Saint Patrick's Sin, In his Own Words

 

Background

The text is from Thomas O’Loughlin’s translation of Saint Patrick’s “Confessio.” At that time there was no sacrament of Confession, nor were infants baptised. Saint Augustine, who first recommended the baptism of infants, was a contemporary of Patrick.  It was common for people to sow their wild oats, before repenting and submitting to baptism, often quite late in life. Patrick’s words are riddled with quotations from sacred documents.

Patrick’s Captivity

When I was about sixteen, I was taken into captivity in Ireland – at that time I was ignorant of the true God – along with many thousand others. This was our punishment for departing from God, abandoning his commandments, and ignoring our priest who kept on warning us about our salvation. And ‘so’ the Lord ‘poured upon’ us ‘the heat of his anger’ and dispersed us among many peoples right ‘out to the very ends of the earth.’

I was a rustic and a wanderer without any learning ‘who knew not how to provide for what would come later’. But I know one thing with certainty: that ‘before I was punished’ I was like a stone lying in the deepest mire.

Opposition to his ordination as Bishop

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 from thirty years earlier which I had admitted before I was even made a deacon.

Once, when I was anxious and worried, I hinted to my dearest friend about something I had done one day – indeed in one hour – in my youth, for I had not then prevailed over my sinfulness.

‘I do not know, God knows’ if I was then fifteen years old, and I was not a believer in the true God nor had I ever been,  but I ‘remained in death’ and ‘non - belief’ until I was truly punished and, in truth, brought low by daily deprivations of hunger and nakedness.

Against [the charge I could point out that] I continued on in Ireland, not of my own volition, until I almost perished. But this [captivity] was very good for me for I was corrected by the Lord; and he prepared me for what I am today – a state I was then far away from – when I have many duties and pastoral care for the salvation of others , but at that time I was not even concerned for myself.

His Rejection

And so came the day when I was rejected by those I have mentioned; and on that night: ‘I saw a vision of the night.’ [ I saw ] a piece of writing without any nobility opposite my face , and at the same time I heard a divine revelation saying : ‘We have seen with anger the face of the chosen one with his name laid bare [of respect].’ Note he did not say: ‘You have seen with anger,’ but ‘We have seen with anger,’ as if he were joined on to his chosen one . As he said: ‘He who touches you touches the pupil of my eye.’ So it is that ‘I give thanks to him who strengthened me’ in all things: that he did not impede me in my chosen journey, nor in my works which I had learned from Christ my Lord. On the contrary, I felt in myself a strength, by no means small, coming from him, and that my ‘ faith was proven in the presence of God and men.’ And so ‘I boldly declare’ that my conscience is clear both now and in the future. I have ‘God as [my] witness’ that I am not a liar in those things that I have told you.

Sorrow for his friend who denounced him

But I am very sorry for my dearest friend, to whom I trusted even my soul, that we had to hear this revelation. And I found out from some of the brethren that at the enquiry he fought for me in my absence. (I was not present at it, nor was I in Britain, nor did the issue arise from me.) He indeed it was who told me with his own lips: ‘Behold, you are to be given the rank of bishop’ – something for which I was unworthy. So how did he later come to the idea of disgracing me in public in the presence of all those people both good and bad, [regarding a matter] which earlier he had, joyfully and of his own volition, pardoned me, as indeed had the Lord who is greater than all?

Enough said !

Ongoing Temptation

... for ‘as long as I am in this body of death’ I do not trust myself because he is strong who daily tries to drag me away from faith and from the genuine religious chastity which I have chosen for Christ my Lord until the end of my life. But the hostile flesh is always drawing me towards death, namely, towards doing those enticing things which are forbidden. While I know in part those matters where I have had a less perfect life than other believers, I do acknowledge this to my Lord and I am not ashamed in his sight – ‘for I do not lie.' From the time I knew him, from youth, the love of God and the fear of him have grown within me so that, with the Lord’s help, ‘I have kept the faith’ until now.