| ; |
CHRISTIANITY.
Christianity before St. Patrick's Arrival.
HAT there were Christians in Ireland long before the time of St. Patrick
we know from the words of St. Prosper of Aquitaine, who lived at the time
of the event he records. He tells us that, in the year 431, Pope Celestine
sent Palladius "to the Scots believing in Christ, to be their first
bishop": and Bede repeats the same statement. Palladius landed on
the coast of the present County Wicklow, and after a short and troubled
sojourn he converted a few people, and founded three little churches in
that part of the country. One of them is called in the old records Cill
Fine or Cill-Fine-Cormaic [pronounced Killeena-Cormac], where a venerable
lonely little cemetery exists to this day, three miles southwest from
Dunlavin in Wicklow, and is still called by the old name, slightly changed
to Killeen Cormac. There must have been Christians in considerable numbers
when the Pope thought a bishop necessary; and such numbers could not have
grown up in a short time. It is highly probable that the knowledge of
Christianity that existed in Ireland before the arrival of Palladius and
Patrick (in 431 and 432, respectively) came from Britain, with which the
Irish then kept up constant intercourse, and where there were large numbers
of Christians from a very early time. However, the great body of the Irish
were pagans when St. Patrick arrived in 432; and to him belongs the glory
of converting them.
|
|
