DeDanaan

Filed by Aine MacDermot

Footnotes

358:1 General reference: Essay upon the Irish Vision of the happy Other-world and the Celtic Doctrine of Re-birth, by Alfred Nutt in Kuno Meyer’s Voyage of Bran. Chief sources: Leabhar na h-Uidhre; Book of Leinster; Four Ancient Books of Wales; Mabinogion; Silva Gadelica; Barddas, a collection of Welsh manuscripts made about 1560; and the Annals of the Four Masters, compiled in the first half of the seventeenth century.

359:1 Cf. Plato, Republic, x; Phaedo; Phaedrus, &c.; Iamblichus, Concerning the Mysteries of Egypt, Chaldaea, Assyria; Plutarch, Mysteries of Isis (De Iside et Osiride).

359:2 ‘He says:–’I, for my part, suspect that the spirit was implanted in them (rational creatures, men) from without’ (De Principiis, Book I, c. vii. 4); … ‘the cause of each one’s actions is a pre-existing one; and then every one, according to his deserts, is made by God either a vessel unto honour or dishonour’ (ib., Book III, c. i. 20). ‘Whence we are of opinion that, seeing the soul, as we have frequently said, is immortal and eternal, it is possible that, in the many and endless periods of duration in the immeasurable and different worlds, it may descend from the highest good to the lowest evil, or be restored from the lowest evil to the highest good’ (ib., Book III, c. i, 21); … ‘every one has the reason in himself, why he has been placed in this or that rank in life’ (ib., Book III, c. v, 4).

360:1 Cf. Bergier, Origène, in Dict. de Théologie, v. 69.

360:2 Holy Bible, Revised Version, St. Matt. xi. 14-15; cf. St. Matt. xvii 10-13, St. Mark ix. 13, St. Luke vii. 27, St. John i. 21.

360:3 Tertullian’s conclusion is as follows:–’These substances (”soul and body”) are, in fact, the natural property of each individual; whilst “the spirit and power” (cf. Mal. iv. 5) are bestowed as external gifts by the grace of God, and so may be transferred to another person according to the purpose and will of the Almighty, as was anciently the case with respect to the spirit of Moses’ (cf. Num. xii. 2).–De Anima c. xxxv; cf. trans. in Ante-Nicene Christian Library (Edinburgh, 1870), xv. 496-7.

360:4 Origen says:–’But that there should be certain doctrines not made known to the multitude, which are (revealed) after the exoteric ones have been taught, is not a peculiarity of Christianity alone, but also of philosophic systems, in which certain truths are exoteric and others esoteric’ (Origen against Celsus, Book I, c. vii).

361:1 How Tertullian almost literally accepted the re-birth doctrine is shown In his Apology, chapter xlviii, concerning the resurrection of the body. It Is the corrupted form of the doctrine, viz. transmigration of human souls into animal bodies, which he therein, as well as in his De Anima and elsewhere, chiefly and logically combats, as Origen also combated it. He first shows why a human soul must return into a human body in accordance with natural analogy, every creature being after its own kind always; and then, because the purpose of the Resurrection is the judgement, that the soul must return into its own body. And he concludes:–’It is surely more worthy of belief that a man will be restored from a man, any given person from any given person, but still a man; so that the same kind of soul may be reinstated in the same mode of existence, even if not into the same outward form’ (The Apology of Tertullian for the Christians; cf. trans. by T. H. Bindley, Oxford, 1890, pp. 137-9).

361:2 British Museum MS. Add. 5114, vellum–a Coptic manuscript in the dialect of Upper Egypt. Its undetermined date is placed by Woide at latest about the end of the fourth century. It was evidently copied by one scribe from an older manuscript, the original probably having been the Apocalypse of Sophia, by Valentius, the learned Gnostic who lived in Egypt for thirty years during the second century. See the translation of the Schwartze’s parallel Latin version of Pistis Sophia and its introduction, both by G. R. S. Mead (London, 1896).

