Quick Facts
- NAME: St Patrick
- OCCUPATION: Saint
- BIRTH DATE: c. 500
- PLACE OF BIRTH: Ireland
- AKA: Saint Patrick
Best Known For
St Patrick is recognized as the patron saint of Ireland, credited with bringing Christianity to Ireland.
St Patrick. (2012). Biography.com. Retrieved 09:24, Feb 03, 2012 from http://www.biography.com/people/st-patrick-9434729
St Patrick [Internet]. 2012. http://www.biography.com/people/st-patrick-9434729, February 03
"St Patrick." 2012. Biography.com 03 Feb 2012, 09:24 http://www.biography.com/people/st-patrick-9434729
'St Patrick', Biography.com,(2012) http://www.biography.com/people/st-patrick-9434729 [accessed Feb 03, 2012]
"St Patrick," Biography.com, http://www.biography.com/people/st-patrick-9434729 (accessed Feb 03, 2012).
St Patrick [Internet]. Biography.com; 2012 [cited 2012 Feb 03]. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/st-patrick-9434729.
St Patrick, http://www.biography.com/people/st-patrick-9434729 (last visited Feb 03, 2012).
St Patrick, http://www.biography.com/people/st-patrick-9434729 (last visited Feb 03, 2012).
Synopsis
(flourished 5th century, Britain and Ireland; feast day March 17) patron saint and national apostle of Ireland, credited with bringing Christianity to Ireland and probably responsible in part for the Christianization of the Picts and Anglo-Saxons. He is known only from two short works, the Confessio, a spiritual autobiography, and his Letter to Coroticus, a denunciation of British mistreatment of Irish Christians.
Life
Patrick was born in Britain of a Romanized family. At age 16 he was torn by Irish raiders from the villa of his father, Calpurnius, a deacon and minor local official, and carried into slavery in Ireland, where, during six bleak years spent as a herdsman, he turned with fervour to his faith. Hearing at last in a dream that the ship in which he was to escape was ready, he fled his master and found passage to Britain. There he came near to starvation and suffered a second brief captivity before he was reunited with his family. Thereafter, he may have paid a short visit to the Continent.
The best known passage in the Confessio, his spiritual autobiography, tells of a dream, after his return to Britain, in which one Victoricus delivered him a letter headed “The Voice of the Irish.” As he read it, he seemed to hear a certain company of Irish beseeching him to walk once more among them. “Deeply moved,” he says, “I could read no more.” Nevertheless, because of the shortcomings of his education, he was reluctant for a long time to respond to the call. Even on the eve of reembarkation for Ireland he was beset by doubts of his fitness for the task. Once in the field, however, his hesitations vanished. Utterly confident in the Lord, he journeyed far and wide, baptizing and confirming with untiring zeal. In diplomatic fashion he brought gifts to a kinglet here and a lawgiver there but accepted none from any. On at least one occasion, he was cast into chains. On another, he addressed with lyrical pathos a last farewell to his converts who had been slain or kidnapped by the soldiers of Coroticus.
Careful to deal fairly with the non-Christian Irish, he nevertheless lived in constant danger of martyrdom. The evocation of such incidents of what he called his “laborious episcopate” was his reply to a charge, to his great grief endorsed by his ecclesiastical superiors in Britain, that he had originally sought office for the sake of office. In point of fact, he was a most humble-minded man, pouring forth a continuous paean of thanks to his Maker for having chosen him as the instrument whereby multitudes who had worshipped “idols and unclean things” had become “the people of God.”
The phenomenal success of Patrick's mission is not, however, the full measure of his personality. Since his writings have come to be better understood, it is increasingly recognized that, despite their occasional incoherence, they mirror a truth and a simplicity of the rarest quality. Not since St. Augustine of Hippo had any religious diarist bared his inmost soul as Patrick
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Famous Saints 34 people in this group
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Famous People Named Patrick
View groupTake a look at famous people named Patrick, such as Patrick Dempsey, Patrick Duffy, and Patrick Ewing.
Famous People Named Patrick 10 people in this group

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