Wyatt North - The Life and Prayers of Saint Patrick

The new Quick Facts section in The Life and Prayers collection provides the reader with a collection of facts about each saint!

Born:

Between 387 and 390

Died:

Likely between 461 and 464 at Saul, County Down, Ireland of natural causes

Feast:

March 17

Attributes:

Cross, serpent, shamrock

I , Patrick, a sinner and unlearned, have been appointed bishop in Ireland, and I accept from

God what I am. I dwell amongst the barbarians as a proselyte and a fugitive for the love of God.

So Saint Patrick describes himself, in the opening of his Epistle to Coroticus . He goes on to address his readers with kinship as [his] own people, but Saint Patrick is not speaking to the Irish he is addressing the British.

The Saint Patrick of his own writings and the early records of his life are not known to many. While Saint Patrick also represents shamrocks, Irish pride, and even the occasional green beer there is much of his life that is often forgotten. For instance, the original color associated with Saint Patrick's Day was blue, and although Saint Patrick dedicated his life to spreading Christianity in Ireland, he might not have celebrated the nation, as we do on his feast day today, in his own lifetime. Ireland, for Patrick, was in many ways bittersweet.

On the other hand, it was also the nation of his spiritual awakening, which is probably a large part of why Patrick decided to make the conversion of Ireland his calling. In the English-speaking world, few saints are as well known, yet so misunderstood, as Saint Patrick. The saint himself, as he was in life, sometimes gets lost in his holiday. The seekers who want to know the real Patrick have to dig much deeper, but they will also find Patrick a more complex and rewarding acquaintance.

As we set out on a quest for the real Saint Patrick we begin, of course, with the words from his own pen.

Only two writings of Patrick's remain. The earliest is probably his Epistle to Coroticus , a letter that Patrick wrote to the subjects of the British Christian chieftain Coroticus, so that they may persuade him to release the Christians his allied soldiers had captured and enslaved from one of Patrick's communities. It was written sometime in the 5th century, towards the end of Patrick's earthly life. The second text of Saint Patrick's that comes down to us is his Confessions . Unlike Saint Augustine of Hippo's Confessions , which were probably his source of inspiration, Saint Patrick's Confessions are not declarations of past sinfulness. Rather, they are declarations of the ways in which God has favored Patrick and worked through him, throughout Patrick's life. Although it is not an autobiography, it contains several autobiographic passages in which Patrick gives us his own view of his life.

Saint Patrick is also mentioned in a text that is contemporary to himself, but written by someone else: Saint Sechnall's Hymn of Saint Patrick . Saint Sechnall was personally close to Patrick and worked with him in Ireland. He was also Patrick's nephew. The text itself, however, can be rather frustrating for the seeker of Patrick as, although it paints a beautiful picture of the saint, it contains very little in terms of biographical material.

The earliest life of Saint Patrick may have been written in the 6th century. It was written on verse, entirely in Irish, and is known as the Metrical Life of St. Patrick . It is said to have been written by Saint Fiacc, one of Saint Patrick's earliest converts in Ireland. Unfortunately, it has always been popular to attribute anonymous texts to much earlier personages, so the text may in fact be as much as a century or two younger. That would make the earliest hagiographies of Saint Patrick two Latin texts written around the 660s or 670s, two hundred years after the death of Saint Patrick. They are both called Vita sancti Patricii and were written by Trechn and Muirchu moccu Machtheni respectively. Both authors used a now lost 7th century book called the Book of Ultn as a source. The 9th century life of Saint Patrick, Vita tripartita Sancti Patricii , is the oldest source for many of the more miraculous aspects of Saint Patrick's works. It is a bilingual Latin and Irish text in three parts, each meant to be read on a separate day of a three day festival of Saint Patrick. It has clearly inspired later hagiographers, such as Jocelyn of Furness writing his Life and Acts of Saint Patrick in the late 12th or early 13th century. There are also numerous late legends with similarly miraculous and magical aspects, such as the late 13th century Acallam na Senrach , in which Patrick converses with immortal pagan warriors from Ireland's mythic past.