Did you know that St. Patrick is partially responsible for the preservation of knowledge in Ireland?
Whether in downtown St. Paul today watching the St. Patrick’s Day parade, donning some green, or enjoying a favorite Irish drink, it’s good to reflect on the meaningful accomplishments of the man who made this day of frivolity possible.
The historic life of St. Patrick is shrouded in many myths — including one tale that he drove out every snake from Ireland, and another that an Irish king seeking to kill Patrick saw a deer instead of a man. (This tale is why the traditional hymn and prayer “St. Patrick’s Breastplate” is sometimes called “The Deer’s Cry.”)
However, Patrick himself was a Roman Briton living in the early fifth century, just before the collapse of the Roman Empire. After being kidnapped as a teenager by pirates in Britain and sold into slavery in Ireland, Patrick managed to return home to Britain after six years. Yet he was not to remain there. He stated that a divine dream led him to return to Ireland as a Christian missionary:
I saw in the night the vision of a man, whose name was Victoricus, coming as it were from Ireland, with countless letters. And he gave me one of them, and I read the opening words of the letter, which were “the voice of the Irish”; and as I read the beginning of the letter I thought that at the same moment I heard their voice…and thus did they cry out as with one mouth: “We ask thee, boy, come and walk among us once more.”
And I was quite broken in heart, and could read no further, and so I woke up.
Patrick spent the rest of his life in Ireland, traveling from coast to coast. He met with tribal kings of Ireland, and whenever possible, founded churches and monasteries. Patrick explained the gospel using culturally-specific Celtic terms and practices. One famous story (probably falsely) alleges that he used the three-leaf clover to explain the Trinity.
Patrick spoke out strongly against the practice of slavery, and ended the institution of slavery in Ireland.
Patrick’s successful efforts to convert the whole of Ireland to Christianity helped to create networks of monasteries. These ensured the successful safeguarding of knowledge and the continuation of academic scholarship within Ireland — a vital service within a world grappling with the fall of the Roman Empire. The monastic scribes, many of which were only recently literate, copied a vast body of literature in order to preserve the collective knowledge of classical civilization. The Irish “Land of Saints and Scholars” allowed the monastic tradition to maintain a rich intellectual heritage during the next few hundred years, which were some of the most divided centuries for the rest of the Western world.
Without St. Patrick and the Irish monks, some of the wisdom of the ancient world might never have been passed on to our modern age. Whether or not one’s religious allegiances lead themselves to celebrate today (the anniversary of his death in 493) as a saint-day, all should be thankful for the creation of such essential houses of learning.
When green is strewn in the streets of St. Paul today, remember that St. Patrick gave the world something much better than a late-winter party!
