PATRICK

And what else should we have today for our Word of the Week but our special feature, “What’s in a Name?” — and what other name should it be, but that of Saint Patrick, whose feast is today? I saw a portrayal of Saint Patrick every time I went to my boyhood church, Saint Thomas Aquinas, in the small town of Archbald, Pennsylvania. It’s in one of the stained glass windows, facing south, so it caught the sun. There’s the saint, robed in green, with a bishop’s crozier, and a rustic fellow in rough clothing kneeling before him, for Baptism. Also in the window you can see the shamrock, which Patrick used to explain to the unlettered Irish people the doctrine so close to his heart, that of the blessed Trinity. Irish coal miners founded my town, and that’s why you’ll find another stained glass window, on the opposite side, featuring Saint Thomas More speaking to a none-too-pleased Henry VIII. “Ever the king’s good servant,” says Thomas, “but God’s, first.”

We have quite a lot of very specific information regarding Patrick’s life, both when he was a boy captured by Irish marauders and dragooned into slavery in Ireland, and when he later escaped, and got his education from the most learned men of the west, and then, to realize his dream, when he returned to Ireland, encouraged by St. Germain, bishop of Auxerre, and pope St. Celestine I, to bring the faith to that green isle. That meant a confrontation with the Druids and their human sacrifices — which came to a head on March 26, 433, Easter Sunday, before the king Leoghaire, when Patrick is said to have plucked the shamrock for the first time, and though the king began by forbidding anyone to show any respect to Patrick, by the end of the day he gave Patrick his blessing to go and preach to all of Ireland. It’s hard to underestimate what that meant for the future of western civilization. You see, when the Germanic tribes poured into the west and the south like a flood — when for example Hengest and Horsa and their Saxons swept into England and pushed the Roman Britons, Christians all, into the mountains of Wales, it was Irish monks who were at the forefront of sowing the seeds of both that ancient Roman civilization and the Christian faith in Britain and Germany and northern Gaul and the shores of the North Sea.

I used to think it was funny for an Italian boy to be celebrating Saint Patrick’s Day, but Patrick isn’t an Irish name at all. It’s a common Roman name: Patricius. That was the name of Saint Augustine’s father, who died in north Africa in 371. It didn’t mean that Patricius was Italian, because any Latin-speaking Roman citizen anywhere might have a name like that; Augustinus itself was just such a common name. Patrick was probably born in Gaul, and that was a century before the Franks — they were Germans, speaking Frankish, a Germanic language — gave to that land the name it now boasts. The people of Gaul spoke Latin, though there were also some native languages still in existence, among them Gaulish. I think it’s likely that the boy Patrick spoke Gaulish along with Latin, and who knows what else; people got around in those days. If you spoke Gaulish, you could then be understood by the people in Ireland, just as Spanish speakers and Italian speakers can mostly understand each other. Patrick is the English form of his name. In Irish it’s Phadraig, in Welsh, Padrig, in French, Patrice, in Italian, Patrizio, and so on.

What’s it mean? That’s easy. It’s an adjective, patricius, meaning like a father, fatherly, or holding the authority of a father. The chief families of Rome in her republican days were patrician: they were supposed to be as fathers to the whole of the people, though in Roman history they were often at odds with the lesser families, who had to fight over the centuries to gain political influence and civic rights. It’s to Rome’s great credit that for more than three hundred years, despite all kinds of near crackups, and incessant wars against her neighbors, the state knew no civil war and no political assassinations. It wasn’t her stern old ways that did her in, but wealth and political predominance in the west, once she crushed her ancient enemy Carthage for good, destroyed the city, and sowed its fields with salt. That too is another story.

There are two parts to the name Patricius. The first is Latin pater, with its cousins all over our vast Indo-European family, including English father (original P became Germanic F), Sanskrit pitr, Persian pedar, Greek peter, and Irish athair — that initial P became in prehistoric Celtic a PH sound (put your lips together and blow air through them), which then was lost altogether before the vowel. You pronounce it AH-her, with the R at the end as if you were going to say a Y after it; very hard for an English speaker even to hear, let alone imitate. Pater itself is made up of two parts. The second, the -ter, was an ancient suffix to denote persons: see also mother, brother, daughter. But pa- is likely baby-talk, to be found wherever there are babies. Back to Patricius: the suffix -icus makes an adjective out of a noun. It’s -ikos in Greek, and -ic in Old English, which became both -ish and -y. So Patrick or Patricius means father-y, that is to say, fatherly.

So then, a Happy Saint Patrick’s Day to our Irish friends, and may you keep that brave father of your country in your hearts forever!

”The Baptism of King Cashel by St Patrick,” James Barry. Public Domain.

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