st Celtic hagiographers, and the interchanging of the
acts of several saints who bore the same name.

[114] _Deacon_.--This was an important office in the early Roman Church.

[115] _Heresy_.--The Pelagian.

[116] _Followed him_.--The Four Masters imply, however, that they
remained in Ireland. They also name the three wooden churches which he
erected. Celafine, which has not been identified; Teach-na-Romhan, House
of the Romans, probably Tigroni; and Domhnach-Arta, probably the present
Dunard.--Annals, p. 129.

[117] _Nemthur_.--The _n_ is merely a prefix; it should read Em-tur.

[118] _Celestine._--See the Scholiast on Fiacc's Hymn.

[119] _Preserved._--It is much to be regretted that almost every
circumstance in the life of St. Patrick has been made a field for
polemics. Dr. Todd, of whom one might have hoped better things, has
almost destroyed the interest of his otherwise valuable work by this
fault. He cannot allow that St. Patrick's mother was a relative of St.
Martin of Tours, obviously because St. Martin's Catholicity is
incontrovertible. He wastes pages in a vain attempt to disprove St.
Patrick's Roman mission, for similar reasons; and he cannot even admit
that the Irish received the faith as a nation, all despite the clearest
evidence; yet so strong is the power of prejudice, that he accepts far
less proof for other questions.

[120] _Victoricus_.--There were two saints, either of whom might have
been the mysterious visitant who invited St. Patrick to Ireland. St.
Victoricus was the great missionary of the Morini, at the end of the
fourth century. There was also a St. Victoricus who suffered martyrdom
at Amiens, A.D. 286. Those do not believe that the saints were and are
favoured with supernatural communications, and whose honesty compels
them to admit the genuineness of such documents as the Confession of St.
Patrick, are put to sad straits to explain away what he writes.

[121] _Lerins.--See Monks of the West_, v. i. p. 463. It was then styled
_insula beata_.

[122] _St. Germain_.--St. Fiacc, who, it will be remembered, was
contemporary with St. Patrick, write thus in his Hymn:

"The angel, Victor, sent Patrick over the Alps; Admirable was his
journey-- Until he took his abode with Germanus, Far away in the south
of Letha. In the isles of the Tyrrhene sea he remained; In them he
meditated; He read the canon with Germanus-- This, histories make
known."

[123] _Canons_--This Canon is found in