Patrick of Ireland
Nicene & Post-Nicene · AD 325–500 · d. AD 461 · 2 passages across 1 books
Commentary
Jeremiah 9:12-16
Who is the wise man, that may understand this? and who is he to whom the mouth of the LORD hath spoken, that he may declare it, for what the land perisheth and is burned up like a wilderness, that none passeth through?
I was then about sixteen years of age. I did not know the true God. I was taken as a captive to Ireland with many thousands of people, and deservedly so, because we had turned away from God and did not keep his commandments and did not obey our priests, who used to remind us of our salvation. The Lord brought over us the wrath of his anger and scattered us among many nations, even unto the utmost part of the earth, where now my insignificance is placed among strangers.
Jeremiah 16:19
O LORD, my strength, and my fortress, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the Gentiles shall come unto thee from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein there is no profit.
For I am very much God’s debtor, who gave me such great grace that many people were reborn in God through me and afterwards confirmed, and that clerics were ordained for them everywhere, for a people just coming to the faith, whom the Lord took from the utmost parts of the earth, as he once had promised through His prophets: “To you the Gentiles shall come from the ends of the earth and shall say, ‘How false are the idols that our ancestors got for themselves, and there is no profit in them.’ ” And again: “I have set you as a light among the Gentiles, that you may be for salvation unto the utmost part of the earth.”