atrick of Ireland. Every year on March 17th wecelebrate his life. Countless sons have been

named after him. Innumerable churches bear hisname as well. Parades in his honor march throughthe streets of great cities. But do we really knowhim? The truth is, very few people do. So, whetheryou do or not, permit me to tell his remarkablestory...the greatest example in history of a man whowon a nation without force of arms and transformeda society from chaos to peace. Rome—the “eternal city”—had ruled the knownworld for 600 years. Control had been assured bythe short and swift sword of the Roman Legions.But at the dawn of the 5th century, barbarian hordessacked Rome. In the coming decades other promi-nent cities throughout Europe were decimated. En-tire libraries and the precious documents of threethousand years of antiquity were mindlessly torched.Illiteracy became the norm. Within decades, Romeitself became a ghost town. Once a city of more thana million people, “its population [was] reduced … toabout thirty thousand inhabitants sharing with foxes,wild dogs, rats and wolves what was left of its mag-nificent buildings.”1

In the years thatthe Empire was col-lapsing, Patrick wasborn in a small villagealong the seacoast innorthern Britain—theforemost edge of Roman rule.The Celtic Christians of that re-gion had enjoyed a measure ofpeace and prosperity for genera-tions. Patrick’s father, a minor

nobleman, was a deacon and leader in the localCeltic community. As a young teen Patrick wouldhave enjoyed exploring the cliffs and roaming thebeaches near his home. For centuries, the Roman Legions had protectedthe Britons from foreign attack. But one day in 400A.D. the soldiers packed up and sailed away in a fu-tile effort to save Rome. They never returned.Britain was left without any defenses against the wildScottish Picts to the north and the fierce Vikingraiders from Scandinavia. It was with good reasonthat lands outside the boundaries of the Empire werelabeled “Here do be monsters” on Roman maps.And just as fierce and fearsome as the Picts andVikings were the Irish pirates who specialized inwhat we would today call “human trafficking.” Theyouth of Britain were their nearest targets, less thanone hundred miles across the Irish Sea.Sixteen-year-old Patrick was a prime

prospect for the viciousslavers.

THE ATTACKOne night,

under cover of darkness,the pirates attacked. Thecarefree lives of Patrickand thousands of Britishyouth were about tochange forever.

Patrick of Irelandpart one

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JOURNALW O R L D H I S T O R Y I N S T I T U T E

january/february 2018 • a biblical worldview to win the future

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For the next six years Patrick was a slave to Miliucc.He lived in the fields with the tyrant’s sheep, fightingoff packs of wolves and wild boars on the slopes ofMount Slemish. Patrick explains his condition: “I didnot believe in the living God, nor did I so from mychildhood, but lived in death and unbelief until I was se-verely chastised … by hunger and nakedness and thatdaily.”5

“WITH ALL MY HEART” Patrick remembered the faith of his family, especiallythat of his father and grandfather. He continues: “Butafter I came to Ireland—every day I had to tend sheep,and many times a day I prayed—the love of God and Hisfear came to me more and more, and my faith wasstrengthened. And my spirit was moved so that in a singleday I would say as many as a hundred prayers, and almostas many in the night, and this even when I was staying inthe woods and on the mountain; and I used to get up forprayer before daylight, through snow, through frost,through rain, and I felt no harm.”6

What happened next transformed this boy into apowerful, faith-filled believer and premier visionary of hisage. Patrick describes His conversion: “There the Lordopened the sense of my unbelief that I might at last re-member my sins and be converted with all my heart tothe Lord my God.”7

THE ESCAPE After years as a slave, Patrick experienced a vividdream. He says that the Lord called him to walk twohundred miles to the east where a ship would be waitingto take him to freedom. Patrick followed the Lord’s di-rection and walked all the way across Ireland as a fugitivewithout being detected. A ship was there, but the pagancaptain at first rejected Patrick’s request to come aboard.

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Blowing their battle horns, the raiders swarmed out ofdozens of longboats. Bloodthirsty Irish warriors in fullbattle gear rushed into Patrick’s hamlet. They killed themajority of the villagers but captured the young, thestrong and the beautiful in nets and dragged them to thecoast. They beat them into submission and threw theminto the belly of their ships, like live fish in a bait tank. After their merciless looting and pillaging the piratesset out to sea and returned to Ireland with their cargo.Of all the captives taken that day, only Patrick was everheard from again. He wrote, “I was about sixteen yearsof age. I did not know the true God. I was taken intocaptivity to Ireland with many thousands of people...”2

Patrick arrived beaten, bloody and bound at Larne,the slave traders’ port in northern Ireland. He was soldto a Druid warlord named Miliucc. Miliucc boundPatrick and other captives in chains and force-marchedthem behind his chariots for the six-day journey back tohis fort in the frigid north of Ireland. When Patrick approached his slave master’s fort hemust have been shaken. The Druid obsession withdeath and human sacrifice surrounded him. Humanheads were impaled on the walls of the fort. Humanskulls were used as drinking bowls. Warriors hung theshrunken skulls of their enemies from their belts.3

The Irish were kept in constant fear by their Druidpriests who demand human sacrifices to their manygods. Patrick likely observed the Druid ritual sacrifice ofBeltaine, “the Wicker Man” ceremony. The Roman em-peror, Julius Caesar, described this ritual: “[They] usefigures of immense size, whose limbs, woven out oftwigs, they fill with living men and set on fire, and themen perish in a sheet of flame.”4 Caesar said that whenthe supply of criminals ran out the Druids simply exe-cuted the innocent.

