The Kennedys

The Kennedys
Stephen, Angel, Caoimhe &Taylor

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Thursday, September 23, 2010

St. Patrick - Baptist

For centuries Roman Catholicism has laid to the supposition that Patrick of Ireland was a Roman Priest. However, over 100 years ago W.A. Jarell, much respected author and church historian, put into print what had been known by Baptists since the very beginning, that Patrick was not a Catholic Priest, but rather a Baptist Missionary. It is because of this much neglected fact that we put into print this material so that this present generation may know the truth and great heritage of this early Baptist Missionary to Ireland. So zealous were these historians of the 1800s and so spirited was their conviction to this that one wrote, "Rome's most audacious theft was when she seize bodily the Apostle Peter and mad him the putative head and founder of her system; but next to that brazen act stands her effrontery when she annexed the great missionary preacher of Ireland and enrolled him among her saints" (A short history of the Baptists {1907}, Henry C. Vedder, pg 71-72).

Most church historians agree that Patrick, originally named Succat (or Succathus) Patricus, was born sometime between the years 360 AD and 387 AD, probably near what is now Dumbarton, Scotland. It's also generally accepted by those knowledgeable of the subject that he lived to a well advanced ago, some placing him at over 100 years old at the time of his death.

Cathcart, the dean among the Baptist apologist, suggests that Patrick is not his name, but rather a title of honor meaning noble and illustrious and bestowed upon him by his grateful admirers (The Baptist Encyclopedia {1881}, by William Cathcart pg 886). His writings reveal that his father, Calpurnius, was a deacon in a Baptist church (we know that there were Baptist churches in British Isles as far back as AD 63, (History of the Welsh Baptist (1770) by J. Davis, pg 14), having apparently been converted to Christ while on a business trip to Rome as he also served as a Roman civil officer. In spite of being reared in a godly home and taught the ways of the Scriptures, Cathcart also states that the young Patrick was "....wild and wicked until his sixteenth year...." when while working on his father's farm, he and several others were seized and carried away captive by a band of pirates to Ireland, where he was sold into slavery to a petty cash Irish clan chieftain, For over five years he suffered the atrocities of slavery. Later, however he would recount that it was during this most dark period of his life that he, himself, was converted to Christ remembering the Christian training he had received from his godly father while but a child. Regarding this, W.A. Jarrel wrote over one hundred years ago,"....the truth which saved him when a youthful slave in pagan Ireland was taught him in godly home of his father" (Baptist Church Perpetuity or History {1894} W.A. Jarrel, pg 472).

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