Part IV
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And therefore I grieve for you, how I mourn for you, who are so very dear to me, but again I can rejoice within my heart, not for nothing “have I labored,” neither has my exile been “in vain.”
And if this wicked deed, so horrible, so unutterable, had to happen, thanks be to God, as men, believing and baptized, you have left this world behind for paradise. I can see you all clearly: you have set out for where “there will be no more night,” “no more lament, neither death.”
“There your hearts will leap, like calves let free from the tether, and you will trample down the wicked underfoot, and they will be like dust under your feet.” Phil. 2:16 Apoc. 22:5, 21:4 MaL 4:Z 3
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Therefore will you reign with the apostles and the prophets and all the martyrs. You will attain the eternal kingdoms. just as he testifies, exactly as he declares: “They will come from East and the West, and they will rest with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in thekingdom of heaven.” “While outside howl the dogs, the poisoners, the homicides,” and “Their fate, with liars and perjurers, is the lake of everlasting fire.”Where, says the Apostle, not without reason, “The ‘Just man will scarcely be saved, yet the sinner and the flagrant lawbreaker, where shall he stand?” Matt. 8:11 Apoc. 22:15 Apoc. 21:8 I Pet. 4:18
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And so, now you, Coroticus-and your gangsters, rebels all against Christ, now where do you see yourselves? You gave away girls like prizes: not yet women, but baptized. All for some petty temporal gain that will pass in the very next instant. “Like a cloud passes, or smokeblown in the wind,” so will “sinners, who cheat, slip away from the face of the Lord. But the just will feast for sure” with Christ. “They will judge thenations” and unjust kings “they will lord over” for world after world. Amen. Wisd. 5:14 Ps. 68:2, 3; 3:8
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I bear witness before God and his angels that this will come about, just as he has revealed my lack of learning. To repeat: these are not my words, but God’s own words-and the apostle’s and the prophets’, which I have merely chiseled out in Latin: and theyhave never lied. “He who is found to have believed will be saved; but he who did not believe will be condemned, God has spoken.” Mk. 16:15, 16
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My chief request is that anyone who is a servant of God be ready and willing, to carry this letter forward; may it never be hidden or stolen by anyone, but rather, may it be read aloud before the whole people-Yes, even when Coroticus himself is present.
May God inspire these men sometime to come to their senses in regard to God again, so that they may repent, however latter day, of their grave crimes, namely homicide against the brothers of the Lord, and that they free these baptized women whom they have taken, so that then they may deserveto live to God and be made whole once more, here, now and for eternity.Peace to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. AMEN.
Translated by John Skinner in his book “The Confession of St. Patrick”.
