*"Our purpose here is absolutely not to demolish Christianity ... but to give back to it its true meaning" (Rene Bouchet. Druidism and Christianity. Aurora Publishing. Liege 1979).

ODE FOR THE HIGH-KNOWERS.

Half of Mankind’s woe comes from the fact that, several thousand years ago, somewhere in the Middle East, peoples through their language conceived spirituality OR MYSTICISM….

-Not as a quest for meaning, hope or liberation with the concepts that go with it (distinction opposition or difference between matter and spirit, ethics, personal discipline, philanthropy, life after life, meditation, quest for the grail, practices...).

-But as a gigantic and protean law (DIN) that should govern the daily life of men with all that it implies.

Obligations or prohibitions that everyone must respect day and night.

Violations or contraventions of this multitude of prohibitions when they are not followed literally.

Judgments when one or more of these laws are violated.

Convictions for the guilty.

Dismissals or acquittals for the innocent. CALLED RIGHTEOUS PERSONS.

THIS CONFUSION BETWEEN THE NUMINOUS AND THE RELIGIOUS, THEN BETWEEN THE SACREDNESS AND THE SECULAR , MAKES OUR LIFE A MISERY FOR 4000 YEARS VIA ISRAEL AND ESPECIALLY THE NEW ISRAEL THAT CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM WANT TO BE.

The principle of our Ollotouta was given us, long time ago already, by our master to all in the domain; the great Gaelic bard, founder of the modern Free-thought, who is usually evoked under the anglicized name of John Toland. There cannot be, by definition, things contrary to Reason in Holy Scriptures really emanating from the divine one.

If there are, then it is, either error, or lies!

Either there is no mystery, or then it is in any way a divine revelation!

There is no happy medium...

We do not admit other orthodoxy that only the one of Truth because, wherever it can be in the world, must also stand, we are completely convinced of it, God's Church, and not that one of such or such a human faction … We are consequently for showing no mercy to the error on any pretext that can be, each time we will have the possibility or occasion to expound it in its true colors.

----------------------- ------------------------------- --------------------------------- --------------------------------------- ------

1696. Christianity not mysterious.

1702. Vindicius Liberus. Response of John Toland to the detractors of his "Christianity not mysterious."

1704. Letters to Serena containing the origin of idolatry and reasons of heathenism, the history of the soul's immortality doctrine among the heathens, etc. (Version Baron d’Holbach, a German philosopher).

1705. The true Socinianism * as an example of fair debate on matters of theology *.To which is prefixed Indifference in disputes, recommended by a pantheist to an orthodox friend.

1709. Adeisdaemon or the man without superstition. Jewish origins.

1712. Letter against popery, and particularly against admitting the authority of the Fathers or Councils in religious controversies, by Sophia Charlotte of Prussia.

1714. Defense of the Jews, victims of the anti-Semite prejudices, and a plea for their naturalization.

1718. The destiny of Rome, of the popes, and the famous prophecy of St Malachy, archbishop of Armagh, in the thirteenth century.

Nazarenus or the Jewish, gentile, and Mahometan Christianity (version Baron d’Holbach), containing:

I. The history of the ancient gospel of Barnabas, and the modern apocryphal gospel of the Mahometans, attributed to the same apostle.

II. The original plan of Christianity occasionally explained in the history of the Nazarenes, solving at the same time various controversies about this divine (but so highly perverted) institution.

III. The relation of an Irish manuscript of the four gospels as likewise a summary of the ancient Irish Christianity and what the realty of the keldees (an order half-lay, half-religious) was, against the last two bishops of Worcester.

1720. Pantheisticon, sive formula celebrandae sodalitatis socraticae.

Tetradymus.

I. Hodegus. The pillar of cloud and fire that guided the Israelites in the wilderness was not miraculous but, as faithfully related in Exodus, a practice equally known by other nations, and in those countries, not only useful, but even necessary.

Il. Clidophorus.

III. Hypatia or the history of the most beautiful, most virtuous, and most accomplished lady, who was stoned to death by the clergy of Alexandria, to gratify the pride, the emulation and even the cruelty, of Archbishop Cyril, commonly, but very undeservedly, styled Saint Cyril.

1726. Critical history of the Celtic religion, containing an account of the druids, or the priests and judges, of the vates, or the diviners and physicians, and finally of the bards, or the poets; of the ancient Britons, Irish or Scots. In plus with the story of Abaris the Hyperborean, priest of the sun.

A specimen of the Armorican language (Breton, Irish, Latin, dictionary).

1726. An account of Jordano Bruno's book, about the infinity of the universe and the innumerable worlds, translated from the Italian editing.

1751. The Pantheisticon or the form of celebrating the Socratic-society. London S. Paterson. Translation of the book published in 1720.

"Druidism" is an independent review (independent of any religious or political association) and which has only one purpose: theoretical or fundamental research about what is neo-paganism. The double question, to which this review of theoretical studies tries to answer, could be summarized as follows:

"What could be or what should be a current neo-druidism, modern and contemporary?”

"Druidism" is a neo-pagan review, strictly neo-pagan, and heir to all genuine (that is to say non-Christian) movements which have succeeded one another for 2000 years, the indirect heir, but the heir, nevertheless!

Regarding our reference tradition or our intellectual connection, let us underline that if the "poets" of Domnall mac Muirchertach Ua Néill still had imbas forosnai, teimn laegda and dichetal do chennaib, in their repertory (cf. the conclusion of the tale of the plunder of the castle of Maelmilscothach, of Urard Mac Coise, a poet who died in the 11th century), they may have been Christians for several generations. It is true that these practices (imbas forosnai, teimn ...) were formally forbidden by the Church, but who knows, there may have been accommodations similar to those of astrologers or alchemists in the Middle Ages.

Anyway our "Druidism" is also a will; the will to get closer, at the maximum, to ancient druidism, such as it was (scientifically speaking). The will also to modernize this druidism, a total return to ancient druidism being excluded (it would be anyway impossible).

Examples of modernization of this pagan druidism.

— Giving up to lay associations of the cultural side (medicine, poetry, mathematics, etc.). Principle of separation of Church and State.

— Specialization on the contrary, in Celtic, or pagan in general, spirituality history of religion, philosophy and metapsychics (known today as parapsychology).

— Use in some cases of the current vocabulary (Church, religion, baptism, and so on).

A golden mean, of course, is to be found between a total return to ancient druidism (fundamentalism) and a too revolutionary radical modernization (no longer sagum).

The Celtic PAA (pantheistic agnostic atheist) having agreed to be the defense lawyer of ancient Celtic paganism and to sign jointly this small library *, of which he is only the collector, druid Hesunertus (Peter DeLaCrau), does not consider himself as the author of this collective work. But as the spokesperson for the team which composed it. For other sources of this essay on druidism, see the thanks in the bibliography.

* Socinians, since that's how they were named later, wished more than all to restore the true Christianity that teaches the Bible. They considered that the Reformation had made disappear only a part of corruption and formalism, present in the Churches, while leaving intact the bad substance: non-biblical teachings (that is very questionable in fact).

.** This little camminus is nevertheless important for young people ... from 7 to 77 years old! Mantalon siron esi.

1) Do ratath tra do Mael Milscothach iartain cech ni dobrethaigsid suide sin etir ecnaide 7 fileda 7 brithemna la taeb ogaisic a crech 7 is amlaidsin ro ordaigset do tabairt a cach ollamain ina einech 7 ina sa[ru]gad acht cotissad de imus forosnad [di]chetal do chollaib cend 7 tenm laida .i. comenclainn fri rig Temrach do acht co ti de intreide sin FINIT.

WARNING. HOLY QURAN CHAPTER 9 VERSE 30.

“The Jews say: Ezra is the son of God, and the Christians say: The Messiah is the son of God. That is their saying with their mouths. They imitate the saying of those who disbelieved of old. God (Himself) fights against them. How yufakuna are they!

Semantic specifications.

Ezra. It is the current translators or Muslims who transcribe the Arabic name Uzayr, Esdras. There is no evidence that he is the secretary for Jewish affairs of the Persian empire mentioned in the book of the Bible bearing his name.

If this is the case, it must be remembered here that the Jews never made him a son of God. The Bible does not even make him a prophet. He is a pious Jew sent to Jerusalem in -458 with a first group of volunteers to reorganize the Jewish state with Jerusalem as its capital. Then he disappeared, to reappear in -448. on the occasion of a first reading of the new Jewish law (different from that of the Samaritans remained on the spot).

Only a few speculative Jewish currents make it a new Moses.

About the Arabic word "yufakuna" which essentializes or characterizes therefore Jews and Christians according to Surah 9 verse 30 in the Quran and which is often conveyed in translations as something like "Jews and Christians .... understand nothing.”

They are

-beguiled

-perverted

-perverse

-deluded

-turned away

It is a derivative of the word afaka, at least according to the volume 1 of the book by Muhammad Mohar Ali entitled "Word for word translation of the Qur’an.”

But the word yufakuna does not imply a simple ignorance, it rather suggests a misguided intelligence, or that one prevents from functioning normally.

And the "one" in question is to be taken in the strongest sense: it can be God as well as the devil.

Being an atheist, however, we will reject this hypothesis and we will opt for a more natural impediment.

"Jews and Christians ...... are naturally unable to see, to know, to understand! "

At the philosophical level "Jews and Christians’ faith…has nothing to do with Reason! ”

More bluntly "Jews and Christians……are morons.”

In short in summary "Jews and Christians ... are persons with Down’s syndrome.” Or alienated.

PREFACE.

The first Christians in North Africa having been apparently of the yufakuna tendency (see the previous volume) a few words on this very important branch of primitive Christianity, roughly at the origin of Catholicism and therefore of its later reformation.

THE MONTANIST SCHISM.

Montanus and his two female auxiliaries, Maximilla and Prisca, were ardent Pentecostal Christians in the middle of the second century. Many Christians of this period and region were convinced that the "spiritual help" that Christ had promised to send: the paraclete, spoke by the mouth of Montanus; and that the heavenly Jerusalem was about to descend (to Pepuza in Asia Minor).

A tract against Montanism was written thirteen years after the death of Maximilla, which probably took place during the reign of Marcus Aurelius. That is to say, a little before the end of the second century. One of his books is devoted to the unhappy "Orthodox and future Catholic" Bishop Avircius Marcellus, whose faithful were to be, in Hierapolis, at that time, much less numerous than the Montanists, who were the majority in many regions.

Warning to the reader. Most of these quotations are taken from Eusebius of Caesarea. But his work often contains many untruths or contradictions, which we prefer to consider as "involuntary." They are therefore to be used with precautions, this author being a perfect example of the censorships, rewritings, or other cheating of History, done by the first Christians.

TREATISE AGAINST MONTANISM (quoted by Eusebius H. E. V. 16.).

" Having for a very long and sufficient time, O beloved Avircius Marcellus, been urged by you to write a treatise against the heresy of those who are called after Miltiades, I have hesitated till the present time, not through lack of ability to refute the falsehood or bear testimony for the truth, but from fear and apprehension that I might seem to some to be making additions to the doctrines or precepts of the Gospel of the New Testament, which it is impossible for one who has chosen to live according to the Gospel, either to increase or to diminish. But being recently in Ancyra in Galatia [modern Ankara], I found the church there greatly agitated by this novelty, not prophecy, as they call it, but rather false prophecy, as will be shown. Therefore, to the best of our ability, with the Lord's help, we disputed in the church many days concerning these and other matters separately brought forward by them…. Their opposition and their recent heresy which has separated them from the Church arose on the following account.

There is said to be a certain village called Ardabau in that part of Mysia, which borders upon Phrygia. There first, they say, when Gratus was proconsul of Asia, a recent convert, Montanus by name, through his unquenchable desire for leadership, gave the adversary opportunity against him. And he became beside himself, and being suddenly in a sort of frenzy and ecstasy, he raved, and began to babble and utter strange things, prophesying in a manner contrary to the

[Editorial Note. This, however, is very similar to primitive Pauline Christianity, and to the gift of tongues received by the apostles at Pentecost.Since, therefore, they called us slayers of the prophets [Matthew 23:34] because we did not receive their loquacious prophets….

When therefore they are at a loss, being refuted in all that they say, they try to take refuge in their martyrs, alleging that they have many martyrs, and that this is sure evidence of the power of the so-called prophetic spirit that is with them. But this, as it appears, is entirely fallacious. For some of the heresies have a great many martyrs; but surely we shall not on that account agree with them or confess that they hold the truth. And first, indeed, those called Marcionites, from the heresy of Marcion, say that they have a multitude of martyrs for Christ; yet they do not confess Christ himself in truth…. When those called to martyrdom from the Church for the truth of the faith have met with any of the so-called martyrs of the Phrygian heresy, they have separated from them, and died without any fellowship with them, because they did not wish to give their assent to the spirit of Montanus and the women. And that this is true and took place in our own time in Apamea

[Editor's Note. In other words, if we understand well Eusebius of Caesarea , there is a martyr and a martyr. The Montanists had no real martyrs, but they could nevertheless be separated from them in

the Roman jails if necessary. For those who know what I mean with this very Christian contradiction with a bad faith as obvious as that of qualifying as profane a building belonging to the "sacredness" of others. See on this subject the life of St. Martin. Christianity has always had many problems with the notion of truth. See the famous remark of Pilate on this subject. One would think one would hear politicians of Right-wing. Or of the left wing also, of course. Some Democrats. Some Republicans. Or some Loyalists, Monarchists, etc.].

APOLLONIUS OF EPHESUS (quoted by Eusebius H.E. V.18).

2. His actions and his teaching show who this new teacher is. This is he who taught the dissolution of marriage; who made laws for fasting; who named Pepuza and Tymion, small towns in Phrygia, Jerusalem, wishing to gather people to them from all directions; who appointed collectors of money; who contrived the receiving of gifts under the name of offerings; who provided salaries for those who preached his doctrine…. those whom they call prophets and martyrs gather their gain not only from rich men, but also from the poor, and orphans, and widows [Editor's Note. One does not understand very well what Apollonius of Ephesus reproaches to Montanus. Receiving offerings, collecting tithes, paying priests, fasting ... accepting alms or the parish tithes ???? ].His first prophetesses themselves, as soon as they were filled with the Spirit, abandoned their husbands. How falsely therefore they speak who call Prisca a virgin. [Editor's Note. The excess of religious zeal of women has often been the cause of many divorces in history, see jurisprudence].

THE PERSECUTIONS PROBLEM

Again for more details see our previous volume but again a few words about it nevertheless.

The notion of persecution is a concept that covers all systematic anti-Christian behavior, from personal vexations to collective murders. The word appears from the beginnings of Christianity; The Acts of the Apostles report that after Christ himself, the early Christians (St. Stephen, St. Paul, for example) were persecuted by the Jewish and Roman authorities.

There should be no mistaken target on this subject about the so-called mass martyrdoms suffered by Christians at the beginning of their history.

Historians' assessments of the number of these martyrs vary largely: from 3,000 or 4,000 to several tens of thousands. Some estimation, for example, state about 1000 martyrs for the Roman Empire of the West and about 3000 for the Roman Empire of the East. The truth probably lies between the two extremes, without we are able to give a precise figure for lack of a complete documentation about the subject.

Origen in his refutation of Celsus (see previous volume) admits that there were very few martyrs and that they can easily be counted.

“But with regard to the Christians, because they were taught not to avenge themselves upon their enemies (and have thus observed laws of a mild and philanthropic character); and because they would not, although able, have made war even if they had received authority to do so—they have obtained this reward from God, that he has always warred in their behalf, and on certain occasions has restrained those who rose up against them and desired to destroy them. For in order to remind others, that by seeing a few engaged in a struggle for their religion, they might also be better fitted to despise death, some, on special occasions, and these individuals who can be easily numbered, have endured death for the sake of Christianity—God not permitting the whole nation to be exterminated, but desiring that it should continue, and that the whole world should be filled with this salutary and religious doctrine. And again, on the other hand, that those who were of weaker minds might recover their courage and rise superior to the thought of death, God interposed His providence on behalf of believers, dispersing by an act of His will alone all the conspiracies formed against them; so that neither kings, nor rulers, nor the populace, might be able to rage against them beyond a certain point.”

The number of victims in the West can be estimated at about one thousand in two and a half centuries and about three thousand in the East. Eusebius of Caesarea speaks of several tens of thousands of dead; still for the same period of two and a half centuries, but you know how much you must be wary of this specialist of the rewriting of the Holy History (a little like the way in which Stalin had retouched photos). The martyrology of Eusebius of Caesarea obeys the evident concern to increase the number of martyrs, that is, of believers who are suicidal enough to prefer death to the acceptance of a ceremony in honor of the emperor ; in order to counterbalance the fact that in reality there were very few to refuse. Let us also remind, come at this point in our paper of the fact that the behavior of the Jesus of the four Gospels during his arrest and death (the garden of Gethsemane, the prayers addressed to his Father, his trial, his cries on the cross) ; is much less courageous (or mad) than that of a number of the later martyrs of his own movement (who went to death singing, at least still according to the legends, for these accounts are a little too good to be totally true).

There are many similarities between the religious experiences of Christians and pagans.

In the accounts of martyrs, we find many times, in a different context it is true, the same joy that inhabits an Aelius Aristides or a Lucius at the time of their mystical experience. It is with joy that Aristides subjects himself to the terrible therapeutics prescribed by the god or demon: to be voluntarily shipwrecked, to simulate a funeral, to bathe in the snow or in a river of icy water. It is with joy, and almost hilarious, that Perpetua and his companions will be taken to prison after the sentence of death has been pronounced against them.

In her dream there will be different visions, in which, according to the French historian Louis Robert, we find the characteristic imagery of a Greek competition of the first rank. In the anguish that grips her during the period of incarceration which precedes her martyrdom, Perpetua makes dreams indeed that

it is not difficult to decipher. Martyrdom appears to him as a struggle against the devil, symbolized by the dragon, and Heaven is represented in the manner of a garden where the Good Shepherd awaits her among the chosen persons. See the previous volume.

Editor's note. We have hesitated to call this kind of martyrdom "courageous" because we wonder whether this is not a madness of the type yufakuna or a form of suicide *, as Lucian of Samosata saw it very well about Peregrinus Proteus. On suicide and morals also see the French historian of morality Albert Bayet.

How, then, are characterized these persecutions that have affected the lives of Christians in the first four centuries of their history?

Historically, the religion of the Romans is very tolerant, and there is even a temple dedicated to the unknown god-or-demon in Rome. The persecutions of the first two centuries correspond more to punctual measures which result from the incipient Antichristianism of public opinion; while the important changes of the third century led to persecutions resulting from the will of the power to close ranks around the person of the emperor.

For, and this is here an almost constant in the persecutions of the third and fourth centuries, it was not the Christian worship that was forbidden in itself, nor any other unless it included human sacrifices; it was certain symbolic gestures of pagan worship: the individual sacrifice, for example of some grains of incense, or the participation in a collective sacrifice, in honor of the gods of the Empire or of the Emperor; which were mandatory. In other words, it was at times obligatory to accomplish one or two of the innumerable rituals or gestures of (Roman) paganism. But it seems well established (see previous volume) that many judges did everything they could not to come there, going so far as to whisper the right answers to do or to pretend not to understand. Some well-intentioned judges have repeated at length, but vainly, to the accused persons whom they knew well (for persecutors and persecuted persons often were members of the same milieu): "What prevents you from burning a little incense? If it hurts, I'll take it on me! And ( implied )you can still practice your religion after! ".

Not to mention the case of St. Pionius and his 15 companions in Smyrna in 250, who were better and chained themselves voluntarily on the eve of their arrest.

Or else the acts of his martyrdom are forgeries due to the hand of certain Christians.

Let our readers judge by themselves.

PURPOSE AND INTENT OF THE DECISION OF DECIUS.

It has been known since the last works of Professor Graeme Wilbur Clarke.

1) That what that emperor ordered in 249 was a "supplicatio" and not a persecution.

2) That this supplicatio was general and not only for Christians.

" It is now no longer controversial that the "Persecution of Decius" began as a general call to sacrifice to the gods (supplicatio) and became a persecution of Christians only as the result of non-compliance to this call by some Christians… the Decían libelli from Egypt required no specific renunciation of Christianity or abjuration of Christ... The imprisoned Christians in (Cyprian's) Ep. 5. 2 have not been forbidden to hold their own religious rites . "

Etymologically speaking, the term supplicatio designates a rite in which one prostrates oneself by bending one's knees (as a supplicant does), before the gods. But the ritual also included prayers, drink offerings and sacrifices.

This new situation will force Christians to make a choice. Several attitudes are noted: some follow the instructions of the authorities relayed by the African cities and comply with the edict, going as far as the sacrifice of animals - thing categorically forbidden by their dogma; others for whom it is inconceivable to deny their belief, prefer to flee; others lastly choose to proclaim openly their dissatisfaction, putting so their lives in jeopardy.

PASSION OF ST. PIONIUS AND COMPANIONS.

First part.

On the second day of the sixth month, on the occasion of a great Sabbath, and on the anniversary of the blessed martyr Polycarp, while the persecution of Decius was still on, there were confined the presbyter Pionius, the holy woman Sabina, Ascleplades, Macedonia, and Limnos, a presbyter of the

Catholic Church. Now Pionius knew on the day before Polycarp's anniversary that they were all to be seized on that day.

[Either there had been leaks or he had been warned by someone]

Being together with Sabina and Asclepiades and fasting, as he realized that they were to be taken on the following day, he took three sets of woven chains and placed them around his own neck and the necks of Sabina and Asclepiades and thus entertained them in his house. He did this with a view to those who were to arrest him, lest any be given to suspect that they were being induced to eat forbidden foods as the others were, but rather that all should know that they were determined to be led off to prison forthwith….

[The text makes think it is a question of taking part in a sacrificial ceremony].

He led them off then without restraint and as they walked along everyone saw that they were wearing their chains, and such a crowd rushed up in haste as it were for a strange sight, that they jostled one another. As they came into the forum, by the eastern portico and the double gate, all the forum and the upper stories of the porches were crowded with Greeks, Jews, and women. They were on holiday because it was a great Sabbath. They drew near, looking towards the tribunal steps…

Secund part.

Later the proconsul came to Smyrna. Pionius was brought before him on the twelfth of March, and gave testimony with the minutes being taken down by secretaries. Seated before the tribunal the proconsul Quintillian put the question.

"What is your name?"

"Pionius," was the answer.

"WilI you offer sacrifice?" the proconsul asked.

"No," he answered.

The proconsul asked: "What is the cult or the sect to which you belong?"

"The Catholic," he answered.

"What do you mean, the Catholic?" asked the proconsul.

"I am a presbyter", said Pionius, of "the Catholic Church."

"Are you one of their teachers?" asked the proconsul.

"Yes," answered Pionlns, "I was a teacher."

"You were a teacher of foolishness?" he asked.

"Of piety," was the answer.

"What sort of piety?" he asked.

He answered, "Piety towards God the Father who has made all things."

The proconsul said: "Offer sacrifice."

"No," he answered. "My prayers must be offered to God."

But he said: "We reverence all the gods, we reverence the heavens and all the gods that are in heaven. You attend to the heaven? Then sacrifice to the heaven."

"I do not attend to the heaven but to him who made the heavens, and all that is in them."

The proconsul said: "Tell me, who did make them?"

Pionius answered: "I cannot tell you."

The proconsul said: "Surely it was the Zeus, who is in heaven; for he is the ruler of all the gods."

[There obviously Quintilian is throwing Pionius a life line by suggesting an ambiguous answer of the kind casuistry or taqiya].

As Pionius was silent, hanging in torture he was asked: "Will you sacrifice?"

"No," he answered.

Once more he was tortured by the iron claws and the question was put: "Change your mind. Why have you lost your senses?"

"I have not lost my senses," he answered; "rather I am afraid of the living God."

The proconsul said: "Many others have offered sacrifice, and they are now alive and of sound mind."

"I will not sacrifice," was the answer.

The proconsul said: "Under questioning reflect within yourself and change your mind."

"No," he answered.

"Why do you rush towards death?" he was asked.

"I am not rushing towards death,” he answered, "but towards life."

Quintillian the proconsul said: "Those who enlist to fight the beasts for a trifling bit of money [the gladiators] despise death. You are merely one of those. Seeing you are eager for death, you shall be burnt alive."

The sentence was then read in Latin from a tablet: "Whereas Pionius has admitted that he is a Christian, we hereby sentence him to be burnt alive."

Hastily he went to the amphitheater because of the zeal of his faith, and he gladly removed his clothes as the prison keeper stood by. Then he was filled with great joy; and looking up to heaven he gave thanks to God who had preserved him in the faith so. Then he stretched himself out on the cross and allowed the soldier to hammer in the nails. When Pionius had been nailed down the public executioner said to him once again: "Change your mind and the nails will be taken out."

Then after a moment's reflection he said: "I am hurrying that I may awake all the more quickly in the other world, manifesting the resurrection from the dead."

And so they made him pass to another life, and then afterwards a man named Metrodorus from the Marcionite sect. It happened that Pionius was on the right and Metrodorns was on the left,[like the impenitent thief of the crucifixion] though both faced the east. After they brought the firewood and piled up the logs in a circle, Pionius shut his eyes so that the crowd thought that he was dead. But he was praying in secret, and when he came to the end of his prayer he opened his eyes. The flames were just beginning to rise as he pronounced his last Amen with a joyful countenance and said: "Lord, receive my soul. Then peacefully and painlessly as though coughing he breathed his last. …

Such was the innocent, blameless, and incorruptible life which blessed Pionius brought to an end, with his mind ever fixed on Almighty God and on Jesus Christ our Lord the mediator between God and man (1 Tim 2:5); of such an end was he deemed worthy. After his victory in the great combat, he passed through the narrow gate into the broad, great light. Indeed his crown was made manifest through his body. For after the fire had been extinguished, those of us who were present saw his body like that of an athlete in full array at the height of his powers. His ears were not distorted; his hair lay in order on the surface of his head and his beard was full as though with the first blossom of hair. His face shone once again--wondrous grace!--so that the Christians were all the more confirmed in the faith, and those who had lost the faith returned dismayed and with fearful consciences.

Personal commentary by Peter DeLaCrau. Pionus's own master, however, experienced his crucifixion in a more dramatic way. See Gethsemane and the Gospels. Was Pionus a yufakuna or the writer of this Passion a Docetist?

The Roman authority by promulgating this edict therefore divided the Christian community which, following this crisis, will once again show all its intransigence. Those who yielded to the requests of Decius and have participated in the supplications or prayers for the safety of the Empire or of the Emperor - lapsi; will be very poorly regarded by the "hardliners" when the time of their reintegration will come. The bishops who have "sinned" are for the most part forgiven, but any return to their previous status is refused to them. The persecution caused such a crisis within the African Church that the Council of Carthage proposes in 256 to baptize again those who have failed (lapsi). The bishops of this council clash violently with the bishop of Rome, for whom this double baptism is simply inconceivable. Baptism is not merely a sacrament of penance and reconciliation, but is used only to erase (somewhat as by magic?) the original mortal sin that is consubstantial with mankind (a simple human weakness will later say the very knowing Pelagius) transmitted from generation to generation since the first man (Adam) disobeyed God.

To return to the notion of martyr in Islam, let us remind of the fact that the Shahid is a fighter who dies with weapons in his hand, and that it is s not yufakuna, it's logical and rational, it's perfectly understandable. Like taqyia, besides.

* This is why the translation of the Arabic word shahid , by a term of the family of the word martyr (in our vernacular languages), is a mistake which seriously misleads, which has among our media and political elites, philosophical (social and political) consequences much more serious than those of the mere self-interested ** mixing up from their behalf between a repudiation (which is always unilateral) and a divorce by true mutual consent or granted by a third party on account of a (very serious) misconduct. Neither St. Perpetua nor St. Gallonius, not St. Polycarp...resist the men who come to look for them, and even less with weapons in their hand (see previous volume).

** In order to banalize or minimize or deny the (always perpetrated against women) unbearable violence that are in reality these repudiations. Such lack of nuance or precision from journalists borders on complicity.

THE REASONS PERTAINING THE MENTALITY OF THE FIRST CHRISTIANS.

The first of the fundamental reasons is that the original Christians had, in relation to the pagans, and by definition, the same reactions of rejection (to say the least) that the Jews had towards the goyim; and that they always tried to live apart from the aforementioned goyim, renamed for the circumstance "pagans" or "people of the nations.” But this racist conditioning, the first Christians transmitted it to the generations that succeeded them, for various reasons to which we shall return (purity obsession with, belief in hell, in the imminence of the end of times, etc.). Hence a certain religious alienation (amixia or atheia).

We shall return later to this accusation (of being atheists) that Christians shared with the Jews, for we shall content ourselves with noting that, according to the French historian Bernard Lazare, Judaism was a religio licita. As for the accusation of atheia, it is certain that to refuse to deify the forces in the world and nature (pantheism), and to keep only one god, who, moreover, is far from being the god of philosophers, has kept much of his narrowly ethnic and anthropomorphic original nature (see our essay on the Old Testament and the Judaism) is, in the process of deconsecration or disenchantment, of the world, that we experiment, the ultimate psychological stage before the strictest atheist materialism.

