He was beheaded in Africa in 370. His son Theodosius the Great was Emperor along with Gratian, 379, sole Emperor, 392, and died. 395. His grandson Theodosius II was Emperor of the West, 423-425. The last of these is probably meant, and Cystennin is Constantine, who was proclaimed in Britain 433, and who reigned till 443. The foundation of Caer Worgorn accordingly took place between 423 and 443. The foundation of a college in Britain is by no means as improbable as appears at first sight. One of the first cares of Agricola after he had pacified Britain was to establish schools for the education of the young sons of the chiefs in the liberal arts. "He affected," says Tacitus, "to prefer the national spirit of the Britons to the acquired talents of the Gauls; so that their people, who refused at first to speak the language of the Romans, soon became eager to acquire their eloquence." There was an university at Autun in Gaul as early as the reign of Tiberius; later there were others at Rheims, Toulouse and Treves. Gaul produced from its schools the great rhetoricians Votienus Montanus at Narbonne, Domitius Afer at Nimes, Julius Africanus at Saintes.

1

In 425 Theodosius II founded the university of Constantinople with thirty professors, three rhetors, ten Latin grammarians, five Greek rhetors and ten Greek grammarians, a philosopher and two legal professors (Cod. Theodos., xiv, 9, 3; xv, 1, 53). The law was signed by Valentinian III as well as by Theodosius. Whether the same was done in the West we do not know. This was the final act in the regulation and organization of public education in the Empire.2

With the schools so extensively developed in Gaul, it is inconceivable that they should not also have been established and encouraged in Britain. And that Theodosius and Valerian should have done something towards this is conceivable enough.

A good deal of discredit has been cast on the Iolo MSS., perhaps undeservedly. Iolo Morganwg was a stonemason, and most assuredly knew nothing of the imperial system of education in the colonies. He cannot have imagined the statement above quoted. The MSS. he copied were in most cases late, but he was a faithful transcriber on the whole.

We are disposed to accept the tradition that Caer Worgorn was a school not founded but favoured by the Emperors Theodosius and Valentinian, and encouraged by the tyrant Constantine.

Belerus, "a man from Rome," has been thought to have been Palladius; but this is phonetically impossible. But as Palladius was

1 Agricola, 21.

2 Boissier, La Fin du Paganism, Paris, 1891, i, pp. 172-231.

either born in Britain, or brought into close relation with it, we may here give an account of him.

A Palladius was "magister officiorum" at the time of Julian's entry into Constantinople, after the death of his cousin and predecessor Constantius, 361. One of Julian's first measures was to send a commission to Calcedon, to try a number of persons implicated in the recent civil war. Among these was Palladius, and the judges banished him to Britain, on the suspicion of his having prejudiced Constantius against Julian's half brother, Gallus, and thus having been the occasion of the death of this young prince.1 Julian perished in 363, when probably Palladius was recalled; but it is possible that he may have married and settled in Britain, and that there was born Palladius, who was to be the first missionary sent to Ireland. We cannot, of course, offer more than the conjecture that this latter Palladius was the son of the Master of the Offices, banished to Britain, but it would seem not improbable, and would explain his lively interest in British affairs.2

At what time he went to Rome we know not, but we find him urging Pope Celestine to send Germanus and Lupus to Britain, to encounter the Pelagians. This was in 429.3 But if he be the Belerus of Welsh tradition, he must have been before this appointed head of Caer Worgorn, supposing such a college to have existed before 423. His abandonment of this monastic college was perhaps due to the Irish marauders who attacked and destroyed it.

The next notice we have of Palladius is of his mission to Ireland. Prosper of Aquitaine in his Chronicle, under 431, says :-" Palladius was consecrated by Pope Celestine, and sent by him to the Scots who believed in Christ, as their first Bishop.'

That there were some scattered believers in Ireland at this time is more than probable. Indeed it would be strange if it had not been so, so great was the intercourse between Ireland and Britain and the Continent.

