208 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 
have a material bearing on the much-canvassed note of the scholiast on 
Fiech ; and again, where he says at the close of the piece, ‘‘ sed precor 
eredentibus et timentibus Deum, quicumque dignatus fuerit inspicere 
vel recipere hane scripturam quam Patricius precator, indoctus, scilicet 
hiberione conscripsit, ut nemo,”’ &c., the Latin leaves it doubtful was it 
in Hiberione, or de Hiberione, was meant by the writer, in which latter 
ease the Confessio, apart from the supplemental matter, might be 
regarded as addressed to external readers. 
Supposing, however, that it were established never so clearly that 
Patrick, in writing his Latin, thought in Irish, there would be nothing 
surprising in the fact, and indeed, considering his long residence among 
the people using that language (he writes in his old age ‘‘in senectute 
mea’’), the use of their speech might well have become habitual and 
even natural to him, while some other speech or dialect of his youth 
and early manhood might, it is possible, have been forgotten or dis- 
used. His own statement, however, in that respect is hardly con- 
sistent with the latter idea: ‘‘Nam sermo et loquela nostra translata 
est in linguam alienam,” where he gives no hint of ever having used 
any but the one language and idiom. 
