ARTICLE II.

ST. PATRICK, AND THE PRIMITIVE IRISH CHURCH.1

BY REV. ENOCH POND, D.D., BANGOR, ME.

IRELAND, called originally Hibernia and Scotia,2 was almost a terra incognita to the ancients. Lying outside of Britain and Gaul, the Roman conquests did not reach it; and although some traditions of its fertility and beauty came to the knowledge of the Grecian mariners, it was, as to all useful purposes, an unknown country.

Its first settlers, like those of Gaul and Britain, were Celts. We know but little of the early history of this people. They seem to have constituted the first wave of immigration which rolled over from Asia into northern and western Europe. Through all their vicissitudes the Celts have been a peculiar people. Impulsive, light-hearted, fond of poetry, revelry, and song, they differ widely from the Sclaves, the Saxons, the Teutons, and the original inhabitants of Germany. They still occupy, as they have ever done, Wales, Ireland, and a considerable part of France.

The religion of this people, in their heathen state, was that of the Druids. This was a frightful, awful system, involved in deep mystery, inspiring terror, and well fitted to hold in subjection a turbulent and reckless people. It permeated their whole political and social state, forming their minds, their customs, and laws, and causing its influence to be felt everywhere, from the cottage to the throne.

1 The authorities which I have chiefly consulted in preparing this Article, are Usher's Works, Vol. i.; Todd's Life of St. Patrick, with a Review of the same in the London Quarterly for April, 1866; Neander's Memorials; Ebrard's Manual, Vol. i.; and especially "A History of the Irish Primitive Church, with the Life of St. Patrick, by Daniel de Vinne."

2 Archbishop Usher affirms that until the eleventh century, the name of Ireland was Scotia, and its inhabitants were called Scots.

The Druidical priests secluded themselves as much as possible from the view of others. They dwelt in impenetrable forests, dens, and caverns, and practised their religious rites in the greatest secrecy. They are said to have been worshippers of the oak, and when their sacred tree was cut down, would deify its shapeless stump. The misseltoe, a parasite clinging to the boughs of the oak, was also an object. of high veneration. Their sacrifices were offered in thick groves of oak, and on some occasions in temples, or more properly enclosures, formed of massy stones. Several of these cromlechs or enclosures are still standing in different parts of England and Ireland. It will give us a sufficiently dreadful idea of the rites of the Druids to know that they were in the frequent, if not constant, practice of offering human sacrifices. The victims were generally selected from among criminals; but when these were wanting, they did not scruple to sacrifice innocent persons. Lucan describes a grove in which the Druids performed their rites; and, after stating that the trees were so thick and interwoven that the rays of the sun could scarcely penetrate them, he adds: "There was nothing to be seen there but a multitude of altars, upon which the Druids sacrificed human victims, whose blood had turned the very trees to a horrid crimson color."

Such then was the religion of the earliest inhabitants of Britain and Ireland; and such it might have been to this day, had not these countries been visited by missionaries, and blessed with the rising light of the gospel.

Christianity was introduced into England, perhaps in the first century, but it did not reach Ireland, in a way to make an impression there, until near the middle of the fifth century. There may have been individual Christians there at an earlier period, but the country cannot be said to have been Christianized till the time of St. Patrick, who is with great propriety denominated "the Apostle of Ireland."

There is, perhaps, no distinguished individual of the ancient church of whom modern Christians know so little, and of whom the views commonly entertained are so erroneous, as St. Patrick.

We hear it said that he drove the snakes and toads out of Ireland, and performed other things equally marvellous and ridiculous; and this is about all that we know of him. We see our Roman Catholic friends celebrating his Saint's day with revelry and song, and lavishing upon him, we had almost said, their worship and we think of him as a pre-eminently good Catholic an obedient servant of the bishop of Rome. Whereas, he was never a Romanist in any sense. He has nothing to say of the Pope of Rome, and never acknowledged the slightest subjection to him. He was a humble, devoted missionary of the cross, not altogether free from superstition, but yet of the genuine apostolic stamp. He was one of the most successful missionaries of the primitive age; and when he died, the fruits of his labors remained to testify of him, for hundreds of years.

