The same author gives another reason for calling in question this part
of the text of the "Confession" in the "Book of Armagh." A scribe made
an addition to the genealogy of St. Patrick as recorded in the Book,
writing on the margin "Son of Odisseus"; and these words are actually
introduced into the text by Dr. Whitley Stokes, in his edition of the
"Confession," without either note or comment. It is easy to imagine,
therefore, that ancient Celtic writers, with their passion for
genealogies, should tamper with the ancestors of St. Patrick.
Nicholson, a distinguished Irish scholar, was, of opinion that the
addition "a deacon" was mere guesswork on the part of the copyist, and
wrote "incertus liber hic"--"the book is here unreliable" ("St.
Patrick, Apostle of Ireland," Appendix, pp. 286--288).

Moreover, if the word "a deacon" in the "Book of Armagh" is the true
reading, it must surely be a matter for surprise that St. Patrick, who
sternly enforced the law of celibacy in Ireland as part of the
discipline of the Catholic Church, should describe himself as the son
of a deacon without either comment or explanation, and more especially
when we remember that the Council of Elvira, A.D. 305, and the Council
of Aries, A.D. 314, had enforced the laws of celibacy--"The severe
discipline of the Councils of Elvira and Aries," writes Alzog,
"obtained the force of law and became general throughout the Western
Church" ("Universal Church History," vol. i., chap, iv., pp. 280, 281).
The practice of clerical celibacy, therefore, existed in the Western
Church probably before Calphurnius was born, and certainly before he
was old enough to get married.

Calphurnius was admittedly a decurion, or Roman officer. Now Pope
Innocent I., in his Letter to Exuperius, Bishop of Toulouse, in the
year 405, in answer to a number of questions submitted to him by the