Who was Saint Patrick? [Paperback]

E.A. Thompson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 20, 1999

Everyone knows of St Patrick, but what do we know about him? Simply that it was he who `converted the Irish to Christianity'. The strange fact is that for two hundred years or so after his death, although his name was remembered with respect, everything else about him was forgotten. E.A. Thompson pieces together the story of his life, drawing his evidence from the only real clues that exist, Patrick's own writings, not from the later Lives. He reveals him as coming from a well-to-do nominally Christian family in Britain, being captured by Irish raiders and forced into slavery in Co Mayo, converting to a most earnest Christianity, and eventually escaping from Ireland to the fulfillment of his calling. As a bishop, he is shown to have been a man of profound originality, and his writings - his Confession and his Letter to Coroticus - further display his character. It is no surprise that a host of legends became attached to his name, and the biography is completed with a look at some of those early legends. Preface to paperback edition by COLMAN ETCHINGHAM, Maynooth.E.A. THOMPSON was Professor of Classics at Nottingham University.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Scheduled for publication on St. Patrick's day, this study of the elusive patron saint of the Irish is unique in at least one respect. Thompson (emeritus professor of Nottingham University, England) relies solely on evidence gathered from Patrick's own writingstwo books in Latin: Epistle to the Soldiers of Coroticus and Confessionto form a biography. He eschews the legends and apocrypha, many amusing, that have over the centuries embellished the meager facts known about Patrick, yet Thompson strives to appeal to general readers as well as theologians and scholars. Terming Patrick "a bad writer but . . . not an out-and-out crackpot," he poses credible hypotheses about Patrick's origins as a Briton, his enslavement in County Mayo, his delayed rise to the bishopric and his unusual reaching out to the non-Christian barbarians of fifth-century Ireland. An intriguing story filled with unanswerable questions but highly readable and satisfying. Photos not seen by PW. History Book Club selection.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

E.A. Thompson, emeritus professor of classics at Nottingham University, holds that absolutely all we know about St. Patrick comes from his Confession and Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus. His analysis of these documents gives many details of life in 5th-century Britain and Ireland, debunks medieval lives of Patrick and much modern scholarship, and shows that Patrick was not Ireland's first bishop, did not work miracles, and did not drive the snakes from Ireland. What he did do was decide, against much opposition, to devote his old age to converting Irish pagans, and thus he became the first Western bishop to evangelize outside the boundaries of the Roman Empire. For professional and amateur, especially Irish, historians. W. Charles Heiser, S.J., St. Louis Univ. Lib.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Boydell Press (October 20, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0851157173
• ISBN-13: 978-0851157177
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,510,271 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Saint Patrick was not Irish, August 27, 2001

By 

Historian "malgos2" (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Who Was Saint Patrick? (Hardcover)

It is doubtless that Irish medieval Christianity differs from the rest of the Christian world not only because of the difference in the date of Easter or the tonsure's shape. All the historians agree that that was an exceptional type of religiousness. To understand this difference one has to look back to the very beginnings of Irish Christianity and to its founder - St. Patrick. This is a figure about little certain is known. All the knowledge we have we derive from two of his writings Confessio and Epistola ad Coroticum. Thompson in his book discusses line by line these writings speculating about their explicit and implicit meaning. This resembles a deductive work of a detective and requires a broad knowledge not only of history itself, but also geography, theology and mentality as well as of course - medieval Latin and paleography. He also discusses a controversial figure of Palladius in a relation to St. Patrick as well as Coroticus and his conflict with the Saint. This book is addressed to people truly interested in the matter and is a serious, scientific work, one of the most discussed among the historians, yet it is written in a simple, comprehensible way, making reading it a real pleasure for history adepts as well as history students. It discusses all the controversies among the historians about certain details of St. Patrick's life, from the date and place of his birth to his death, so that a reader may not only get to know the author's point of view, but also of other historians, and try to judge him/herself. Thompson, however, is very convincing in his way of writing and gathering evidence justifying his opinions. He also treats the opinions of his opponents - historians with a witty, yet mischievous sense of humor. The author leaves us not only with a broad and detailed knowledge about the Saint but also with some open questions left for further future investigation.

4.0 out of 5 stars St. Patrick revisited, November 29, 2009

By 

Jozef FM DEGROOT (Scottsdale, AZ USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Who Was St. Patrick? (Hardcover)

This little book did what I expected it to do. Just the facts!! A lot of speculation and exagerations are debunked and discarded. The idea of going to Patrick's own writings for the truth of who he is and what he is about makes sense.

The book arrived quickly, without fuss. Great!

5.0 out of 5 stars Discover Saint Patrick!, September 11, 2006

By 

Orielman - See all my reviews

This review is from: Who was Saint Patrick? (Paperback)

For the 'man in the street', like myself unable to confront the Latin texts, this is a magical account, written with understated authority and un-academic fluency - but, to my mind, with convincing authority, not to mention mercurial wit. I've read it twice.