"No Reason Except the Gospel": Saint Patrick of Ireland

Yay Pictures! Just a brief interlude in honour of the day! Happy St. Paddy's everyone! Here's the real story of a person who knows what last Sunday's talk was all about!

The year was A.D. 432. It was Saturday, May 1st, at eventide. To some, the day was known as Beltane, but to the man traversing the hill of Slaine, it was Easter Saturday and he was intending to light the paschal flame.

As a part of the druidic rites of Beltane, the druids were due to light a sacred flame on the hill of Tara and no other fires were to be lit before it. Defiantly, this man rose to the top of Slaine, and set to lighting his vigil bonfire, while his friends and followers stood around. As the druids assembled at Tara, they could see the fire burning on the hill of Slaine opposite them with the stranger standing before it, holding a croizier and a bell. These druids were outraged, and explained to the king, Laoghaire, that the fire must be extinguished, or it would burn forever and consume the island! The king consulted the man and he was persuaded to let the fire burn. The man’s name was Patrick, and this is how he lit the fire of Christianity in Ireland.[1]

Who was Patrick, who so boldly defied the status quo? Are the common legends and stories true? Who was the man behind the parades, the green clothes, and the beer? What did he really face when he came to Ireland?

The Roman Empire, as it spread throughout Europe, never was able to overtake Ireland, and so during its occupation, as Christianity spread throughout the Known World, Ireland remained staunchly pagan. Magic was the principle religion, and druids were the Island’s priestly caste. Druids exercised an absolute control over the kings and chieftains of Ireland.[2] Such was the religion and lifestyle of the people to whom St. Patrick came, but his first steps on the green hills of Erin were not as a missionary; no, not even as a free man.

Patrick was a British Celt, the son of a deacon named Calpornicus, and the grandson of a priest named Potitus. However, this religious heritage had not taken hold of the youth. Patrick writes in his Confession that in his youth he “did not know the true God.”[3]

When Patrick was sixteen years old, raiding parties came and attacked his village. He was taken as a slave with many others to Ireland. He was sold to a chieftain named Milchu, and tended his sheep, cattle, and pigs for six years in Ulster. All this time of harsh slavery, Patrick reflected on his spiritual state, remembering his Catholic upbringing. On the fields and in the mountains, Patrick began to pray and cry out to the Lord.[4] These times of prayer became daily routine, and beyond routine, as the Spirit of God became real to him. St. Patrick writes in his Confession:

But after I had come to Ireland I daily used to feed cattle, and I prayed fervently during the day; the love of God and the fear of Him increased more and more and faith became stronger, and the spirit was stirred; so that in one day I said about a hundred prayers, and in the night nearly the same; so that I used even to remain in the woods and in the mountain; before daylight I used to rise in prayer, through snow, through frost, through rain and felt no harm; nor was there any slothfulness in me, as I now perceive, because the Spirit was then fervent within me.[5]

At the end of six years, God answered Patrick and gave him instructions how to go home. This is Patrick’s account:

And there indeed one night, in my sleep, I heard a voice saying to me, “Thou fastest well, thou shalt soon go to thy country.” And again, after a short time, I heard a response saying to me, “Behold, thy ship is ready.” And it was not near, but perhaps two hundred miles away, and I never had been there, nor was I acquainted with any of the men there. After this I took flight, and left the man with whom I had been six years; and I came in the strength of the Lord, who directed my way for good; and I feared nothing till I arrived at that ship.[6]

At age twenty-two, Patrick escaped home to Britain and promised his parents that he would not leave again. However, God had other plans, and Patrick’s heart became burdened for the people who had held him in slavery.[7] As was so common in Patrick’s life, it was in a dream that God commissioned him to Ireland. He writes:

And then I saw, indeed, in the bosom of the night, a man coming as it were from Ireland, Victoricus by name, with innumerable letters, and he gave one of them to me. And I read the beginning of the letter, containing “The Voice of the Irish”. And while I was reading aloud the beginning of the letter, I myself thought indeed in my mind that I heard the voice of those who were near the wood of Foclut, which is close by the Western Sea. And they cried out thus as if with one voice, “We entreat thee, holy youth that thou come, and henceforth walk among us.” And I was deeply moved in heart, and could read no further; and so I awoke. Thanks be to God, that after many years the Lord granted to them according to their cry![8]

He returned to Ireland as a missionary in A.D. 432. He was embarrassed by his lack of formal education, and referred to it countless times in his Confession, calling himself “the rudest and the least of all the faithful”[9] and “a rustic, a fugitive, unlearned.”[10] Despite this, St. Patrick was used mightily of God, and it is said that he brought a hundred and twenty thousand people to faith in Christ.[11]

Patrick was an itinerant minister, circuiting Ireland and establishing churches. He established more than three hundred churches, bringing in clergy from Britain and Gaul (France) to nurture the new believers. He referred to himself as “a resident of Ireland”, refusing to tie himself to any county or city. He travelled on foot until he was too old to do so, and then he took to chariot.[12] It is estimated that St. Patrick died around 461 at Saul (now Saul Patrick), and was buried at Armagh, the location of Ireland’s central church.[13]

St. Patrick was a very humble and self-conscious man, almost to the point of an inferiority complex. He had a lot of self-doubt and insecurity, particularly about his lack of education. He felt himself unworthy of the office of Bishop. His lack of skill caused him to be extremely dependent on God, and in prayer constantly. He thanked God, and accredited his own ability to do the work to God alone. It was God who gave St. Patrick the wisdom and the words. He says, “Whence came this wisdom to me, which was not in me, I who neither knew the number of my days, now was acquainted with God?”[14] God had an intimate involvement in Patrick’s life, and talked to him, often in dreams.

