When Irish Christians are captured and enslaved by a British chieftain, Coroticus, also a Christian, Patrick asserts the full power of his episcopacy to condemn this heinous act.
In those distant times, when Patrick was working among the Irish, the glory of imperial Rome was beginning to fade. Generations of high living and ease among the ruling class had weakened the respect which they had once enjoyed among the peoples of the Empire, and the bonds of community, which are essential to the rule of law, had been undermined.
Times of uncertainty bring out the very worst in our human nature because we are not in full control of ourselves. Most of us have neither the courage nor the wisdom to keep ourselves uncompromised when the restraints which we normally take for granted are suddenly removed. At such times, deeds of great violence can remain hidden because no one has the commitment or the moral standing to condemn what has happened and to ensure that the story is recorded.
Christians against Christians
One such incident of bloodshed which took place in fifth century Europe has been recorded for us. It concerns a British chieftain named Coroticus. He had slaughtered a number of people in Ireland and he had taken others to be sold into slavery. Now it so happened that these people had recently been baptised by Patrick who sent a delegation to Coroticus without delay. It was led by a priest whom Patrick himself had educated and they carried a letter from him asking Coroticus to return some of the spoils and to free the baptised captives.
Patrick took it for granted that Coroticus would release the captives once he was approached with a letter signed by a bishop. When the young priest and his companions returned to tell Patrick that they had been treated with contempt and his letter ignored, he must have been tempted to give up. There he was, standing among his Irish converts whose loved ones had been murdered or taken captive. On top of that, they themselves had been humiliated because Patrick in his simplicity had imagined that Coroticus would treat them as fellow Christians.
All the talk about loving one’s neighbour and of belonging to a community which reached to the ends of the earth must have sounded empty and foolish. His opponents in Ireland would now have something to taunt him with. Not that it would have worried him being looked on as a fool but the work of preaching the Good News would be undermined. That grieved him.
In the four centuries since Christ had come on earth, the Church had always been persecuted, first by unbelievers within the Roman Empire and then by godless barbarians and heretics. But it was unheard of for Christians to slaughter other Christians or to sell them into slavery among heathens.
Letter to Coroticus
A young Church had suffered at the hands of people who claimed to be Christian and those who should have been brothers had become murderers. So Patrick took the only course open to him: By my own hand I have written and composed these words to be given, delivered and sent to the soldiers of Coroticus. I do not say to my fellow citizens or to fellow citizens of the holy Romans, but to fellow citizens of the devils, because of their evil works. (Corot. 2)
This second letter was not a request but a condemnation and in it Patrick used to the full his position in the Church. ‘Therefore let all you who fear God know that they are enemies of me and of Christ my God, for Whom I am an ambassador’ (Corot. 21). He called on those who were ‘holy and humble of heart’ (Corot. 7) to exclude Coroticus and his soldiers from fellowship in the hope that they would come to their senses and repent of their crime – ‘murder against the brothers of the Lord’ (Corot. 21) – and that they ‘free the baptised women prisoners whom they have already captured, so that they might deserve to live to God and be made whole now and in eternity’ (Corot. 21).
Even as he wrote, Patrick was not too confident that his fellow bishops across the Irish Sea would take him too seriously, but he was unapologetic. ‘And if my own people do not recognise me, there is no respect for a prophet in his own country’ (Corot. 11).
In arguing his case, Patrick made only a passing reference to scripture – ‘it would be tedious for me to discuss or to mention every text’ (Corot. 9). Instead, he spoke about the practice among Roman Catholics in Gaul of actually paying ransom for people captured by barbarians, and he pointed out that Coroticus and his soldiers were, by contrast, unfit to be called citizens of Rome. For Patrick, Roman citizenship meant, above all, sharing the Christian faith of the Emperor and respecting the bond which existed between all believers.
To strengthen his case even further, he placed great stress on his own imperial background. ‘I was free born according to the flesh. I am the son of a decurion’ (Corot. 10). But this reference to his worldly status was only to show that there was an even greater value in his life. ‘Is it of my own doing that I have a holy mercy on the people who took me captive and made away with the servants and maids of my father’s house?’ (Corot. 10).
In the footsteps of Paul
Patrick’s sentiments echo what his fellow Roman citizen, Paul of Tarsus, had to say about his own Jewish background:
But whatever gain I had, I had counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For Him I have endured the loss of everything and I regard it all as rubbish, so that I may have Christ and be found in him. (Phil. 3:7-9)
To be found ‘in Christ’ was at the heart of Patrick’s life as it was of Paul’s. It meant being part of a community of disciples which is, in a real sense, Christ’s body. By murdering his fellow Christians, Coroticus had dismembered the body, and that, more than any physical violence, even murder itself, was at the root of Patrick’s outrage. ‘Perhaps they do not believe that we have received one and the same baptism, that we have one and the same God as Father. For them it is dishonourable that we are Irish’ (Corot. 16). Scripture had been violated:
There is only one Body, one Spirit, just as you were called into one and the same hope when you were called. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism and one God who is Father of all over all, through all and in all. (Eph. 4:4-6)
