the elevation of the body of the most blessed Gertrude, Elevation of the body on February 10, about which the cited author of the manuscript Florarium has this: At Nivelles, a town of Brabant, the Translation of S. Gertrude

of Belgium: Consecration of S. Gertrude on December 2. which had long before been observed by the author of the manuscript Florarium, a Canon Regular, in these words: On the same day the consecration or veiling of S. Gertrude the Virgin of Nivelles, of the stock of the Carolingians, performed by Blessed Amandus, Bishop of Utrecht and Confessor, in the year of salvation 650. Canisius in the German Martyrology, Saussay in the Gallican, and others in monastic ones also mention the same consecration. Another solemnity is celebrated on February 10 on account of the elevation of the body of the most blessed Gertrude, Elevation of the body on February 10, about which the cited author of the manuscript Florarium has this: At Nivelles, a town of Brabant, the Translation of S. Gertrude the Virgin, daughter of Pippin, the first Duke of Brabant, and Deposition in a more celebrated place. The Duchy of Blessed Pippin has been discussed in his Life on February 21. But the said Translation of S. Gertrude is read inscribed in an ancient hand in the manuscript of Ado from the monastery of S. Lawrence at Liege: a memorial of the same is inserted in the manuscript Cologne Martyrology of S. Mary ad Gradus, in which church we have said that a certain particle of Relics is preserved. Grevenus and Molanus in the Additions to Usuard, Canisius, Saussay, and the monastic Martyrologists mention the said Elevation. Moreover, on the third day before the Kalends of June a Translation into a new bier in the year 1298 is noted in Molanus in the Birthdays of the Saints of Belgium. Translation on May 30 and April 10. But on the fourth day before the Ides of April a second Translation is celebrated by Hermann Greven in the Additions to Usuard, by Canisius, and more expressly in the manuscript Florarium.

Section II. The Life of S. Gertrude written by various authors.

[5] The Life of S. Gertrude was written by an author who was contemporary, domestic, and an eyewitness of many things, who lived as a Cleric or Canon in her monastery at the time of S. Gertrude, and as far as may be conjectured, a Priest. Hence in the Prologue he asserts that he endeavors to make known in writing what he saw or heard through reliable witnesses. The Life written by an eyewitness, Then at number 8 he testifies that when S. Gertrude had given up her spirit, he and another Brother named Rinchinus had been summoned for the consolation of the Sisters or nuns, and had perceived the sweetest fragrance then and as they departed thence. And at the end he adds: Lest this perhaps seem incredible to anyone, I call God as witness that what I saw with my own eyes and learned through reliable witnesses, this I wrote. Published from a manuscript: We give this Life, transmitted to us from the manuscript codex of the monastery of Val-Luisant, of the Cistercian Order in the diocese of Sens, by Pierre-François Chifflet of our Society: and we have collated it with our copy, formerly transcribed from another manuscript codex, at the end of which some things are appended. Surius had a similar codex, in which, unless he himself omitted it, the last miracle was missing. For the rest, he asserts that he changed the style Polished and condensed by Surius, augmented by others and often altered. and published the miracles in summary form. Another person also interpolated this first Life of S. Gertrude and tried to polish it with a better style, which we had from the manuscript of the Louvain Abbey of S. Gertrude: but we omit it, since it has already been published by the Abbot of the said monastery, Joseph Geldolph van Ryckel. Not very dissimilar to this is one we transcribed from a manuscript Codex of the Most Serene Queen Christina of Sweden, to which another Prologue is prefixed, and at the end two miracles are appended, which we give from there in the Appendix. The same are found in the Munster codex of Bernard Rottendorf, amplified in a more elegant style.

[6] Another Life, divided into three books, exists in the manuscript codices of S. Maximin of Trier, S. Salvator of Utrecht, the monastery of Bonfont in the diocese of Reims, Another divided into three books, the Canons Regular of S. Paul, and a double manuscript of Rouge-Cloitre in the forest of Soignes near Brussels. This author admits in the Prologue that he writes this Life chiefly The principal matter taken from the former, according to what was delivered to us in a most truthful and faithful narration, although in an uncultivated speech, by one who saw her life and virtues with his own eyes, and who was present at the sacred obsequies while the divine fragrance spread throughout the whole cell. While he treats in book 2 of the diffused divine fragrance at her death, he adds: That Brother whom Rinchinus then questioned afterward wrote the Life of the Virgin, which he had seen with his own eyes, in a simple and rustic style but with truthful speech. From which, having taken up the matter, we have taken care to shape it in our narrative and deliver it to the charity of the holy Virgins. We had determined to give this Life divided into three books, and had indeed illustrated it with our own observations: but we saw that the author did not rest on sufficiently solid principles when he adds other things not excerpted from the earlier Life: as is Gertrude's journey to eastern Francia, which we shall demonstrate below to be a mere fable. Then the first book scarcely pertains to S. Gertrude, but to the deeds of others from her family. From this we published on February 21 what pertains to Blessed Pippin the father, and shall publish on May 8 the Life of Blessed Itta or Iduberga the mother, and on December 18 the Acts of S. Begga the Sister, from whom and her husband Ansigisel were born Pippin of Herstal, Charles Martel, Pippin the King, Charlemagne, Louis the Pious, and his posterity, whom the author did not dare to enumerate, lest on account of so many Charleses, Carlomans, Lothairs, Pippins, and Louises, Published at Louvain and omitted. confusion might arise from the similarity of names. Whence we gather that the author lived when the kingdom of the Franks had long since departed from the Carolingian family: and Emperors from other families reigned in Germany and Kings in Gaul: perhaps in the eleventh or twelfth century, when the Lives of S. Lambert, Bavo, and others in Belgium were ineptly reformed and interpolated. We refer the curious reader to Joseph Geldolph van Ryckel, Abbot of S. Gertrude at Louvain, who published this Life in the Louvain press in 1632, and we note that it was written in the order indicated on page 102. From this longer Life is condensed the one which exists in the second part of the Legend, printed at Cologne in 1483 and at Louvain in 1485, with the same flight into eastern Francia: which is also found inserted in some Martyrologies and Breviaries. Other Lives condensed from this: We also have a Sermon on the praises of S. Gertrude the Virgin, transcribed from the first part of the Hagiologium of the Brabantines, preserved in the library of Rouge-Cloitre, Sermon on S. Gertrude which we also found in the second part of the various Legendaries of the monastery of Corsendonk, likewise of Canons Regular, near Turnhout. The sentence from sacred Scripture prefixed is from Tobit 3: I have kept my soul clean from all concupiscence, and then it begins thus: To conceal the secret of the king is good, History of the Relics and miracles: but to reveal and confess the works of God is honorable. Which it suffices to have indicated. But we give from the same codices the History of the Relics of S. Gertrude examined, and of three illustrious miracles, and we call it the second Appendix.

[7] Thierry, Abbot of S. Trond, in the Life of S. Bavo to be illustrated on the Kalends of October, writes that the happy soul of S. Bavo appeared at the very hour of his departure to the holy Virgin Gertrude, dwelling far away in the monastery of Nivelles, S. Bavo appears to S. Gertrude after death. so that she might send the linens necessary for preparing the burial. However, because Thierry asserts the death of S. Bavo occurred in the year 631, in which year or the following S. Gertrude was only born, the matter would be suspect, were it not established from other sources that Thierry plainly erred in the years of Christ and in assigning certain Emperors and Pontiffs. Certainly in the Life of S. Amandus on February 6, section 13, we showed that S. Bavo died in the year 657, and consequently was born near the beginning of the seventh century, and not indeed in the year 578, as Charles le Cointe deduces from Thierry in the Ecclesiastical Annals of the Franks at the said year, numbers 6 and 7. We said moreover, section 8, in the Life of S. Amandus, number 59, that the Emperor Otto I, Her dwelling at Gertrudenberg: by a diploma given in the year 966, confirmed to the Nivelles community the inheritance of S. Gertrude, situated in the district of Tessandria, on the river Strona, in the estate called Bergom: and that Countess Hilsunda of Strien, by a diploma signed in the year 992, for the foundation of the monastery of Thorn on the Meuse, donated the church of Strien, which is consecrated in honor of the Virgin Mary; Mons littoris, where the most blessed Gertrude dwelt bodily and has a cell consecrated by S. Amandus. The said Bergom or Mons littoris is now Berga or Gertrudenberg, a town of the province of Holland, situated on the further bank toward Brabant not far from Breda, formerly of the diocese of Utrecht, then Liege, now Bois-le-Duc: and not far from there across the strait of Biesbosch is still the small district of Strien.

[8] Another town exists, called Fosse, beyond the river Sambre above Namur, belonging to Nivelles, now of the jurisdiction of Liege, once given by S. Gertrude to the brothers SS. Foillan and Ultan, as is indicated in book 2 of the later Life in Geldolph, and in the ancient Life of S. Foillan, which we shall give from several manuscripts on October 31. We present a few things from this to the reader, and they are these: The town of Fosse given to SS. Foillan and Ultan. There were in that place many of the female sex blessing the name of the Lord: among whom the holy Virgin Gertrude of Nivelles shone like the moon among lesser stars. She, learning that Foillan was a Bishop, most holy in character, cultivated him with kind familiarity, providing him and his brother Ultan with whatever the needs of the flesh required. Moreover she herself was daily refreshed by Blessed Foillan with spiritual food, and at last, having consulted her mother Iduberga, Blessed Gertrude gave to S. Foillan from her own properties the place which the natives call Fosses, by perpetual right: where the Saint built a church and distributed the dwelling of the Brothers through cells: committing their care to his brother Ultan, he returned to Blessed Gertrude. Philippe of the Alms, Abbot of Bonne-Esperance, deduces the same at greater length, which may be seen in his work. There also exist various hymns and other canticles in various Breviaries and in Geldolph van Ryckel, which the curious reader may find there.

LIFE

By a Contemporary Author, a Domestic Cleric or Priest, from various manuscripts

Gertrude, Virgin, Abbess of Nivelles in Brabant (Saint)

BY A CONTEMPORARY AUTHOR FROM MANUSCRIPTS.

PROLOGUE.

[1] We believe, through the gift of holy and inseparable charity, and we hold by inviolate and stable faith, that those desiring to keep the way of the heavenly homeland and to abandon earthly gains completely can be helped to obtain eternal rewards; if in writing or preaching I strive to remind them truthfully of something, albeit little, about the life or manner of living of the Saints and holy Virgins of Christ, for the edification or advancement of neighbors: The Life is proposed for imitation. so that the examples of the preceding Saints and holy Virgins may be able to illuminate the darkness of our heart with the flame of charity and the ardor of holy compunction. Therefore, with the help of the Holy Spirit, the maker of all things, I shall endeavor to make known to your charity in writing the life and manner of living of the most blessed Virgin and handmaid of Christ, Mother Gertrude, by which she lived according to God and in discipline

regularly under the vault of heaven, according to what we either saw or heard through reliable witnesses, with Christ helping, and with the holy maiden Dominica the Abbess and the holy congregation of the Nivelles monastery (where the holy Virgin appeared to preside) requesting, I shall try to make known to your charity in writing. But to insert in this discourse in what order she received her genealogy from her earthly origin would be lengthy. For who dwelling in Europe is ignorant of the exaltation, the names, and the places of this lineage?

