Post by Senbecc on Apr 1, 2007 12:58:37 GMT -5
Sean O’Duinn, O. S. B.
I. The Celts
Just over 2000 years ago, classical authors such as Julius Caesar, Athenaeus, Diodorus Siculus, and Strabo began to write of a people well known to them and whom Caesar, after much trouble, finally defeated in Gaul. These were the Celts, and at this period they had spread over a large area of Europe and had even formed a colony in Asia Minor, modern Turkey. It was to these latter that St. Paul addressed his Letter to the Galatians.
The origins of the Celtic peoples are obscure. The general belief is that they gradually evolved from a basic Indo-European race inhabiting much of the mainland of Europe. The cradle of the Celtic peoples seems to have been Austria, Bavaria, and adjoining areas to the east; the time was about 1000 B.C.
With the rise of the Roman Empire and its superb military organization, the fragmented and disorganized Celts were gradually forced further and further westwards, until today they occupy only six tiny areas in western Europe: Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man, Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany. To a limited extent, Celtic languages can still be heard in these small areas and they preserve something of the ancient culture. The Celts, of course, have greatly influenced Europe in terms of language, movement, agriculture, literature, mythology, and folk-customs.
From the classical authors whom I have mentioned, it is possible to give a brief list of certain marked characteristics of the Celts. They were above all Muintir na Tuaithe, that is, people of the land, non-urbanized farmers and pastoralists. They loved feasting and drinking parties. They favored small tribal communities rather than large bureaucracies. They loved petty wars and skirmishes, and the heroic tradition in which the Laoch or fearless warrior is glorified forms a major part of Irish and Welsh tradition. There was the cult of the severed head and human sacrifice. There was also a strong belief in the existence of the Other World and the immortality of the soul. A form of the Purusha Myth seems to be associated with creation and sacrificial rites. There is a tradition of outdoor ritual in oak groves and holy wells, and a prestigious learned class of druids and filí. They had elaborate funerals and a ritual calendar.
When the Celts arrived in Ireland they encountered the much earlier megalithic people, the builders of the enormous stone tombs. It is thought that through intermarriage the two cultures blended. At any rate, the cult of the goddess of fertility became important, as seen in the fact that the official name of the country is Eire, the name of the fertility goddess.
When the Irish became Christian a considerable influence from the old pagan religion came over to Christianity to give it a special ethos. In Ireland, Christianity entered a non-urban society preoccupied with rural matters such as the fertility of the soil, the cycle of the year, and the health of people and animals. On the other hand, it was a society highly sophisticated in terms of oral culture and native law. With this brief introduction, I will now pass on to a consideration of some aspects of this Celtic type of Christianity.
II. The Purusha Myth
As the Celts were originally part of the Indo-European people, it can be expected that Celts and Hindus will have some things in common, preserved from a single source. The Purusha Myth is well known from the Rig Veda of ancient India. It is a myth of the creation of the world by the gods, who create the world by sacrificing and dismembering Purusha, the primordial man. The various parts of his body become parts of the universe. The hymn asks: “When they divided the Man, into how many parts did they apportion him?What do they call his mouth, his two arms and thighs and feet?His mouth became the Brahmin; his arms were made into the Warrior, his thighs the People, and from his feet the Servants were born.” Other versions of the myth yield the following schema: Purusha’s head becomes the sky, his brain the clouds, his eyes the sun, his mind the moon, his flesh the earth, his hair the vegetation, his breath the wind, and his blood the water.
This seems to have been the fundamental creation myth of the Celts as well, and it provided the mythological background and justification of the Celtic practice of human sacrifice. The world was created from the dismembered body of Purusha. But in the course of the year the world grew tired, the land lost its fertility, the disruptive forces of chaos attacked and weakened it. It needed renewal, recreation. Now the way to renew or recreate the tired world was to re-enact the primordial act of creation. By the dismemberment of a sacrificial victim, who took the place of Purusha, the world was renewed.
According to the Seanchas Már, the druids of Ireland maintained that it was they who made heaven and earth, the sun and moon, and so forth. Obviously what is meant is that the sacrifices and dismemberment performed by the druids had the effect of keeping the world in motion, the air healthy, the soil fertile, and so on. According to Diodorus Siculus, it was not the custom of the Celts to perform a sacrifice without the presence of a druid. Strabo remarks that the druids believed that “when there are many murder cases there will be a fruitful yield from their fields.” There is no obvious connection between lots of murders and a bounteous harvest, but the statement is quite clear in terms of the Purusha Myth: the murders gave the druids an excuse for sacrificing the murderers and this built up the fertility of the land.
