Patrick (24)

…and he said that never since Patrick had there come to Erin anyone more wonderful or more humble than Berach.

 - Life of Berach[1]

No single saint in Erin ever obtained more from God than Coemgen, save Patrick only…

 ­- Life of Coemgen (I)[2]

For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.

 - Romans 15.4

It then befell that Patrick came to sow the faith among the men of Ireland, and to baptize them, having been commanded so to do by Jesus…For before Patrick there were none to maintain faith and belief in Erin but Ciaran, and Ailbe, and Declan, and Bishop Iubar.

 - The Life of Ciaran of Saighir (I)[3]

In the period following the Celtic Revival (ca. 430-800 AD), a sense of loss began to grow on the part of some religious leaders in Ireland. Christian faith in Ireland had become institutionalized under the influence of the Roman Catholic Church. Factions arose and caused divisions and even at times open warfare between certain of the monastic communities. The overseas mission effort, when thousands of Ireland’s brightest and most courageous young men took the Gospel throughout Europe, had all but ceased. Norsemen plundered the ancient monasteries and murdered priests and lay people alike. Even the use of vernacular Irish was being lost in the monastic communities, which were becoming rapidly Latinized.

This was not the Ireland of vibrant faith reported to the people of this day by their forebears.

Three significant efforts were made to recover the memories and vitality of the earlier period. A movement called the Céilí Dé—the “Culdees” or “Servants of God”—sought to revive the ascetic life of the earlier monastic period. Their effort to renew discipline, upgrade monastic rules, and encourage a simpler Christian life spread briefly, but had little lasting effects.

At about the same time, at certain of the ancient monastic sites, high carved crosses began to be erected as memorials and guides for teaching. They featured a variety of Biblical stories, enfolded in traditional Irish forms and all pointing to Christ, and they served to instruct local people about the beliefs of the Irish fathers.

And somewhere between the 8^th and the 13^th centuries stories of the great saints began to be written, often to preserve the history of the founding or to vaunt the supremacy of a particular monastic community. In this effort it became important for some monasteries, if they could credibly do so, to connect their founding and their founder with Patrick.

Much had been lost in Irish Christianity between the Synod of Whitby (664), when the Roman Church assumed authority over the Irish, and the ravages of the Norseman. These efforts to jumpstart the Celtic Revival and give it new life had little impact. But what we see, especially in the hagiographical writings of this period, is a memory of Patrick as a touchstone, a starting-point, or a standard which faithful Irish believers should not forget.

Hagiographies are partly history, partly storytelling, and partly devotional material. They must be read with all three of these perspectives in mind. The three excerpts quoted above give us some sense of the place of Patrick in the history of the Celtic Revival. In the remaining installments in this study, we’ll turn to Charles Plummer’s translations of Micahel O’Clery’s transcripts (16^th century) of certain Lives of Irish Saints to see what more we can discover about Patrick.

Here I want to mention only that Patrick was looked back upon as a true beginning for Irish Christianity. There were faithful saints laboring in Ireland before Patrick arrived—the fruit, or at least, the residue of the work begun by Palladius at the end of the 5^th century. It may well have been that Patrick received his formation for ministry from the likes of Declan, Ailbe, Iubar, and Ciaran. These men had all known fruit in their ministries, but their work was mostly confined to a local area. Patrick would take the Gospel all over Ireland again and again throughout the course of his ministry.

It was important to remember that Jesus had sent Patrick to Ireland, precisely as Patrick claimed in his Confession. The report of Patrick’s commissioning, as given in the first Life of Ciaran of Saighir, was embellished to add that this commissioning took place on Mount Sinai. I suspect, however, that the composer intended to establish both a New Testament (Jesus) as well as an Old Testament (the Law on Mount Sinai) foundation for Patrick’s ministry, just as his Confession and Sechnall’s hymn indicate.

Patrick is remembered as humble and full of grace—like Jesus. For at least these writers, his example stood as one which must be recovered if anything like a great work such as his were to be resumed.

Some of that same conviction and hope attends to this writing as well.

For Reflection
1. From all that we’ve studied about Patrick, what do you remember most? Why?

2. How has this memory affected your walk with and work for the Lord?

Psalm 78.4-7 (Foundation: How Firm a Foundation)
The glorious deeds of our God in His might,
and all of the works He has done in our sight,
together with all of the words of His Law,
would we on ourselves and our children bestow.

LORD, let all our children arise and declare
the truth of the LORD every day, everywhere,
and set all their hopes in God’s wonderful Word,
and never forget all the works of the LORD.

Lord, grant that I, too, may be humble and full of grace today as I…

T. M. Moore

Patrick’s Legacy
You can read more about the impact of Patrick’s ministry in our book, The Legacy of Patrick. Here you’ll learn how Patrick’s work has affected generations of Christians down to our own day. Order your copy by clicking here.

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All Psalms for singing from The Ailbe Psalter. Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

[1] Charles Plummer, tr., Lives of Irish Saints Vol. II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1922, 1997), p. 32.

[2] Plummer, ibid, Life of Coemgen (I), p. 124.

[3] Plummer, ibid., Life of Ciaran of Saighir (I), p. 100.