Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/822

 xiii. 164, 165 and note 41; Ceill., vol. ix. pp. 185, 186, 194.

[H.W.P.]

Paschasinus (2), bp. of Lilybaeum in Sicily, c. 440, when that country was devastated by Vandal raids (Leonis Magni, Ep. iii. c. i. Migne's ed., note e). Great, sending him pecuniary assistance, consulted him about the Paschal cycle ( 443). He replies in favour of the Alexandrian computation against the Roman, but in an abject strain of deference to his patron. He relates in confirmation of his view a miracle which used to occur in the baptistery of an outlying church on the property of his see on the true Paschal Eve every year, the water rising miraculously in the font (ib. c. 3). In 451 he received another letter from Leo desiring him to make inquiries as to the Paschal cycle (Ep. lxxxviii. c. 4) and sending him the Tome to stir up his energies in the cause of orthodoxy. Immediately after he was sent as one of Leo's legates to the council of Chalcedon (Ep. lxxxix.) and presided on his behalf (Labbe, Conc. vol. iv. p. 580, etc. The phrase "synodo praesidens," however, does not occur in the Acta of the council, but only in the signatures of the prelates representing Rome.)

[C.G.]

Paschasius (3), deacon of Rome, called by Gregory the Great in his Dialogues, bk. iv. c. 40, "a man of great sanctity." He was a firm supporter of the antipope Laurentius to his death, and his adhesion was a great source of strength to the opponents of Symmachus (cf. Baronius, ann. 498). There is extant a work of his in two books, de Sancto Spiritu (Patr. Lat. lxii. 9–40), which Gregory (u.s.) calls "libri rectissimi ac luculenti." The date of his death was c. 512.

[G.W.D.]

Pastor (1). This name is connected with traditions of the Roman church, which, though accepted as historical by Baronius and other writers, including Cardinal Wiseman (Fabiola, p. 189), must be rejected as mythical. These traditions relate to the origin of two of the oldest of the Roman tituli, those of St. Pudentiana and St. Praxedis, which still give titles to cardinals, and the former of which claims to be the most ancient church in the world. The story is that Peter when at Rome dwelt in the house of the senator Pudens in the vicus Patricius, and there held divine service, his altar being then the only one at Rome. Pudens is evidently intended as the same who is mentioned II. Tim. iv. 21. His mother's name is said to have been Priscilla, and it is plainly intended to identify her with the lady who gave to an ancient cemetery at Rome its name. The story relates that Pudens, on the death of his wife, converted his house into a church and put it under the charge of the priest Pastor, from whom it was known us "titulus Pastoris." This titulus is named in more than one document, but in all the name may have been derived from the story. Thus in the Acts of Nemesius, pope Stephen is said to have held a baptism there (Baronius 257, n. 23). Our story relates that the baptistery had been placed there by pope Pius I., who often exercised the episcopal functions in this church. Here the two daughters of Pudens, Pudentiana and Praxedis, having given all their goods to the poor, dedicated themselves to the service of God. This church, under the name of Ecclesia Pudentiana, is mentioned in an inscription of 384, and there are epitaphs of priests tituli Pudentis of  489 and 528 (de Rossi, Bull. 1867, n. 60; 1883, p. 107). The original authority for the story appears to be a letter purporting to be written by Pastor to Timothy (see Boll AA. SS. May 19, iv. 299). He informs Timothy of the death of his brother Novatus, who, during his illness, had been visited by Praxedis, then the only surviving sisters. He obtains Timothy's consent to the application of the property of Novatus to religious uses according to the direction of Praxedis; and baths possessed by Novatus in the vicus Lateritius are converted into a second titulus, now known as of St. Praxedis. This titulus is mentioned in an epitaph of 491 (de Rossi, Bull. 1882, p. 65); and priests of both tituli sign in the Roman council of 499. On this letter are founded false letters of pope Pius I. to Justus of Vienna, given in Baronius (Ann. 166, i.), a forgery later than the Isodorian Decretals. Those who maintain the genuineness of the letter of Pastor are met by the chronological difficulty of connecting Pudens with both St. Paul and Pius I. It has been argued that such longevity is not impossible; and it has been suggested that Praxedis and Pudentiana were not grand-daughters of Pudens. But the spuriousness of the whole story has been abundantly shown by Tillemont (ii. 286, 615).

[G. S.]

Patricius (10) (St. Patrick), Mar. 17, the national apostle of Ireland, has been the subject of much controversy. His existence has been doubted, his name ascribed to 7 different persons at least, and the origin and authority of his mission warmly disputed.

I. The Documents.—The materials for St. Patrick's history which have a claim to be regarded as historical are, in the first place, the writings of the saint himself. We have two works ascribed to him, his Confession and his Epistle to Coroticus. Both seem genuine.

We have a copy of the Confession more than 1,000 years old preserved in the Book of Armagh, one of the great treasures of the library of Trinity College, Dublin. This copy professes, in the colophon appended to it, to have been taken from the autograph of St. Patrick. "Thus far the volume which St. Patrick wrote with his own hand." Dr. Todd, in his Life of St. Patrick (p. 347), sums up the case for the Confession of St. Patrick: "It is altogether such an account of himself as a missionary of that age, circumstanced as St. Patrick was, might be expected to compose. Its Latinity is rude and archaic, it quotes the ante-Hieronymian Vulgate; and contains nothing inconsistent with the century in which it professes to have been written. If it be a forgery, it is not easy to imagine with what purpose it could have been forged." This strong testimony might have been made stronger and applies equally clearly to the Ep. to Coroticus. There are two lines of evidence which seem conclusive as to the early date. The one deals with the State Organization, the other with the Ecclesiastical Organization there alluded to and implied. They are both such as existed early in the 5th cent., and could scarcely be imagined afterwards.