Of the “Confession,” the style and gist may be gathered from the extracts given as we recounted his life. It is perhaps the earliest piece of authentic Celtic literature we have, inasmuch as it is the first of which the authorship can be definitely and historically asserted. Its Latin is rude and archaic, answering to the description St. Patrick gives of his own writing. It quotes from the pre-Vulgate version of the Scriptures, and contains nothing inconsistent with the period in which it professes to have been written. The saint appears to have penned this document as a kind of defence of his apostolic work against the attacks of men who regarded the whole undertaking as arrogant and presumptuous in view of his own rusticity. “The rustic condition was created by the Most High,” he gently reminds them, and adds some plain truths which show that, like Jesus, and St. Paul, and St Francis of Assisi, and other great master-spirits of the Christian Evangel, he did not disdain poverty, but voluntarily assumed it for the promotion of the Gospel. It would be tedious, he says, to relate even a portion of the many toils and dangers he had gone through. Twelve times his life was in imminent peril. Never one farthing did he receive for all his preaching and teaching. He challenges his detractors to say if he did and it will be returned. The people, indeed, were generous and offered innumerable gifts, which, out of principle, he refused, lest it might furnish an opportunity for cavil against the disinterestedness of his mission. On one occasion, on being told that his own nephew declared that his preaching would be perfect if he insisted a little more on the necessity of giving, he gave the noble reply, that “for the sake of charity he forebore to preach charity.” The “Epistle to Coroticus” is evidently from the same pen. The Latin and the literary style are similar. It also quotes from the pre-Vulgate version, and there is no internal evidence against the assumption that it was written by the saint. Though not found in the Book of Armagh, it is preserved in the other MSS. cited, some of which may be as old as the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Certain authorities identify Coroticus with the Welsh prince Caredig. Other more recent scholars, such as Drs. Skene, Whitley Stokes, and Douglas Hyde, contend that he was a prince of Strathclyde, Ceretic by name, who had his capital at Alclwyd, the modern Dumbarton, and thus that he hailed from St. Patrick’s own district.