Patricius
(Πατρίκιος), literary.
1. Ararsius. [Ararsius.]
2. Christophorus. [Christophorus.]
3. Of Mytilene. [Christophorus.]
4. Monachus. [No. 8.]
5. Pelagius. Works Homero-Centra
According to Zonaras (Annales, lib. 13. c.23, vol. ii. p. 44, ed. Paris, p. 35, ed. Venice) the Homero-Centra, or Homero-Centrones, Ὁμηρόκεντρα ἃ καὶ Κέντρωνες, composed by the Empress Eudocia, wife of the younger Theodosius [Eudocia, No. 1], had been begun but left unfinished by a certain Patricius, or, for the expression (Πατρικίου τινος) ambiguous, by a certain Patrician. If a MS. noticed below is right in terming him Sacerdos, Patricius must be understood as a name, not as a title. Cedrenus (p. 354, ed. Paris, 621, ed. Bonn) ascribes the Homero-Centra to a certain Pelagius Patricius, or (for there is the same ambiguity as in Zonaras), "Pelagius the Patrician" (Πελάγιον τὸν Πατρίκιον), who was put to death by the Emperor Zeno. If we understand Zonaras to say that Patricius left the Homero-Centra unfinished at his death, and that they were afterwards finished by Eudocia, who herself died in A. j. 460 or 461, he must have been a different person from the Pelagius Patricius slain by Zeno. who did not become emperor till A. D. 474. But it is not necessary so to understand Zonaras. A MS. in the king's library at Paris (formerly No. 2891) is supposed to contain the Homero-Centra as written by Patricius, consisting of only two hundred and three lines, yet noticing all those events in the Saviour's History which are recapitulated in the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds. Two other MSS. in the same library (formerly Nos. 2977 and 3260) are thought to contain the poem as completed by Eudocia, consistinig of six hundred and fifteen verses, and comprehending not only thle work of Patricins, but also narratives of many of the miracles of Christ inserted in the appropriate places, and a description of the last judgment. In the account of a MS. in the Esecurial, the poem is described (Fabric. Bibl. Gr. vol. xi. p. 706) as composed by "Patricius Sacerdos," but arranged and corrected by Eudocia. It is not unlikely therefore that the poem of Patricius was not properly left unfinished, as Zonaras states, but composed onl a less comprehensive plan, and that Eudocia enlarged the plan, and re-arranged the poem. inserting her own additions in suitable places. There is then little difficulty in believing that Patricius was contemporary with Eudocia, but survived to the reign of Zeno, and was put to death by him as related by Cedrenus. The difficulty would be removed sby supposing the correctness of the title of one of the above MSS. in the king's library at Paris (formerly No. 2977), which ascribes the poem in its complete state to the later Empress Eudocia of Macrembolis [Eudocia, No. 8]; but the supposition is contrary to all other evidence. Editions
The Homero-Centra,as they appear in the printed editions, are still further enlarged by the addition of prefixed narratives of thle creation and the fall of man. and by the insertions of various episodes and descriptions. These Homero-Centra were first published with the Latin version of Petrus Candidus, 4to. Venice, 1502, in the second volume of the Collection of the ancient Christian Poets, printed by Aldus. It was reprinted l8vo. Frankfort, 1541 and 1554, by Henry Stephens, l2mo. Paris, 1578, and by Claudius Chapelet, 8vo. Paris, 1609, with various other pieces.
In all these editions they were given anonymously. They were afterwards inserted in the Appendix to the Bibliotheca Patrum, ed. fol. Paris, 1624, and in vol. xi. of the edition of the Bibliotheca Patrum, fol. Paris, 1644, and vol. xiv. of the edition of 1654. The Latin version had appeared in the Bibliotheca as compiled by De la Bigne, A. D. 1575.
In all the editions of the Bibliotheca the Homero-Centra are ascribed to Eudocia or to Patricius Pelagius and Eudocia conjointly. They were reprinted, 12mo. Leipsic, 1793, by L. H. Teucher, who professed to have revised the text. In this edition the poem consists of two thousand three hundred and forty-three lines. Further Information
Fabric. Biblioth. Graec. vol. i. p. 552, &c., vol. xi. p. 706; Cave, Hist. Litt. vol. i. p. 403, ed. Oxford, 17400-43; Olearius, De Poctriis Graecis, 100.32, apud Wolfium. Poetriariimn Octo Fraglmental, 4to. Hamb. 1734, with Wolfius' notes.
