St. Patrick calls Coroticus, a British prince, “Fellow Citizen”
It is objected again that St. Patrick called the followers of Coroticus, who were Britons, his fellow citizens, and that, therefore, the Saint and the island Britons are of the same nationality.
The objection is founded on St. Patrick’s “Epistle to Coroticus,” in which the following words occur:
“I have vowed to my God to teach this people, although I should be despised by them, to whom I have written with my own hand to be given to the soldiers to be forwarded to Coroticus. I do not say to my fellow citizens, nor to the fellow citizens of the pious Romans, but to the fellow citizens of the devil, through their evil deeds and hostile practices.”
As the Romans had abandoned Britain long before the letter to Coroticus was written, it is somewhat difficult to understand the precise meaning of the words just quoted:
“I do not say to my fellow citizens, or to the fellow citizens of the pious Romans,” unless some of the soldiers of Coroticus were, like St. Patrick, Roman freemen. The word “citizen” in the Roman sense was as wide as the extent of the Roman Empire.
Although the soldiers of Coroticus are also called “fellow citizens of the pious Romans,” no one would surely dream of saying that the soldiers of Coroticus and the pious Roman were actually of the same nationality.
St. Patrick could, therefore, call the soldiers of Coroticus in the same sense his “fellow citizens,” without implying that he was of the same race.
If, however, the soldiers of Coroticus were Roman freemen, they would be fellow citizens of St. Patrick and fellow citizens of the Romans, although of different nationalities.
The indignant protest made by the Saint in the same letter, that “free-born Christian men are sold and enslaved amongst the wicked, abandoned, and apostate Picts,” greatly favours our interpretation of “fellow citizens.”
It must, however, be acknowledged that there is a considerable amount of obscurity about the meaning of the words, which are so confidently interpreted as signifying that the Apostle of Ireland was a native of Great Britain.
But the words as they stand cannot be fairly assumed to prove that St. Patrick was a “fellow countryman” of the soldiers of Coroticus, unless they prove with equal force that the Romans were of the same nationality as the soldiers of Coroticus.
The quotation proves too much and, therefore, it proves nothing.
Boulogne-sur-Mer: St. Patrick's Native Town - Paperback Edition
Boulogne-sur-Mer: St. Patrick's Native Town - Kindle Edition