In the manuscript of the Most Serene Queen Christina of Sweden, this Prologue is prefixed: About the life and manner of living of the blessed Virgin Gertrude, not fully (for we are not sufficient) but as we are able, Another prologue: as we ourselves saw or heard from reliable witnesses reporting, with the Lord Jesus Christ first helping and the venerable maiden Dominica, Abbess of the Nivelles monastery, urging us on, we have consented to write: and first, in what order she drew the line of blood from her stock, although all Europe has not been ignorant of this, it will not be useless to explain in a few words. Another Prologue is prefixed to the longer Life in Ryckel, and it is augmented in the manuscript of Rouge-Cloitre.

Whether Lady Abbess, namely Agnes, about whose death he said nothing.

The following is absent from the manuscript and Louvain edition: for which these are substituted, as also in the manuscript of the Queen of Sweden. Pippin, once the son of Prince Carloman (who with Blessed Arnulf under the Kings Clothar and Dagobert Inserted about the family of S. Gertrude governed the people dwelling between the Carbonarian forest and the rivers Meuse and Moselle as far as the borders of the Frisians in vast territories, with just laws) was the father of the blessed Virgin; her mother was Itta. She had a brother Grimoald, who with the help of S. Cunibert, Bishop of Cologne, succeeded his father in the Principate under King Sigebert. She had a sister named Begga, who married Duke Ansigisel, the son of Arnulf: whose son was Pippin the Prince. She also had as relatives by blood the Virgins Aldegundis and Waldetrudis, and many other men and women of that time, not only in consanguinity but also in their manner of life and religious profession: whom, because we are hastening here to describe the life of the holy Virgin, we refrain from writing about. The same things but in a different phrasing are contained in the manuscript of Rottendorf. The earlier items about the territory of Pippin are taken from the Metz Annals. Consult the items published on February 21. We gave the various Acts of S. Aldegundis on January 30: but without mention of this kinship. Her sister was S. Waldetrudis, married to S. Vincent, to whom she bore four children. Is she here called Virgin, that is, nun, because she was the foundress of the Canonesses at Mons and lived among them? The same things are found almost verbatim in book 1 of the longer Life, omitting the name of the Virgins.

In the Life of S. Theodard, Bishop of Utrecht, on September 10, the following is read: What need is there to proclaim the nobility of Gertrude of Nivelles, whose glory of name is more diffuse than all of Gaul.

CHAPTER I

The pious education of S. Gertrude: her life holily lived.

[2] Therefore while the holy maiden of God, Gertrude, was in the house of her parents, at the feet of her mother of blessed memory, Itta, she meditated day and night on the word and wisdom of God, and dear to God and beloved by men, She is piously educated under S. Itta her mother: she grew beyond those of her own age. This was the first beginning of her election in the service of Christ, as we have learned through a just and truthful man who was present there: that when her father Pippin had invited King Dagobert to a noble banquet in his house; there came thither a certain pestilent man, a son of the Duke of the Austrasians, who asked the King and the parents of the maiden that the maiden herself be promised to him in marriage according to the custom of the world. She spurns a bridegroom offered by King Dagobert: On account of earthly ambition and mutual friendship, it pleased the King; and he persuaded the father of the maiden that in his presence she should be summoned with her mother. But they, not knowing for what reason the King was calling the child, she was asked at the feast by the King whether she wished to have that boy, adorned with gold and dressed in silk, as a bridegroom. She, however, as if filled with fury, rejected him with an oath and said: Because I wish to have neither him nor any other earthly one as a bridegroom, but Christ the Lord, She clings to Christ: so that the King himself and his nobles greatly marveled at those things that had been spoken by a little girl at God's command. That boy, however, departed confused, full of anger. The holy maiden, however, turned to her mother: and from that day her parents knew by what kind of King she had been loved.

[3] After fourteen years, however, when her father Pippin had departed from this light, After the death of her father she is consecrated as a nun by S. Amandus, she followed her mother in widowhood, and served her soberly and chastely in obedience and in the commandments of God. And when the aforesaid mother of the household daily pondered what she should do both about herself and about her orphan daughter; the man of God, Bishop Amandus, coming to her house and preaching the word of God at the Lord's command, asked that she build a monastery for herself and for her daughter, the handmaid of God Gertrude, and for the household of Christ: and as soon as she understood the knowledge of an unknown thing pertaining to the salvation of souls, she received the sacred veil, and gave herself to God and all that she had. But the enemy of the human race and instigator, who from the beginning is envious and resistant to good works, was strengthening the hearts of the wicked, so that from those who should have helped her to do God's will, she endured no small temptation. What injuries or indignities and deprivations the aforesaid handmaid of God with her daughter endured for the name of Christ, it would be long to write if narrated individually. But this alone, that on account of the devotion and desire for the divine which she had in herself, lest the violators of souls should seize her daughter by force for the allurements and pleasures of this world, She is holily preserved by her mother: she seized a barber's iron and cut the hair of the holy maiden in the shape of a crown. The holy handmaid of Christ Gertrude, however, giving thanks to God, rejoiced that she had merited in this brief life to receive a crown on her head for Christ, so that she might be worthy to have there a perpetual crown, the integrity of body and soul. Then the merciful God and helper in tribulations recalled those adversaries to the concord of peace. The quarrels ceased, the devil's party was defeated. The mother of the household, Itta, handed her daughter, God's chosen Gertrude, to the Priests of the Lord to receive the sacred veil with her companions, She receives the sacred veil: and by Christ's ordering she appointed her to preside over the holy flock of cenobites. For the Virgin herself had great continence of character: surpassing advanced age in sobriety of mind and moderation of speech. She was endowed with charity, beautiful of face, but more beautiful of mind: perfect in chastity, generous in almsgiving, devoted to fasts and prayers, Adorned with virtues: provident in the care of the poor and pilgrims, pious to the sick and elderly, and to the young she was vigorous in discipline, and she had pastoral care over the ecclesiastical vessels with the greatest zeal. And through her messengers, men of good testimony, she brought in the patronage of the Saints and holy volumes from the city of Rome and from overseas regions, learned men to teach the songs of the divine law, so that she and hers might merit, by God's inspiration, to have what should be meditated upon.

[4] When all these things were arranged according to the divine order, After the mother's death full of days and at a perfect age, leaving an example of good work to posterity, having offspring and from them seeing grandchildren, in approximately the sixtieth year of her age, the mother of blessed memory Itta, in the twelfth year after the death of her most illustrious husband Pippin the Lord, commending her spirit to God and the Angels, migrated to the Lord, and in the monastery of Nivelles under the protection of Blessed Peter the Apostle she was honorably given to burial. She shares the burden with others, When, therefore, the blessed handmaid of God Gertrude, after her mother's death, had taken upon herself alone every burden of governance; she pondered within herself about heavenly contemplation, which she had desired to have for herself without the tumult of secular affairs. To good and faithful stewards outside from the Brothers, and within the walls of the monastery to spiritual Sisters, she commended the domestic care: so that day and night in holy combat with vigils and holy prayers, readings and fasts she might be able to fight against the spiritual forces of wickedness, She devotes herself to pious exercises. so the outcome of the matter was manifest in her, that she stored away in her memory nearly the entire library of the divine law, and opened the obscure mysteries of allegory plainly to her hearers, the Holy Spirit revealing them. Likewise she built the churches of the Saints and other principal buildings from the foundations: and to orphans, widows, captives, and pilgrims she ministered daily sustenance with all generosity.

[5] Nor should it be passed over, as I think, what the handmaid of God herself, as if terrified by fear, narrated to us. When she had stood at the altar of S. Sixtus the Martyr for the sake of prayer, she saw descending upon her a flaming transparent sphere, so that the entire basilica was illuminated by its brightness, for about half an hour: and gradually it receded whence it had come: and afterward, in the sight of other Sisters, it again appeared upon her in the same manner. What did the manifestation of this light indicate, except a visitation of the true light, which illuminates every Saint praying for himself and for all the faithful in Christ?

[6] On a certain day, however, when those sent on a mission were in danger at sea, the commemoration of this same Gertrude of blessed memory came opportunely to their rescue for life. While they were sailing in the deep with calm weather for the benefit of the monastery, far off appeared a vessel of wondrous size coming from the side. When it had approached, a great tempest arose, and the sea swelled with enormous waves. And behold a great and terrible sea monster appeared to the same messengers at about a sling-throw's distance: whose back they saw not entirely, but in part. And the sailors, trembling, hoping nothing for life, made vows to their idols: but the messengers themselves, invoking the name of the Lord, hoped for that last hour. And one of our men, who still lives, cried out and said three times: Gertrude, help us, as you promised. Certainly he who saw and heard was a witness: at the third time he repeated the word, the sea-monster sought the deep, and they with joy and calm obtained the port that night: thus through the prayer of his handmaid, Christ deigned to free his poor from death.

Surius published: She meditated on the wisdom of the Word of God.

Our copy: might be joined according to the dignity of the world. Surius adds: And this speech was pleasing to the King.

About ten years old. Certainly, with King Dagobert dying in the year 644, she was twelve years old, born in 632.

Namely from birth. Surius altered it thus: Fourteen years having elapsed from then: where "from then" seems to refer to the King's address. Blessed Pippin died in the year 646.

The manuscript of Val-Luisant reads: she persevered.

We have said the same things in the Life of S. Amandus, who then presided over the Church of Utrecht, under which Nivelles was: and we have adduced the Life of S. Modoaldus, Bishop of Trier, brother of S. Iduberga. Consult sections 8 and 11.

In the manuscript and Louvain edition and the manuscript of the Queen of Sweden, it is added: and of the Scottish nation. In the longer Life SS. Foillan and Ultan are named.

From Grimoald his brother she saw Childebert, afterward King of Austrasia: from S. Begga she could also have seen her children: and perhaps Pippin, afterward Prince. Of the niece Wulfedrudis we shall treat below.

In the manuscripts of the Queen of Sweden and Louvain: She completed sixty years of age.

In the same: She had lived after the death of her illustrious husband... twelve years, therefore she died in the year 658. Her birthday is May 8.

In our copy: she had been exhorted.

In the same it is added: to the one who wrote these things. Surius altered it thus: We have these things indeed from him who was present.

CHAPTER II.

Preparation for death, happy departure, burial.