The Book of Armagh, written before 700, says :-" Verily indeed was

1 Ammianus Marcellinus, lib. ii, cap. 3. Zosimus, Hist., lib. ii, cap. 55. 2 This connexion is suggested by Shearman, Loca Patriciana, p. 403. Archbishop Ussher quotes an ancient authority to the effect that Palladius was a native of Britain.

3

Agricola Pelagianus Severiani episcopi Pelagiani filius ecclesias Britanniæ Sed ad actionem Palladii diaconi papa dogmatis sui insinuatione corrumpit. In the Book of Armagh, Cælestinus Germanum Autisidorensem episcopum vice suâ mittit et deturbatis For this there is no hereticis Bretannos ad catholicum fidem dirigit." Palladius is converted into Archdeacon of Cœlestine. authority. Muirchu further says that “Palladius was sent ad hanc insulam convertendam," which is a garbling of the words of Prosper, who says that Palladius was sent to those in Ireland "believing in Christ."

Palladius the Archdeacon of Celestine Pope, Bishop of the city of Rome, who then held the Apostolic See, the forty-fifth in succession, from S. Peter the Apostle. This Palladius was ordained and sent to convert this island, lying under wintry cold. But God hindered him, for no one can receive anything from earth unless it were given him from heaven; for neither did those fierce and savage men receive his doctrine readily, nor did he himself wish to spend time in a land not his own; but he returned to him who sent him. On his return hence, however, after his first passage of the sea, having begun his land journey, he died in the territories of the Britons."

The Second Life of S. Patrick in Colgan's Trias Thaumaturga gives some additional details.

"The most blessed Pope Celestine ordained bishop an archdeacon of the Roman Church named Palladius, and sent him to the island of Hibernia, after having committed to him the relics of the blessed Peter and Paul and other Saints, and having also given him the volumes of the Old and New Testaments. Palladius, entering the land of the Scots, arrived at the territory of the men of Leinster, where Nathi mac Garchon was the chief, who opposed him. Others, however, whom the Divine mercy had disposed towards the worship of God, having been baptized in the name of the Sacred Trinity, the blessed Palladius built three churches in the same district, one of which he called Collfine, in which, even to the present day, he left his books which he had received from Celestine, and the box of relics of the blessed Peter and Paul and other saints, and the tablets on which he used to write, which in Scottish are called from his name Pall-ere or Pallao-ere, that is the Burden of Palladius, and are held in veneration.

"Another, to wit, Tech-na-Roman (the House of the Romans); and the third Domnach Ardech, or Aracha, in which are (buried) the holy men of the family of Palladius, Silvester and Salonius, who are honoured there. After a short time Palladius died in the plains of Girgin, in a place called Fordun, but others say that he was crowned with martyrdom there."

The Fourth Life, after giving much the same account up to the burial of Silvester and Salonius, adds: “But Palladius seeing that he could not do much good there, wishing to return to Rome, migrated to the Lord in the region of the Picts. Others, however, say that he was crowned with martyrdom in Hibernia."

Fuller particulars as to his departure are given in the Scholia to the hymn attributed to S. Fiacc of Stetty, but which is considerably later. "He (Palladius) founded some churches, viz., Teach-na-Roman, Killfine, and others. Nevertheless he was not well received by the

people, but was forced to go round the coast of Ireland towards the north, until, driven by a great tempest, he reached the extreme part of Mohaidh towards the south, where he founded the church of Fordun. Pledi is his name there."

In the Irish original version it is said that he reached Cen Airthir, and Dr. Todd suggests that this is Kinnaird Head, on the north-east coast of Aberdeenshire.

The Scottish versions are entirely untrustworthy, they do not date back earlier than the fourteenth century.

Dr. Todd has shown pretty conclusively that, in the later lives of S. Patrick, a fusion has taken place between the acts of the great apostle and a lost Life of Palladius.

