WniTE— Latin Writings of St. Patrick. 231 



If it be asked, Do these ^vritings bear any trace of St. Jerome's 

 Vulgate ? the answer must, in our present state of knowledge, be in 

 the affirmative. But our assent must needs be a qualified one. The 

 text of the Confessio and Epistola printed here is, after all, only 

 relatively certain. In view of the occasional approximations of A to 

 the Yulgate, as contrasted with CFgFi, and the fact that its evidence 

 altogether fails us for the larger part of the work, it cannot be stated 

 with absolute certainty that we know the very words that St. Patrick 

 wrote. And again, the 0. L. ms. evidence for the T., the Gospels 

 excepted, is in truth so scanty and conflicting, that it seems precarious 

 to assert of many renderings that they are undoubtedly Yulgate, when 

 they may very possibly represent the 0. L. text used by St. Jerome as 

 the basis of his revision, and left unaltered by him. 



With the possible exception of sugere viammellas, the reading of A 

 in Conf. 18, there are no distinctively Yulgate citations from the 

 0. T., while there are a considerable number of very remarkable purely 

 0. L. ones. There is, indeed, a citation of Ps. xciv. 9 in Conf. 34, 

 which is identical with the rendering in St. Jerome's Hebrew Psalter; 

 but apparently Sehreiv renderings are found in Cod. Yeron., which 

 is reckoned an 0. L. codex. See, e.g., Conf. 5. If sugere mammellas is 

 the true reading in Conf. 18, and if it can only be explained as a 

 reference to Is. Ix. 16, then it is unquestionably an instance of 

 St. Patrick's use of St. Jerome's Yulgate ; and, of course, even one such 

 instance would necessarily affect our decision in doubtful cases. In 

 deference to the opinion of scholars whose opinions carry weight, I 

 have italicised these words as a Scriptural citation, but I am myself 

 very doubtful of it : see note, pp. 287, 321. 



There are two Gospel citations which may be plausibly claimed as 

 Yulgate — {a) tlie quotation of S. Mark xvi. 15, 16 in Conf. 40, and 

 {h) the allusion to S. John x. 16 in Ep. 11. I have given reasons in 

 the note, p. 314, on the latter text, for believing the reference to be 

 not necessarily Yulg. The quotation from S. Mark is certainly almost 

 identical with the Yulgate, and quite unlike the three 0. L. mss. that 

 contain the verses. In this case the 0. L. evidence is very scanty, 

 and, on the other hand, the text is one which, from its familiarity and 

 the nature of the context, we should expect a later copyist of the 

 Confessio to assimilate to the Yulgate. However, as the case stands, 

 the citation is a Yulgate one. With these two exceptions, the other 

 Gospel citations in these tracts have 0. L. support, even when they 

 agree with the Yulg. Whei^ the evidence is divided, St. Patrick's 

 chief supporters are q^f^ffz, h. > 



