Patrick is believed by many to have been born about 387 A.D. in Kilpatrick near Dumbarton in Scotland, the son Calpurnius, a senator and deacon, and Conchessa. Also his grandfather was a priest. When he was about sixteen years old, pirates abducted him to Ireland, enslaving him as a herder of their flocks. During his enslavement, the teachings from his youth of Christ were reawakened. He escaped six years later to France or Britain. It is at this point in his life that he declares that he had a calling in a dream by a man named Victoricius, begging him to come to Ireland and help them. He resumed the education that had been interrupted by his enslavement, took holy orders, and eventually made it back to Ireland, where he spent the rest of his life devoted to the conversion of the Irish peoples.
There are many legends which surround the work of St. Patrick in Ireland. And as with all legends there are elements of truth contained. He is said to have driven all the snakes and frogs from Ireland by ringing his bell from the top of Croagh Patrick, a 2500 feet tall mountain near Westport. However, there is no evidence of snakes in Ireland prior to the Ice Age which separated the island from the mainland. And yet the truth of the matter may be that the druids who were converted to Christianity used the symbol of a serpent in their cultic worship.
A more believable legend is that St. Patrick used the three-leaf clover (shamrock) to teach the very difficult truth of the Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as the Triune God. He was apparently very successful for the pagan leaders were converted as well as their subjects, and thousands were baptized into Christianity.
Philip Schaff, the Christian historian, provides an interesting side note:
The Christianity of Patrick was substantially that of Gaul and old Britain, i.e. Catholic, orthodox, monastic, ascetic, but independent of the Pope, and differing from Rome in the age of Gregory I in minor matters of polity and ritual. In his Confession he never mentions Rome or the Pope; he never appeals to tradition, and seems to recognize the Scriptures (including the Apocrypha) as the only authority in matters of faith. He quotes from the canonical Scriptures twenty-five times; three times from the Apocrypha.1
How many Christians today believe as St. Patrick did, that the Scriptures are the only authority in their lives? This truth comes to us from within the writings of the Apostle Paul who wrote:
All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17).
400 years after Paul wrote this, St. Patrick took this established doctrine to a land and a people that had enslaved him in his youth and revolutionized their thinking from paganism to a faith in the One true God of the Scriptures.
The profound lesson we learn from St. Patrick is that he believed in the sufficiency of God’s Word to direct his life, to the extent that he became faithful in spreading the Gospel of Christ to a pagan people, convincing them to turn from their idols and to serve a living and true God (1 Thessalonians 1:9). Are we challenged today to do likewise? Do our words and actions encourage others to desire to hear the gospel?
We live in a culture that is systematically rejecting its original Christian heritage. Christianity is a fading memory and regarded as nothing more than myths and superstitions. Our challenges today may be different than those of St. Patrick’s time, yet the Gospel message remains the same, that God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4).
We who believe in Jesus Christ have been given the same calling that St. Patrick had been given, to communicate this powerful gospel message to our culture by word and by our manner of living. For just as it was not the government or any social organization which resolved the difficulties of the Irish people of St. Patrick’s day, it is only the gospel of salvation that can resolve the core problem of our own culture.
[1] Schaff, P., & Schaff, D. S. (1910). History of the Christian Church. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 4.47.
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