The movement we have seen thus far is from the human body to the universe, from microcosmos to macrocosmos. But the universe turns around to build up the human body, and this is the movement from macrocosmos to microcosmos. This latter movement is described in Christianized form in a thirteenth-century Irish manuscript in the British Museum (Additional MS 4783, folio 7a):
It is worth knowing what Adam was made of, that is, of seven parts: the first part, of earth; the second part, of sea; the third part, of sun; the fourth part, of clouds; the fifth part, of wind; the sixth part, of stones; the seventh part, of the Holy Ghost.
The part of the earth, this is the man’s body; the part of the sea, this is the man’s blood; the part of the sun, his face and his countenance; the part of the clouds, his thoughts; the part of the wind, his breath; the part of the stones, his bones; the part of the Holy Ghost, his soul.
The manuscript goes on to explain that if the earth element predominated in a man, he would be lazy; if the sea element prevailed, he would be changeable; if the sun prevailed, he would be beautiful and lively; if the clouds, he would be light and foolish; if the wind, strong; if the stones, hard; and if the Holy Spirit, full of the grace of Holy Scripture.
The turning point comes when it is realized that the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity became man at the Incarnation. He had the same kind of body as Adam or anybody else, made up of the same elements as those described in the Purusha Myth. We see a somewhat obscure outline of this in a Gaelic folk prayer from Scotland, in which we come across such phrases as:
Pray by means of the feet of Christ as white as milk, the knees of Christ as strong as a rock, the breast of Christ as peaceful as a wave, the shoulders of Christ as wide as the mountain peaks, the eyes of Christ as beautiful as the setting sun, the hair of Christ as winding as a stream, the fingers of Christ as commanding as the skies, and pray by means of his sacred head.
In Ireland we have a very curious eleventh-century manuscript called An Teanga Bhithnua, “The Evernew Tongue,” which discusses the idea of the human body and the body in which Christ arose from the dead as being made up of the elements: earth, air, fire, water, sun, flowers, etc.: “For every material and every element and every nature which is seen in the world were all combined in the body in which Christ arose, that is, in the body of every human being. . . . All the world arose with him, for the nature of all the elements dwelt in the body which Jesus assumed.”
The concept is quite clear: In the Incarnation God assumed a human body, and this human body is made up of the four elements, the same four elements out of which the world is made. When Christ’s body was glorified at his resurrection from the dead, then the whole world was glorified with him. Outside the Celtic tradition we meet with the same idea of the four elements. In the Apostolic Constitutions from the fourth century, there is the following statement: “So also you made him [man] from an immortal soul and a perishable body, the one from what is not, the other from the four elements.”
The human body and the body of Christ are said to be made up either of the dismembered Purusha or from the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water. But in the last analysis these are perhaps two different expressions of the same idea: that our bodies and the body of Christ are made up of the fundamental material of the universe. Thus all is essentially one. The material to be found in the sun, moon, and stars, in earth and sea, in birds and beasts, in vital energy and life-force is essentially the same as that in the human body, and the latter awaits glorification and transformation through the glorification of the body of Christ at his resurrection. From this viewpoint, the incarnation and the resurrection of Christ are vital to the destiny of the universe.
Perhaps in all this we may find the solution to the perennial problem of interpreting ancient Gaelic Christian texts which invoke the help of God for the sake of the elements, as in the so-called “Litany of Creation”: “I entreat Thee by water and the cruel air; I entreat Thee by fire; I entreat Thee by earth; I entreat Thee by time with its clear divisions; I entreat Thee by the darkness; I entreat Thee by the light.”
In instances such as these, the eminent scholar Charles Plummer asks: “Is it a faint echo of ancient nature worship?” and others ask whether such prayers can be called specifically Christian. This, however, does not take us very far. The solution seems to lie in the Purusha Myth. By the Incarnation, Christ is the new Purusha. In him, every particle of the universe is contained essentially. When we pray to him by the elements, we are praying to this Cosmic Christ of Celtic Christianity, to “the King of the Elements,” as he is known to traditional Irish Christians.
Much study still remains to be done in matters such as the allusion to the “Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13: 8), the Fractio Panis or “Breaking of Bread,” and the elaborate division of the Eucharistic Host in the Celtic Rite Stowe Missal, in which special portions are assigned to different groups, such as bishops, priests, children, married people, and penitents. This manner of division is reminiscent of the different grades of Indian society mentioned in the Purusha Myth.