361:3 The chief passages are as follows, Jesus being the speaker:–’Moreover, in the region of the soul of the rulers, destined to receive it, I found the soul of the prophet Elias, in the aeons of the sphere, and I took him, and receiving his soul also, I brought it to the virgin of light, and she gave it to her receivers; they brought it to the sphere of the rulers, and cast it into the womb of Elizabeth. Wherefore the power of the little Iaô, who is in the midst, and the soul of Elias the prophet, are united with the body of John the Baptist. For this cause have ye been in doubt aforetime, when I said unto you, “John said, I am not the Christ”; and ye said unto me, “It is written in the Scripture, that when the Christ shall come, Elias will come before him, and prepare his way.” And I, when ye had said this unto me, replied unto you, “Elias verily is come, and hath prepared all things, according as it is written; and they have done unto him whatsoever they would.” And when I perceived that ye did not understand that I had spoken concerning the soul of Elias united with John the Baptist, I answered you openly and face to face with the words, “If ye p. 362 will receive it, John the Baptist is Elias who, I said, was for to come”‘ (Pistis Sophia, Book I, 12-13, Mead’s translation).

362:1 The Saviour answered and said unto his disciples:–”Preach ye unto the whole world, saying unto men, ‘Strive together that ye may receive the mysteries of light in this time of stress, and enter into the kingdom of light. Put not off from day to day, and from cycle to cycle, in the belief that ye will succeed in obtaining the mysteries when ye return to the world in another cycle ‘”‘ (Pistis Sophia, Book II, 317, Mead’s translation).

362:2 Cf. Bergier, Manichéisme, in Dict. de Théol., iv. 211-13.

362:3 The Refutation of Irenaeus, until quite recently, has been the chief source of much of our knowledge concerning Gnosticism. It was written during the second century at Lyons, by Irenaeus, a bishop of Gaul, far from any direct contact with the still flourishing Gnosticism. But now with the discovery of genuine manuscripts of Gnostic works: (1) the Askew Codex, vellum, British Museum, London, containing the Pistis Sophia (see above, p. 361 n.) and extracts from the Books of the Saviour; (2) the Bruce Codex (two MSS.), papyrus, Bodleian Library, Oxford, containing the fragmentary Book of the Great Logos, an unknown treatise, and p. 363 fragments; and (3) the AkhmÄ«m Codex (discovered in 1896), papyrus, Egyptian Museum, Berlin, containing The Gospel of Mary (or Apocryphon of John), The Wisdom of Jesus Christ, and The Acts of Peter, we are able to check from original sources the Fathers in many of their writings and canons concerning Gnostic ‘heresies’; and find that Irenaeus, the last refuge of Christian haeresiologists, has so condensed and paraphrased his sources that we cannot depend upon him at all for a consistent exposition of Gnostic doctrines, which with more or less prejudice he is trying to refute. it is true that the age of these manuscripts has not been satisfactorily determined; in fact most of them have not yet been carefully studied. Very probably, however, as appears to be the case with the Pistis Sophia, they have been copied from manuscripts which were contemporary with or earlier than the time of Irenaeus, and hence may be regarded as good authority in determining Gnostic teachings. (Cf. all of above note with G. R. S. Mead, Fragments of a Faith Forgotten, London, 1900, pp. 147, 151-3.)

Many unprejudiced scholars are now unwilling to admit the rulings of the Church Councils which determined what was orthodox and what heretical doctrines among the Gnostic-Christians, because many of their dogmatic decisions were based upon the unscholarly Refutation of Irenaeus and upon other equally unreliable evidence, The data which have accumulated in the hands of scholars about early Christian thought and Gnosticism are now much more complete and trustworthy than the similar data were upon which the Council of Constantinople in 553 based its decision with respect to the doctrine of re-birth; and the truth coming to be recognized seems to be that the Gnostics rather than the Church Fathers, who adopted from them what doctrines they liked, condemning those they did not like, should henceforth be regarded as the first Christian theologians, and mystics. If this view of the very difficult and complex matter be accepted, then modern Christianity itself ought to be allowed to resume what thus appears to have been its original position–so long obscured by the well-meaning, but, nevertheless, ill-advised ecclesiastical councils–as the synthesizer of pagan religions and philosophies. Some such view has been accepted by many eminent Christian theologians since Origen: i.e. the Cambridge Platonist, Henry More, openly advocated the re-birth doctrine in the seventeenth century; and in later times it has been preached from Christian pulpits by such men as Henry Ward Beecher and Phillips Brooks.

