St Patrick's Breastplate

CHAPTER III

ST. PATRICK'S BREASTPLATE

 

Sing with the Understanding

G.R. Balleine (1954)

 

I bind unto myself today

 

ONE hymn in our books may be a hundred years older than Fortunatus. It is known as St. Patrick's Breastplate, and, if he was really the author, it must have been written in the middle of the fifth century. The tradition that attributes it to him is by no means incredible. Its language is so extremely archaic that some of the words baffle the best Irish scholars, and its background fits the age of the early missions. Ireland was evidently still largely heathen. The writer prays for deliverance from the black laws of paganism, the incantations of false prophets, and the hostile men who bar his course. He himself has not entirely shaken off his awe of the Druids, and asks to be delivered from their spells.

 

St. Patrick's home was in South Wales; but somewhere about the year 400, when he was a lad of sixteen, he was kidnapped by Irish raiders, and for six years worked as a slave in Ireland, and so learnt to speak Irish. He then escaped to Gaul on a ship exporting Irish wolf-hounds, and entered a monastery. In middle life he began to feel that God was calling him to return to Ireland as a missionary, and with great difficulty he persuaded the Church authorities to let him go.

 

He was almost the first missionary to try to convert barbarians. Hitherto nearly all the triumphs of the Church had been won inside the Roman Empire. In Asia Minor, Egypt and North Africa, in Greece and Italy and Spain, in Gaul and Britain the people had been for centuries comparatively civilized. There were towns and roads, law courts and schools, and books were bought and studied. Ireland however had never formed part of the Empire. It was still a bear-garden of warring clans who worshipped outlandish deities, and lived in daily awe of the black magic of the Druids. It is interesting to see what kind of hymn the missionaries gave these wild men of the bogs and mountains.

 

One feature of Irish paganism was the immense importance attached to charms and incantations. The repetition of certain rhymes was supposed to ward off every danger. The missionaries took advantage of this, and encouraged their converts to learn hymns for the same purpose. These hymns were called Loricas, the Latin word for "breastplates." Our present hymn is one of them. Its ancient Irish preface declares: "This is a breastplate for the protection of body and soul. Whoever sings it every day with pious thought of God, devils shall not stand before him. It will save him from every poison, shield him from sudden death, and, when he dies, it will safeguard his soul."

 

Several English translations exist, but most hymnals have chosen the excellent one by Mrs. Alexander, wife of the Bishop of Derry, whose children's hymns, "There is a green hill" and "Do no sinful action" are known everywhere. In the original the opening line is Atomriug indiu niurt tren togairm Trinoit. A literal translation of the first verse runs: "I bind unto myself today [or, according to some scholars, "Today I arise in] that mighty force, the invocation of the Trinity. I believe that the Creator of all creation is Three in One and One in Three."

 

These missionaries did not dodge the more difficult articles of their Creed, They preached no vague shadowy Deity; they made no attempt to identify their God with the local Gods of the Irish. They preached inflexibly the God of the Creeds, Who was Three in One and One in Three. But the soundest of Creeds is useless unless you act on it, as useless as a railway timetable to a man who never enters a train. So Patrick taught the Irish, not only to believe in God, but every day to place their lives in His keeping:

 

I bind unto myself today

The strong Name of the Trinity.

 

John McNeil, the Scottish Evangelist, used to say that Religion first became real to him, when, as a boy lying in bed, he heard his quarryman father say every morning as he started for work, "I go forth in the strength of the Lord."

 

But the Triune God has been "manifested in the flesh" in the Person of Jesus Christ; so these Irish were taught to remind themselves of all they had learnt about Him. The Anglican Catechism says, "Rehearse the Articles of thy Belief." "Herse" was Old English for "a harrow." To herse a field meant to harrow it, to turn the clods over and over. To re-herse was to harrow it again. To rehearse our Creed is to turn each clause over in our mind, till nothing remains buried and dormant, Christ's incarnation, His baptism. His death on the Cross, "His bursting from the spiced tomb," His ascension, "His coming at the Day of Doom." This is what Patrick trained his converts to do.

 

The next verse reminds them of the tremendous background behind their Religion, the ministry of Angels, the preaching of the Apostles, the death of the Martyrs, the "good deeds done" by innumerable faithful Saints.

 

Then the hymn looks in a new direction. Irish Paganism was Nature Worship. Christianity might seem to be rashly challenging the stupendous powers of Nature. If you joined the Church, the thunder and lightning, the storm and the tempest, would all be leagued against you. Patrick emphatically denied this. He asserted that the God of the Creeds was the God of Nature. Every Christian could claim as allies "the star-lit heaven," "the glorious sun," ' 'the deep salt sea," and so on.

 

Then the thought turns back again Godwards. Someone has said: "The value of a Religion depends entirely on the sufficiency of its idea of God." These Irish rehearsed in their minds all that their God would do for them; He would hold them up, so that they would be safe; His Eye would watch over them; His Ear would ever be open to their prayers; He would teach, and guide, and shield. And, the hymn adds, they would need His help against "the snares of sin," "the natural lusts that war within," "false words of heresy," "knowledge that defiles," and many another danger.

 

The seventh verse in the Irish contains some lines which Mrs. Alexander in her English version has rather watered down, lines which remind us that they were written in the fifth century, not the twentieth, in days when Paganism was still powerful, and even Christians were still a trifle afraid of its wizardry. In the original Irish they claim God's help against "all the wiles of idolatry, the spells of women" (for women were supposed to have knowledge of which mere men knew nothing), "the spells of the smiths" (the wandering tinkers who also had jealously guarded secrets), and, most dangerous of all, the awful "spells of the Druids."

 

In one museum is an ancient map of the world on which the maker has covered all the unexplored parts of Asia and Africa with warnings, "Here be Dragons!" "Here be Gryffons! ' " ' Here be Vampires! ' ' But followers of St. Francis used that map in planning their missionary journeys, and they scratched out these alarming inscriptions and substituted in every case, "Here be God!"

 

Faith in God removes all fears, baseless or well-founded. Bishop Westcott said: "A Christian is one who throws himself with absolute confidence on the Living Lord." This is the spirit which the missionaries instilled into their Irish converts.

 

Then the hymn changes its beat, both in the Irish and English. The Irish here is sp very archaic that lines 5and 6 puzzle every expert. Some would translate them: ' 'Christ in the Fort. Christ in the Chariot-seat. Christ on the Poop." But, whichever translation is right,  what a charming picture this verse gives us of the Comrade Christ, Christ our daily Companion, whatever we do!

 

The closing verse returns to the thought with which we began: "I bind unto myself the strong Name of the . Trinity." Taken as a whole the hymn is a magnificent study in Faith. The Irish name for it is Faed Fiada, the Deer's cry, a reference to the Psalm, "Like as the deer desireth the water brooks, so longeth my soul after Thee, O God." This suggests how we should use it. We too are beset with dangers, and our only hope of safety lies in "the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit." We need to bind to ourselves all the powers of the Blessed Trinity.

 

No one knows to what tune the Irish words were sung; but most books set the main part of Mrs. Alexander's version to a traditional Irish melody, which once belonged to the Latin words of "Jesu, the very thought is sweet." The verse where the rhythm changes is differently treated by different editors.