Did the Druids Convert the to Christianity?

[causticus]

Somewhere I hang out on the internet, someone linked to entertaining post from some obscure imageboard, where the poster was attempting to make the case that the Irish saved Western Civilization after the fall of the Western Roman empire. This claim is based on factual knowledge of Irish Christian monks playing a very strong role in spreading Christian monasticism throughout Western Europe and preserving classical knowledge in literary in a world that was quickly going dark, so to speak.

The poster was obviously (to me) being comedic, or "memeing," as the kids today like to say. I do think there is something to this topic though. Very curiously, Ireland quickly converted to Christianity during the 5th-6th centuries and it seemed like it was done in a rather bloodless manner. But this raises an interesting question: where did all these super-literate Irish monks suddenly come from? Ireland had theretofore been a remote Island distant from the civilized world of Rome's expansive empire; in fact the Romans never conquered it or even bothered to try. So why were the Irish so eager and willing to take on the roles of preservers of classical civilization and spreaders of Christian monasticism?

My pet theory is that the remaining Druids of Ireland (or some faction or subset of them) saw the writing on the wall and preemptively converted to Christianity. These Druids became Christian monks and attempted to makeover Christianity in their own image, thus creating "Celtic Christianity" (which has mostly been memory-holed), which lasted awhile before eventually having to conform to the Roman model as institutional church infrastructure became more established throughout the British Isles.

I think this trend first started in Britain actually, circa the 4th century AD, where some learned Celtic Britons still had residual traces of Druidism in their culture and converted to Christianity with that mentality shaping their interpretation. See the Christian theologian Pelagius, who stressed the concept of free will and totally denied original sin. Augustine of Hippo was of course his archenemy because of that and everything we know today of "Pelagianism" is mostly Augustine's strawman version of whatever it was Pelagius actually taught.

In short, the Druids ended up making a brief comeback as the intellectual/spiritual class of Western Europe, this time in Christian monastic robes. The carried many of their old Druidic habits into the new faith they adopted. Being voracious lovers of knowledge, diligent preservers of culture, and charismatic poets and storytellers, were things that came as second nature to the Druids. So in my estimation, Druidry never really died out completely, but it sure did change form quite a lot as the classical world fell into ruins and gave way to the world of medieval European Christendom. Going from scrawling ogham fews on rocks to writing and copying alphabetic manuscripts is probably not as wide as a leap as it might seem.

Comments

[randomactsofkarmasc]

Thirty plus years ago, I read a book "The Story of English", which (IIRC) also gave credit to the Irish for saving Western Civ. I don't remember the details, but similar to what you pointed out, it was because the Romans never actually conquered Ireland.

[causticus]

Yeah, it's pretty clear the Irish "Romanized" themselves on their own terms.

[k_a_nitz]

My understanding is that most of those inital monks were not Irish, but immigrants, so-to-speak, missionaries.

[causticus]

Yeah, I agree with the standard view that Christianity initially came to Ireland from Christian Britions. But soon after a good number of Druids quickly converted and became monks and this is really what ended up establishing the faith throughout Ireland.

[jprussell]

Interesting! The thing that jumps out at me immediately is the stark contrast between Druidic anti-literacy and Christian monastic hyper-literacy. If this hypothesis is true, that seems like a significant factor - maybe something like "holy smokes, look at what literacy is letting these guys do, it's like a super-power! Guess we better start using it too." Almost like an arms-race scenario: not everyone involved has to like using the new "weapon," and may actually have grave misgivings, but feels compelled to adopt it by the logic of competition.

Anyhow, just a thought that grabbed me as I read this.

On another note, the Celtic Gnostic Church (offshoot of the Universal Gnostic Church associated with AODA) has a book about what they're about, originally written by JMG, but I think since updated under the new management, that talks about how it is intentionally "Pelagian," though not exclusively Christian. That and JMG's Druid Revival Reader might point in some interesting directions to follow up, even if mostly focused on the Revival rather than ancient Druids.

