Edited from New light on the ancient mystery of Glastonbury, by John Michell, 1990
Celtic Christianity has been called a mere reformation of Druidry.
A unique and remarkable feature of the early Church in Britain in Ireland is that it claimed no martyrs through persecution by the religion it supplanted...
The Druids had no difficulty in accepting the new religion, because it scarcely interfered with the existing religious and social order.
The system of the early Church "was really Paganism with a veneer of Christianity".
**
I have often seen this written; however, I think it more likely that the opposite was true*.
And the reason for such opposite interpretations is due to very different concepts of what Christianity actually is.
If Christianity is essentially The Church, and Christendom (a Church dominated and permeated society) - then clearly the newly converted pagans must have only a superficial smattering - a veneer - of the new faith over an substructure that can only be Pagan.
The newly converted Celtic British Christians did not have a trained and ordained hierarchy of priests - these must have been few, and far between. The Britons did not have a comprehensive coverage by churches offering the sacraments. Nor had they experienced Christian teaching, nor did they live under a system of societal laws in conformity with the Church's understanding.
Instead; there inevitably must have been (for many years) mostly the residue of whatever actually was the system of Druidic religion - its sacred places, its Druids, its practices, and the effects of generations of its teaching.
Furthermore; Christians seem to have had a deliberate policy of taking-over and re-purposing Pagan shrines or gathering-places. This strategy extended to making Pagan gods into Christian Saints - the best evidenced of which is the Irish god Brigit becoming the famous and beloved Saint of the same name.
Surely (so this argument goes) all this means that for many years the British were still essentially Pagan - surely, their Christianity was, at first, merely a veneer of Christianized language and symbolism (such as a cross inscribed or erected-upon a megalithic standing stone) on-top-of what long-remained a Pagan religion?
But if Christianity is accepting Jesus as Saviour, desiring resurrection to eternal Heavenly life, and embracing the intent of living by Love... then none of the substructure of Paganism really matters.
By this argument; what makes someone a Christian is the choice to "follow Jesus Christ" (with what that entails in a "cosmic", eternal, post-mortal sense) - and the rest of religion is, at best, an optional extra.
Of course, there would have been many aspects of Druidic Paganism that conflicted-with and contradicted the basic of Christianity in Love.
But that applied to the Christian Church as well - much of its actuality contradicts the essence of Christianity, and always has.
So long as the newly-converted Christian sought resurrection into Heaven by following Jesus Christ; instead of seeking whatever it was that Druidic Paganism had previously promised (generally regarded as having been some kind of reincarnation, perhaps involving metempsychosis) - then I would argue that the new Celtic convert was fully Christian.
I think there are lessons for Christians here-and-now.
Any Christian needs to navigate a world - a world including whatever Church he belongs to, and whichever religion or ideology rules his society - that is substantially hostile to his deepest convictions.
Yet none of this prevents him from being fully a Christian - if that is what he most desires to be.
As Jesus himself said: Christianity is for sinners, not perfect Men; and for this actual sinful world, not some ideal society.
Society cannot prevent anyone from becoming and being Christian...
Because ultimately Christianity is "not of this world" - and because resurrection and Heaven cones from Jesus, not from this world.
What we absolutely need to do, and must do, is to want it.
*Note: Certainly, the Celtic Christian era in the British Isles led - over the following centuries - to a greater number and (even more so) concentration of Saints (and great Saints, still remembered as patron Saints, in church and city foundations, and festivals) - like Cuthbert, Patrick, David, Kentigern/ Mungo, and Brigit) than at any other time in the history of these parts.
6 comments:
Interesting timing for this post, I just recently became interested in Celtic Christianity and was starting to study it.
See also Connie Marshner’s book “Monastery and High Cross: the Forgotten Roots of Irish Christianity”, looking to the influence of the East.
I was first introduced to this concept though the some of fiction books of Stephen Lawhead (have you read any of his books?) who describes the merging of the druids with Christianity. In his works, the Druids foresaw the coming of Christ and were ready and eager to embrace Christianity when it came, as the natural progression of their religion. The druids were, essentially, Christian priests.
@DK - I had a shot at Lawhead's Merlin but didn't get far - I may try again some time.
"The druids were, essentially, Christian priests." This may have happened, but there is no historical evidence. The idea goes back at least to William Stukeley I think, and crops up in William Blake too... https://albionawakening.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-giant-albion-awakening.html
Lawhead's work is speculative fiction. He takes obvious artistic license with history (e.g. with his take on Robin Hood, the Arthurian legends, etc.). So, I never once considered that he actually had historical proof.
But, in the decades since I first read his series, that particular aspect of the druids as the proponents of Christ has remained with me. Your writing on the subject immediately resonated with me, but I couldn't say if it is accurate or not.
@DR - Despite the lack of positive evidence; I personally think that some Druids probably did become Christian leaders of one sort or another.
There is also the question of conversion by magic. I have read that in magical contests, the Christian priests (especially the wonder-working Saints) usually outperformed Druids - and this led to conversion of the witnesses. On this basis, I would suppose that some Druids would recognize the superiority of Christian truth, and "apprentice" to them.
Another possibility is that imagined for Merlin by CS Lewis and the Excalibur movie: that Merlin was a Druid who recognized his time was past, and voluntarily withdrew to allow the new Christianity to take-over.
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