The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick/The Life and Acts of St. Patrick/Chapter 133

The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick
by James O'Leary
The Life and Acts of St. Patrick by Jocelin, translated by Edmund L. Swift
Chapter CXXXIII: A Hone is divided by Saint Patrick, and the Oppressor is drowned
180163The Most Ancient Lives of Saint PatrickThe Life and Acts of St. Patrick by Jocelin, translated by Edmund L. Swift
Chapter CXXXIII: A Hone is divided by Saint Patrick, and the Oppressor is drowned
James O'Leary

A Hone is divided by Saint Patrick, and the Oppressor is drowned.

And Patrick the pious father addressed the master, nay, rather the tormentor of these slaves, yet found he him stubborn and inexorable. Wherefore betaking himself unto his accustomed arms, he fasted and prayed for three days; and once again approaching the man, he humbly besought their liberation, and once again found he him a new Pharao. Then the saint spat on a stone by chance before them lying, and for the softening, the reproving, and the confounding of his hard-heartedness, the stone immediately splitted in three parts. But Tremeus becoming the more hardened by that which should have softened him, forthwith ascended his chariot, and scorning and rejecting the prayer of the saint, commanded these slaves to be afflicted with yet severer toil. Wherefore the Lord suffering not that this insult to Patrick, the second Moses, should go unavenged, now punished the contemner of his servant, even as formerly he punished Pharao and his host; for the horses which were yoked to the chariot of Tremeus, rushing forward, plunged into a neighboring lake, and drowned in its waters the chariot and him who sat therein. Then, this child of Belial being so destroyed, Saint Patrick without hindrance freed these afflicted men brought out of the house of bondage, and gave unto them their long-desired freedom.