Saint Patrick & St Brigid - and Mary Magdalene?
Looking at the history and legacy of St Patrick through a different lens on his feast day
Happy St Patrick's Day everybody! And before we get too carried away with the very "en vogue" bashing of St Patrick, I want to provide a little perspective. Hear me out on this, and remember I was raised a pagan before you get upset with me. A lot of memes floating around calling St Patrick cruel and oppressive and the defeater of all things druidic, and I am here to say that may not be accurate or fair. I believe there is a lot of (very well-meaning) neo-pagan material which demonizes him well beyond what there is any historical evidence.
In fact, he may have just been something closer to tolerant, if not downright heroic. He may have even displayed exceptional respect for women in a spiritual capacity. As I have been explaining on various social media pages over the last two days, Patrick deserves some credit for being one of the male Christian missionaries who converted solely through the power of his oratory. He must have been exceptionally charismatic and persuasive. He shed not one drop of blood nor did he commit acts of physical violence. He was passionate yet peaceful. Committed yet compassionate.
According to Patrick's own autobiography, he was captured by Irish raiders when he was a teenager and enslaved on the west coast for six years. His captors were brutal pagans - not all ancient Irish pagans were lovely men in druid robes. It was during his captivity that he found hope in Christianity and began to pray in the Christian manner, and it was through visions he was given the means of escaping his slavery. But after fleeing to his homeland in Britain, he said he heard Ireland calling him to return and bring the Christian message, which he did, at great danger to himself.
Patrick was a mystic by definition. It is important to remember that a flourishing Roman church already had hold in Ireland and in his own time Patrick was doing battle with their oppressive dogma. Remember too that the stories of him converting pagans remind us that he was often working at a noble level - with kings and religious leaders, which required a firm stance. But with the common people, it appears he was careful to integrate their own traditions into the new Christian thought - which is why early Celtic Christianity is one of the most beautiful belief systems in human history (and produced some of the most stunning art in the world).
A century after Patrick’s death, a “vita” – a biography - was written about him by a priest called Muirchú under the guidance of a powerful bishop called Aed of Sletty (which is in modern county Laois). The depiction throughout this Life of St Patrick is of a man who is fiercely protective of the old ways and druidic traditions. In her thesis on St Patrick and the druids, scholar Lauren Humphrey says, “..though he (Patrick) is clearly a champion of the Christian cause, he also demonstrates similar characteristics to the pre-Christian guardians of Celtic culture and religion, the Druids. At times, Muirchú’s Patrick seems like a Christian Super-Druid – a religious leader who can do just what the Druids do, but even more.”
My favorite aspect of the Patrick story comes from evidence that he and St Brigid may have been close friends. It is said that she and her parents were baptized by Patrick, and that after this she evolves into the powerful abbess which we come to know later through her own story. A modern translation of the 9th century Book of Armagh states that “Between St Patrick and St Brigid, the pillars of the Irish people, there was so great a friendship of charity that they had but one heart and one mind.”
I have not had an opportunity to study this phrasing at length and would be very curious to see other translations of the text, as this language feels very intimate to me. One heart and One Mind. It puts me in mind of Francis and Clare, and of Jesus and Magdalene. When I was immersed in Celtic studies in Ireland throughout the 1980s, I came across the theory that Patrick passed his spiritual mantle on to the younger Brigid, trusting her more than any other to carry on his mission. Again, there is an echo of what we see later in Francis and Clare – and where it all began with Jesus and Magdalene.
In The Book of Love, my second novel in the Magdalene Line series, I write about a theory which claimed that St Patrick may have been a nephew of St Martin of Tours through a French-born mother. This brings us closer to legends of Magdalene and her authority in France. In fact, when we examine the stories of Magdalene converting the pagans in Marseille, her tactics are similar to those used by Patrick 500 years later. We also know that Magdalene assimilated into the local cultures of women, which is something the Brigid does in her own mission of conversion.
Early Christians in France preserved love and reverence for nature and the cycle of the year. Even the great symbol of French Catharism, Montsegur, was built as a solar temple and aligned to the solstice. This indicates that early Christianity in France was preserving the old ways in much the same way that Patrick is doing (ie, adding the solar disk to the Christian cross to create the Celtic Cross –yes I know there is a lot of argument about the origins of that cross, but for the sake of this theory I stand by it).
We know through Catharism that preaching in male/female pairs was common, if not preferred, and this may have come directly from the original source – Magdalene and Jesus. We see other examples of this in early Christianity with St Benedict and his twin sister, St Scholastica.
Is it possible that Patrick recognized Brigid as his worthy successor? Should we be viewing him from a different lens than the modern memes are asking us, as a “cruel oppressor of pagans”? Is he, in fact, an heir to the Magdalene culture in his own way, coming through his own family lineage and acting as a mystic and a powerful orator/teacher who sought to blend the beauty of both the ancient ways and the coming of a new belief? I believe this is a possibility which we should consider.
Finally I would like to say that I was raised in a family which hailed on my maternal side from the West of Ireland, and were practitioners of the old ways. I was not raised Christian, and in fact I grew up with the simple three-word slogan that “Christians burned pagans.” However, within that, my family revered the saints Francis, Patrick, and Brigid, recognizing them as mystics who loved their land and their God in a way that served nature and the people. My deeply druidic grandmother would be scandalized to hear the demonization of Patrick in modern times.
So today I invite you to celebrate the best of all things Irish, with lots of love, reverence and openness to possibility.
Sláinte
Kathleen x
Thank you, Kathleen, for your beautiful essay on the blending and merging of paganism and Christianity, as well as your subtle expression of natural law through your ever-present balancing of both the divine feminine and masculine. I am always heartened by your spiritually intelligent allegories of the courageous messengers who inspire conscious evolution, rather than the typical polarized, victim—perpetrator storylines.
So good! Opens many doors to new possibilities.