To take the State Organization first. In the Ep. to Coroticus he describes himself thus: "Ingenuus fui secundum carnem, decurione patre nascor." We now know that decurions—who were not magistrates but town councillors rather, and members of the local senates—were found all over the Roman empire to its extremest bounds by the end of the 4th cent. Discoveries in Spain last century showed that decurions were established by the Romans in every little mining village, charged with the care of the games, the water supply, sanitary arrangements, education, and the local fortifications; while Hübner in the Corp. Insc. Lat. t. vii. num. 54 and 189, showed that decurions existed in Britain (cf. Marquardt and Mommsen, Handbuch der römischen Alterthümer, t. iv. pp. 501–516 and Ephem. Epigraph. t. ii. p. 137; t. iii. p. 103) This institution necessarily vanished amid the barbarian invasions of the 5th cent. Now, St. Patrick's writings imply the existence of decurions. Again, the Confession calls England Britanniae, using the plural, which is strictly accurate and in accordance with the technical usage of the Roman empire at the close of the 4th cent., which then divided Britain into five provinces, Britannia prima and secunda, Maxima Caesariensis, Flavia Caesariensis and Valentia, which were collectively called Britanniae (cf. Böcking's Notitia Dig. t. ii. c. iii. pp. 12–14). Further, the Ecclesiastical Organization implied is such as the years about A. D. 400 alone could supply. St. Patrick tells us in the opening words of his Confession that his father was Calpurnius, a deacon, his grandfather Potitus, a priest. A careful review of the councils and canons will shew that in Britain and N. Gaul there existed no prohibition of clerical marriage in the last quarter of the 4th cent. Exuperius, bp. of Toulouse, wrote in 404 to pope Innocent I. asking how to deal with married priests who had begotten children since their ordination. Innocent's reply, dated Feb. 20, 405, shews, first, that the prohibition of marriage was only a late innovation, as be refers to the decree of pope Siricius, not quite 20 years before (Mansi, iii. 670; Hefele, ii. 387, Clark's ed.); secondly, that Innocent permitted the clergy of Toulouse to live with their wives if they had contracted marriage in ignorance of papal legislation.
The aspect of the political horizon, and the consequent action of the church as depicted in these writings, correspond with their alleged age. In the Ep. to Coroticus Patrick says, "It is the custom of the Roman Gallic Christians to send holy men to the Franks and other nations with many thousand solidi, to redeem baptized captives." The term Roman was then used to express a citizen of the Roman empire wherever he dwelt; and the custom itself is one of the strongest evidences as to age. The writings of Zosimus, Salvian, and Sidonius Apollinaris prove the ravages of the Franks in Gaul about the middle of the 5th cent. Salvian mentions the rescue of a captive taken at Cologne in Ep. 1. SEVERINUS, the apostle of Austria, a little later in the century, devoted his life to the same work in another neighbourhood, and introduced the payment of tithes for this special object. (See his Life in Pez. Scriptores Rerum Austriacarum, t. i., and in Pertz, Monumenta.) By the end of the 5th cent. the Franks had been converted, and Clovis was the one orthodox sovereign of Christendom, the ally and champion of Catholic bishops. The redemption of captives would be then no longer necessary. This passage could only have been written about the middle of the 5th cent. at the latest. These instances will show how capable St. Patrick's own writings are of standing the tests of historical criticism.
Next in importance stand the collection of Patrician documents contained in the Book of Armagh. The contents of the book are: 1st, Patrician documents, including the oldest copy of the Confession; 2nd, the N.T. in Latin; 3rd, the Life of St. Martin of Tours. The N.T. is remarkable as the only complete copy which has come down from the ancient Celtic church. "The collections," says Mr. Gilbert (Nat. MSS. of Ireland), "concerning St. Patrick in the first part of the Book of Armagh constitute the oldest writings now extant in connexion with him, and are also the most ancient specimens known of narrative composition in Irish and Hiberno-Latin." These documents are all now accessible in print, though a critical edition of them, and indeed of the whole Book of Armagh, is a desideratum in Celtic literature.
II. Life and History.—The story of St. Patrick's life may be derived from the primary authorities, his own writings and the Patrician documents which really belong to the 7th and 8th cents. He was born probably at Kilpatrick, near Dumbarton in Scotland. St. Patrick, in the Confession, names Bannavem Taberniae as the residence of his parents, a name which cannot now be identified. (Cf. archbp. Moran in Dublin Rev., Apr. 1880, pp. 291–326.) He was carried captive into Antrim when 16 years old, in one of those raids which Roman writers like Ammianus Marcellinus and Irish Annalists like the Four Masters shew were so prevalent during the 2nd half of the 4th cent. He became the slave of Milchu, the king of Dalaradia, the commencement of whose reign the Four Masters assign to 388, so that the very earliest year for St. Patrick's birth would be 372. Dalaradia was the most powerful kingdom of N.E. Ireland. It extended from Newry, in the S. of co. Down, to the hill of Slemish, the most conspicuous mountain of central Antrim. In the 7th cent. traditions about his residence there were abundantly current in the locality, as indeed they are still. He lived near the village of Broughshane, 5 or 6 miles E. of Ballymena, where a townland, Ballyligpatrick, the town of the hollow of Patrick, probably commemorates the position of the farm where he fed Milchu's swine (cf. Dr. Reeves's Antiq. of Down and Connor, pp. 78, 83, 84, 334–348) After 7 years he escaped, went to Gaul and studied under Germanus of Auxerre. He remained for a very long period, some say 30, others 40 years, in Gaul, where he was ordained priest and bishop. He then returned to Ireland, visiting England on his way. He landed where the river Vartry flows into the sea at Wicklow, as Palladius had done before him. It was a very natural point for mariners
