niae," and consists of seven different Lives of St.
Patrick, with Lives of St. Brigid and St. Columba.
Father Colgan, who belonged to that famous baud
of Celtic scholars so well known as the authors of
the " Annals of the Four Masters," published his
work at Louvain in 1645,1 and the Lives of our
Saint in this collection, containing the chief sources
of the history of St. Patrick, are classified in the
following order, with the names of their authors:—
Vita Prima, by St. Fiacc, Bishop of Sletty (in verse).
Vita Secuuda, by Patrick Junior.
Vita Tertia, by St. Benignus.
Vita Quarta, by St. Eleran, surnamed the Wise.
Vita Quinta, by Probus.
Vita Sexta, by Jocelyn.
Vita Septima, by St. Evin (the " Tripartite," or " Life in
Three Parts.")2
According to Colgan, all these Lives, with the
exception of those by St. Eleran and Jocelyn, were
written either by disciples of the Saint, or by
authors of the sixth century, to the verge of which
St. Patrick's own life was prolonged. Mr. O'Curry,
however, whose authority is well-nigh paramount on
such questions, inclines to the opinion that the "Vita
Quinta," by Probus, belongs to the tenth century.3

1 See Appendix B. *
References to this version of the Life will come under " Trias
Thaumat." When the "Tripartite" is mentioned, Mr. Hennessrs
translation is quoted.
3 MS. Materials of Irish History, p. 390.

This Life l1as a special interest and value attached
to it, from the fact that it appears identical with
that of Mactheni found in the " Book of Armagh." "
It has often been remarked," writes Mgr. Moran,1 "
that the Life of St. Patrick which bears the name
of Probus is nothing more than an amended text
of Mactheni;" and thus, in another way, this Life
acquires both antiquity and value as great as that
attributed to it by Colgan. The follow1ng account
of the " Book of Armagh," 2 one of the most extraordinary
historical relics in existence, will not be
out of place here :—" The collections concerning St.
Patrick in the first part of the ' Book of Armagh'
constitute the oldest writings now extant in connection
with him, and are also the most ancient
specimens known of narrative in Irish and Hiberno-
Latin. They purport to have been originally taken
down by Bishop Tirechan from Ultan, who was
Bishop of Ardbraccan towards A.D. 650, and by
Muirchu Maccu Mactheni, at the request of his preceptor,
Aed, Bishop of Sletty, in the same century. ...
It would seem that the ' Book of Armagh'
was supposed to have been written by St. Patrick's
own hand, from the following passage on page 21, at
the end of the copy of his' Confession :'—Ilucusque
1 Essays
on the Early Irish Church, p. 77.
2 See Appendix C.

volumen quod Patricius manu conscripsit sua."1
This identity of the Life by Probus with that in the "
Book of Armagh " has led some writers to attach
an authority to it greater than any of the others,
although in the judgment of the learned in these
matters, the seventh Life, which is the longest in
Colgan's collection, excels it both in antiquity and
authenticity. Colgan attributes this Life to St.
Evin, who flourished in the sixth century, and therefore
may himself have seen St. Patrick, or if not a
cotemporary, must almost certainly have known
some of those who had lived with the Saint. Of this
Life Dr. Petrie writes: " The ' Tripartite,' usually
ascribed to St. Evin, an author of the seventh century,
and, even in its present interpolated state,
confessedly prior to the tenth,"2 thus placing St.
Evin in the seventh century; but O'Curry has
found evidence which leads him to believe that St.
Evin was living in the year 504, and he adds, " So
that he had very probably seen and conversed with
St. Patrick, who had died only eleven years before
this time, or in 493."3 He weighs the arguments
used by Colgan to prove that it was written in
the sixth century, which chiefly rest on passages
wherein individuals are mentioned as living in the

1 Appendix, Sixth Report of the Deputy-Keeper of the Public
Records in Ireland, p. 105.
2 Petrie
on the Domnach-Airgid. Transactions R. I. A., vol. xviii.
p. 19. 3 MS. Materials, p. 351.

