Page:The Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, Volume 1, 1854.djvu/94

 8 4 Jon rna 1 of Ph ilology. points, most vague, suspicious, and conflicting ; but in one par- ticular they all agree, I mean, his diligent pursuit of biblical knowledge. Thus in the Secunda Vita S. Patmcii (Colgan's Trias Thaumat. n. 13, Lovan. 1647), c. xxii., we read that he visited Germanus of Auxerre, "apud quern non parvo tempore demo- ratus, ut Paulus ad pedes Gamalielis, in omni subjectione et obe- dientia, sapientiae studium et Scripturarum notitiam sanctum m ferventi animo didicit:" cf. Sexta Vita (Ibid. p. G7). The Gesta S. Germani (Ibid. n. 244) confirm the previous statement : " non mediocrem e tanti vena fontis in Scripturis ccelestibus haurire eru- ditionem." And the writer commonly entitled Nennius (between 796 and 994), although stating that St Patrick went to Rome, agrees as to the leading object of his journey : " per longum spatium ibidem mansit ad legendum scrutandaque mysteria Dei sanctasque percurrit Scripturas :" Apud Monum. Hist. Britan. ed. Petrie, i. 71, b. We have no means of ascertaining the character of any of the elementary tracts (" abietoria"), which this writer would ascribe to St Patrick (Ibid. 72, a) : but his own Confessio and Epistola ad Coroticum (of which the former has been printed, there is reason to believe, in its genuine shape, by Sir W. Be- tham, Irish Antiquarian Researches, Append, to Part n.) abound in proofs of his familiarity with the letter of the Bible. The MS. in which these writings are preserved is known as TJie Book of Armagh, and is not later than the 7th or 8th century. It con- tains, among other treasures, a fine copy of the New Testament in the version of St Jerome, together with the Prologues, or arguments, of the heterodox Pelagius, the spurious Epistle to the Laodiceans, fyc. : and, what is remarkable, it omits the disputed verse, on the Three Witnesses, 1 St John v. 7 (Betham, as above, Part II. p. 273). Nor should I fail to add, that the Confessio of St Patrick, as well as his Epistle to Coroticus, do not quote the Vulgate of St Jerome, but an older Latin version. We are told that in his efforts to convert the Irish, Patrick came across the channel into Britain, where he soon enlisted many fellow-workers : and a further proof of the religious inter- course subsisting then and afterwards is furnished in the Life of (iildas (Badonius), who became the rector of the school of Ar- magh, and had the credit of restoring the Irish Church to the position it had reached in the life-time of St Patrick. Gildas heads the catalogue of British Christian writers : for the bards,