SAINT PATRICK’S CONTRIBUTIONS TO WESTERN (CHRISTIAN) CIVILIZATION

By Dr. Marshall Foster, Founder, Mayflower Institute and World History Institute

from Mayflower Institute Journal – July 2008

“Battle is Your Calling”

Across America, great frustration and anger are rising, as productive Americans feel that they are buried in hundreds of thousands of laws and tax codes that dominate their everyday lives, families, property and businesses.

Our nation not only has too many laws, but they are overly complex and often impossible to understand or comply without the help of expensive attorneys. Journalist Radley Balko documents that “the federal tax code covers over 17,000 pages and requires over 700 different forms. The IRS estimates Americans spend 5.1 billion hours annually merely preparing their taxes. The Tax Foundation estimates that those wasted hours drain some $194 billion annually from the U.S. economy….The Federal Registry which records all of the regulations the federal government imposes on businesses, now exceeds 75,000 pages. The Office of Management and Budget estimates that merely complying with these regulations – that is, paying lawyers to keep educated on them, interpret them and implement them - costs U.S. business another $500 to $600 billion per year.”

Why is this happening? America is at the tipping point between the two major conflicting law systems of people and nations: King’s or Ruler’s Law and God’s Law. America was founded upon a simple and yet profoundly effective infrastructure built upon voluntary obedience to God’s Law. The result was blessing, prosperity and personal liberty as the world had never before experienced. Taxes were low, laws were few and life and charity were focused at the family and community level.

But the past few generations have been seduced back toward the top-down Ruler’s Law which has dominated most nations of the world. This system always enslaves a people through an elaborate network of bureaucracy and ruler’s laws, eventually leaving them dependent upon government for everything. The rulers often make god-like promises and always exempt themselves from their own onerous laws and taxes.

The answer to this juggernaut of Ruler’s Law has always been the same throughout history. The story of the rise of liberty has repeated itself for two millennia. First a people find themselves in misery under the strong arm of their government. Then God raises up a small minority, sometimes one individual, who rediscovers that the only source of liberty is God and His Word. Working together with God, they then proceed to liberate millions with His truth. Be encouraged that we can restore our nation against all odds. There is no better place to start to see what can be done than to track the impact of early believers as they faced the cruelty of Rome on the one hand and the anarchy and barbarity of the pagan tribes of Europe on the other. They ultimately outlasted and defeated the Roman Empire and laid the foundations for Western Civilization. They turned the world upside down by following their Lord’s strategy of servant leadership (Mathew 20:25). They started by first living out God’s Law in their homes, businesses and church fellowships. Then they extended charity in many ways including, feeding the poor and saving abandoned babies left to die. They evangelized the unbelievers, and established God’s Law as the basis for all of their societal institutions.

When these believers arrived in England in the first century to evangelize the Celtic people, England was still a Roman colony. Over time, Rome and its Ruler’s Law crumbled and the Roman legions left England. But the Celtic believers continued to follow the laws of the Scripture to create a simple, fair legal system and societal structure. These English believers followed this Biblical infrastructure to progressively displace the pagan traditions of the Celtic clans and the heavy handed tyranny of the Roman Empire.

In the fourth century, pagan Druid pirates from Ireland destroyed a village in England of Celtic Christians, capturing a 16 year- old boy named Patrick. Patrick became a slave tending sheep for a cruel Druid chieftain in the frozen fields of Northern Ireland for six years. The boy, who was a near atheist when he was captured, cried out to God in his despair. He prayed over one hundred times a day and the same all night. He grew close to Christ in his suffering and became repulsed by the witchcraft and even human sacrifice of the Druid priests. Eventually, God provided an escape back to England where Patrick prepared for the ministry.

Three decades later, Patrick returned to evangelize the lost people of Ireland who had enslaved him. Patrick’s fearless courage and faith in Christ so impressed the king that he was given free passage to go throughout the Island. Patrick baptized over 120,000 Irish people and planted 300 churches. He evangelized all of Ireland, and in his lifetime he ended the Irish slave trade. Wherever he set up a church he left them with an old Celtic law book, Liber ex Lege Moisi (The Book of the Law of Moses), along with the books of the Gospel. The Liber begins with the Ten Commandments, and continues with selections from Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. From that time forward, this book became the basis of all social organization, including family, economics, welfare, and government. The Liber is the first essential document of liberty that led Christian civilization to far surpass the Roman Empire. The decentralized, God-centered worship of the Christian Celtic peoples avoided hierarchy and gave glory to God.