III. Celtic Saints and Nature
Stories of some Irish monastic saints describe their special relationship with natural things and with birds and animals in particular. Here one gets the impression of a different underlying philosophy, in which the barriers between human and non-human are less rigid than in our modern code of understanding. St. Kevin of Glendalough prays during Lent with his hands extended. A blackbird comes and builds her nest in his open hand, lays her eggs, and hatches them. Kevin does not want to disturb her and keeps his hand unmoved until the young birds fly away. St. Colmán Mac Duach had a cock, a mouse, and a fly. The cock crowed to wake him for Matins, the mouse nibbled at his ear if he were slow to get out of bed, and the fly perched on the line of the psalter where he was to begin praying the Divine Office. It is said that wild animals would gather round the hermit saints as they have done round many an Indian ascetic in earlier and later times.
IV. An Epicletic Prayer Formula
Among present-day Gaelic speakers there is a popular prayer which goes back to perhaps the ninth century and is very close to a formula used at the baptism of adults in the Rituale Romanum. This may once have been used for the anointing of the various parts of the body in the baptismal rite. The prayer consists of a series of invocations asking God to take possession of different parts of the body, with the sign of the cross being made over the part of the body corresponding to the invocation:
May the yoke of the Law of God be on this shoulder;
May the intelligence of the Holy Spirit be in this head;
May the sign of Christ be on this forehead;
May the hearing of the Holy Spirit be in these ears;
May the scenting of the Holy Spirit be in this nose;
May the vision of the People of Heaven be in these eyes;
May the conversation of the People of Heaven be in this mouth;
May the work of the Church of God be in these hands;
May the welfare of God and neighbor be in these feet;
May this heart be a dwelling place for God;
May this complete person belong to God the Father.
This Celtic Christian ritual may be compared to the Nyasa rite practiced by the devout Brahmin, during which he touches various parts of the body with his right hand as he prays that the different gods who protect the parts of the body may each take up his abode in his special limb or position and that Ishvara may protect the complete body.
V. The Sunwise Circumambulation
What is called the Cor Deiseal or circumambulation of a sacred object (usually a well, pillar stone, church, tumulus, or fire) in the direction of the sun is very well known in Ireland, especially at the Holy Wells and places of pilgrimage. It is a moving spectacle to see the pilgrims moving sunwise around the well, one after the other, when one remembers the statement made by the Greek writer Athenaeus two thousand years ago about the Continental Celts: “They do reverence to the gods, turning to the right.” This rite of circumambulation is also well known in Hinduism, where it is called Pradaksina. It is performed around sacred trees, animals, shrines, and fires as an act of reverence, and it also delineates a sacred area, a sanctuary. In India, the triple circumambulation is associated with the three steps of Vishnu which encompassed the world.
In thus following the course of the sun, one puts oneself into harmony with the movement of the heavenly bodies and so with the universe. The idea of earth and sky being in harmony recalls the words of the Lord’s Prayer: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The idea of protection was also very prominent on the Island of Lewis off the coast of Scotland, where a blazing torch was carried three times around the herd of cattle at the autumnal feast of Samhain in order to keep them free from the diseases of the winter.
VI. Christ as “The Salmon of the Three Wells”
As we have seen, the cult of the Holy Well has played a significant part in Irish piety throughout the centuries and is still strong today. While the ritual and formulae are Christianized to some extent, the archaic character of the performance is strongly marked and often follows the Celtic rather than the ecclesiastical calendar. The spring or well is largely identified with the feminine. It is the place where the earth goddess manifests herself, the womb of the earth mother, with the rising, erupting water as a symbol of birth. The masculine is not excluded. In an old tale the goddess appears at the well to dispense the water of kingship to the rightful candidate and, strangely enough, down to recent times at some Holy Wells it was a woman who handed the vessel of water to the pilgrims. Many Holy Wells are dedicated to Rí an Domhnaigh, that is, to Our Lord as “King of Sunday.” Rituals were performed at the wells before sunrise on Sundays, an obvious reference to Sunday as the weekly celebration of the resurrection of Christ.
Tradition has it that in many of these wells a fish may sometimes be seen. If one sees the fish, it is an infallible sign that one’s request will be granted. The Holy Trinity was referred to as Tobar na dTrí Sreabh, “The Well of the Three Streams,” and Christ was Eo na dTrí dTobar, “The Salmon of the Three Wells.” Where three streams met was a sanctuary, a sacred place, and obviously this had it archetype in the Trinity itself, the meeting of the Three Persons in One God. Christ is also known as in t-eo sénta cas corcra, “The Blessed Curled Purple Salmon.” Whether or not there is an affinity between the Gaelic idea of Christ as the Salmon and Christ as the ichthus or “fish” in early Christian iconography is uncertain, but in Ireland we have this ancient tradition of the Eo fis or “salmon of knowledge [or wisdom].” Over the mysterious Well of Segais, the source of the Boyne River, grew nine hazels of wisdom. The hazel nuts fell into the well and the salmon ate them. Fionn Mac Cumahill, the great Irish hero, ate the salmon and the wisdom passed to him, giving him supernatural knowledge. And according to St. Paul, Christ is the wisdom of God (I Cor. 1: 24), a theme developed in the O Antiphon sung at Vespers on December 17: “O Wisdom, you come forth from the mouth of the Most High. You fill the universe and hold all things together in a strong yet gentle manner. O come to teach us the way of truth.”