The reason why we know so little of St. Patrick, and why the views commonly entertained of him are so erroneous, is, that we hear of him only through the legends of Roman Catholic writers, in their Acta Sanctorum, "Lives of Saints," written hundreds of years after his death, and filled (as their custom is) with marvels, and miracles, in place of reliable facts.

Nearly all that we do know of St. Patrick is derived from his own writings, and he wrote but little. He has left only two well authenticated pieces, his "Confession," and his "Epistle to Caracticus." Others have been ascribed to him, but they are spurious.1 His Confession is, to some extent, an autobiography; for it narrates his birth, his captivity, his conversion, his call to Ireland, and his trials and labors there; and this is nearly all that we know concerning him.

There has been much dispute as to the place of his nativity. He says: "I had Calphurnius, a deacon, for my father, who was the son of Potitus, heretofore a presbyter, who lived in the village of Banavem in Taburnia; for he had a little farm there, where I was captured." But where was this little village of Banavem in Taburnia, in which the ancestors of

1 Some hymns have been attributed to him, but their authority is doubtful

St Patrick lived? Some think it was in Scotland, and others in Gaul, but the probability is that it was somewhere in Britain: For on his return from his captivity in Ireland, he speaks of visiting his parents in Brittany.1 This seems to have been their home, and here he was born, unless they had changed their residence during his absence. He is supposed to have been born about the year 387.

It is commonly said that his name at the first was Succath or Succathus. It may have been so; but we see no objection to its having been Patricius. Patricius, to be sure, is a Roman name; and he tells us, in his epistle to Caracticus, that his father was of Roman descent, and had held the office of decurion, or municipal senator. Hence it is not unlikely that he would give his son a Roman name. In his Confession the writer calls himself Patricius; and we incline to the opinion that this was his original name.2

The first sixteen years of his life Patrick (for we will now drop the saint) spent with his parents. And, as his father and grandfather were not only Christians, but officers in the church of Christ, the one a presbyter, and the other a deacon, it is pretty certain that he was religiously educated. He was made acquainted with the great truths and facts of the gospel; though they seem not to have exerted a saving power upon his heart.

In the barbarous times of which we speak, it was not uncommon for freebooters to cross the narrow sea between England and Ireland, one way and the other, plunder the inhabitants, and carry some of them into captivity. In one of these marauding expeditions Patrick was taken captive, carried into Ireland, and sold as a slave. His master's name was Milcho. He lived in a part of Dalriada, now included in the county of Antrim. Patrick's business during his captivity was that of a shepherd; he kept his master's 1 Brittany in Gaul received its name from the Britons who settled there after the Saxon invasion of England. St. Patrick was born long before this.

2 How he came by his saintship it is hard to say. He could not have been canonized by the church of Rome, until five or six hundred years after his death.

sheep. The situation was favorable to reflection, and he remained in it six years. And here it was that he began to think upon his ways, and turn his feet unto God's testimonies. It was here that he became a child of God. The story of his conversion must be given in his own words: "My constant employment was to feed the flocks. I was frequent in prayer. The love and the fear of God more and more inflamed my heart. My faith and fervor were increased, so that I prayed a hundred times a day, and almost as many by night. I rose before day to my prayers, in the snow, in the frost, and in the rain, and received no damage. Nor was I affected with dulness or slothfulness; for the, Spirit of the Lord was hot within me."

This account of his early experience is both scriptural and rational. His heart was warm with the love of God; he was full of the spirit of prayer; he was quickened and happy in the house of his bondage.

Patrick obtained his liberty at the close of the sixth year; but how, we are not informed. Some have thought that there was a law among the ancient Irish, like that of the Hebrews, by which those in servitude went out at the end of the sixth year.

A little before his release Patrick dreamed that he was about to return to his parents, and that on the seashore was a vessel ready to take him over. When he came to the shore he found the vessel; but on applying for a passage, he was refused. He retired, and began to pray; and before he had gone far, one of the sailors ran after him, and offered him a passage. After a voyage of three days they reached land, and immediately commenced their journey through the wilderness, which took them twenty-eight days. While on their journey the provisions of the company failed; and the captain appealed to Patrick, as a Christian, that he would pray to God for food. He did so; and on that same day they found a herd of swine, and on the following day, some wild honey.

About this time Patrick was again made a prisoner; but

VOL. XXVIII. No. 109.