time of the writer, who can be proved, with tolerable
certainty, to belong to the sixth century, and
he sees no reason to doubt that these passages are
genuine. O'Curry's chief objection to attributing
this Life to St. Evin arises from the fact that St.
Columcille, and others, who lived some time after
St. Evin, are given in the text as having recorded
St. Patrick's miracles; but to this objection he
observes, " Father Colgan offers a very obvious
explanation, that the passages in which they are
mentioned are interpolations."1 Thus in the main
the judgment of O'Curry on the " Tripartite " agrees
with that of Petrie. " The antiquity of this Life,"
he observes, "in all its parts may be well understood
from the fact that, in the Middle Ages it
required an interlined gloss, by the most learned
masters, in order to make it intelligible to their
pupils and to other less learned readers ; " and he
adds, " There can be little doubt that the short
sketch of St. Patrick's life written into the ' Book of
Armagh' was taken from this tract."2 In this last
statement it will be seen that O'Curry differs from
the writer in the Public Records, who seems to
attribute the Life in the " Book of Armagh " to St.
Ultan, while O'Curry holds that it has only the
annotations of this Life by Tirechan, which were
supplied by St. Ultan. But enough has been said

1 IIS. Materials,
p. 350. ? Ibid., p. 347.

time of the writer, who can be proved, with tolerable
certainty, to belong to the sixth century, and
he sees no reason to doubt that these passages are
genuine. O'Curry's chief objection to attributing
this Life to St. Evin arises from the fact that St.
Columcille, and others, who lived some time after
St. Evin, are given in the text as having recorded
St. Patrick's miracles; but to this objection he
observes, " Father Colgan offers a very obvious
explanation, that the passages in which they are
mentioned are interpolations."1 Thus in the main
the judgment of O'Curry on the " Tripartite " agrees
with that of Petrie. " The antiquity of this Life,"
he observes, "in all its parts may be well understood
from the fact that, in the Middle Ages it
required an interlined gloss, by the most learned
masters, in order to make it intelligible to their
pupils and to other less learned readers ; " and he
adds, " There can be little doubt that the short
sketch of St. Patrick's life written into the ' Book of
Armagh' was taken from this tract."2 In this last
statement it will be seen that O'Curry differs from
the writer in the Public Records, who seems to
attribute the Life in the " Book of Armagh " to St.
Ultan, while O'Curry holds that it has only the
annotations of this Life by Tirechan, which were
supplied by St. Ultan. But enough has been said

1 IIS. Materials,
p. 350. ? Ibid., p. 347.

record their virtues, and to relate their labours, than
to attend to those critical details which modern
writers consider so essential." But the truth is, that
it is modern, not early writers, who have sinned, and
treated the chronology of the Saint's life in the same
arbitrary manner as his miracles. The computation
just mentioned, so far from possessing the authority
attributed to it, is nothing more than a theory
founded on a very questionable interpretation of
some words of St. Patrick found only in those copies
of his "Confession" which are themselves of doubtful
authenticity.
This theory, which would make St. Patrick one
hundred and five years old at the time of his death,
is now the only one which can claim to be heard
against the overwhelming weight of authority supporting
the account in the "Tripartite"1 that the
Saint lived to the age of one hundred and twenty
years; and it cannot be denied that, even granting the
primary importance attached to this Life by O'Curry,
still it must yield to the evidence of the Saint's "
Confession," if this is found to contradict it.
1 It is hardly necessary to allude to a discrepancy found in this Life
itself. At the end of the first and third parts the Saint's death is
recorded in almost precisely the same words ; but in the first it runs
thus, Anno ostatis suce cxii., while in the third, where figures are not
used, the words are, " He resigned his spirit afterwards to heaven, in
the one hundred and twentieth year of his age." Numerals in old
manuscripts are no evidence against the text; they are the special
snare of copyists. The sense of a sentence keeps them exact in narrative