In the genuine early records of S. Patrick, as in his own Confession, there is no mention of his having been a disciple of S. Germanus, nor of his commission by Pope Celestine, all this belongs to the earlier apostle Palladius, who, as we learn from Tirechan,1 was also named Patricius, at the time a common name.2

Professor Zimmer 3 has suggested that Palladius is but the Latin form of the name Sucat attributed to S. Patrick. Muirchu mac Machtheni, who wrote shortly before 698, says :-" Patricius, who was also called Sochet, of British nationality, was born in the British Isles."4 The Irish hymn of S. Fiacc, states that Patrick when a child was named Succat, and in a gloss on the passage there is the note that the name was British, and meant deus belli vel fortis belli, because su in British was fortis, and cat bellum. 5

=

"Thus," says Zimmer, "Palladius is a Roman rendering of the British Sucatus. . . . Sucat either changed his name himself on his journey to Italy, or, what is more in accord with his scanty education, he made friends select for him a Roman equivalent for the British Sucat." Professor Zimmer identifies Palladius with the Patrick of the "Confessions" and "Letter to Coroticus," which we consider a position wholly untenable. We would rather suggest that in Britain Patri

6

1 "Palladius episcopus primo mittitur, qui Patricius alio nomine appellabatur."

2 Gibbon says, The meanest subjects of the Roman Empire" (at the close of the fifth century) assumed the illustrious name of Patricius, which by the conversion of Ireland has been communicated to a whole nation." Decline and Fall, viii, p. 300, ed. Milman and Smith.

3 The Celtic Church in Britain and Ireland, tr. A. Meyer, London, 1902, pp. 37-8.

4 Tripartite Life, ed. Stokes, ii, p. 494.

5 Ibid., ii, p. 412.

6 Dr. Zimmer's Thesis has met with a crushing rejoinder from the pen of Professor Hugh Williams, Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie, iv (1903).

cius bore both names, his Latin and his vernacular name, and that later in life, and when he left Britain, he ceased to be known by the name of Sucat.

Let us endeavour, following Dr. Todd, to reconstruct the history of S. Palladius.

Prosper of Aquitaine in his Chronicle, under 429, says that " Agricola son of Severianus, a Pelagian bishop, corrupted the churches of Britannia by insinuation of his doctrine; but by the instrumentality of the deacon Palladius (ad actionem Palladii diaconi), Pope Celestinus sends Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, in his own stead (vice suâ) to displace the heretics and direct the Britons to the Catholic Faith." And in the year next but one following, i.e., 431, Palladius was consecrated by Pope Celestinus, and sent to the Scots believing in Christ, as their first bishop."

Commenting on the first passage, it deserves remark that Palladius is not called a deacon of the Roman Church, and we should infer that he was the deacon of Germanus. What is probable is, that Germanus, having been chosen by the bishops of Gaul to go to Britain, sent his deacon to announce this to Celestine, and to ask his blessing on the undertaking.

The expedition of Germanus and Lupus to Britain lasted only one year, and they returned to Gaul.

In the third year, 431, Celestine ordained Palladius bishop to those of the Scots, i.e. Irish, who already believed in Christ. Palladius then went, as we may presume, to Wales and crossed over from Porth Mawr to the Hy Garchon territory in Wicklow, where he founded three churches, but being much opposed by Nathi mac Garchon, the chief, he was obliged to leave. Nathi was of the Dalmessincorb family.

"It is possible," says Professor Bury," that we may seek the site of a little house for praying, built by him or his disciples, on a high wooded hill that rises sheer enough on the left bank of the River Avoca, close to a long slanting hollow, down which, over grass and bushes, the eye catches the glimmer of the stream winding in the vale below, and rises beyond to the higher hills which bound the horizon. Here may have been the House of the Romans,' Tech na Róman; and Tigrency, the shape in which this name is concealed, may be a memorial of the first missioners of Rome. But further west, beyond the hills, we can determine with less uncertainty another place which tradition associates with the activity of Palladius, in the neighbourhood of one of the royal seats of the lords of Leinster. From the high rath of Dunlavin those kings had a wide survey of their realm. . . . More than a league eastward from this fortress Palladius is said to have founded a church