Bolougne-Sur-Mer - St. Patrick's Native Town by William Fleming
page 68 of 77 (88%)
page 68 of 77 (88%)
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the same book, p. 431. Sulpicius Severusi an Aquitanian by birth,
speaks of the trial, condemnation and punishment of the Priscillian heretics by the secular Court at Treves in the year 389. Prisciallanus and his followers, Felicissimus, Armenianus, and a woman named Euchrosia were condemned to death and beheaded, but Instantias and Liberianus were banished to the Island of Sylena, "quas ultra Britanniarn sita est" (which is situated beyond Britain). Although it is not precisely known where the Island of Sylena was situated, except that it was somewhere beyond Britain, the Britain referred to surely must be Britain in Gaul, for it is incredible that the Gauls should possess a penal settlement in the North of Scotland, where Sylena must have been situated, if the words "beyond Britain" refer to the Island of Britain. It is evident that if Sulpicius, who was born in 360--thirteen years before St. Patrick--could speak of Armorica as Britannia, and the Armorican Bishops as Britons, when he wrote his "Sacred Histories," it cannot be a matter of surprise that St. Patrick, if born in Armorica at a later period, should speak of himself as a Briton, and say that he had relatives among the Britons. Armorica was called Britannia by Sulpicius Severus, but Sidonius Apollinarus, who flourished some time after, called the same country Armorica. It was not, however, unusual, as Carte points out, for the same people and the same country to be called by different names; for example, the Armorici and the Morini were one and the same people, whose names had the same signification--dwellers on the sea coast. (Carte, p. 16; Whitaker's "Genuine History of the Briton," pp. 216-- 219.) |
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