" where the saint cries out
against certain "rhetoricians" in Ireland who were hostile to him and
pagan,--"You rhetoricians who do not know the Lord, hear and search Who
it was that called me up, fool though I be, from the midst of those who
think themselves wise and skilled in the law and mighty orators and
powerful in everything." Who were these "rhetorici" that have made this
passage so difficult for commentators and have caused so various
constructions to be put upon it? It is clear, the professor maintains,
that the reference is to pagan rhetors from Gaul whose arrogant
presumption, founded on their learning, made them regard with disdain the
comparatively illiterate apostle of the Scots. Everyone is familiar with
the classic passage of Tacitus wherein he alludes to the harbours of
Ireland as being more familiar to continental mariners than those of
Britain. We have references moreover to refugee Christians who fled to
Ireland from the persecutions of Diocletian more than a century before
St. Patrick's day; in addition it is abundantly evident that many
Irishmen--Christians like Celestius the lieutenant of Pelagius, and
possibly Pelagius himself, amongst them--had risen to distinction or
notoriety abroad before middle of the fifth century.

Possibly the best way to present the question of Declan's age is to put
in tabulated form the arguments of the pre-Patrician advocates against
the counter contentions of those who claim that Declan's period is later
than Patrick's:--

For the Pre-Patrician Mission.
I.--Positive statement of Life, corroborated by Lives of SS. Ciaran and
Ailbhe.
II.--Patrick's apparent avoidance of the Principality of Decies.
III.--The peculiar Declan cult and the strong local hold which Declan has
maintained.

Against Theory of Early Fifth Century period.
I.--Contradictions, anachronisms, &c., of Life.
II.--Lack of allusion to Declan in the Lives of St. Patrick.
III.--Prosper's testimony to the mission of Palladius as first bishop to
the believing Scots.
IV.--Alleged motives for later invention of Pre-Patrician story.

In this matter and at this hour it is hardly worth appealing to the
authority of Lanigan and the scholars of the past. Much evidence not
available in Lanigan's day is now at the service of scholars. We are to
look rather at the reasoning of Colgan, Ussher, and Lanigan than to the
mere weight of their names.

Referring in order to our tabulated grounds of argument,