[7] After some years, when on account of excessive abstinence and the keeping of vigils, her little body was gravely worn out by a great illness; Foreseeing her death, by divine revelation the blessed Virgin Gertrude knew that her passing from this light was approaching. With the counsel, therefore, of the servants of God male and female, she completely abandoned every honor and the title of honor and the pastoral care which she had over the flock of Christ in bodily matters, Caring for nothing except only spiritual things for the love of Christ: and she appointed her niece, imbued and nurtured in sacred letters from the cradle under the norm of the holy Rule at her feet, named Wulfedrudis, compelled to take her place, to govern the flock of God and minister to the poor. She substitutes in her governance Wulfedrudis her niece, Then that consecrated maiden Wulfedrudis was in her twentieth year of age: she too was born of the ancient and illustrious Frankish line. She was serene of face, dear to the household, gentle to her subjects, hard on the proud, generous to the poor, dutiful to her relatives, pleasant in speech, fervent in charity toward God and neighbor, and she remained pure in her continence. It happened, however, from paternal hatred, that Kings, Queens, and even Priests, through the envy of the devil, wished first by persuasion and then by force to remove her from her place, so that they might unjustly possess the things of God over which the blessed maiden presided. But protected by the mercy of the Lord and the prayers of the Saints, Christ to whom she had devoted herself as a handmaid resisted all her adversaries in a wondrous manner, and God thus bestowed his grace upon her, that those who had previously been plunderers and accusers through cupidity, afterward became defenders through generosity and kindness. When all things, therefore, were well arranged, and the churches of Christ restored, then in the eleventh year from the time she undertook to govern the flock entrusted to her, for more than fifty days with the illness raging, she was confined to bed, bestowing generous alms as usual through the poor and needy, she forgave all according to the Gospel their debts, and received peace and blessing from all. Among the spiritual handmaids of God, trusting faithfully in faith and hope in Christ, in the thirtieth year of her age she sent forth her joyful spirit on the ninth day before the Kalends of December, and in the bosom of the basilica of Blessed Peter the Apostle she is covered with the greatest care by a marble tomb, where she awaits the day of the resurrection of all the Saints.

[8] Let us return to where we digressed. The blessed handmaid of God Gertrude, therefore, after she had released the bond of honor from her conscience; for about the space of three months without ceasing, praying, exhorting, and preaching the word of the Lord to her own, she did not cease to speak: rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, unconquered in mind, serene of face, she desired the last day of her passing to be at hand. From prison to the kingdom, She prepares for a happy death: from darkness to light, from death she was hastening to life: and though alone in the world here with the body, she daily desired in her spirit to pass to eternal things. She was advancing in virtues, serving singularly in continual prayers, affliction, and abstinence. She also added a rough garment of haircloth and secretly clothed her little body with it: so that she might have no sweetness of refreshment in this life, except where the Saints shall shine like the Sun in the kingdom of their Father. And when she reached her last day, she decreed that in the place of burial itself no woolen or linen garment should be placed over her, She asks for a lowly burial: except one very lowly veil (which a certain pilgrim nun had sent to her many days before as a blessing) for covering the head, and the haircloth itself in the tomb, where she rests in peace: nor is she covered with any other covering, except these two, the haircloth in which she had been clothed, and the old cloth with which the haircloth was covered. She used to say that superfluous things could help neither the dying nor the living: which the wise testify to be true. Having sent someone to S. Ultan, Then when the day of the taking up of her soul was approaching, she called one of the Brothers and commanded him, saying: Go quickly to that pilgrim who is called by the name Ultan, who is far away in the monastery called Fosse, and say to him: The Virgin of Christ Gertrude has sent me to you, to ask on what day she will migrate from this light, because she says she is very afraid, and likewise she rejoices. And he will tell you what you should report back to me. Go, do not hesitate. He quickly fulfilled the command and asked what had been enjoined upon him. And that servant of God Ultan without delay gave the answer to the same messenger, and said: Today is the sixteenth day before the Kalends of April. Tomorrow, however, during the solemnities of the Mass, that handmaid of God and Virgin of Christ, Gertrude, will migrate from the body. She learns the day and hour of her death: And tell her not to fear or tremble about her death, but to go forth joyfully: because Blessed Bishop Patrick with the elect Angels of God and with great glory are prepared to receive her. Go and you too quickly. The Brother who had been sent, however, asked him whether he had seen this matter by divine revelation, so that he might indicate it to her in order. And that servant of God Ultan said in response: Go and you, Brother, hastening, know this: that tomorrow she will migrate to the Lord. Why do you question me further? Returning, he announced to the handmaid of Christ what had been said to him. And she, as if awakening from sleep, rendered her face cheerful with joy, giving thanks to God because through his servant he had deigned to console his handmaid. Thus, joyful over his promise, she remained so that throughout the whole night with the Sisters she kept vigil in psalms and prayers. Having received the viaticum, she dies. On the next day, a Sunday, at about the sixth hour, according to the word of the man of God, she received the most sacred viaticum of the Body and Blood of Christ. And when the Priest had finished the secret sentence of the Lord, in the thirty-third year of her age, on the sixteenth day before the Kalends of April, giving thanks to her Creator, who without corruption had deigned to call her to his kingdom, she gave back to God her desired spirit. While I and another Brother, named Rinchinus, had been summoned there for the consolation of the Sisters, She emits a sweet fragrance: that servant of God called me by name, Rinchinus, and said: Do you perceive anything? And I replied: Nothing, except I see the Sisters in great grief. When I had said this, the sweetest fragrance came: and as if the scent of mixed ointments, that cell where the holy body lay was redolent. And we, departing thence, still perceived in our nostrils the sweetness of that wondrous fragrance. Because everything that was done around her body, which she had long prepared for herself, she had arranged honorably; She is buried. with divine praises by Priests and handmaids of God, the body of the most blessed Virgin of Christ Gertrude is honorably given to burial, where daily the benefits of her prayers are bestowed.

Wulfedrudis, the daughter of her brother Grimoald, hence she is called her aunt among the Nivelles people, as Raissius calls her in the Belgian Hierogazophylacium, page 233.

Wulfedrudis, by others Wulfetrudis, Wolfedrudis, Wilfetrudis.

The cause of hatred toward her. Because Grimoald after the death of S. Sigebert, having sent away to Ireland the son Dagobert, had intruded his own son Childebert. Consult our Diatribe on the three Dagoberts, book 2, chapter 2.

The Kings Clothar III and Childeric, brothers; the Queens: S. Bathild, mother of these, and Immechilda, widow of S. Sigebert, as is established from the matters related in the said chapter 2.

Raissius, cited above, writes that her body is still preserved there.

Our copy reads: of the burden.

S. Ultan, brother of SS. Foillan and Fursey, is venerated on May 1.

The town of Fosse Fosse, donated by S. Gertrude to SS. Foillan and Ultan, now a town of the jurisdiction of Liege, distant from Nivelles beyond the Sambre above Namur by a space of about six leagues.

In the longer Life an exhortation to the nuns is inserted.

The second Sunday of Lent in the year 664, as has been proven above.

CHAPTER III

The earlier miracles of S. Gertrude, done in the time of the Abbess Wulfedrudis.

[9] Since we observe many men in this age living and leading an Angelic life, whence can this happen, unless because, although they live here bodily among men as long as they subsist in the body, yet their mind and conscience is grounded in eternity, and their heart is unceasingly occupied in the contemplation of divinity. So also this handmaid of Christ Gertrude: That S. Gertrude lives in heaven her miracles declare. whose life and manner of living we have described from the earliest age of her youth, although she dwelt here carnally among mortals and was the governor of the men and women servants of Christ who lived under her authority, yet she never consigned to oblivion the inner and perpetual life, nor did she lose the state of her uprightness, nor the gravity of her character, nor the discipline of her rigor. Therefore it is manifest that she merited from the almighty Lord that, after her death, no small miracles are wrought through her: so that it might now also be known to all who recognized her life or the abstinence of her body, how much she can obtain by her prayers with God; when we shall have commemorated and brought forth some of the miracles which the Lord, as the faith of the penitent requires, deigned to display at her tomb.

[10] There was a certain Abbess in a monastery at Trier, whose name was Modesta, and she herself had been consecrated to the Lord from her infancy, and likewise she seemed to be bound to S. Gertrude in familiar divine friendship. And although they were far placed and far separated from each other bodily, and many thousands of spaces intervening; She herself appears at the hour of her death to Abbess S. Modesta: what they could not see of each other with the gaze of their eyes, in mind, however, and in the love of the heart they were always present: because they bore an equal warfare of servitude, and served the Lord in sincerity

of heart equally without deceit they served. After a long space of time, however, this happened which I wish to recall to your memory by narrating, that on a certain day when the aforesaid handmaid of God Modesta, situated in her monastery, had entered her church for the sake of prayer, and had prostrated herself in prayer before the altar of the Blessed Mary ever Virgin. When, however, she had risen after finishing her prayer and was looking around on all sides, she suddenly gazed and saw on the right side of the altar Saint Gertrude standing in the same habit and in the same form in which she herself had been fashioned. And she said to her: Sister Modesta, hold this vision for certain, and know without any ambiguity that today at this same hour I have been released from the habitation of this flesh. I am Gertrude, whom you greatly loved. And having said these things, she was taken away from the eyes of the one beholding. Then she was quietly pondering within herself what so great a vision could mean. And on that same day she indicated no word to anyone about that vision. When, however, the next day arrived, the Bishop of the city, named Chlodulphus, came to the monastery of the aforesaid handmaid of God Modesta. Then among other conversations that Virgin of God asked the Bishop about S. Gertrude, in what habit or order or appearance she had been. And he immediately related in order the stature of her body and the appearance of her beauty. Then Blessed Modesta understood from the sign which she had heard from the Bishop that what she had previously seen was true, and she said to him: This I now confess to you, which before I concealed, that it was revealed to me yesterday at about the sixth hour, because she had migrated from this light on that same day and at that same hour. And afterward she disclosed the whole matter in order to the Bishop. The aforesaid Bishop Chlodulphus, however, recording the day itself and the hour, found the order of the matter to have been just as the aforesaid Abbess had previously indicated.

[11] In the tenth year, however, after the death of the Virgin of Christ S. Gertrude, they assert that a fire broke out in the monastery of Nivelles: where the Virgin of Christ S. Gertrude herself had presided as long as she lived in the body. The violent flame burst forth so much, they say, that none of the monks or virgins or men running together there had any hope of saving the monastery from the fire. Appearing, she drives away the fire from the monastery: The handmaids of God, however, who had gathered there, fled outside the wall beyond the monastery to the neighboring places. Then a certain man, to whom the care of governing the monastery had been entrusted, suddenly raising his eyes, saw S. Gertrude standing on the top of the refectory, in the same appearance and habit in which she herself had been, and with the same veil with which she was always covered, she was casting the flame away from the building. That man, however, not terrified by so great a vision but filled with great joy, was exhorting his companions to act steadfastly. He himself, however, ran up swiftly to see the outcome of the matter. Then in a wondrous manner they suddenly saw the monastery freed from that fire.