The statement of the "Tripartite," that St. Patrick
reached the age of one hundred and twenty years,
is also found in " Vita Secunda " and " Vita Quarta "
of Father Colgan's collection, in the " Lebar Brecc,"
in the " Annals of Tigernach," and the " Annals of
Ulster." Amongst modern writers it is supported
by Father Colgan and Ussher.1 The testimony of
the "Annals of Ulster," which, as Dr. Petrie observes,
are " so remarkable for their accuracy," *
when joined to that of the Lives, might be taken as
conclusive upon this point, if it were not for an
objection drawn from St. Patrick's " Confession,"
which apparently was first started by Tillemont.
In order to shorten this discussion, we shall take for
granted that, since the appearance of Mgr. Moran's
Essays on the Early Church, the fact that St. Patrick
was sent to Ireland by Pope Celestine in 432, and
died in 493, is placed beyond all doubt. It is certain
he was consecrated bishop in the same year
and reasoning, while an error in numbers will slip in unnoticed.
Mgr. Moran (Essays, Irish Church, p. 47) points out how Lanigan was
led astray by a similar error in a corrupt edition of Marianus Scotus,
which gives xl for Ix annos, as the term of St. Patrick's apostolate.
In the autograph of Marianus, preserved in the Vatican Library, and
lately edited by German antiquaries, we find written in full^er annos
sexaginta, with the Saint's arrival in Ireland in 432, and his death
in 493.

1 Trias Thaumat., pp. 13,38 ; Lebar Brecc,
p. 15 (Whitley Stokes) ;
O'Curry, MS. Materials, p. 65 ; Annals of Ulster, An. 492 ; Trias Th.,
v., App. 233 ; Ussher's Works, vol. vi. p. 448, Dublin, 1847. .
a Essay
on Tara, p. 87.

that he came to Ireland, and Tillemout argues from
a passage in the Saint's " Confession" that he could
not have been more than forty-five years of age at
that time. If Tillemont is correct, the chronology
of the Tripartite Life and that of Probus cannot be
reconciled with that of the " Confession," as both
these Lives record the fact that after his captivity
St. Patrick spent some years under the direction of
St. Martin of Tours. Now St. Patrick tells us in
his " Confession," that he was twenty-two years of
age when he made his escape ; and as St. Martin died
A.D. 397, if we follow Tillemont in giving forty-five
years to our Saint in 432, the date of his mission,
he could only have attained his tenth year at the
time of the death of St. Martin, and therefore the
meeting of the Saints, under the circumstances related
by St. Patrick's biographers, is impossible :
409 would then be the date of his escape, that is,
twelve years after St. Martin's death.
It is remarkable that this passage, on which
the argument against the veracity of the Lives
is founded, does not exist in the most authentic
copy of St. Patrick's "Confession,"—viz., that
of the " Book of Armagh;" so even if it were
clear, which it is not, that the paragraph is at
variance with the authentic Lives of the Saint, we
should only have additional reasons for distrusting
all copies of the " Confession " except that contained

Tillemont concludes from these words that the
confession of the fault was made at the age of
fifteen, at the time it was committed, that is, before
St. Patrick was carried captive into Ireland; so
that, giving thirty years more from that time would
make him forty-five at the date of his mission, A.r>.
432. The desire to prove this last point, and thus
reduce St. Patrick's age to a more ordinary standard,
1
seems to have blinded Tillemont and those
who have followed his view; for the obvious sense
of the passage is, that St. Patrick is indignant, and
complains of the revival of some difficulty which
had been manifested and set at rest at the time
when he was ordained deacon, thirty years before
his episcopal consecration. We learn from the
testimony of Probus and the Tripartite Life2
that it was St. Martin who conferred minor orders
on Patrick, and that he advanced no further in the

