Sold into slavery

Patrick, or Patricius, was the son of Calpurnius, a minor Roman nobleman in Britain. Rome had controlled that island, whose people were of Celtic origin, for about four cen-

"Many tried to prevent this mission [to Ireland], and talked among themselves behind my back and said: 'Why is this fellow walking into danger among enemies who do not know God?"

St. Patrick's Confessions

Portrait: Reproduced by permission of Archive Photos, Inc.

Turies when Patrick was born. He lived at a time before the Roman Catholic Church had declared that its priests could not marry, and in fact his grandfather was a priest. Patrick's family were Christians, but as a boy he did not care much about religious matters, preferring to devote himself to pleasure. Then his life changed completely.

At the age of sixteen, Patrick was kidnapped by pirates, who carried him across the sea to the neighboring island of Ireland. There he was sold into slavery and forced to tend sheep. In his loneliness, he turned to prayer, and later wrote in his Confessions: "The love of God came to me more and more, and my faith was strengthened. My spirit was moved so that in a single day I would say as many as a hundred prayers, and almost as many in the night."

It was Patrick's belief that he had been enslaved as punishment from God. This was a common Christian idea, reflecting concepts from the Bible—for instance, the enslavement of the Israelites by the Babylonians, which the Hebrew prophets explained was a consequence of forsaking God. And just as he believed that God had caused his enslavement, Patrick at age twenty-two believed that God had called on him to escape from slavery.