For the rest and notwithstanding this psychosis, the Christians accepted the main lines of the political regime of the moment. Let us think, for example, of the institution of slavery. They will not change anything. Besides, could they do it? Paul writes to the masters: " Do not threaten your slaves since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him.”

And to the slaves: "Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ" (Ephesians 6: 5-9). Reread the letter he sent to his friend Philemon, whose slave Onesimus fled, and whom Paul sends back to his master. Paul does not meddle with the institution itself or its legal framework. A fortiori it does not call into question the other social institutions of the Empire.

Christians as a whole, in the first generation, adopted a very conciliatory attitude towards the Roman Empire (Romans 13: 1-7). Persuaded of the imminent return of Christ, they consider the earthly realities as of little importance. For them, the Roman Empire will soon disappear. What is the point of extending it? What is the point of defending it? What is the point even of fighting it? The second generation will remain in the same state of mind (1 Peter 2: 13-17), and it is only towards the end of the first century that some Christians will adopt hostile positions towards Rome (Revelation, chapter 18), but which will be still the doing of a minority. Faced with this sanctified State, Christians will nevertheless end in being marginalized little by little.

So why did the Roman emperors persecute the Christians?

For even if the persecutions, at least in the first two centuries, were less sprawling than it is generally believed, the fact remains that we note at the same time a continuous expansion of the new religion and a growing hostility towards it.

Christianity, which is a monolatry, leads its followers not to participate in any public worship since these public cults are for them worships that are condemnable and contrary to the law of Moses or prejudicial to the salvation of their souls (it would be a mortal sin). While many foreign religions were tolerated and even accepted at the beginning of the Empire (principle of the Pax Deorum), the Christian denial was interpreted as a questioning of the political and religious foundations of the Roman state. The Christian indeed goes against the worship of ancestors. To make sacrifices is to want the good of the city by reviving the contract that binds it to the gods: citizenship in itself is inseparable from official worships. Moreover, the imperial worship is also considered as one of the cements of the Empire. The logical consequence of this "impiety,” of this "atheism,” for a Roman, is the suppression; because he who does not accept to prove his attachment to the State and to the very person of the Emperor adopts a selfish and seditious attitude - even if his personal behavior is irreproachable.

The Christian religion, therefore, leads its followers to keep away of everyday life (amixia) , which on many occasions remains steeped with pagan religious rites or, in the eyes of Christians, morally reprehensible; family or public festivals, theatrical performances, games of the circus and

amphitheater (Minucius Felix, Octavius XII, 4, 6). At the market itself, they sell meat from the sacrifices offered to the gods, that Christians like the Jews do not want to consume. For those who follow Christ, marriage with a pagan remains prohibited, serving in the army arouses a problem, occupying public offices and magistracies also. Tertullian thus reports with admiration that in 211 a soldier refused, because it was contrary to his convictions, to wear a crown at the time of the award of a reward (Tertullian, On the Military Crown, I, 1-4) . "In the eyes of the multitude, the great misconduct of Christians was to isolate oneself and to want to be others: it is a usual tendency to hate what is different from oneself and, in a community, those who stay away. The isolation to which they were reduced by their strict religious exclusiveness a little like the ultra-orthodox Jews today made them some dissidents in their cities and, by setting them apart from the civic community, made them suspect of misanthropy. " Tacitus affirms that their crime was "the hatred of the human race: odium humani generis" (Annals XV, 44).

The prophetic current of Judaism offers to us many examples of visionaries whose avenging exaltation called upon them the anger of power. See, among others, the case of John-Baptist or of the pseudo-messiahs. Some Jewish writings such as those of Ezra also demanded also to leave her husband and father or wife and children to come (back) to Jehovah. See our booklet devoted to Judaism. And the Christians, like the Jews, therefore refused to take the oath of loyalty to the eagles symbol of the legions of their country; like the Jews, they gave their civic duties the cold shoulder. The first Christians, who had inherited from Judaism its contempt for other cults; (see Deuteronomy 7: Destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your children away from following me to serve other gods, and the Lord’s anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. This is what you are to do to them: Breakdown their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire) therefore were attracting more and more suspicion from the Roman authorities, who, up to then, as Jews, had treated them with condescension, but had also officially admitted them (religio licita).

Christian rituals also remain mysterious, little known; in the beginning of Christianity, they take place in private houses; only those who have been baptized are admitted to the Eucharist (another name for the "devogdonion" meal of commensality with the god-or-demons), that is to say, the commemoration of the Last Supper and of the sacrifice of Christ. As in the famous affair of the bacchanalia of the year 186 before our era; this secrecy fuels all fantasies: the public rumor has quickly accused the Christians of abominable crimes and blamed them for natural disasters: The Jewish institution of the scapegoat turns against them. Tertullian underlines the mischief of the rumors which are spread and which rapidly distort the truth.

"Quae ne tum quidem, cum vera defert, a libidine mendacii cessat, ut non falsa veris intexat adiciens detrahens varietate confundens.”

“ You will say, how is it possible that such a hideous reputation has grown up around you Christians as to convince our lawmakers of its testimony? And I shall ask who was the advocate for your lawmakers in their own time and for you in the present time to vouch for this reputation? Could it perhaps have been: Rumor, an evil of matchless speed (Aeneid IV. 176). But why evil, if it is always true? Is it in fact not largely false? Even when it reports the truth, it does not set aside its lust for lying. Rumor weaves falsehood in with the truth by a process of addition, subtraction and scrambling " (Tertullian, Ad nationes, I, VII) .

Several literary works echo slanders raised by popular this rumor - especially ritual murders of children - cannibalism, incest, debauchery ... There are some explanations to these charges in distorted Christian beliefs and practices. The calling brothers and sisters among the followers leads to the suspicion of incest; the meal of commensality with the god-or-demons (sharing of bread and wine, which for the believers are the body and blood of Christ) to that of murder and cannibalism.

Lastly, the Christian religion is from the beginning a missionary religion: in the New Testament it appears several times that concern to go carry the "good news" that the Messiah is come. But unlike Judaism, which is implanted in a land of origin, of ancient stock, and therefore respectable in the eyes of the Romans, Christians are not members of a nation to which it is recognized that it has the right to keep its religious practices. Their active and visible proselytism is rather that of a new, foreign, inflexible, sect, without respect for established social hierarchies, and is therefore sensed as dangerous.

As regards the first two centuries of our era, the corpus of Latin texts written by pagan authors about Christians is extremely restricted. Should there be a sign of contempt for what is negligible amount, or the fact that the Christian community plays in Rome only a part that is still not very important and that is, in the eyes of the Romans, is hardly distinguished from the Jewish religion? For in the Roman society, Christians at first are not distinguished from the Jews, and in fact Christianity was spread in the synagogues. The first persecutions against Christians are therefore indistinguishable from the anti-Jewish and anti-Semitic repression peculiar to all the successive conquerors of Judea and Jerusalem.

In any case, what is certain is that the few Roman writers who speak of it do it in very pejorative words. " A class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition, genus hominum superstitionis novae ac maleficae" (Suetonius) "Pernicious superstition, exitiabilis superstitio" (Tacitus), "a mindless and insignificant superstition, supertitio prava et immodica" (Pliny the Younger). This new belief therefore can only harm the Roman people. It also appears as an irrational religion, which lacks the sense of proportion, far away from the philosophical ideals improved by Greco-Roman antiquity. Pliny calls it amentia, madness, deprived of intelligence, of capacity for reflection. For these intellectuals it was therefore a superstition or even some atheism (atheia); for it amounted to worshipping not a god, but a mere mortal (Jesus), and for them the early Christians therefore formed for a long time a dangerous sect, dressed all in black (see the Orthodox priests of today); hostile, a little like Tertullian, to all that could be great or beautiful in the human race. The Olympic Games, the homeland and its defense against Barbarians, feminism, poetry - see the case of the unfortunate Hypatia of Alexandria. The most beautiful, the most virtuous, the most educated, and the most accomplished woman, according to John Toland, stoned by the clergy of Alexandria to satisfy the hubris, ambition, and cruelty, of St. Cyril (Tetradymus.1720).

The acceptance of martyrdom by Christians, the fact that their theology makes this ignominious death a victory, in imitation of Christ, is seen not as a sign of fidelity to one’s convictions, but as an irrational fanaticism. Marcus Aurelius sees in their courage facing death not the result of a personal judgment but a "mere obstinacy" (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, XI, 3).

Let us remind here of three examples noted in our previous notebook that show how some of the first Christians of that time were really yufakuna.

Tertullian. Letter to Scapula. Your cruelty is our glory. Only see you to it that in having such things as these to endure, we do not feel constrained to rush forth to the combat, if only to prove that we have no dread of them, but on the contrary, even invite their infliction. When Arrius Antoninus was driving things hard in Asia, the whole Christians of the province, in one united band, presented themselves before his judgment seat; on which, ordering a few to be led forth to execution, he said to the rest, O miserable men, if you wish to die, you have precipices or halters.”

When we also said that to translate the Arabic word shahid by martyrs was a fault….)

Letter from the churches of Lyons and Vienne to the churches in Asia Minor and Phrygia (written in the year 177).

Editor’s note. The text has been preserved for us only by Eusebius of Caesarea, what makes it extremely suspect.

"Upon this a grand dispensation of God's providence took place, and the immeasurable mercy of Jesus was made manifest,such an occurrence as but rarely happens among the brotherhood, yet one that does not fall short of the art of Christ. For those who in the first apprehension had denied, were imprisoned along with the others, and shared their hardships. Their denial, in fact, turned out at this time to be of no advantage to them. For while those who confessed what they really were, were imprisoned simply as Christians, no other accusation being brought against them, those who denied were detained as murderers and profligates. They, moreover, were doubly punished. For the confessors were lightened by the joy of their testimony and their hope in the promises, and by their love to Christ, and by the Father's Spirit. But the deniers were tormented greatly by their own consciences, so that when they were led forth their countenances could be distinguished among all the rest. For the confessors went forth joyous, with a mingling of glory and abundant grace in their looks, so that their chains lay like becoming ornaments around them, as around a bride adorned with golden fringes worked with divers colors. And they breathed at the same time the fragrance of Christ, so that some even thought that they were anointed with this world's perfume. But the deniers were downcast, humbled, sad-looking, and weighed down with every kind of disgrace. They were, moreover, reproached even by the heathens with being base and cowardly, and charged with the

crime of murder; they had lost the altogether honorable, glorious, and life-giving appellation. When the rest saw this, they were strengthened, and those who were apprehended confessed unhesitatingly, not allowing the reasoning of the devil to have even a place in their thoughts. After these things, then, their testimonies took every shape through the different ways in which they departed. For, plaiting a crown from different colors and flowers of every kind, they presented it to the Father. It was right therefore that the noble athletes, after having endured divers contests and gained grand victories, should receive the great crown of incorruption. Maturus, therefore, and Sanctus, and Blandina, and Attalus were publicly exposed to the wild beasts…..”

The profusion of details provided by the author of this letter astonishes ... In any case what is certain is that the intervention of the Paraclete in the person of a Celt named Vettius gives to all this martyrdom madness a very Montanist flavor.

Persecutions are therefore, above all, a political act, and in most cases the Roman authorities are pragmatic. Christians disturb public order by refusing to sacrifice to Caesar, by refusing military service ... because the notion of the Empire assumes then an almost-sacred characteristic. Rome is venerated as a goddess-or-demoness. At the end of the second century, Rutilius Namatianus celebrates the goddess Rome. Read the Aeneid: the author does not have enough vibrant accents to sing the greatness and eternity of the Empire. Livy writes that the country is worthy of all sacrifices, including the supreme sacrifice. All the ambition of a true Roman is to serve the State. Like the Hesus Mars or Cuchulainn in Ireland his best chance of survival is a glory that future generations will remember.

The appearance in the first half of the second century of several apologetic writings pleading the cause of the Christians to the emperors and public opinion (see previous volume); proves that on the Christian side there was no dearer desire than to be integrated as completely as possible into Greco-Roman society, without contesting its political and social organization. But the more the number of Christians grows, the more their attitude is noticed. Hence the evolution of the authorities: at first attentive, they will come to monitor them, then to show them a growing disapproval.

The conflict will quickly focus around a specific issue: the refusal of the sacrifices to the Roman god-or-demons. The national god-or-demons are loyal allies of the Romans, effective agents of the extension and preservation of the Empire. All remain, more or less vaguely, attached to this belief, even the intellectuals. Especially when a disaster threatens or strikes the Empire. In any case, the government attaches great importance to these national gods or demons. As Christians refuse obstinately to worship them, they are considered impious or atheistic. See the indictments that have been kept. They speak of "crimes of lese majesty" which harm the "greatness" of the Roman people by indisposing the god-or-demons who are their guarantors.

If, for the authorities of the Roman state, persecutions are therefore only mere one-time measures aimed at preserving law and order; the Christians have seen in them acts by which their adversaries, from all origins, especially the magistrates, the procurators, and the dignitaries of the empire; expressed their deliberate will to suppress or even eliminate Christianity.

It is, of course, true that it was the emperor who made the law, but by definition, the latter remained abstract; hence, for example, the famous request for instruction from Pliny to Trajan. In fact, a report sent to the Emperor about groups of chrestianoi, in Greek language, that is to say Jews convinced of having found in Jesus the expected Messiah. They were more precisely members of the Elchasaite sect, an extension of the early Nazorenism or Ebionism of the James’s Christians in Jerusalem.

It was therefore up to the governors to apply these instructions with more or less zeal. Some of them were often intimidated by the agitation of the Jews and of the pagans, eager for bloody spectacles, or driven by a notorious animosity towards the Christians. Most of the cases are mainly due to popular uprisings (antichristian pogroms) as in the case of St Polycarp in Smyrna. It is clear, on the other hand, in the cases of Perpetua and Felicity at Carthage, that the procurator Hilarianus, like Pontius Pilate, would have preferred to release them; since he insisted on so that Perpetua takes pity on the white hair of her father and of the needs of her newborn child.

PASSION OF SAINT PIONIUS AND HIS COMPANIONS.

For the text see above. BIS REPETITA. We will limit ourselves to a brief analysis.

The text is by Herbert Musurillo Acts of the Christian Martyrs (Oxford 1972 ,137-167). NB. Some of the elements kept for this synthesis are suspect but now....

There are clearly two parts.

First part, the longest. The organization of the public sacrifice in honor of Rome's gods and the emperor.

The crowd is gathered, a number of Christians perform, including Bishop Eudemon. Pionius speaks out against this ceremony. He is taken to prison where he finds a Montanist personality already rotting there: Eutychian.

Second part, the trial itself. Presided over by the proconsul Quintilian who will do everything possible to avoid a fatal outcome, and who will even go so far as to suggest to Pionius arguments of the mental restriction or casuistry type, in order to get him to make the little move that is expected of him. Vainly.

The account integrates two speeches by Pionius, two dialogues between Christians and pagan leaders, comments from onlookers, and an idealized scene of Pionus's last words then his death. At the center of the reflection is a speech on the Agora, addressed to the Greeks and Jews (IV) and another in prison addressed to Christians (XII-XV) in which the Jews are rather violently attacked by contrast with paganism which is only marginally attacked.

The information comes to us from an eyewitness who used instructions written by Pioneius from prison, public records of the trial and information "coming from a privileged witness such as the executioner.” The text seems to have been written for internal use within Christianity, in a position of rivalry with the Jews, and particularly for the "Catholic" component of which Pionius is a member, N.B. Pionius is also recognized as a saint by the Orthodox Church, in the category of hieromartyrs.

Personality of Pionus.

A new convert, this Judaizing rhetorician is probably of Greek origin.

He is obviously well integrated into the city. In his prison, he is visited by many pagans (XII) who beg him to sacrifice. Considered a respectable man, he is steeped in Greek rhetoric, as evidenced by his use of the method of parallels (IV, 2) or his argumentative diatribe against the Jews which aims at providing evidence of God's wrath against this people (IV, 18). Moreover, he does not hesitate to use common myths (such as the flood IV 23) or to praise ancient Smyrna to rally the Greeks.

The religious context of Smyrna. In addition to the Greek-speaking pagans there are, of course, Jews and Christians.

On the side of the Christians there are several groups which drew the attention of the authorities. The question of the proconsul, "What is the cult or the sect to which you belong ? (IX, 2) proves it. The text itself, moreover, refers to Marcionites and Montanists.

So in Smyrna in the third century we still have Christianity by affinity. Pionius's group itself seems to be distinguished by specific behavioral markers: ascetic principles of life (they refused all food aid in prison) and the wearing of a particular garment, the maphorion, influences which could come from Judaism.

Relations between Christians and Jews precisely.

The Martyrdom of Pionus gives a particular account of the ambiguity of the relations between Jews and Christians in Smyrna in the middle of the third century: Jews are still considered by Christians as relatives to be converted, as it is shown by the first discourse of Pionus, whose virulence at the same time reflects the situation of competition between the two groups vis-à-vis the Greeks. By emphasizing the hostility of the Jews towards the human race, their immorality or idolatry, Pionus uses a rhetoric which is quite common in Christian literature after 135 (failure of the Bar Kokhba revolt). The argumentation aims at showing that the Jews are a wicked people by mentioning the scabrous episodes present in the Old Testament as well as the rejection of Israel. In his evocation of the prophetic people, Pionius situates himself directly from the perspective of the Johannine Church: in Smyrna,the fourth evangelist is a reference point.

Persecution is another source of division. They lead many Christians to take refuge in the synagogues (as crypto-Christians or lapsi). But Jews do not only offer them shelter, they encourage apostasy. So

Pionius seriously warns these fleeing Christians: Jews deny the Resurrection and make the connection between the death of Christ and the violent death of criminals.

Pionius's speech seems to lend the Jews a role in the troubles, in continuity with the account of Polycarp's martyrdom, which included them in the crowd acting as agents of pressure on the magistrates. But Marcel Simon believes that the account of Pionius's martyrdom can be explained by reminiscences of Polycarp's martyrdom. For the author, it is in any case more conceivable to believe that the Jews were able to stir up hatred against Christians than to ignite it by themselves.

But the existing rivalries between Jews and Christians in Smyrna do not constitute an obstacle to interaction between the two groups. Thus the account of Saul's evocation of the dead is evoked by Pionius according to a version that is consistent with the Hebrew Bible. It is quite clear that Christian communities as a whole were in the habit of consulting rabbis on questions of biblical exegesis until late in the history of the Church, either to clarify the exact meaning of a term in the light of the Hebrew text or for the interpretation of difficult passages. These practices seem to have been widespread in all the regions where important Jewish communities existed. As the seat of a bishopric and of a theological school and as an important center of rabbinic science, Caesarea is known to have been one of the usual high places of contact between doctors of the two faiths.

Finally, the Martyrdom of Pionius bears witness to the "ritual" inculturation of the Christians of Smyrna who use the Jewish calendar for their weekly celebration. The permeability to Jewish influences can be found there as early as the second century with Polycarp, an ardent defender of the celebration of the feast of Easter at the same time as the Jewish Passover. At the same time, the canons of the councils and the fathers of the Church attest to mixed marriages and the participation of Christians in Jewish feasts.

It is important, therefore, to specify what the persecutions really suffered by the first Christians were.

PROCEEDINGS FOR CRIMES UNDER THE COMMON LAW.

The criminal proceedings against the Christians lasted two and a half centuries, from 66 to 311. But not unceasingly. At times of tension succeed respites, sometimes long. A warning in Africa or Asia Minor can have no repercussions in Italy. We should not see the Church of the first centuries as a secret society of conspirators whose whole life would be reduced to night gatherings in catacombs or subterranean galleries. The life of the Church is displayed in broad daylight. It has assets, cemeteries. The election of a bishop gives rise to popular demonstrations. There are frequent councils, and many bishops participate. At Carthage, in the time of Cyprian, it is almost every year that there will be a council. At the council of 256 in Carthage, there are for example 87 bishops present. Now the police do nothing to arrest he assembled Christians. Yet it would have been a very good catch!

Besides it often the crowd which takes the initiative, by dragging the Christians before the judge. Moreover, at first, Jews seem to play a preponderant role in anti-Christian pogroms. This was the case in the Passion of Polycarp. They are also not strangers, perhaps, to the first persecution launched in 64 by Nero. But the pagans too, soon, join this Christian hunt. Pliny the Younger (112), in Bithynia, speaks of the numerous cases of denunciation submitted to him. Trajan replies that they should not seek Christians, but take account of denunciations and chastise informers if they have lied.

Popular hostility. In the account which has come down to us of the passion of the martyrs in Lyons, we can read indeed,

What is unequivocal: “first of all, they endured nobly the injuries heaped upon them by the populace; clamors and blows and dragging and robberies and stoning and imprisonment, and all things which an infuriated mob delight in inflicting on enemies and adversaries. Then, being taken to the forum by the chiliarch and the authorities of the city, they were examined in the presence of the whole multitude…….”

In Tolosa in 250, Saturninus is stoned by the crowd without any judgment. "They took Saturnine and bound him to the feet of the bull intended for the sacrifice and drew him unto the highest place of the capitol and cast him down the degrees and steps to the ground, so that his head was all to-broken and the brain sprang out.”

Sometimes, too, the central power takes the initiative, sending instructions to the provincial officials to force the Christians to take an oath of fidelity to the State and the Emperor. This happens particularly during serious internal or external crises; when, for example, the Emperor seeks to mobilize all the energies of the Empire. This will occur especially during the reigns of Septimius Severus, Maximinus, Decius, Valerian, Diocletian.

We have quite precise documents on the proceedings of the trials.

The interrogations are short - usually ten minutes - and lead in case of failure, to the death sentence.

As much the crowd is hateful or ignoble, so much the interrogation takes place in a respectful climate. The dialogue is courteous. The Roman official seeks not to sentence, but to make them take an oath to the gods or the Empire.

At the trial of Cyprian, the proconsul is ready to make some concessions. He explains to the accused that it will be enough for him to participate in a ceremony, and then he can return to worship his god. Cyprian tells him that he cannot do this, and tells him that he willingly prays his own god for the safety of the Emperor and of the Empire. Still at the trial of Cyprian, the proconsul issues the judgment "reluctantly" “aegre” specifies in Latin language the text of the proconsular acts of the martyrdom of Saint Cyprian.

At Scili in Tunisia, the proconsul granted the defendants a period of 30 days for reflection to help them in returning to their better selves (see Acts of the Scillitan martyrs).

"Have pity on your youth," said the proconsul to a young man named Germanicus.

"Have respect to your age," said the proconsul to Polycarp, the old bishop of Smyrna. He adds: "What harm is there in saying, Caesar is Lord, and offering incense, with more to this effect, and saving yourself?" (Martyrdom of Polycarp).

In the case of the bishop of Thmuis named Phileas (306), the judge Culcianus or his colleagues will resort to all possible means (He has already sacrificed and so on….) in order to release him but it will be no use, Phileas will categorically refuse this grace and therefore will “get” his conviction from a sustained battle.

”The governor professed a great regard for his quality and merit, and said: “If you were in misery, or necessity, you should be despatched without more ado; but as you have estates sufficient not only for yourself and family, but for the maintenance almost of a whole province, I pity you, and will do all in my power to save you.” The counselors and lawyers, desirous also of saving him, said: “He had already sacrificed in the monastery (phrontisterium) ……

His wife, children, brother, and other relations, persons of distinction, and Pagans, were present at the trial. The governor hoping to overcome him by tenderness for them, said:—“See how sorrowful your wife stands with her eyes fixed upon you.” Phileas replied: “Jesus Christ, the Savior of souls, calls me to his glory: and he can, if he pleases, also call my wife.” The counselors, out of compassion, said to the judge: “Phileas begs a delay.” Culcian said to him: “I grant it you most willingly….”

Then all the counselors, the emperor’s lieutenant, who was the first magistrate of the city, all the other officers of justice, and his relations, fell down together at his feet, embracing his knees, and conjuring him to have compassion on his disconsolate family, and not to abandon his children to their tender years whilst his presence was necessary for them. But he, like a rock unshaken by the impetuous waves that dash against it, stood unmoved.Raising his heart to God, protested aloud that he owned no other kindred but the apostles and martyrs. Philoromus a noble Christian was present: he was a tribune or colonel, and …..

Admiring the prudence and inflexible courage of Phileas, and moved with indignation against his adversaries, he cried out to them: “Why strive ye to overcome this brave man, and to make him, by an impious compliance with men, renounce God? Do not you see that, contemplating the glory of heaven, he makes no account of earthly things?” This speech drew upon him the indignation of the whole assembly….

The brother of Phileas, who was a judge, said to the governor: “Phileas desires his pardon.” Culcian therefore called him back, and asked him if it were true. He answered: “No: God forbid. Do not listen to this unhappy man. Far from desiring the reversion of my sentence, I think myself on the contrary much obliged to the emperors, to you, and to your court, for by your means I become co-heir with Christ, and shall enter this very day into the possession of his kingdom.”

Let us remember, in connection with this madness of suicide among the Christians of the time, the letter to Scapula of the Montanist Tertullian, which shows well that the judges used , as often as possible, to all imaginable means in order to avoid too heavy penalties.

“How many rulers, men more resolute and crueler than you are, have contrived to get quit of such causes altogether—as Cincius Severus, who himself suggested the remedy at Thysdris, pointing out how the Christians should answer that they might secure an acquittal; as Vespronius Candidus, who dismissed from his bar a Christian, on the ground that to satisfy his fellow citizens would break the peace of the community; as Asper, who, in the case of a man who gave up his faith under slight infliction of the torture, did not compel the offering of sacrifices, having owned before, among the advocates and assessors of court, that he was annoyed at having had to meddle with such a case. Pudens, too, at once dismissed a Christian who was brought before him, perceiving from the indictment that it was a case of vexatious accusation; tearing the document in pieces, he refused so much as to hear him without the presence of his accuser, as not being consistent with the imperial commands” (Tertullian. Letter to Scapula).

* What shows again how the translation of the Arabic shahid by a martyr (as well as equating repudiation to a divorce) is really a serious intellectual philosophical or political error, which can have serious consequences. For the Muslim Shahid dies with arms in his hand.

THE "PERSECUTING" EMPERORS.

Christian propaganda (Christian tradition) mentions ten persecutions during the reign of the Roman emperors.

In fact, there were only two emperors driven by a true (conscious) ideological will to contain the rise of this "madness,’ Decius (250) and Diocletian (303).

This painful subject has already been discussed in detail in our previous volume, but as it is one of the founding events of Christianity in the West, we will allow ourselves to insist on it.

Suetonius gives the first known indication, concerning the expulsion from Rome, of the Christians, ordered by Claudius, which took place in 41-42 or 49.

The persecution of Claudius.

"Iudaeos impulsore Chresto assiduous tumultuantis Roma expels" (Suetonius, Life of the Twelve Caesars, Claudius XXV). "He banished from Rome all the Jews, who were continually making disturbances at the instigation of one Chrestus.”

This text therefore indicates within the Jewish community an unrest which can be attributed to the presence of Christians. It was much written about the word "Chrestus" : if some historians think it is a Jewish agitator present in Rome (chrestos is not really originally a proper noun and means simply " Anointed "in Greek language); others see it as a sign of disagreements within the Jewish community due to the presence of Christians. For a long time the pagans mixed up Jews and Christians.

This decision of Claudius was only temporary, and concerned perhaps only the Judeo-Christians. As a result of this edict of Claudius, like the Jews, they also had to leave the city, leaving in the community only the Pagan-Christians, not included in the deportation order.

That Judeo-Christians were forced to exile is confirmed by the Acts of the Apostles. The apostle Paul meets in Corinth two Christian craftspeople of Jewish origin, Aquilas and Priscilla, who had to leave Rome, " because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome." Acts of the Apostles, 18, 2). After the latter's death in 54, the Jews were allowed to return to Rome, and therefore the Jewish Christians too.

The persecution of Nero (54-68).

Until 62, Nero was advised by the philosopher Seneca, and his administration was considered by the Christians as fair. We find a testimony about that in Romans 13, 1-7, as well as in 1 Timothy 2: 1-2 and 1 Peter 2: 13-17. Luke often presents the Roman authorities in a favorable light. Even Pilate is almost exonerated: he honestly proclaims the innocence of Jesus, and seems to deliver him only to avoid a riot (Luke 23:23). Neither Sergius Paulus in Cyprus nor the proconsul Galion in Corinth oppose the preaching of the Gospel. Even the procurator Felix, yet greedy and debauched (Acts 24: 25-26), does not accept to abandon Paul in the hands of the Sanhedrin. As for Festus, he is presented as an honest man, a little overwhelmed by events, but doing his job conscientiously (Acts 25: 25-27). Luke also emphasizes the "humanity" of the centurion Julius (Acts 27: 3).

Tacitus (Annals XV, 44) evokes the persecution inflicted on Christians by Nero-the first reported by Roman historians. The Emperor, after the burning of Rome in 64, tries to reject responsibility for it over the Christians. We can suppose therefore that public opinion is not favorable to them-one does not choose a scapegoat in a favored group-the mere fact of practicing a foreign religion makes them already illegal.

Tacitus has a very bad opinion of the Christians, but he underlines the bestiality of Nero.