364:1 See A. Bertrand, La Religion des Gaulois, les Druides et le Druidisme (Paris, 1897); H. Jennings, The Rosicrucians (London, 1887); the Work of Paracelsus; H. Cornelius Agrippa, De Occulta Philosophia (Paris, 1567); H. P. Blavatsky’s Isis Unveiled, and the Secret Doctrine (London, 1888); and Hermetic Works, by Anna Kingsford and E. Maitland (London, 1885).

364:2 Cf. Bergier, Purgatoire, in Dict. de Théol., v. 409. A Celt, a professed faithful and fervent adherent of the Church of Rome, whom I met in the Morbihan where he now lives, told me that he believes thoroughly in the doctrine of re-birth, and that it is according to his opinion the proper and logical interpretation of the doctrine of Purgatory; and he added that there are priests in his Church who have told him that their personal interpretation of the purgatorial doctrine is the same. Thus some Roman Catholics do not deny the re-birth doctrine. And such conversations as this with Catholic Celts in Ireland and Brittany lead me to believe that to a larger extent than has been suspected the old Celtic Doctrine of Rebirth may have been one of the chief foundations for the modern Roman Catholic Doctrine of Purgatory, whose origin is not clearly indicated in any theological works. For us this probability is important as well as interesting, and especially so when we remember the profound influence which the Celtic St. Patrick’s Purgatory certainly exerted on the Church during the Middle Ages when the doctrine of Purgatory was taking definite shape (see our chapter x).

365:1 Barddas (Llandovery, 1862) is ‘a collection (by Iolo Morganwg, a Bard) of original documents, illustrative of the theology, wisdom, and usage of the Bardo-Druidic System of the Isle of Britain’. The original manuscripts are said to have been in the possession of Llywelyn Sion, a Bard of Glamorgan, about 1560. Barddas shows considerable Christian influence, yet in its essential teachings is sufficiently distinct. Though of late composition, Barddas seems to represent the traditional bardic doctrines as they had been handed down orally for an unknown period of time, it having been forbidden in earlier times to commit such doctrines to writing. We are well aware also of the adverse criticisms passed upon these documents; but since no one questions their Celtic origin–whether it be ancient or more modern–we are content to use them.

366:1 Barddas, i, 189–91.

366:2 Barddas, i, 177.

366:3 Preface to Barddas, xlii.

366:4 One of the greatest errors formerly made by European Sanskrit scholars and published broadcast throughout the West, so that now it is popularly accepted there as true, is that Nirvana, the goal of Indian philosophy and p. 367 religion, means annihilation. It does mean annihilation (evolutionary transmutation of lower into higher), but only of all those forces or elements which constitute man as an animal. The error arose from interpreting exoterically instead of esoterically, and was a natural result of that system of western scholarship which sees and often cares only to examine external aspects. Native Indian scholars who have advised us in this difficult problem prefer to translate Nirvana as ‘Self-realization’, i.e. a state of supernormal consciousness (to be acquired through the evolution of the individual), as much superior to the normal human consciousness as the normal human consciousness is superior to the consciousness existing in the brute kingdom.

367:1 De Bel. Gal., lib. vi. 14. 5; vi. 18. 1.

367:2 Book V, 31. 4.

367:3 De Situ Orbis, iii. C. 2: ‘One point alone of the Druids’ teaching has become generally known among the common people (in order that they could be braver in war), that souls are eternal and there is a second life among the shades.’

367:4 i, 449-62.

368:1 Lucan, i. 457-8; i. 458-62.

368:2 Cf. Le Cycle Myth. Irl., pp. 345, 347 ff.

368:3 Folk-Lore, xii. 64, &c.; also cf. Eleanor Hull, The Cuchullin Saga in Irish Literature (London, 1898), Intro., p. 23, &c.

369:1 What is probably the oldest form of a tale concerning Conchobhar’s birth makes Conchobhar ‘the son of a god who incarnated himself in the same way as did Lug and Etain’ (cf. Voy. of Bran, ii. 73).

