Page:The Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, Volume 1, 1854.djvu/269

 259 Note to Article V. of No. I. To the Editor of the Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology. Sir, I have read with much pleasure Mr Hardwick's interesting paper in your first number entitled " Notes on the Study of the Bible among our Forefathers;'* and as an Irishman I feel particularly grateful to him for having directed attention to the too long neglected records of the Irish Church. In the following remarks upon Mr Hardwick's paper my object is simply " alere flammam ;" and I make no apology to him for venturing to express on some few points a difference of opinion. He has remarked that the narratives which have come down to us of the life and character of St Patrick, the apostle of Ireland, agree in one particular, namely, in representing him as having been a diligent student of Biblical knowledge. For this he quotes first a passage from the ancient Life of St Patrick, (an evident translation from an Irish original) which Colgan has placed second in his collection, believing it to be the work of a contemporary or disciple of St Patrick. This biographer states that St Patrick spent a considerable time with St German, bishop of Auxerre, " like Paul at the feet of Gamaliel," and learned from him the know- ledge of wisdom and of the holy Scriptures, "sapientise studium, et Scripturarum notitiam sanctarum, ferventi animo didicit." The same statement is made by Jocelin, in his Life of St Patrick, (Vit. 6ta ap. Colgan.) c. 22, who uses the phrase " legens et adimplens scripturas," and refers to the " Gesta beati S. Germani," which Colgan supposes to be the Life of St German written by Heric or Eric of Auxerre, an author of the 9th century, whose words are " non mediocrem e tanti vena fontis in Scripturis coelestibus hausit eruditionem*." And lastly, Mr Hardwick quotes the writer called Nennius, who speaking of St Patrick tells us, that after his return from captivity " nutu Dei eruditus est in sacris Uteris :" and that subsequently, having gone to Rome, he remained there for a long time " ad legendum scru- tandaque mysteria Dei, sanctasque percurrit scripturas." All these testimonies go to prove that the writers quoted intended to represent St Patrick as one who had received a regular ecclesiastical education, and who had studied, in the best schools, all that was necessary for the formation of an accomplished divine. But I do not think they prove, what Mr Hardwick adduces them to prove, a diligent pursuit of biblical knowledge ; for this obvious reason, that the phrases sacred scriptures, celestial scriptures, sacred Utters, used by these writers, did not signify with them, what the same words would now signify with us, the biblical, or canonical scriptures of the Old and New Testament. By the sacred scriptures a writer of that age meant principally the 172
 * See this Life of St German, BoUand. Actt. SS. ad 31 Julii, p. 259.