The Confession of St. Patrick: Part Four
The Fruits Of His Mission
From: 385 C.E. To: 431 C.E.
Location: Armagh, Ireland
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
“The Fruits Of His Mission.” from The Confession of St. Patrick translated by Rev. Thomas Olden, 1853.
Sec. 15.
But it is long to detail the particulars of my labours even partially. I will briefly say how the God of piety often liberated me from slavery; how he delivered me from twelve dangers by which my soul was perilled, besides many snares and troubles which I cannot enumerate, nor will I do injustice to my readers; [yet I cannot altogether be silent], while I have a master who knows all things even before they come to pass, as he does me a poor helpless creature.
Therefore, the Divine response frequently admonished me [to consider] whence I derived this wisdom, which was not in me, who neither knew the number of my days nor was acquainted with God; whence I obtained afterwards so great and salutary a gift as to know or to love God, and also that I should give up my home and parents. And many oflers were made to me with weeping and tears, and I incurred displeasure there from some of my elders, contrary to my wish; but under the guidance of God I in no way consented, nor gave in to them; yet not I, but the grace of God which prevailed in me, and resisted them all, in order that I might come to preach the Gospel to the people of Ireland, and bear with the ill-treatment of the unbelieving, and that I should be reproached as a foreigner, and have to endure many persecutions, even to bonds, and that I should give up my free birth for the good of others.
Sec. 16.
And I am ready at this moment to lay down even my life with joy for his name's sake, if I were worthy, and thus I wish to bestow it even unto death, if the Lord should so favour me. Because I am greatly a debtor to God, who has bestowed his grace so largely upon me that multitudes should be born again to God through me, and afterwards confirmed, and that of these, clergy should be everywhere ordained for a people lately coming to the faith, whom the Lord took from the extremities of the earth, as he promised long before by his Prophets. "The Gentiles shall come unto thee from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein there is no profit;” and again, "I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldst be for salvation unto the ends of the earth;" and thus I wish to await the promise of him who in truth never deceives, which is thus given in the Gospel—"They shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob." So we hold that believers shall come from all the world.
Sec. 17.
Therefore we ought to fish well and diligently, as the Lord tells us when he says, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men;" and again he says by the Prophets, "Behold I send you many fishers and hunters, saith the Lord," &c. Wherefore there is great need that we should so set our nets that a vast assemblage and multitude may be caught to God; that there may be everywhere clergy to baptise and exhort a people who need and desire it, as the Lord admonishes and teaches us in the Gospel, saying, "Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and lo I am with you always, even unto the end of the world;" And again he says, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved." "And this Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come."
And again, the Lord speaking by his prophet says—”And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions; and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit;” and in Hosea he says, "I will call her my people which was not my people, and have mercy on her that had not obtained mercy; and it shall come to pass that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there shall they be called the children of the living God."
Wherefore, behold, how the Irish who never had the knowledge of God, and hitherto worshipped only idols and unclean things, have lately become the people of the Lord, and are called the sons of God.
Sec. 18.
The sons and daughters of Scottish princes appear to be monks and virgins of Christ. And there was one blessed Scottish maiden, very fair, of noble birth, and of adult age, whom many men I baptised, and after a few days she came to me, because, as she declared, she had received a response from a messenger of God, desiring her to become a virgin of Christ, and to draw near to God. Thanks be to God, on the sixth day from that, she with most praiseworthy eagerness, seized on that state of life which all the virgins of God likewise now adopt, not with the will of their parents, nay, they endure persecution and unfounded reproaches from their parents, and nevertheless the number increases the more; and as to those of our kind who are born there, we know not the number, except widows and continent persons. But those [virgins] who are detained in slavery are the most severely afflicted, yet they persevere in spite of terrors and threats. But the Lord gave grace to many of my handmaidens, for whether as much [as they ought or not] they zealously imitate him.
Sec. 19.
Wherefore, although I could have wished to leave them, and had been ready and most desirous to go into Britain, as if to my parents, and country, and not that alone, but had been ready to go as far as Graul to visit my brethren, and to see the faces of the Lord's saints; God knows that I greatly wished it, but I am "bound in the spirit," who "witnesseth" that if I do this he sets me down as guilty.
I also fear to lose the labour which I have commenced, and yet not I, but Christ the Lord, who commanded him to come and be with them the remainder of my life. If the Lord willed it so, and guarded me against "every evil way" [it was] that I should not sin before him. I hope [to do] that which I ought, but I trust not myself so long as I shall be "in this body of death," because he is strong who daily endeavours to subvert me from the faith and chastity which I have proposed to myself, even to the end of my life, to Christ my Lord; but the carnal mind, which is enmity, always draws me to death—that is, to unlawfully accomplishing desires; and I know in part why I have failed to live a perfect life, as well as other believers; but I confess to my Lord, and I lie not, from the time that I knew him (that is, from my youth), the love, and fear of God increased in me—so that up to this time, by the grace of God, "I have kept the faith."
Patrick. The Confession of St. Patrick. Translated by Thomas Olden, James McGlashan, 1853.
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