The essay on Saint Patrick was of average quality. It covered most of the important aspects of his life but failed to mention some important events. There are some things in the paper that I do not agree with. This is not very significant since so much about St. Patrick is speculation and not hard facts. Finally, the word choice and sentence structure make the paper difficult to follow.
"The Missionary" starts out by telling of young Patrick's life. It explains that the exact time of Saint Patrick's birth is unknown. However, the writer states that he thinks it is sometime in the early part of the 5th century. He affirms this later in the paper when it is said that Saint Patrick returned to Ireland in the 432 A.D. However, he never supports the argument with any facts at all. In Patrick's Coroticus letter, he refers to the Franks as heathens. This indicates that the letter was written between 451 and 496 A.D when they were baptized en masse. This lets us know that Saint Patrick's missionary career took place in the second half of the 5th century, pointing to a birth in the first half. This is important information in order to give the paper credibility.
Another important aspect of Saint Patrick's life was his writings. There are only two short works the he is mainly known for but they tell so much about the man an what he believed in. The Confessio is a spiritual autobiography. It is based largely on his diary that he kept while a missionary. D.A. Binchy, generally accepted as the most noted scholar of Saint Patrick, explains how much of Patrick's life is revealed in The Confessio. Binchy says that his writings "mirror a truth and simplicity of the rarest quality" (Britannica On Line). Moreover, he says that "The moral and spiritual greatness of the man shines through every stumbling sentence of his 'rustic' Latin" (BOL). Saint Patrick's other famous work is his Epsitola, in which he criticized the cruel treatment of the Irish Christians by the British. Saint Patrick also had many letters and short essays that revealed a lot about himself and his mission. The writer of "The Missionary" fails to mention his writings. The entire paper concentrates on his mission alone with only brief, unsupported storied about other aspects of his life.
While the paper fell short in many aspects, it did do a very good job of covering Saint Patrick's mission. It tells of his first visit to Ireland as a captor and his subsequent return to convert the people to Christians. The essay includes adequate detail to retell the story without becoming dull or tedious. There is one point that the writer includes a few sentences about a sin Saint Patrick committed as a boy. He speculates that it was murder because of his age. However, we, as readers, never find out why he thinks it is murder. Moreover, we never get an explanation as to why this story is thrown into the middle of the paper. It seems to have no relevance on the mission.
The essay on Saint Patrick had its good points and its bad ones. It included what was important to Saint Patrick's mission but failed to mention some other important aspects of his life. Support and documentation would have given the paper more credibility and strength. Also, the style in which the paper was written made it difficult to follow. There was a lot of unnecessary
phrases and words in the paper. Much of what was said could have been done in half the words and it would have been a lot clearer that way. Overall, the paper was informative and I learned some good information about Saint Patrick and his mission in Ireland.