369:2 See Leabhar na h-Uidhre, 101b; and Book of Leinster, 123b:–’Cúchulainn mo dea dechtiri.’

369:3 We have already mentioned the belief that gods having their abode in the sun could leave it to assume bodies here on earth and become culture heroes and great teachers (see p. 309).

369:4 From Wooing of Emer in Leabhar na h-Uidhre; cf. Voy. of Bran, ii. 97.

369:5 L’ Épopée celt. en Irl., p. 11.

369:6 Cf. Voy. of Bran, ii. p. 74 ff.

370:1 In the Leabhar no h-Uidhre, 133a–134b; cf. Le Cycle Myth. Irl., pp. 336–43; cf. Voy. of Bran, i. 49–52; cf. O’Curry, Manners and Customs, iii. 175.

370:2 Cf. Stokes’s ed. Annals of Tigernach, Third Frag. in Rev. Celt. xvii. 178. In the piece called Tucait baile Mongâin in the Leabhar na h-Uidhre, p. 134, col. 2, ‘Mongan is seen living with his wife the year of the death of Ciaran mac int Shair, and of Tuathal Mael-Garb, that is to say in 544,’ following the Chronicum Scotorum, Hennessy’s ed., pp. 48-9. As D’Arbois de Jubainville adds, the Irish chronicles of this epoch are only approximate in their dates. Thus, while the Four Masters (i. 243) makes the death of Mongan A. D. 620, the Annals of Ulster makes it A. D. 625, the Chronicum Scotorum A. D. 625, the Annals of Clonmacnoise, A. D. 624, and Egerton MS. 1782 A.D. 615 (cf. Voy. of Bran, i. 137 -9).

370:3 J. O’Donovan, Annals of Ireland by the Four Masters (Dublin, 1856), i. 121.

372:1 Cf. Le Cycle Myth. Irl., pp. 336-43; O’Curry, Manners and Customs iii. 175; L. U., 133a-134b; and Voy. of Bran, i. 52.

372:2 Voy. of Bran, i. 44-5; from The Conception of Mongan.

373:1 Meyer’s version, Voy. Of Bran, i. 73-4.

373:2 Cf. Voy. Of Bran, i. 137.

374:1 Voy. of Bran, i. 22-8, quatrains 48-59, &c.

374:2 In L. U.; cf. Le Cycle Myth. Irl., pp. 355-22; and Voy. of Bran, ii. 47-53.

375:1 In the Irish conception of re-birth there is no change of sex: Lug is re-born as a boy, in Cuchulainn; Finn as Mongan; Etain as a girl. But it seems that Etain as a mortal had no consciousness of her previous divine existence, while Cuchulainn and Mongan knew their non-human origin and pre-existence.

376:1 Some time after this, according to one part of the tale, Eochaid stormed Midir’s fairy palace–for the purpose localized in Ireland–and won Etain back, but the fairies cast a curse on his race for this, and Conaire, his grandson, fell a victim to it. Such a recovering of Etain by Eochaid may vaguely suggest a re-birth of Etain, through the power exerted by Eochaid, who, being a king, is to be regarded in his non-human nature as one of the Tuatha De Danann himself, like Midir his rival.

377:1 Cf. The Gilla decair, in Silva Gadelica, pp. 300–3.

377:2 Cf. Voy. of Bran, ii. 76 ff. The Christian scribe’s version fills up the apace between Tuan’s death and re-birth by making him pass eighty years as a stag, twenty as a wild boar, one hundred as an eagle, and twenty as a salmon (ib., p. 79). In this particular example, the uninitiated scribe (evidently having failed to grasp an important aspect of the re-birth doctrine as this was esoterically explained in the Mysteries, namely, that between death and re-birth, while the conscious Ego is resident in the Otherworld, the physical atoms of the discarded human body may transmigrate through various plant and animal bodies) appears to set forth as Celtic an erroneous doctrine of the transmigration of the conscious Ego itself (see p. 513 n.). In other texts, for example in the song which Amairgen (considered the Gaelic equivalent or even original of the Brythonic Taliessin) sang as he, with the conquering Sons of Mil, set foot on Ireland, there are similar transformations, attributed to certain heroes like Taliessin (see the Mabinogion) and Tuan mac Cairill during their disembodied states after death and until re-birth. But these transformations seem to echo poetically, and often rationally, a very mystical Celtic pantheism, in which Man, regarded as having evolved upwards through all forms and conditions of existence, is at one with all creation:–

