st patrick
Extract from St Patrick, Confessio
This passage of the Confessio relates to an accusation made against Patrick when he was aged about fortyfive that he was unworthy of an office in the church. The whole passage is anything but clear: What was the ‘sin’ he refers to? Why did they consider him unworthy of office? Where and by whom was the challenge brought? Was Patrick physically present at a trial, and indeed what was the outcome of the challenge? All we can say is this: before he was taken captive – at the time when he did not ‘know the true God’ (a point he emphasizes here and at the beginning of the Confessio; and cf. John 17.5) – he committed a sinful act.
He was then punished by God for this and did his penance by suffering during his first captivity; there he came to his spiritual sense and discovered how he should live and act. Now, years later, it is held against him and his reply is that he was not really aware of his actions at that time, that he had made public acknowledgement of it before he was a deacon, and has undergone the divine cleansing of chastisement by his captivity in Ireland.
However, it appears that Patrick’s arguments did not succeed and he was rejected. Yet at this point Patrick speaks with new assurance, for in all these trials the Lord is with him. Patrick discovers a new level of divine support, for the Lord identifies himself with Patrick and his sufferings.
And when I was tested by some of my superiors who opposed my toilsome office of bishop with my sins – truly on that day ‘I was struck’ mightily ‘so that I was falling’ here and in eternity – then did the Lord in his goodness spare the convert and the stranger ‘for his name’s sake’. And he powerfully came to my aid in this battering so that I did not slip badly into the wreckage of sin nor into infamy. I pray God that ‘it may not be charged against them’ as sin. ‘The charge they brought’ against me was something rom thirty years earlier which I had admitted before I was
This passage of the Confessio relates to an accusation made against Patrick when he was aged about fortyfive that he was unworthy of an office in the church. The whole passage is anything but clear: What was the ‘sin’ he refers to? Why did they consider him unworthy of office? Where and by whom was the challenge brought? Was Patrick physically present at a trial, and indeed what was the outcome of the challenge? All we can say is this: before he was taken captive – at the time when he did not ‘know the true God’ (a point he emphasizes here and at the beginning of the Confessio; and cf. John 17.5) – he committed a sinful act.
He was then punished by God for this and did his penance by suffering during his first captivity; there he came to his spiritual sense and discovered how he should live and act. Now, years later, it is held against him and his reply is that he was not really aware of his actions at that time, that he had made public acknowledgement of it before he was a deacon, and has undergone the divine cleansing of chastisement by his captivity in Ireland.
However, it appears that Patrick’s arguments did not succeed and he was rejected. Yet at this point Patrick speaks with new assurance, for in all these trials the Lord is with him. Patrick discovers a new level of divine support, for the Lord identifies himself with Patrick and his sufferings.
And when I was tested by some of my superiors who opposed my toilsome office of bishop with my sins – truly on that day ‘I was struck’ mightily ‘so that I was falling’ here and in eternity – then did the Lord in his goodness spare the convert and the stranger ‘for his name’s sake’. And he powerfully came to my aid in this battering so that I did not slip badly into the wreckage of sin nor into infamy. I pray God that ‘it may not be charged against them’ as sin. ‘The charge they brought’ against me was something rom thirty years earlier which I had admitted before I was