Baring-Gould’s sources: Irish Martyrologies. Authorities: — Mention in the lives of S. Patrick, and his own life, a late composition.] Mochteus, a Briton, the son of a bard named Hoa, came with his parents to Ireland, at the beginning of the 6th century. He and his father and mother were Christians, and they gladly hailed S. Patrick as an apostle. Mochteus was sent to Rome, where he collected a dozen zealous men to come out to Patrick, to assist in the conversion of Ireland. He settled at Louth, where he was speedily surrounded by disciples, and was finally perhaps consecrated bishop. The tripartite Life calls him S. Patrick’s arch-priest, and in the book of Sligo he is styled simply “ sacerdos.” Yet, the Calendar of Cashel, and the Donegal Martyrology, speak of him as a bishop, and are followed by the Four Masters. Adamnan, however, in his second preface to the life of S. Columba, speaks of him as “ a British proselyte, a holy man, the disciple of S. Patrick, the bishop.’' It is therefore doubtful if he ever received episcopal orders. Had he so done, Adamnan would have spoken of him as a bishop. He was the youngest and last surviving disciple of S. Patrick.

The life of the saint, a late composition, is a collection of marvels. It relates how as a child he learned letters from an angel who brought him a waxed slate for the purpose from heaven. This slate the saint afterwards presented to the Pope. Also how, when he sailed with his disciples for Ireland, one who had been inadvertently left behind, tore off a tree bough and was wafted over the waters on the green fronds, to the retreating ship of Mochteus. He received the viaticum from the hands of S. Dageus, and died in 535.