_Letter_, 375₁₁, _Patricias peccator indoctus scilicet Hiberione_ constitutus episcopum me esse fateor. [Critical edition by Rev. N. J. D. White, in _Proc. of R.I.A._ 1904.] 3. _Dicta Patricii_ Besides these two works of St. Patrick, there is preserved (in the _Liber Armachanus_) a brief section entitled _Dicta Patricii_, consisting of the three following utterances:— I. Timorem Dei habui ducem itineris[236] mei per Gallias atque Italiam etiam in insolis quae sunt in mari Tyrreno.[237] II. De saeculo recessistis[238] ad paradisum,[239] Deo gratias. III. Ecclesia[240] Scotorum, immo Romanorum, ut Christiani ita ut Romani sitis, ut decantetur uobiscum oportet, omni hora orationis, uox illa laudabilis Cyrie[241] lession,[242] Christe lession.[243] Omnis ecclesia[244] quae sequitur me cantet Cyrie lession, Christe lession. Deo gratias. In considering the question of the authenticity of these _dicta_ we must take into account their position in the _Liber Armachanus_. The section occurs between Muirchu’s life and Tírechán’s Memoir (see below), immediately before the beginning of the latter, and consequently I used to think that the scribe (Ferdomnach) had found them at the end of the book from which he copied Muirchu’s Life. This assumption, however, falls to the ground through a brilliant discovery of Dr. Gwynn. Immediately before the _Dicta Patricii_, occupying the upper and middle part of the same column (fol. 9 rᵒ a), is a paragraph (_Patricius uenit ... aeclessiae uestrae_) describing acts of Patrick in Connaught. Dr. Gwynn recognised this as a section belonging to Tírechán’s Memoir (see below, p. 250), and drew the conclusion that it had been accidentally omitted from its context by the scribe of the exemplar of Tírechán which Ferdomnach used, and had been afterwards inserted by that scribe at the beginning of his MS., whence it was copied by Ferdomnach just as he found it. The external indications fully confirm Dr. Gwynn’s discovery. (1) The text of the preceding column (fol. 8 vᵒ b), containing the end of Muirchu’s Life and some brief additions (obviously entered at the end of the Muirchu exemplar), terminates before the foot of the column, leaving seven lines blank. (2) The first word, _Patricius_, in fol. 9 rᵒ a, has an enormous initial (the type in Dr. Gwynn’s edition fails to do justice to its size), evidently marking the commencement of a new document. It follows that the section of the _Dicta Patricii_ was copied into the _Liber Armachanus_ from the Tírechán exemplar. We must suppose it to have been written, in that exemplar, on the first page, in a blank space which still remained after the scribe had written the omitted paragraph of Tírechán. Now the entry of these _Dicta_ in the book containing Tírechán’s Memoir may not be without significance, for a passage in this Memoir furnishes direct evidence bearing upon the first _Dictum_.