[12] At another time also some of the Sisters were admonished by a vision that in that very bed where S. Gertrude, the handmaid of Christ, after the labor of vigils and the urgency of prayers, was accustomed to lay her weary limbs, no human being should dare to rest any longer. Then the aforesaid handmaid of God, the Lady Abbess, The bed, famous for miracles, is carried to the church of S. Paul: the niece of Saint Gertrude, who had been nurtured at her feet, was filled with joy that the Lord had deigned to manifest her through such great miracles of signs. Having convoked the entire congregation, they took up that little bed and carried it with great honor and the praises of God, and placed it in the basilica of Saint Paul the Apostle: where now the Lord deigns to show many signs and miracles.

[13] There was a certain maiden in the same region whom a most grievous illness had oppressed, A sick and blind girl is healed by its touch: so that no physician had been able to heal her for many years. And at last she lost the light of her eyes and became blind. Then the parents of that maiden took her and brought her with them to the monastery of Nivelles, so that they might at least find there some physicians who could cure her. Then on that same night S. Gertrude appeared to her in a vision and said to her: Maiden, do not doubt; but believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and go to the bed which is placed in the Church of Blessed Paul the Apostle, where Gertrude was accustomed to rest: there you will receive health from every tribulation which you suffer in your body. That maiden, however, on account of the severity of her infirmity, was not able to arrive there before the third day. And when the whole congregation was present at the third hour for the divine office, and the work of God was completed; the maiden who had been sick arriving, the Priests took her and brought her to the little bed where she had been ordered to go. And when she had prostrated herself in prayer to the Lord and leaned toward the bed, immediately her eyes were opened: and the whole body, which before had been wounded, was so suddenly healed as if it had never had any wound. She gave thanks to God and was filled with great joy: and with exultation she returned to her parents.

S. Modesta. S. Modesta is venerated on November 4, about whom we treated at greater length in the Diatribe on the three Dagoberts, book 2, chapter 12, because she is commonly believed to have succeeded S. Irmina, daughter of Dagobert II. But Dagobert at this time, a young man tonsured as a Cleric, was living in Ireland, having been sent there the preceding year.

The Avend monastery. We showed in the said chapter 12 that an error crept into this passage, and it should be read in the Avend monastery, which S. Romaricus had built for nuns in his County of Avend, occupying both banks of the nascent Moselle, around Remiremont: for Trier is not a monastery but a city containing various monasteries.

She is commonly held to be the niece of S. Modoaldus, Bishop of Trier, born of his sister, just as S. Gertrude was born of another sister, Itta. They would therefore have been cousins, Were they cousins? and hence the error could have crept in that she is said to have lived in a Trier monastery. With remarkable silence this kinship is everywhere suppressed in her Life.

The manuscript of Val-Luisant reads: by many miles and spaces of land. That is, in French leagues at least 60.

This is S. Chlodulphus, Bishop of the city of Metz, 25 French leagues distant from the monastery in which S. Modesta dwelt: S. Chlodulphus. whose brother Ansigisel was the husband of S. Begga, sister of S. Gertrude. He is venerated on June 8.

Wulfedrudis, about whom we treated at number 7. The name of the Abbess Dominica had been ineptly intruded in place of Lady: whether also in the Prologue is doubtful.

CHAPTER IV.

Miracles of S. Gertrude performed in the decade after her death.

[14] When these things were thus done, it happened that the aforesaid Abbess, the niece of Blessed Gertrude, the Virgin of Christ, migrated from this light, who after her had been the governor of the Nivelles monastery. The Abbess Agnes builds a church for S. Gertrude: the bed is carried into it: Then the entire household unanimously elected one maiden, born of a noble family, as their Abbess, whose name was Agnes, who herself likewise had been nurtured by Blessed Gertrude. She afterward built a basilica in honor of S. Gertrude, the Virgin of Christ. On the very same day on which the church had been built, when the bed had been carried there with honor, that night all the Sisters held solemnities and vigils with the greatest reverence in the same church. When Matins were finished and the work of God completed, Seven lamps light spontaneously: and the seven lamps which always used to burn in the same oratory were extinguished; in the morning, when the same Sisters entered the same church for prayer, they saw all the lamps burning which they had previously left extinguished. Whence it happened that this miracle was spread throughout that entire region: and the fame of the virtues of the handmaid of Christ Gertrude went out, so that all who were far or near, coming there to the tomb of the Virgin of God, sought a remedy for their souls and bodies alike: and with God's help all The sick are healed: who sought help there with love of the divinity returned thence sound and unharmed.

[15] There was a certain man in those neighboring places whose wife had become blind. Then her husband brought her to where the holy Virgin rested, to the aforesaid monastery of Nivelles. When, however, they had entered the church and she had stood under one lamp, suddenly that candle was poured out A blind woman is illuminated: where she stood beneath, and it poured upon the cloak with which she was clothed. All who were there and saw this miracle, taking some of the drop, anointed her eyes, and immediately the eyes of the woman who had been blind were illuminated. On the next day she was strengthened in faith and hope in the virtues of the holy Virgin Gertrude, and she returned home healthy with joy. Since it is sufficiently long to enumerate in order and treat thoroughly all the benefits which God daily bestows through her, because of his mercy, on all who take refuge there and seek from her the cause of their salvation, we have touched upon a few of many, how all who come from the surrounding area, who invoke her name with true faith, merit to return thence unharmed by her holy prayers, from whatever tribulation they are oppressed.

[16] At another time also, when robbers had seized a certain boy, they bound him, wishing to sell him into captivity outside his homeland. A captive is freed: When he had long been held fast in bonds, remembering with confidence the name of S. Gertrude, and begging her to deign to bestow help upon him; immediately the bonds fell from his hands by which he had been tied: and he began to run to free himself. Those men, however, who had held him bound, likewise began to run after him to seize him, and they were unable to. And so the boy was freed from the hand of the robbers and his enemies through the help of S. Gertrude.

[17] Again, however, afterward at another time a certain man was found in great crimes, so that his Lord ordered him to be seized and bound in chains. Then that wretch, placed in distress Another detained in prison for crimes. and terrified by excessive fear, because all who were present had no hope of the length of his life, he who was bound was strengthened in hope, beseeching the holy Virgin of Christ Gertrude to help him in his misery: and immediately and at that very time the iron bonds by which he was bound were broken, and he himself carried them to the monastery of Nivelles: and he found all the gates of the monastery and the doors of the churches open, and he reached the holy bed itself, and there he was freed through the power of the holy Virgin Gertrude.

[18] In the thirty-third year, however, after the death

of Blessed Gertrude, at the Lord's inspiration, it came into the heart of her sister, named Begga, that she wished to build a monastery for herself. Afterward, indeed, in such spiritual devotion she came to the aforesaid monastery of Nivelles, S. Begga, about to build a monastery, comes to Nivelles, and asking the aforesaid Abbess and at the same time the entire congregation to give her some assistance of a spiritual nature, from which she might have the beginning of her devotion in her greatest need. The whole congregation received her petition with the most loving spirit, which she had requested: and they gave her Relics and books of the holy Scriptures. She receives nuns with books, relics, Similarly they gave her in the holy habit elder spiritual Sisters, who could teach that same monastery the discipline of the regular life and the norm of religion, as was fitting for the beginning of such a work. And from that bed in which S. Gertrude her sister had migrated to Christ, they gave her a part. Then the most Christian Matron, having received all these things And a part of the bed famous there for miracles. which pertained to the reverence of religion, carried all these things with her with honor and reverence to her monastery, filled with great joy and exultation. When, however, they had approached the monastery where they were heading, they raised their voices with canticles and sang praises to the Lord: and they carried the Relics and the holy bed which they had brought with them, and placed it beside the altar of S. Genevieve the Virgin. Who among men, however, could explain in words how many are daily cleansed there from demons, how many sick are cured? For from whatever tribulation they cry there to the Lord, they return freed. She dies. In the second year, however, when all things were completed and well arranged, that Matron migrated to the Lord.

[19] Not many days later, however, a certain religious woman came to the same monastery, born of a noble family, whose name was Adula, truly a handmaid of Christ in all things, chaste in habit, Religious in humility, in charity unfeigned, Adula, a noble matron, generous in almsgiving to the elderly and poor, hospitable to the needy and pilgrims. But she had a doubt whether the Lord had deigned to show such great signs and miracles through the merit of Blessed Gertrude or not. Whence it happened that a contention arose from this, yet as if in jest, between the aforesaid matron and one handmaid of God residing there in the monastery. On a certain day, however, the Matron asked her, saying: On what day was the feast of S. Gertrude. She, however, answering said: The fifth week in Lent, on a Friday. And she said: Far be it from me that for this solemnity I should wish to increase anything beyond the accustomed measure of our service toward a feast. Less devoted to the veneration of S. Gertrude, That maiden, however, answering said: If Blessed Gertrude can obtain anything from the Lord, she will make you on that same day, willing or unwilling, perform the charity of divine religion. When, however, that day approached, then all who had assembled there for this solemnity, whether men or women, monks and virgins of Christ, celebrated that day with honor and reverence. And after the solemnity of the Masses was completed, they then took food and drink, rejoicing with thanksgiving, from all the foods which it was lawful to eat during the Lenten season; but the Matron alone did not eat on that day. She had, however, a little son whom she loved very tenderly. The infant came and asked her permission to play. She said to him: Do what you wish. The infant, however, was playing and running here and there: and suddenly by chance it happened that he fell into a fountain which was there. And he lay there for so long She is punished by the drowning of her son, until the Sisters rose from the table filled with joy, happy and well refreshed. One of the Sisters, however, came and said: Do you know that the son of that Matron is dead? They therefore asked her who had killed him. She replied: He fell into the fountain and was drowned there. Then that nun, who before had been contending with the Matron about the miracles of S. Gertrude, cried out with a loud voice and said: S. Gertrude, you did this on account of her, because the mother of this infant did not wish to believe in your miracles, which the Lord has wrought through you. And she said again: I beseech your holiness, Gertrude, Virgin of Christ, and through our Lord Jesus Christ I adjure you, that as you are able to obtain from the Lord, so may you deign to resuscitate him. And she began to go quickly to fetch the infant. When, however, she was going, his mother met her. And she said: What are you doing, Sister? And she, answering a third time with an oath, said: What I am doing, you also do likewise. In truth believe, because at this same hour S. Gertrude will restore your son to you alive. When he was resuscitated, She then took the infant and placed him beside the bed of Blessed Gertrude. Immediately in a wondrous manner, suddenly, as they looked on, the infant who had previously been dead arose. From that day, moreover, the aforesaid Matron began to believe in the miracles of S. Gertrude. At that same hour, summoning her entire household, she afterward fulfilled what she had previously denied regarding the charitable feast. And on the next day she celebrated Mass in honor of Gertrude, the Virgin of Christ, She is most favorably disposed. and had a feast with all the Sisters. The infant, however, without any injury served them, and with his own hands offered drink to each one in order. Therefore the aforesaid Matron most beautifully adorned that holy bed, encircled on all sides with gold and precious gems. And lest this perhaps seem incredible to anyone, I call God as witness that what I saw with my own eyes and learned through reliable witnesses, this I have written. Now, however, let enough have been said about her virtues and miracles: yet we have not been able to set forth in order the whole of what the Lord daily deigns to work in her name. Let us therefore now pray the Lord that through the prayers of his Virgin S. Gertrude he may deign to help us, to whom is honor, power, dominion, and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

In the year 674 on November 23, as is established from the above.

