We normally think of history as one catastrophe after another, war followed by war, outrage by outrage – almost as if history were nothing more than all the narratives of human pain, assembled in sequence. And surely this is, often enough, an adequate description. But history is also the narratives of grace, the recounting of those blessed and inexplicable moments when someone did something for someone else, saved a life, bestowed a gift, gave something beyond what was required by circumstance ...
But the great gift giver, arriving in the moment of crisis, provided for transition, for transformation, even for transfiguration, leaving us a world more varied and complex, more awesome and delightful, more beautiful and strong than the one they had found.
- How the Irish Saved Civilisation, Thomas Cahill, 1995
Introduction
Notwithstanding the ostensibly positive developments mentioned above, as we argued previously, Roman civilisation itself, as a consequence of its institutionalisation of the oligarchical principle in law and governance, was inherently corrupt, unstable, and doomed to failure from its very inception.
But even as peace was attained in this formerly rebellious Island on the fringes of the Roman world, the empire itself was exhausted physically, spiritually and economically, literally suffocating under the weight of the bloated bureaucracy and military power by means of which the Empire maintained its control of subject peoples. Somewhat ironically, the starkly brutal reality of this collapse can best be perceived via the prism of the lowliest and most hated of the Imperial class, the tax men, who were known as curialis. In the Roman system, tax collection was less a vocation, more a generational prison into which you were born, and, by means of the Diocletian code, unable to escape from except by death.
By the time of the late 4th century, as the tax base of the Empire began to collapse, the curiales, who were compelled by law to make good on any shortfall in their collections from their own pockets, were becoming increasingly desperate and forced either to bribe their way into the Senate, from where he would be exempt from tax altogether, or to borrow money from the local lord of the manor, who would be more than happy to oblige on account of the relief he himself would receive from his assessor, who, quite conveniently was now also his collector. The net result was all too typical in default and the consolidation of the assets and wealth of the curiales into the hands of the wealthy landlord, who increasingly came to resemble a kind of international merchant banker of their day. In a desperate attempt to staunch the bleeding and loss of the curiales class, the Emperor legislated that they could not travel or sell their property without permission.
As one would expect, this process of repression and economic cannibalism soon perpetuated a self fulfilling vicious circle, with the poor curiales forced into increasingly desperate acts, as the middle classes upon which they preyed disappeared and all wealth was amalgamated into the hands of the increasingly ubiquitous and all powerful feudal aristocracy.
If this picture sounds uncomfortably familiar to our present predicament, where large international corporations with cosy inside political “revolving door” government connections, not to mention senior employees of the state themselves, increasingly flout the rules that apply to everyone else when it comes to payment of taxes, while the “little guy” is increasingly oppressed and squeezed for every last drop of cash, even to the point of bankruptcy, then that ought to give us valuable insight into the nature of the system, and the times, that we ourselves live in. But even as we are witness to history repeating itself, in the collapse of our own explicit replica of the bankrupt Roman monetarist kleptocracy, there is always hope.
For as we are about to hear, in one of history’s most beautiful examples of the oft stated claim that God does indeed have a wonderful sense of humour, it will be the son of just one such hapless tax collector, the hated vanguard of the Roman imperial state, who will be called to save western civilization from its own self inflicted doom. As the storm clouds gathered over the whole of the western empire, approaching its fateful date with collapse and ruin, on just one such grim day in 401 AD, a great fleet of black coracles swept up the coast of Britain and into the Severn Estuary, seizing many thousands of young captives, to be carried away to slave markets in Ireland. The history of these fateful events is to found in the testimony of one of their captives, a teenage boy by the name of Patricius, who we know today as St Patrick.
Roman Briton, Irish Saint
Every day I am ready to be murdered, betrayed, enslaved – whatever may come my way. But I am not afraid of any of these things, because of the promises of heaven; for I have put myself in the hands of God Almighty.
- Confession, St Patrick
Ireland was a wild and dangerous backwater, infested with druids, menaced by feuding bands of lawless brigands, and oppressed by an illiterate, murderous gang of autocratic tribal chiefs. The ravages of perpetual violence, slavery, human sacrifice and pagan superstition were rife. What limited culture existed was transmitted orally, in the vernacular, taking the form of heroic poems, for there was no knowledge of Greek or Latin. One such poem, the Tain Bo Cualinge, recounts the disastrous and bloody mayhem which ensues when, following a tempestuous marital quarrel between the tribal chief Ailil and his spouse Medb, about who was the poorer prior to their wedding, emissaries are sent to a rival tribe to request the temporary loan of a prize bull, to ensure that the frenzied stock taking and assessing of their respective holdings does not result in Medb losing the argument. The bull is duly offered in good grace, but the deal is scuppered when her soldiers, drunk on the hospitality they have been offered, suggest that they could have taken the bull by force anyway, without the need for the offer of such generous terms by their queen. This precipitates a cycle of war and violence which is not only utterly savage and barbaric, but tragicomic for the ridiculous and frivolous causes of the conflict.
