Ebook Saint Patrick, and the Early Church of Ireland

Was there ever such a man as Saint Patrick? It was wise to consider this question before attempting to write his life. By some it has been doubted, by a few others denied. But in such cases there has usually been a strong party feeling, or an ignorance of certain original sources of history. There is a distinction to be made between the myth and the man. Imagination has given us a Robinson Crusoe; the real man was Alexander Selkirk. The Saint Patrick of the ordinary Irish heart is certainly very mythical. The portrait of him was drawn from imagination; the colours are not those of the fifth, but those of the twelfth or fourteenth century. The deeds are manufactured to order and by the job, and the life is made of the baldest legends. This Patrick is a fully-developed Papist of the time, when certain errors pre vailed, which he could not have known in the fifth century. He is constantly working miracles, some of them very tri?ing, and some of them astounding, beyond all that was ever recorded of a mere man. For his especial benefit divine revelations are made to him, which cause a greater amazement than any ever made to Moses or Paul. He is too wonderful to be real. The myth business was entirely overdone. The manufacturers did not perceive that com mon sense might some time be restored to the human race. In the Middle Ages it was customary with the monks to exercise their scholars in writing the lives of imaginary saints; asserting that it was a pious and very improving way of exercising the imagination! L The best of these fanciful biographies were laid aside for future use; and after the lapse of a few ages, when their statements could not be disproved, were produced and published as genuine.