St. Patrick was a dreamer in the Biblical sense. He had a dynamic and mystical relationship with God, and a deep prayer life. God spoke to Patrick through dreams and Patrick records upwards of eight dream experiences in his Confessions. It was through a dream that St. Patrick knew to escape Ireland, and it was through a dream that God sent him back.[15]

Contrary to the mythical and legendary portrayals of St. Patrick as a stern, dogmatic, stoic preacher, he was actually a feeling, passionate man. He was never without fear, as he was always feeling the struggle between good and evil, Christianity and Paganism, God and Satan.[16] However, St. Patrick was also full of love, a love that balanced, but never neutralised, the fear. His whole life could be considered a movement toward that perfect love that casts out all fear (1 John 4:18).[17] He looked his enemies in the face, both human and demonic, but he remained very vulnerable, full of fears and tears.

During his ministry, St. Patrick preached the simple Gospel. He was very well versed in Scripture, making reference to it or alluding to it about one hundred times in his Confessions.[18] St. Patrick travelled from county to county, preaching to the chieftains and kings. This approach led to his success in evangelising Ireland, and it has been said that the original conversion of the Irish was accomplished with less bloodshed than any other considerable nation in Europe.[19]

St. Patrick was also the first Christian to speak out strongly against slavery. As one who had been a slave himself, Patrick could closely identify with the horror and atrocities of slavery. Within his lifetime, St. Patrick had abolished the entire Irish slave trade.[20]

St. Patrick encouraged the founding of monasteries, but unlike many of those on the Continent, the Irish monasteries were not removed from society. In fact, they were a society in themselves, with every station present, from priest to blacksmith to farmer.[21] Celtic monasteries were centres of worship, scholarship, industry, and missionary activity.[22] The Irish loved the Bible, and they played a big part of spreading the knowledge of the Scriptures in Europe during the Dark Ages.[23] Eventually, through the work of St. Patrick, Ireland would become a centre from which Christian influence was spread not only to Britain and Scotland, but also to much of Western Europe as well, through the missions work of people such as Saints Aidan and Columba.[24]

St. Patrick, as is seen through the work he accomplished and the life he lived among the Irish, was truly a missionary. After being a captive slave in Ireland, St. Patrick’s love of God was truly his only reason for returning. He writes, “I testify in truth, and in joy of heart, before God and His holy angels, that I never had any reason, except the Gospel and its promises, for ever returning to that people from whom I had formerly escaped with difficulty.”[25] Truly, for a man or woman of God, the Gospel should be the only reason one needs.

St. Patrick’s humility and fear are prominent in his Confessions, and he never puts it so aptly as when he describes himself as parvitas mea: “my littleness”.[26] This thought consumed St. Patrick, and continually brought him before God for strength. God does not call people for their strengths, but is glorified in them through their weaknesses. Each Christian should live with the awareness of his or her littleness, and forever balance that by depending on God’s grace daily. Thus was Saint Patrick.

[1] Iain Zaczek, Irish Legends. Prospero Books, 1998. p.121.
[2] T. W. Rolleston, Celtic: Myths and Legends. Senate, 1994. p. 59.
[3] “The Confession of St. Patrick”, translated by C. H. H. Wright, is taken from Appendix A of Noel Dermot O’Donoghue’s Aristocracy of Soul: Patrick of Ireland. Michael Glazier, Inc., 1987. pp. 101-118.
[4] Roger C. Palms, “Patrick of Ireland; Slave. Missionary. Man of God.” Decision Magazine, March, 1999. pp. 28, 29.
[5] “The Confession of St. Patrick”, from O’Donoghue. p. 105.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Palms, “Patrick of Ireland”.
[8] “Confession”. p. 107
[9] Ibid. p. 101.
[10] Ibid. p. 104.
[11] Palms, “Patrick of Ireland”.
[12] Katharine Scherman, The Flowering of Ireland. Little, Brown and Company, 1981. p. 96.
[13] Palms, “Patrick of Ireland”.
[14] “Confession”. p. 110.
[15] Noel Dermot O’Donoghue, Aristocracy of the Soul: Patrick of Ireland. pp. 11-23.
[16] Ibid. p.59.
[17] Ibid.
[18] T. G. Wallace, Our Debt to the Celtic Church. Sutherland Press, 1954. p. 37.
[19] Ibid. pp. 38-39.
[20] Mary Cagney, “Patrick the Saint”. Christian History, 1st Quarter, 1998. pp. 14-15.
[21] Wallace, p. 78.
[22] Ibid. p. 82.
[23] Ibid. p. 86.
[24] Palms, “Patrick of Ireland”.
[25] “Confessions”, p. 117.
[26] O’Donoghue, p. 27.