" But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added

to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burned, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired. Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man's cruelty, that they were being destroyed.”

The persecution started by Nero in the aftermath of the burning of Rome in 64 is, in fact, nothing but a pogrom against these dissidents of the Jewish settlement. Excited, it is said, against the Christians by his wife Poppaea, a proselyte of Judaism, he accuses them of the nine-day fire that he had lighted himself in the City. Nero's wife was indeed a "Godfearer" that is to say, a sympathizer of Judaism.

It is not excluded, however, that the Zealot party, hostile to the Romans as well as to the Jewish collaborating parties, the Sadducees and the Pharisees; had some responsibility in this archetypal terrorist and apocalyptic act that was the destruction of Rome, abhorred under the name of Babylon.

We know nothing about the fate of the Christians of Rome after the Neronian persecution until the beginning of the second century. After this first persecution, there will be a long respite.

A few years later (it is difficult to establish a precise date), Paul, confined in Palestine, asks to be tried, not before the local authorities, but in Rome; and he will therefore be taken to the capital of the Empire, since he enjoys the rights attached to his status as a Roman citizen. This request of Paul tends to prove that the apostle credits the Roman law with a certain impartiality in order to settle the conflict which opposes him to the Jews.

In the reign of Domitian (81-96) as Christians refused to pay the religious tax, then demanded with a new rigor [to provide for the worship] from the Jews ... they were accused of impiety or atheism (atheia).

Various indications do not allow us, nevertheless, to attribute to Domitian a persecution of a ferocity equal to that of Nero. It would seem rather that, out of mistrust of potentially dangerous deviations, Domitian expressed hostility towards the pagans who abandoned their religion for eastern cults favoring the exclusive worship of an aniconic God-or-devil (Judaism and probably Christianity). During his reign, some followers of these worships were executed, especially when their religious position went with a political activity. Whether or not it was Domitian's personal order, the local authorities may have undertaken their own investigations, particularly in areas where Christians had annoyed their neighbors who considered them antisocial and irreligious (see amixia and atheia). The refusal of Christians (editorial note: of the most radical part of them in any case) to participate in public worship, and perhaps to honor Domitian deified, reported by those who were hostile to them; can have been concluded by the court, the judgment, eventually the martyrdom. Nevertheless, the cases had to be very limited. This, in any case, is the opinion of Father Raymond E. Brown on this subject.

Around the year 100 of our era, according to the French historian Bernard Lazare, the situation was clear: Judaism was a legal (licita) religion tolerated by Rome. The privileges of the Jews in ancient society were indeed considerable; they had protective charters giving them free political and judicial organization, and facilities for the practice of their worship. Thanks to these privileges, the Christian churches were able to develop, for a long time the associations of Christians were not differentiated, in the eyes of authority, from the Jewish associations; The distinctions which existed between the two religions being not known of the Roman power.

Christianity was considered a Jewish sect; it enjoyed the same advantages, it was not only tolerated, but, indirectly, protected by the Imperial administrators.

Once the separation between the Church and the Synagogue was completed, however, an extremely serious problem arose for the Christian communities in the Roman Empire. For all sorts of historical and political reasons, Judaism had got a very privileged status from the Roman authorities, it enjoyed protection which sheltered it from the snubs that the local authorities might wish to inflict on it. As long as the Christians remained members of the synagogues and of the groups of sympathizers who surrounded them, they benefited from the status of the Jews and from all its fiscal, legal, political and other, advantages. This favored situation had experimented only one exception, as we have seen: the Neronian persecution of 64. Nero had made Christians responsible for the gigantic fire which destroyed Rome on July 19 of that year, perhaps on the suggestion of the leaders of the Roman

synagogues; who could legitimately fear a pogrom from the common people rendered furious by the disaster that he considered to be of criminal origin. The repression which broke out was terrible, as we have said, but nothing allows us to think that it was prohibited elsewhere in the empire. It remained protected by the legal status of Judaism.

In the reign of Domitian, it is necessary to speak only of a few cases of prosecution, without the personal responsibility of the emperor being engaged. But the book of Revelation, which dates from this period, nevertheless testifies to the change of attitude of the Christians with regard to the Empire. The Roman power becomes the henchman of Satan.

Who started first? What is certain is that this last book of the Christian canon (end of the first century) is a real polemical tract , a declaration of war against the State. Nevertheless, as BERNARD Lazare remarks, it will only be when the expulsion of the synagogues has been a fait accompli, that the Roman authorities will begin

to distinguish between Christians and Jews, and that they will begin to sue the first (Judaism being religio licita since Caesar and Augustus) without much fuss for all that.

TRAJAN (98 to 117). The miscarriage of justice by definition.

The correspondence between Pliny the Younger, Governor of Bithynia, and the Emperor Trajan, in the year 112, attests to anti-Christian persecutions in that province, but also to the refusal of the authorities to push too far the repression. The situation of the churches had therefore become precarious, but their existence was not threatened. The persecutions were only sporadic and random and the Christian communities could still live and develop. Christians will do much worse later, see the case of the witches in Salem! All that Trajan asks finally is that Christians accept, not deny their faith, but to prove their loyalty to Rome, in other words, in the mentality of the time, to agree to sacrifice to its gods .

The letter of Pliny the Younger, in 112-113, indeed asks the emperor about how to treat Christians, what suggests that there is no specific law before that date (Pliny the Younger, Letters, X, 96).

We have the answer of Trajan, a "rescript," that is to say, a text making subsequently jurisprudence (Pliny the Younger, Letters, X, 97).

They are as it happens the Christians in Bithynia, a province of which Pliny is the governor, and not of those who live in Rome or in Italy. This letter, however, gives an indication: it is not under the impulse of the central power that the persecutions take place but on the basis of popular pressures and denunciations; the hostility of public opinion against them is obvious.

In a certain way Trajan's letter protects Christians insofar as it prohibits any violent action and any anonymous denunciation, but does not prevent those who wish to pursue them and to have them sentenced to death for their religious practices. No martyr is, however, attested in his reign.

Christians don’t have to be systematically sought after - if they are denounced and refuse to swear loyalty to the gods of Rome and to the emperor, they are to be sentenced - but anonymous denunciations are not to be admitted, " For this is both a dangerous kind of precedent and out of keeping with the spirit of our age.” The power in this period was therefore generally tolerant. On the other hand, the Jewish or pagan populations themselves are very hostile. There are sporadic persecutions in Bithynia, in Palestine.

After having governed for at least three decades, the Church of Syria and Cilicia, St Ignatius is confined in rather strange circumstances since the Church enjoyed then a great period of peace. Ignatius was apparently the object of a complaint from certain citizens of Antioch (some Jews?), confined and transferred to Rome to be tried, and then executed by the wild beasts (in the arena).

The letter to the Romans that Ignatius wrote from Smyrna shows, in any case, that it was already in his time a Church with a relation’s network large enough to be able to find support even in the house of Caesar. ("It is easy for you to do what you will ").

As we have said, Trajan did not take any new measures against Christians and was content to enforce those decided by his predecessors. Nevertheless, there are strange Christian traditions which attribute to him the responsibility for the death of St. Ignatius and five Christian virgins.

This rumor would not have deserved to be repeated for lack of space in this modest essay if one of the elements of this file against him had not been a howler that we do not resist the pleasure of quoting, BECAUSE IT LOOKS VERY MUCH TO THE CORRESPONDENCE EXCHANGED WITH TRAJAN.

It is a request for instructions from the Prefect of Palestina Prima, Tiberianus, to the Emperor and the reply that Trajan would have given him.

Tiberianus, disconcerted by the eagerness of Christians to appear spontaneously before his court, is said to have addressed the following letter to Trajan.

"In accordance with your orders, I have made every effort to punish and put to death the Galileans who share the doctrine of those who have the name of Christians, and they keep denouncing themselves to be put to death. For this reason I have gotten tired of warning them not to be so bold as to take the initiative of denouncing themselves to me as an accomplice with the above-mentioned doctrine but they never cease to expose themselves to prosecution. Please, therefore, reveal me and order the decisions of your invincible power."

Trajan, in answer to this request from the Prefect of Palestine, allegedly ordered not only to Tiberianus, but

also to all other governors to end the persecution:

"Trajan ordered him to stop putting Christians to death and gave the same instructions to all the other governors: not to put to death in the future those who were said to be Christians. Thus the Christians were given a respite.

Moreover, Ignatius died in Rome, at a date difficult to determine.

But one can, of course, go back over the chronology as Gustav Volkmar did in his 1860 study.

He was the first modern author to consider with Malalas that the date of December 13, 115 was that of Antioch earthquake:

"The earthquake, after which Ignatius suffered his martyrdom, occurred after the capture of Batana and the first Parthian campaign, when Trajan had returned to Antioch, having defeated the Parthians, at the end of November or December, on December 13, as Malalas points out. "(p. 53); he maintains that Ignatius suffered his martyrdom not in Rome, but in Antioch, a week after the earthquake, on December 20, and he also considers that Ignatius was the victim of a spontaneous persecution to which Trajan could not oppose: "As if following events generating fear and full of mystery, the cries of 'Christiani ad leones' soon resounded: Only the gods could scream so fiercely against these atheists who showed them such contempt. Trajan himself would not have been able to hold back the rabble's anger against the Christians; the persecution took place before his eyes. It may be that, to put an end to the popular uproar, the first time the gods were thanked for calming their anger, the most considerable or stubborn of the atheist leaders, or rather their leader, the first of the presbyters, was sentenced to fight beasts in the amphitheater and to face leopards (sic) one week after the earthquake, on 20 December.

The two emperors who succeeded Trajan protected by decrees Christians from the excesses or popular anger so frequent in Greece and Asia Minor.

The Emperor Hadrian (117 - 138) also confirmed (probably about 125), in a letter quoted by Justin (Apology LXVIII, 6-10), the essential provisions of Trajan. He went even so far as to ask the Proconsul Minucius to apply severe penalties to all those who denounced the Christians in a calumnious way;

The attitude of Antoninus Pius (138-161) was not different.

There should be a sanction only if there was a public nuisance. In some places the Jews, having rights acquired under Roman law (they were a religio licta) , also joined the citizens making Christianity a public nuisance.

At Antioch in 155, it is more than probable that the Jews also demanded the judgment and execution of Polycarp. Some even claim that they were the most enthusiast to supply the bishop's stake.

The reign of Marcus Aurelius (161-180) began in the midst of great calamities: epidemic of plague, starvation and threat from the barbarians on the borders. The Christians of the Montanist tendency then violently attacked the State (in Rome, with Marcus Aurelius, there will be a stiffening of the pagan intellectuals). In the reign of this emperor, philosopher but not inclined to sympathize with this new sect, hostility towards Christians continued to grow, and they were made responsible for the misfortunes that threatened the Empire: epidemic, starvation, dangers of invasion ... The mob assaulted them, real "pogroms" took place, even in Lyons, where, in 177, the crowd attacked diehard Montanist Christians (death of Saint Blandina and of his son). These outbursts of violence were particularly brutal in the cities of the East. Justin was judged and beheaded (ca. 163 - 165), less because of his ideas (he tended to flatter the authorities) than because of his personal attacks against the philosopher Crescens (homosexuality); and of his boastfulness, or of his ostentatious taste for martyrdom (what irritated the Prefect Junius Rusticus, though he was a Stoic. See the Acts of his trial, of his martyrdom). Then, will take place in 180, the martyrdom of the Christians of Scili (Tunisia) . See volume I.

The case will provoke such an excitement among the Christians that they will appear in a mass in the court to be accused. The future official Church will disapprove them.

The period of the confrontation between the Empire and the Church did not begin truly until the beginning of the third century, when Christianity was already considerably developed or organized.

The third century of our era will be therefore the century when persecutions affect all Christians and these efforts to make them citizens like everyone will last from 202 to 284. But these persecutions were nevertheless always targeted (anticlericalism, Christian newcomers and new rich Christians ...) and relatively short, at least in their extreme forms. The number of martyrs was consequently low.

The first emperor to have really started principled struggle against Christianity was Septimius Severus. Some historians think that it was with this emperor that a new period opened in the relations between the Church and the State. During the first years of his reign, Christians continued to enjoy the policy of tolerance followed by Commodus, the last of the philosophical emperors (there were Christians in his entourage). However, after some time, Septimius Severus changed his attitude, irritated by Jewish uprisings, and made perhaps distrustful because of the growing number of Christians in the upper classes.

During the reign of the Antonines, the Christian question was settled within the framework of the provincial administration, by the governors solicited by local events born from popular hostility.

The reign of Severus, on the other hand, prefigured what was to come in the second half of the third century, when emperors were to organize principle proceedings for political reasons

Cured by a Christian slave, Proculus, Septimius Severus was at first tolerant; but afterwards, irritated by the excesses of the Montanists, and driven by political considerations, in 202 he published an edict forbidding both Jewish and Christian proselytism (the distinction being not yet well established).

The persecution rages in Egypt and Africa. It targets those who are preparing for baptism or those who receive it, but not those who have already received it. The charge of a catechist becomes particularly badly seen. Whether it is admitted or not the existence of the edict forbidding Jewish and Christian proselytism, we must admit that the persecution of Septimius Severus was more severe and more organized than all those who were previous. However, we must also admit that this persecution was neither general nor systematic, and that it did not assume the characteristic of a fight to the death against Christians.

The main victims, as we have seen, were mostly catechists or new baptized persons of the sectarian or fanatic branch of the Taliban of the Christianity of the time (the parabolani), like Perpetua and Felicity in Carthage (it was most likely Montanists). But those who submitted or sacrificed to the public worship in the honor of the emperor were not worried.

The public figures of the official Church will soon end in disowning

the race for martyrdom of the kind of that of the Egyptian bishop of Thmuis called Phileas in 308 but Tertullian exalted a form of self-destruction, of which we do not know too much what distinguished it from suicide. As for him St Cyprian preferred to flee the first persecution and accepted martyrdom only in the second. Then came St. Augustine, who put some order and reason in these excesses by plainly and unambiguously denouncing the suicide disguised behind the ostentatious martyrdom.

“This we affirm, this we maintain, this we every way pronounce to be right that no man ought to inflict on himself voluntary death, for this is to escape the ills of time by plunging into those of eternity; that no man ought to do so on account of another man’s sins, for this were to escape a guilt which could not pollute him, by incurring great guilt of his own; that no man ought to do so on account of his own past sins, for he has all the more need of this life that these sins may be healed by repentance; that no man should put an end to this life to obtain that better life we look for after death, for those who die by their own hand have no better life after death” (De Civitate Dei, I, 26).

St. Augustine’s polemic with the Donatists about what he calls their collective suicide has remained famous.

In short, "the l’unbesonnes und fanatisches zudrangen zum blutzeugenthum wird zudem der kirche stets entschieden gemissbiligt,selbst die flucht erlaubt, wo keine besondere pflicht zum bleiben mahnte. The unconcerned and fanatical urging to shed his blood for one’s belief was categorically disapproved by the Church; it even authorized the escape when no particular duty obliged to remain " ( Lehrbuch der Kirchengeschichte fur Studierende , Fr. X. Kraus, Volume I).

A certain number of historians explain the condemnation of Perpetua and Felicity by a popular hostility against the Christians on the occasion of the celebration of the tenth anniversary of the accession of the emperor Septimius Severus. Christians were reproached for being indifferent to these celebrations, since they did not participate in public ceremonies in honor of the emperor, nor sacrificed for his safety or happiness. They were therefore denounced for this, and the Trajan jurisprudence was applied to them.

But if the cause of the arrest of Perpetua and Felicity was indeed the fact that they stayed away from any kind of participation in the imperial worship; their condemnation is explained, on the other hand, by incontestable suicidal tendencies very close to those of the suicide bombers of our modern Jihads. Perpetua and Felicity did not sacrifice themselves for their country or their family, but in order to obey a certain design of their belief. The interrogation of Perpetua and the unsuccessful intervention of her father to get from her a change of attitude are the proof of this. She would have been released if she had agreed to sacrifice to the Emperor. See previous volume.

Caracalla, in 212, granted citizenship to all the free inhabitants of the Empire. This decision will impose on them even more, by consequence, the worship of the official Roman gods, that Christians still refuse. But if violence continues, particularly in the city of Alexandria or in Africa, there is still no clear and determined political will to overcome this internal split.

MaximinusThrax (235-238). In reality, only the Christians of Cappadocia will have to suffer from this persecution, because of a procurator particularly in a bad mood but the situation of the Christians again became excellent during the reign of Philip the Arab. Around the middle of the third century Christianity was no longer hidden. With money and right of ownership, the Roman style, was come respectability. In Nicomedia, the capital of the eastern part of the Empire,"the church, situated on rising ground, was within view of the palace" (Lactantius, On the Death of the Persecutors, 12). According to a letter from Pope Cornelius to Fabius, bishop of Antioch, at the time there were in Rome 46 priests, 7 deacons, 42 subdeacons, 52 exorcists ... all of whom the grace and kindness of the Master nourish.

The persecution, therefore, in the reign of Septimius Severus and his successors, had not, on the whole, been very rigorous; in many places the Christians had enjoyed an uninterrupted peace of thirty years or more.

Everything changes with Decius, the first emperor to have started a real persecution even if the very content of his edict is still problematic. In this regard it is better to stick to what really happened.

DECIUS (201-251)

The edict probably dates from the end of December 249. It is applied in Rome from January 250 (execution of "Pope" Fabian on the 21st of this month).

FIRST LET US REMIND OF A CAPITAL POINT: This edict did not specifically target Christians, but all Roman citizens, with the sole exception of the Jews, protected by their Augustan status from any act of idolatry. And unfortunately for Christians they were no longer equated to Judaism at that time.

The edict concerns both sexes, adults and even children.

Quotation marks are required for the word persecution in this case BECAUSE.

1) What this emperor ordered in 249 was a "supplicatio" and not an abjuration or apostasy.

2) This supplicatio was general and was not limited to Christians.

3) This supplication became an anti-Christian "persecution" only because some of them refused to join it.

For the record and anecdotally, let us remind of the fact that even in prison these confessors of the faith could continue to receive the Eucharist from the hands of a priest, according to the section 2 of the letter number 5 by St. Cyprian of Carthage.

The text of this edict has been lost, but its broad lines can be reconstructed with the help of the following documents.

The writings of Cyprian of Carthage (his letters and his treatise De Lapsis).

The passion of Pionius and his companions (Smyrna March 250).

The certificates of sacrifice found in Egypt ( about forty) which describe the acts that had to be accomplished and the formula that had to be pronounced by the sacrificers.

One can see there, moreover, that adult men and women sacrificed and that even children are associated with the sacrifice of their parents.

Here is a typical example, issued to Oxyrhynchus on 27 June 250 .

" To the commissioners of sacrifices at Oxyrhynchus from Aurelius Gaion son of Ammonius and Taeus.

It has ever been my habit to make sacrifices and libations and pay reverence to the gods in accordance with the orders of the divine decree and now I have in your presence sacrificed and made libations and tasted the offerings with Taos my wife, Ammonius and Ammonianus my sons, and Thecla my daughter, acting through me ,

and I request you to certify my statement .” [Date follows].

One of these documents concerns a woman named Aurelia Ammonous, priestess of the god Petusuchus, the great,ever-living crocodile god of Fayum. It is hard to see how this lady could have been a Christian.

These texts show us that the municipal authorities were in charge of applying the edict. In Africa, and no doubt in the whole of the West, it was the duumviri. In Arsinoe of Egypt, it is up to the Prytane to sign at the bottom of the certificate. In Smyrna, the procedure is more complex: the arrest of Pionius then the preliminary investigation is carried out by a certain Polemon, a magistrate with religious competence, since he is the verger of the temple of Nemesis. He is also rather benevolent towards the accused: "Pionius, we love you ," he tells him. There are many reasons why you deserve to live…. It is good to live and to see the light,"

And while the crowd demands the immediate killing of the Christian, Polemon argues that only the proconsul can pronounce such a sentence.

This one, Iulius Proculus Quintillianus, will intervene a few days later. He is much less benevolent but will nevertheless try on several occasions to avoid the worst, particularly by suggesting to Pionius formulas of casuistry or taqiya.

The writings of St. Cyprian are also an invaluable source of information. Let us note in passing that if we have letters from Cyprian it is BECAUSE HE WAS VERY OPPORTUNELY withdrawn to his country house.

Letter 67 tells us that there existed at that time a Spanish Church organized in bishoprics and that at least two bishops, Basilides of Legio-Asturica and Martialis of Emerita had sacrificed to the gods of the Pax Deorum had obtained a receipt for that and, of course, once the turmoil had passed intended to regain their episcopal see.

Letter 66 refers to the repercussions in Gaul

CYPRIAN TO HIS BROTHER STEPHEN GREETING. Faustinus our colleague, abiding at Lyons, has once and again written to me, dearest brother, informing me of those things which also I certainly know to have been told to you, as well by him as by others our fellow bishops established in the same province that Marcianus, who abides at Aries, has associated himself with Novatian, and has departed from the unity of the Catholic Church, and from the agreement of our body and priesthood, holding that most extreme depravity of heretical presumption that the comforts and aids of divine love and paternal tenderness are closed to the servants of God who repent, and mourn, and knock at the gate of the Church with tears, and groans, and grief; and that those who are wounded are not admitted to the soothing of their wounds, but that, forsaken without hope of peace and communion, they must be thrown to become the prey of wolves and the booty of the devil; which matters, dearest brother, it is our business to advise for and to aid in, since we who consider the divine clemency, and hold the balance in governing the Church, do thus exhibit the rebuke of vigor to sinners in such a way as that, nevertheless, we do not refuse the medicine of divine goodness and mercy in raising the lapsed and healing the wounded.

Eusebius and the other sycophants of Christianity tell us that many Christians refused the symbolic gesture they were asked to do (to take part in a ceremony in honor of the emperor), and therefore had the glorious end of the martyrs. And it certainly seems evident that during the reign of Decius the free practice of Christian religion became less easy than in the previous epochs. But does this mean "widespread persecution?”

If it was really a matter of restoring the ideological unity of the Empire through the general, radical, and pitiless eradication of a "deviant" religion, many of the facts reported by contemporary Christian authors would be difficult to explain. At a time when invaders were threatening all borders, was it reasonable to envisage a measure of such extent, a source of infinite disorder and innumerable red paperwork?

What is certain is that, at first, Decius caused the most prominent figures of the former regime to be executed, most of whom, of course, were Christians.

It was in this context that Origen was confined and tortured.

Cyprian in Carthage, and Dionysius in Alexandria, preferred to withdraw from the spotlight.

But if Origen had remained silent, other Christians spoke under torture, and the list of suspects of intelligence “with the enemy” was lengthened day by day. The Emperor Decius resigned himself to the rigorous application of the laws of Trajan (this prince whom he admired among all!). The obstinate Christians, if they persisted in their refusal to obey, were liable to the death penalty.

The measure of Decius, which was nevertheless only the strict application of an old rule, started nevertheless a true revolution. The Christian community had lived in peace for so long!

Among these "basic" Christians, many (the converted soldiers, for example) knew that they had nothing to fear, for no one could ever doubt their loyalty to the Empire; but for many others, more hostile to the Empire, more fanatical (the ex Montanists or future Donatists for example) or of a more fearful nature, it was not the same thing; and the repairing of Trajan's ancient regulations was for them a real shock.

Contemporary Christian writers, of course, speak only of martyrs and lapsi, those weak who agreed to make the move that was demanded from them. And that's normal. These martyrs were the glory of the Church and the reinstatement of the lapsi was a problem.

But it would be a mistake to reduce the Christian community of time to these two groups of believers, with a violently contrasted attitude. The Church was not made up only of heroes or cowards. And since we know from St. Cyprian that even at the height of the "persecution,” "some Confessors of the Faith" intervened so that certain lapsi were reinstated in the "communion of the Church"; It is because this Church was not reduced to these two categories of believers ... And that all the martyrs of the faith did not perish under the claws of the lions or under the ax of the executioner!

The relatively small number of martyrs (about 1000 for the Western Roman Empire and 3000 for the Eastern Roman Empire) also indicates, on the other hand, that apostates or "fallen" (Latin Lapsi ) even "traitors" (Latin traditores), in reality had to be much more numerous.

Small semantic details (Latin Church Glossary).

The acta facientes are those who obeyed therefore lied to save their lives.

The libellatici are those who have got a bogus certificate vouching for having really sacrificed (to gods).

The thurificati are those who burned incense on the altar, in front of the statues of the gods.

The sacrificati are those who have actually sacrificed to the gods.

The traditores traditors or traitors are those who handed over to the authorities the Holy Scriptures some liturgical objects even gave names (of other Christians).

Confessor of the faith. A true hero who came out of Roman jails alive. There were some! And too many apparently! The degree just below martyrs. To complicate matters, they too began to sign libelli but to grant peace or forgiveness to lapsi. Without first consulting their hierarchy, and that the bishops don't like. So some of them opposed it, sometimes causing real riots.

In his letter 27 Bishop Cyprian, for example, informs the clergy of Rome of the activities of the confessor Lucianus, who has certificates of peace distributed on a massive scale in the name of the martyr Paul and who has just sent him a letter putting him on notice to reinstate the lapsi to whom the confessors have given peace.

In Lucianus's defense, we must admit that Cyprian is the exact opposite of a hero AT THIS TIME (he has indeed fled).

Persecution once passed Cyprian returned to Carthage after March 251 and summons a first council to settle the question of the lapsi.

For those who had got sacrificial certificates, the penance accomplished was deemed sufficient and they were reinstated. For those who have sacrificed a longer penance is imposed before the final pardon, which is sometimes only granted at the hour of their death.

The Council takes the opportunity to condemn Novatian of Rome (news goes quickly) and Novatus (of Carthage). This decision does not satisfy everyone. Cyprian will summon another council in the autumn for the same reasons, but his personal situation still does not make him able to impose his authority over all confessors.

Circumstances better than synodal decrees will smooth out the difficulties. The fear in 252 of a new threat of persecution - which, moreover, will not reach Africa -, an epidemic of plague which spreads terror and death, oblige everybody to take a further step along the path of forgiveness, which is widely granted.

Martyr. From the Greek martus= witness. It is also important here before to tackle Islam’s challenge to again distinguish well here the witness or martyr (of the faith) from the simple confessor (of the faith still).

In order to be regarded as martyrs or witnesses of the faith, it was necessary, when summoned to court, to go there as in the theater, to insult the emperor, the magistrates and executioners, to suffer tortures by praising God, and if the judge proved inflexible, what was far from always being the case, to accepting death in atrocious sufferings as a supreme reward (see Tertullian for the whole of his work andparticularly the letter to Scapula: the Christians of Asia Minor under Arrius Antonius). What, we see it and sorry for French journalists or intellectuals in general, has nothing to do with the notion of shahid in lands of Islam (Dar al Islam).

The calling “confessor” was, on the other hand, awarded at the time to Christians who suffered in persecutions other than by shedding their blood and by ending executed.

It is true that this notion was initially badly distinguished from that of a martyr. The martyr was a witness, he had by his attitude testified to his belief before the judges. In the same way, a confessor (Latin confessor) too affirmed (or more exactly professed) his membership in the Church.

Saint Cyprian will therefore specify the meaning of the two words: a witness or martyr is the one who was executed for his belief or died in prison, and in the same way the one who was tortured when he survives. Is a confessor the Christian who voluntarily exiled himself, who was incarcerated and suffered other prejudices, especially material losses, but who was neither executed nor truly tortured, in short who did not shed his blood.

N.B. St Cyprian therefore visibly thought of his personal case by working out such a definition.

Many, imitating Cyprian of Carthage and Dionysius of Alexandria, preferred therefore to enter a half-underground movement. They were called "Confessors” (of the Faith).

But for others, those who were later called "Martyrs or Witnesses” (of the Faith), attempting to evade these measures was already an indefensible sin, and on the contrary they took advantage of the opportunity to turn the courts into platforms . See, once again for example, what Tertullian wrote about this in the letter he wrote to the magistrate named Scapula. Or the passion of saint Pionius.

At the time of the persecutions, the giving up Christian faith were probably therefore much more numerous than the cases of martyrdom. Many believers, including priests and bishops (see previous

volume), in reality preferred to perform the small move requested by the imperial authorities to escape martyrdom (to attend a ceremony in honor of the emperor for example). Let the one who never sinned throw the first stone at them, but then they became, at least in the eyes of the diehards, some lapsi, even some traditores, in other words, some relapses or "traitors" we saw ; and once the persecutions passed, their case aroused a question of principle which deeply and concretely divided the other Christians (see for instance the case of the Catholics and of the Donatists, in Africa).

Is it necessary to forgive the believers who, frightened by tortures and persecutions, have agreed to participate in the ceremony of a religion other than theirs (in honor of the Emperor)?

Long quarrels will oppose for a long time those who, among their close relations, had a martyr (e.g., the pious Lucilia in Carthage) and those who have stumbled, who have failed, the relapses or "traitors" (Latin lapsi or traditores. Case of Bishop Mensurius, for example still in Carthage). Of Bishop Eudemon in Smyrna, etc.

