At 07:17 AM 10/4/99 -0500, Pippin wrote:
>Patrick was not called the "Apostle to Ireland" before the 11th
>century.  

In Muirchú's seventh-century vita (and one of the earliest extant texts from
Ireland), the angel tells Patrick that his four requests have been granted:
"The first request: that your pre-eminence shall be in Armagh.  The second
request: that whoever on the day of his separation from the body recites the
hymn that has been composed about you will be judged by you as regards the
penance for his sins.  The third request: that the descendants of Dichiu,
who kindly received you, shall find mercy and shall not perish.  The fourth
request: that all the Irish on the day of judgement shall be judged by you
(as it is said to the apostles: 'And you shall sit and judge the twelve
tribes of Israel'), so that you may judge those whose apostle you have been." 

At 04:24 PM 10/2/99 -0700, Larry Swain wrote:

>Moses typology re: Patrick.  The connection is
>actually rather obvious.  Of all the folks in the
>Bible with/for whom to make analogies Moses' life has
>the most connections with what Patrick in his
>Confessio sees as his call.  That is:  Patrick felt
>himself called to the Irish and seeks to go "deliver"
>them but is prevented because of some sin he committed
>not unlike Moses who sought to deliver Israel and was
>thwarted by murdering an Egyptian.  Patrick feels
>called by God to save a particular people, the Irish. 
>Moses is called by God to deliver a particular people,
>Israel.  

This, as you say, is rather obvious, but these are not the points emphasized
in the vitae themselves, and it could be said of a number of saints (is it
common for other medieval vitae to present founding figures of the faith in
non-Christian areas as another Moses?).  Although of course the
hagiographers would not miss the most blatant basis for comparison, that,
like Moses,
Patrick gave "his people" the Law (which of course is not to imply that the
Irish didn't already have their own highly developed law), it is not a point
to which they repeatedly return as one would expect; instead, they focus on
the burning bush, his fast, the length of his life (inconsistent) and his
unknown grave (inconsistent).  Nor do they make anything of Moses's unique
friendship with the Lord, as you would think would come in quite handy.  And
the Moses comparison is absent from other Irish vitae, as far as I remember.
The vitae of Ciarán of Saigir, who predates Patrick and actually was Irish
and thus of the people he was "delivering," never draw a parallel between
the two.  As I mentioned earlier, in his early vitae Patrick is rendered
almost as more of a Jewish saint than a Christian one, and I find that
unusual--for the Irish or otherwise.

>There is also a certain "Jewish/Celtic connection in
>terms of the concept of tribalism.  The Irish seem to
>have viewed themselves as one people even though they
>had different groups/tribes/political units which was
>somewhat different than the other groups in Europe. 
>And Patrick comes along and "delivers" them, as a
>people in their minds.

I'm curious where you're getting this, and what implications it has for the
actual experience of the medieval Irish themselves, since part of what I'm
interested in most is Irish identity in the fourteenth century.  Whatever
period in the middle ages we would be talking about, the "tribes" were
numerous and frequently at war with one another.  Although there was a high
king, he had little practical power or authority over the island as a whole,
and I haven't gotten the sense that the Irish viewed themselves as a
collectivity, unless it would be defined in fairly vague terms--that's one
of the reasons peregrinatio within the island could be so effective, because
in another part of the country it could be as if one were worlds away.  This
situation both enabled the Normans to conquer the island and prevented them
from doing it completely.  And I would be very wary of interpreting the
words of individuals such as Muirchú as indicative of the minds of Irish
people generally.  He was arguing for the primacy of Armagh over the entire
island and it served his purpose to present Patrick as the apostle who
delivered the Irish people entire.  Monastics in general tried to present
Ireland as more of a unified entity than it actually was, and maybe this was
how they actually experienced it, but it doesn't necessarily represent a
consensus among the Irish people.
>
>Finally there is the question of authority.  Moses is
>directly sent by God.  He is certainly a prefigure of
>Jesus.  

Yes, but why not invoke the example of Christ, as is notably absent in
Patrick's 40 day/night fast (one of the key points for similarity with Moses
in the vitae)?
>
>A good deal of early Irish theology seems to be very
>influenced by traditions represented by Eusebius,
>Irenaeus, Martin of Tours and so on.

Martin was beloved by Irish hagiographers, who worked him in whenever and
wherever possible; his absence emphasizes the lack of Christian saintly
exemplars in Patrick's early vitae. 

  Someone recently
>wrote an article suggesting that there were Byzantine
>contacts through Spain, can't recall whom and where at
>the moment, but will endeavour to dredge it up, it was
>rather an interesting article.  But if so, it might go
>far to explain the Moses typology as well as the
>"jewish" character of some Irish theology which earned
>them the charge of being judaizers.

When/by whom/why were the Irish charged with being judaizers?  This ties
into one of my main interests, religious persecution in late medieval
Ireland, and is the main reason I'm curious about any possible connections
between Jews and Ireland in the middle ages.

Thanks for the diversion from my exams!

Maeve
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