The northern coast of Ireland near where 16-year-old Patrick was taken by the slave master, Miliucc

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Here in this seaport town Patrick faced his moment ofgreatest danger. In minutes he would be recognized as afugitive slave. But suddenly, just as Patrick was prayingas he walked away from the ship, he heard a voice fromthe ship, “Come quickly, they’re calling you!... Come onboard, we’ll take you on trust.” They set to sail immediately and endured a harrow-ing voyage. Then they trudged for 28 days through apart of Gaul (France) that had just been decimated bythe rampaging Visogoths who were closing in on Rome.There were few people and only bits of food left in theentire region. Patrick writes: “… for twenty-eight days we trav-elled through deserted country. … Hunger overcameus; and the next day the captain said to me: ‘Tell me,Christian: you say that your God is great and all-power-ful; why, then, do you not pray for us? As you can see,we are suffering from hunger; it is unlikely indeed thatwe shall ever see a human being again.’” Patrick answered: “‘Be truly converted with all yourheart to the Lord my God, because nothing is impossi-ble for Him ... suddenly a herd of pigs appeared in theroad before our eyes, and they killed many of them …and fully recovered their strength.”8

Soon after this miracle, Patrick was released to makehis own way. Here he may have spent some time atmonastery in Gaul and also southern Briton. But after afew years, the future liberator returned to his family inNorthwestern Britain. Patrick tells of his happy reunion:“And again after a few years I was in Britain with my kinwho received me as a son, and sincerely besought me

that … after the great tribulations which I had under-gone, I should not leave them and go elsewhere.”9

There was no need ever to put to sea again. Sur-rounded by his family, in good financial circumstances,Patrick was ready to assume the role for which his birthand upbringing would have prepared him—marriage, ahome of his own, children, perhaps a job in the munici-pality, or an ordination such as had been taken by his fa-ther. Magonus Sucatus [Patrick] would never have beenheard from again, in this life, or any other.”10

THE CALL Soon after returning home Patrick experienced sev-eral life-changing experiences and visions that wouldchange the course of history. Patrick describes one ofhis dreams: “In the depth of the night, I saw a mannamed Victoricus, coming as if from Ireland, with in-numerable letters; and I read the heading of [one] let-ter which read, ‘The Cry of the Irish’, and while I wasreading … I heard the voice of those who were besidethe wood of Focluth [near where Patrick had been en-slaved], near the western sea … they called out:‘Please, holy youth, come and walk among us again…’Their cry pierced to my very heart, and I could read nomore; and so I awoke.”11

Inexplicably, Patrick’s heart was filled with a lovefor the Irish people. He spent the next decade or morepreparing to go to the Irish with the Good News ofJesus and the whole counsel of God’s Word. Over thenext 40 years, Patrick’s influence would shape the fatenot only of Ireland but of Europe and the westernworld.

— Marshall Foster———————

REFERENCES:1 Ted Byfield, The Christians: Darkness Descends, (Friezens Corp. 2003), pgs. 117-118

2 Patrick, Confession, Ludwig Bieler, translator, (Christian Classics Ethereal Library)

3 Thomas Cahill, How the Irish Saved Civilization, (Random House, New York, 1995), pg. 136

4 Ted Byfield, The Christians: Pinch of Incense, (Friezens Corp. 2003), Pg. 146

5 Patrick, Confession6 Ibid.7 Ibid.8 Ibid.9 Ibid.10 Paul Gallico, The Steadfast Man, (Doubleday, New York, 1958), pg. 42

11 Patrick, ConfessionSaint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, Ireland

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World History InstituteP.O. Box 4673Thousand Oaks, CA 91359(805) 523-0072www.WorldHistoryInstitute.com

Dear Friend,

This new year is unfolding as a time of un-precedented opportunity to share the trueheritage of freedom and the true and lastingsolutions found only in Biblical Christianity.The Secular Progressive ideology which hasswept throughout societies around the globehas left the world in shambles.

However, the afflictions people have sufferedin turning away from God’s ways are awak-ening millions of individuals to search foranswers. As the Psalmist proclaims, “Before I was afflicted, I went astray…” Every greatawakening in history has been sparked by adversity. This pain is causing millions inAmerica to renew their faith in God’s his-toric, lasting answers to our crisis.

This month I had two speaking engagementsin Ventura County, California—the epicenterof the largest wildfire and the worst coastalmudslides in California history. Christians to whom I spoke were unanimous in theirdesire for God to intervene and draw peopleacross California back to Himself. The call toaction is being received with enthusiasm andurgency.

Please pray for me as I speak to a large num-ber of pastors in California at the Capitol inSacramento, February 12-13. These pastorsare heeding the call to be watchmen on thewall to our state. And please pray as well as Iaddress the educators in training at ColoradoChristian University in March. I will beteaching them America’s history of Christian

education and then taking them on a teach-ing tour of the Historic East Coast nextspring.

Thank you for your faith-ful support of the WorldHistory Institute. You en-able us to reach into indi-vidual communities, tochurches and to schoolsand colleges as well. Thereis no doubt in my mindthat we are a part of God’sarmy of compassion that can, and by Hisgrace, will bring America back to God.

May the Lord bless you in your mission forHim,

Marshall FosterPresident, World History Institute.

P.S. As a thank-you for your gift in anyamount to World History Institute, I wouldlike to send you a hardback copy of an inspi-rational book by John C. Maxwell — Run-ning with the Giants: What Old TestamentHeroes Want You to Know about Life andLeadership. I think you will find this book agreat blessing as you envision the “greatcloud of witnesses” who ran the race of faithages before we were born yet speak to uswith such clarity today.

A Word from Marshall Foster