VII. Spiritual Warfare
St. Paul commands the Christian to “put on God’s armor so as to be able to resist the devil’s tactics. For it is not against human enemies that we have to struggle, but against the Sovereignties and Powers who originate the darkness in this world, the spiritual army of evil in the heavens” (Eph. 6: 11-12). This doctrine of psychomachia or “spiritual warfare” appealed immensely to the war-loving Celts with their glorification of the heroic warrior, the Laoch. A favorite Easter theme in Ireland was Argain Ifrinn, the plundering of Hell, in which in highly bombastic prose Christ is shown as an enraged, fuming Celtic warrior descending into the Underworld. Amid scenes of astonishing violence he plunders Hell, ties up Satan the Dragon, and liberates the Old Testament saints, including Adam and Eve, from captivity. This explains the numerous dragon-fighting saints of Celtic tradition, for they were putting the Easter victory of Christ into operation in their own areas. As the Celtic warrior had performed mighty deeds of heroism, so the Christian saint emulated his pagan counterpart in practicing heroic asceticism. Protracted prayer and asceticism were used to get people out of Hell. These were the weapons of the Christian warrior, just as the Ga Bulga, the Móraltach, and Excalibur had been the magical weapons of the pagan heroes.
A fairly coherent military scenario can be discerned, one that shows some dependence on the Book of Revelation: (1) War breaks out in heaven when the angels rise in rebellion against God. St. Michael the Archangel defeats them and they, along with their leader Satan/the Dragon, are cast down to Hell and earth. (2) On earth, the rebel angels try to continue the war against God and enlist the help of humans in their fight. (3) Christ comes as military leader of the human race against Satan and his angels, Christ’s life being a war against disease, oppression, injustice, and all manifestations of the evil powers of Satan. (4) In descending into Hell, Christ conquers the Dragon in his chief stronghold. (5) Christ does not, however, destroy the Dragon completely; he ties him up, constraining him, but leaves him some power so that we may have the satisfaction of continuing the fight against evil, for if there is no opposition there is no fight, and if there is no fight there is no victory, as St. Columbanus said in one of his letters.
Since the Christian warrior needed armor going into battle against evil forces, the Lorica or “Protection Prayer” became very popular. This is a type of prayer asking God, the angels, the saints, and the forces of nature to surround the person and keep him safe from wounding by the enemy. In the most famous Lorica, St. Patrick’s Breastplate, which dates back to the eighth century, we find the “Formula of the Six Directions”: north, south, east, west, above, and below. In the prayer, Christ surrounds the person in all these directions: “Christ before me [=east], at my right, behind me, at my left, above me, below me.”
We can compare this formula with that given in the Chandogya Upanishad (7: 25): “This [Infinite] is below, it is above, it is to the west, to the east, to the south, to the north. Truly it is this whole universe.” It seems unlikely that this formula was translated from Sanskrit to Irish in the eighth century. Probably the two traditions drew from a common source. The formula also seems to have formed part of Celtic cosmology. In one saga, King Conchúr Mac Neasa takes a mighty oath that he will restore all that has been seized in battle “unless the sky fall down on us or the earth open up under us or the great blue sea rush in to cover the land.”
Along with the six directions there are two other phrases in St. Patrick’s Breastplate: Críost ionam and Críost liom: “Christ in me” and “Christ with me.” These phrases refer to the immanence of God, while the formula of the six directions is seen as describing the transcendent God who is nevertheless very close as “the surrounding God.” We have a remarkable commentary on this combination of transcendence and immanence in a passage from the Latin Lorica Sancti Brendani: “O immense God, in whom all things are, by whom are all things, by whom all things were made both visible and invisible, you cover them from above, you support them from below, you surround your works from outside, and you fill them from inside.” We may, then, describe God in Celtic terms as Deus circumdans et impleans, “the surrounding and filling God.” This corresponds to what Professor John Macquarrie once said of the Christian Celt: “The Celt was very much a God-intoxicated man whose life was embraced on all sides by the divine Being.”