in illo die fortiter impulsus sum ut caderem hie et in (sternum: sed
Domimts pepercit proselyto et peregrino propter nomen suum, et mihi
benigne valde subvenit in hac conculcatione, quod in labem et opprobrium
non male deveni. Deum oro ut non illis inpeccatum reputetur occasio :
post annos triginta invenerunt me adversus verbum quod confessus
fueram antequam essem diaconus. Propter anxietatem, mcesto animo
insinuavi amidssimo mep quce in pueritia mea, una die gesseram, imo
in una hora, quia necdum prevalebam. Nescio, Deus scit, si habebam
tune annos quindecim."—Oonf. Sti. Patritii, Acta SS. Mart. xvii.,p. 535.
1 The number of instances of extraordinary longevity, lately
proved beyond all doubt, takes away one difficulty felt by many in
regard to St. Patrick's age.
2 Trias Thaumat.,
pp. 48, 121.
c

clerical state during the lifetime of that Saint.
Patrick had reached his twenty-fourth year when St.
Martin died, and, according to our explanation of
his own words, he was promoted to the diaconate
six years later, at the age of thirty.
The traditions of the Church of Tours are in
harmony with those of Ireland in recording the
relations of our Saint with its great bishop. The
old Church of St. Patrick, on the north bank of
the Loire, near Tours, which was built certainly
not later than the tenth century, and possibly in
the ninth, bears witness to the antiquity of the
devotion to him in those parts; but nature does
even more than art in perpetuating the tradition
of St. Patrick's connection with St. Martin.
The writer has to thank Lord Emly for the first
account of the extraordinary phenomenon known
as "Les Fleurs de St. Patrice." Year after year,
and from time immemorial, in defiance of the
seasons, in the depth of winter, and always at the
same time of the year, that is, at Christmas, the "
Flowers of St. Patrick "1 appear on a black thorn
tree, near the ancient church dedicated to that
Saint, which stands on the bank of the river. The

1 This prodigy hitherto has baffled all the assaults of infidel
science, and a full account will be found in Appendix D., extracted
from "Les Annales de la Societe d'Agriculture, Science, £c., du
Departement tflndre et Loire," and furnished by M. Fleurant, Cure
de St. Patrice.

Hennessy, Esq., M.R.I.A., and J. E. O'Cavanagh,
Esq., for valuable suggestions, and to Professor
O'Looney, M.R.I.A., for his assistance in collating
the text of a passage in the " Book of Armagh.'
At the same time, it must not be supposed that
these distinguished Celtic scholars are in any way
responsible for the views contained in this work.
Nothing is recorded in the following pages
which is not to be found in one or other of the
seven Lives of St. Patrick already mentioned.
The writer is fully conscious of the patchwork
character of many parts of his composition, and its
consequent want of clearness and unity. Frequent
references, where controversy has rendered them
necessary, break the thread of the narrative.
Moreover, the old records from which it has been
extracted were almost all written by men who
lived in the infancy of Christianity in Ireland ; its
mysteries and its supernatural events were new and
strange to them, and consequently their writings
are rude and vague. The Tripartite Life, written
partly in Celtic and partly in most ungrammatical
Latin, affords intrinsic evidence of its own primitive
origin in those days when St. Patrick himself gave
lessons in Latin to his disciples.1
1 In four different places in this Life the writer tells
us how St.
Patrick gave " Alphabets" to his converts; and this Roman character,
then so widely spread, is now only preserved in Celtic literature.

either their faith itself or their flocks from St.
Patrick, we can realise the place held by the Apostle
of Ireland in the Church of the nineteenth century. "
In the Vatican Council," writes Cardinal
Manning, " no Saint had so many mitred sons as St.
Patrick." When his children were driven forth on
their sorrowful exodus, neither the friends nor the
enemies of the Church could have anticipated the
result: "
Euntes ibant etflebant mitientes semina sua,
Venientes autem venient, cum exultatione par (antes manipulos suos." —
Ps. cxxv.

From: The Life of St. Patrck., William Bullen Morris, 1878

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