The number of "lapsi" became therefore so important in the Christianity of the time that it will even give rise to a new tendency; more anxious to avoid martyrdom and more understanding than the Montanists or the Donatists towards them: the proto-Catholic or pre-Orthodox or Pre-Reformist branch that the great historian of Christianity of the 19th century Franz Xaver Kraus thus summarized with his very German or military precision "unbesonnes und fanatisches zudrangen zum blutzeugenthum wird zudem der kirche stets entschieden gemissbiligt, selbst die flucht erlaubt, wo keine besondere pflicht zum bleiben mahnte. The unconcerned and fanatical urging to shed his blood for one’s belief was categorically disapproved by the Church; it even authorized the escape when no particular duty obliged to remain " ( Lehrbuch der Kirchengeschichte fur Studierende , Fr. X. Kraus, Volume I).See above.

Valerian (253-260.). After a brief period of calm, the persecutions began again in 257 under the impulse of Valerian. This Roman senator, close to the elites hostile to Christianity, uses a new tactic to weaken the Christians. He decides to cut the Christian elite from his base. The governors of the provinces are ordered to exile every bishop or clergyman who would refuse to sacrifice to the gods of the Empire. Thus Cyprian, a great figure of African Christianity, will be himself exiled; others will be sentenced to hard labor in the mines. The persecution became bloody a year later when Cyprian and other clergymen, victims of the new Roman measures, were sentenced to death and beheaded.

At the same time, to replenish the treasury, he attacks the wealthy Christians, senators, knights, women of high society. Their property is confiscated. The edict of Valerian also provided for the case of members of the Imperial family who confessed or had confessed to being Christians (sentenced to hard labor).

With that of Decius, it will be the bloodiest persecution of the third century. The martyrs were numerous among the Marcionites and especially Metrodorus of Smyrna, who was burned alive , as well as a woman who was put to death at Caesarea in Palestine.

It was not until the death of Valerian in 260 that the calm reigns again in Africa. With Gallienus indeed, the son of Valerian, in 260, comes an edict of Toleration. Christian worship is allowed, the properties of the churches and their cemeteries are restored to them. It will be a de facto recognition of Christian religion and ecclesiastical property.

His successors, Claudius (268-270), then Aurelian (270-275), will also show toleration. Christian communities are brought to light. They have their (underground or open-air) cemeteries and churches, or at least (for it is difficult to specify their style) houses of worship and prayer. This period is called the "Little Peace of the Church.”

The Christians then enjoyed a peace of nearly forty years, profitable to the progress of the Church, but which, according to Eusebius, was a cause of laxity and corruption in it. It was then that Providence (sic) allowed the last, the longest and most terrible of all persecutions, that of Diocletian, from 303 to 304; which was directed against the Christians, but also against the Manichaeans. We were then in full civil war in the West: the Bagaudae, a kind of maquis refuges of the last druids according to the French historian Maurice Bouvier-Ajam.

Diocletian's position was simple. The excessive number of Christians threatens the Empire.

He started by purifying from them the army by making Christianity illegal for high officials and soldiers. Hence the episode of the martyrdom of the legion of Thebes (in reality a detachment) that would have taken place in Saint-Maurice in Switzerland according to some historians. Conditional is necessary, because all this resembles a tell tale very much (see previous volume).

The taking in hand of the Roman army having been completed, on 23 February 303, the Emperor Diocletian promulgated his first real decree against the Christians. His intentions were clear: to attack the organization as well as the material means (buildings, properties, books and other sacred objects) rather than the simple believers. This edict made Christianity illegal throughout the empire and ordered the demolition of churches (like that in Nicomedia) as well as the confiscation of bibles or gospels. The Christian nobles (honestiores) were deprived of their rank.

Trouble provoked by the Christians in Syria pushed Diocletian to take other measures, even more severe, against them. Arrest of the heads of the churches that is to say of all the members of the clergy. The Marcionite bishop called Asclepius was burned alive in Caesarea. A new edict then prescribed imprisoning the clerics until they agreed to sacrifice to the gods of the Roman state.

Lastly, all the inhabitants of the Empire are obliged to sacrifice to the gods, or else it will be death or deportation.

The results were mixed, as many Christians took the necessary measures, and replied to the investigators with a consummate art of dual language (cf. The casuistry of St Gallonius for example). All did not want to end as martyrs, whatever they might say. What happened at Cirta in May 303 is an excellent illustration of this (we are far from the cases so much praised by Eusebius, see previous volume).

The careful study of the arrests carried out during the reign of Diocletian shows that Christianity at the time had already spread even into the immediate entourage of the Emperor. His wife, his daughter, their servants, the treasurer of the Emperor, Audactus, the eunuch Dorotheus, and even the director of the purple factory at Tyre, were either Christians or sympathizers of Christianity.

The application of these edicts was diverse. In Italy, intense, but brief. In Africa, not much. But in the East, much more severe. Persecutions continued, moreover, in the eastern part of the Empire, several years after the abdication of Diocletian, with Galerius and Maximinus Daza. In Illyria, in Asia Minor, in Syria, in Egypt.

The citizens of certain cities (Tyre, Antioch, Nicomedia ...) having asked him to do that, Maximinus Daza undertook to "deprogram" mentally the members of the sect; and in 308 he ordered even to the Christians to rebuild the temples destroyed by them, or to sacrifice to the gods by offering offerings of wine (Eusebius, concerning the Martyrs in Palestine 9, 1-3).

Some Christians, of Jewish origin, therefore returned to Judaism which was not concerned by these police operations and which remained legal (religio licita). Apart from them and the Marcionists/ Montanists or the Donatists, the other Christians submitted for the most part to the decrees of Rome.

Again, let us repeat, many Christians agreed to do the small act that was demanded from them, but were, of course, regarded as traitors ( lapsi or apostates) by the others. And there were even among these relapses or apostates some traditor bishops. This situation lasted until April 311, when Galerius, the son-in-law of Diocletian, with whom he shared power, published an edict of Toleration (Lactantius, On the death of the persecutors, XXXIV).

By this edict Galerius put an end to the persecution, but, on condition of not disturbing public order, he restored to the Christians the freedom of worship granted by Gallienus. He also allowed them to rebuild their places of worship and asked them to pray for the preservation of the Empire and for the salvation of the emperors. This edict of Tolerance was the last political act of Galerius. Very shortly (five days?) after its publication, he died (May 5 311).

The edict was published in the name of the four emperors then held as legitimate, Galerius, Constantine, Licinius, and Maximinus Daia. In the West it was merely formalizing a de facto situation in most of the provinces where persecution had been extinguished since 306. Although he was still regarded as a usurper, he has been kept out of the legislative decision. Maxentus too, restored the places of worship still under sequestration in Africa as well as in Italy; Thus in Rome in July 311, at the request of Pope Miltiades.

In the East, however, Maximinus did not enforce this edict of Galerius. After the latter's death (May 5, 311), he seized Asia Minor, thus preventing the intentions of Licinius, the designated heir to Galerius’s domain. During the spring and summer of 311 he adopted a wait-and-see attitude, orally instructing the magistrates to slacken the persecution. Many Christians kept in the prisons were then released. But when it was clear that his rival, Licinius, was drawing closer to Constantine, of whom he adopted the attitude favorable towards the Christians, Maximinus, seeing them as political enemies, decided, from November 311 onwards, to resume the persecution. Under the pretext of watching over public

morals, he ordered the cemeteries to be forbidden to the faithful as well as their meeting place since the destruction of the churches. Moreover, he maneuvered to drive them out of the territory of the cities, by causing for this purpose a campaign of petitions and embassies, like that which was sent by the Antiochians. To these requests, more or less spontaneous, but cleverly orchestrated, Maximinus agreed with eagerness, and by congratulating their authors with rescripts.

The Emperor Julian will attempt an ultimate effort from 361 to 363 in order to defend open secularism (paganism) threatened on all sides. He did not declare the Christian religion outlaw, but simply put an end to its monopoly by ceasing to make it the official religion of the Empire and by placing it on the same level as the others.

He abolished the privileges granted to the Christians. He ordered the restitution of the temples and property which the State had conceded to them. ....At the same time that he recognized to the various sects or heresies a legal existence, he made the exiled bishops return; and he even invited the Jews to rebuild their temple on Mount Moriah (in Jerusalem).

" In order to add to the effectiveness of these ordinances, he summoned to the palace the bishops of the Christians, who were of conflicting opinions, and the people, who were also at variance, and politely advised them to lay aside their differences, and each fearlessly and without opposition to observe his own beliefs. 4 On this he took a firm stand, to the end that, as this freedom increased their dissension, he might afterwards have no fear of a united populace, knowing as he did from experience that no wild beasts are such enemies to mankind as are most of the Christians in their deadly hatred of one another” (Ammianus Marcellinus XXII, 5, 3-4).

Contrary to the pious images spread by Christian propaganda, the persecution against Christianity as such was not only late, but also relatively weak in terms of the number of victims (certainly not the 5,300,000 dead of the Shoah). Until 202 the persecutions were besides more often the result of popular movements where the antijudaism of the Greco-Roman big cities (pogroms) gave free rein to itself than imperial initiatives (the power followed the public opinion).

The punishments reserved for Christians seem to us extraordinarily cruel today. And they are, but without any particular desire to take it out on them - it is only the reflection of a society then very violent, very far from our current norms. Christians are given up to the beasts, crucified, tortured in public, evidence of the assent of the population which finds an outlet to its miseries in the death of these strange people. Nevertheless, once the persecution has passed, Christians are again admitted (if not truly tolerated). There is therefore no desire to eradicate Christianity as such, except in the persecution of Decius, but we must contextualize it within a general crisis of the Roman Empire.

But by dint of wanting at any cost to make the Pagans odious, Christianity, with its cock-and-bull stories, made itself ridiculous! Many "lives" of Christian martyrs are indeed only more or less skillfully constructed legends. Most of the stories are almost similar, written in a childish and overblown style, the same phrases appear, the same epithets, the same exaggerations. A long list of incredible legends filled with virgins, miracles, naked women like St Agathonica for example.

“There was a woman named Agathonice (a Montanist?) standing there who had seen the glory of the Lord which Carpus said he had seen; recognizing that this was a call from heaven, she raised her voice at once: ‘Here is a meal that has been prepared for me. I must partake and eat of this glorious repast. The mob shouted out : ‘Have pity on your son’. And the blessed Agathonice said: ‘He has God who can take pity on him. Let me do what I have come for’. And taking off her dress, she threw herself joyfully upon the stake.....” (Martyrdom of saints Carpus Papylus and Agathonice).

Not forgetting the eleven thousand virgins and the Theban legion: six thousand six hundred Christians all martyred (but whom no one has ever heard of). The virgin Eulalia executed in Merida (Buona pulcella fut Eulalia, bel auret corps bellezour anima…story written during the ninth century in a very strange Latin). Saint Agnes exhibited naked in a house of prostitution, but whose modesty was miraculously preserved. St Lucia in Syracuse, whose veil stopped the lava from the Etna (a former Roman goddess?) St Brigid in Ireland. St Felicity and St Perpetua martyrs of Carthage: a golden ladder, a dragon, a miraculous bottle of water. Closer to Andersen's tales than to historical reality.

SS. Ptolemaeus and Lucius: a very bizarre story. The martyrdom of Saint Symphorian of Autun that contradicts what is known about the reigns of Aurelian or Marcus Aurelius and so on......

The Christian presence in the catacombs also belongs to the myth field.

The catacombs, whatever it was long believed about them, date from the first decades of the third century, marked by a real establishment of the Churches, which then reached a true visibility, of which these cemeteries form precisely the first testimony. This is to say how false is the tenacious cliché which makes them the symbol of a hidden or persecuted early Church. As Christians were henceforth well established, they could stand out even in the scenery they chose to surround their death. From the beginning, and certainly until the last great persecution, that of Diocletian in 303, the catacombs were only cemeteries, and no one lived there or took refuge there.

According to the Greek philosopher Porphyry, the few authentic cases of martyrdom of Christians prove only that their God or Devil could not, or would not , at least at the time, that they were saved. Of course, but what to deduce from this noticing? That this contradicts directly the saving nature of their god-or-demon?

Let us not forget, moreover, that the party of the persecuted became, as soon as it was in power, a party of persecutors. The mathematics of the inhuman one is there to show us that the massacre by the Christians and the Holy Inquisition, of the Manichaeans, Cathars, Waldensians, Jews, and heretics, has reached an incomparably higher number.

In the eighteenth century, Jacobus de Voragine gathered all these folk narratives (the golden legend) suitable to nourish the sadomasochistic imagination of the voyeurs; and to reinforce , if necessary, in Christian art and mentality, the taste for suffering and tortures. Punishments inflicted on the blessed martyrs largely derived from pagan myths, such as the druidic cult of the cut off heads in the Far West for example (cf. St Dionysius in Paris).

REMINDER ON PERSECUTIONS.

Half a century has elapsed since the great fire of Rome (64), seven emperors have succeeded each other, and if the time is not yet to the systematic persecutions of great extent, the informing, the pursuit, the abasement and the execution of those whom the crowd called" Christians, " have already entered the current affairs of the Empire.

But at this stage of the suppression, Roman justice does not yet generate "martyrs" strictly speaking: the community of believers being not directly worried, the Christian who is sentenced is still an exception. Moreover, the relative clemency, the flexibility enjoyed by members of Christianity during the reign of the Antonines (96-180) is explained by the fluctuating nature of the legislation regarding the impious persons on which the authority relies to regulate Christian “atheism.” For the great freedom of interpretation left to the judge was itself inscribed within this law: it was stated in it that the proconsul should establish with more or less severity or clemency the punishment of a sacrilege according to the status of the person and the condition of the accused under the circumstances, age and sex (see the case of St Perpetua in Carthage). To arbitrate with moderation, to measure punishment, to sanction outrageous impiety: the judicial activity of the procurator of the province is confined to settling disputes. It is not an expression of tyrannical justice, but a reflection of a general security policy guaranteeing the rule of law in the Empire. The State, through the anti-Christian measures it promulgates, tends especially to preserve social concord and civil peace. Because the rise of anti-Christian discrimination comes not from the power either from the state, but proceeds from below, from ordinary hatred and quarrels between neighbors, inspired by jealousy or envy and fueled by denunciations. In this context, we must insist on the role that public opinion plays in the stigmatization of the offense of atheism: "I too, therefore, expect to be plotted against and fixed to the stake, by some of those I have named, or perhaps by Crescens, that lover of bravado and boasting; for the man is not worthy of the name of philosopher who publicly bears witness against us in matters which he does not understand, saying that the Christians are atheists and impious, and doing so to win favor with the deluded mob, and to please them” (Second Apology of Justin).

Editor’s note. The big mistake of this pet hate of Eusebius of Caesarea, Crescens, was perhaps simply to be homosexual.

Though justice proceeds, the custodian of authority is often at odds with the subtlety of the accused (see the case of St Gallonius for example), who contests less the accusation than the legitimacy of the accuser, moreover, the sentenced person often refuses his sentence. The jurisdiction of the tribunal is jeopardized by the obstinate resistance of the confessors who defend every inch of their legitimacy. The justice, which works, however, does not fulfill its function. The facts are systematically amended, the judgments discredited.

It will be seen later how, turning the tide, the machinery of the law will succeed in restoring its effectiveness and efficiency, but it is necessary first to reframe the incompetence of the provincial courts in its political context by insisting that the first investigations against Christians were not launched following the decisions from the top of the state, but triggered one by one, by the harassment of the grassroots. And these grassroots it was neither the procedural zeal nor the taste for dialectic which decided them to practice denunciations, but fear.

What went wrong with Christians among the rest of the population, with the obvious exception of the Jews, was indeed the practice they had inherited from Judaism, the rejection of all that was goy. The Romans therefore had an attitude towards Christians whose motivation was not the conversion of the latter to a Roman "faith", which did not exist as such, but the defense of the social body in the face of a movement perceived as sectarian, even as a possible source of treachery in a context of great fragility of the Empire *. The reason for these persecutions was therefore not the religious beliefs of Christians as such, but their behavior considered as racist, antisocial, uncivil, outlawed, THE AMIXIA.

The Christians in fact refused to take part in public life, despised Roman morals such as games, made the sign of the cross to ward off the gods during official rituals, rejected civic duties such as the

worship of the emperor, the military service and formed an agitated minority whose proselytizing towards "official" Jews or other Christians disturbed public order by incessant internal infighting.

Apart from the fact that they practiced a form of racism called amixia ** towards the rest of the population, they were also accused of being almost atheists, which for men like those of that time, i.e. very religious, was obviously extremely serious. By thus calling into question the Pax Deorum which reigned throughout the Empire, the Christians put everyone in very serious danger, similar to that witchcraft could form in the Middle Ages.

And this amixia would not have aroused the emotion it had risen, if it did not come close to madness strictly speaking. "Is it possible (Epictetus asks) that a man may arrive at this temper, and become indifferent to those things from madness or from habit, as the Galileans?" It is this self-hate, inconceivable for the philosopher and inadmissible in the eyes of the population, which unleashes indignation. Because the fanatic, who despises his death, also despises mankind in this case ( “amixia” therefore).

Trapped by Christian rhetoric, the authority guaranteeing law tries especially to avoid becoming the arm that favors the execution of millenarian expectations. This expedient would be detrimental to the legality of the judgments. It is clear that the kind of suicide in which the Christians engage, by allowing themselves to be sentenced, was in the short term to discredit the relevance of justice. The edifying sanction that crowns the investigation, the terrifying abuses, the visibility in urban environment, as well as the scenography that frames the body of the convicted person, play here against type. Instead that suppression is used as dissuasion, it gives a showcase to the victims' grievances. The criminal meaning of the trial is diverted to the benefit of its exemplary scope. So severe is it, the outcome of the trial is not equal to the expected result: it makes some miracle, it astonishes the onlooker, causes conversions. The endurance of the martyr calls for admiration to the detriment of the justice and finally bears witness in support of his religion. The "media" impact of the trial obliterates the ins and outs of the investigation. The obstinate perseverance that the martyr puts in the professing of his faith borrows from the theater its decorum, its audience, its popularity, and its fame. In the amphitheater where, according to Origen, pagans and Jews gathered by thousands, punishment turns to demonstration, repentance to apology. The patience of the martyr is not related either by determination or by renouncing the constancy of the sage: it is scenography. The theatricalization of the execution brings in the legal process an increase in representation. The empty contemplation of the capital execution is replaced by that of the martyred body subjected to abuse. Now what is a martyred body? A body that not only decides its death, but the meaning it will take. It is a body which interprets its own death. Actor of his passion, the martyr incarnates beyond his situation the passion of Christ, that he produces and replays. It is beside here the problem. The individual, transcended by the community from which he emanates and of which he is the representative, escapes justice which sentences in him only an imitator whose model remains untouchable. The feat consisting in commuting the sentence in a token of chooseness. Through the role he embodies, the Christian led to martyrdom changes the Code of the Criminal Inquiry established on a culture of the evidence into a masterful testimony charged with producing the evidence of the faith.

By choosing to value martyrdom, that is to say, by creating a value, religious authority interferes with the power in its source itself. Taking the opposite view of justice, it completely recycles the residue of the penal operation - the body of the convicted - and injects it into the network of its "media" economy. The Church does not invent a new social status, but the discourse which enhances this status. Through this discourse, it changes justice into a production line: instead of eliminating the rebellious body, the legal system therefore will make a glorious body for the Church.

The amphitheater of martyrs is a powerful propaganda instrument for a Church lacking publicity. The court reorganized as a platform is the place where the banns of the counter-power are published. But the platform occupied by the martyr, the stage on which he moves, because it escapes the justice of men, is nevertheless strictly regulated and codified. The accused who moves towards his judges is aware that his answers are decisive if he wants to enter the ranks of the "blessed.” He will therefore make sure to adapt his declarations to the innumerable models he is proposed to identify with: Christ, of course, a model by definition, but also certain bishops or doctors martyred in the second century (Ignatius, Justin, Polycarp) who, by their behavior, became new reference figures. Thus the witnesses of the execution of Polycarp do not fail to emphasize that the Bishop of Smyrna " waited for his betrayal, just like the Lord did, so that we might follow him.”To the edification through examples are added the exhortations and the acts of the martyrs, which, for their audience, had the value of a

standard. Because these letters and narratives offered as many ideological readings of the persecutions perpetrated, distributing golden stars and black marks to the applicants according as they abjured or not their faith. Recorded and validated by the Church, these edifying cases stage the attitudes and responses that the martyr must have in order not to deceive the hopes of one's community. It must not be forgotten, then, that the part of proselytism which appears in the spectacle of martyrdom is an added, entirely produced and fabricated part, an artificial component, and that the creed which the martyr professes himself is a secondary elaboration. The martyr is produced by the court but controlled by the Church. Sentenced by the first, he obeys the instructions of the second, and sees himself most often dispossessed of all individual initiative. "You become a martyr only because others have made you a martyr." Therefore, before the judge, the martyr does not only answer for himself, but for the whole Church. "The power of the Spirit" which inhabits the martyr is thus commuted into political power through the intermediary of the group which performs its change. The group shapes the body of the martyr in its image so that it represents it; and to the extent that it represents it, this imitates the model of its faith. It is not the enthusiasm to be a confessor which makes the martyr, but the institution.

It is the Church that evaluates whether the profession of faith is adequate to the belief system it represents, and which ultimately decides. The control of the ecclesiastical authority over its subjects is total. In other words, the Church answers not only for the martyr, but in his place. Very concretely, the martyr does not testify, he recites. In which proportion? This extract of a letter between the Bishop of Carthage (200-258) and a handful of imprisoned Christians makes it possible to imagine.

Nemesianus, Dativus, Felix, and Victor…..in the Lord eternal salvation. You speak, dearly beloved Cyprian, in your letters always with deep meaning, as suits the condition of the time, by the assiduous reading of which letters both the wicked are corrected and men of good faith are confirmed. For while you do not cease in your writings to lay bare the hidden mysteries, you thus make us grow in faith, and men from the world to draw near to belief […..]. For, in the proceedings before the proconsul; as a good and true teacher you first have pronounced that which we your disciples, following you, ought to say before the president [….] Therefore they who were sentenced with us give you before God the greatest thanks, beloved Cyprian, that in your letter you have refreshed their suffering breasts; have healed their limbs wounded with clubs; have, etc..]

This letter is interesting in more ways than one. It shows that Roman prisons were not the gulag of real socialism [1917-1960. One to two million dead]. As the case of Peregrinus, recounted by Lucian of Samosata, had already shown, visits were possible, the handing over of food, of letters, in both directions [Saint Pionius transmits written instructions from his prison].

Returning to doctrine, as in the case of Arthur Koestler's famous Darknes at noon, the individual is nothing and the Party or the Church is all, if not more.

The question is therefore "who expresses himself in these acts or passions of Martyrs who have crossed the centuries until now? The martyrs themselves?

Who bears witness? Who speaks?

Not the martyr, but the ecclesial power and it alone.

Ecclesial power channels and monitors the power of its elite by influencing its discourse and limiting its freedom of speech. The martyrs do not speak. They are forbidden to speak and, when they bear "witness,” it is only the expression of general interests. The group, on which they are closely dependent, deals in their place with always saying what is needed. The martyred Christian is an actor, an imitator capable of playing a part in which his individuality is dissolved. The martyred body disappears behind the impersonal body of the event that it incarnates. At once an imitator of the model and model for others, at once Christ, athlete and soldier, an expression of the dogma and attribute of the group, he is nobody himself. His body has definitely ceased to belong to him. Gestures, postures, words, everything is dictated, his role prepared, his function developed. The attitude to be taken is dictated to him, the acting to be produced, the things to be said, the examples to be complied with, and the obligations being incumbent upon his character. In short, he is directed.

With deprivations, contrition, mortifications, voluntarily suffered ill treatments, it is therefore pain that organizes its own representation and this spectacle, the spectacle of suffering, gives a faithful picture of the place occupied at that time by the body in the public arena. Controlling his fear and mastering his pain, what until then had been a mark of courage, valor, and virtue, and was traditionally manifested on the battlefield or in the arena, are now interpreted as signs of strength and power. Of

course the image of the warrior or gladiator has spread well in Christian literature either as a comparison or as an example, but these archetypes are always asked to be surpassed: "But if so high a value is put on the earthly glory, won by mental and bodily vigor, that men, for the praise of their fellows, I may say, despise the sword, the fire, the cross, the wild beasts, the torture; these surely are but trifling sufferings to obtain a celestial glory and a divine reward.”

The strength that the body collects by depriving itself from the pleasures of this world and by bearing with joy the cruelties of the executioner, not only represents the work of the will of the martyr, his determination and his vigor, but exhibits under a visible exterior the determination of his faith. The extent of the renunciation is only equaled by the force of his faith. This point deserves to be emphasized because, in doing so, the Church puts faith in line with an unprecedented regime of visibility, which will not cease to be reinforced subsequently. On the one hand, true piety passes by the complete acceptance of one’s fate, which depends on divine providence, the ecclesiastical power trying to legitimize the disgrace of the martyr by the sense of his faith. On the other hand, the martyr by his very disgrace produces the evidence of his faith in the eyes of all. The paradox can be summarized as follows: faith legitimates the martyr who legitimizes the faith. But this evidence is not directed at judgment, common sense, or reason, but at sight. The martyr is the living evidence - and above all visible - of the existence of God. So much so that it was more rewarding for believers to commune with oneself alongside the future martyr in the prison rather than in the posthumous celebration of his feats. Particular attention was then paid to the latter by the Church in order, as it will be seen, to control the actions of these very popular heroes.

* See the circumstances of the death of Emperor Julian in 363.

** The best way for our readers to grasp this notion of amixia is perhaps to remember that it is exactly the opposite of what King Herod the Great wanted to put in place with the construction of his new city of Caesarea. The construction of the new city will begin in 22 before our era and will be completed in ten before our era. And Herod's grandson, Agrippa I will continue the policy of euergetism of his predecessor by building in Caesarea a theater, an amphitheater, baths, by organizing gladiatorial fights and a Greek competition (agôn). Now the essential characteristic of the original population of Caesarea is that it was organized according to the principle dear to the philosopher king Herod of the mixtio (social or ethnic mix). Herod had in fact specifically wanted the population of the city to be composed of half Jews and half Gentiles, living side by side in harmony, which made Caesarea an anti-Jerusalem.

THE CASE OF THE CHRISTIANS IN LYONS.

We have already had the opportunity to see in what material conditions Christianity spread in the Persian empire but especially in the Roman empire. Of this empire we will therefore repeat a few words to begin with.

The cities, more numerous in the east of the Mediterranean world, are the place of an active trade and of a great mix of populations and ideas.

The Empire is a world united by trade and language: with its roads and cities it is an ideal dissemination framework for Christianity (merchants and soldiers or their families).

The first Christians are Jews of the 1st century convinced of having found in the person of the great Nazorene Rabbi Jesus the messiah long expected and announced by their writings.

Christianity starts its extension when certain Jews of the Diaspora also become Christians.

Some of these first Christians or Judaeo-Christians, of whom the best known but not the only one is Paul of Tarsus then convert Greeks, Syrians, inhabitants of the cities in Asia Minor who are not Jews. But only God-fearers, that is, non-Jews familiar with Jewish culture for various personal reasons. Antioch, in Syria, became then a great Christian city.

Christianity then progressed rapidly in the eastern part of the Empire. At the end of the second century, the Christian communities, particularly thanks to the journeys of Paul, are several dozen around the Aegean Sea.

The early Christians of Lyons and therefore of Western Europe undoubtedly in large part were members of the fundamentalist sect of the Montanists; since (a few years later ?) they attempted, in the person of Irenaeus, while disapproving of some of its excesses, to dissuade the bishop of Rome Eleutherus from condemning it. In 177 these Montanists (or fanatics) were confined by the Romans. This police operation (fewer than 100 people) targeted perhaps in reality the Jews, but Christianity in this case, of course, retained only the names of the victims, members of their community.

Let us repeat nevertheless, that the history of the martyrs of Lyons (St Pothinus, St Blandina, etc.), executed at the end of the reign of Marcus Aurelius, is only known to us by the church history of Eusebius of Caesarea. This author, who wrote at the beginning of the fourth century, maintains to reproduce a letter t hat the surviving Christians of Lyons and Vienna would have sent to their co-religionists in Asia Minor just after these events.

But if the anonymous author of the letter reproduced by Eusebius is verbose enough when he comes to recounting the various tortures inflicted on the poor martyrs, and almost loquacious to celebrate the magnanimity, longanimity, and courage of these "athletes” of Religion; he remains rather vague on the events that were previous to their appearance before the judges, and almost silent on the real motives of their sentence.

He seems, however, to indicate that the brutal repression was preceded by a gradual rise in the animosity, of the pagans, towards the Christians: " The country in which the arena was prepared for them was…..of which Lyons and Vienne are the principal and most celebrated cities. The Rhone passes through both of them, flowing in a broad stream through the entire region. The most celebrated churches in that country sent an account of the witnesses to the churches in Asia and Phrygia, relating in the following manner what was done among them…..

The servants of Christ residing at Vienne and Lyons, to the brethren throughout Asia and Phrygia, who hold the same faith and hope of redemption, peace and grace and glory from God the father and Christ Jesus our Lord….

