I've been listening to an unabridged audio recording of Thomas Cahill's How the Irish Saved Civilization. In the book, Cahill proposes the idea that class prejudice and racial prejudice may have prevented the creation of missionaries up until Patrick - mainly seeing that being Roman and being Christian were considered to be synonymous during this period.
I don't know enough history of this era to agree or disagree, but it has set my mind to wandering. I've been considering if whether those we consider to be Church Fathers grew to be considered as such because they were honestly the Greats or if there was not some forgotten prejudice to cause these to be the ones who survived. If this is so, who has been forgotten who we may desperately still need? It just seems that the church has a history of loving power and prestige whereas Christ taught that the greatest must be a servant to all. Most of the Church Fathers seem to have some scar on their record coming from the belief that they were better than some other group whether it be women, pagans, other cultures, etc. I know this doesn't mean they thus have nothing to offer, but I still find it troublesome.
Anyway, none of this has been about St. Patrick and perhaps this doesn't flow so gracefully, but still I offer the following quote from the above volume.
Patrick's emotional grasp of Christian truth nay have been greater than Augustine's. Augustine looked into his own heart and found there the inexpressible anguish of each individual, which enabled him to articulate a theory of sin that has no equal-the dark side of Christianity. Patrick prayed, made peace with God, and then looked not only into his own heart but into the hearts of others. What he saw convinced him of the bright side-that even slave traders can turn into liberators, even murderers can act as peacemakers, even barbarians can take their places among the nobility of heaven. [115]
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