That was the year 696 or the following.

In our copy it is added: in the veneration of Blessed Gertrude.

Likewise: Crosses.

We gave the Life of S. Genevieve the Virgin on January 3.

Around the year 698. Her birthday is December 17.

Here ends the Life published from the Louvain codex by Geldolph van Ryckel.

Adela, daughter of Dagobert II At that time flourished Adela or Adula, sister of S. Irmina, daughter of Dagobert II, about whom we treated in book 2 of the three Dagoberts, chapter 14.

Here we think it should read the Second week, and easily from the Roman numeral II the number V is produced, and it would be the year 702, in which with lunar cycle 19, solar cycle II, dominical letter A, these things agree, or at least let it be read Thursday not Friday, which would be the year 701.

The manuscript of the Queen of Sweden: The Sisters had made a custom that on the day of the feast itself, for the sake of veneration, they would break the fast. When she understood this, she said: Far be it, lest in any way the observance of the fast be broken by me for this solemnity.

The same manuscript: The aforesaid matron on that same day extended the fast in her usual manner.

The son of the Adela indicated by us was Alberic, father of S. Gregory of Utrecht, because he presided over that See in the capacity of Bishop after the murder of S. Boniface, killed in the year 754.

The same manuscript of the Queen of Sweden: Immediately in the veneration of S. Gertrude she broke her fast.

APPENDIX I

A blind and crippled maiden healed.

[1] Nor should this be passed over in silence, which the Lord, at the praise and glory of his name, in the times of the Abbess Eggeburg, in the eighth year of her governance, at the Kalends of September, deigned to work through the merits of the holy Virgin. There was a certain maiden in the district of Winioen, where Valericus rests, in the maritime parts, named Adelberga, A maiden born blind who reached the light of this world without the light of her eyes. In the twenty-second year of her age, however, the appearance of a certain nun clothed in a white pallium appeared to her in a vision and admonished her with these words: Maiden, hasten and go to the tomb of the holy Virgin Gertrude, which is known to be in the monastery of Nivelles, and there you will merit the light of your eyes. Admonished in a vision When this vision had appeared to her a third time, she reported all these things to her mother. She, however, could in no way believe that such a vision had been manifested to her. The aforesaid maiden, however, went sorrowfully to a certain Priest of God and told him the whole truth of the matter. He, strengthening her in the Lord, spoke to her thus: Do not doubt, he said, but go as you have been commanded, for I believe that you will be healed through her merits. Then the aforesaid maiden, strengthened by his words, took up the journey and traveling for a whole month, she came into the parts of the district of Brachatensis, to the monastery called Lothusa. On that very night the venerable Virgin appeared to her again, saying to her: Having set out for Nivelles. Hasten: for without doubt you will recover your health there. She, hastening very quickly, reached the aforesaid monastery. And when she had entered the oratory of Blessed Peter, where the venerable Virgin rests in the body, and had prostrated herself in prayer; suddenly afflicted with great anguish from the excess of pain, she began to tear out the hairs of her head. For the skin covering the light of her eyes was being torn, and blood began to flow like a shower of tears. She is illuminated. All who were present, however, saw the blood flowing from her eyes, and so gradually she received the light of her eyes: and thus almighty God, through the merits of the prayers of the holy Virgin, gave to the same maiden the light which she had not received at birth.

[2] But neither should this be covered in silence, which the Lord there deigned to work through the merits of the holy Virgin in the times of the Emperor Charles, in the fifteenth year of his reign, in the one hundred and twenty-seventh year after the death of the holy Virgin. There was a certain little maiden in the Ripuarian district, feeble in every part of her limbs and destitute of all resources. It happened, however, that she was presented to the sight of Queen Hildegard, so that she might bestow her alms upon her: who, moved by mercy over her, commanded her to be brought to the palace, so that she might be nourished there by the mercy of her generosity, which was also done. After some time, however, she commanded her to be brought to the monastery of Nivelles, and there to be sustained by her alms for the days of her life. And while she was staying there, on the very vigil of the Epiphany, with all the Sisters going to the nocturnal office, the aforesaid maiden remained alone in her little bed: and behold she beholds the blessed Virgin entering the chamber in which she was staying, bearing in her hand a candle of wondrous whiteness and splendor, from whose light the entire cell was illuminated:

then she said to her: Why do you seem unable to rest at all? And she replied: I cannot, Lady. Then she, smiling, said: Tell the Sisters that I, Gertrude, have appeared to you: if, however, they do not wish to believe you, tomorrow before the third hour of the day I will give you a sign which they will entirely believe. And saying these things she departed. At dawn, however, reporting these things, she had herself carried into the house in which the Virgin of Christ had been nurtured. When they had washed her and clothed her in garments, she suddenly looked back and saw again the holy Virgin standing before her: and as she gazed upon her, the bonds of her hands and feet were loosed, and immediately the maiden, raising herself, stood upon her feet, and she saw the blessed Virgin going out and standing with the candle in the portico which is dedicated in honor of S. Agatha, where the Virgin of Christ herself, departing from the world, sought the heavenly realm. And when the aforesaid maiden was standing in that same place on her feet and crying out that she saw something, a certain one of the Sisters who was watching her said to her: What did you see, daughter? She said: I behold the Lady Gertrude holding a white candle in her hand. Then, having taken the maiden's hand, she led her into the church of Blessed Mary and placed her before the seat in which the Virgin of Christ was accustomed to sit. And when for a third time she cried out that she saw the holy Virgin, the entire congregation assembled for such a spectacle, and they found the maiden standing and glorifying God. Then the entire congregation, praising and glorifying God, led her to the basilica of Blessed Peter, to the tomb of the holy Virgin, and she, going with all of them, glorified God for the health given to her, and thus she remained in the health given to her all the days of her life. Amen.

S. Valericus is venerated on the Kalends of April, from whom the town of S. Valery is named, near the mouth of the river Somme, in the French Pays de Vimeu.

The manuscript of the Queen of Sweden reads: clothed in a white cloak.

Our manuscript reads Brachbantensem; the longer Life reads Brachbatensem. Concerning the ancient limits of Brabant, consult what was said in the Life of Blessed Pippin.

Lothusa, by others Lutosa; in the manuscript of the Queen of Sweden, Chludusa, commonly Leuze in modern Hainault. Concerning the monastery built there by S. Amandus, we treated in his Life, section 6.

Rather the thirty-eighth. Namely from the year 664 to 782, which was the fifteenth year of the reign of Charlemagne; and Hildegard died in the year 783.

Otherwise Ripuarian, whose metropolis is Cologne, as has been said frequently elsewhere.

APPENDIX II

Relics examined. Miracles.

[1] Let all know that in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1292, on the Wednesday before the Division of the Apostles, namely on the day of the holy Martyrs Kilian and his companions, they inspected the Relics of the most blessed Virgin Gertrude in her bier, at the command and ordinance of the chapter of Nivelles: the Lady Elizabeth de Birbac, Abbess, Emma de Talour, Provost, The Relics of S. Gertrude displayed. Sibilia de Jace, James de S. Syrus, John de Valerius, and Master Thierry de Ulm, Priests, Walter de Poys, Scholastic, and other Canons male and female of Nivelles: and they found the head and jawbones with teeth, only three excepted, and the entire body through the bones of the Virgin. And many from the Chapter and other persons from outside saw the aforesaid Relics on the said day and in the year noted above: at which innumerable miracles are performed to this day, of which it will suffice to narrate a few here.

[2] There was a certain man in the territory of Brabant, conspicuous for nobility, named Odelardus: who, having languished for a long span of years, infected with leprosy according to some, it happened that on a certain day he asked for a drink from his daughter, named Berlendis. She immediately arose, washed a cup, poured the drink quickly, and brought it to her father: By the father of S. Berlendis who drank and returned the cup to her. She, being thirsty and refusing to drink after her father, poured out the drink: she washed the cup again, poured in the drink, and thus drank. The father, seeing this, said no word to her: but silently bore it with remarkable indignation: summoning servants, he ordered a chariot to be prepared for him and he mounted it. Estates offered He went to Nivelles and to the most holy Gertrude delivered whatever he had in estates, with a clod of earth and a branch and a knife with a white handle: and he deprived his daughter of all right of inheritance. In that same delivery, however, a stupendous thing happened: for by the nod of the supreme God the shrine in which the holy Virgin lay opened itself: They are accepted by a hand extended from the sepulcher: and the lifeless body extended its hand: and before the eyes of all it received the branch with the clod and knife from the man's hand inside the shrine, and as it had been closed and sealed before, it remained. Then a clamor was raised to heaven, and the Creator of all was praised: and his handmaid S. Gertrude, through whose merits so unexpected and so joyful a miracle occurred, was venerated with the greatest devotion. Berlendis, however, the aforesaid, when she saw herself deprived of her paternal inheritance, afterward came to the monastery of Morselle, built in honor of S. Gudula the Virgin, for the sake of conversion: and she was devoutly received by the Sisters of that place: but she lived more devoutly, as the book of her life clearly teaches, and she was made a Saint. The aforesaid clod is also seen to this day in the church of Nivelles.

