Our other data depend upon the _Confession_. He had committed some fault when he was about 15 years old;[375] he had confessed it to a friend before he was ordained deacon;[376] and through the treachery of his friend[377] it was afterwards urged against him. These machinations against him occurred _post annos triginta_,[378] which has been generally interpreted to mean 30 years after the commission of the fault.[379] It is also generally assumed that the hostile machinations of which Patrick complains occurred in connexion with his consecration as bishop. I will show that the first of these two assumptions is not certain, and that the second is erroneous; but, as they are usually accepted, I may first explain the chronological reconstruction which could be based on them. If Patrick’s fault committed at the age of 15 was urged against him 30 years later when he was consecrated bishop in A.D. 432, we at once get his age in that year as 45, and the date of his birth as A.D. 387, and the date of his captivity (= 387 + 16/17) as A.D. 403/4. This would follow, if we took the two numbers mentioned by Patrick as strictly precise. But it is to be observed that he gives the number 15 as approximate (_nescio, Deus scit, si habebam tunc annos quindecim_), and that 30 may be a round number. When he says that he does not think he was more than 15 when the delinquency was committed, we may presume that he was at least 15; on the other hand, we may take it that the number 30 is more likely to be slightly an over-statement than an under-statement. We should have, therefore, to consider it quite possible that the two numbers taken together might represent a period of somewhat less than 45 years—43 or 44; and it would not be safe to draw a more precise inference than that the birth date fell between 387 and 390, and the captivity between 403/4 and 406/7. But the basis on which this reconstruction is built is unsound. (1) So far from its being clear that the 30 years are reckoned from the date of the fault, the words suggest a different view. _Occasionem post annos triginta inuenerunt[380] et aduersus uerbum quod confessus fueram antequam essem diaconus._ These words seem naturally to imply 30 years, not after the fault (which has not been yet mentioned), but after the confession of the fault.[381] (2) It is quite clear that the occasion on which the fault was urged against him by _aliquanti seniores_ was not the occasion of his consecration, but later, probably much later. The writer’s language so obviously implies this that I find it difficult to conceive how it could have been otherwise interpreted. He says:— Et quando temptatus sum ab aliquantis senioribus meis qui uenerunt et peccata mea contra _laboriosum_ episcopatum meum, etc. ... sed Dominus pepercit _proselito et peregrino_ (365₂₋₇).