Note 341 — Chapter X · THE CHURCH.

The date 432 is usually assigned to the arrival of St. Patrick in Ireland. There is nothing by which the real accuracy of this date can be tested, and it wears a very suspicious appearance, as if it had been originally fixed upon to favour the usual story of Patrick’s ordination by Pope Celestine, who died in that year. One of the earliest traditions about the Irish Saint—that contained in Nennius—couples “Bishop Germanus,” with Pope Celestine, and “Victor the Angel of God,” as the originators of Patrick’s mission, adding, that Germanus sent “Bishop Severus” with Patrick. Severus was the companion of Germanus in his second expedition into Britain. In the old poem ascribed to Fiech (given by O’Connor as above, p. xc.) Patrick is said to have remained in southern Gaul and studied the Canons with Germanus. The fable of the Angel Victor is evidently founded on the following passage in the Confession of Patrick:—“Et ibi scilicet vidi in visu, nocte, virum venientem quasi de Hiberione, cui nomen Victoricius, cum epistolis innumerabilibus, et dedit mihi unam ex illis, et legi principium epistolæ continentem Vox Hiberionacum.” The saint’s dream of the arrival of the human Victoricius from Ireland with a letter, bearing the prayers of the Irish to convert them, was magnified in after times into the miraculous appearance of the angel Victor from heaven.