Cheers,
Jeff

[causticus]

1. That first part reminds me of what the Japanese were doing during the Edo period, with regard to westerners and western technology -- cautiously studying and adapting it (via an exclusive trade relationship with the Dutch) while maintaining an official policy of strict isolationism. I do wonder how the Irish reacted to the Roman conquest of Britain; they must have been observing that whole process rather closely and perhaps learning a whole bunch of things about classical civilization behind that very narrow sea that isolated their island from the Roman world. Of course the Irish weren't totally cut off from the rest of the the world -- they likely had constant trade and contact with their Brittonic cousins on the main isle. The fact too that the Irish Druids developed the ogham script I think shows that they were veering away from a strict "no writing" policy.

2. Interesting that they openly use that term, considering its Christian connotations. I think it's a good thing though to acknowledge "Pelagian" as a general Western mystical orientation. My own views come pretty close to that, though I'm not willing to go so far as saying that human nature is "essentially good" (I take more of the middle position between that and the "fallen" view of human nature).

[jprussell]

1. Interesting, but that all makes good sense to me. We might have talked about this, but on the Ogham, I wonder if there are any parallels with Eirik Westcoat's proposed origin of the Runes: he proposes that since Germanic poetry was alliterative, they needed a way to talk about initial sounds of words, and there are features of Germanic alliterative verse and its timing/spread among Germanic-derived populations that it was likely around before the Germans became literate. So, he argues that the idea of writing was borrowed from the Romans, but grafted onto an existing structure for thinking systematically about the sounds words are made of, hence the order of the Futhark, rather than adopting the ABC order, like most folks who adopted the alphabet did.

All of which is a preliminary to wonder out loud whether the Druids had some kind of systematic approach to speech (sounds), maybe for the purposes of poetry, a kind of "proto-Ogham," onto which they grafted the Fews. I don't know enough about Old Irish poetry to venture a firm guess.

2. It's interesting, indeed. In many ways, the GCC strikes me as the most "Christian-friendly/influenced" of JMG's various spiritual projects, which may help explain why after getting it set up, he pretty quickly stepped aside to let others run it (first his wife, and later others). That said, yeah, the book makes the case (albeit briefly) that Pelagius's approach to religion was consistent with the wider gnostic world, and not just the Christian flavors of it. As for the nature of human nature, at the moment, I think I'm pretty close to you - though I might go so far as to say that it starts out with a leaning toward/capacity for good, but that it can become corrupted and turned away from the good, if it stubbornly resists the lessons of various incarnations. But I wouldn't say I hold that view very firmly, since I haven't dug into Platonism and its influence on Hermeticism and the modern occultism derived from it that I've been studying.

Cheers,
Jeff

[causticus]

1. That is a very fascinating speculation and sounds very possible! On what the Druids did, I also barely know anything about Celtic languages, much less Old Irish. I will say though, the way modern Irish is written out in the latin script is (to me) beyond odd!

2. I'll have to write up something later regarding my own views on the inherent goodness vs. badness of human nature. I guess something like Pelagianism + reincarnation/karma (to account for psycho-spiritual blemishes and afflictions) would come close to my own belief. The issue with Pelagianism + the standard Christian belief of a single incarnation soul ex-nihilo just leads to the sort of blank slate nonsense we see so rampant today. Problems with the human condition always end up being attributed to some external ill like the body, the environment, or oppressive/corrupted manmade institutions. I think all of the above plus the psycho-spiritual side of human nature need to be taken into account.

[jprussell]

1. Exceedingly odd. After I learned how to pronounce Welsh words reading the Mabinogion for the first time (having earlier learned how to pronounce Elvish words from Tolkien helped, since Finnish and Welsh were his touchstones for Quenya and Sildarin, though I forget which influenced which), I decided to learn how to pronounce Irish words, just so they'd "sound" right when I was reading. I was defeated and have not yet worked that one out.

2. Fair enough - "one life is all you get to settle your soul's state for eternity" has always seemed like one of the weak points of Christian doctrine to me, which seems considerably helped by belief in some kind of mitigating factor (reincarnation, purgatory, or what have you), though a Christian might say I'm just being a wuss. Agreed, though, that this particular combination seems to lead to some unhelpful places.