Suggested Reading:
P. MacCana, Celtic Mythology(1970).
C. Plummer, Irish Litanies (1992).
E. Neumann, The Great Mother (1991).
P. Logan, The Holy Wells of Ireland (1980).
A. Rees, Celtic Heritage (1976).
I. The Celts
Just over 2000 years ago, classical authors such as Julius Caesar, Athenaeus, Diodorus Siculus, and Strabo began to write of a people well known to them and whom Caesar, after much trouble, finally defeated in Gaul. These were the Celts, and at this period they had spread over a large area of Europe and had even formed a colony in Asia Minor, modern Turkey. It was to these latter that St. Paul addressed his Letter to the Galatians.
The origins of the Celtic peoples are obscure. The general belief is that they gradually evolved from a basic Indo-European race inhabiting much of the mainland of Europe. The cradle of the Celtic peoples seems to have been Austria, Bavaria, and adjoining areas to the east; the time was about 1000 B.C.
With the rise of the Roman Empire and its superb military organization, the fragmented and disorganized Celts were gradually forced further and further westwards, until today they occupy only six tiny areas in western Europe: Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man, Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany. To a limited extent, Celtic languages can still be heard in these small areas and they preserve something of the ancient culture. The Celts, of course, have greatly influenced Europe in terms of language, movement, agriculture, literature, mythology, and folk-customs.
From the classical authors whom I have mentioned, it is possible to give a brief list of certain marked characteristics of the Celts. They were above all Muintir na Tuaithe, that is, people of the land, non-urbanized farmers and pastoralists. They loved feasting and drinking parties. They favored small tribal communities rather than large bureaucracies. They loved petty wars and skirmishes, and the heroic tradition in which the Laoch or fearless warrior is glorified forms a major part of Irish and Welsh tradition. There was the cult of the severed head and human sacrifice. There was also a strong belief in the existence of the Other World and the immortality of the soul. A form of the Purusha Myth seems to be associated with creation and sacrificial rites. There is a tradition of outdoor ritual in oak groves and holy wells, and a prestigious learned class of druids and filí. They had elaborate funerals and a ritual calendar.
When the Celts arrived in Ireland they encountered the much earlier megalithic people, the builders of the enormous stone tombs. It is thought that through intermarriage the two cultures blended. At any rate, the cult of the goddess of fertility became important, as seen in the fact that the official name of the country is Eire, the name of the fertility goddess.
When the Irish became Christian a considerable influence from the old pagan religion came over to Christianity to give it a special ethos. In Ireland, Christianity entered a non-urban society preoccupied with rural matters such as the fertility of the soil, the cycle of the year, and the health of people and animals. On the other hand, it was a society highly sophisticated in terms of oral culture and native law. With this brief introduction, I will now pass on to a consideration of some aspects of this Celtic type of Christianity.
II. The Purusha Myth
As the Celts were originally part of the Indo-European people, it can be expected that Celts and Hindus will have some things in common, preserved from a single source. The Purusha Myth is well known from the Rig Veda of ancient India. It is a myth of the creation of the world by the gods, who create the world by sacrificing and dismembering Purusha, the primordial man. The various parts of his body become parts of the universe. The hymn asks: “When they divided the Man, into how many parts did they apportion him?What do they call his mouth, his two arms and thighs and feet?His mouth became the Brahmin; his arms were made into the Warrior, his thighs the People, and from his feet the Servants were born.” Other versions of the myth yield the following schema: Purusha’s head becomes the sky, his brain the clouds, his eyes the sun, his mind the moon, his flesh the earth, his hair the vegetation, his breath the wind, and his blood the water.
This seems to have been the fundamental creation myth of the Celts as well, and it provided the mythological background and justification of the Celtic practice of human sacrifice. The world was created from the dismembered body of Purusha. But in the course of the year the world grew tired, the land lost its fertility, the disruptive forces of chaos attacked and weakened it. It needed renewal, recreation. Now the way to renew or recreate the tired world was to re-enact the primordial act of creation. By the dismemberment of a sacrificial victim, who took the place of Purusha, the world was renewed.
According to the Seanchas Már, the druids of Ireland maintained that it was they who made heaven and earth, the sun and moon, and so forth. Obviously what is meant is that the sacrifices and dismemberment performed by the druids had the effect of keeping the world in motion, the air healthy, the soil fertile, and so on. According to Diodorus Siculus, it was not the custom of the Celts to perform a sacrifice without the presence of a druid. Strabo remarks that the druids believed that “when there are many murder cases there will be a fruitful yield from their fields.” There is no obvious connection between lots of murders and a bounteous harvest, but the statement is quite clear in terms of the Purusha Myth: the murders gave the druids an excuse for sacrificing the murderers and this built up the fertility of the land.
