Patrick on the high road to St. Martin
at Marmoutier" ("Ireland and St. Patrick," pp. 35--40).
BRITAIN IN GAUL ST. PATRICK'S NATIVE COUNTRY.
UNLESS it can be proved that there was a province called Britain in
Gaul, and another Britain quite distinct from the Island of Britain, it
would be useless to argue that St. Patrick was a native of Gaul. The
Saint represents himself as a native of Britain; and even Probus, who
is credited with believing that St. Patrick was a native of Armoric
Gaul, distinctly states that the Saint was born in Britain (natus in
Britanniis). It is, however, not difficult to prove that there was a
province in Gaul called Britain (Britannia) even before the birth of
St. Patrick.
Strabo, in his "Description of Europe," narrates in the Fourth Book
that about 220 years before Christ, Publius Cornelius Scipio, the
father of Scipio Africanus, consulted the Roman deputies at Marseilles
about the cities of Gaul named Britannia, Narbonne, and Corbillo.
Sanson identifies Britannia with the present town of Abbeville on the
Somme. Dionysius, the author of "Perigesis," who wrote in the early
part of the first century, mentions the Britanni as settled on the
south of the Rhine, near the coast of Flanders.
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