What was the result of Celtic Christianity in the British Isles? The Irish, who had been barbarians controlled by Druid priests, now became Christians. Then Scottish, English and Irish believers became the founders and evangelists for the early development of the Christian world. For the first time since ancient Israel, civility, charity, monogamous marriage, successful family life, limited civil government, limitation on the power of kings, private property rights, the development of learning, including the publication and preservation of the books of antiquity – all of these became the law of the land and were accomplished with few laws.

Could God and His people rebuild nations today as He did then? Of course! In fact, He did it again and again through the centuries with Alfred the Great, William Wallace, John Knox, John Calvin, the Pilgrims, and America’s Founders and others. May we be encouraged that if God can use a former unbelieving, teenage slave to bring liberty and civilization to the barbarous Irish, He can use us to restore liberty to the most well established Christian nation in history.

Abraham Kuyper, the Christian prime minister and preacher of Holland in the 1890s, who led the revival of his nation which had been mired in skepticism and modernism, left us this challenge: “When principles that run against your deepest convictions begin to win the day, then battle is your calling, and peace has become sin; you must, at the price of dearest peace, lay your convictions bare before friend and enemy, with all the fire of your faith.” Let’s do it.

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!

Thanks to my friend actor and historian Roger Nelson, who performs The Real St. Patrick in his one-man play, “The Confession of St. Patrick” (visit Roger on the web for details of his various performances @ www.a1manplay.com) for the following facts:

A Super Brief Synopsis of St. Patrick’s Life:

1. He was an Italian born in Briton around 400 AD.
2. At age 16 he was captured by pirates and sold as a slave to an Irish king.
3. He tended sheep for 6 years as a slave in Ireland.
4. God spoke to him in visions and dreams.
5. After escaping from Ireland, he returned to his home in Briton, where he had a vision of the Irish calling him to "Come and walk among us once more."
6. He obeyed the heavenly calling and returned to Ireland, where he preached the pure Gospel of Jesus Christ and planted many hundreds of churches.

Other Interesting Facts:

1. Patrick was not born on March 17th.
2. Patrick was never canonized by the Catholic church. (The Irish declared him their patron saint.)
3. Patrick did not drive the snakes out of Ireland. How could he? He didn't even have a car. Actually there were never any snakes in Ireland, in the first place.
4. Patrick quotes Scripture over 200 times in his "Confession."
5. note: God has used Roger Nelson's portrayal of St. Patrick, "The Confession of St. Patrick," to turn many hearts toward the Lord Jesus. Roger doesn't keep records, but in one weekend 45 people made decisions for Christ following three performances of "The Confession" at a large church near Buffalo, NY. PTL! Following another performance near Chicago, a young woman prayed with her parents to receive the Lord before they even had a chance to leave their seats.

PATRICK (380-472): APOSTLE TO IRELAND

Thanks for this essay from James & Barbara Rose of American Christian History Institute:

Patrick, according to his "Confession," was a Briton, from southern Scotland. He was captured at age 16, and carried off by pirates as a slave to Ireland where he was a shepherd for five years. There he reflected upon his Christian training at home and came to a personal faith in Jesus Christ. He was a man of prayer sometimes praying as many as 100 times a day in snow, frost and rain. He also learned the Irish dialect which providentially prepared him to witness to Ireland.

One night, Patrick heard a voice in his sleep, saying: “See, your ship is ready.” (Confession) After five years, by the leading of the Holy Spirit, he escaped to Britain. While back home, he became a thorough student of the Scriptures. He had a vision of a man reading letters and a voice saying: “We pray thee, holy youth, to come and walk again amongst us as before” (Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed., vol. 21, p. 933). This call, similar to Paul’s "Macedonian call" (Acts 16:9-10), was a clear vision for Patrick to carry the Gospel to Ireland.