[3] Around the year of the Lord 1244 a certain maiden of five years or thereabouts was dwelling at Nivelles in the convent of Beguines at S. Syrus, named Maria, surnamed Lebaylhet: A five-year-old girl submerged, who, having seized a water jug without anyone's knowledge, went at a certain time to a stone fountain, deep and profound. When she had filled it with water, thinking to lift it, she fell into the well and remained there all that day and night until the first hour of the following day. When they came to the prayer which was performed by the common convent, it was first discovered that the aforesaid Maria was missing. When her companions were questioned and nothing certain was known about her; at last one of the congregation was found who said she had seen Maria going the preceding day with a jug to draw water. When this was discovered, all were disturbed and terrified, sending some to every watery and suspicious place, Found the next day, if perhaps they could find even a trace of her there. When at last they came to the aforesaid fountain, they found her precipitously submerged in it: and returning they announced the sad crime to all, and there was indeed great weeping there. Nevertheless, having hope in God and his glorious Spouse, namely Blessed Gertrude, they decreed that she should be drawn from the well and carried to her church, And brought to the altar of S. Gertrude, and placed upon the altar, those who seemed the most eminent: and together with the Canonesses and Canons of the said Church they earnestly begged the mercy of Christ and of his Spouse, She is resuscitated: through whose intercession very many miracles had shone in the same church for the salvation of the faithful, that they might also merit to receive her alive and resuscitated. Without delay, behold, the dead maiden revives: and her people received her safe and sound from the altar, and returned immense praises to God and the most blessed Gertrude: through whose merits they did not doubt that they had recovered her resuscitated. At which time, to declare so evident a miracle, all the bells are rung. When this was heard, the Lord Robert, Bishop of Liege, who was then present, and having learned what had happened, came personally to the church; and praised the wonders of God and of his Spouse for the miracle performed. [On account of this miracle a solemn procession was instituted annually on August 4:] And because the aforesaid city pertained to his diocese, he ordained that every year on that day on which this miracle occurred, namely the day before the Nones of August, a general procession should be held there, and a Mass in honor of God and the most holy Gertrude should be solemnly sung in memory of so great a prodigy, granting by his ordinary authority to all and each who devoutly attended the aforesaid Mass and procession forty days of Indulgences. The aforesaid maiden, however, after she had grown up, visited the holy places in the city of Rome: and afterward returning, she humbly served several Canonesses in the aforesaid church. Moreover, the oft-mentioned miracle is recited every year on the above-mentioned day in the same church to the people: for which and all the other things which the Divine mercy has deigned to display in the same place for the glory of his Spouse, the Te Deum laudamus is then solemnly sung by the Clergy.

[4] In more recent times, namely in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1407, on the 21st day of June, another miracle happened in the same city, concerning a certain other Maria Nicolas de Carnispriuio, a maidservant. [Another maidservant who fell into a well, invoking S. Gertrude, is preserved unharmed.] When she had fallen at the first hour of the aforesaid day into a certain well; she remained there still alive around the third hour, for a space of nearly two hours: during which time she did not cease to cry out to God and the holy Virgin Gertrude, that they might deign to help her in this crisis. It happened meanwhile that her mistress, the wife of the aforesaid man, chanced to come by: and heard her calling out and invoking as we described, and having discovered the time she had spent in the well, she conjectured that S. Gertrude had sustained and kept alive the maidservant invoking her for so long, as was indeed the truth of the matter. She therefore summoned two men who might be witnesses of so great a miracle, namely Bernard Cruce and Adam Copijn: who, entering the well with the aid of a ladder, drew her out entirely cold and almost bloodless from the iciness of the water itself: the depth of the water was the length of two men: and likewise the height of the well above the water was of nearly the same measure. On the following day at dawn she was led by the household to the church of S. Gertrude: and they narrated to the Canonesses and Canons of the same college the whole course of events. They, therefore, having held mature deliberation, published the miracle to the people: and solemnly sang the Te Deum laudamus.

[5] There are indeed also many other and almost innumerable miracles which the Lord deigns to display to this day at the Relics of his Spouse: to whom is glory for ever.

Rather the next day should be read, because in the said bissextile year 1292 with dominical letters FE, July 9 falls on a Wednesday.

These things are said somewhat more fully in the Life of S. Berlendis on February 3, chapter 1, where individual points are explained.

Robert, from Bishop of Langres, was created Bishop of Liege in the year 1240; he died on October 16, in the year 1246.

DISSERTATION ON S. GERTRUDE

Who is venerated in Franconia.

Gertrude, Virgin, Abbess of Nivelles in Brabant (Saint)

Section I. The fabricated flight of S. Gertrude of Nivelles, or of another daughter of Pippin of Herstal, into Franconia.

[1] The author of the longer Life of S. Gertrude, whom we said above seems to have lived in the eleventh or twelfth century, with his flourishing style, in which he greatly glories, thus describes the flight of S. Gertrude of Nivelles in book 2. The most wicked adversary, grieving that he had been dashed with such great ruin under the victorious maiden, dared by more subtle artifice to enter upon a second battle against her. And what wonder if, with renewed strength,

he presumed to wage a second war against the Virgin: S. Gertrude is feigned to have fled into Franconia to avoid marriage. who did not shrink from raising himself against his own Creator with three temptations. And so, after a brief interval, he cast such a suspicion into the venerable Pippin, her father, that he believed the purpose of preserving virginity to be of childish levity, not of divine inspiration: he therefore wished to join her in marriage to a young man who sought her. Blessed Virgin Gertrude, hidden by her pious mother, concealed herself as long as she could from the sight of her father: but when at last she was betrayed and could no longer be hidden, by the counsel of her same mother she fled secretly with two handmaids to Upper Germany, which is now called Franconia, to a certain place called Karlburg, which had been, they say, a castle of Charles, the Duke of that land. Which estate the most religious woman Itta, her mother, possessed by hereditary right of her family: to whom it had come through the succession of a certain Geilana, her mother, who was the wife of Carloman of whom above. There therefore the blessed maiden, free from the annoyance of a suitor, spent some years serving God in prayer and abstinence, until, her father Pippin dying, she returned to the Nivelles monastery. We have put this from the longer Life, or rather from the Leyden Legend, into the words of our Commentary, so that we might briefly dispose of the fabrication. And first, this is observed to disagree with the first and more ancient Life, whose author expressly says that the maiden spurned the suitor offered by King Dagobert, not her father: and from that day her parents knew by what King she had been loved: then that after fourteen years, namely from birth, with the father dead, the mother, admonished by S. Amandus, built a monastery, and Gertrude received the veil. From which clearly follows that there was no place for a flight from a suitor in the period between the banquet (at which the maiden was about ten years old) and the construction of the monastery, which the father who died four years later could not have impeded.

[2] But it would not be enough that this fiction should be refuted from genuine records alone: if there were not another external proof against it drawn from an irrefragable testimony, which demonstrates the entire story to be transferred from another Gertrude, a real or supposed daughter or granddaughter of Pippin of Herstal, to the Gertrude of Nivelles. There existed at Karlburg, whose situation at the confluence of the rivers Main and Wern the learned will know, a monastery of Virgins: whose foundress was a certain Gertrude, called in the local documents the daughter of Pippin and Plectrude. This Pippin, however, is the one surnamed of Herstal, great-grandson of Blessed Pippin father of our Gertrude: which succession of name and family both could, and is shown to have done so in fact, given occasion to those who wished to aggrandize the fame of the younger Gertrude by linking her to the more ancient and more celebrated one.

[3] This Gertrude, whom the people of Karlburg claim as theirs, was perhaps (as we are inclined to believe, if she was certainly of Pippin's family) the daughter of Drogo, whom this father Pippin begot from his wife Plectrude. For this Drogo married Adaltrudis of Alsace, and is believed to have had by her a son named Hugo, whom Charles Martel put to death, and perhaps also daughters: among whom Gertrude could have been, who being called the granddaughter of Pippin and Plectrude was easily turned into a daughter by those writers who condensed many generations of the same family into one. Others, however, deny she was of Pippin's blood at all, and derive her from Charles, Duke of the Franks, whose castle Karlburg was. We leave this matter to the local antiquaries to settle: it suffices for us to have shown that the story of the flight into Franconia, attached to S. Gertrude of Nivelles, is a demonstrable fabrication, and that the Gertrude of Karlburg, whoever she was, is a distinct person.

Section II. What is known of the Gertrude of Karlburg.

[4] The Gertrude of Karlburg is venerated at that place on March 17, the same day as S. Gertrude of Nivelles: which coincidence of feast day doubtless contributed to the confusion of the two. Her monastery, however, was transferred in the year 752 by S. Burkard, the first Bishop of Wurzburg, from Karlburg to Wurzburg itself, where it still exists under the invocation of S. Mary on the Hill. Local traditions assert that she lived a holy life and died in the odor of sanctity: but no ancient Life exists, and what is told of her depends entirely on the interpolated Life of S. Gertrude of Nivelles, from which the Franconian episodes were extracted and given a local habitation. We therefore abstain from giving any proper Acts of this Gertrude, since we have nothing genuine to offer: and we warn the reader that whatever he may find in local calendars and histories about a flight of S. Gertrude to Franconia is to be referred not to the Nivelles Gertrude but to this local saint, whose real history is almost entirely unknown.

Gertrude; your sister, O great Charles of old. If you are wise, you will vigorously imitate her in upright deeds. Learn to follow: and having made your vows to her, proceed, traveler.

Behold and imitate these footsteps of the Lady Gertrude, O reader, impressed by the assiduity of prayer, and divinely preserved for so many centuries as an example of piety for posterity. Thus far those things there. There was appended, and afterward separately transmitted, a brief description of memorable things which God worked through his handmaid the holy Gertrude. In which all things are applied to Charlemagne the Emperor as her brother, and the rest is expressed thus.

