"Christ, Mo Drui!"
It is not with the sneeze our destiny is,
Nor with the bird on the top of the twig,
Nor with the trunk of a knotty tree.
Nor with an act of humming.
I adore not the voice of birds,
Nor the sneeze, nor a destiny on the earthly world,
Nor a son, nor chance, nor woman;
My Druid is Christ, the son of God.
--Colmcille (St. Columba)
St. Columcille ("dove of the Church"; aka Columba) was born of the line of Niall of the Nine Hostages in 521 AD in Donegal, Ireland. He was, in fact, Irish royalty, and was raised in the ways of the bard, as well as thos of the Christian faith. Among other things, he is credited with spawning the first copyright laws and posing many prophecies for those who followed him. He was also, in addition to being one of the first fathers of the Church in Ireland/Britain, a great warrior (he actually went to battle over the previously mentioned copyright infringement!).
Columcille's statement of "Christ is my Druid" or "My Druid is Christ" has been taken many ways over the centuries since the statement was actually made. Some Church Fathers have taken it to mean that druidry (as a practice and a philosophy, as well as a religion) fell away, in Columcille's eyes, before the teachings of Christ (druidry vanquished by Christianity). Others have taken it as an expression of Columcille's understanding that he could, indeed, live in both worlds, both the Christian and the Druidic. Personally, I've always preferred the latter inference.
One does not have to look far within the practice of Christianity in Ireland and Britain, as practiced by our 5th-6th century ancestors (and to a great degree, even today!) to see how much of what was already believed and celebrated and practiced by the Druids was adopted/adapted by the early Church. Important holidays, such as Christmas and Easter, and the dates which were chosen for them to be celebrated immediately come to mind. But there was also a "grafting on" of Christian concepts to certain sacred places (such as holy wells, etc.), and sacred personages (such as Brighid), and even within the tales themselves as they came to be committed to writing by the early monks of Ireland and Wales.
But what about Christ?
Christ is, after all, the central element of what Christianity is supposed to be. The entire point of "living a Christian life", presumably, is to become something like Christ. Pity that so few modern Christians seem to have the smallest clue who He was or what He meant!
So how would Christ fit into Druidry? And would the concept of such a "sacrificed saviour" have been completely alien to the Celts?
Absolutely not. In fact, the old tales ABOUND with tales of sacrificed deities. One of the cornerstones of Druidry itself, indeed, is sacrifice. First, perhaps, it would be best to have a go at the concept of sacrifice among the Celts, and then have a look at the Deities themselves.
The Celtic concept of sacrifice, as in many other traditions, focused on the concept of sacrifice to ensure cosmic renewal. In other words, something (an animal, sometimes even a human) was sacrificed to guarantee some sort of "rebirth" or renewal. It has been suggested that when the ancient Celts sacrificed warriors of an opposing tribe after a battle, that this was done to not only thank the Deities for the survival of their own troops, but also to guarantee future victories. So, too, with animal sacrifices--the animal is sacrificed to guarantee that more animals will be born next season, etc. Therefore, if creation requires death and dismemberment to occur, then it would follow that only the sacrifice of something living will do to fulfill a cosmological sacrifice.
Christ's crucifixion might also be viewed as a cosmological sacrifice, in that His death led to a renewal: the primary Christian belief being that His death washed all who would follow Him of their sins (i.e., rebirth through His death).
Sacrificed Deities in the Celtic mythos have fulfilled very similar functions. Although not credited with something quite so far-reaching as saving the souls of the World from sin (sin is a rather alien concept to Celtic thought), they were often credited with other types of renewal, such as guaranteeing that the sun would continue to rise.
Perhaps the most obvious example of a Deity easily compared to Christ would be Llew Llaw Gyffes. As with Christ, it was a spear (his own!) in his side which did him in, and, also like Christ, he was resurrected. Granted, with Llew, the three-fold resurrection consisted of him returning as an eagle, the sun, and grain before finally returning as Llew, but the concept is strikingly similar.
Bran the Blessed, in the Mabinogion, and Mabon (the "Good Child"), may also be viewed as sacrificed saviour-type deities. Bran asks that his head be cut from his body and buried on the White Mount in London (which, incidentally, is the spot where the Tower of London now stands, and which is why ravens guard that spot to this day: Bran means "raven"), that he might always be guardian over Britain and Wales. The Mabon, whose tale is told in the Story of Culwch and Olwen (not technically a branch of the Mabinogion in the strictest sense, although it is this story which gives the book its name), is actually a very Christ-like figure sought by Arthur (Mabon is the original Grail). Pryderi in the original four Branches of the Mabinogion may in some ways be considered another incarnation of Mabon.
This is the point where the previous discussion of polytheistic monotheism comes into play. On a certain level and from a certain point of view, Christians may also be viewed as polytheistic monotheists. Imagine the consternation of, say, an African tribesman at being told by a Christian missionary that there are three personages who are worshipped by Christians: Jesus Christ, the son of God, God (or Yahweh, as He is understood by the Jews), the Father, and the Holy Spirit (which is most often explained as an all-encompassing, unnameable, indefinable spirit flowing through all good things, but which is more properly understood as the feminine face of God, or Wisdom [Sophia] as described in the Old Testament book of Proverbs as well as others). Then the missionary says "but all of these are One in the Trinity." Of course, the tribesman's response would be: "HUH?"
It comes down to a basic concept of "polytheistic monotheism": more than one "entity" or "concept of an entity" bound together as one overriding entity.
The same holds true for Druids, in that the Deities are simply outward personifications of the elements of the Three, the Three being the core of what we actually "worship": the indefinable, overreaching, Force which flows through all things; the ALL.
Which is precisely how Christ fits. Within a Christian context, the Trinity is understood as the ALL. Composed of God the Father (who might actually be understood to be the ultimate personification of Deity in a "Shining Ones" sense of the word), the Holy Spirit (which could be understood to be similar to the Sidhe and nature spirits; a profoundly animistic guise of Deity), and Christ the Son (God embodied as man; Christ, our Ancestor). It would also be easy to make an analogy here between Christ as an understandable "godform", much as Lugh or Llew or Bran is an understandable "godform": it is much easier to relate to someone who walks around and looks like you do (i.e., has a human form), than to relate to something which is unnameable and undefinable (such as the ALL in Druidry or the Trinity in Christianity).
We stand now on the cusp of Lughnassadh, which in this Grove is celebrated as the time of the resurrection of Llew Llaw Gyffes. In the Irish tradition, from whence Lughnassadh actually hails, this is the time of the commemoration of the funeral games held for Tailtiu, Lugh's foster mother. In both traditions, it is a celebration of sacrifice and subsequent renewal. At a time of celebration such as this--a celebration of something which is also so profoundly a part of Christian thought and practice, akin to what is supposedly celebrated in the Christian Easter--it seems appropriate to ask questions such as these.
For at the same time that most of the members of this Grove are celebrating the renewal of the crops and of the seasons, as delivered to us through the death and resurrection of Llew Llaw Gyffes, or even the death of Tailtiu, Lugh Lamfhada's foster mother, a few of us will also be celebrating the death of another resurrected One, who brought about a different sort of renewal in His own right. In between the poetry and the feasting, a few of us will be whispering "Christ, Mo Drui!", and knowing what we mean in our hearts when we say it. |
Copyright 2002, CiHela
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