It is into this brutal, violent and inhumane world which the young Patrick falls, alone and bereft of protection, even so much as a winter cloak to stave off the worst of the freezing cold. As a lowly slave, he is forced to spend his days tending livestock for his tribal chieftain owner, Miliucc. Deprived of companionship for long periods, suffering the ravages of the elements and constant fear of cattle raids by rival chiefs, he begins to pray. “The love of God and the fear of him surrounded me more and more, and faith grew and the spirit was roused, so that in one day I would say as many as a hundred prayers and after dark nearly as many again, even while I remained in the woods or on the mountain.”. For six years he endures his torments in prayer, until one day, as his transformation from slave boy into holy man reaches its critical moment, a voice comes to him and says: “Your hungers are rewarded: you are going home”.
Astounded, he sits up, and the voice continues: “Look, your ship is ready”.
Miliucc’s farm is many miles from the coast, but Patrick sets out nonetheless, paying no heed to his direction or destination. For 200 miles he walks, across terrain he has never seen before, but miraculously is not stopped or followed once. Finally, he reaches a southeastern inlet near Wexford, where he sees his promised ship. Approaching the captain, who eyes him suspiciously, Patrick shows that he has the means for passage, but is rebuffed. This is a moment of extreme danger, being alone and exposed as a fugitive in a port town, and so he again begins to pray. Before he can finish his prayer, one of the sailors shouts after him “Come aboard, we’ll take you on trust”.
The ship carries a cargo of Irish hunting dogs, bound for sale on the continent, where they are highly prized. The passage takes three days, but when they arrive in Gaul, all is desolation. Not a human soul or animal can be found, after two weeks of searching. Nearing starvation and exhaustion, the captain taunts Patrick, asking why he does not save them, to which he responds by exhorting them all to humble prayer. The sailors, at the limit of their endurance, are impressed by his sincerity and join him in prayer. Almost immediately, the sound of a stampede attracts their attention, and as they look up from their meditations, a herd of pigs can be seen charging towards them.
A few years later, Patrick finally makes it home to Britain, where he is welcomed by his parents, who plead with him not to go off and leave them again. But Patrick is no longer a winsome teenager, but a restless spirit, with a righteous fire burning in his soul. Hardened physically and psychologically by the depredations of his experiences, and severely behind his peers in formal education, he cannot settle down.
One night, a man he knew in Ireland comes to him in a vision, holding “countless letters”, one of which “The Voice of the Irish”, he hands to Patrick. As he reads the letter, he hears the voice of a multitude crying “We beg you to come and walk among us once more”. He cannot put the vision from his mind and, setting concerns for his parents aside, he sets sail once more for Gaul.
The Great Commission
Patrick travels by ship to Bordeaux and from there by foot to Tours, where he undergoes several years of rigorous theological education at the hands of Saint Martin and his Augustinian order, at the monastery of Marmoutier. St. Martin was a soldier monk of St Ambrose at Milan, who remained a figure of veneration the other Irish monastery founders for centuries, and Tours has been venerated in Ireland ever since. In 429 AD, he accompanies Germanus on a mission to England to challenge the Pelagian heresy, but this is the only time he has anything to do with the English church. Completing his training in 432AD, Patrick returns to Ireland to fulfil his mission, but now under papal authority, as Bishop.
The Annals of Ireland, a Latin record of Patrick’s mission, report that: “In the Age of Christ 438. The tenth year of Laeghaire. The Sencus and Fienchus (Laws and History) of Ireland were purified and written, the old books of Ireland having been collected and brought to one place (Tara, in County Meath, the royal district within Leinster) at the request of St. Patrick.” This was an agreement between Leaghaire, the pagan “high king” of Ireland, Dubhthach, the chief bard and historian, whom Patrick had converted, and Patrick himself. It goes on to state that: “When they came to the Council the Gospel of Christ was preached to them all... It was then that all the professors of the sciences in Erin were assembled, and each of them exhibited his art before Patrick, and in the presence of every chief in Erin. It was then that Dubhthach was advised to exhibit the judgements, and all the poetry of Erin, and every law which prevailed amongst the men of Erin, through the law of nature…Now the judgements of true nature, which the Holy Ghost had spoken through the mouths of the Brehons, and the just poets of the men of Erin...were all exhibited. What did not clash with the Word of God in the law, and in the New Testament, and in the consciences of the believers, was confirmed in the law of the Brehons by Patrick, and by the chieftains of Erin; for the law had been quite right, except the faith, and the harmony of the Church and the people. And this is the Senchus.” (Law).
