martillo@ihuxt.UUCP (Yehoyaqim Shemtob Martillo) (03/16/84)
I vaguely remember having read that the Roman Catholic Church made Saint Patrick a saint because he drove the snakes and the Jews out of Ireland. Does anyone know the story?
rej@cornell.UUCP (Ralph Johnson) (03/17/84)
The story about Saint Patrick driving the snakes from Ireland is apocryphal: there were never any snakes in Ireland. I have never heard anything about Jews mentioned in connection with him. The Catholic Church has recently been demoting certain saints on the suspician that they never existed. Patrick was a real person. He was one of the first Christian missionaries to Ireland and made a big impact on that country. He first saw Ireland as a slave and, after escaping back to his homeland on the mainland, returned to become an evangelist. Not being Catholic, nor Irish, I do not know all the legends about him, but many of them are undoubtly exagerations. Nevertheless, Patrick was a real, and undoubtly brave and selfless, person.
pat@symplex.UUCP (03/19/84)
<GIFT TO FIRST-LINE EATER> As Saint Patrick lived in the fifth century c.e., & Jews did not begin to arrive for another 5 or 6 hundred years, this is obviously not the reason he was made a saint. He also was not made a saint for driving out the snakes. Richard Patrick Symplex Communications ..!dsd!symplex!pat