6. Of Prusa. In the Acta Sanctorumof the Bollandists (Aprilis, vol. iii. Appendix, p. lxv.) is given from a MS. in the Medicean Library at Florence, a narrative entitled Μαρτύριον τοῦ ἁγίου ἱερομάρτυρος Πατρικίου Προύσης. A Latin version is given in the body of the volume (ad diem xxviii. p. 576). Patricius was arraigned before Julius, proconsul, it may be supposed of Bithynia, who, having experienced great benefit from certain warm springs sacred to Asclepias and Ilygeia, sent for him to urge upon him the proof which this circumstance afforded of the power of the gods. Patricius replied to the proconsul's argument by an exposition of the cause of warm springs, which he ascribed to subterranean fires destined to be hereafter the place of torment to the souls of the wicked; and appealed to the flames of Aetna as evidence of the existence of this fire. Patricius was beheaded bv the proconsul's order, onl the 19th of May, but inl what year or reign the record does not state. All that can be conjectured is that it was in one of the persecutions of the heathen emperors of Rome, and apparently before Diocletian fixed the seat of government at Nicomedeia. The defence of Patricius of Prusa is cited by Glycas (Annal. pars i. p. 17, ed. Paris, p. 13, ed. Venice, p. 34. ed. Bo1t1), and at greater length by Cedrenus (Compend. p. 242, ed. Paris, vol. i. p. 425, ed. Bonn); but there are many discrepancies between the citation of Cedrenus and the text (100.4, 5) given in the Acta Sanctorum. The Latin version friom the Acta Sanctorum is given in Ruilnrt's Acta Prim. Marlyr. p. 554, &c. (Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. x. p. 305; Cave, Hist. Litt. ad Ainn. 858 (sub nom. Patricils Ararsins), vol. ii. p. 51.)
7. Petrus, the Patrician. [Petrus.]
8. Of St. Saba. In the imperial library at Vienna is a Greek version of the works or part of the works of Isaac the Syrian, bishop of Nineveh, who lived, according to Assenmani (Biblioth. Orient. vol. iii. pars i. p. 104, note 3), about the close of the sixth century, but according to Nicephorus the editor of Isaac's Ascetica (Praef. p. vi.) in the first half of that century. Works Sermones Ascetici
The Vienna MS. bears this title: Τοῦ ἐν ἁγίοις πατρὸς ἡμᾶν Ἀββᾶ Ἰσαὰκ Σύρου καὶ ἀναχωρητοῦ τοῦ γενομένου ἐπισκόπου τῆς φιλοχρίστου πόλεως Νινευὶλόγοι ἀσκητικοὶ, εὑρεθέντες ὑπὸ τῶν ὁσίων πατέρων ἡμῶν τοῦ Ἀββᾶ Πατρικίου καὶ τοῦ Ἀββᾶ Ἀβραμίου τῶν φιλοσόφων καὶ ἡσυχαστῶν ἐν τῇ λαύρᾳ τοῦ ἐν ἀγίοις πατρὸς ἡμῶν Σάββα, Sancti Patris Nostri Abbatis Isaaci Suri ct Anachoretae, qui fuit Episcopus urbis Christi-amantis Nineue, Sermones ascetici, reperti a sanctis patribus nostris Abbate Patricio et Abbate Abramio sapientiae Christianae et quieti monasticae deditis in Laura (sive Monasterio) Sancti Patris nostri Sabbie. (Lambec. Commentar. de Biblioth. Caesar. vol. v. col. 158, ed. Kollar.)
The MS. contains eighty-seven Sermones Ascetici, apparently translated from the Syriac text of Isaac by Patricius and Abramius; though the title of the MS. only ascribes to them the finding of the work. In other MSS. however (e. g. in several Vatican, Asseinani, Bibl. Oriedt. vol. i. p. 446, and one, perhaps two, Bodleian, Nos. 256 and 295, vid. Catalog. MStorum Angliae et Iliberniae, pp. 35, 44, fol. Oxford, 1697), they are described as translators. Assemani, however, observes that they translated not the whole works of Isaac, which, according to Ebed-jesu (apud Assemani, l.c.), who has perhaps ascribed to Isaac of Nineveh the works of other Isaacs, extended to seven tomi or volumes, and treated De Regimine Spiritas, de Divinis Mysteriis (comp. Gennad. De Viris Illustr. c. 26), de Judiciis et de Politia, but only ninety-eight of his Sermones. This is the number in the Vatican MSS.; in (one of the Bodleian (No. 295, Catal. MStor. Angliae, p. 44) there are ninety-nine, but it is to be observed that the division, as well as the number of these Sermones, which are also termed λόγοι, Orationes, differs in different MSS (Nicephorus, l.c.). The first fifty-three, according to the arrangement of the Vienna MS., are extant in a Latin version, as one work, under the title of Isauci Syri de Contemptu Mundi Liber. Editions Latin Editions
This work appears in several collections of the works of the fathers, has been improperly ascribed by the respective editors of the Bibliotheca Patrum, except Galland, to Isaac of Antioch [Isaacus, No. 5], instead of their true author Isaac of Nineveh [Isaacus, No. 6]. It is to be observed, that Isaac of Nineveh was not the Isaac mentioned by Pope Gregory the Great as visiting Italy and dying near Spoletum [Isaacus, No. 6]. Greek Editions