Ireland with its pagan Druid, idol worship and human sacrifices was hungry for the Gospel. Patrick’s first went to the place where he had been held captive to “County Antrim in the northwest . . . While he failed to win his former slave master, he was successful in converting the master’s household.” (Truth Triumphant, p. 85)

For 30 years, Patrick evangelized most of Ireland, baptizing thousands and establishing 365 churches. He had an intimate acquaintance with the Old and New Testaments as noted in his "Confessions." Wherever a group of people became converted to Christianity, Patrick requested that the local chieftain conform the civil law to the Ten Commandments. He compiled Liber ex Moisi (Book of Laws of Moses which contain the Ten Commandments, other Old Testament laws and a manuscript version of the four Gospels).

He was a Bible-reading, Bible-believing, Bible-preaching missionary. He recognized no other authority than that of the word of God. Patrick was never canonized and never went to Rome. He founded Bible schools which later became colleges. “The Christianity which Patrick founded became self-supporting in Ireland. From his missionary labors, the light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ went forward from Ireland into the "Dark Ages" of Iona, Scotland, Britain and Central Europe in the 6th and 7th centuries. In 565 A.D., Columba introduced the Bible and Ten Commandments as the foundation of Scottish law. Scottish missionaries brought the Bible and Ten Commandments down the northeast coast of England.” (George C. Rogers, St. Patrick More than a Legend? March-April 2005 Issue, Posted/Updated: 2006-09-14 16:03:04 The Real Truth Magazine)

(From Patrick's Confession) “Who am I, O Lord, and to what hast Thou called me, Thou who didst assist me with such divine power that today I constantly exalt and magnify Thy name among the heathens. . . not only in good days but also in tribulations?' So indeed I must accept with equanimity whatever befalls me, be it good or evil, and always give thanks to God, who taught me to trust in Him always without hesitation, and who must have heard my prayer so that I, however ignorant I was, in the last days dared to undertake such a holy and wonderful work — thus imitating somehow those who, as the Lord once foretold, would preach His Gospel for a testimony to all nations before the end of the world. So we have seen it, and so it has been fulfilled: indeed, we are witnesses that the Gospel has been preached unto those parts beyond which there lives nobody.

Patrick’s Background and Youth

Thanks for this essay from James & Barbara Rose of American Christian History Institute:
From his short autobiography, Confession, we find that Patrick’s father was named Calpurnius, a deacon in a church of the Christian religion. His grandfather, Potitus, was a presbyter in that same church. Patrick and his ancestors lived in the ancient town of Banavan in the area he called “the Britains.” Some sources place the location of this town near the English/Scottish border, while Neander, in his General History of the Christian Religion and Church, places the location decidedly in southern Scotland, yet reckoned to the province of Britain. The approximate date of his birth was somewhere between A.D. 360 to 380.
Before continuing with what Patrick disclosed in his Confession, one source adds some interesting insight about his family. Patrick’s father was a landowner and a decurion—an official in the provisional Roman government (Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed., vol. 21, p. 933). This meant that Patrick and his ancestors were Roman citizens—a definite badge of nobility. Although his British name was Succat, we will refer to him as Patrick, translated from his Roman name Patricius.
In Confession, Patrick explained that he was captured from the farm owned by his ancestors: “I was then almost sixteen years of age. I did not know the true God; and was taken to Ireland in captivity with many thousand men in accordance with our [just] deserts, because we walked at a distance from God and did not observe His commandments.” Patrick had been kidnapped by pirates and sold into slavery in Ireland, where he remained for six to seven years. During this time, he acquired the Irish dialect of the Celtic language. Being able to communicate in the Irish dialect was crucial in regard to his future work in Ireland.
His years in captivity had intensified his desire to seek the truth. Cathcart, in his The Ancient British and Irish Churches, further disclosed that after escaping captivity, he returned home to Scotland, where he remained for about ten years. There, he solidified his convictions by drinking in the words of the Scriptures for which he had thirsted while in slavery.

