It is perhaps superfluous now to defend the genuineness of the _Confession_, especially as Professor Zimmer, the most important critic who impugned it, now admits it. Two considerations are decisive. (1) There is nothing in the shape of an anachronism in the document, nothing inconsistent with its composition about the middle of the fifth century. (2) As a forgery it would be unintelligible. Spurious documents in the Middle Ages were manufactured either to promote some interest, political, ecclesiastical, local, or simply as rhetorical exercises. But the _Confession_ does not betray a vestige of any ulterior motive; there is no reference to Armagh, no reference to Rome, no implication of any interest which could prompt falsification. And what Irish writer in the sixth century[233] would have composed as a rhetorical exercise, and attributed to Patrick, a work written in such a rude style? But besides these considerations, which are decisive, the emotion of the writer is unmistakable; and I cannot imagine how any reader could fail to recognise its genuineness.[234] A critical edition (the first accurate text) has been published by Rev. N. J. D. White in the _Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy_, 1904, to which I may refer for an account of the MSS. and previous editions. 2. _The Letter against Coroticus_ The other extant work of St. Patrick is the _Letter_, which may be most conveniently called the “Letter against Coroticus.” It is addressed to Christian subjects of Coroticus, a ruler in north Britain; its motive and contents will be dealt with App. B, p. 316. It is not contained in the Armagh MS., but it was known to Muirchu in the seventh century; and that the scribe of the Armagh MS. knew it and intended to copy it may (as pointed out above, p. 226) be justly inferred from the heading before the _Confession_: incipiunt libri sancti Patricii episcopi. The document is preserved in a St. Vaast MS., from which it was printed in the _Acta Sanctorum_ (March 17); in two Fell MSS., which were collated for the edition of Haddan and Stubbs (_Councils_, ii. 314 _sqq._); and in a Cottonian MS. (Nero EI), the text of which is given in Stokes’s edition (_Trip._ vol. ii. 375 _sqq._). The genuineness of the document[235] seems to be written on its face, as in the case of the _Confession_; that a falsification should have taken this form would be inexplicable. An analysis of the language and style points clearly to the same authorship as the _Confession_; and the occurrence of such phrases in both documents as _certissime reor_ or the favourite _utique_ is characteristic of a writer who was _indoctus_ and had no great command of language. It is noteworthy, and need not excite suspicion, that in both documents he uses the same formula in describing himself:— _Confession_, 374₃₆, _Patricias peccator indoctus scilicet Hiberione_ conscripsit.