The Greek version of Isaac's ascetic works by Patricius and Abramius, as far as it is extant, was published by Nicephorus Theotocius, a Greek monk, by direction of Ephraim, patriarch of Jerusalem, 4tp., Leipzig, 1770. The edition contains eighty-six Λόγοι, Orationes, and four Ἐπιστολαὶ, Epistolae, which, in the two MSS. employed by Nicephlorus, were reckoned as λόγοι, making ninety altogether. These were differently divided and arranged in his MSS. He followed the division (with one exception) and the text of one MS., giving the different readitigs of the other, but formed an arrangement of his own, differing from both the MSS. What portion of the seven tomi mentioned by Ebed-jesn is contained in this work cannot, from the various divisions and titles of the divisions in the MSS., be ascertained. Of the time when Patricius and his coadjutor Abramius lived, nothing can be determined, except that they were of later date than Isaac himself, whose period has been mentioned. If we adopt the reading of the Vienna MS. εὑρηθέντες, which, however, is most likely a transcriber's error for ἑρμηνευθέντες, we must place them late enough for the works of Isaac, in the Greek version at least (of which, in such case, they would be not the authors, but only the discoverers), to have been previously lost. Further Information
Assemani, l.c.; Lambecius, l.c.; Nicephorus, l.c.; Cave, Hist. Litt. ad ann. 430, 440, 540, vol. i. pp. 415, 434, 519, ed. Oxford, 1740-1743; Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. xi. pp. 119, &c. and p. 706. [J.C.M]
the apostle and patron saint of Ireland. The legends and traditions respecting this celebrated personage, preserved in the Acta Sanctorum, in his life by Jocelin, a monk of Furness abbey, in Lancashire, who flourished during the twelfth century, and in the Irish annals and ecclesiastical records, present such a mass of contradictions and improbabilities, that many critics have been induced to deny his very existence, while others have sought to remove a portion of the difficulties which embarrass the inquiry, .by supposing that there were two, three, four, or even five individuals who flourished at periods not very remote from each other, who all bore the name Patricius, and who were all more or less concerned in the conversion of Ireland from paganism. The only document in which we can repose any confidence is an ancient tract entitled Confessio S. Patricii, a sort of autobiography, in which he gives an outline of his life and conversation. If we admit that this curious piece is genuine, we may perhaps learn from it'that the author was a native of Scotland, born in the village of Benaven or Bonavemn Taberniae, which is generally believed to have occupied the site of the modern Kilpatrick, situated on the right bank of the river Clyde, a few miles above Dumbarton, very near the point which marked the termination of the Roman wall. He was the son of Calpornius, a deacon, the grandson of Potitus, a presbyter. At the age of sixteen he was taken prisoner by pirates, and conveyed along with a number of his countrymen to Ireland, where he was employed as a shepherd. Having made his escape, he reached home in safety; but in the course of a few years was again carried off, and in two months again obtained his freedom. During his first captivity he was led to meditate upon his own depraved and lost condition, was gradually awakened to a sense of the truth, and became filled with an earnest desire to proclaim the promises of the Gospel to the heathen by whom he was surrounded. Visions were vouchsafed to him from on high, on several occasions he was empowered to work miracles, and at length, under the conviction that he was directly summoned by Heaven, determined to devote his life to the task thus imposed upon him by God. No allusion whatsoever is made to his visit to France and Italy or to his ordination by Pope Coelestinus, upon which so much stress is laid in the later and more formal monkish compilations.
It must not be concealed, however, that although a lively local tradition supports the opinion that Kilpatrick in Dumbartonshire was the birth-place of the saint, and although the inhabitants of that district still point out a miraculous fountain and a rock bearing his name, many of the most learned Irish historians maintain that the epithet Brito. upon which so much has been founded, refers not to Britain but to Armorica, and bring forward strong evidence to prove that Bonavem Taberniae is Boulogne-sur-mer on the coast of Picardy. The arguments are stated very fully in Lanigan's Eccle siastical History of Ireland, chapter iii.
