The Confession of Saint Patrick - Essay Example

He narrates the story of his life from his childhood through to adulthood and right up to the time before his death. This account by St. Patrick gives us an insight into the background of the prevailing times and also lending focus to the legends and the myths that shrouded his personality. This biographical account is edited by Whitely Stokes and was compiled by Beatrix Färber and Benjamin Hazard. The language used by the author was Latin. His father was Calpornius, who was a deacon in an era much before celibacy became the rule for priests.

He was a Romanized Briton. Patrick’s mother came from an upper-class Gaulish family of Martin of Tours, though Patrick does not pride himself for the fact. As time gradually rolled by, Patrick’s enslavement had a great impact on him and strengthened his faith in the Christian religion. At the very impressionable age of sixteen, he admitted in his ‘Confessions’ that he was captured and brought to Ireland to serve as a slave to a Druidic chieftan named Milchu in Dalriada, at the County Antrim.

But at the age of twenty two he escaped from there and once again reunited with his parents at Britain where later he became ‘one of the first Christian clergymen in Ireland, being preceded by men such as Pallidius (c.380-457/61). His first convert was his patron Dichu, who gifted him a huge barn (sabhal) where a church was constructed and the site still retains the name of Sabhal that is pronounced as “Saul.” In Ireland, Patrick was not the first Christian missionary, because much before him were missionaries like Secundus and Pallidius who continued their active work in the south of the island.

But even so, Patrick is given a lot of credence as one of the best missionaries because his teachings had a great impact especially in provinces like Ulster and Connaught where there were no Christians before. He came across as a man who possessed a deep love for God and courageous enough to face