And so, with this singularly most revolutionary act since the apostolic missions themselves, the entire population of Ireland, estimated at 300,000 in Patrick’s day, are converted to Christianity virtually overnight. While much more could be said about his life and deeds, what we do know is that Augustine’s works on faith and grace, and Leo I’s epistles “On the Trinity and Incarnation”, were memorised by Irish monks starting with Patrick, and became the touchstones and the triune shamrocks of Irish Christianity.
The totally unprecedented ecclesiastical and spiritual revolution that Patrick had now set into motion will soon change the course of history, sweeping up the entire continent of Europe and beyond into an epistemological, political, and physical war between the surviving remnants of the Roman oligarchy, and the nascent cultural potential which his legacy inspires after our beloved saint finally passes from the physical world in 493 AD, his great mission completed.
Darkness Falls
As Patrick’s missionary zeal is transforming Ireland beyond all recognition, the Roman occupation of Britain is rapidly evaporating. In 406 AD a large band of Germanic barbarians had crossed the Rhine and began to devastate Gaul. As there was no effective Roman response, the remnants of the Roman army dispense with Imperial authority, rally under Constanine III and cross the channel to confront the barbarians, but are defeated in a series of intrigues by forces loyal to the emperor. As all central authority wanes, and left undefended, the native Britons start a rebellion and expel the Roman civil administration.
In 410 AD, as the barbarians lined their forces across the Tiber, the “Rescript of Honorius” reveals how Britain was told to fend for itself by the current Emperor, who was holed up at Ravenna. And by 446 AD, the infamous “Groans of the Britons” documents an appeal to Flavius Aetius for support against a Saxon invasion, but Rome is no longer willing, or able to respond. It is during these years of chaos and collapse that legend has it that a lone Roman centurion by the name of Arturios rides forth to defend England from the invading Saxons. But by 577 AD, at the Battle of Deorham, the West Saxons finally defeat the Britons, and reach the western sea. This formally marks the end of the Roman phase of British history, and begins the Saxon era.
In the midst of all this carnage, it is St Patrick himself who bears witness to the spreading pagan barbarism in his “A Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus”, protesting the capture and enslavement of Irish Christians by his raiders, to quote:
And so, now you, Coroticus-and your gangsters, rebels all against Christ, now where do you see yourselves? You gave away girls like prizes: not yet women, but baptized. All for some petty temporal gain that will pass in the very next instant. Like a cloud passes, or smoke blown in the wind, so will sinners, who cheat, slip away from the face of the Lord. But the just will feast for sure with Christ. They will judge the nations, and unjust kings they will lord over for world after world. Amen. Wisd. 5:14 Ps. 68:2, 3; 3:8
Seeds of Hope
But even as England plunged deeply into paganism and slavery under Saxon influence, the seeds of hope are taking root in Iona, under the leadership of Colum cille – later St Columban - who arrives on the Island from Ireland in 563 AD, and founds the first monastery dedicated to the conversion of the Scots. A few years later, Columanus arrives in Gaul with the customary twelve disciples, and establishes the first foundations of the Irish monastery movement, in the valley of the Seine.
From 600 AD the Irish monasteries and their schools “multiplied exceedingly”, and the three largest monastery/schools in Ireland - Clonard, founded by St. Patrick’s collaborator St. Finian, Bangor, founded by Comgall, and Clonfert, founded by the famous Navigator St. Brendan - numbered 3000, 4000, and 3000 monks. These were “the largest monastic foundations ever established in Christendom,” according to Montalembert’s history of monasticism. The ratio of lay brothers and sisters to monks and nuns was at least one to one; in Gaul in the next century it was apparently often three to one, including the pupils of the school. Thus a monastery population which may have reached 40,000 out of a population total estimated to have been 250,000. This gives an idea of an extraordinary “education density” in that society, and also an idea how such large numbers of Irish monks missionised Scotland and Northumbria and then the huge territory of Gaul. “All saints whose origins could not be traced, were supposed to have come from Ireland,” says Montalembert.
It is this movement that will ultimately found Lindisfarne under St Aidan, and over time, re-convert England’s Saxon Kings to Christianity, which reached its apotheosis in King Alfred and his famous laws.
We owe a great debt to St Patrick and the Irish monastic movement. Let us celebrate that debt in his honour, and by doing so remember how we came to be who we are, this coming March 17th, and forever more.