St. Patrick and Ireland's "snakes"

There is a “tradition” that St. Patrick rid the island of Ireland of snakes. Why do I say a “tradition”? Because the evidence is that Ireland NEVER had snakes to begin with. Most scholars are skeptics and unbelievers anyway, and so they dismiss anything claimed about St. Patrick’s miracles.

But I am a believer. I aspire to the supernatural. I personally have seen and continue to see God move in supernatural ways, and Patrick is one of my models, one of my heroes. I have a Celtic Cross tattooed on my wrist, and I wear a Celtic Cross around my neck. I am an ordained priest in a Charismatic, Evangelical Diocese called ‘The Diocese of St. Patrick’. So, I am a firm believer that St. Patrick moved in genuine Apostolic power in his incredible ministry. A ministry that included remarkable, undeniable acts of God to prove to the pagan Druids that Christ’s Kingdom was superior to the powers of their false god/s.

So, now we go back to the issue of the snakes and Patrick’s so-called miracle of banishing snakes from Ireland.

When I was researching a bit about Patrick’s habit of fasting I ran into the following quote: “St Patrick’s other famous miracle, the banishment of the snakes, is supposed to have occurred following his Great Fast (meaning Lent) on the mount Croagh Patrick, outside Westport in County Mayo. St Patrick climbed the mountain where he fasted for 40 days, before expelling all the snakes from Ireland. The fact is that there were never actually any snakes in Ireland to expel, the whole episode is really symbolic of Saint Patrick converting the natives to Christianity and banishing the Druids whose symbol was the serpent”.

Source: https://www.discoveringireland.com/saint-patrick-life-and-legend/

I would have dismissed this source as another unbelieving source seeking to “demythologize” the life of Patrick, but then I realized something. The Druids worshipped a false god (or gods) that would have been one (or more) of the fallen angels that God had placed over the nations (Deuteronomy 32, Psalm 82). And that if the category of angelic being that was put over Ireland was the Seraphim, then the elevation and worship of a serpent-like god amongst the Irish pagans makes complete sense.

If you follow this logic, and the Biblical narrative about the false gods of the nations being angelic beings who rebelled against Yahweh, and if the ‘god’ (or gods) that were over Ireland was a serpentine-like fallen Seraph, then truly Patrick did banish the snakes from Ireland! Not physical snakes, but another type of 'snakes' - the demonic fallen Seraphim who deceived the pagan Druids. (Note: the symbol of the snake/serpents is known all throughout the world as representing the divine).

St. Patrick climbed a mountain (mountains were always in the ancient world the abode of the ‘gods’), and while fasting for 40 days during Lent (the Great Fast), the story goes that spiritual breakthrough came in Ireland. Was this, in fact, the turning point in Ireland's conversion to Christ? Were the years of ministry leading up to this particular fast more frustrating as Patrick and his disciples battled the pagan Druids for the minds and the hearts of the Irish people? I don’t know. We will never know. Patrick fasted and prayed as a lifestyle for his entire ministry in Ireland.

But as we are battling today, many godless and/or pagan ideologies – I think of the Luciferian globalists today who are so powerfully deceiving countless millions of people around the world, might we remember that the testimony of Patrick is that as he prayed and fasted, the spiritual breakthrough in Ireland came! What would happen in America if God’s people fasted the way Patrick fasted? Tomorrow’s post, which I always repost on St. Patrick's Day, will talk about the impact of Patrick’s life on Ireland as a whole.

While recently in Washington DC, I heard David Barton talk about revivals in American history, and that none of them in the past 150 years have actually impacted the culture. Maybe a fasting church will ensure that the next revival transforms American society and culture as the earliest ones genuinely did (i.e., 1st and 2nd Great Awakenings)

This great battle, the one Patrick and his communities battled in the 5th century onwards, is the same battle we engage in today. The minds and hearts of countless millions are still held in bondage to godless modern ideologies and to ancient demonic ones of the false religions all around the world.

Maybe God is looking for a few more “Patricks” today – those who will do whatever it takes (even 40-day fasts to engage the spiritual realm) to see the Lordship of Christ lifted up, preached even as His eternal Kingdom is being established “on earth as it is in heaven”.