Patrick – Stripping Back the Superstition

Girls of a particular generation will remember how a popular comic, The Bunty, allowed them to dress up a blonde girl in a dazzling new outfit each week. Patrick, 'the Apostle of Ireland,' has been treated to similar makeovers stretching back over the last 1500 years. Roman Catholicism’s version of Patrick comes complete with mitre, crozier, vestments, and a papal document in his hand to suggest that he had been consecrated as a bishop and sent by the Pope to act as his emissary to the heathen Irish. Difficulty is, none of these accessories properly match the man. Dr Thomas Hamilton, former Presbyterian clergyman and Vice-Chancellor of Queen’s University, described Patrick as, “one of Ireland’s best benefactors.” Having reviewed Patrick’s Confession – one of two documents that all accept as authentic – Dr. Hamilton insisted, “There is not a faint Roman tinge about it. It is ... thoroughly evangelical.” Patrick did not come to Ireland as a sacrificing priest, but as a Bible preacher, called of God to work as an evangelist on the very island where he had previously been held as a captive. His writings evidence the facts that he acknowledged no Head of the Church but Christ, established churches throughout this island that closely adhere to the Presbyterian model, and encouraged no faith in ceremonies or sacraments for salvation, but rather urged the necessity for a spiritual rebirth, received by faith alone in the work of Christ alone. “I am greatly a debtor to God,” Patrick states in his Confession, “who hath vouchsafed me such great grace that many people by my means should be born again to God, and that clergy should be ordained everywhere for them.” In our celebration of Patrick this year, let’s not fall foul of the tendency to dress him up in the kind of paraphernalia in which he never could have been comfortable, or surround him with stories that are evidently false, but be fair to history by presenting him exactly as he was – a dear old preacher of the everlasting Gospel who witnessed thousands of the native Irish turn from their idolatries and superstitions to “life everlasting which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” through repentance and faith alone.