patricus

Deep feelings and endless thoughts of revenge captivated the young man’s mind. For two weeks now, all he had thought about was the retribution he would inflict upon his captors when he got free, if he ever got free — something he knew would never happen.

Just a fortnight ago the sixteen-year-old had been enjoying his fairly sheltered life as a Roman citizen on the west coast of Britain near the small town of Bannaventa Berniae. From all the comforts that came with having a father who was a local magistrate and living in a country villa with servants to do most of the work, mindlessly playing on the beach close to his home was only one of many leisurely activities. But in a flash without any warning, all the happiness and comforts were replaced by fear and hardship when Patricus was attacked by a gang of professional Irish slave raiders.

It was efficient, violent, and traumatic.

Rome had begun its decline a decade before; as a consequence its ships no longer secured the Western Sea surrounding the Celtic Islands. Without Roman rule, other ships were free to sail unmolested. As such, no political authority was concerned about Irish kidnappers. During the one-day journey across the sea, and now in iron shackles, all Patricus could think about were the stories he had heard as a child concerning the heathen culture of the Irish. While he never thought they were all true — how they would eat human flesh, shamelessly commit incest, and smear the blood of slain victims on their faces — he now seriously questioned them. As his kidnapping alone revealed, the Irish were not considered barbarians for nothing. And although Patricus claimed to be an atheist or just apathetic to Christianity, he couldn’t help harboring bitterness towards his Christian parents and ironically, their God. The timeless question swirled in his maturing mind: How can a loving God allow evil things to happen? The fear of being forsaken incessantly bore upon his fragile conscience too, for Patricus really was alone. Most of the slaves taken by the Irish were women and children as most men were not easily secured. Patricus wasn’t a boy, but he wasn’t quite a man. And yet, it was in this time of his life, against the backdrop of Irish captivity, that God would forge something powerful within him — something so unexpected and so beautiful that it would not only change his destiny but the destiny of an entire pagan country.

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But that was in the future. In the present, the very start of the the 3rd century, the only destiny Patricus was in charge of was the one hundred sheep he was made to shepherd in a cold and wet place somewhere on the west coast of Ireland. In coming to this new land it was like traveling back in time four hundred years. Although the primitive accommodations were difficult to get used to, it wasn’t long after arriving that Patricus’ anger surprisingly simmered down into a place somewhere between ambivalence and acquiescence. In the many days and nights that Patricus spend alone, the growing boy began to consider God, His will, His plan, and His love for the lost. But as he drew nearer to God, the shame of his past sins weighed heavily on him. One sin grieved Patricus in particular. With some time, though, he finally arrived at being at peace with God. He wrote about this process, “After I came to Ireland I watched over sheep. Day by day I began to pray more frequently — and more and more my love of God and my faith in him and reverence for him began to increase.”

After six years of captivity, the twenty-two-year old was now a young man and had been forged into someone new. He was a new creation of sorts; the faith of his parents and grandparents had become his own. Fasting and praying were regular practices in his new life as a Christian. Looking back, Patricus wrote, “God used the time to shape and mold me into something better. He made me into what I am now — someone very different from what I once was,… before I was a slave, I didn’t even care about myself.”

And then on one unspectacular night, as Patricus was falling asleep, God clearly spoke to him in a dream saying, “You have fasted well — soon you will be going home.” Confused by this, as Patricus knew it was nearly impossible to escape and that the New Testament taught slaves to be obedient to their masters, he didn’t immediately respond. But the next night God spoke again saying, “Behold, your ship is ready.” Putting aside all the questions and difficulties surrounding how a successful escape could actually happen, and there were many, Patricus succumbed to the conviction of God’s leading. Simply put, if God spoke, then Patricus had to obey.

But because no ships sailed to Britain from the west coast of Ireland, he would have to make the the 200 mile trek across the island. The arduous journey would take over a month to complete and would be slow and dangerous for anyone making the trip, let alone an escaped slave who had to avoid being seen. How he would get on the ship, and under what circumstances, were all unknown to Patricus. But as God called him to obedience, Patricus believed God would somehow provide a way — and He did. After getting on a ship, sailing for three days across the sea, and walking through Britain with the sailors for a few weeks, Patricus finally arrived to his home and to his family.

“They took me in — their long-lost son — and begged me earnestly that after all I had been through I would never leave them again.”

But although no one knew at the time, that was just what he was going to do.

Once at home, after the many sweet celebrations and reunions with both friends and family, life for Patricus slowly returned to a comfortable normalcy. But that leisurely time didn’t last for long. God spoke to Patricus again in another dream. Although this time it wasn’t a call to leave Ireland, it was a call to return.

The Irish were in much need of the gospel of Jesus as their island was cut off from much of the many other progressing civilizations. But it was the dream he received of the Irish people calling him back to walk among them that truly convicted Patricus to once again accept the strange but clear call of God. Once he resolved to preach the gospel to the people of Ireland, to the very people who kidnapped and made him a slave, Patricus believed he needed to undergo a theological education. Not only did he need this time of academic preparation to mature his faith and knowledge of the Lord, he needed some ecclesiastical weight behind him as he would be evangelizing alone in relatively uncharted and hostile territory. Within the church, Patricus most likely started as a layman and deacon, progressing to priest and finally being ordained as a bishop. After these years, Patricus, a more mature Christian servant, was ready to make his way back to the cold and wet lands of Ireland. Now not unwillingly as a slave for men, but willingly as a slave for Christ.

