ould tamper with the ancestors of St. Patrick.
Nicholson, a distinguished Irish scholar, was, of opinion that the
addition "a deacon" was mere guesswork on the part of the copyist, and
wrote "incertus liber hic"--"the book is here unreliable" ("St.
Patrick, Apostle of Ireland," Appendix, pp. 286--288).

Moreover, if the word "a deacon" in the "Book of Armagh" is the true
reading, it must surely be a matter for surprise that St. Patrick, who
sternly enforced the law of celibacy in Ireland as part of the
discipline of the Catholic Church, should describe himself as the son
of a deacon without either comment or explanation, and more especially
when we remember that the Council of Elvira, A.D. 305, and the Council
of Aries, A.D. 314, had enforced the laws of celibacy--"The severe
discipline of the Councils of Elvira and Aries," writes Alzog,
"obtained the force of law and became general throughout the Western
Church" ("Universal Church History," vol. i., chap, iv., pp. 280, 281).
The practice of clerical celibacy, therefore, existed in the Western
Church probably before Calphurnius was born, and certainly before he
was old enough to get married.

Calphurnius was admittedly a decurion, or Roman officer. Now Pope
Innocent I., in his Letter to Exuperius, Bishop of Toulouse, in the
year 405, in answer to a number of questions submitted to him by the
Bishop, stated that there was an impediment to the ordination of men
who had served in the army on account of the loose morality prevalent
in the camp. As the Pope was simply laying down the rules of discipline
already existing in the Church, Calphurnius, being a Roman officer,
could not have been ordained without the removal of the impediment. All
this tends at least to prove that we should read "decurion" for
"deacon" in the "Confession."

According to the "Book of Sligo," St. Patrick was born on Wednesday
(373), baptized on Wednesday, and died on Wednesday, March 17th, A.D.
493.

THE DIFFERENT BIRTHPLACES ASSIGNED TO ST. PATRICK

BARONIUS and Matthew of Westminster declare that St. Patrick was born
in Ireland, but scarcely any writer of the present day ventures to
express that view. O'Sullivan, Keating, Lanigan, and many French
writers contend that he was a native of Armoric Gaul, or Britain in
France. Welshmen are strongly of opinion that Ross Vale, Pembrokeshire,
was the honoured place; whilst Canon Sylvester Malone attributed the
glory to Burrium, Monmouthshire, a town