The movement we have seen thus far is from the human body to the universe, from microcosmos to macrocosmos. But the universe turns around to build up the human body, and this is the movement from macrocosmos to microcosmos. This latter movement is described in Christianized form in a thirteenth-century Irish manuscript in the British Museum (Additional MS 4783, folio 7a):
It is worth knowing what Adam was made of, that is, of seven parts: the first part, of earth; the second part, of sea; the third part, of sun; the fourth part, of clouds; the fifth part, of wind; the sixth part, of stones; the seventh part, of the Holy Ghost.
The part of the earth, this is the man’s body; the part of the sea, this is the man’s blood; the part of the sun, his face and his countenance; the part of the clouds, his thoughts; the part of the wind, his breath; the part of the stones, his bones; the part of the Holy Ghost, his soul.
The manuscript goes on to explain that if the earth element predominated in a man, he would be lazy; if the sea element prevailed, he would be changeable; if the sun prevailed, he would be beautiful and lively; if the clouds, he would be light and foolish; if the wind, strong; if the stones, hard; and if the Holy Spirit, full of the grace of Holy Scripture.
The turning point comes when it is realized that the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity became man at the Incarnation. He had the same kind of body as Adam or anybody else, made up of the same elements as those described in the Purusha Myth. We see a somewhat obscure outline of this in a Gaelic folk prayer from Scotland, in which we come across such phrases as:
Pray by means of the feet of Christ as white as milk, the knees of Christ as strong as a rock, the breast of Christ as peaceful as a wave, the shoulders of Christ as wide as the mountain peaks, the eyes of Christ as beautiful as the setting sun, the hair of Christ as winding as a stream, the fingers of Christ as commanding as the skies, and pray by means of his sacred head.
In Ireland we have a very curious eleventh-century manuscript called An Teanga Bhithnua, “The Evernew Tongue,” which discusses the idea of the human body and the body in which Christ arose from the dead as being made up of the elements: earth, air, fire, water, sun, flowers, etc.: “For every material and every element and every nature which is seen in the world were all combined in the body in which Christ arose, that is, in the body of every human being. . . . All the world arose with him, for the nature of all the elements dwelt in the body which Jesus assumed.”
The concept is quite clear: In the Incarnation God assumed a human body, and this human body is made up of the four elements, the same four elements out of which the world is made. When Christ’s body was glorified at his resurrection from the dead, then the whole world was glorified with him. Outside the Celtic tradition we meet with the same idea of the four elements. In the Apostolic Constitutions from the fourth century, there is the following statement: “So also you made him [man] from an immortal soul and a perishable body, the one from what is not, the other from the four elements.”
The human body and the body of Christ are said to be made up either of the dismembered Purusha or from the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water. But in the last analysis these are perhaps two different expressions of the same idea: that our bodies and the body of Christ are made up of the fundamental material of the universe. Thus all is essentially one. The material to be found in the sun, moon, and stars, in earth and sea, in birds and beasts, in vital energy and life-force is essentially the same as that in the human body, and the latter awaits glorification and transformation through the glorification of the body of Christ at his resurrection. From this viewpoint, the incarnation and the resurrection of Christ are vital to the destiny of the universe.
Perhaps in all this we may find the solution to the perennial problem of interpreting ancient Gaelic Christian texts which invoke the help of God for the sake of the elements, as in the so-called “Litany of Creation”: “I entreat Thee by water and the cruel air; I entreat Thee by fire; I entreat Thee by earth; I entreat Thee by time with its clear divisions; I entreat Thee by the darkness; I entreat Thee by the light.”
In instances such as these, the eminent scholar Charles Plummer asks: “Is it a faint echo of ancient nature worship?” and others ask whether such prayers can be called specifically Christian. This, however, does not take us very far. The solution seems to lie in the Purusha Myth. By the Incarnation, Christ is the new Purusha. In him, every particle of the universe is contained essentially. When we pray to him by the elements, we are praying to this Cosmic Christ of Celtic Christianity, to “the King of the Elements,” as he is known to traditional Irish Christians.
Much study still remains to be done in matters such as the allusion to the “Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13: 8), the Fractio Panis or “Breaking of Bread,” and the elaborate division of the Eucharistic Host in the Celtic Rite Stowe Missal, in which special portions are assigned to different groups, such as bishops, priests, children, married people, and penitents. This manner of division is reminiscent of the different grades of Indian society mentioned in the Purusha Myth.
