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Proceedings of the Rotjcd Irish Academy . 



he was about forty-five years of age* He does not tell us if he was 

 sent as a bishop to Ireland, or if the occasion when he was impeached 

 by the seniores was the only visit he had paid to his friends since he 

 first set foot iu Ireland as a missionary. It is possible that the 

 person to whom he refers as my dearest friend — amicissimus mens — 

 and who had been his confessor, actually consecrated him bishop, 

 but where or when we cannot gather from Patrick himself. 



It follows from what has been said that the terms of the responsum 

 diuinum in § 29, Male uidimus faciem designati cannot mean, We have 

 seen with displeasure the face of the bishop designate. That the Divine 

 Voice as heard by Patrick was explicitly condemnatory of his 

 friend, is proved by the opening words of Conf. 32. But I am the 

 rather grieved for my dearest friend, that we should have deserved to hear 

 such an answer as that. 



In speaking of this crisis in his life, Patrick calls it (Conf. 32) 

 defensionem illam — a plain allusion to the language of St. Paul when 

 speaking of his trial for his life, At my first answer no man stood with 

 me — In prima mea defensione nemo affuit mihi, 2 Tim. iv. 16. We 

 gather that he was acquitted ; but it is natural to suppose that this 

 terrible experience determined him never to return again to Britain 

 or Gaul. He seems to have taken a vow to this effect. At least this 

 is suggested by his words in Ep. 10, I am hound in the spirit not to see 

 any one of my kinsfolk. The same purpose is expressed in Conf. 43 : 

 Christ the lord commanded me to come and he with them for the 

 remainder of my life, of. also Conf. 58, Ep. 1. 



We have seen that Patrick was about forty-five years of age 

 when he returned to Ireland for the last time. The only other notes 

 of time in connexion with his personal history are those in Conf. 10 

 and Ep. 3. In the former, speaking of his pretensions as an author, 

 he says, Ilodo ipse adpeto in senectute mea quod in iuuentute non 

 conparaui ; in the latter, describing his first attempt to negotiate with 

 Coroticus, 2Iisi epistolam cum sancto preshytero quern ego ex infantia 

 docui. 



It is evident that senectus may connote any age, from a little over 

 forty upwards, according to the speaker's point of view, and the usage 

 of his contemporaries. The passage in the Epistola is slightly more 

 definite. There is nothing to prevent our supposing that this presbyter 

 had accompanied Patrick from Gaul when he began his work in 

 Ireland. He may have been ordained later. He had been very 

 possibly a pupil at the school of the monastery in which we have 

 supposed that Patrick found a shelter after his escape from the sailors. 



