The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick/The Life and Acts of St. Patrick/Chapter 5
CHAPTER V.
How he produced Fire from Ice.
Though Saint Patrick, in his childish years, sometimes thought as a child and acted as a child, yet do his illustrious works declare how precious was he in the eyes of Him who was for us born a child. And on a certain day, the winter then freezing everything, the boy Patrick, being engaged in their sports with boys of his own age, gathered many pieces of ice in his bosom, and bore them home, and cast them down in the court-yard; but his nurse, seeing this, said to him that it were better he had collected wood for the hearth than have played with pieces of ice. And the boy, speaking with the tongue of an aged man, answered unto her: "It is easy for the Lord, who created all things, even from these to supply the hearth; and at His nod, so that faith be not wanting, it is easy for fire to prevail over water; and that thou mayest know," said he, "how possible are all things to them who believe, thy faith shall be an eye-witness of that which I say unto thee." And he heaped together the pieces of ice, like brands for the fire, and he prayed, and, making the sign of the cross, he breathed on them, and immediately fire went forth, and, lighting the ice, produced long streams of flame; yet not only did the hearth give warmth to all who came near, but it ministered much cause of admiration, for out of the mouth of the boy Patrick was seen to issue flame instead of breath, that he might plainly appear to be illuminated within by the infinite light of the divine grace. Nor does this miracle much fall short of that ancient miracle which the Scripture records to have been performed by Nehemias; for when he brought back into the land of Juda the people of the Hebrews after their long captivity, restored to freedom by Cyrus, the King of Persia, he commanded the place to be searched out wherein their fathers had hidden the fire of the sacrifice; in which, when discovered, the fire was not found, but thick water; the which Nehemias commanded to be brought, and the sacrifice to be sprinkled therewith; and immediately a great fire was kindled, and it consumed the holocaust and burned the hard stones. So was the congealed water burned up by the power of the same fire which, proceeding from water, did burn to ashes the sacrifice and the stones of the altar. Therefore is the strangeness of this miracle to be admired, the holiness of Patrick to be venerated, and in all these things the power of the omnipotent God to be adored; and herein by a most evident sign did the Lord illustrate Saint Patrick, whose preaching afterward inflamed many that had been frozen in unbelief with the fire of faith and of the charity of God.