While Patricus learned much about Irish civilization during his previous six-year stint, it seemed much had changed in the time he was away. As a slave and shepherd, Patricus was relatively distanced from the local wars and overall spiritual darkness of the landscape. The culture now awaiting him would be filled with feuding kings, political druids, and witches — many if not all their pretensions being opposed to the knowledge and rule of a Jewish rabbi, who claimed to be the Son of God. Thus, as is common in the Kingdom of Heaven, many of Paticus’ first converts were societal outcasts, women and poor. In general, most tribal kings across the land were not receptive to the gospel or the Briton who brought it. Yet some were indifferent enough to allow churches to be built on their land. Season after season Patricus continued to travel throughout Ireland, preaching the gospel to anyone who would hear and planting house churches where he was received. Slowly and with much toil, Patricus was spiritually building the first body of Christ in Ireland. And as the years came and went, so did the decades.

As an elderly man, the white-haired Patricus had now begun to baptize the sons and daughters of those parents he had converted years before. And as every generation presents its own unique and special challenges to the gospel, this one did as well. But from all the opposition Irish culture could throw at the British Bishop and to the Christian faith in general, the most hurtful and violent assault came not from their pagan hands, but from the hands of Christian tyrants from Patricus’ own homeland.

By 460 AD Rome was on its last leg — the empire was nearly all but collapsed. Britain was under attack on every front and from every direction. From the north and west, the Irish and Picts (Scottish) were pushing their raids south. From the east, German warriors were amassing in numbers. And from the south, around London, Saxons and Jutes had even begun building settlements. All these attacks from the outside were too much for the Britons to effectively and systematically handle. In this unprecedented time of political and social disarray, the old inhabitants of the island found themselves being protected from the foreign intruders by men of British-Roman nobility. As such, these men were Christian, although most were purely nominal. These few leaders who scraped together local armies and defended their communities against external threats became known as tyrants, warlords that protected their people with little to no oversight.

For generations, the west coast of Britain was seasonally attacked by the barbarians from Ireland; but now tyrants, those specifically living on the west coast, not only wanted to force their enemies back but exact retribution for the years of unanswered assaults upon their people.

The tide had turned.

And during springtime, when the sea separating Briton and Ireland was calm, one particularly brutal tyrant named Coroticus began his offensive attack. The mission of the voyage was clear. Dock in an undivulged location, locate an unassuming clan, kill the men, and capture the women and children as cargo for slaves. The assignment was done efficiently and quickly. By the time Patricus was informed of the attack, Coroticus and those taken prisoner were already at sea. Upon hearing the news, Patricus found the place where his beloved flock had been attacked. It wasn’t far from where many of them were baptized on Easter the day before. Some of the men of the group who had been murdered lay rigid, the oil on their forehead from being anointed still fragranced the spring air. Likewise, a number of women and children who had been baptized were certainly kidnapped in their baptismal robes.

There was no lack of signs that these new converts traveling home were Christians, but that meant nothing to Coroticus and his mercenaries. Patricus was in between despair over the murder of his people and rage that it was brought by the hands of Christian soldiers from the place of his birth. In response, Patricus penned a letter to Coroticus and his men asking for it be circulated among the churches in Britain so the prisoners might be released. The letter was a heartfelt plea for divine justice, a stinging rebuke to Coroticus, and a petition for the church in Britain to excommunicate him. But after all of his attempts to pick up the pieces of his scattered flock, he couldn’t change the fact that a small part of his clergy had been kidnapped and murdered. In the end, Patricus’ only real and lasting hope was to be reunited with his spiritual sons and daughters in the next life, something not too far away for the aging Bishop.

In the later years of his life, Patricus wrote two letters. The first was titled, Confessions, an account of his life and ministry and the other was A letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus, the plea for his people to be returned to their home. In both epistles we see the heart of Patricus, his deep humility, and the true love he had for the Irish people. Nearing death, In his Confessions, Patricus asked the Bishops in Britain that he be permitted to die among his flock in Ireland, even if it meant being buried in an unmarked grave. He wrote, “If I have ever done anything worthwhile for the God I love, I ask that I might be allowed to die here for his name with these converts and slaves — even if it means that I won’t have a marked grave or that my body is torn apart piece by piece by dogs or wild animals or that I serve as a meal for the birds of the air.  I know if that were to happen, I would gain my soul along with a new body on that day we will undoubtedly rise again like the sun in the morning — like the son Jesus Christ our redeemer.” As such, the place of his burial is unknown, and even though we celebrate his life on March 17th, we only know that Patricus died sometime around 490 AD.

While much of the details of Patricus’ life are missing or obscure, the impact he made in Ireland, and the world for that matter, are crystal clear. His love for God and the people of Ireland, those considered barbaric and subhuman by many of the time and those who kidnapped him as a boy, remains an amazing testimony of what God can do with an obedient servant.

As a young slave, Patricus was forced to shepherd sheep; but by the grace of God, he ended his long life as a willing shepherd of men. Like a true watchman, he protected and fed his sheep until the end. Patricus’ example to us should move us to into a deeper place of love and service to all people – even those who seek our harm. Through it all — the kidnapping, the escape, the return, the trials, the hurt, and the suffering, Patricus never considered it a burden, but rather a gift. As he ended his Confessions, Patricus leaves us with these words.

“My final prayer is that all of you who believe in God and respect him — whoever you may be who read this letter that Patrick the unlearned sinner wrote from Ireland — that none of you will ever say that I in my ignorance did anything for God. You must understand — because it is the truth — that it was all the gift of God.

“And this is my confession before I die.”

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Most content of this podcast was taken from: Freeman, Philip, St. Patrick of Ireland, A Biography, Simon and Schuster Paperbacks, New York, NY, 2005. (All Patricus quotes were taken from the same). 

John Piper Quote: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/when-another-christian-hurts-you