It took its name of the Tripartite, or Three-Divisioned Life from the fact that the whole history of St. Patrick is divided into three homilies, one of which was probably preached by its author on each of the three festival days celebrated in honour of the Saint--the Vigil, or day before--the Feast itself--and perhaps the day after, or the Octave day. The preacher, taking for his text the verses of Isaias--_Populus qui sedebat in tenebris vidit lucem magnam_, etc., etc., declares that Patrick was of that light a ray, and a flame, and precious stone, and a brilliant lamp, which lighted the western world; and that he was Bishop of the west of the earth, and the father of the baptism and belief of the men of Ireland. Then the writer, or speaker, undertakes to narrate "something of the carnal genealogy, of the miracles and marvels of this holy Patrick, as set forth in the Churches of Christians, on the sixteenth of the Calends of April (17th of March), as regards the day of the solar month." The Life, or homily, next states explicitly that Patrick was by origin of the Britons of Ail-Cluade--the Rock of the Clyde--now Dumbarton, a statement in which we entirely concur. Calphurn was his father's name, and a noble priest was he, and his grandfather was the deacon Potitus (Fotid in the Irish MS.). In those early days, especially in the outlying provinces of the empire, it was not unusual to seek for the fittest candidates for Holy Orders amongst men, who had been married, or who were even at the time of their selection married men. They were in fact the best candidates for the sacred ministry that could be had at the time; for most of the young men were not only without special training, but unreliable and licentious. It was, however, the general rule in the western but not in the eastern Church, that the married man after his ordination, and especially after his elevation to the Episcopate, should abstain from all conjugal intercourse with his wife. Such, for instance, was the case with St. Germanus, Bishop of Auxerre, the teacher and friend of St. Patrick. The Irish Canons, too, even of the fifth century, are particularly imperative on this point, and show clearly that although the celibacy of the clergy was not, strictly speaking, obligatory even in the west during the centuries of the persecutions, no sooner was the Church free to carry out her own purposes than she strove to make this legislation compulsory throughout all Christendom.