The Life of Saint Patrick: Large Print Edition

The Life of St. Patrick (Leabhar Breac, 9th century) "Populus qui sedebat in tenebris vidit lucem magnam." The people that sat in darkness beheld a great light. Et sedentibus in regione et in umbra mortis lux orta eis. They that were in the land and in the shadow of death found a light whence came their illumination. The Holy Spirit, the spirit which is nobler than every spirit, the spirit which inspired both churches of the Old Law and of the New Testament with the grace of wisdom and prophecy, it was that spirit which spake those words through the mouth of the chief prophet Isiah, son of Amoz; de cujus laude dicitur quod non tam dicendus esset propheta quam evangelista. To praise him, St. Jerome said that it were meeter to call him an evangelist than a prophet, because of the clearness and the fitness for the New Testament wherewith he told the tidings of Christ. Ita enim universa Christi ecclesiaeque mysteria ad lucidum prosecutus est ut non eum putes de futuro vaticinari sed de praeterito historiam texere. For such was the clearness wherewith he told all the mysteries of Christ and the Holy Church that one would not think that it was a prophecy of things to come he was making, but a declaration of things already foregone after they had been done completely. Now one of his manifest prophecies is what is here set forth through a narrative of what is past.