I am the wind which blows o’er the sea;
I am the wave of the deep;
I am the bull of seven battles;
I am the eagle on the rock;
I am a tear of the sun;
I am the fairest of plants;
I am a boar for courage;
I am a salmon in the water;
I am a lake in the plain;
I am the world of knowledge;
I am the head of the battle-dealing spear;
I am the god who fashions fire in the head;
Who spreads light in the gathering on the mountain?
Who foretells the ages of the moon?
Who teaches the spot where the sun rests?

And Amairgen also says:–’I am,’ [Taliessin] ‘I have been’ (Book of Invasions; cf. Voy. of Bran, ii. 91-2; cf. RhÅ·s, Hib. Lect., p. 549; cf. Skene, Four Ancient Books, i. 276 ff.).

In later times, especially among non-bardic poets, there has been a (p. 378) similar tendency to misinterpret this primitive mystical Celtic pantheism into the corrupt form of the re-birth doctrine, namely transmigration of the human soul into animal bodies. Dr. Douglas Hyde has sent to me the following evidence:–’I have a poem, consisting of nearly one hundred stanzas, about a pig who ate an Irish manuscript, and who by eating it recovered human speech for twenty-four hours and gave his master an account of his previous embodiments. He had been a right-hand man of Cromwell, a weaver in France, a subject of the Grand Signor, &c. The poem might be about one hundred or one hundred and fifty years old.’ it is probable that the poet who composed this poem intended to add a touch of modern Irish humour by making use of the pig. We should, nevertheless, bear in mind that the pig (or, as is more commonly the rule, the wild boar) holds a very curious and prominent position in the ancient mythology of Ireland, and of Wales as well. It was regarded as a magical animal (cf. p. 451 n.); and, apparently, was also a Druid symbol, whose meaning we have lost. Possibly the poet may have been aware of this. If so, he does not necessarily imply transmigration of the human soul into animal bodies; but is merely employing symbolism.

378:1 See Taliessin in the Mabinogion, and the Book of Taliessin in Skene’s Four Ancient Books, i. 523 ff.; cf. Nutt, Voy. of Bran, ii. 84, and RhÅ·s, Hib. Lect., pp. 548, 551.

378:2 Cf. RhÅ·s, Hib. Lect., pp. 548-50.

379:1 Cf. RhÅ·s, Hib. Lect., p. 259; and Arth. Leg., p. 252.

380:1 Loth, Les Mabinogion, Kulhwch et Olwen, p. 187 n.

380:2 Le Morte D’Arthur, Book XXI, c. vii.

380:3 See works on Egyptian mythology and religion, by Maspero; also Lenormant, Chaldean Magic, p. 84, &c.

380:4 F. L. Griffith, Stories of the High-priests of Memphis (Oxford, 1900), c. iii. The text of this story is written on the back of two Greek documents, bearing the date of the seventh year of the Emperor Claudius (A.D. 46-7), not before published.

381:1 It is interesting to compare with this episode the episodes of how the magic of St. Patrick prevailed over the magic of the Druids when the old and the new religions met in warfare on the Hill of Tara, in the presence of the high king of Ireland and his court.

381:2 E. A. Wallis Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians (London, 1904), p. 3.

381:3 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico and Conquest of Peru.

381:4 W. Crooke, The Legends of Krishna, in Folk-Lore, xi. 2-3 ff.

382:1 Laws of Manu, vii. 8, trans. by G. Bühler.

382:2 A. B. Cook, European Sky-God, in Folk-Lore, XV. 301-4.

382:3 Cf. Lucian, Somn., 17, &c. See Tylor, Prim. Cult., ii. 13; also Tertullian, De Anima, c. xxviii, where Pythagoras is described as having previously been Aethalides, and Euphorbus, and the fisherman Pyrrhus.

383:1 Cf. Huc, Souvenirs d’un voyage dans la Tartarie et le Thibet, i. 279 ff.

