whether Patrick received a commission from Rome or not was simply 'the suppression of everything in the shape of argument on the Catholic side!' The work, however, was, on publication, warmly commended by a Roman Catholic prelate in Ireland, but he declined to permit his commendation to be published.
There is no allusion whatever in St. Patrick's writings to his having received any commission from the Pope. If, therefore, he did receive a commission from Rome—a point on which no trustworthy evidence can be adduced—the silence of Patrick on the subject would prove that he attached no such importance to such a commission as his mediæval biographers were disposed to affirm. But, as Dr. Stokes has well pointed out, in his work on Ireland and the Celtic Church (p. 51), the question is, from a Protestant standpoint, of little importance, and if the evidence brought forward in favour of the Roman claim were strong enough we should have no hesitation whatever in admitting the point.
Those who are interested in such investigations can easily consult for themselves the arguments brought forward on the subject in Professor G. T. Stokes' work, and dwelt upon with more fulness of detail in Dr. Todd's St. Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland. It is, therefore, unnecessary here to enter upon that thorny subject of discussion. It may be, however, noted in passing, that the first of 'the sayings of Patrick' preserved in the Book of Armagh, and given in the present volume among the doubtful remains of the saint, alludes to the fact of Patrick's having visited Italy.
