nd indicates that Christianity had already penetrated thither,
or at any rate that it was known and tolerated there. Dr. Meyer answers
the objection that if so large and so important an invasion of scholars
took place we ought have some reference to the fact in the Irish annals.
The annals, he replies, are of local origin and they rarely refer in
their oldest parts to national events: moreover they are very meagre in
their information about the fifth century. One Irish reference to the
Gaulish scholars is, however, adduced in corroboration; it occurs in
that well known passage in St. Patrick's "Confessio" where the saint
cries out against certain "rhetoricians" in Ireland who were hostile
to him and pagan,--"You rhetoricians who do not know the Lord, hear and
search Who it was that called me up, fool though I be, from the midst
of those who think themselves wise and skilled in the law and mighty
orators and powerful in everything." Who were these "rhetorici" that
have made this passage so difficult for commentators and have caused
so various constructions to be put upon it? It is clear, the professor
maintains, that the reference is to pagan rhetors from Gaul whose
arrogant presumption, founded on their learning, made them regard with
disdain the comparatively illiterate apostle of the Scots. Everyone is
familiar with the classic passage of Tacitus wherein he alludes to the
harbours of Ireland as being more familiar to continental mariners than
those of Britain. We have references moreover to refugee Christians who
fled to Ireland from the persecutions of Diocletian more than a century
before St. Patrick's day; in addition it is abundantly evident that
many Irishmen--Christians like Celestius the lieutenant of Pelagius,
and possibly Pelagius himself, amongst them--had risen to distinction or
notoriety abroad before middle of the fifth century.

Possibly the best way to present the question of Declan's age is to put
in tabulated form the arguments of the pre-Patrician advocates against
the counter contentions of those who claim that Declan's period is later
than Patrick's:--

For the Pre-Patrician Mission. Against Theory of Early
Fifth Century period.

I.--Positive statement of Life, I.--Contradictions, anachronisms,
corroborated by Lives of SS. &c., of Life.
Ciaran and Ailbhe. II.--Lack of allusion to Declan in
I