383:2 The doctrine of kingly rule by divine right was substituted after the conversion of the Roman Empire for the very ancient belief that the emperor was a god incarnate (not necessarily reincarnate); and the same christianized aspect of a pre-Christian doctrine stands behind the English kingship at the present day.

384:1 A curious parallel to this Irish doctrine that through re-birth one suffers for the sins committed in a previous earth-life is found in the Christian scriptures, where in asking Jesus about a man born blind, ‘Rabbi, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he should be born blind?’ the disciple exhibits what must have been a popular Jewish belief in re-birth quite like the Celtic one. See St. John ix. 1-2. Though the Rabbis admitted the possibility of ante-natal sin in thought, this passage seems to point unmistakably to a Jewish re-birth doctrine.

385:1 It is interesting to note in connexion with these two complementary ideas what has been written by Mr. Standish O’Grady concerning strange phenomena witnessed at the time of Charles Parnell’s funeral:–’While his followers were committing Charles Parnell’s remains to the earth, the sky was bright with strange lights and flames. Only a coincidence possibly; and yet persons not superstitious have maintained that there is some mysterious sympathy between the human soul and the elements … Those strange flames recalled to my memory what is told of similar phenomena said to have been witnessed when tidings of the death of the great (p. 386) Christian Saint, Columba, overran the north-west of Europe, as perhaps truer than I had imagined.’–Ireland: Her Story, pp. 211-12.

386:1 Cf. M. Lenihan, Limerick; its History and Antiquities (Dublin, 1866), p. 725.

388:1 I take this to mean, somewhat as in the similar case of Dechtire, the mother of Cuchulainn (see p. 369, above), that the kind of soul or character which ‘will be reincarnated in the child is determined by the psychic prenatal conditions which a mother consciously or unconsciously may set up. If this interpretation, as it seems to be, is correct, we have in this Welsh belief a surprising comprehension of scientific laws on the part of the ancient Welsh Druids–from whom the doctrine comes–which equals, and surpasses in its subtlety, the latest discoveries of our own psychological embryology, criminology, and so-called laws of heredity.

390:1 The reader is referred to the Rev. T. M. Morgan’s latest publication,, The History and Antiquities of the Parish of Newchurch, Carmarthenshire, Carmarthen, 1910), pp. 155-6.

392:1 I found, however, that the original re-birth doctrine has been either misinterpreted or else corrupted–after Dr. Tylor’s theory–into transmigration into animal bodies among certain Cornish miners in the St. Just region.

394:1 The primitive character of the Incarnation doctrine is clear: Origen, in refuting a Jewish accusation against Christians, apparently the natural outgrowth of deep-seated hatred and religious prejudice on the part of the Jews, that Jesus Christ was born through the adultery of the Virgin with a certain soldier named Panthera, argues ‘that every soul, for certain mysterious reasons (I speak now according to the opinions of Pythagoras, and Plato, and Empedocles, whom Celsus frequently names), is introduced into a body, and introduced according to its deserts and former actions’. And, according to Origen’s argument, to assign to Jesus Christ a birth more disgraceful than any other is absurd, because ‘He who sends souls down into the bodies of men’ would not have thus ‘degraded Him who was to dare such mighty acts, and to teach so many men, and to reform so many from the mass of wickedness in the world’. And Origen (p. 395) adds:–’It is probable, therefore, that this soul also which conferred more benefit by its residence in the flesh than that of many men (to avoid prejudice, I do not say “all”), stood in need of a body not only superior to others, but invested with all excellence’ (Origen against Celsus, Book I, c. xxxii).

It is interesting to compare with Origen’s theology the following passage from the Pistis Sophia, wherein Jesus in the alleged esoteric discourse to his disciples refers to the pre-existence of their souls:–’I took them from the hands of the twelve saviours of the treasure of light, according to the command of the first mystery. These powers, therefore, I cast into the wombs of your mothers, when I came into the world, and they are those which are in your bodies this day’ (Pistis Sophia, i. II, Mend’s translation).

395:1 Cf. Nutt, Voy. of Bran, ii. 27 ff., 45 ff., 54 ff., 98-102.

395:2 Cf. Ib., p. 105.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14