Okay. Patrick of Ireland did not write a treatise
on religious liberty. Or specifically mention it in his writings. But it is St.
Patrick’s Day. And what I have below is a quote from Patrick of Ireland (from
two different translations). In his letter to the soldiers of Coroticus Patrick
asserted that Christians should be able to exist and worship free of
molestation, appealed not to authorities but directly to the guilty parties,
and showed that those who had molested Christians were guilty before God and
that God, not Patrick, would take care of it.
“That is why I will cry aloud with sadness and
grief: O my fairest and most loving brothers and sisters whom I begot without
number in Christ, what am I to do for you? I am not worthy to come to the aid
either of God or of human beings. The evil of evil people has prevailed over
us. We have been made as if we were complete outsiders. Can it be they do not
believe that we have received one and the same Baptism, or that we have one and
the same God as father. For them, it is a disgrace that we are from Ireland.
Remember what Scripture says: ‘Do you not have the one God? Then why have you
each abandoned your neighbour?’”
From Letter to
the Soldiers of Coroticus © 2011 Royal Irish Academy
“Because of all this, my voice is raised in sorrow
and mourning. Oh, my most beautiful, my lovely brethren and my sons ‘whom I
begot in Christ,’ I have lost count of your number, what can I do to help you
now? I am not worthy to come to the help of God or men. ‘We have been
overwhelmed by the wickedness of unjust men,’ it is as if ‘we had been made
outsiders.’ They find it unacceptable that we are Irish. But it says ‘Is it not
true that you all have but one God? Why then have you, each one of you,
abandoned your own neighbor?’”
From Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus, translated by John Skinner in his book The Confession of St. Patrick
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