III. Celtic Saints and Nature
Stories of some Irish monastic saints describe their special relationship with natural things and with birds and animals in particular. Here one gets the impression of a different underlying philosophy, in which the barriers between human and non-human are less rigid than in our modern code of understanding. St. Kevin of Glendalough prays during Lent with his hands extended. A blackbird comes and builds her nest in his open hand, lays her eggs, and hatches them. Kevin does not want to disturb her and keeps his hand unmoved until the young birds fly away. St. Colmán Mac Duach had a cock, a mouse, and a fly. The cock crowed to wake him for Matins, the mouse nibbled at his ear if he were slow to get out of bed, and the fly perched on the line of the psalter where he was to begin praying the Divine Office. It is said that wild animals would gather round the hermit saints as they have done round many an Indian ascetic in earlier and later times.
IV. An Epicletic Prayer Formula
Among present-day Gaelic speakers there is a popular prayer which goes back to perhaps the ninth century and is very close to a formula used at the baptism of adults in the Rituale Romanum. This may once have been used for the anointing of the various parts of the body in the baptismal rite. The prayer consists of a series of invocations asking God to take possession of different parts of the body, with the sign of the cross being made over the part of the body corresponding to the invocation:
May the yoke of the Law of God be on this shoulder;
May the intelligence of the Holy Spirit be in this head;
May the sign of Christ be on this forehead;
May the hearing of the Holy Spirit be in these ears;
May the scenting of the Holy Spirit be in this nose;
May the vision of the People of Heaven be in these eyes;
May the conversation of the People of Heaven be in this mouth;
May the work of the Church of God be in these hands;
May the welfare of God and neighbor be in these feet;
May this heart be a dwelling place for God;
May this complete person belong to God the Father.
This Celtic Christian ritual may be compared to the Nyasa rite practiced by the devout Brahmin, during which he touches various parts of the body with his right hand as he prays that the different gods who protect the parts of the body may each take up his abode in his special limb or position and that Ishvara may protect the complete body.
V. The Sunwise Circumambulation
What is called the Cor Deiseal or circumambulation of a sacred object (usually a well, pillar stone, church, tumulus, or fire) in the direction of the sun is very well known in Ireland, especially at the Holy Wells and places of pilgrimage. It is a moving spectacle to see the pilgrims moving sunwise around the well, one after the other, when one remembers the statement made by the Greek writer Athenaeus two thousand years ago about the Continental Celts: “They do reverence to the gods, turning to the right.” This rite of circumambulation is also well known in Hinduism, where it is called Pradaksina. It is performed around sacred trees, animals, shrines, and fires as an act of reverence, and it also delineates a sacred area, a sanctuary. In India, the triple circumambulation is associated with the three steps of Vishnu which encompassed the world.
In thus following the course of the sun, one puts oneself into harmony with the movement of the heavenly bodies and so with the universe. The idea of earth and sky being in harmony recalls the words of the Lord’s Prayer: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The idea of protection was also very prominent on the Island of Lewis off the coast of Scotland, where a blazing torch was carried three times around the herd of cattle at the autumnal feast of Samhain in order to keep them free from the diseases of the winter.
VI. Christ as “The Salmon of the Three Wells”
As we have seen, the cult of the Holy Well has played a significant part in Irish piety throughout the centuries and is still strong today. While the ritual and formulae are Christianized to some extent, the archaic character of the performance is strongly marked and often follows the Celtic rather than the ecclesiastical calendar. The spring or well is largely identified with the feminine. It is the place where the earth goddess manifests herself, the womb of the earth mother, with the rising, erupting water as a symbol of birth. The masculine is not excluded. In an old tale the goddess appears at the well to dispense the water of kingship to the rightful candidate and, strangely enough, down to recent times at some Holy Wells it was a woman who handed the vessel of water to the pilgrims. Many Holy Wells are dedicated to Rí an Domhnaigh, that is, to Our Lord as “King of Sunday.” Rituals were performed at the wells before sunrise on Sundays, an obvious reference to Sunday as the weekly celebration of the resurrection of Christ.
Tradition has it that in many of these wells a fish may sometimes be seen. If one sees the fish, it is an infallible sign that one’s request will be granted. The Holy Trinity was referred to as Tobar na dTrí Sreabh, “The Well of the Three Streams,” and Christ was Eo na dTrí dTobar, “The Salmon of the Three Wells.” Where three streams met was a sanctuary, a sacred place, and obviously this had it archetype in the Trinity itself, the meeting of the Three Persons in One God. Christ is also known as in t-eo sénta cas corcra, “The Blessed Curled Purple Salmon.” Whether or not there is an affinity between the Gaelic idea of Christ as the Salmon and Christ as the ichthus or “fish” in early Christian iconography is uncertain, but in Ireland we have this ancient tradition of the Eo fis or “salmon of knowledge [or wisdom].” Over the mysterious Well of Segais, the source of the Boyne River, grew nine hazels of wisdom. The hazel nuts fell into the well and the salmon ate them. Fionn Mac Cumahill, the great Irish hero, ate the salmon and the wisdom passed to him, giving him supernatural knowledge. And according to St. Paul, Christ is the wisdom of God (I Cor. 1: 24), a theme developed in the O Antiphon sung at Vespers on December 17: “O Wisdom, you come forth from the mouth of the Most High. You fill the universe and hold all things together in a strong yet gentle manner. O come to teach us the way of truth.”
