f a town, and not of a tower or district, as may be gathered from
the history of the tower itself.
The Second, Third, and Fourth "Lives" of the Saint, however, "are
filled with fables," according to Canon O'Hanlon. "Their acts seem to
have been either borrowed from one another, or are copies of versions
taken from the same source" ("Lives of the Irish Saints," March 17th).
THE SIXTH "LIFE OF ST. PATRICK" BY JOCELIN.
"THERE was a man named Calphurnius, the son of Potitus, a presbyter, by
nation a Briton, living in the village Taburnia (that is the Field of
Tents), near the town of Empthor, and his habitation was nigh unto the
Irish Sea. This man married a French damsel named Concuessa, niece of
the blessed Martin, Archbishop of Tours, and the damsel was elegant in
her form and in her manners, for, having been brought from France with
her elder sister into the northern parts of Britain, they were sold at
the command of her father. Calphurnius being pleased with her manners,
charmed with her attentions, and attracted by her beauty, very much
loved her, and from the state of serving maid in his household, raised
her to be his companion in wedlock. And her sister, having been
delivered unto another man, lived in the aforementioned town of
Empthor.
"And Calphurnius and his wife were just before God, walking without
offence in the justifications of the Lord, and they were eminent in
their birth, and in their faith, and in their hope, and in their
religion. And though in their outward habit and abiding they seemed to
serve under the yoke of Babylon, yet did they in their acts and in
their conversation show themselves citizens of Jerusalem. Therefore out
of the earth of their flesh, being freed from the tares of sin and from
the noxious weeds of vice by the ploughshare of evangelic and apostolic
learning, and being fruitful in the growth of all virtues, did they, as
the best and richest fruit, bring forth a son, whom, when he had at the
font put off the old man, they caused to be named Patritius, as being
the future father and patron of many nations; of whom, even at his
baptism, the God that is Three in One was pleased by the sign of a
threefold miracle to declare how pure a vessel of election should he
prove, and how devoted a worshipper of the Holy Trinity. But after a
little while, this happy birth being completed, they vowed themselves
by mutual consent unto chastity, and with a holy end rested in the
Lord. But
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