The Legends of Saint Patrick | Page 2

known as Kilpatrick,
was at the junction of the Levin with the Clyde, in what is now the
county of Dumbarton. His baptismal name was Succath. His father was
Calphurnius, a deacon, son of Potitus, who was a priest. His mother's
name was Conchessa, whose family may have belonged to Gaul, and
who may thus have been, as it is said she was, of the kindred of St.
Martin of Tours; for there is a tradition that she was with Calphurnius
as a slave before he married her. Since Eusebius spoke of three bishops
from Britain at the Council of Arles, Succath, known afterwards in
missionary life by his name in religion, Patricius (pater civium), might
very reasonably be a deacon's son.
In his early years Succath was at home by the Clyde, and he speaks of
himself as not having been obedient to the teaching of the clergy. When
he was sixteen years old he, with two of his sisters and other of his
countrymen, was seized by a band of Irish pirates that made descent on
the shore of the Clyde and carried him off to slavery. His sisters were
taken to another part of the island, and he was sold to Milcho
MacCuboin in the north, whom he served for six or seven years, so
learning to speak the language of the country, while keeping his
master's sheep by the Mountain of Slieve Miss. Thoughts of home and
of its Christian life made the youth feel the heathenism that was about
him; his exile seemed to him a punishment for boyish indifference; and
during the years when young enthusiasm looks out upon life with new
sense of a man's power--growing for man's work that is to do--Succath
became filled with religious zeal.
Three Latin pieces are ascribed to St. Patrick: a "Confession," which is
in the Book of Armagh, and in three other manuscripts; {10a} a letter

to Coroticus, and a few "Dieta Patricii," which are also in the Book of
Armagh. {10b} There is no strong reason for questioning the
authenticity of the "Confession," which is in unpolished Latin, the
writer calling himself "indoctus,
rusticissimus, imperitus," and it is
full of a deep religious feeling. It is concerned rather with the inner
than the outer life, but includes references to the early days of trial by
which Succath's whole heart was turned to God. He says, "After I came
into Ireland I pastured sheep daily, and prayed many times a day. The
love and fear of God, and faith and spirit, wrought in me more and
more, so that in one day I reached to a hundred prayers, and in the night
almost as many, and stayed in the woods and on the mountains, and
was urged to prayer before the dawn, in snow, in frost, in rain, and took
no harm, nor, I think, was there any sloth in me. And there one night I
heard a voice in a dream saying to me, 'Thou hast well fasted; thou
shalt go back soon to thine own land;' and again after a little while,
'Behold! thy ship is ready.'" In all this there is the passionate longing of
an ardent mind for home and Heaven.
At the age of twenty-two Succath fled from his slavery to a vessel of
which the master first refused and finally consented to take him on
board. He and the sailors were then cast by a storm upon a desert shore
of Britain, possibly upon some region laid waste by ravages from over
sea. Having at last made his way back, by a sea passage, to his home on
the Clyde, Succath was after a time captured again, but remained
captive only for two months, and went back home. Then the zeal for his
Master's service made him feel like the Seafarer in the Anglo-Saxon
poem; and all the traditions of his home would have accorded with the
rise of the resolve to cross the sea, and to spread Christ's teaching in
what had been the land of his captivity.
There were already centres of Christian work in Ireland, where devoted
men were labouring and drew a few into their fellowship. Succath
aimed at the gathering of all these scattered forces, by a movement that
should carry with it the whole people. He first prepared himself by
giving about four years to study of the Scriptures at Auxerre, under
Germanus, and then went to Rome, under the conduct of a priest,
Segetius, and probably with letters from Germanus to Pope Celestine.

Whether he received his orders from the Pope seems doubtful; but the
evidence is strong that Celestine sent him on his Irish mission. Succath
left Rome, passed through North Italy and Gaul, till he met on his way
two followers of Palladius, Augustinus