[5] In the year from the birth of Christ 794, Charles surnamed the Great, King of the Franks and afterward Emperor of the Romans, laid the foundations of the Neustadt monastery and endowed it with royal liberality: whose full sister was S. Gertrude... who at Karlburg, so named by Charlemagne... caused a church to be built at immense expense: at which time her brother began to build the Neustadt monastery: The Neustadt monastery begun by him, she completes: but hindered by the multitude of the affairs of the Empire, he entrusted the care of assistance to his sister. Therefore she very frequently traveled from Karlburg to Neustadt, both for the sake of the building and also so that she might more conveniently devote herself to prayers and divine contemplations and the embraces of her immortal Spouse. For she was supremely attached to the hill adjacent to the monastery, where she was accustomed to offer her prayers to God: in whose honor and that of S. Michael the Archangel she erected a church there: She founds a church of S. Michael before whose choir in the open air the traces of the devotion practiced by her there are seen to this very day. For her elbows, knees, and feet are impressed there in the earth, and they fit anyone, both in length and in size, who inserts and applies himself to them out of devotion. Traces left to this day: These, which is worthy of admiration, cannot be destroyed by any injuries of the weather (for they are in the open air and surrounded on all sides by very thick growth): and the cavities produce not even the smallest blade of grass, so to speak. It is added that neither the malice of times nor of men has been able to destroy them. For a certain nobleman of a well-known family, whose coat of arms I willingly pass over for the sake of honor, with his servant twice destroyed the same traces by night: but they were always found in the morning as they had been before. When, however, he attempted the same a third time, such a force of winds was stirred up, the sky being otherwise clear and calm, that he feared he was about to be snatched away by evil spirits. Therefore, abandoning his digging tools, he suddenly sought safety by flight, which he himself afterward confessed. There exists moreover still a fountain on the road by which one travels from Karlburg to Neustadt, She produces a fountain: situated between two villages in the forest next to the Zeller ditch, obtained by the prayers and merits of S. Gertrude. For when at one time she was pressed by thirst on the road and was scratching the ground on which she leaned, a spring of water burst forth, which to this very day does not cease to flow and takes its name from S. Gertrude. Certain trustworthy men also affirm that the part of the road which leads from Karlburg to Neustadt, which the Lady Gertrude trod with her sacred feet, is distinguished from the rest of the road: namely, when the latter dries out, the former is accustomed to be green, and vice versa. Finally, in the said monastery the pallium itself is preserved, on whose edges some letters are interwoven in gold, which if construed mean this: Berbertha ordered me to be made for the honor and adornment of her daughter. Those in labor are helped by her pallium: While by sight the praise due to our merit may be present. If women suffering difficult births use this pallium, through the intercession of the Lady Gertrude they are freed from pains and happily bear their offspring. In another copy these things are added: Charles, surnamed the Great, King of the Franks and Emperor of the Romans, Holy, Happy, Augustus, laid the foundations of the present monastery and endowed it with royal liberality in the year from the birth of Christ 794. The Lady Gertrude, full sister of the Emperor Charles, increased it with liberality in the Christian year 812. She endowed the monastery in the year 812 Louis the First, called the Pious, son of Charles, and likewise the most happy Emperor of Germany, strengthened and enlarged the foundations in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 823. There then followed this title: Relics of S. Gertrude, and these things were added. In the village of Karlburg there was formerly a monastery, Her relics at Karlburg, now, however, utterly destroyed. In the church there is seen first a bandage of S. Gertrude; second, some of her bones; third, a fragment of the flask in which she is said to have brought drink to the Brothers of Neustadt; fourth, the mirror of S. Gertrude, on whose back is painted the holy Virgin carrying Christ taken down from the Cross in her bosom. On the wall of the Neustadt monastery is seen an image of the Lady Gertrude supporting a church with her hand, with a prostrate Benedictine Religious, At Neustadt an ancient image, with these words inscribed: Pray for me, S. Gertrude, foundress. The rest is read in a single codex.

[6] In the year 1525, on Friday after the Sunday Misericordia Domini, the inhabitants of Steinfeld together with the other inhabitants in the territory and domain of Rottenfels entered the monastery of Neustadt with an armed force, It was plundered: and they plundered and devastated everything, and tore up nearly all the books and carried off all the moveable goods: and afterward the church together with its ornaments and furnishings was devastated, and all the altars were violated, and the venerable Relics of the Saints were scattered, and the images destroyed. The crown, however, hanging in the middle of the church, which S. Charlemagne, the founder of the aforesaid monastery, had caused to be made, was taken away and torn apart, and all the windows together with their shutters were destroyed and carried off. S. Gertrude, moreover, had endowed the oft-mentioned monastery with two villages, Zell and Steinfeld, Two villages given as endowment: a copy of whose endowment letters still exists. It is subscribed that this was submitted from the manuscript of Brother Conrad Lieb, afterward Abbot until the year 1554. Thus far the documents chiefly submitted from the Neustadt monastery: against which it can be objected that in the Sanmarthani and other more accurate writers of the genealogy of Kings, three daughters of King Pippin are assigned: Rothaid, Adelaide, and Gisela. So we grant, and we note that only the first two are known, because Paul Warnefrid in his Chronicle of the Bishops of Metz asserts that two daughters of King Pippin were buried in the oratory of Blessed Arnulf, How a daughter of King Pippin? of whom one was called Rothaid and the other Adela: meanwhile Warnefrid does not deny that he had other daughters. Pope Paul I mentions Gisela in letter 5 to her father Pippin, and Pope Stephen III in his letter to the brothers Charlemagne and Carloman says she was sought by the Emperor Constantine for his son's marriage, and advises against her being given as wife to the son of Desiderius, King of the Lombards. The people of Soissons report that she died as Abbess in their monastery dedicated to S. Mary in the year 811 or 814. Why should not faith be given to both the ancient history and the tradition of the Church of Arras, according to which S. Itisberga was also a daughter of King Pippin and a sister of Charlemagne, as will be said on her birthday, May 21? Therefore, although she is less commonly known, the said Gertrude could have been a daughter of King Pippin and a sister of Charlemagne.

Otherwise Andreas Voit von Rieneck.

Otherwise "our."

Section III. Further inquiry about Gertrude the sister of Charlemagne, and her sacred veneration.

[7] What we have so far brought forward did not yet fully satisfy, since the seventeenth of March was assigned to her veneration, indeed (although we judged them wrongly intruded) the name of the mother Itta was repeated, and a flight from Gaul to Franconia was added, lest she be joined in marriage to the son of the Duke of the Austrasians: which we rejected above as fables. We therefore pressed by letter through Nicolas Lutz, Provincial of the Society of Jesus for the parts of the Upper Rhine, so that Johann Gamans, an industrious man in the searching out of ancient monuments, The charter of foundation. might proceed from Aschaffenburg, where he resides, to the Neustadt monastery, not far distant. He went and submitted two documents to us: in the first is contained the foundation of the said monastery made by Charlemagne, with the appended donation of Gertrude: in the other, arguments of sacred veneration are brought forward, all of which we give here: and the charter of foundation begins thus.

In the name of the Lord, God almighty, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, Charles, by the favor of supreme Clemency, King of the Franks. Whatever we have erected for the benefit of churches or the peace of the servants of God; that, without doubt, with the Lord helping, we trust will profit us toward eternal blessedness. Therefore we wish it to be known to all our faithful, both present and future, what beginning the monastery had, which is called Rorlacha or Neustadt, which we built in the forest of Spessart around the river Main: so that where we first chose a special resting place for our hunting, on account of the pleasantness and sweetness of life, there afterward a worthy oratory for divine worship should be had: gathering there a multitude of servants of God, whom Bishop Burkard had brought from the English nation, and others from the surrounding area, who were hiding in solitudes and in the caves of the earth for the love of Christ: so that in our aforesaid resting place, like earthly cultivators, the more secretly they dwelt, the more freely they might be able to beseech God for the state of the whole kingdom and for our salvation. Over whom also we appointed Meingaudius as Abbot, at the request of our sweetest mother Bertrada: after whose death we grant to those monks, by the piety of our royal authority, the perpetual and free license and power of choosing an Abbot among themselves whenever necessary. We took, moreover, from our chapel Relics of S. Mary the perpetual Virgin, of Martin the Confessor of Christ, and of very many other Saints, which having been brought to the said place, we ordered the church to be consecrated in honor of our Savior and S. Mary his Mother by Lull the Archbishop and Willibald the Bishop, in our presence, on the eleventh day before the Kalends of September. As the endowment of which church, a part of the estate in the forest of Spessart, to be possessed perpetually by right of property without contradiction, we have granted by our royal authority. And with the boundaries of the donation broadly indicated, and that secured by the privilege of immunity, it is concluded thus. That this authority of our concession may be held more firmly, and be better observed through future times and more truly believed, we have confirmed it below with our own hand, and have ordered it to be sealed with the impression of our ring. The sign of the Lord Charles, most glorious King. Willisarius the Chancellor, in place of Lull the Archichaplain, I have verified it. Given in the month of May, in the year from the Incarnation of the Lord 794, Indiction 2, in the nineteenth year of the reign of King Charles in France, and the twelfth in Italy.

[8] Thus far the charter of foundation, into which toward the end the years of Christ and of the reign were rashly thrown in, plainly disagreeing among themselves and from the formula of subscriptions then customarily used: The corrected formula of the given charter. for which we think this or something similar was written: Given in the month of May, in the nineteenth year of our reign, unless 12 or another number should rather be substituted. Among the more authentic charters of these times which we have seen so far, we consider those which Nicholas Zillesius published in defense of the Imperial Abbey of S. Maximin, where to a related charter of Charlemagne these are subscribed: The sign of Charles, most glorious King. Rado reread it.

Given in the month of August, in the fortieth year of our reign: and the same formula there is in the charters of King Pippin and the Emperor Louis the Pious, of whom the former was the father and the latter the son of Charlemagne. But the charter which we have reported, if it is genuine in other respects, we think was written when the persons mentioned therein were still alive: of whom S. Willibald, Bishop of Eichstatt, born in the year 704, departed this life on July 7 of the year 781, as we have accurately deduced on February 7 in the Life of S. Richard his father, page 70. When he died, therefore, Charlemagne counted only the thirteenth year of his reign, which he had begun on October 9 of the year 768. Nor did Berta, or Bertrada, the mother of Charlemagne, long survive, having died on June 10 of the year 783. Lull himself also, the Archbishop of Mainz, who consecrated the church, and whose function in verifying the charter was supplied, is reported in the more ancient Annals to have died in the year 786, by others in the following year, when the nineteenth year of the reign was being counted. S. Burkard, Bishop of Wurzburg, survived until the year 791, and was then succeeded by Meingaudius, who at the request of Bertrada is said to have been appointed the first Abbot. All of which prove that the year from the Lord's Incarnation 794 was added by an unskilled chronologist, and that the genuine charter of Charlemagne does not exist on the original parchments. The other charter begins thus.

[10] In the name of the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Charles, by the favor of supreme Clemency, King of the Franks and Lombards and Patrician of the Romans. Donation made under the name of Gertrude. The Wisdom of God wished the holy Church to be fortified and protected by two swords, namely the spiritual and the material sword: wherefore with the material sword divinely bestowed upon us, as the Lord has granted, we do not cease to govern, defend, and honor it. Hence it is that by the present writings we make known to all who shall come after us, how the church built by us, namely called Neustadt or Rorlacha, at our request was endowed by our sister Gertrude with excellent estates and a very large household. For that same sister of ours, thirsting for the heavenly Spouse and leaving all the pomp of the world in mind and body, made the neighboring churches in the German parts the heirs of all that she possessed by hereditary right. The estates were named Steinfeld and Cella, separated by no more than one mile from our monastery. These, therefore, as we have said, at our request, together with the men and women dwelling therein, the parish with tithes, all for the reward of eternal life, she donated with her own hand upon the altar of the holy Mother of God Mary in our presence. Then the donations of others were added, and at last it is concluded thus: These things were done in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 813, Indiction 5, in the thirteenth year of our reign. The sign of Charles, the glorious King. These things were done in the church of Neustadt. In which conclusion the conjecture does not appear altogether absurd, but beyond the formula then customary, the year of Christ is indicated with a year not of the reign but of the Western Empire: for which, to mark the said year 813, the year of the reign should have been noted not as 13 but 46: and Indiction 5 does not pertain to that year either, but to the preceding one, also added by later persons. From all of which the scruple is not entirely removed that those words, by our sister Gertrude, and then, our sister, are not either entirely or in part intruded, in such great silence of the ancient writers. But we leave these matters to the judgment of others, concerning the veneration of S. Gertrude: and what pertains to the place already mentioned the reader will find in the appendix, provided the leaf lost through the carelessness of the typesetters is found in the meantime.

