The authentic records of his career are numerous and very old, dating back, we may say, to his own handwriting. For in the Book of Armagh we have what professes to be a copy of the autobiographical “Confession” which he wrote himself late in life. This Book of Armagh, one of the most ancient and exquisite of the Irish MSS., is itself nearly 1100 years old, having been written in 807 by a scribe Ferdomnach, and, in addition to the “Confession” and other interesting contents, it has preserved to us various Patrician documents. That the writer had before him the actual autograph MS. of the saint when copying the “Confession” is inferred from his own words, “Thus far the volume which Patrick wrote with his own hand. On the seventeenth day of March was Patrick translated to the heavens.” And also from his frequent marks of interrogation and casual hints, such as, “The Book is uncertain here,” showing that during the intervening centuries since Patrick wrote the writing must have become faded and even illegible in some places. Besides his own personal account, there is no lack of early lives by other authors. Among those that may still be consulted are: (1) the biographical Hymn by Fiacc of Sletty, one of the saint’s own contemporaries; (2) two seventh-century Lives known as Tirechan’s and Muirchu Mac Cumachteni’s, found in the Book of Armagh; (3) the Tripartite Life, largest of all, from three very ancient Gaelic MSS., believed by Colgan, though not by later critics, to belong to the early part of the sixth century, and translated by him in his _Trias Thaumaturga_, 1645; (4) the Monk Jocelin’s memoir, twelfth century; and (5) other MSS. of the eleventh and fifteenth centuries. Subsequent authors, of course, are mainly dependent on these. A great historic character was this St. Patrick, who could not be buried in documents. His own words have far-reaching significance, beyond even what he himself meant to convey when he wrote, “He who is mighty came and in his mercy supported me, and raised me up and placed me on the top of a wall.” On this eminence St. Patrick is great, not merely as apostle of Ireland, but also as occupying a niche in the origins of Celtic literature. Essentially a man of religious initiative, and making no claim to distinction as a writer, he is nevertheless the earliest known pioneer of letters in Ireland—the first of whose work we have definite records to attest the authenticity. What share he had in making the latter a literary country it is difficult to say; but from his missionary advent in Ireland a knowledge of letters seems to have spread rapidly over the land. His monasteries and churches were centres and nurseries of learning. “He used,” as Tirechan tells us, “to baptize men daily and to read letters and abgatoriae with them.”