Patrick’s Beliefs—Celtic Christianity
At this point, it is crucial that the distinction be made pertaining to the religion of Patrick and his ancestors, as opposed to the religion that became dominant in the Roman Empire. He and his relatives were deeply committed to Celtic Christianity. They lived during the late fourth century A.D., when the church at Rome had come of age and was opposing original apostolic Christianity, calling it “Judiazing.”
Celtic Christianity had been taken to the British Isles by some of the original apostles and their associates, as recorded in numerous sources, including Remains of Britain. The Celtic Church in the British Isles had maintained the original teachings of the apostles without compromise. It had been insulated from much of the direct intimidation by the church at Rome, which could call upon the state to force all within the confines of the Roman Empire to conform or face deportation or death. Some pressure had been exerted in England and Wales, while Ireland and Scotland were less impeded in their continuation of apostolic Christianity.
“The Celts believed in a literal interpretation of the Genesis account of the creation of man and the universe. Free moral agency was stressed, salvation could not be forced on anyone. Obedience of the Ten Commandments was a vital requirement for one wishing to obtain salvation, but even so, the Celtic Christian did not believe in salvation by works…Sincere prayer was advocated as vain repetition was not acceptable. There was no invocation of saints, angels or martyrs in the early Celtic Church” (The Incredible History of God’s True Church, Fletcher).
The dying words of Columba, a successor of Patrick, follows: “This day is called the Sabbath, that is, the day of rest, and such will it truly be to me; for it will put an end to my labors” (Lives of the Saints, Butler, vol. 6, p. 139).
Concerning the training given in the Celtic Church during and after the time of Patrick, we read, “The youth in the Culdee [Celtic Church in Scotland about the 6th century] schools clung to the fundamental Christian doctrines, such as the divinity of Christ, baptism, the atonement, inspiration of the Scriptures, the prophecies connected with the last days. They did not accept the doctrines of infallibility, celibacy, transubstantiation, the confessional, the mass, relic worship, image adoration, and the primacy of Peter” (Truth Triumphant, Wilkinson, p.108).
Patrick Returns to Ireland

During those years at home, Patrick was in preparation (by intense study of the Scriptures) for what awaited him in the future. Some distorted accounts recorded hundreds of years later claimed that Patrick, some time after his captivity, had gone to a Catholic monastery in Gaul as preparation for his future commission. Such accounts were mere fabrications, since, in his own account, Patrick never mentioned any connection with the Roman Catholics.
Patrick had a realistic dream in which the Irish were beckoning him to come and teach them as they proclaimed, “We pray thee, holy youth, to come and walk again amongst us as before” (Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed., vol. 21, p. 933). Patrick was determined to answer this commission, which he regarded as being “from God.” This is similar to the account recorded in Acts 16:9-10, in which the apostle Paul had a vision or dream of a man from Macedonia bidding him to “come over into Macedonia, and help us.” Patrick readily complied, just as Paul had done.
With a number of helpers, Patrick traveled back to Ireland to teach the Irish the same gospel that some of their ancestors had received from the original apostles three centuries earlier. His first destination in Ireland was the very location where he had been held captive. Notice: “Therefore he proceeded immediately to County Antrim in the northwest, where he had endured slavery. While he failed to win his former slave master, he was successful in converting the master’s household” (Truth Triumphant, p. 85).
For the remaining sixty years of his life, Patrick reinforced apostolic Christianity in Ireland, which took root and flourished for about 700 years. “The training centers he founded, which later grew into colleges and large universities, were all Bible schools” (Ibid.). Probably the most famous student who would emerge from these schools was Columba, an Irishman of the royal family who dedicated his life to service in Scotland. Interestingly enough, Patrick had been a Scotsman who dedicated his life to service in Ireland.
Patrick (380-472 A.D.) had been the founder of the Bible schools and training centers in Ireland, some of which developed into colleges. Under the leadership of Columba (521-600 .D.), these colleges grew, with some developing into universities in both Ireland and Scotland.
Some historians claim that these schools were monasteries as existed under the Roman church. Others who referred to these schools as monasteries clearly recognized them as being radically different from all forms of Catholic monasteries. For example, the Celtic Church had always advocated stable close-knit families and permitted the clergy to marry, just as it opposed the practice of celibacy.

