PATRICIAN 



PATRICK 



807 



In the later history of the Jews, too, after the 

 destruction of Jerusalem, the Greek name was 

 used to designate the heads of the college which 

 was regarded as a continuation of the old San- 

 hedrim ; one of whom, the patriarch of the west, 

 resided at Tiberias, in Galilee, and the other, the 

 patriarch of the Eastern Jews, at Bahylon. The 

 patriarch of Tiberias was also regarded by the 

 Roman imperial government a* municipal head 

 of the Jews of Palestine. The most familiar use 

 of the word, however, is in the history of the 

 Christian church. It is the name given to the 

 bishops of certain great metropolitan sees, who 

 not only held rank beyond other metropolitans, 

 luit also enjoyed a jurisdiction over all the metro- 

 politans included in their district almost identical 

 with that of the metropolitan in his own province. 

 It is certain that the name and the office were both 

 recognised before the Council of Nice, at which 

 time, as we learn from the sixth canon, the patri- 

 archal sees, acknowledged by ' ancient custom,' 

 were three in number, Rome, Antioch, and Alex- 

 andria. After the translation of the seat of empire 

 to Byzantium, thenceforward called Constantinople, 

 that see, originally subject to the metropolitan of 

 Heraclea, obtained metropolitan and afterwards 

 patriarchal rank, and eventually established a 

 precedency over the patriarchs of Antioch and 

 Alexandria, being second only to Rome. The con- 

 tests between the patriarchs of Rome and Constan- 

 tinople were among the chief causes of the Greek 

 Schism. To these four patriarchates was added a 

 fifth in the year 451, that of Jerusalem, which was 

 formed out of the ancient patriarchate of Antioch. 

 The limits of these five patriarchates can only be 

 loosely assigned. After the Greek Schism, and 

 particularly after the establishment of the Latin 

 Kingdom of Jerusalem, Latin prelates were ap- 

 pointed with the title and rank of patriarch in the 

 four great Eastern sees resident at Rome ; in 1847 

 the Latin patriarch took up his residence in Jeru- 

 salem. The Catholic Church also recognises Maron- 

 ite, Melchite, and Syrian patriarchs of Antioch, an 

 Armenian patriarch of Cihcia, and a Chaldaic patri- 

 arch of Babylon. There are also minor patriarchs 

 of Venice, of Spain, and of the Indies. For the 

 patriarchs of the Orthodox Eastern Church, see 

 GREEK CHURCH. 



Patrician ( Lat. patricius, from pater, ' father' ), 

 A name given to the members of Roman gentes of 

 whom the nopulus Romania originally consisted, 

 and to their descendants by blood and adoption. 

 On the establishment of the" plebeians as a distinct 

 order, sharing certain rights with the patricians, 

 the patriciate became an aristocracy of birth, in the 

 exclusive possession of a number of important 

 privileges. A long struggle between the two 

 orders ended in the attainment by the plebeians 

 of a political equality, and the establishment of a 

 new aristocracy of mobiles based on wealth and 

 office (see NUBILITY, ROME). Under Constantino 

 the dignity of patricius became a personal title ; 

 not hereditary, but conferring very high honour 

 and certain privileges. The popes in after times 

 conferred the same title on eminent persons and 

 princes ; and elsewhere also the title of patrician 

 was bestowed on distinguished subjects. 



Patrick, ST., a distinguished missionary of the 

 5th century, commonly known as the Apostle of 

 Ireland. There is some uncertainty as to the date 

 and place of his birth. His birth is assigned to 

 the year 372 by Ussher (Eccl. Brit. Antiq., in 

 vi. pp. 375-380, with which compare Wh. Stokes's 

 Introduction to Tripartite Life of St Patrick, 

 p. cxxxvii., Rolls series, Lond. 1887). Of the 

 place, it is only known for certain, from his own 

 Confession, that his father had a small farm near 



Bannavem Tabernioe ; and in one of the ancient 

 lives he is said to have been born at Nemthur. 