For with all his might the adversary [the Devil?] fell upon us, giving us a foretaste of his unbridled activity at his future coming. He endeavored in every manner to practice and exercise his servants [the civil authorities?] against the servants of God, not only shutting us out from houses and baths and markets, but forbidding any of us to be seen in any place whatever.

These popular reactions had incited some Christians like Saint Irenaeus to leave the city in the previous weeks or months. As for the others, the most unconscious or the most fanatical - "the pillars," as the author of the letter calls them - it seems that they were confined in a large roundup, having followed or accompanied anti-Christian riots.

“But the grace of God led the conflict against him, and delivered the weak, and set them as firm pillars, able through patience to endure all the wrath of the Evil One. And they joined battle with him, undergoing all kinds of shame and injury; and regarding their great sufferings as little, they hastened to Christ, manifesting truly that 'the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us afterwards.'

First of all, they endured nobly the injuries heaped upon them by the populace; clamors and blows and dragging and robberies and stoning and imprisonment, and all things that an infuriated mob delight in inflicting on enemies and adversaries.

[Editor's note: The same could be said of the Taliban crowd of Christianity, the parabolani, having stoned the beautiful and unhappy Hypatia in Alexandria ...)

“Then, being taken to the forum by the Tribune and the authorities of the city, they were…….”

The first appearance of the accused before the legate had an unfortunate result: ten of the accused may be badly prepared and badly trained, for at that time they were constantly awaiting for martyrdom, and the fanatics were preparing for it, or then sincerely, claimed not to be Christians. Our text presents them as follows: “Then the others were divided, and the proto-witnesses were manifestly ready, and finished their confession with all eagerness. But some appeared unprepared and untrained, weak as yet, and unable to endure so great conflict. About ten of these proved abortions, causing us great grief and sorrow beyond measure, and impairing the zeal of the others who had not yet been seized, but who, though suffering all kinds of affliction, continued constantly with the witnesses and did not forsake them.

Then all of us feared greatly on account of uncertainty as to their confession; not because we dreaded the sufferings to be endured, but because we looked to the end, and were afraid that some of them might fall away.

But those who were worthy were seized day by day, filling up their number, so that all the zealous persons, and those through whom especially our affairs had been established, were collected out of the two churches….And some of our pagan servants were also seized, as the governor had commanded that all of us should be examined publicly. These, being ensnared by Satan, and fearing for themselves the tortures which they beheld the saints endure, and being also urged on by the soldiers, accused us falsely of Thyestean banquets and Oedipodean intercourse, and of deeds which are not only unlawful for us to speak of or to think, but which we cannot believe were ever done by men.

When these accusations were reported, all the people raged like wild beasts against us, so that even if any had before been moderate on account of friendship, they were now exceedingly furious and gnashed their teeth against us. And that which was spoken by our Lord was fulfilled: 'The time will come when whosoever kills you will think that he does God service.' …. .But the devil thinking that he had already consumed Biblias, who was one of those who had denied Christ, desiring to increase her condemnation through the utterance of blasphemy, brought her again to the torture, to compel her, as already feeble and weak, to report impious things concerning us…. For those who have recanted at their first arrest were imprisoned with the others, and endured terrible sufferings, so that their denial was of no profit to them even for the present. But those who confessed what they were imprisoned as

Christians, no other accusation being brought against them. But the first were treated afterwards as murderers and defiled, and were punished twice as severely as the others.

For the joy of martyrdom, and the hope of the promises, and love for Christ, and the Spirit of the father supported the latter; but their consciences so greatly distressed the former that they were easily distinguishable from all the rest by their very countenances when they were led forth. For the first went out rejoicing, glory and grace being blended in their faces, so that even their bonds seemed like beautiful ornaments, as those of a bride adorned with variegated golden fringes; and they were perfumed with the sweet savor of Christ, so that some supposed they had been anointed with earthly ointment. But the others were downcast and humble and dejected and filled with every kind of disgrace, and they were reproached by the pagans as ignoble and weak, bearing the accusation of murderers, and having lost the one honorable and glorious and life-giving Name. The rest, beholding this, were strengthened, and when apprehended, they confessed without hesitation, paying no attention to the persuasion of the devil.”

The Montanist named Alcibiades, on the other hand, will continue to fast in prison. (Eusebius, H.E. 5, 3, 2.)The text does not specify it, but it seems logical to think that Blandina, a simple slave, was "grabbed" at the same time as his mistress, perhaps with all the "familia" of this one.

The letter specifies indeed that Blandina's earthly mistress "who was herself also one of the confined martyrs" and that she feared " that on account of the weakness of her body, she would be unable to make a bold confession, Blandina, was filled with such power as to be delivered and raised above those who were torturing her by turns from morning till evening in every manner, so that they acknowledged that they were conquered, and could do nothing more to her.”

Most of the commentators of this text seem to consider as a well-established fact that St Blandina was very young, almost a teen-ager. Nothing is more doubtful since she apparently had a 15-year-old son called Ponticus (whom Eusebius's text several decades later presents as his brother). Blandina was executed as the Romans used to do, that is to say, thrown to the wild beasts with her son in the amphitheater of the Three Celticas 1).

But not even thus was their madness and cruelty towards the saints satisfied. For, incited by the Wild Beast, wild and barbarous tribes (thank you for them) were not easily appeased, and their violence found another peculiar opportunity in the dead bodies. For, through their lack of manly reason, the fact that they had been conquered did not put them to shame, but rather the more enkindled their wrath as that of a wild beast, and aroused alike the hatred of governor and people to treat us unjustly; that the Scripture might be fulfilled: 'He that is lawless, let him be lawless still, and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still.'

For they cast to the dogs those who had died of suffocation in the prison carefully guarding them by night and day, lest any one should be buried by us. And they exposed the remains left by the wild beasts and by fire, mangled and charred, and placed the heads of the others by their bodies, and guarded them in like manner from burial by a watch of soldiers for many days.

And some raged and gnashed their teeth against them, desiring to execute more severe vengeance upon them; but others laughed and mocked at them, magnifying their own idols, and imputed to them the punishment of the Christians.

Even the more reasonable, and those who had seemed to sympathize somewhat, reproached them often, saying, 'Where is their god, and what has their religion, which they have chosen rather than life, profited them?'

We were in deep affliction because we could not bury the bodies. For neither did night avail us for this purpose, nor did money persuade, nor entreaty move to compassion; but they kept watch in every way, as if the prevention of the burial would be of some great advantage to them.”

In addition, they say after other things: The bodies of the martyrs, having thus in every manner been exhibited and exposed for six days, were afterwards burned and reduced to ashes, and swept into the Rhone by the wicked men, so that no trace of them might appear on the earth.

And this they did, as if able to conquer God, and prevent their new birth; 'that,' as they said, 'they may have no hope of a resurrection, through trust in which they bring to us this foreign and new religion, and despise terrible things, and are ready even to go to death with joy. Now let us see if they will rise again, and if their god is able to help them, and to deliver them out of our hands.”

The same letter of the above-mentioned witnesses contains another account worthy of remembrance. No one will object to our bringing it to the knowledge of our readers.

CHURCH HISTORY BOOK V.

For a certain Alcibiades (a Montanist?) who was one of them, led a very austere life, partaking of nothing whatever but bread and water. When he endeavored to continue this same sort of life in prison, it was revealed to Attalus after his first conflict in the amphitheater that Alcibiades was not doing well in refusing the creatures of God and placing a stumbling-block before others. And Alcibiades obeyed, and partook of all things without restraint, giving thanks to God. For they were not deprived of the grace of God, but the Holy Ghost was their counselor. Let this suffice for these matters.

The followers of Montanus, Alcibiades and Theodotus in Phrygia were now first giving wide circulation to their assumption in regard to prophecy—for the many other miracles that, through the gift of God, were still worked in the different churches caused their prophesying to be readily credited by many—and as dissension arose concerning them, the brethren in Gaul set forth their own prudent and most orthodox judgment in the matter, and also published several epistles from the witnesses that had been put to death among them. These they sent, while they were still in prison, to the brethren throughout Asia and Phrygia, and also to Eleutherus, who was then bishop of Rome, negotiating for the peace of the churches.

1)This amphitheater of the Three Celticas was a predestined place in this respect apparently, since about a hundred and ten years ago there had been the martyrdom of the Celtic druidic prophet Mariccus.

Here is the exact text from Tacitus about him (History II, 61)

" Amidst the adventures of these illustrious men, one is ashamed to relate how a certain Mariccus, a Boian of the lowest origin, pretending to divine inspiration, ventured to thrust himself into fortune's game, and to challenge the arms of Rome. Calling himself the champion of Gaul, and a god (for he had assumed this title), he had now collected 8000 men, and was taking possession of the neighboring villages of the Aedui, when that most formidable state (Autun) attacked him with a picked force of its native youth, to which Vitellius attached some cohorts, and dispersed the crowd of fanatics. Mariccus was captured in the engagement, and was soon after exposed to wild beasts, but not having been torn by them was believed by the senseless multitude to be invulnerable, till he was put to death in the presence of Vitellius.”

CHRISTIANITY IN NORTH AFRICA.

The first TRUE trace of Christianity in NORTH AFRICA being the affair of the martyrs of Scilli and Madaura about the end of the 2nd century, we will say some words here to begin because these early Christians although of the Montanist tendency played a great part in the formation of what, after the Muslim defensive war in North Africa 1), will be represented only in Europe (the future Catholic or Reformist Christians)

Largely minority, these early Christians adopted an offensive and aggressive attitude 1) from the start to propagate their beliefs, heading thus straightly for a frontal conflict with the pagan imperial power (of Rome).

The history of the beginnings of Christianity in Africa is indeed closely related to the person of Tertullian. Born of pagan parents, he entered the Christian community of Carthage around 195 and became close to the elite of the city, which will protect him against the repression of the authorities. Having received the priesthood, he endeavored in his early writings to fight for the Christian Church to be officially recognized by the Empire.

We can speak of "African Christianity" as the latter adopts a specific characteristic, being remarked for its intransigence (Montanism). In order to increase in number of adepts and to become implanted in the African popular life, the Christian doctrine, through the writings of Tertullian, tries to become emancipated from all the pagan institutions that structure the Roman society of the time. It is necessary to see in this work of writing more a transcription and a reflection about the specific problems of a new community than the will of a man to impose over fervent believers a doctrine that does not suit them.

Christians refuse to participate in the many ceremonies that form the foundation of the civic life. In his work entitled "On Idolatry," Tertullian specifies the nature of the activities that are not recommended for Christians. For the wealthiest, they must refuse to participate in the political life of the city by holding any post, refuse any agricultural trade which could supply products and animals for sacrifices. Nor should Christians be teachers or professors, for this would oblige them to teach pagan myths and worships.

But what most separates and opposes the Roman authorities and the Christian community is undoubtedly the fact that the latter refuse to serve in the army. Tertullian emphasizes the difficulty of reconciling the military oath with that which was taken at the time of baptism. In addition to the omnipresence of pagan rites in military life, the greatest dilemma for Christians is the likelihood of killing opponents during the fights, which is incompatible with the message of the life of Christ: it is also a transgression of the sixth commandment. As it will be seen later, once Christianity has become a state religion in Rome, such scruples will be swept away of course (see St Augustine), and it will be admitted that a man can at the same time be a soldier and a Christian. But at the time, Christianity being still in opposition, it was still not the case. And this political-religious choice was the origin of sometimes violent conflicts, Christians being accused of jeopardizing the city when their refusal of the military service was expressed during a period that required an increased need for soldiers. It has resulted in sanctions that have sometimes been pushed to death. Tertullian himself advocates suffering and martyrdom as an outcome towards salvation, bringing eloquent enough choices from the Christians: some chose the "hero" deaths, for example, by fighting against Egyptian wrestlers (see dreams of St Perpetua). The function of martyrdom became an act of resistance and of memory, inscribed in a commemorative calendar, the basis of the present Christian calendar beside.

Through this extremely strict doctrinal basis, which is difficult to advocate before a population which does not understand most of the time the choices of Christians; Tertullian seeks to prevent his community from mixing with pagan rites and customs in order to preserve all its specificity. For all that,

he did not want to distance himself from the life of the city, still less from that of the Empire. He loves the Empire and is convinced of its benefits in the African provinces.

However, Christians have contributed, through their uncompromising need for differentiation and affirmation within African society; to create a climate of tension between them and the rest of the population, and especially with the imperial power which, faced with this threat of division, will soon react 2).

The Christian doctrine, which landed first on the African coasts, had developed inland. It is at Scilli and at Madaura that Christians will have their first martyrs (Miggin and Namphamo as for Madaura, at least according to St Augustine), in a constantly changing political and religious context.

The Roman religion is not in itself a dogmatic religion. It has no sacred text, but bases its beliefs on a very broad definition of divinity. It is not therefore the new Christian beliefs in themselves that hurt the Roman authorities; but the fact that Christians, forming themselves into a distinct community, and ready to do anything to develop their belief, play the game of the division; at a time when the Empire became the prey of numerous and virulent attacks by the Barbarians. See on the subject again, later and on the other side of the Mediterranean, Salvian of Marseilles.

In any case, on this side of the Mediterranean Sea, the first official attack against the African Church will be endorsed by an edict of the emperor Decius promulgated in 249; and which obliges everybody, including Christians, to pray for the salvation of the emperor, and to do for this, some sacrifices or to offer incense.

1) From Muhammad to the Umayyads the Muslim empire or Dar al Islam will be the only example of an empire built only by peaceful or self-defense actions. More than successful it is true.

2) Any resemblance to the case of Islam in our countries (Dar al harb) would be a mere coincidence or a serious mistake in socio-political analysis, Islam being a true love religion, always, and our media-political elites do nothing against, on the contrary because love makes men lucid, it is well known.

THE FIRST WORSHIP OF SAINTS THEREFORE: THE SUPPORT OF MARTYRS.

The case of the pagan philosopher Peregrinus converted to Christianity is exemplary.

“………It was then that he learned the wondrous lore of the Christians, by associating with their priests and scribes in Palestine…Then at length he was apprehended for this and thrown into prison, which itself gave him no little reputation as an asset for his future career and the charlatanism and notoriety-seeking that he was enamored of. Well, when he had been imprisoned, the Christians, regarding the incident as a calamity, left nothing undone in the effort to rescue him. Then, as this was impossible, every other form of attention was shown him, not in any casual way but with assiduity, and from the very break of day aged widows and orphan children could be seen waiting near the prison, while their officials even slept inside with him after bribing the guards. Then elaborate meals were brought in, and sacred books of theirs were read aloud, and excellent Peregrinus—for he still went by that name—was called by them, 'the new Socrates.'

Indeed, people came even from the cities in Asia, sent by the Christians at their common expense, to succor and defend and encourage the hero. They show incredible speed whenever any such public action is taken; for in no time they lavish their all. So it was then in the case of Peregrinus; much money came to him from them by reason of his imprisonment, and he did not procure a little revenue from it. The poor wretches have convinced themselves, first and foremost, that they are going to be immortal and live for all time, in consequence of which they despise death and even willingly give themselves into custody; most of them. Furthermore, their first lawgiver persuaded them that they are all brothers of one another after they have transgressed once, for all by denying the Greek gods and by worshipping that crucified sophist himself and living under his laws. Therefore they despise all things indiscriminately and consider them common property, receiving such doctrines traditionally without any definite evidence. So if any charlatan and trickster, able to profit by occasions, comes among them, he quickly acquires sudden wealth by imposing upon simple folk.

However, Peregrinus was freed by the then governor of Syria, a man who was fond of philosophy. Aware of his recklessness and that he would gladly die in order that he might leave behind him a reputation for it, he freed him, not considering him worthy even of the usual chastisement.

It is to be said that prisoners enjoyed for the whole duration of their detention, either in prison or in the mines, a very particular preferred treatment because of the support they received from their community, preferred treatment which would seem all the more surprising with regard to their actual conditions of detention. When discussing the lot of these men confined to collective cells, the sources are unanimous in mentioning the lack of hygiene, insalubrity, nutritional deficiencies, exposure to cold and heat, lack of clothing, sometimes a reduced mobility, shackling and beating, sleep deprivation and bodily humiliation. Far from the judge, the guardian reigns supreme over the prison universe; it is he who grants permission to visit, who tolerates the delivery of food or clothing, which allows the pagans to enter in order to convince the Christians to yield or who, according to his mood, relegates them to the bottom of the dungeon. Yet, despite the amount of horror that the prison represents, this place of social exclusion is also the center of an intense activity for the Christian brotherhood. Indeed, there is no guard who has not allowed himself to be bribed, no door that has not been opened, no partner or companion who has not been able to assist the captive in his detention, no food that could not have been brought into the bottom of holes. Moreover, the visit to the prisoners quickly becomes the model by definition of the charity for the parts of Christians that was not worried by the Roman authority. The Church itself favored and supported these charitable works: " you ought not to be ashamed to go to them in the prisons. For if you do this, it will be esteemed to you for a testimony, because the real trial was to them a testimony; and your readiness will be so to you, as being partakers of their combat.” Finally, everything happens as if the martyr, from the depths of his cell, in proportion to the freedom that is taken away from him, concentrated on him a power whose influence continued to extend well beyond the material limits of his house of detention.

This new source of power, the Church, notwithstanding its desire, did not always keep it under control. Because the martyrs were the true representatives of holiness and faith, the most popular and the most visible, they competed directly with the legitimacy of the ecclesiastical power so that it always

tried to keep them under its heel, wanting at all costs to avoid the emancipation of their voice which threatened to become dissident.

The figure of the martyr who recited his lesson before the proconsul, sacrificed his person on the altar of the group and mastered the meaning of his death, this outline suddenly seems almost pale and too smooth with regard to the coldly premeditated actions of Peregrinus. It is because we had perhaps too quickly buried the part of jealousy and covetousness, of vain glory that mingles with the valorization of martyrdom under the image of the docile and straight man who goes nicely towards the stake. Martyrdom is, of course, a profitable operation as regards visibility for the Church, but it is also, what is rarely said, a factory of heterogeneous centers, of places open to all businesses and dispossession, indistinct zones where authority, debauchery and wealth are mixed. Wherever power is concentrated, there is a proliferation of powers. The enviable position that the Church had created for her faithful, the most rogue of them, those appropriated it for their personal advantage. Apollonius (who died in 185) thus denounce the practices of a named Themiso, "who was clothed with plausible covetousness, could not endure the sign of a confession, but threw aside bonds for an abundance of possessions. Yet, though he should have been humble on this account, he dared to boast as a martyr, and in imitation of the apostle, he wrote a certain Catholic epistle, to instruct those whose faith was better than his own.”

The material benefits, the social prestige afforded by the Christian condition, push the best faithful to all daring, even in the isolation of the shackle. In fact, the antechambers of the dungeons which conceal the candidates for martyrdom rot, are the prey of an unparalleled effervescence; Cyprian never ceases to exhort priests and confessors visiting prisons to more restraint: “What next is that ? How detestable must that seem to you, which “I have heard with the deepest anguish and sorrow of mind! That there are not wanting those who by a base and infamous concubinage, yet more defile the temples of God, those members which had been sanctified after confession, and bathed in light, promiscuously mingling their beds with women’s, wherein, though their consciences be free from actual guilt, yet in this alone their sin is great that by their offense an example is given to the ruin of others.”

Because prison is a place of misconduct and collusion. People find themselves in it again, meet in it, and, under cover of concealment, make in it arrangements that are not in conformity with the official position of the Church: the core of the prisons is out of control, very dissimilar from the wise idealized image of it given by apologists. As we have seen it with Peregrinus, it is a whole shady crowd eager for power and servile, which passes through the cell of the martyr in search of the impunity that will give it the blessing of the prisoner. To the unceasing traffic of the visitors who, loaded with provisions and money, comes in order to relieve the prisoner's detention with the hope of getting from him absolution (when they are some lapsi), corresponds the long procession of priests and confessors targeted by Cyprian in his epistle 14: “I hear that some of them wickedly and proudly run to and fro, and give themselves up to folly and discord ; that they defile by illicit concubinage the members of Christ, which have already confessed Christ ; nor will be ruled by the Deacons or Presbyters, but, by the evil lives of a few, cause the honor and glory of many and good confessors to be tarnished; of whom they ought rather to stand in awe, lest, condemned by their testimony and judgment, they be excluded from their fellowship. For he is in the end an illustrious and true confessor, on account of whom the Church afterwards is not ashamed, but glories.”

Not forgetting those targeted by his epistle 15: “The anxiety of my station, and the fear of the Lord, oblige me, most valiant and most blessed martyrs, to admonish you by my Epistles, that they, by whom faith in the Lord is so devotedly and valiantly maintained, ought more over to maintain the law and discipline of the Lord. For as it behoves all the soldiers of Christ to guard the injunctions of their Commander, so it is more in keeping, that you should more diligently obey His precepts, in that ye have been made an example to the rest, both of constancy, and of the fear of God. And I had trusted indeed that the Presbyters and Deacons, who are with you, were advising and instructing you most fully in the law of the Gospel, as was ever done in times past under my predecessors ; that the Deacons visiting the prisons, by their advice and by precepts from the Scriptures, guided the requests of the Martyrs. But now with the utmost pain of mind I learn that the divine precepts so far from being suggested there to you are even hindered.”

The fame and credit got by the Christian prisoners were such that they were believed capable of performing miracles, curing diseases, and granting eternal life thanks to the way of the cross they performed. To fulfill the duty of charity, and doubtless also by admiration, "many among ourselves who have given themselves up to bonds, in order that they might ransom others. Many, too, have surrendered themselves to slavery, that with the price which they received for themselves, they might

provide food for others. Many women also, being strengthened by the grace of God, have performed numerous manly exploits.”

Around the focal point that represents the martyr in the bonds is a whole shadow economy which is established and developed, based on the illicit purchase and sale of indulgences. Because the martyr, without taking into account the selective criteria of the Church, nor its liturgy, blesses, sanctifies, heals, intercedes, forgives sins and delivers places for the kingdom of heaven to those who come to him. But those who absolve en masse the lapsi evidently do not respect the instructions of their hierarchy in this field.

Semantic reminder.

The word confessor (of the faith) refers to the one who came close to being a martyr, who has done everything to be a martyr, but for various reasons (end of persecution, forgetfulness, mistake, weariness of the authorities...) will come out alive.

The word lapsi means those who have agreed to do the small action that the imperial authorities asked from them in order to prove their loyalty by sacrificing a few grains of incense in honor of the gods of Rome or of the Emperor, and the word libellus a notice written by a confessor of the faith . This type of libellus is not be confused with the certificates of the same name attesting that the action was indeed performed by his beneficiary and issued by the authorities for all legal intents and purposes to the “Acta faciendes”. The libelli given by the confessors who refused to perform the small action in question were sometimes of the type: "“Let such a one be received to communion along with his friends.” At least according to Cyprian.

Because let's not forget that the main problem of Saint Cyprian in this case is that THIS TIME he did not behave very heroically but ran away. He acknowledges this himself, but he does not realize that this discredited his exhortations to the utmost firmness in advance. The best proof is that during the next "persecution" which will take place 8 years later in 258, under the reign of Emperor Valerian, he will not commit the same "error" again.

In the meantime, and with regard to the "real" persecution of 250 below what he wrote to justify himself in the same year (letter 20).

Cyprian to his brethren the presbyters and deacons assembled at Rome, greeting. “Having ascertained, beloved brethren, that what I have done and am doing has been told to you in a somewhat garbled and untruthful manner, I have thought it necessary to write this letter to you, wherein I might give an account to you of my doings, my discipline, and my diligence; for, as the Lord's commands teach, immediately the first burst of the disturbance arose, and the people with violent clamor repeatedly demanded me, I, taking into consideration not so much my own safety as the public peace of the brethren, withdrew for a while, lest, by my over-bold presence, the tumult which had begun might be still further provoked. Nevertheless, although absent in body, I was not wanting either in spirit, or in act, or in my advice, so as to fail in any benefit that I could afford my brethren by my counsel, according to the Lord's precepts, in anything that my poor abilities enabled me.

And what I did, these thirteen letters sent forth at various times declare to you, which I have transmitted to you; in which neither counsel to the clergy nor exhortation to the confessors, nor rebuke, when it was necessary, to the exiles, nor my appeals and persuasions to the whole brotherhood, that they should entreat the mercy of God, were wanting to the full extent that, according to the law of faith and the ear of God, with the Lord's help, nay poor abilities could endeavor. But afterwards, when tortures came, my words reached both to our tortured brethren and to those who as yet were only imprisoned with a view to torture, to strengthen and console them. Moreover, when I found that those who had polluted their hands and mouths with sacrilegious contact, or had no less infected their conscience with wicked certificates, were everywhere soliciting the martyrs, and were also corrupting the confessors with importunate and excessive entreaties, so that, without any discrimination or examination of the individuals themselves, thousands of certificates were daily given, contrary to the law of the Gospel, I wrote letters in which I recalled by my advice, as much as possible, the martyrs and confessors to the Lord's commands. To the presbyters and deacons was also not wanting the vigor of the priesthood; so that some, too little mindful of discipline, and hasty, with a rash precipitation, who had already begun to communicate with the lapsi, were restrained by my interposition. Among the people, moreover, I have done what I could to quiet their minds, and have instructed them to maintain ecclesiastical discipline”.

From the martyr who signs the libellus to the priest who accepts it, there is only one chain of action which, for the greater benefit of those who participate in it, depends on the martyr ultimately. A real

network seems to have worked which draws its legitimacy from the most legitimate part of the Church. Obviously, the novelty of the problem confuses the ranks of the clergy seeking parry.

The martyrs themselves, in spite of their reduced ability to act due to their imprisonment, despite their isolation regularly required by imperial justice, in spite of the diminution of their bodily and moral state, always seem to form a common front. And if we think of Peregrinus, it will be remembered that he must have merged into the large social network of the prison to get all the benefit of his confinement. Whether they act in the name of their personal interest, in the image of Peregrinus, or in view of the collective interest, the future martyrs contravene bishop policy, bypass it through their initiatives and call it into question in its entirety: this is the essential point. The balance of power between subjects of Christ and representatives of the Church is changing profoundly, to the detriment of the officials. The question before them is now not so much how the martyr should represent the Church, but how to prevent him from relegating his hierarchy to the background of the salvation debate. Between God and the martyr, who are in direct relationship, the bishop appears as over-added. And in front of the crowd which appears before the doors of the “churches” with their libels in order to receive communion, his influence seems poor compared with that of the martyr.

Faced with the Christian paradox, the strategy of the Roman authorities changes. Henceforth, it is no longer only the fanatics who refuse to sacrifice to the images of the emperor and of the gods, but systematically all the Christian heads. Not only the local chiefs, bishops, priests or deacons like Cyprian finally, but also the influential personalities of the Roman world become Christian or sympathizers.

In the years following the outbreak of the 2 great persecutions, the number of prisoners confined for the offense of disobedience to the orders of the emperor or unlawful assembly, etc. will increase substantially therefore. These men, literary for the most part, seasoned theologians, orators versed in dialectics, come to join the ranks of the crowd of the little credulous, wait-and-see, devotee and other visionary people. The two official anti-Christian persecutions are therefore characterized as much by the increase in arrests as by the diversity of the social classes that the detention centers mix together. What does that imply? This heterogeneous crowd that forms the mob of the oubliettes in the empire, sprinkled with charismatic personalities, despite its strongly marked heterogeneous character, identifies itself as one body. And the no less great crowd of their solitary admirers identifies them no less as the same community. It was because the composite population of the dungeons was organized according to lines of intelligence which were peculiar to it and with means which, although rudimentary, will show their effectiveness. The flow of resources and goods which pass between the inside and outside of the prison is only a manifest aspect of the chain of communication developed around the power of absolution of martyrs or confessors. The politicization of the imprisoned populations, the organization of the networks within the prison show how much the media aura of the martyrs has been exploited to the maximum.

IT IS NECESSARY TO HAVE ALL THAT WELL IN MIND IF YOU DESIRE TO UNDERSTAND THE DONATIST CRISIS THAT WILL REACH ITS CLIMAX IN THE FOURTH CENTURY.

THE THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL ISSUES AROUSED BY THE FAULT OF THE LAPSI.

Or later, worse, during the reign of Diocletian, by the traditors (Latin traditores): those who accepted or concurred in the confiscation of the Holy Scriptures, who are also lapsi power of ten.

Persecution has inevitably led to the problem of lapsi: is it necessary to reinstate into the community and in their function (of a bishop, for example) those of its members who, through fear or to save their lives, have agreed to obey the orders by sacrificing to the gods or the emperor, even worse.

In 249, for example, as we have seen, Decius become emperor, ordered all the subjects of his empire to offer a solemn sacrifice to the gods. The novelty of this edict lies in its binding and universal nature. Commissions are responsible for controlling the performing of the sacrifices by the inhabitants and for distributing certificates to those who have sacrificed (sacrificati) or to those who have burned two or three grains of incense before a statue (thurificati). The word thurificati is used by Saint Cyprian. It designates those who, not being rich enough to offer to the idols the hostia or the victima, did act of paganism by burning incense on an altar, a mode of sacrifice affordable for all.