To Patrick, the churches and schools were inseparable. Neither could exist for long without the other, because true salvation had always been a process of education. He knew that without the underpinnings of a sound education, people could be easily deceived and led into error by false religion.
Concerning the range of subjects studied in these Celtic schools, notice: “The monastery was, in fact, a college where all the branches of learning then known were diligently cultivated; where astronomy was studied; where Greek as well as Latin literature entered into the curriculum; where the sons of kings and nobles received tuition; and where pious and promising youths were training up for the sacred office…But theology was the subject with which the attention of the teachers of the monastery was chiefly occupied; the Bible was their daily textbook; their pupils were required to commit much of it to memory” (Ibid., p. 108).
Celtic Christianity flourished in Ireland since it was regarded as a wilderness by Rome. Patrick’s commission to this island was greatly enhanced by this fact. He truly had led a portion of “the church in the wilderness” (Rev. 12:6) in his lifetime.

After seven centuries of relative freedom, Ireland finally came under the subjugation of the Roman church. The many schools, colleges and universities were taken over. So powerful had been the contribution of Patrick and his successors that it became necessary to invent a fictitious Patrick—one loyal to the church of Rome. In the course of mankind’s struggles and wars, “the victors always rewrite history,” and the church of Rome was no different.
Rome Obscures Patrick’s Work

It is crucial to understand Patrick’s rejection of emissaries from Rome: “He [Patrick] never mentions either Rome or the pope or hints that he was in any way connected with the ecclesiastical capital of Italy. He recognizes no other authority than that of the word of God…When Palladius arrived in the country, it was not to be expected that he would receive a very hearty welcome from the Irish [servant of God]. If he was sent by [Pope] Celestine to the native Christians to be their primate or archbishop, no wonder that stouthearted Patrick refused to bow his neck to any such yoke of bondage” (Ecclesiastical History of Ireland, Killen, vol. 1, pp. 12-15, as quoted in Truth Triumphant, p. 37).
Here are excerpts from an extensive summary of Rome’s attempt to cloud the issues: “They [medieval biographers] wrote of his [Patrick’s] studying with St. Germain, and of his attending a monastery near the Mediterranean, and finally of his going to Rome and receiving ordination from the pope. All these are mere inventions, and were not put forth till more than five hundred years after St. Patrick’s death and all of them are presented without a shadow of proof…In the establishment of his Church, St. Patrick in no instance ever appealed to any foreign Church, pope or bishop. In his Epistle to Coroticus (sect. 1), he simply announces himself as bishop: ‘I, Patrick, an unlearned man, to wit, a bishop constituted in Ireland: what I am I have received from God’…These well authenticated statements of St. Patrick concerning himself are wholly at variance with those of Probus and Joscelyn, who, for the first time, put forth their fabrications full five hundred years after his death. In regard to his studying with St. Germain as Tours, and of his going to Rome for ordination, all these stories were invented in the 10th or 12th century (Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, McClintock and Strong, Vol. 7, pp. 774-775).
Another attempt to connect Patrick with Rome involved an account of legendary proportions: “Sleep came over the inhabitants of Rome, so that Patrick brought away as much as he wanted of the relics. Afterward those relics were taken to Armagh [the location of Patrick’s largest school in northern Ireland]…What was brought then was three hundred and threescore and five relics, together with the relics of Paul and Peter and Lawrence and Steven, and many others. And a sheet was there with Christ’s blood [thereon] and with the hair of Mary the Virgin” (Truth Triumphant, p. 87). Of this mythical theft, one papal writer rebuked Patrick: “O wondrous deed! O rare theft of a vast treasure of holy things, committed without sacrilege, the plunder of the most holy place in the world” (Ibid., p. 82).
Many other attributes were ascribed to Patrick in order to obscure his works. They include such accounts as his luring all the snakes out of Ireland, his illustrating the shamrock to teach the trinity (a doctrine that he never believed) and shamrocks sprouting from his body at the time of his death.
The fictitious St. Patrick has served well to hide the true identity of Patrick from the masses of humanity for many centuries. In spite of all these misleading legends, the truth about “St. Patrick” is far more fascinating than fiction. (BY GEORGE C. ROGERS)
Legend tells the story that in order to help the Druids understand the Concept of the trinity, Patrick pulled up a shamrock leaf from the ground explaining how god could be three in one.