Читать книгу Myths of the Rhine - M. Xavier - Страница 33

Table of Contents

The Druids and their Creed.—Esus.—The Holy Oak.—The Pforzheim Lime Tree.—A Rival Plant.—The Mistletoe and the Ansfuinum.—The Oracle at Dodona.—Immaculate Horses.—The Druidesses.—A late Elector.—Philanthropic Institution of Human Sacrifices.—Second Druidical Epoch.

The Druids were the first to bring to the Gauls as well as to the Germans religious truths, but their creed can be appreciated from no dogma of theirs; it must be judged by their rites.

The first question is: Whence did the Druids come? Were they disciples of the Magi, and did they come from Persia? Such an origin has been claimed for them: or had they been initiated by Isis in her ancient mysteries, and did they come from Egypt? This view also has its adherents. Or, finally, had they been driven towards Western Europe by one of the last waves of immigration, which left India under the pressure of some new calamity? Many think so.

As it seems to be difficult to decide between these three suggestions, it might be worth while to try and reconcile them with each other. It is a long way from India to Germany and to Gaul, and there might have been many stopping places between the country from which they started and their future home.

The Druids, like all other Celts, might very well have started from India, and choosing not the most direct way might have reached Europe only after making many a long halt in Persia and in Egypt.

'If that can be admitted, then there is no difficulty in assuming that the first Celts might very well have taken with them from the banks of the Indus and the Ganges only a few fragments of a sickly materialism taught by false teachers outside of the temple, while the Druids might have been initiated within the temple itself, thus learning to know the true nature of the Deity.

Their creed was founded upon a triple basis—one God; the immortality of the soul; and rewards and punishments in a future life.

These sound doctrines, which are as old as the world and form the foundation of all human morality, had ever been maintained by their wise men.

At a later period the Greeks, proud as they were of their Platonic philosophy, had not hesitated to acknowledge that they had obtained the first germ of it from the Celts, the Galati, and consequently from the Druids. One of the Fathers of the Church, Clement of Alexandria, openly admits that these same Celts had been orthodox in their religion, at least as far as their dogmas were concerned.

By what name was the Supreme Being known to the Druids? They called it Esus, which means the Lord, or they gave it the simple designation of Teut (God). Through this Teut the German races became afterwards Teutons, the sons and followers of Teut, and even in our day they call themselves in their own language Teutsche or Deutsche.

Three marvelously brief maxims contain almost the whole catechism of the Druids: Serve God; Abstain from evil; Be brave!

The Druids, being warriors as well as priests, displayed in the performance of their warlike priesthood all the energy, the severity, and the authority which must needs accompany such a strange combination of powers. Holding all the power of the state in their hands, and speaking in the name of God, commanding the army, controlling the public treasury, and acting not only as judges but also as physicians, they punished heresy and rebellion, and ended lawsuits as well as diseases, by the death of the person most interested.

Their laws, liberal and philanthropic in spite of their apparent severity, allowed a jury consisting of notables, to judge grave crimes; this fact of a jury suggests naturally the idea of extenuating circumstances, and thus the criminal, escaping more readily than the patient, frequently got off with a fine, if he was rich, or with banishment if he was poor.

Nevertheless all the efforts of the Druids did not succeed in thoroughly eradicating Tree worship; they were thus led to adopt one tree, to the exclusion of all others, which should rally around it the scattered adoration of all the nations. This official tree, a kind of green altar, on which God manifested himself to his priests, was an oak, a strong, vigorous oak, the king of the forests.

Thus the holy oak became known and honored; pious worshippers came by night, with torches in their hands, in long processions to present their offerings.

This usage soon became general among all Celtic nations. Around these oaks the Druids formed sacred precincts within which they lived with their families, for they were married; but they could have only one wife, while the other chieftains were generally polygamists.