Nevertheless, this persecution does not appear to have made as many victims as Christian historiography suggests. Moreover, the application of the edict seems unequal in the provinces: severe in Africa, the persecution is much less so in Gaul. A great number of Christians sacrifice to the gods. There are, of course, also those who managed to have a bogus certificate (the libellatici). Either by favor or by money, they got a place on the list of those who had sacrificed, and in return received a certificate, a kind of pagan ticket confession, which protected them from proceedings.

Ordinarily these libellatici, as they were called, had presented themselves before the magistrate, who contented himself with their declaration, without compelling them to make a formal act of paganism; sometimes even, the inscription was made, and the ticket was delivered to them on their request, without they have to appear. The European Jews of the 1940s did not benefit from such a possibility holocost).

Editor’s note. Do not confuse this libellus, or certificate of sacrifice, with another kind of libellus, which will be discussed below, the reconciliation ticket given by the confessors of the faith or martyrs having survived, to the repentant lapsi.

All these common men, the Church considers them as cowards or traitors, some "lapsi" = those who have fallen. How to treat them? For some, they can be reinstated (after penance) into the community. For others, they must be regarded as excluded forever.

As far as he was concerned, Saint Cyprian himself, from the beginning of the persecution, sought safety in flight, like many of the bishops of that time, among whom were Dionysius of Alexandria and Gregory Thaumaturgus. Before his departure, much business had to be settled, for in the middle of the third century the spiritual and temporal administration of a great Church like that of Carthage was very complicated. The Christian community organized in all important centers on the model of the Roman corporations, had a common fund, whose resources, provided by regular contributions, were used for the cost of the worship, the maintenance of the cemeteries, the subsistence of the clergy. Saint Cyprian wanted to secure its functioning during his absence. Several of his letters relate to the sums to be distributed. Cyprian also bothered to save the remainder of his private fortune from confiscation. It may therefore be supposed that he was still rich at the moment when the persecution broke out. He took with him into exile large sums of money, which he gradually passed over to those whom he had entrusted with the administration of the church treasury; he deposited others as trusts in the hands of a priest invested with his confidence. Probably he also succeeded in putting his buildings under the name of a third party, for we find him again having these aforementioned buildings a few years later. These precautions were necessary; the edict ordered the confiscation of the estate of every Christian fugitive; and as soon as the departure of Cyprian was known, the authorities caused posters to be

posted on the walls of the city: anyone who had or possessed properties of Cyprian, the bishop of the Christians, was obliged to declare it. But Cyprian, a clever administrator, had thwarted the greed of the tax authorities, and secured, by the preservation of his private fortune, the supply of the budget. He could now get away; the businesses of the Church were settled; and, in his absence, he left two neighboring bishops and several priests to replace him.

The doors of the prisons finally opened, and those who had refused all concessions to the Roman worship came out . After a year of detention, many of them were as intoxicated by the air of freedom. Flattered by the priests critical towards the attitude of Cyprian, welcomed with all sorts of attentions by those who themselves had failed (the lapsi), stunned by the praises they received. The pope of the African Church (Cyprian) wrote to all those confessors of the faith (without distinguishing between the innocent and the guilty ones) a letter correcting some of them because of their faults, praising the innocence of others; but urging them all to preserve the glory that a heroic resistance had got for them. Fearing the bad suggestions of poverty, he announced at the same time the sending of various sums of money. Among the warnings contained in St. Cyprian's letter, there is one which is worthy of special attention. The bishop blames those who, braving their exile, return to their homeland after incurring a sentence of banishment not yet officially lifted, and thus risk being punished, not as Christians, but as breaking the laws. We can too much admire this scrupulous respect for the laws and decrees from those in whom persecutors persisted in seeing enemies of the Empire....

Cyprian's status nevertheless was not that of the banished: no judgment had been given against him, and the only act of the authority which had aimed at him was the order of confiscation of his property. So he was able to return to Carthage without braving the law. Unfortunately for Saint Cyprian, he had also left behind him after his flight, in his own clergy, a hostile party, at the head of which were five priests, who had formerly opposed his election as a bishop. From this ambitious and unhappy group came malicious rumors about the retreat of Cyprian. They spread themselves enough so that the clergy of Rome made discreet allusions to them in a letter to the clergy of Carthage, a true model of ecclesiastical irony. After the persecution, St. Cyprian was again obliged to defend himself against these rumors, and the care with which his biographer and friend, Pontius, explains and excuses his absence; shows enough that even his heroic death in the persecution of Valerian 8 years later is not enough to cleanse him of any reproach during that of Decius ... (the same situation, all in all, as with the contestation of the miracles of St. Martin, by other Christian clergymen).

Finally, for the state, the result was not the one it hoped for, because the rallying of all these "lapsi" was only superficial. and momentary, tut the problem of the lapsi, as for it, on the other hand, will poison lastingly Christianity by starting the Novatian crisis, after the bishop of Rome Cornelius (251 - 253) decided to reinstate them; therefore consequently the most serious of the early schisms of the Church, the Donatist schism.

As each persecution, like we have seen it, made a large number of lapsi, who subsequently sought reintegration into their communities, the divergences about them were sometimes of practical large importance, especially when they were bishops. Some showed more understanding towards the lapsi, but the most fanatical Christians, especially the antipope Novatian, contested the possibility of granting forgiveness to anyone who had agreed to swear loyalty to the State or to the Emperor and to participate in a ceremony in honor of the gods to prove it. By their severity these Novatians were, moreover, close to the Montanists, with whom they were sometimes mixed up.

In Carthage, in any case, Bishop Cyprian was firstly accused of excessive severity, because during the persecution of Decius, and before it had ended, in his letters he refused the reconciliation to the lapsi. The faction of Felicissimus, excommunicated with him by St. Cyprian, was reinforced by many lapsi, that the discontented received with open arms; and of a certain number of Christians, whom Cyprian had treated, they said, as relapses, on account of their libelli pacis *.

Editor's note. The persecutions having resumed a few years later the Holy Spirit then will prudently inspire St. Cyprian more leniency on this subject.

As we have seen, the lapsi or "fallen" were Christians who, during this persecution, had....

- Either truly offered a sacrifice to the gods (the sacrificati).

- Or burned incense on an altar consecrated to the gods (the thurificati).

- Or managed to pose as having obeyed the orders of the Emperor, while refraining concretely from the sacrifices ordered (the "libellatici").

This behavior was evidently whether you like it or not, somewhere, a cheating. These libellatici, however, were less guilty than the apostates (properly called) sacrificati and thurificati

St. Cyprian thus distinguished between the one and the others, and as we have said, the Bishop of Rome followed roughly the precepts of St. Cyprian on the conduct to be followed concerning the fallen (lapsi), who were to be exhorted to penance, encouraged confessing Jesus Christ if a second ordeal was imposed upon them; but were to be admitted to the meal of commensality "devogdonion" (communion) only in case of illness.

Saint Cyprian wrote particularly to his priests to grant to the sick persons the peace promised by the tickets reconciliation of the confessors mentioned above.

For the fallen who had gotten back on their feet by confessing again Jesus Christ, and had only been sentenced to banishment, Cyprian considered them cleared, and therefore admitted them to the meal of "devogdonion" commensality (to the communion).

With regard to the others, he judged that their case should be left in abeyance; until peace had made it possible to convene an assembly of bishops who would decide, in agreement with the clergy and the people, the conditions and the time at which they should be reinstated in the community.

Among the apostates themselves (sic: the sacrificati, thurificati), Saint Cyprian acknowledged nuances: he judged differently those who, at the first injunction, had agreed to sacrifice to the gods, and he who had done this act only under duress, after a long resistance; the one who had forced his family, his friends, his sharecroppers, to sacrifice with him, and he who had sacrificed to the gods, alone.

A fortiori he classified the libellatici in a separate category. Since it is necessary to distinguish between those who have sacrificed, there would be a revolting injustice in mixing up the libellatici with the latter.

“I had previously read and had been made aware, he will say, who received one of these tickets, the discourse of the bishop, that we must not sacrifice to idols, that the servant of God ought not to worship images; and therefore, in order that I might not do this which was not lawful, when the opportunity of receiving a certificate was offered, which itself also I should not have received, unless the opportunity had been put before me, I either went or charged some other person going to the magistrate, to say that I am a Christian, that I am not allowed to sacrifice, that I cannot come to the devil's altars, and that I pay a price for this purpose, that I may not do what is not lawful for me to do."

A schism broke out. His nominal leader was an influential and wealthy layman, called Felicissimus, who soon joined the five priests who had never ceased to oppose Cyprian, among whom was a certain Novatus. Many fallen (lapsi) followed them, attracted by the promise of a quick forgiveness.

After an exile which lasted fourteen months (from February 250 to April 251), Cyprian therefore returned to Carthage. His first care was to assemble several bishops in council, to settle, together with the clergy and the people, all the pending questions. Felicissimus, Novatus, and their partisans were first heard; they were excommunicated. Then the assembly ended with the case of the lapsi (fallen). It decided to exclude from all ecclesiastical functions bishops and priests who had sacrificed or would be the holder of sacrifice certificates; to grant the benefit of the meal of "devogdonion" commensality (communion) to the other libellatici if they had done penance immediately after their fault. For laymen who had sacrificed, it was decided to examine each case separately, according to certain rules, and to fix according to the circumstances the degree of guilt, the length of the penance as well as the period of reconciliation.

According to John Toland, the reintegration into the community of those who had thus failed, thus were become relapses or apostates (lapsi thurificati), was done in five stages, called by various names of Greek origin.

The first: those who had failed were obliged to remain separated from the rest of the congregation for several years, to lament their sins, hence the name given to this stage: proclausis.

The second: they were kept apart so that for three years they could hear the priest without being able to see him. This step was called acroasis.

The third: the following three years, they were allowed to hear and see, but not to mingle with the Congregation. This period was called hypoptosis.

The fourth: they were allowed to mingle with others, but not to receive the sacraments. It was the systasis.

And finally the fifth: they were admitted to receive communion, what was called methexis.

As we have had already the opportunity to see it, in Rome too, Bishop Cornelius followed the party of the understanding with respect to the lay persons having failed; while the rigorists, especially Novatian, contested to the Church to reinstate in his ecclesiastical functions anyone who had accepted even to buy a bogus certificate vouching for the fact that he had obeyed by performing externally some of the innumerable rituals of Roman paganism: a symbolic gesture in honor of the gods of Rome and or the person of the emperor; the Church being made only of diehard soldiers of Christ.

* Latin expression meaning: certificate (libellum) bought to make people believe that you have really attended a ceremony in honor of the emperor of your country.

THE CHRISTIANIZATION OF CITIES (Antioch Alexandria, etc.).

MAXIMUS. Maximus, Flavius Magnus Maximus or Magnus Maximus, in Welsh Macsen Wledig (335 ?-28 August 388), is a usurper of the throne of the Western Roman Empire from 383 to 31 August 384, then a legitimate co-emperor in the West until his death in 388, executed on the orders of Emperor Theodosius I.

Maximus was probably born in Spain in 335. Of his life before 369, we know nothing; he is sometimes called, probably by mistake, Magnus Maximus Clemens.

Around 380 Maximus is named Comes Britanniarum (commander of the mobile armies of Great Britain). During this assignment, in 381, he victoriously fought an incursion of Scots and Picts, after the "Great Conspiracy."

In June 383, his troops proclaimed him emperor. Maximus then entrusted the throne to Caradocus and immediately left for Gaul to realize his imperial ambitions.

Following his exactions in Gaul, Maximus went to meet his main competitor, the legitimate emperor Gratian, whom he defeated at the battle of Lutetia in 383. Gratian was betrayed by his troops after five days and fled. Andragathius, the magister equitum of Maximus pursued him and killed him on August 25 that same year in Lyon. Having made himself master of all the prefecture of the Gauls, Theodosius I, the emperor of the East, recognizes him emperor at the time of the meeting in of Beroae, city of the north of Thrace, on August 31, 384. The empire counts then three emperors: Maximus in Trier, Valentinian II, under the supervision of his mother Justine, in Milan, Theodosius I in Constantinople. Maximus settles his capital at Augusta Treverorum (Trier) in Gaul. He becomes a popular emperor and persecutes heretics. In 386 he had the heretic Priscillian bishop of Avila executed, convinced that he had propagated a Gnostic heresy very close to the teachings of Origen and Mani. On Mani and Manichaeism see previous volume. The Bishop of Avila will be executed with six of his disciples despite the intervention of Valentinian II .

VALENTINIAN II.

In 387, Valentinian II is driven out by Magnus Maximus, who seizes Rome and occupies Italy. Theodosius I hesitated to intervene. However in love with the sister of Valentinian II, Aelia Galla, that he marries, Theodosius Ier intervenes against Magnus Maximus to restore Valentinian II. While the latter lands at the mouth of the Tiber, Theodosius I, whose troops are commanded by the magister militum Richomer and Arbogastes, defeats Magnus Maximus and makes execute the usurper in Aquileia.

Theodosius remained in Milan until 391 and then, when he joined the eastern part of the Empire, it is Arbogastes which exerts the real authority on the western part, charged by Theodosius with the protection of the young Augustus Valentinian II.

When in 392 the latter returns to his capital Vienna, an altercation opposes him to Arbogastes, whose authority he contests; the outcome is fatal to the young emperor who is found hanged shortly afterwards, either because he has killed himself, or because he has been assassinated by Arbogastes who is not long in proclaiming the Christian rhetorician Eugenius that Theodosius I will refuse.

EUGENIUS I (392-394). Period of true secularism.

Eugenius, born in Eauze and coming from a good family, is a true Christian but moderate who teaches rhetoric or grammar in Gaul, in Vienna in a school that he directs. He then made a career in the western imperial administration where he reached a high position - either magister officiorum (master of offices) or magister scriniorum (chief secretary). He became friends with the general of Frankish origin Arbogastes, to whom he would have been recommended by the latter's uncle, the great western general Richomer, of whom Eugene had probably previously been secretary.

From 391 onwards, relations between Arbogastes, then magister militum, and the young Western emperor Valentinian II deteriorated, the latter, then 20 years old, aspiring to exercise his imperial functions directly. The emperor tries to dismiss the Frankish general who resists him, arguing that he does not hold his power from Valentinian, who therefore does not have the authority to dismiss him. The latter requested the intervention of the augustus of the East, Theodosius I, but his request went unheeded; Valentinian then turned to the bishop of Milan, Ambrose, to try to mediate with the rebellious general.

But Ambrose is still on the way when in May 392, Valentinian finds death in his Viennese palace in unclear circumstances that may suggest an assassination orchestrated by Arbogastes, from which he has always defended himself; one can indeed doubt the benefits that the powerful Frankish general, who in any case does not have access to Roman purple, benefits from the death of a prince he dominated. Certain indications suggest that Arbogastes was caught unawares by this disappearance, and it is not long before, in order to make a good impression, the body of the emperor is transported to Milan, where a sumptuous funeral is organized under the leadership of Ambrose.

One does not know precisely what Arbogastes hopes then of Theodosius - the military command of the Western provinces or the sending of one of his sons like Augustus? - and the situation remained unresolved for a few weeks both in Gaul and in Constantinople, where the news of Valentinian's death did not reach them until June. It is then that, according to Zosimus, Arbogastes convinces Eugenius to take the purple one, but Socrates of Constantinople presents another succession of events according to which it is on the contrary Eugenius who chooses to join the brilliant officer that is Arbogastes.

In any case, Eugenius, a man esteemed for his vast Hellenic culture and wearing a beard in the manner of Emperor Julian, perhaps to mark his attachment to tolerance in religious matters, acceded to the title of Augustus 22, 392, in Vienna or Lugdunum and added to his name that of Flavius. It is the first time in a century that a personality without any connection with an imperial family and who has no military experience is brought to power.

The choice of a moderate Christian may have had the dual objective of not displeasing the Nicene Christians, Theodosius I, Emperor of the East then residing in Constantinople, and the influential Bishop of Milan Ambrose - who also held high civil responsibilities and with whom Eugenius maintained friendly relations - while not alienating the defenders of the traditional Roman religion.

Initially, Eugene sought legitimacy and agreement with Theodosius I, as evidenced by his sending two embassies in order to be recognized as Augustus. One of them, led by an Athenian named Rufinus accompanied by Gallic bishops, endeavored to clear Arbogastes although there is no explicit mention of the latter. Theodosius receives the embassies with open benevolence but does not follow up on the interviews.

Theodosius' attitude is probably influenced both by the desire for revenge of his wife Aelia Galla, upset by the death of his brother Valentinian II, and by the danger that Arbogastes's power now constitutes for his own power.

During the winter of 392-393, Eugenius and Arbogastes focus on the Rhine limes: while Eugenius renews the traditional alliances with Alamans, Arbogastes campaigns against the Franks across the river to show Theodosius that the border is well guarded.

In Italy, Ambrose finally refuses to recognize Eugenius, following the example of Count Gildo who manages Roman Africa and who, previously revolted against Valentinian II. Gildo nevertheless resumes his deliveries of supplies to Rome. For its part, the Senate of Rome sent a delegation to Gaul to meet the new Augustus to ask him to repeal the religious measures decreed by Gratian and to restore to the pagan temples what had been taken from them for the benefit of the Christian churches. Eugene did not agree their request but granted the senators rich presents which made it possible to finance indirectly the ceremonies of the temple of Vesta whose goods had been confiscated, thus conciliating part of the members of the institution but arousing the declared hostility of Theodosius.

When on January 23, 393, Theodosius raised his son Flavius Honorius - barely two years old - to the rank of Augustus of the West, the confrontation became inevitable.

Around March, Eugenius set out to settle in the imperial city of Milan, which Ambrose had left to take refuge in Bologna and then in Florence, from where the letters he addressed to Eugenius while treating him with deference - explicitly designating him as "Emperor Augustus" - let him know that he had lost the support of the bishop as well as that of the Christians of Italy. On the way, passing through Lyon, he authorized the restoration in the Curia of the altar of Victory that Gratian had had removed in 382.

Eugene's action did not, however, stem from any religious militancy, and the liberalities he granted to the Churches of the peninsula probably earned him a certain gratitude from the latter, while it was the Prefect of the Praetorium of Italy, Illyria and Africa, the pagan Nicomacheus Flavius, who welcomed him to Milan, thus initiating cordial relations with that part of the Senate that wished to restore traditional cults to their former rights. The senatorial aristocracy of Rome makes thus relatively good reception to an Augustus who, in search of legitimacy, falls under the line of the policies of tolerance led by Constantine, Jovian or Valentinian I rather than in that of a hypothetical "pagan reaction" for a long time presented by the Christian historiography to counterbalance the edicts of prohibition of paganism promulgated since 391 by Theodosius I.

Eugenius kept Nichomachus Flavianus as prefect of the praetorium, granted him the consulate in 394 and named his son of the same name prefect of Urbs: the Roman temples were reopened and restored, public sacrifices and haruspicy were resumed and a temple was even built in Ostia, dedicated to Hercules, without overestimating the extent of this restoration movement which was confined to the city of Rome nor the adhesion of the Roman senatorial class to the new regime: the famous Symmachus, Nichomachus' brother-in-law, remains prudently at a courteous distance from Eugenius, with whom he refrains from collaborating too closely.

In the East, Theodosius prepared for war throughout the winter of 393-394, even more carefully than he had done before opposing Maximus, gathering an army composed mainly of barbarian troops including Goths, Huns and Alans from the Danube border. The leadership of these foederati troops of Asia and Thrace was also largely occupied, alongside the Roman command provided by Timasius and Stilicho, by barbarian generals: the Goth Gainas, one of whose officers was Alaric, the Alan Saul, the Caucasian Iberian Bacurius, or even the Frankish Richomeres, who died before taking command of the cavalry.

The armies in contention practice various cults or confessions, counting in their ranks both Arian Homaean or Nicene Christians as well as pagans. It is in reality a struggle for power and the reunification of the two parts of the Empire under a single authority that is being played out.

The meeting between the two armies will take place on September 5 and 6, 394, at the Battle of the Cold River (Battle of the Frigidus), probably the Vipava River, in the Julian Alps, not far from Aquileia.

It seems that the first day of fighting was deadly and indecisive before Theodosius's Gothic auxiliary troops were annihilated, giving, according to Zosimus, a definite advantage to Eugeniu's troops at the end of the day.

But the next day, the advantage turns in favor of Theodosius, helped by the change of camp of one of Eugeniu's generals, Arbitio, and by unfavorable weather conditions: Eugeniu's troops disband and he is captured as he tries to flee. Presented to Theodosius, he was beheaded on the same day and his head, stuck on a pike, was carried through his camp and then across Italy.

The Roman Empire was reunited for a few months under the power of Theodosius I.

Posterity, shaped by ecclesiastical historians following Rufinus of Aquileia, will transform this war into the archetype of a "war of religion," adding many details to tell the story of a true "holy war" that sets the Theodosius victory as a triumph of Catholic Christianity.

Religion betrayal and propaganda have always gone hand in hand and the same propaganda will be found at work during the battle of Yarmuk somewhere in Palestine in 636 (the change of sides of the Ghassanid light cavalry).

THEODOSIUS I. Theodosius I or the great will be the last to be both emperor of the West and the East but his beginnings will be modest, co-emperor in 379.

His first grand gesture was the Edict of Thessalonica, which amounted to nothing less than making Catholicism the only official religion.

The edict was promulgated on February 27, 380. He officialized the Orthodox Catholic worship and made it the only licit religion in the Roman Empire thus prohibiting all the cults known as "pagan." Following this edict the Stoic, Epicurean, and Neoplatonist, philosophers (like Hierocles of Alexandria) , were also persecuted.

"Emperors Gratian, Valentinian and Theodosius Augusti. It is our desire that all the various nations which are subject to our Clemency and Moderation should continue to profess that religion which was delivered to the Romans by the divine Apostle Peter, as it has been preserved by faithful tradition, and which is now professed by the Pontiff Damasus and by Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, a man of apostolic holiness. According to the apostolic teaching and the doctrine of the Gospel, let us believe in the one deity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, in equal majesty and in a holy Trinity.

We want the followers of this law to assume the title of Catholic Christians; but as for the others, since, in our judgment they are foolish madmen, we decree that they shall be branded with the ignominious name of heretics, and shall not presume to give to their conventicles the name of churches. They will suffer in the first place the chastisement of the divine condemnation and in the second the punishment of our authority which in accordance with the will of Heaven we shall decide to inflict.

Given in Thessalonica on the third day from the calends of March, during the fifth consulate of Gratian augustus and first of Theodosius augustus“.

From 388 to 391 Theodosius will stay mainly in Milan as we have seen.

His prefect of the Praetorium for the East (a high-ranking civil servant), a very active Christian named Cynegius Maternus, enforces literally the laws of Theodosius, and in particular the prohibition of divinatory sacrifices, the appointment in Egypt of a Christian as high priest administrator of the temples, all in a very restrictive sense, and with crash closes all the temples, prohibits all sacrifices (384).

He lends the army to the bishop of Apamea, Marcellus, to destroy the temple of Zeus (386), and it will be the first time that a temple will be destroyed at the instigation of a bishop. Despite popular hatred, Marcellus continued his destructive work in the Bekaa, then on the steps of the Empire along the Euphrates, proclaiming that this was the best way to convert the population, and was finally killed in battle.

Thanks to the pagan prefect of the praetorium who succeeds Cynegius (388-392), the administration managed the relationship to paganism in the interest of the state and rather according to the high officials in place. Theodosius is concerned with harmony,he maintains the prohibition of sacrifices, but confirms the opening of temples, while monks and bands of Christians continue, from Syria to Greece through Egypt, to commit exactions on the pagan population and to condemn and destroy sacred buildings, including the fortress temples on the Persian steps of the Empire yet of strategic interest in relation to the constant Persian Sassanid threat. So much so that an edict of 390 ordered the monks to return to their desert!

This prudence of Theodosius with regard to the pagans will be thwarted by the bishop of Milan, Ambrose. Valentinian II in the West is a weakling. At the request of the bishop of Milan saint Ambrose, he also promulgates a law that not only forbids sacrifices, but also forbids anyone to frequent the temples. Hence further unrest in the West. Valentinian II quickly followed this law with a second one which ordered pagan temples to be closed, a law which was considered to prohibit de facto paganism.

Ambrose, through his public arguments, also prevented Theodosius from rebuilding the synagogue of Kallinicon (Rakka) on the Euphrates, which had been burned down by monks led by the bishop. Theodosius, dissatisfied, kept Ambrose at a distance and drew closer to the Roman aristocracy, which remained predominantly pagan. Pagan officials are appointed to high positions, and Theodosius persists in this opening, even after an attempt at a pagan restoration in Rome (see higher Eugenius 392-394). Following an incident relating to the repression of a popular homosexual in Thessalonica, the military commander, a hated Christian, is massacred. The population, locked up in the circus, is decimated on the orders of Theodosius. Ambrose refused the Eucharist to Theodosius until atonement for this crime, that is, until Christmas 390. From 391, the policy of religious openness of Theodosius, who had already, since 380 (edict of Thessalonica, taken the fold of restriction, by placing the emphasis (constraint in matters of faith) on apostates and heretics, came to an end. He even went so far as to punish with death those who celebrated Easter on a date other than that imposed by the Council of Nicaea!

From 391 onwards, restrictions were extended to the pagans, shortly after the transformation of their holidays into working days (389).

The Edict of Milan.

In 391 (February 24, 391), Theodosius reiterates the prohibition of animal sacrifices and decrees: "“We Emperors Gratian, Valentinian and Theodosius to Albinus, pretorian prefect: nobody shall pollute himself with sacrificial victims, nobody shall sacrifice an innocent animal victim, nor shall get close to sanctuaries, visit temples and look at statues made by a mortal hand, or he’ll be subject to divine and human punishment. Judges shall act so that to condemn everyone who enters a temple along a road or in a city to commit worship acts for profane rites to immediately pay fifteen pounds of gold, and the office he eventually has won’t excuse him from payment in time, except in case he opposes to the judge and appeals to public witnesses. Consuls will pay for such a crime six times the prescribed sum and so their staff; administrators and governors of a province four times and so their servants " (Decree "Nemo se hostiis polluat,” Codex Theodosianus XVI.10.10).

This edict of Milan prohibiting all animal sacrifice leads in practice to the prohibition of pagan worship. A few months later, the Edict of Aquileia did the same for Egypt. Theophilus and his nephew, the future Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria, St. Cyril, put this new edict into effect. At first, they wanted to confiscate the temple of Dionysus to transform it into a church and obtained the approval of Emperor Theodosius I for this project, but the pagans of the city mobilized and barricaded themselves within the walls of the Serapæum, a massive building on an elevated site nicknamed "the Acropolis of Alexandria."

The Christian Taliban (the Parabolani) immediately stormed the city, led by Bishop Theophilus, the Serapaeus and his library, the famous Library of Alexandria (defended by the students).

The Prefect of Egypt and the commander-in-chief of the provincial army refused to intervene without an express order from the emperor, which Theophilus sought and obtained: an imperial decree approved the demolition of Alexandria's temples. Then the bishop, without waiting for the intervention of the civil authorities and the army, took himself at the head of a crowd of exalted Christians and presented himself before the Serapæum, where he read aloud the emperor's decree before a terrified crowd. Then he rushed into the temple and gave himself the first blow (as did Muhammad in 630 for the Kaaba) to the statue of the god Serapis; his followers, in a frenzy, rushed after him and set about ransacking and completely demolishing the shrine, which contained, according to the testimony of the contemporary rhetorician Aphthonius of Antioch, a large library (4 million books) that was apparently destroyed to wipe out forever the roots of ungodliness (according to them). Theophilus also attacked other temples in the city, such as the Mithræum, which he "purged" of all pagan presence; he also had the sacred objects of the mysteries of Mithra displayed in public and ridiculed pagan cults by showing representations of the phallus in the public square. These outrages led to very violent clashes between Christians and pagans, and there were many dead and wounded (unlike the capture of Mecca by Muhammad in 630 ). After the fighting ended, the prefect of Egypt and the army assisted Theophilus in demolishing the temples. Statues of the gods were melted down and turned into tableware for use by the Christian church, except for the baboon statue of Thoth, which was kept to shame the pagans. The bishop had a large church built on the site of the Serapæum, and at Canopus he had the Monastery of the Metanoia or Monastery of the Tabennesiotes erected on the site of another temple at Serapis.

In 391 also, Valentinian II who was emperor in the West, at the request of the bishop of Milan St. Ambrose also issues a law that not only prohibited sacrifices but also forbade anyone from visiting the temples. This again caused turbulence in the West. Valentinian II made this law quickly followed by a second one, which declared that pagan temples were to be closed, a law that was viewed as de facto outlawing paganism.

392 (8th November 392). Edict of Constantinople (the longest one).