According to several of the most ancient national authorities the mission of St. Patrick commenced during the reign of Laoghaire, son of Niall of the Nine Hostages (A. D. 429-458); but the book of Lecan places him under Lughaidh, a son of the former (A. D. 484-508), while the Annals of Connaught assign his birth to A. D. 336, and his captivity to A. D. 352. Mr. Petrie, in his learned dissertation on the History and Antiquities of Tara Hill, enters deeply into the investigation, and arrives at the conclusion that if we assume that there was a second Patrick in Ireland during the fifth century, and that many of the acts of the first or great St. Patrick have been falsely ascribed to his namesake and successor, then Irish as well as foreign testimonies nearly concur in the following facts: -- 1. That he was born in the year 372. 2. That he was brought captive into Ireland in the sixteenth year of his age, in 388, and that after four or seven years' slavery he was liberated in 392 or 395. 3. That on the death of Palladius, in 432, he was sent to Ireland as archbishop, having been first, according to some authorities, consecrated by Pope Coelestinus, or, as others state, in Gaul, by the archbishop Amatorex, or Amator. 4. That he arrived in Ireland in 432, and after preaching there for sixty years, died in the year 492 or 493, at the age of about one hundred and twenty years. 5. That he was interred either at Saul or Down. Works
Several works still extant bear the name of Patricius. I. Confessio S. Patricii de Vita et Conversatione sua
This, as may be gathered from what has been said above, is not, like many ecclesiastical Confessiones, to be regarded as an exposition of the views of the author upon difficult points of doctrine and discipline, but as a sketch of his own religious life, and especially as an account of the mental process by which he was first roused to spiritual exertion, the narrative being addressed to the people among whom he preached the Word. It was first published by Ware, in his edition of the Opuscula attributed to St. Patrick, from several MSS. preserved in different parts of England and Ireland; among which is the renowned Book of Armagh, long believed to have been traced by the hand of the saint himself. To inquire into the authenticity of the Confession when so little can be ascertained with regard to the supposed author would be a mere waste of time; but it ought to be remarked that it is composed in a very rude style, and although evidently interpolated here and there, is to a considerable extent free from the extravagance which characterises the collections of the Bollandists and the memoir of Jocelin. The writer, whoever he may have been, alludes repeatedly to his own want of education and to his literary deficiencies. II. Epistola ad Coroticumn, or rather Epistola ad Christianos Corotici tyranni subditos.
On the wickedness of a Welsh prince, Coroticus, who, in a descent upon Ireland, had taken many Christian prisoners, and was keeping them in cruel slavery. This letter is expressly mentioned by Jocelin. Editions
It was first published in the Acta Sanctorum under the 17th of March from a very ancient MS., in which it was subjoined without a break to the Confessio. III. Proverbia.
First published by Ware. IV. Synodus S. Patticii
containing thirty-one canons. V. Novem Canones S. Patricio adscripti.
VI. Synodus Patricii, Auxrilii et Isseruini episcoporum XXXIV. Canonibus constans. EditionsThe whole of the above canons, together with three others, are contained in Spelman's Concilia, Decreta, &c. in Re Ecclesiustica Orbis Britannici, fol. Lond. 1639, vol. i. p. 51,&c.; also in Wilkins, Concilia Magnae Brittanniae et Hiberniae, fol. Lond. 1736-7, vol. i. p. 2, &c.; and in Mansi, Collection Amplissima Conciliorumn, fol. Florent. 1761, vol. vi. p. 514, &c. Highly doubtful works
Doubtful as every one of the pieces now enumerated must be considered, they possess more claims upon our attention than the following, which also are ascribed to St. Patrick, but are now generally admitted to be unquestionably spurious. I. Charta s. Epistola de Antiquitate Avalonica, Editions
A fragment of which was made known by Gerard Vossius in his Miscellanea sanctorum aliquot Patrum Gr. et Latt., 4to. Mogunt. 1604, under the title S. Patricii Legatio a Coelestino prinmo Papa ad Conrersionern liberniae dirccti s. Epistola S. Patricii Apostoli Hiberniae ex Bibl. Monasterii Glastoniae in quo ipse Abbas fuit antequam esset Episcopus Hiberniae.
It was first published entire by Ware. 2. De tribus llabitaculis s. De Gaudiis Electorurm et Poenis Damnatorom Liber
Ascribed by some to Augustin. 3. De Abusionibus Saeculi
Ascribed by some to Cyprian, by others to Augustin. Editions
The first complete edition of the tracts attributed to St. Patrick is that by Sir James Ware (Jacobus Waraeus), 8vo. Lond. 1656. This was reprinted by Galland in his Bibliotheca Patrum, vol. x. p. 159-182, fol. Venet. 1774, together with some remarks taken from the Bollandists. See also his Proleg. cap. iv. The most recent and useful edition is that of Joachimus Laurentius Villanueva, 8vo. Dublin, 1835, which contains a number of very serviceable annotations. Further Information
For an account of the statements contained in the Irish records, consult the essay by Mr. Petrie quoted above, which is to be found in the 18th volume of the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy. See also Schönemann, Biblioth. Patrum Lat. vol. 2.40. [W.R]