Unraveling the True Identity of St. Patrick

ENGL 103

Name: Guitai Liu

Professor: Amelia Norton-Cooke

Due Date: 10/22/2016

The use of primary resource on St Patrick

St Patrick is a complex historical figure that owns different stories and legends about him. People celebrate every March 17th to memory this saint people, they consider him as a symbol of “Irishness”. On the other hand, there are different purposes to build St Patrick’s image according to divers needs. The St Patrick that we see today is already interpreted by different layers, such as historical, religious and cultural. However, what is a “real” St Partick? We could find some clues from two original works written by him. First one is Confessio, another one is a Letter to the soldiers of Coroticus, and these two works are

He was a deacon; his father was Potitus, a priest, who lived at…” (Hypertext Stack Project 1) however, we still don’t know his exact born date. In the following manuscript of Confessio, St Patrick revealed his slavery experience in Ireland and how he achieved his faith at the end, he wrote down: “It was there that the Lord opened up my awareness of my lack of faith. Even though it came about late, I recognized my failings. So I turned with all my heart to the Lord my God” (Hypertext Stack Project 2) what’s more, the Confessio described the success of St Patrick, which mentioned his mission from God; it recorded how St Patrick finished his spiritual journey through different difficulties. However, the Letter to the soldiers of Coroticus, interprets the war between Roman imperial and legions from Britain, and Patrick spoken from his position as a bishop, and defended his flocks. He expressed his love to God and his faith.

However, through this two real works of St Patrick, the biggest difference between the legend of St Patrick and his really life could be found, which is relative with the magical elements we know from him, for instance the snacks. This is actually a result after transformation and construction of later witness. They added plenty of magic in this figure, including snacks, druids and kings. (Franz

Patrick. On the one hand, the original documents are in Latin, but the ones used in this essay are the version being translated. The translator cannot express exactly what St Patrick was thinking. On the other hand, there are lots of religious words, which can be hard to understand for people who are out of this religion. Some biases could be caused. However, these two documents quoted by this paper are quiet credible and accurate. They are from the Saint Patrick’s Confessio Hypertext Stack Project, which is constructed under the auspices of the Royal Irish Academy's DMLCS project. This project has gathered amount of experts and it is very academic. In addition, their works are based on original manuscript of St Patrick, which are preserved in different museums. Therefore, these resources could help us better understand St