“Emperors Theodosius, Arcadius and Honorius to Rufinus, pretorian prefect: nobody, of whatsoever condition and class, who was appointed for an office or some privilege, should he be powerful for his origin or born in humble conditions, absolutely nowhere, in no city, shall offer an innocent victim to the meaningless idols, nor, as a worse sacrilege, worship the Lares with fire, the Genius with wine, the Penates with perfumes, nor shall light lamps or put incense after them, nor hang wreaths. If someone dares to sacrifice a victim or consult its still warm entrails, he’ll be charged with high treason and

subject to the prescribed penalty, even though he didn’t try to divine anything in favor or against the prince’s health. For the crime to be grave it’s enough the will of going against the laws of nature, to investigate illicit things, to discover the hidden, to try the forbidden, to want to put an end to everyone else’s health, to hope in someone’s death.

If someone adores, by putting incense after them, images made by human hands and therefore suffering the passing of time, or suddenly fears in a ridicule manner what himself made, or, after putting ribbons on a tree or constructing an altar out of clumps, tries to honor the vain idols with an even modest gift, but completely despising religion, he will be charged with religion violation and will be punished with confiscation of the house or land in which the superstition of gentiles will be proved to have survived. Therefore, all places in which will be proved that the smoke of incense raised, if they are property of the person who burned the incense, will be attributed to the imperial revenue.

If the guilty tries some form of sacrifice in a public temple or sanctuary or in a place belonging to another person and if this latter is recognized unaware of what happened, the guilty will pay 25 pounds of gold and the same amount will be paid by every accomplice.

We wish judges, defender and curial officers in every city to implement what we said, so that, on the one hand, they refer violations to the court, on the other they punish the referred facts. But if they conceal something for benevolence or let it unpunished for negligence, they’ll undergo the trial; if they have been warned of the crime but omitted to implement the provided punishment, they would pay a fine of 30 pounds and so their staff.”

In 393 Theodosius prohibits the Olympic Games and, in 394 finally, he definitely forbade the pagan cults by decreeing the death penalty against those who still sacrifice to the gods.

395. Another Taliban or Parabolanus of Christianity, St. Augustine, becomes bishop. Manichean for nine years, the young and ambitious African orator who settled in Milan in the year 384 quickly realizes that the future is in Catholicism. He separated himself from the Manicheans and received the baptism from Ambrose in 387. Ordained a priest at Hippo in 391, he became bishop in 395. Two years later he wrote his Confessions, addressing all those whom society life doesn’t satisfy. And yet the experiment of the society life was to be used to something in the career of our repentant, because he takes sides against the Manichaean rejection of the world and against the dominant Church then in North Africa, that of the Donatists. Locked in a ruthless authoritarian doctrine, Augustine will hesitate before no way to prevail over his adversaries. He will smash them by using without scruple the force of the State against them. By writing for example, to the Roman general Boniface in order to convince him to intervene against the Donatists. Manicheism continues to speak through his mouth and, through him, becomes in a way the official doctrine of the Church. The hypothesis of original sin is therefore hardened and set up as a dogma, and therefore the guilt of the children from birth. It is indeed he who introduced against the great Breton thinker Pelagius, the idea of "original sin" and began the systematic heretic hunting in North Africa. He also spent a good part of his life in destroying ancient temples and statues. Editor’s note. St. Augustine, after having regarded the Christian religion as a religion of uneducated people, having turned to Manicheism, and finally, after having been appointed bishop of Hippo, become a doctor of the Church, is considered as the greatest thinker of ancient Christianity. Yet he spent a good part of his life destroying ancient temples and statues. It is especially he who introduced the idea of "original sin" and began the systematic hunting of heretics.

415. Stoning of Hypatia, a philosopher of Alexandria, executed by a Taliban of Christianity or Parabolanus called Peter, the lecturer of the bishop (saint?) Cyril, whose complicity with regard to this crime was a well known fact.

Hypatia, the last great mathematician of the Alexandrian school, daughter of Theon of Alexandria, director of the library, was torn to pieces and killed by a crowd of Christian monks (some parabolani ?) inspired by Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria, with whom the Church will make a saint, however. N.B. An excellent film by Alejandro Amenabar was devoted to this holy woman in 2009. It is enough to replace "pagans" by "Christians" and "Christians" by "Muslims"; to have an astonishing anticipation of what is waiting for the West, our country, and even the whole Europe, in a few decades.

Hypatia personifies perfectly the "Christians" who no longer really believe, because they are too evolved, too educated; But she finally finds herself on the same boat as the more convinced

"Christians,” who try to react ... but too late, too late, as the film shows us. As for Orestes, he is the very prototype of the "Christian" or "Leftist" politician in France, who think that the best way to fight radical Islam is still to support and encourage "moderate" Islam . In his case this support will even go so far as a conversion to this Islam known as "moderate.” Hypatia’s assassination forms therefore a turning point. After her death, many researchers and philosophers will leave Alexandria for India and Persia, and the city will cease to be the great center of the teaching and science in the ancient world. Henceforth science will backslide in the West, and will not find again a level comparable to that of ancient Alexandria until the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. The work of the Alexandria School in mathematics, physics and astronomy will be partially preserved by the Persians, the Indians, the Chinese, and finally the Arabs. The West plunges into obscurantism and will emerge from it only more than a millennium later.

BEGINNING OF THE MIDDLE AGE.

From 392 to 402 a series of contradictory laws were promulgated, some of which will be found in the Code of Theodosius. Basically, the rites and feasts were maintained, and sacrifices, magic and divinations were confirmed as being proscribed. Meanwhile, the monks, encouraged by the bishops, continue their work of destruction and exactions, even massacres. John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople, originally from Antioch, in person, encourages them in Phoenicia. In Gaul, it was Martin, Bishop of Tours, who did the same......

An edict of 408 excludes the pagans from the palace, or from power. The edict was canceled by the intervention of a barbarian chief. Finally, in "416, the pagans are excluded from the army, administration, and justice. In 423 Honorius and Theodosius II confirmed the old measures, then softened the penalties linked to the prohibition of sacrifices (confiscation of property and exile instead of death), and finally granted protection to those who kept quiet in public (whether they were Manicheans, Montanists, or Jews). It is that "the pagan question has lost its specificity. Historians disagree as to the magnanimity of Theodosius II, whose wife was a pagan poetess (Eudocia). The barbarian generals became Christians or Arians. Great families had to choose between the traditional ancestor worship and political career. The people will continue in the divergence with obstinacy. The persecutions led by John of Ephesus a century later show this.

At least this is the opinion of the Swiss theologian Jean-Marie Brandt from whom we borrow this analysis of the monumental work by Pierre Chu

The importance of the person of Christ among the early Christians, as well as his role, made a problem in relation to the strict monolatry of Judaism at the time and to its rather selfish idea, of course, of salvation brought by the Messiah ... only to the chosen people in the strictest sense of the term (i.e. by matrilineal filiation according to the rabbis).

If Christ is not God, from the point of view of Judaism Christians have no right to worship Him. If they do, then it amounts to purely and simply performing a pagan cult.

If Christ is not God, and is only a man, even extraordinary, then what does distinguish Christianity that is to say the adoration of Christ, from paganism (seen and caricatured by Judaism )?

If Christ is not God he cannot be the revelation of God.

If Christ is not God, believers are not united to God through communion with him.

Athanasius insisted particularly on the fact that if Christ is not God, men were not saved by God, because he designed salvation as a theiosis (or deification in the pagan theologies).

“If the Son were a creature, man had remained mortal as before, not being joined to God; for a creature had not joined creatures to God, as seeking itself one to join it ; nor would a portion of the creation have been the creation's salvation as needing salvation itself” ( Discourse II against the Arians,69).

“So also the man had not been deified, unless the Word who became flesh had been by nature from the Father and true and proper to Him. For therefore the union was of this kind, that He might unite what is man by nature to Him who is in the nature of the Godhead, and his salvation and deification might be sure” ( Discourse II against the Arians,70).

Now the idea that Christ was a mere creature, even an exceptional one (judaism,arianism), was contrary to this doctrine of pagan origin, and which constituted the core of Christianity, which radically differentiated it from Judaism…….

420. Appearance of the first representations of the Crucified Christ on a (T-shaped) "cross.”

In order to crucify their enemies, the Romans used two vertical bars ended by a fork (crux) on which a horizontal bar (patibulum) was placed on which were tied the hands of the convicted person who was

standing on the ground. When exhausted, the convicted one bent one’s knees, death occurred after two or three days, through the choking caused by the weight of the head which caused the occlusion of the trachea. The Romans (or anyone else) have never used crosses similar to the Christian cross for their torture; even if they sometimes used X-shaped Greek crosses or a Y shaped forked stake or even a single stake when the wood was missing (the convicted was then bound by the forearms). The Church therefore began to represent Jesus on a Tau shaped cross only in the fourth century then the cross was endowed with a higher part in order to be better distinguished or to place the titulus (the sign “Jesus the Nazorene king of the Jews” that Pilate would have made appended there according to John); what would have produced finally the so-called "Latin" cross.

530. Expulsion of the late Neo-Platonist philosophers. The Emperor Justinian closed the philosophical school of Athens, considered the last bastion of paganism. Henceforth obscurantism and ignorance reign supreme throughout the Mediterranean basin. Ancient knowledge, violently criticized by the Parabolani or Talibani of Christianity like St. Augustine, disappears from the minds. A veil falls on the sciences. The seven greatest scholars or philosophers of the time sought refuge to Khosrow I, king of Persia. Damascius Diadochus, Simplicius of Cilicia, Eulamius of Phrygia, Priscian of Lydia, Hermias of Phoenicia, Diogenes of Phoenicia and Isidorus of Gaza. In 532, they settled in the Persian Empire, in Carrhae (modern Turkey Harran) which with its famous Sabians will serve as a relay towards the Islamic culture.

550.Cosmas, a Christian monk, describes the universe. The earth is below, it is parallelepiped shaped like the tabernacle of Moses, to the north, a mountain around which the sun goes, hence the seasons, day and night. A thousand years later we are at the antipodes of Pythagoras and Aristotle. Eratosthenes had even found a circumference of 40,000 kms for it. And let's not even talk about the Anticythera machine. It took only four centuries (after Ptolemy) to leave nothing in the Christian world from the heritage of the ancient Greeks...

570. Birth of Mahomet (Muhammad). The praiseworthy, son of the slave of Allah named Abdallah rightly. The existence of Muhammad has been over-fanned and the Quran has been deeply revised over the centuries (as the 7th-century manuscripts found in the Al-Jami al-Kabir mosque in Sana'a, Yemen, show it).

630. Nestorianism, another Christianity, evangelizes Mongolia, and goes as far as Peking. It favors the human person of Christ and attributes to him a divinity later to his birth. This original variant of Christianity (the St. Thomas Christians) will go as far as to the Kerala (India).

* The first library of Alexandria had been destroyed in – 48 when Caesar ordered the burning of the Egyptian fleet and of the main buildings of the port where had taken refuge the supporters of Ptolemy XIII in conflict with his sister and wife Cleopatra, whom he wanted to make assassinated. The flames reached the famous library and destroyed 700,000 volumes, as well as the thirty volumes written in Greek by the famous chronicler Manetho at the request of Ptolemy I. But the aforementioned library d been restored in the premises of the Temple of Serapis in Alexandria.

CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE WESTERN COUNTRYSIDE.

As we have had the opportunity to see it, in the East Christianity developed around urban synagogues (God fearers having believed that the great Nazorene Rabbi Jesus was the Messiah announced by the Scriptures), in Asia Minor, in Persia , In Mesopotamia, in Kerala (India) and even in North Africa, whereas in the West and more precisely even in Western Europe, Christianization developed with society Romanization (in view of the weakness of the number of synagogues in these countries). There were few towns in western or northern Europe at the time. Saint Cyprian of Carthage mentions in his letters bishoprics at Narbonne, Tolosa, Arles, Vienne, Rheims, Paris. Evidence of that also, the little number of bishops of these regions, who took part in the first councils. Only 16 bishops for example took part in the council of Arles in 314, among them those of Trier (Agroecius) and Cologne (Maternus) today in Germany. The Christianization of these countries was therefore mainly due to the missionary action of the monks and all falsehoods or gospel truths on this subject are to be given up, notably the legend of Saint Lazarus, Saint Mary Magdalene, Saint Maximus and Saint Martha in Provence, the tall story of the sending in a mission by Pope Fabian (236-250) of Sergius-Paulus to Narbonne, Trophimus to Arles, Saturninus to Toulouse, Martial to Limoges, Austremonius to Clermont, Gatianus to Tours, and lastly Saint Denis to Lutetia.

The Martinian monasticism has mainly developed around the Loire River , while the Lerinian and the Cassianite monasticism developed in the south, on the Mediterranean.

Saint Martin of Tours, born in the Roman Empire, more precisely at Savaria in the Roman province of Pannonia (Szombathely present Hungary), in 316, and died at Candes, November 8, 397, is one of the principal saints of Christendom.

His partly legendary life is essentially known by the Vita Sancti Martini (Life of St. Martin) written in 396-397 by Sulpicius-Severus, a Semi-Pelagian monk who was also one of his disciples. Below are some excerpts from his work.

CHAPTER XI.

“There was, not far from the town, a place very close to the monastery, which a false human opinion had consecrated, on the supposition that some martyrs had been buried together there. For it was also believed that an altar had been placed there by former bishops….Martin one day went out to the place, taking a few brethren with him as companions. There standing above the very sepulcher, Martin prayed to the Lord that he would reveal, who the man in question was, and what his character or desert was. Next turning to the left-hand side, he sees standing very near a shade of a mean and cruel appearance. Martin commands him to tell his name and character. Upon this, he declares his name, and confesses his guilt. He says that he had been a robber, and that he was beheaded on account of his crimes; that he had been honored simply by an error of the multitude; that he had nothing in common with the martyrs, since glory was their portion, while punishment exacted its penalties from him. Those who stood by heard, in a wonderful way, the voice of the speaker, but they beheld no person. Then Martin made known what he had seen, and ordered the altar which had been there to be removed, and thus he delivered the people from the error of that superstition.”

CHAPTER XII.

“Now it came to pass some time after the above that while Martin was going a journey, he met the body of a certain heathen, which was being carried to the tomb with superstitious funeral rites. Perceiving from a distance the crowd that was approaching, and being ignorant as to what was going on, he stood still for a little while. For there was a distance of nearly half a mile between him and the crowd, so that it was difficult to discover what the spectacle he beheld really was. Nevertheless, because he saw it was a rustic gathering, and when the linen clothes spread over the body were blown about by the action of the wind, he believed that some profane rites of sacrifice were being performed. This thought occurred to him, because it was the custom of the Celtic rustics in their wretched folly to carry about through the fields the images of demons veiled with a white covering.

Lifting up, therefore, the sign of the cross opposite to them, he commanded the crowd not to move from the place in which they were, and to set down the burden. Upon this, the miserable creatures

might have been seen at first to become stiff like rocks. Next, as they endeavored, with every possible effort, to move forward, but were not able to take a step farther, they began to whirl themselves about in the most ridiculous fashion, until, not able any longer to sustain the weight, they set down the dead body. Thunderstruck, and gazing in bewilderment at each other as not knowing what had happened to them, they remained sunk in silent thought. But when the saintly man discovered that they were simply a band of peasants celebrating funeral rites, and not sacrifices to the gods, again raising his hand, he gave them the power of going away, and of lifting up the body.”

Editor’s note. We, all that we see in this episode, it is an incredible disrespect of this Christian Taliban (Parabolanus) towards the grief of a family plunged into mourning by the death of a close relation.

CHAPTER XIII.

“Again, when in a certain village he had demolished a very ancient temple, and had set about cutting down a pine tree, which stood close to the temple, the chief priest of that place, and a crowd of other heathens began to oppose him. And these people, though, under the influence of the Lord, they had been quiet while the temple was being overthrown, could not patiently allow the tree to be cut down. Martin carefully instructed them that there was nothing sacred in the trunk of a tree, and urged them rather to honor God whom he himself served. He added that there was a moral necessity why that tree should be cut down, because it had been dedicated to a demon. Then one of them who was bolder than the others says, "If you have any trust in thy god, whom you say you worship, we ourselves will cut down this tree, and be it your part to receive it when falling; for if, as you declare, your Lord is with you, you will escape all injury." Then Martin, courageously trusting in the Lord, promises that he would do what had been asked. Upon this, all that crowd of heathen agreed to the condition named; for they held the loss of their tree a small matter, if only they got the enemy of their religion buried beneath its fall. Accordingly, since that pine tree was hanging over in one direction, so that there was no doubt to what side it would fall on being cut, Martin, having been bound, is, in accordance with the decision of these pagans, placed in that spot where, as no one doubted, the tree was about to fall. They began, therefore, to cut down their own tree, with great glee and joyfulness, while there was at some distance a great multitude of wondering spectators. And now the pine tree began to totter, and to threaten its[28] own ruin by falling. The monks at a distance grew pale, and, terrified by the danger ever coming nearer, had lost all hope and confidence, expecting only the death of Martin. But he, trusting in the Lord, and waiting courageously, when now the falling pine had uttered its expiring crash, while it was now falling, while it was just rushing upon him, simply holding up his hand against it, he put in its way the sign of salvation. Then, indeed, after the manner of a spinning top (one might have thought it driven[29] back), it swept round to the opposite side, to such a degree that it almost crushed the rustics, who had taken their places there in what was deemed a safe spot. Then truly, a shout being raised to heaven, the heathen were amazed by the miracle, while the monks wept for joy; and the name of Christ was in common extolled by all. The well-known result was that on that day salvation came to that region. For there was hardly one of that immense multitude of heathens who did not express a desire for the imposition of hands, and abandoning his impious errors, made a profession of faith in the Lord Jesus. Certainly, before the times of Martin, very few, nay, almost none, in those regions had received the name of Christ; but through his virtues and example that name has prevailed to such an extent that now there is no place thereabouts which is not filled either with very crowded churches or monasteries. For wherever he destroyed heathen temples, there he used immediately to build either churches or monasteries.”

CHAPTER XIV.

“Nor did he show less eminence, much about the same time, in other transactions of a like kind. For, having in a certain village set fire to a very ancient and celebrated temple, the circle of flames was carried by the action of the wind upon a house which was very close to, yea, connected with, the temple. When Martin perceived this, he climbed by a rapid ascent to the roof of the house, presenting himself in front of the advancing flames. Then indeed might the fire have been seen thrust back in a wonderful manner against the force of the wind, so that there appeared a sort of conflict of the two elements fighting together. Thus, by the influence of Martin, the fire only acted in the place where it was ordered to do so. But in a village which was named Leprosum, when he too wished to overthrow a temple which had acquired great wealth through the superstitious ideas entertained of its sanctity, a multitude of the heathen resisted him to such a degree that he was driven back not without bodily injury. He, therefore, withdrew to a place in the vicinity, and there for three days, clothed in sackcloth and ashes fasting and praying the whole time, he besought the Lord that, as he had not been able to overthrow that temple by human effort, Divine power might be exerted to destroy it. Then two angels, with spears and shields after the manner of heavenly warriors, suddenly presented themselves to him,

saying that they were sent by the Lord to put to flight the rustic multitude, and to furnish protection to Martin, lest, while the temple was being destroyed, any one should offer resistance. They told him therefore to return, and complete the blessed work which he had begun. Accordingly Martin returned to the village; and while the crowds of heathen looked on in perfect quiet as he razed the pagan temple even to the foundations, he also reduced all the altars and images to dust. At this sight the rustics, when they perceived that they had been so astounded and terrified by the intervention of the Divine will, that they might not be found fighting against the bishop, almost all believed in the Lord Jesus. They then began to cry out openly and to confess that the god of Martin ought to be worshiped, and that the idols should be despised, which were not able to help them.”

Editor‘s note. Same kind of reasoning in Islam for the Battle of Badr. We may wonder nevertheless whether the two angels in question were not rather strong legionaries armed from head to toe.

CHAPTER XV.

“I shall also relate what took place in the village of the Aedui. When Martin was there overthrowing a temple, a multitude of rustic heathen rushed upon him in a frenzy of rage. And when one of them, bolder than the rest, made an attack upon him with a drawn sword, Martin, throwing back his cloak, offered his bare neck to the assassin. Nor did the heathen delay to strike, but in the very act of lifting up his right arm, he fell to the ground on his back, and being overwhelmed by the fear of God, he entreated for pardon. Not unlike this was that other event which happened to Martin that when a certain man had resolved to wound him with a knife as he was destroying some idols, at the very moment of fetching the blow, the weapon was struck out of his hands and disappeared. Very frequently, too, when the pagans were addressing him to the effect that he would not overthrow their temples, he so soothed and conciliated the minds of the heathen by his holy discourse that, the light of truth having been revealed to them, they themselves overthrew their own temples.”

Dialogue I.

CHAPTER XXVI.

“All the more wretched on this account is this country of ours, which has not been found worthy to be acquainted with so great a man, although he was in its immediate vicinity. However, I will not include the people at large in this censure: only the clerics, only the priests know nothing of him; and not without reason were they, in their ill-will, disinclined to know him, inasmuch as, had they become acquainted with his virtues they must have recognized their own vices. I shudder to state what I have lately heard that a miserable man (I know him not), has said that you have told many lies in that book of yours. This is not the voice of a man, but of the devil; and it is not Martin who is, in this way, injured, but faith is taken from the Gospels themselves. For, since the Lord himself testified of works of the kind which Martin accomplished, that they were to be performed by all the faithful, he who does not believe that Martin accomplished such deeds simply does not believe that Christ uttered such words. But the miserable, the degenerate, the somnolent, are put to shame, that the things which they themselves cannot do, were done by him, and prefer rather to deny his virtues than to confess their own inertness.”

CHAPTER XXVII.

“Certainly, speak in Celtic if you prefer it, provided only you speak of Martin. But for my part, I believe that, even though you were dumb, words would not be wanting to you, in which you might speak of Martin with eloquent lips, just as the tongue of Zacharias was loosed at the naming of John. But as you are, in fact, an orator, you craftily, like an orator, begin by begging us to excuse your incompetence, because you really excel in eloquence. But it is not fitting either that a monk should show such cunning ….Etc. Etc.”

Dialogue III.

CHAPTER VIII.

“In a village of the Ambatienses (Amboise), that is in an old stronghold, which is now largely inhabited by brethren, you know there is a great idol temple built up with labor. The building had been constructed of the most polished stones and furnished with turrets; and, rising on high in the form of a cone, it preserved the superstition of the place by the majesty of the work. The blessed man had often enjoined its destruction on Marcellus, who was there settled as a presbyter. Returning after the lapse of some time, he reproved the presbyter, because the edifice of the idol temple was still standing. He pleaded in excuse that such an immense structure could with difficulty be thrown down by a band of soldiers, or by the strength of a large body of the public, and far less should Martin think it easy for that to be effected by means of weak clerics or helpless monks. Then Martin, having recourse to his well-

known auxiliaries, spent the whole night in watching and prayer— with the result that, in the morning, a storm arose, and cast down even to its foundations the idol temple. Now let this narrative rest on the testimony of Marcellus.”

CHAPTER IX.

“I will make use of another not dissimilar marvel in a like kind of work, having the concurrence of Refrigerius in doing so. Martin was prepared to throw down a pillar of immense size, on the top of which an idol stood, but there was no means by which effect could be given to his design. Well, according to his usual practice, he betakes himself to prayer. [It is undoubted that then a column, to a certain degree like the other, rushed down from heaven, and falling upon the idol, it crushed to powder the whole of the seemingly indestructible mass: this would have been a small matter, had he only in an invisible way made use of the powers of heaven, but these very powers were beheld by human eyes serving Martin in a visible manner.”

[Will we be burned or suspected of Nazism if we allow ourselves too, as some clerics mentioned by Sulpicius Severus, to doubt somewhat the objectivity of these miracles; And timidly put forward the hypothesis that the use of force by this Taliban or Parabolan of Christianity should not have been foreign to the fact that all these unfortunate farmers were thus "vanquished" and gave up, officially at least , their ancient worship].

“He pleaded in excuse that such an immense structure could with difficulty be thrown down by a band of soldiers, or by the strength of a large body of the public………… Then two angels, with spears and shields after the manner of heavenly warriors, suddenly presented themselves to him, saying that they were sent by the Lord to put to flight the rustic multitude, and to furnish protection to Martin, lest, while the temple was being destroyed, any one should offer resistance. They told him therefore to return, and complete the blessed work which he had begun. Accordingly Martin returned to the village; and while the crowds of heathen looked on in perfect quiet as he razed the pagan temple even to the foundations, he also reduced all the altars and images to dust.”

COMMENTARY BY PETER DELACRAU.

Question: Who concretely razes this building, consecrated to another god or demon than that of Abraham of Isaac and of Jacob, it is true, to its foundations???Saint Martin alone with a pick or pickaxe ??? Or men (who?) obeying his orders ???

Gregory I, known as the great will renounce the evangelization by force in the manner of St. Martin and will invent or ratify the "gently" Christianization by substitution, see his letter to the Abbot Mellitus.

“When, therefore, Almighty God shall bring you to the most reverend Bishop Augustine (of Canterbury), our brother, tell him what I have, upon mature deliberation on the affair of the Angles, determined upon, viz., that the temples of the idols in that nation ought not to be destroyed; but let the idols that are in them be destroyed; let holy water be made and sprinkled in the said temples, let altars be erected, and relics placed.

For if those temples are well built, it is requisite that they be converted (commutari) from the worship of devils to the service of the true God; that the nation, seeing that their temples are not destroyed, may remove error from their hearts, and knowing and adoring the true god, may the more familiarly resort to the places to which they have been accustomed.

And because they have been used to slaughter many oxen in the sacrifices to devils, some solemnity must be exchanged (inmutari) for them on this account, as that on the day of the dedication, or the nativities of the holy martyrs, whose relics are there deposited, they may build themselves huts of the boughs of trees, about those churches which have been turned to that use from temples, and celebrate the solemnity with religious feasting, and no more offer beasts to the Devil, but kill cattle to the praise of God in their eating, and return thanks to the Giver of all things for their sustenance; to the end that, whilst some gratifications are outwardly permitted them, they may the more easily consent to the inward consolations of the grace of God.

For there is no doubt that it is impossible to efface everything at once from their obdurate minds; because he who endeavors to ascend to the highest place, rises by degrees or steps, and not by leaps. Thus the Lord made himself known to the people of Israel in Egypt; and yet He allowed them the use of the sacrifices which they were wont to offer to the Devil, in his own worship; so as to command them in his sacrifice to kill beasts, to the end that, changing their hearts, they might lay aside one part of the sacrifice, whilst they retained another; that whilst they offered the same beasts

which they were wont to offer, they should offer them to God, and not to idols; and thus they would no longer be the same sacrifices. This it behooves your affection to communicate to our aforesaid brother Augustine of Canterbury.

PELAGIANISM AND SEMI PELAGIANISM.

It is characteristic that Pelagianism is a set of ideas which first agitated the circles that would today be called "monastic.” Because among those who embraced the ascetic life at that time, the various renunciations they imposed upon themselves, such as fasts, vigils, the harshness of manual labor, demanded considerable efforts of their will. And all these efforts, these "merits," they felt, rightly, as absolutely necessary to their salvation, or at least indispensable to the perseverance in the way of life they had chosen.

We can see, through certain extracts of Prosper of Aquitaine, that, without depending on Pelagius and on the Pelagians, the doctrine of the Provensal monks approached them. It does not seem to be an exaggeration of Prosper of Aquitaine. When we read attentively Cassian, even outside his 13th Conference, considered to be the most semi-Pelagian, we find this underlying doctrine.

Monks in the West have always had difficulty in accepting the notion of absolute predestination advocated by St. Augustine for obvious personal psychological reasons, of course: they could not admit that they had no merit, especially compared to the rest of their fellow countrymen. They followed therefore WITHOUT KNOWING IT BUT ONLY BECAUSE IT WAS LOGICAL the principle of "Heaven helps those who help themselves" thus expressed in Greek language by Arrian during the 2nd century: Kai ego hama tois suntherois hepomai to Kelton nomo kai apophaino hos ouden aneu theon gignomenon anthropois es agathon apoteleuta (Cynegeticus chapter XXXV) and absolute predestination was rejected by the Council of Orange in 529.

“According to the Catholic faith we also believe that after grace has been received through baptism, all baptized persons have the ability and responsibility, if they desire to labor faithfully, to perform with the aid and cooperation of Christ what is of essential importance in regard to the salvation of their soul. We not only do not believe that any are foreordained to evil by the power of God, but even state with utter abhorrence that if there are those who want to believe so evil a thing, they are anathema.”

Pelagianism is a doctrine developed from the second half of the 4th century by the Breton ascetic Pelagius, Coelestius, Julian of Eclanum and their disciples, characterized by the insistence on the free will of man.

It is generally accepted that Pelagius came to Rome about 401, stayed there until 409, and wrote three works there: a treatise on the Trinity, a collection of passages from the Scriptures, called by Gennadius Eulogiarum liber, and by Augustine Testimoniorum liber; a Commentary on the Epistles of St. Paul. At the same time he professed the doctrine to which his name is attached.

Specialists have often spoken of druidism about Pelagius. Pelagius would have been a druid hidden beneath the monk's habit. This is unlikely. To speak of semi-druidism about him is more reasonable (just as there is semi-Augustinianism).

Not simple all that! As always with the Christians the holy spirit has difficulty to express itself.