 Arguing on these data, together with other col- 

 lateral indications, some writers assign his birth- 

 place to the present Boulogne-sur-Mer ; others to a 

 place on the estuary of the Clyde (called from him 

 Kilpatrick) near Dumbarton. His father, as he 

 himself tells, was a deacon named Calpurnius, and 

 his grandfather, Potitus, a priest ; his mother, 

 according to the ancient biographers, was named 

 Conches or Conchessa, and was a sister of St Martin 

 of Tours. Patrick's original Celtic name is said to 

 have been Succat, Patricius being his Latin desig- 

 nation. In his sixteenth year lie was seized, while at 

 his father's farm of Bannavem Tabernitv, by a band 

 of pirates, and with a number of others was carried 

 to Ireland and sold to a petty chief, in whose service 

 he remained for six years. This chief's name was 

 Miluic or Milchu. He lived in the valley of the 

 Braid near Blemish Mountain, just outside the 

 town of Broughshane, in the centre of the County 

 Antrim, where a ' town-land called Bally-lig- 

 patrick ( ' the town of Patrick's hollow ' ) still pre- 

 serves the memory of his residence. This district 

 of Antrim was then famous for its piratical expedi- 

 tions into Britain, as the vast finds of Roman coins 

 all along the Antrim coast as far as Coleraine 

 amply prove. After six years Patrick succeeded 

 in effecting his escape, and, probably after a second 

 captivity, went to France, where he became a 

 monk, first at Tours and afterwards in the cele- 

 brated monastery of Lerins, which was then the 

 residence of John Cassian, the admirer of Egyptian 

 monasticism, and of vast numl>ers of Egyptian 

 monks ; hence the numerous points of contact with 

 Egyptian customs which have been noticed in the 

 ancient Irish Church (see IRELAND, Vol. VI. p. 210, 

 G. T. Stokes's Celtic Church, p. 188, and Butler's 

 Coptic Churches, passim). In the year 432 he 

 went as a missionary to Ireland when sixty years 

 of age, after he had been ordained by an unknown 

 Gallic bishop named Matorix or Amatorix, or else 

 by Germanus of Auxerre ; Palladius, who had been 

 sent by Pope Celestine as missionary to that country 

 a short time before, having died. He seems to 

 have been made a bishop in Yiis forty-fifth year. 



The leading facts of Patrick's life in Ireland as 

 they are collected out of the various documents are 

 these. He sailed from France to Wales or Ireland. 

 The Welsh claim that he landed in Wales before 

 he went to Ireland (see Giraldus Cambrensis, iii. 

 379, Rolls series). The communication, however, 

 between Wales and the east coast of Ireland has 

 been very frequent from the earliest ages. He lirst 

 landed as a missionary in Ireland at the town of 

 Wicklow at the mouth of the river Vartry ; thence 

 he sailed north to convert his old master Milchu, 

 who destroyed himself at his approach. Milchu %yas 

 a chief of Northern Dalriada, a district which 

 extended from the middle of Antrim to Newry. In 

 the County Down, in the south of the same Dalriada, 

 he converted another chief named Dichu, who 

 bestowed upon him the first Christian church that 

 St Patrick possessed. It was called Sabhall ( Saul ) 

 or ' the barn,' and it is still a church called by exactly 

 the same name. St Patrick then set out to Tara in 

 the County Meath, which was at that period the 

 central point of meeting for all the tribes of Ireland. 

 There he preached to the king of Tara, Laoghaire, 

 or Leary ( as the name should be pronounced ), where 

 Patrick is said to have used the shamrock to illus- 

 trate the doctrine of the Trinity ; this is, however, 

 a mere modern legend. Thence he proceeded to 

 Connaught, as far as Croagh-Patrick in Mayo, to 

 Ulster, and as far as Cashel in the south. We can 

 trace his footsteps in all these directions by the 

 topography of the country as well as by the doou- 

 mei> ts which are extant. His mission was eminently 



