Chapter 5 Summary and Analysis

In the thirty years Patrick spends helping the Irish "seize the everlasting kingdom", he attracts the kind of "off-center personalities" Jesus-but few others in church history-attracts. By 461, when Patrick likely dies, the Roman Empire has fifteen years left and is in deep chaos. Ireland, by contrast, is changing rapidly from chaos to peace, thanks not only to Patrick's "earthiness and warmth", which serve to lessen hostility and suspicion, but also to his demonstrating the classic Irish virtues of courage, steadfast loyalty, and generosity. Not since the fourth century, when Constantine blends Romanization and church membership, have preachers lacked worldly benefits to offer his converts, and bland, detached Christians like Ausonius are the result. Isolated in Ireland, Patrick can only appeal to Irish dreams, fears, and aspirations.

Artifacts and mythology reveal Ireland's pre-Christian world as inspiring nightmares, giving "the willies". The Irish...