ON S. VIVENTIA, VIRGIN, AT COLOGNE.

Viventia, Virgin at Cologne (Saint)

[1] Just as Cologne, among other marvels, excels in the very many relics of the Saints preserved in its various churches, so among others the Collegiate Church of S. Ursula and her companion Martyrs stands out: in which on this day, from the foundation of the Abbess Geppa, who recovered many goods for it, the feast of S. Gertrude, Virgin and Abbess of Nivelles, is celebrated: The cult of S. Viventia with S. Gertrude in whose Office the Collect of S. Viventia, Virgin, not Martyr, is recited: and about both the following is read in the ancient manuscript Necrology of the same Church: March 17, the feast of S. Gertrude. On the same day, the Commemoration of S. Viventia, lying in a small tomb opposite the reliquary. Gelenius in the Agrippensian Calendar thus indicates: On the same day at S. Ursula, the commemoration of S. Viventia, who is deposited in a small tomb opposite the sacred reliquary in the church of S. Ursula. That tomb, however, is of marble, which does not adhere to the ground but rests on four columns: and for this reason she is believed to be different from the other Ursuline Virgins.

[2] The rest is hidden. When we inquired whose daughter she seemed to be, we were answered that by tradition she was born of some King or Prince. Who is believed by some to be a sister of this one, Because, therefore, she is venerated on this March 17 together with S. Gertrude, some have thought her to be her sister. John Chapeauville in his Annotations on Heriger and Aegidius on the Bishops of Tongres and Utrecht, chapter 54, asserts that he found in a codex of Val d'Or a marginal annotation in these words: In the eighth year of the Emperor Constans or Constantine, King Sigebert, son of Dagobert, despairing of the prosperity of offspring, built twelve monasteries here and there for the Lord, with Grimoald the Mayor of the Palace cooperating with him in these, the brother of SS. Begga, foundress of the monastery of Andenne, Gertrude, foundress with her mother Itta of the monastery of Nivelles, and Viventia, who rests at Cologne in the monastery of the holy Virgins. Thus far that passage. We gave the Life of S. Sigebert, King of the Austrasians, on February 1, and both in that Life and in our Diatribe on the three Kings of the Franks named Dagobert, we showed it to be a mere fable what this author fabricates about the despair of begetting offspring: since Sigebert himself, dying in his twenty-eighth year of age, left several children, and specifically Dagobert, about ten years old. Meanwhile, relying solely on the authority of this passage, as it pleased him, Arthur du Monstier in the Sacred Gyneceum reported on March 12 these words: At Cologne, S. Viventia, illustrious by birth and many gifts of grace.

[3] Gelenius, book 3 of his syntagma on Cologne, section 10, paragraph 1, having treated of S. Cunibert celebrating the sacrifice in the church of S. Ursula around the year 649, adds: Some maintain that at about the same time Viventia, the sister of S. Gertrude and daughter of Blessed Pippin of Landen, having died at a tender age and been buried in this church of S. Ursula, and having been found divinely ejected from the tomb three times, received that mausoleum which today is seen near the vestry of the church resting on four small columns, lest her bones be mixed with the relics of the Martyrs: the opinion of these is supported by an ancient poem affixed to the church. And an infant who died: Hermann Crumbach published it in book 9 of the Martyrdom of S. Ursula, chapter 7, in these words.

Because this sacred place avoids, and to itself it weds No bodies... It casts out what is offered, these things have been proven twice or thrice: As you are wont to be a witness, royal offspring of Pippin: Whom, newly born and spotless, it threw out, The ground of the sacred place: the glory of this world helps her not.

[4] Laugh at this narrative as fictitious, says D. Fleien, adding those words in Crumbach: By others she is held as an Ursuline. But I have since learned it to be an old wives' tale: for enclosed in it are the relics of a certain Virgin from the company, whom our people call S. Viventia, and whose commemoration they celebrate on the 17th day of the month of March, as the tables of feasts and memorials of the same church indicate. Hermann Fleien flourished at the end of the preceding century, a Doctor of Sacred Theology of Cologne, Dean of the Church of S. Cunibert, and Canon of S. Ursula: from whom the Passion of S. Ursula and her companions, published by him, was inserted into their studies on the Life of the Saints by Zacharias Lipeloo and Francis Haraeus. That Fleien, however, establishes S. Viventia as one of the companions of S. Ursula, he adds the reason from a most ancient statute, by which under threat of undergoing the fire of hell it is provided that in this church of the holy Virgins the bodies of no other men or women should be buried except those of the holy companion Virgins. Meanwhile, however, they received the bones of S. Hippolytus the Martyr brought from Gerresheim; and they celebrate his feast on August 13. Among the names of the Ursuline Virgins, known from the revelation of S. Elizabeth of Schonau and Blessed Hermann, Crumbach establishes a Virgin Viventia, daughter of Sapientia, and a Virgin Viventia, sister of King Avitus. There were several called Viventia. And among the names collected from sepulchral inscriptions and indices of churches he establishes three Martyrs called by the name Viventia: so that it would not be so incredible if the Viventia who is venerated on this day was also one of the said companions of S. Ursula, and perhaps not killed with them, but who, having been preserved after their death, afterward ended her life in a holy manner. But similar matters are proposed rather for the examination of the people of Cologne than asserted as having been done.

ON S. WITHBURGA, VIRGIN, AT DERHAM AND ELY IN ENGLAND, IN THE YEAR 743

Withburga, Virgin in England (Saint)

[1] In the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy there flourished in the seventh century of Christ, Anna, King of the East Angles, happier even by this title alone, that he fathered four daughters inscribed in the sacred calendars and honored with ecclesiastical cult: of these, their birthdays are observed for S. Etheldreda on June 23, S. Ethelburga on July 7, and S. Sexburga on July 6, and the one we now treat, Birthday March 17 S. Withburga on March 17: whom the Acts below have as departing from this life on this day. In the ancient Martyrology of the Collegiate Church of S. Mary of Utrecht, compiled more than five hundred years ago, the following is read for the said day: On that day the deposition of S. Withburga the Virgin. At Nivelles, Gertrude the Virgin. We have seen in the Norman monastery of Jumieges a very ancient Missal according to the use of the English Churches, given by Robert, from Abbot of that place, Bishop of London and then Archbishop of Canterbury, around the year one thousand and fifty: in whose prefixed Calendar the Office of S. Withburga the Virgin and of Bishop Patrick is prescribed. The name also of S. Withburga is found there in the Litanies among the other Virgins, and her patronage is invoked. In the additions to Usuard printed at Cologne in 1515, and in the German Martyrology of Canisius, the following is found: Likewise in England, of the holy Virgin Withburga. Which same things Ferrarius transcribed from Canisius. In the manuscript Florarium the Translation is added, and for February 19 the following is read: In England, of Withburga the Virgin, as if that were the day of her birthday: of which elsewhere we have found no trace.

[2] Another day is sacred to her veneration, July 8, for which Molanus has in the Additions to Usuard: In England, of S. Withburga the Virgin. Not July 8: The above-cited Molanus, Wion thus amplifies in the monastic Martyrology: In England, of S. Withburga the Virgin, daughter of Wulfher, King of the Mercians, and a nun

of Ely, illustrious in holiness and miracles. The error of Wion is transcribed by Dorganius and Ferrarius. But the daughter of King Wulfher was not S. Withburga but Wereburga, who first embraced the monastic life in the Ely monastery: whose Life we illustrated on February 3. Wereburga had as mother S. Ermenilda: whose Life we gave on February 13, and as grandmother S. Sexburga, sister of S. Withburga, who was therefore her great-aunt. The error of Wion was seen and corrected by Edward Mayhew in the Trophies of the English Congregation of the Benedictine Order, whom Menard follows

East Derham is in the middle of the province of Norfolk and the hundred of Witforden: another is West Dereham in the hundred of Clackhovvse. The Malmesbury writer, book 4 of the Deeds of the English Pontiffs, in the Bishops of Ely, calls it an ignoble country place, in which she herself had spent many years celibate and abstaining from food. Unless these words are to be understood of Holcham. Camden, treating of the village of Dereham, adds that S. Withburga, because she was most remote from luxury and levity and was a most holy Virgin, was enrolled among the Saints by our ancestors.

Capgrave adds: Her sole hope after Christ.

The same: a bridge.

The Malmesbury writer: A domesticated doe, accustomed to the hand, ministered to her daily drink from its udders: which when someone had attacked and killed with a spear or javelin, the local lord, seized not long after by disease, wasted away. But Capgrave agrees with the Acts.

We said above that this year is also read as 798 in the Worcester, Chester, and Capgrave sources.

Capgrave interposes: That convent of virgins was at last, by an incursion of the Danes, with the community of Virgins scattered, reduced to a parish church. There were very many incursions of the Danes, in one of which in the year 870 the Ely church was burned by the Pagans, according to its manuscript Chronicle.

HISTORY OF THE FIRST TRANSLATION

were suitable; the lower stone on which the excellent Virgin rested was broken. Then a very great fissure appeared in the tomb: The tomb is broken: but I believe this was done not by any carelessness, but so that the power of the Lord might show the merits of the holy Virgin, and solidify the fracture in the vessel with a new miracle... For the most resplendent Withburga, to the most exact measure of the old sarcophagus, which had long since been broken, the said Richard, Rector of the hall of Ely, had prepared a new one, so that the incorrupt Virgin, placed in a new one, might have an incorrupt lodging.

the threats of the judge might be delayed. He therefore, immediately boiling over entirely with anger, ordered the holy man to be stripped and stretched on the rack. Where, when the torturers had compressed him most firmly with two boards and had plowed his entire body with iron combs, they suspended him headfirst: and then, with no small fire lit beneath him, they thus at last made him a holocaust pleasing to God.

As is in the Acts of S. Stephen, This Paul, however, who suffered in Cyprus, not in Constantinople, was the one about whom the Menologion and the Menaea treat (and therefore

Cardinal Baronius reports at volume XXXVII: yet again on folio 105 of the Basel edition Scardeonius asserts that Julian lived while the Republic of Padua still flourished, long before the destruction of the city: that is indeed what he had noted above.

[6] Wion's testimony about the cult of individual saints, Arnold Wion, when he had reported at August 2 the Canonization of all the Saints who rest in the monastery of S. Justina (in which, however, only three had been treated), notes the following: We have placed this present Canonization of these Saints here because among them there were three of the monastic Order (namely Benedictine, about which