l^niTE— Latin Writings of St. Patrick. 321 



jS'ote added in PEESS. 



After the Latin text of this edition had been printed, Professor 

 Eury kindly communicated to me the following note on p. 240, 1. 15: — 

 ' ' I take su^ere mammellas to be an interesting piece of evidence for a 

 primitive ceremony of adoption. It is the custom among some peoples, 

 in adopting children, to go through the form of a mock birth. (See 

 J. G. Prazer, Golden Bough^ ed. 2, vol. i,, p. 21.) In some cases, 

 the child to be adopted is placed under the gown or dress of the 

 adoptive mother, and has to creep out — a make-believe birth. The 

 existence of such ceremonies justifies us in supposing that the phrase 

 siig. mamm. arose out of a make-believe suckling, and meant, *to be 

 adopted by.' It will be admitted that this gives just the required 

 sense in the Confession. It need not be inferred that any of the men 

 proposed literally to ' adopt ' Patrick ; it may mean no more than 

 ' I refused to enter into a close intimacy with them.' Just as we 

 say, 'I had no intention of letting myself be adopted by them.'" 



In addition to the above. Professor Bury sent me the following 

 corrections : — 



P. 238, 1. 6. Sed si itaque, &c. — '*It seems to me that Uerumtamen 

 begins a new sentence. The words Sed si — caeteris are a complete 

 sentence expressing a wish : * But if only it had been given to me, &c.' — 

 grammatically an aposiopesis. Following this, uerumtamen expresses 

 what the context demands : * Nevertheless, though it was not so 

 given,' &c." 



P. 239, 1. 5. **I think you must have felt that the verbal sense 

 which your rendering of this difficult passage gives is unsatisfactory, 

 as doctrine is quite irrelevant to the context. I used to think that 

 distinguere must be corrupt, some meaning like * endeavour ' being 

 required ; but I have since come to think that the author used it in 

 the sense of * decide ' (for the natural transition from ' distinguish ' to 

 ' decide ' or 'determine' cp. cerno, Kpivo), &c.) ; the following infinitives 

 depend on it : ' Depending then on the measure of my religious faith, 

 it behoves me to decide to spread,' &c." 



P. 239, 1. 7. " I should like you to reconsider your translation of 

 Jiducialiter as if it were confidenter. It seems to me to be much stronger. 

 In juxtaposition with exagallias, I have no doubt that P. was fully 

 conscious that it was a legal term. It might be rendered ' as a trust.' 

 Though not legis peritus, he shows here that he knew some legal 

 terms." 



