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lural, whilst in the Bollandist's copy of the "Confession" the name is printed once in the singular and twice in the plural. St. Jerome uses the singular always when referring to Britannia; and St. Bede, in his "History," uses the plural and singular indiscriminately. Whenever Britannia is mentioned, the context alone can guide us in distinguishing which Britain is meant. ("Ireland and St. Patrick," by the Rev. Bullen Morris, pp. 24, 25). St. Patrick also mentions Gaul in the plural ("Gallias"), for although the whole country was subdivided into three separate nationalities--the Gauls, the Aquitanians, and the Britons--as Sulpicius Severus had already mentioned, the three provinces were called Gallise, or the Gauls, by the Romans. Galliae in the plural, therefore, either meant the whole country or any one of its sub-divisions, and the context alone could determine which province was meant. Having these facts in mind, it is easy to interpret the words of St. Patrick: "Though I should have wished to leave them, and had been ready and very desirous of going to Britain [Britanniis], as if to my own country and parents; and not that alone, but to go even to Gaul (Gallias) to visit my brethren, and to see the face of the Lord's Saints, and God knows how ardently I wished it but I was bound in the Spirit, and He Who witnesseth will account me guilty if I do so--and I fear to lose the results of the labour which I have begun. And not I, but the Lord Jesus Christ, Who commanded me to come and remain with them for the rest of my life--if the Lord so will it, and keeps me from every evil way, that I should not sin before Him" ("Confession"). St. Patrick's relatives resided in the Gaulish province of Britain, and the disciples of St. Martin--"the Lord's Saints"--lived at Marmoutier in the province of Gaul. St. Patrick's natural desire was first to visit his relatives in Armorican Britain, and next to renew his friendship with the followers of St. Martin at Marmoutier, but God had decreed that he should spend all the rest of his days in the land of his adoption. Gaul was not only the name of the whole country, which embraced three provinces--Gallia, Aquitania, and Britannia--it was also the name of one of the provinces. As Gaul in its widest sense was a different country from the Island of Britain, so the province of Gaul was quite distinct from the province of Armoric Britain. The Gauls, Aquitanians, and Britons, all posse
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