VII. Spiritual Warfare
St. Paul commands the Christian to “put on God’s armor so as to be able to resist the devil’s tactics. For it is not against human enemies that we have to struggle, but against the Sovereignties and Powers who originate the darkness in this world, the spiritual army of evil in the heavens” (Eph. 6: 11-12). This doctrine of psychomachia or “spiritual warfare” appealed immensely to the war-loving Celts with their glorification of the heroic warrior, the Laoch. A favorite Easter theme in Ireland was Argain Ifrinn, the plundering of Hell, in which in highly bombastic prose Christ is shown as an enraged, fuming Celtic warrior descending into the Underworld. Amid scenes of astonishing violence he plunders Hell, ties up Satan the Dragon, and liberates the Old Testament saints, including Adam and Eve, from captivity. This explains the numerous dragon-fighting saints of Celtic tradition, for they were putting the Easter victory of Christ into operation in their own areas. As the Celtic warrior had performed mighty deeds of heroism, so the Christian saint emulated his pagan counterpart in practicing heroic asceticism. Protracted prayer and asceticism were used to get people out of Hell. These were the weapons of the Christian warrior, just as the Ga Bulga, the Móraltach, and Excalibur had been the magical weapons of the pagan heroes.
A fairly coherent military scenario can be discerned, one that shows some dependence on the Book of Revelation: (1) War breaks out in heaven when the angels rise in rebellion against God. St. Michael the Archangel defeats them and they, along with their leader Satan/the Dragon, are cast down to Hell and earth. (2) On earth, the rebel angels try to continue the war against God and enlist the help of humans in their fight. (3) Christ comes as military leader of the human race against Satan and his angels, Christ’s life being a war against disease, oppression, injustice, and all manifestations of the evil powers of Satan. (4) In descending into Hell, Christ conquers the Dragon in his chief stronghold. (5) Christ does not, however, destroy the Dragon completely; he ties him up, constraining him, but leaves him some power so that we may have the satisfaction of continuing the fight against evil, for if there is no opposition there is no fight, and if there is no fight there is no victory, as St. Columbanus said in one of his letters.
Since the Christian warrior needed armor going into battle against evil forces, the Lorica or “Protection Prayer” became very popular. This is a type of prayer asking God, the angels, the saints, and the forces of nature to surround the person and keep him safe from wounding by the enemy. In the most famous Lorica, St. Patrick’s Breastplate, which dates back to the eighth century, we find the “Formula of the Six Directions”: north, south, east, west, above, and below. In the prayer, Christ surrounds the person in all these directions: “Christ before me [=east], at my right, behind me, at my left, above me, below me.”
We can compare this formula with that given in the Chandogya Upanishad (7: 25): “This [Infinite] is below, it is above, it is to the west, to the east, to the south, to the north. Truly it is this whole universe.” It seems unlikely that this formula was translated from Sanskrit to Irish in the eighth century. Probably the two traditions drew from a common source. The formula also seems to have formed part of Celtic cosmology. In one saga, King Conchúr Mac Neasa takes a mighty oath that he will restore all that has been seized in battle “unless the sky fall down on us or the earth open up under us or the great blue sea rush in to cover the land.”
Along with the six directions there are two other phrases in St. Patrick’s Breastplate: Críost ionam and Críost liom: “Christ in me” and “Christ with me.” These phrases refer to the immanence of God, while the formula of the six directions is seen as describing the transcendent God who is nevertheless very close as “the surrounding God.” We have a remarkable commentary on this combination of transcendence and immanence in a passage from the Latin Lorica Sancti Brendani: “O immense God, in whom all things are, by whom are all things, by whom all things were made both visible and invisible, you cover them from above, you support them from below, you surround your works from outside, and you fill them from inside.” We may, then, describe God in Celtic terms as Deus circumdans et impleans, “the surrounding and filling God.” This corresponds to what Professor John Macquarrie once said of the Christian Celt: “The Celt was very much a God-intoxicated man whose life was embraced on all sides by the divine Being.”
Suggested Reading:
P. MacCana, Celtic Mythology(1970).
C. Plummer, Irish Litanies (1992).
E. Neumann, The Great Mother (1991).
P. Logan, The Holy Wells of Ireland (1980).
A. Rees, Celtic Heritage (1976).
