Frrcuson—On the “ Confessio”’ of St. Patrick. 205 
XXX V.—On some Passages 1n THE ‘‘ Conressio”’ or Sr. Patrice. 
By Sie Samvet Ferevson, Q.C., LL.D., President. 
[Read, June 11, 1883.] 
THE Confessio of St. Patrick, especially that copy of it preserved in 
the Book of Armagh, is justly considered the most authentic memo- 
rial of our great apostle. Some years ago, having occasion to examine 
the text in connexion with the apparent allusion to Gaulish relations 
in the expression exagallias, I was struck with some peculiarities of 
its style which seemed to indicate that the writer, having difficulty 
in expressing himself in Latin, conceived the thoughts which he had 
to translate into that language in some form of speech cognate with 
the Irish. One instance I already communicated to the Academy, 
where he employs the Latin sed as the equivalent of the Irish acht, in 
its non-Latin sense of nist, ‘‘save”’, ‘‘ except’. I propose now to 
notice some other examples of a like kind. 
Every reader of the Confessio is struck with the singular use of 
the verb ¢ntermitto in the passage where Patrick describes his escape 
from his master Milcu: ‘“‘ Et deinde postmodum conversus sum in 
fugam et intermissi hominem cum fueram vi annis”’. This is 
quite an unexampled use of entermitto, which, in regular Latinity, 
never means to ‘‘leave”’, to “‘ quit’’, to ‘‘separate from’’, as the 
sense here, obviously suggested by the context, would require. But 
the Irish verb Ecappcapaim, inter-separo, expresses the same mean- 
ing by a periphrasis possibly more appropriate to the occasion than a 
simple use of the word relinquo. I only know the compound verb in 
its substantive form Caxosyipcspod or ecoyipoopod, “separation ”’ 
(O’D. in Suppt. to O’R., citing H. 2. 15, p. 516); but the one implies 
the necessary existence of the other; and the intermitto of Patrick 
seems an evident endeavour to fit a Latin equivalent to that combination 
of Irish vocables. Scayio1m and pcesolsim appear to be originally 
the same; and the word to scale in the same sense is still a living 
expression in the North of Ireland, as in the scaling or breaking up of 
a congregation or of a school. In this connexion it may not be out of 
place to observe that, according to the version found in the Lives, the 
use of an expression importing some degree of mutuality in Patrick’s 
separation from his master would not be improper. For the writers 
of the Lives deny that he was a runaway slave: they allege that he 
purchased his freedom, and did not take to flight till after Mileu had 
received the gold, and refused to perform his own part of the con- 
tract. 
Proceeding in the narrative of his flight, Patrick goes on to say: 
“Kt veni in virtute Domini qui viam meam ad bonum dirigebat, et 
nihil metuebam donec perveni ad navem.” It may be doubted if a 
Latinist describing a going out from the country in which he was 
R. I. A. PROC., VOL. II., SER. I1.— POL. LIT. AND ANTIQ. 2A. 