The semi-druidism of Pelagius (the improvement of the individual result of his will is enough to carry out salvation) will provoke the jealous and racist reaction (he calls at times Pelagius “portly... and stuffed with porridge” because of his Celtic origins) of St Jerome. The repressed of St. Augustine could not accommodate itself to the humanist common sense before the word is invented of the position of Pelagianism, a doctrine perhaps partially of Celtic-Druidic spirit but especially monastic insisting on the personal effort to get better.

Here are the five main points.

Adam was created mortal whether he sinned or not, he had to die.

The sin of Adam hurt only his author, and not the human race.

Children are born in the same state where Adam was before his sin.

To say that all mankind dies by the death of Adam is as inaccurate as to say that all mankind is resurrected by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Dead children get eternal life, even without baptism.

The sacrifice of Christ on the cross redeemed Mankind, a bit like the vows of the Buddha Amithaba in the Far East, with the difference that in the case of Amida this redemption was total and definitive, whereas in the case of Christianity this redemption was conditional (necessity of a nembutsu).

The Druidism which inspired Pelagius was a philosophical and well thought out monism, the Western equivalent of gnosis. Its main thesis was that of the eternity of spirit and matter.

"They say that men’s souls and also the universe are indestructible, although both fire and water will at some time or other prevail over them "Geography," 4, 4).

In other words, a religion in which faith and reason were closely intermingled.

"Druids deny that souls can perish

[Driadae negant interire animas] in Latin language

OR GO TO HELL »

[Aut contagione inferorum adfici] still in Latin language.

Bernese Scholia commenting Lucan's work entitled "Pharsalia" or "the civil war.” The verses I, 454-458.

Such common sense was, of course, intolerable, and St. Augustine, in reaction to the semi-druidism of Pelagius, will miraculously discover in the Old Testament evidences of the existence of grace and predestination.

Coelestius was the most active and the most celebrated of the disciples of Pelagius. He was a lawyer, auditorialis scolasticus; he gave up his trade to devote himself to the propagation of the ideas of Pelagius. It seems to us that he had much contributed to their development and systematization; for in the form in which they have come to us, they not only appear as the protest of an austere ascetic against a theology, which he accuses of weakening in the human beings the sense of their responsibility and of cultivating their thoughtlessness and failures, by presenting to them the illusions of grace, but they are also, perhaps above all, the energetic demand of the principles and rules of justice which must preside over the sentences of judges in the earthly courts.

Semi-Pelagianism.

Semi-Pelagianism, in its original form, may appear as a compromise between Pelagianism and Augustinianism, for which salvation is an entirely gratuitous gift of God. However, a distinction is made in it between the faith beginning which is an act of free will and the progression of the faith which is divine work. Kai ego hama tois suntherois hepomai to Kelton nomo kai apophaino hos ouden aneu theon gignomenon anthropois es agathon apoteleuta

In 401, Proculus, bishop of Marseilles, built the first church, known as the "Major" (ecclesia major) and the great baptistery which was destroyed by the local French clergy in 1852. It was the most important of all the country. With it, the Church of Marseilles displayed its power, its richness and its originality, but above all affirmed its primacy within the doctrinal defense of the semi-Pelagian humanism.

On his side, Lazarus, the Bishop of Aix-en-Provence, built a baptistery on the forum of the town. This establishment proves the end of a certain type of civil life in the capital and the metropolis of the Narbonnensis Secunda, through the handover of a public site to the Church. This is the starting point of a mentality change and it will benefit the doctrine of Pelagius.

Fleeing the Visigoth invasion, in 413, the prefect Caius Posthumus Dardanus, left Arles with his wife Nevia Galla, his brother Claudius Lepidus, their families and their slaves. They took refuge in the Alps near Sisteron where they found Theopolis.

Two years later, in 415, John Cassian, the friend of John Chrysostom, arrived in Marseilles where he was welcomed by Bishop Proculus. Trained to monasticism in Eastern, he founded the abbey of Saint Victor and a monastery of women. The abbey library, like that of Lerins, with more than three hundred volumes, proposed, along with the writings of the Fathers of the Church, the best Greek and Latin authors. A year later, to escape the Goths, the senator of Aix Eucherius and his son Veranus withdraw in the abbey of Lerins to join the "community of the monks of Marseilles.” While Eucherius hesitates between Pelagius and the Pelagian bishop, Saint Paulinus of Nola, a disciple of Saint Martin, also. An evidence of this is undoubtedly the somewhat anxious letter sent by Saint Augustine to the Bishop of Nola in 417 (letter No. 186).

In 417, death of Innocent, who, at death’s door, had condemned the Pelagians. Augustine exulted, " Rome has spoken; the case is closed." But Zozimus, who succeeded him, was under the influence of Patroclus, the Pelagian bishop of Arles. The Church was in turmoil. Two years before, Paulus Orosius, a disciple of the Bishop of Hippo, had drafted his Liber Apologeticus de Arbitis Libertate against Pelagius. But in 418, at the request of the Metropolitan of Arles, Zozimus gave his absolution to the Breton monk. At the instigation of Augustine, the Pelagians were again vilified by a third council held at Carthage in 418.

The canons of this council, in opposition to Pelagianism, declared that grace was absolutely necessary to do good.

The monks of Saint-Victor and Lerins, informed of Augustine's positions, studied them with less leniency than those of Hadrumet and rejected, with many arguments taken from the Scriptures, the Augustinian theses. Convinced that Augustine's teaching about the necessity and the gracious gift of grace was not very orthodox, Cassian had already set forth his ideas in his "Conferences." He was only repeating the thought of John Chrysostom, who had taught that the will of man brings him to more initiative than what he bishop of Hippo explained in his writings. For him and his disciples, including the abbot Hilary, Bishop of Arles since 430, these glosses from Africa were erroneous and in total contradiction with the Christian doctrine.

Pelagius died in the Holy Land in 422, when he was 62 years old. His teaching, under the criticisms of Jerome, had been refined. That same year Eucherius leaves Lerins and becomes a hermit in the Luberon, and his son Veranus withdraws in the valley of the Loup. But his younger son Salonius joins this abbey where he has as masters the monks Salvian and Vincent of Lerins.

Five years later, in Lerins, Maximus succeeds as abbot to Honoratus who takes the metropolitan see of Arles. The new abbot adopts the second "Rule of the Four Fathers.’ Leontius, the bishop of Frejus, facilitates this new direction. That year, Prosper of Aquitaine and a certain Hilarius, left Bordeaux to settle in Marseilles.

Enthused by this new monastic life, they wrote twice to Augustine, giving a portrait of the theology developed by the Abbot of Marseilles. Cassian distinguished between the beginning of faith (Initium fidei) and the increase of faith (Augmentum fidei). The former found its roots in the free will, while its increase depended only on God. He also explained that the gift of grace is to be kept against Pelagius insofar as all strictly natural merit is excluded, what, however, does not prevent a certain request for grace. Finally, as far as perseverance was concerned, it was not to be regarded as a gift of grace, since man can persevere of his own strength to the end. These three propositions contain all the essence of semi-Pelagianism.

The bishop of Hippo (Augustine) sent (428 or 429) to Prosper and Hilarius two of his works De prædestinatione sanctorum and de Dono perseverantiae. In refuting their errors, he added that himself had been caught in a similar error and that only Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians had opened his eyes.

From then on, this great secular theologian (Prosper of Aquitaine) will be polemical with John Cassian and his followers. In 427 Bishop Bonosus died in Narbonne, and was succeeded by his son Rusticus of Narbonne. This Cassianite monk, ordained priest at Marseilles, aligned himself with the doctrine of Cassian. In Marseilles, a year later, after the death of Bishop Proculus, the priest Venerius, a friend of Bishop Rusticus of Narbonne, succeeded him.

This proliferation of semi-Pelagianism disturbed the partisans of grace. In 429, at the request of Celestine I, Roman pontiff, Bishop Germanus of Auxerre arrives on the island of [Great] Britain to extract from it the heresy of Pelagius. As the torch of Pelagianism had been taken over by Julian of Eclanum, the bishop of Hippo prepared his treatise "Against Julian." The whole of his writings founds Augustinianism.

Augustine died on 29 August 430, while the Vandals besieged Hippo. Henceforth Prosper, his best disciple, was going to remain alone with Hilarius in the Province, faced with the formidable theologians trained at the Lerinian and Cassianite School. Convinced that they could not succeed in making them

yield, the two men went to Rome in 431 to exhort Celestin I. to take measures against the Marseillais. The pope, hesitating, contented himself with an exhortation to the bishops, asking them to protect Augustine's memory from all calumny.

On his return, Prosper was able to claim to act under the authority of the Apostolic See (ex auctoritate Apostolicae Sedis). His task was arduous as the prelates of the two Provensal abbeys had refined their arguments against Augustine. In the years 431-32 he tried to repel the "calumnies" in his Responsiones ad capitula objectionum Vincentianarum, Responsiones ad capitula objectionum Gallorum and lastly, Responsiones ad Excerpta Genuensium. Then in 433 he attacked Cassian himself in his lampoon, De gratia et libero arbitrio contra Collatorem.

But the Provensal reaction defeated him. The Marseilles monks, whose doctrinal influence gained ground, were now convinced of their victory. They were all the more sure that Rome had not yet taken a decision. This semi-Pelagianism became the orientation prevailing in the country.

In 433, at Lerins, Maximus was urged to succeed Leontius, the bishop of Frejus who had just died, or failing that, to revive the diocese of Antibes without holder since the death of Remigius its first bishop (according to Louis Duschesne). He refused, left his abbey, and set out to found the bishopric of Riez, where he was to build the baptistery. While Theodorus took the see of Frejus, the Breton Faustus became the third abbot of Lerins. A disciple of Pelagius, he was intelligent enough to use Jerome’s name against Augustine on the question of grace. The Lerinian Salvian served as a link with the Abbot John Cassian. The two Provensal abbeys then deal their humanist doctrine in depth. The following year, the monk Vincent of Lerins wrote his Commonitorium pro catholicæ fidei antiquitate. This presentation of the traditional theology on the development of dogmas can be considered the first catechism.

John Cassian died at Saint-Victor in 435. Prosper of Aquitaine, his Augustinian opponent, then left Marseilles and went to Rome, where he became a friend of the future pontiff Leo. Despite the death of their founder the Cassianists remained very active. The most important representative of this humanism, after Cassian, was then the Abbot Faustus of Lerins, future bishop of Riez. In 439, in Marseilles, the priest Salvian began the drafting of his treatise "On the government of God" (De gubernatione Dei), all stamped with semi-Pelagian humanism and taking the opposite of the theses of "The City of God "of the Bishop of Hippo. The theologian of Lerins denounced in it the vices of the Romans and the faults of the Christians, responsible for the misfortunes of the time, according to him.

A year later Salonius, the second son of Eucherius, a pupil of Salvian and Vincent of Lerins, was elected bishop of Geneva. It was this prelate who presided over the restoration of the church which took the name of St. Peter of Geneva and also built the new baptistery.

That same year, 440, in Marseilles, Bishop Lazarus consecrated the first abbatial church of Saint-Victor. It had been wished by John Cassian before his death. The similarity of the Palaeo-Christian altars of Saint-Marcel de Crussol and of Vaugines with those of the Marseilles abbey suggests the spin-off of Cassianite priories in the valleys of the Rhone and of the Durance River and the spread of their semi-Pelagian humanism. At the same period, in the Luberon, hermits, disciples of Castor of Apt, John Cassian's friend, lived in the cliff of Buoux, either in the caves or at the top of rocky peaks accessible only by ropes or ladders.

The ex-bishop of Aix died on the 31st of August, 441, and was buried in the abbey of Saint Victor, where his tombstone long bore the following inscription: ": Hic iacet bone m(e)m(oriae) p(a)p(a) Lazar(us) que vixit in timor(e) D(e)i p(lus) m(inus) an(nos) LXX" what can be translated as follows’: here lies Bishop Lazarus lived in fear of God about seventy years "(the original has disappeared but a copy was taken from it in 1626 by Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc).

From that time the burial of this bishop was mixed up with that of Lazarus the Risen One. Thus was born the incredible lie or myth of the coming of the saints of Bethany in France.

The Lerinian and Victorian prelates continued to be on a roll. In 445, at Narbonne, Bishop Rusticus had the inscription dedicated to his "ecclesia episcopalis" engraved on a marble lintel. It is the most beautiful example of Palaeo-Christian dedication in the country:

"With the help of God and Christ, this door lintel was placed in the fourth year of the construction of the ecclesia, while the emperor Valentinian (III) was consul for the sixth time, on the 3rd of the calends of December (29 November), in the nineteenth year of the episcopate of Rusticus. "

While semi-Pelagianism settled without opposition in the first and second Narbonese province, its Breton center was threatened by an invasion. In 446, the [Great] British made a desperate appeal to the Roman general Aetius to come with his legions in order to protect them from the Picts. It was not Ravenna who replied, but Rome. The island being “a den” of partisans of Pelagius, Leo I sent there Lupus, the bishop of Troyes. This ancient Lerinian had shown his cunning in the theological spars which had opposed him to Salvian and to the Abbot Faustus. The following year, at the appeal of the Breton chief Vortigern, the Angles and Saxons, led by their chiefs Hengist and Horsa, invaded the island to fight against the Picts. Lupus of Troyes accused the tiern of Pelagianism combined with incest and adultery. This was the beginning of the migration of the Christianized islander Britons to the continent and more especially towards Armorica. This exile was the cause of the Celtic monasticism which found its apogee with St Columbanus of Luxeuil and Bobbio.

At the Abbey of Lerins, the monk Vincent, author of the Commonitorium, died in 450. A year later his friend Salvian, after twelve years of work, was able to put an end to the writing of his work "On the Government of God "to which Gennadius gave the name of De præsenti judicio. He died at the age of 94. This Lerinian, a native of Trier, had been the friend of Honoratus, who welcomed him to his island with his wife and then ordained him as a priest. This liberal Christian, theoretician of semi-Pelagianism, had acted as a moralist, a historian, and an apologist. He was nicknamed by his contemporaries "the new Jerome." Salvian had trained many prelates by making them share his humanist ideal and was therefore regarded as the "master of bishops.”

On November 27, 460 died Maximus, the former abbot of Lerins, now Bishop of Riez. He was buried in the basilica outside the walls of St. Alban, which then took his name. A year later, in the month of January, Faustus, the Abbot of Lerins, took the see of Riez. Anselm succeeded him as abbot. The Breton, who had become bishop, continued, with the full assent of the Provensal prelates, to develop the theses dear to John Cassian, Salvian of Marseilles and Vincent of Lerins, teaching that all grace necessary for salvation should be deserved by man . Prosper of Aquitaine chastised this heresy.

Ten years later, the metropolitan Leoncius of Arles presided over the Great Arlesian Council, which brought together twenty-nine prelates from Lyons, Autun, and Geneva. Priest Lucidus, because of his radical Augustinian theses, had drawn attention to him. The council fathers condemned him for having preached predestination and stigmatized the doctrine of the Marseilles monks.

This condemnation of Arles was followed by a synod at Lyons in 474, when Lucidus was again called into question. The assembly of bishops then asked Faustus of Riez to write a text refuting and condemning the Augustinian heresiarch what he did in his De gratia dei et libero arbitrio, libri duo.

These two councils marked an important moment in the heyday of semi-Pelagianism. From then on a peaceful religious climate enabled the Lerinians and the Cassianites to engage in the apology of their saint bishops. The acts (vita or sermo) which witness it mostly took place during the 5th and 6th centuries.

Already, when Arles pretended to be the metropolis of the country, in Rome, Pope Zozimus had not hesitated to support this demand. In 417, he invented a Trophimus supposed to have been sent by the apostle Peter, himself, to evangelize the Province. This saint, invented, but who made Arles the daughter of Rome, had to wait until 972 for his relics to be discovered in the Arlesian cathedral which has his name today. The life of this mythical saint grew over the centuries. It was explained first that he had been ordained a bishop by the apostle Paul, since he was a cousin of Stephen, the proto-martyr, and then that he appeared to the barons of Charlemagne.

More serious are the Lives of Honoratus, Maximus, and Hilary. That of the founder of the abbey of Lerins was written by his successor on the see. Hilary delivered this sermo on the anniversary of his death, and this text can therefore be situated between 430 and 439. The prelate emphasized his

twofold vocation, his miracles and the importance of his eremitic life. This pattern served as a model for all the other lives of the semi-Pelagian bishops. These three themes were taken over by Faustus of Riez when he paid tribute to Maximus, his predecessor in his Sermo de sancto Maximo episcopo et abbate. These two sermons, by the importance they attach to miracles, prove that a true cult was then developed around their burial places.

The Council of Orange.

It was not until the sixth century to witness the reversal of the two Narbonese provinces. In Constantinople, John Maxentius, one of the leaders of the Scythian monks, in his struggle against Nestorianism and Monophysitism, raised the question of the orthodoxy of Faustus and f and the doctrine of the Marseilles monks in general. Since no decision could be taken without the assent of Rome in June 519, several Scythian monks were asked to file a petition before Pope Hormisdas. During their fourteen months of sojourn in Rome, they used all means to incite the pontiff to admit their Christology and to condemn the Bishop of Riez.

Hormisdas did not yield to their request. In a reply to Bishop Possessor of Coutances, dated August 20, 520, he complained of the clumsiness and fanatic conduct of the Scythian monks towards him. The Roman Pontiff stated in the same letter that the works of Faustus contained many things that had been distorted (incongrua) and that he was not among the writers admitted by the Fathers. For him, the sound doctrine about grace and liberty could only be taken from the writings of Augustine.

This evasive answer from the pope was far from being satisfactory for John Maxentius. He then sought the support of the African bishops, who lived in exile in Sardinia, having fled the persecutions of the vandal King Thrasamund. Fulgentius of Ruspe on behalf of his colleagues took charge of the case. In a long letter he congratulated the Scythians, approving the orthodoxy of their Christology, and formulated the condemnation of Faustus of Riez.

The blow struck had effects. Bishop Caesarius of Arles, nevertheless a monk of Lerins, was receptive to the argument and his views shared by a certain number of bishops, other prelates still declaring their attachment to the humanistic doctrine of the Marseilles monks. During the Synod of Valencia, in 529, the Bishop of Arles was represented by Cyprian of Toulon. While he thought to make the doctrine condemned, he was exposed to the hostility of some of his colleagues on the question of teaching (during the synod of Vaison of the same year, the Metropolitan of Arles had decided that each parish should open a school to educate young clerics. This was the first step in this direction in Gallia. It had shocked).

It was only postponed. Having received the guarantee of the primate authority and the support of the Apostolic See, Caesarius summoned on July 3, 529, the prelates favorable to him, to a synod (which would become a council) in Orange. He was personally present and made Arianism and semi-Pelagianism condemned in twenty-five canons. Boniface II solemnly ratified the decrees the following year (530).

Although condemned by this Council the doctrine of the Provensal monks is today considered quite acceptable by many Catholic theologians who make us notice besides that it is in conformity with that of the Orthodox Church. Orthodoxy indeed venerates the saints John Cassian, Vincent of Lerins and Faustus of Riez, as authentic Fathers of the Church.

Pelagianism taught that man had the ability to seek God in and out of himself without the intervention of the Holy Spirit and therefore that salvation was an effect of man's efforts. The doctrine derived its name from its principal author Pelagius, a Breton monk who had developed it. It opposed particularly the writings of St. Augustine on grace.

In semi-Pelagianism, man did not have such a capacity, but he and God could cooperate to a certain extent in this effort of salvation. Every man could, without the help of grace, take the first step towards God, who could then increase and preserve the faith, completing thus the work of redemption.

This doctrine aimed at a compromise between two extremes, the Pelagianism and the absolute Predestinarianism of Saint Augustine.

Semi-Pelagianism therefore was nevertheless condemned at the Second Council of Orange in 529, after controversies which lasted more than a hundred years. But the council which thus decided against all those who gave a more important role to free will, simultaneously condemned the theory of absolute predestination. The Holy Spirit did not simplify much the things that day!

Editor's note.

The notion of semi-Pelagianism was used by the Calvinist Protestants to designate any person who deviates from the doctrines of St. Augustine or John Calvin on sin, grace and predestination, especially the adepts of Arminianism (Remonstrants) and the Roman Catholics.

In the 17th century, the Jansenists accused the Molinists, generally Jesuits, of semi-Pelagianism.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau and others have been accused of being at least semi-Pelagian, if not Pelagian, because the philosophy of the time considered that grace could be replaced purely and simply by human reason.

The pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes, of the Second Vatican Council, promulgated by Paul VI in 1965, is considered by its detractors as semi-Pelagianism. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) criticized the Pelagian terminology of it in his talks about free will.

The last word had been given to us in a way by anticipation not by Arius but by Arrian, in his famous work devoted to hunting: One need not hope in order to undertake, heaven help those who help themselves.

ARRIAN (circa 86-160). CYNEGETICUS OR TREATISE ON HUNTING ( ON COURSING) Chapter XXXIV: “I declare no human undertaking to have a prosperous issue without the interposition of the gods.”

REVISIONISM : THE CHRISTIANIZATION OF GREAT BRITAIN.

Let us begin with the most severe revisionism in this field and therefore with eliminating some legends, those of the grail and that of King Lucius (both of which are untruths).

As for the case Lucius King of Great Britain, we are there again in full intellectual swindle. Below is what the English theologian John Fox (born in 1516 in Boston) says about him in his famous, "Acts and Monuments of the Church.”

THE CHURCH IN [GREAT] BRITAIN BEFORE THE COMING OF THE SAXONS.

“By these persecutions hitherto in the book before precedent you may understand (dear reader) how the fury of Satan and rage of men have done what they could to extinguish the name and religion of Christ.... Gildas, our countryman, in his history affirmed plainly, that Britain received the gospel in the time of Tiberius the emperor, under whom Christ suffered. And said, moreover, that Joseph of Arimathea, after the dispersion of the Jews, was sent of Philip the apostle to Britain, about the year of our Lord 63, and here remained in this land all his time; and so with his fellows laid the first foundation of Christian faith among the British people, whereupon other preachers and teachers coming afterwards, confirmed the same and increased it…..Then was not Pope Eleutherius the first which sent the Christian faith into this realm, but the gospel was here received before his time, either by Joseph of Arimathea, as some chronicles record, or by some of the apostles, or of their scholars, which had been here preaching Christ before Eleutherius wrote to Lucius…..

Simon Zelotes did spread the gospel of Christ to the west ocean, and brought the same unto the isles of Britain.

And for the seventh argument, moreover, I may make my probation by the plain words of Eleutherius; by whose epistle, written to King Lucius, we may understand that Lucius had received the faith of Christ in this land before…. By all which conjectures it may probably stand to be thought that the Britons were taught first by the Grecians of the east church, rather than by the Romans.

Peradventure Eleutherius might help something, either to convert the king, or else to increase the faith then newly sprung among the people; but that he precisely was the first, that cannot be proved…..

BRITAIN FROM THE TIME OF LUCIUS TILL THE COMING OF THE SAXONS.

Lucius, a Briton.

Severus, a Roman.

Bassianus, Roman by the father.

Cerausius, a Briton.

Alectus, a Roman.

Asclepiodotus, a Briton.

Coilus, a Briton.

Constantius, a Roman.

Constantinus, a Briton by the mother, named Helena, who being the daughter of Coilus, and married to Constantius, father of Constantinus, is said to make the walls first of London, also of Colchester, much about the year of our Lord 305.

Octavius, a Wessex Saxon.

Maximianus, a Roman born, but his mother a Briton.

Gratianus, a Roman.

Constantius, a Briton by the mother.

Constans, a Roman by the father.

Vortigernus, a West Saxon or Briton.

Vortimerus, a Briton.

Vortigernus, again.

………

This fabulous story of the Welshmen, of bringing these stones [Stonehenge ?] from Ireland by Merlin, I pass over. Some stories record that they were slain, being bid to a banquet. Others say that it was done at a talk or assembly, where the Saxons came with knives, contrary to promise made; with the which knives they slew the Britons unarmed.”

Lucius (Welsh: Lles ap Coel) therefore would have been a saint and a king of the second half of the second century. The Liber Pontificalis of the beginning of the sixth century asserts that King Lucius sent emissaries to Pope Eleutherius (176-189) in Rome in order to ask him for priests in order to convert his country. The Pope would have sent him Fagan or Fugatius and Damian or Deruvian who would have built a church at Glastonbury and one at St Peter on Cornhill in London in 179.

King Lucius is thus evoked by Bede: “In their time, whilst the holy Eleutherus presided over the Roman Church, Lucius, king of Britain, sent a letter to him, entreating that by a mandate from him he might be made a Christian. He soon obtained his pious request, and the Britons preserved the faith, which they had received, uncorrupted and entire, in peace and tranquility until the time of the Emperor Diocletian.”

Nennius in his Historia Brittonum specifies, " After the birth of Christ, one hundred and sixty-seven years,King Lucius, with all the chiefs of the British people, received baptism, in consequence of a legation sent by the Roman emperors and Pope

Evaristus.”

Geoffrey of Monmouth makes him die in Gloucester in the year 156 and specifies that there was no heir to succeed him. All this is not very serious and the list of kings given by Fox is more than fanciful: it mixes everything, all languages and all times !!

THE MYTH OF THE GRAIL.

The arrival of the grail in Britain is, of course, a myth.

Many scholars indeed agree that the four hallows carried in the Grail procession are likely derived from the four hallows s of the tribe of the great Irish goddess Dana. The hiera of this early Celtic rite were the Sword of Nodons/Nuada/Nudd, the Stone of Fal (Lia Fail), the Cauldron of the Dagodevos Dagda and the Spear of Lug. Compare these to the broken sword, the silver serving dish, the Grail and the bleeding Lance as found in Chretien, it becomes apparent that these hallows are part of a previous druidic rite.

As such, they deserve to be studied, which we have not failed to do in our essays for or against Druidism (see previous volumes)...............

Initially the Church did not look favorably on the vogue of Arthurian legends, of Celtic and therefore pagan origin, as well as that of courtly love. It undertook therefore to Christianize these legends. The process was performed in several steps. Initially the Church did not look favorably on the vogue of Arthurian legends, of Celtic and therefore pagan origin, as well as that of courtly love. It undertook therefore to Christianize these legends. The process was performed in several steps.

The word "grail" is a word derived from the Latin gradalis and meaning "plate or dish.” At first, it has no particular religious connotations. This mythical object would not only have contained the wine of the Last Supper; It would have also served to collect the blood of Christ on the cross.

Let us remind in a few words of the main lines of this Christian myth.

Joseph of Arimathea, fleeing the persecutions after the death of Christ and carrying with him for treasure only a few drops of the blood of Jesus, would have landed in the west of England, with twelve companions, and would have found asylum in a deserted site surrounded by water, where he built and consecrated to the Blessed Virgin Mary a chapel whose walls were formed by interlaced willow branches, and of which Jesus Christ himself would not have disdained to celebrate dedication.

This place predestined to become the first Christian sanctuary of the British Isles was situated on a tributary of the gulf into which the Severn flows, and later became known as Glastonbury.

This English tradition has no more value than the French nonsense of the landing in Provence at the same time of Saint Martha and Saint Lazarus.

The story of the grail.

A narrative about real or invented facts has never excited so much curiosity or imagination. For example, Adolf Hitler was convinced that by uniting the magic power of the holy chalice and that of the lance of Longinus, which was part of the Habsburg treasury in Wien; he could successfully get into the conquest of the world, and impose his new Order, which was to last a thousand years. In France, from 1940 to 1944, he sent a man named Otto Rahn to Rennes-le-Château and other places where Cathar caves existed, with the mission of finding the Grail.

The Grail, which belongs neither to Greco-Roman antiquity, nor to Germanic antiquity, nor to Hebrew sources, can’t have another origin than Celtic. The story of the Grail belongs to the romances of the Arthurian cycle.

Arthur is a character who really existed in the sixth century. He defended his country against the Germanic barbarians during a dozen battles.

The Battle of Mount Badon (Latin Mount Badonicus) is a military defeat that the Romano-British and Celtic troops of Ambrosius Aurelianus inflicted on the Anglo-Saxon army; between the years 490 and 510, during the invasion of the island of Great Britain. It was a major event in the political and military history of Great Britain, for it undoubtedly enabled the recapture of much of the lost ground to the north-west of London. The place where it took place is uncertain.

This brief period of peace was very propitious to Christianity (see the lives of St. Gildas, St. Cadoc, and St. David).

From this reality many narratives have emerged that remind of the glory of Arthur and which, over time, have moved away from historical data, to give rise to more and more idealized or marvelous stories.

The Round Table was originally the table of feasts around which King Arthur and his knights met to share the meal, on the days when the king held counsel at the same time. Nothing indicates that this table was round, but as it became a symbol of equality, even of cordiality, its circularity became evident. Chretien of Troyes was the first to write a romance about the Grail. Perceval of Wales or the Story of the Grail precisely. In his prologue he refers to a written text given to him by Count Philip of Flanders, a text in prose which he proposes to put into verse; but this text could never be found, what suggests that this is there in reality a fake of the author to give credit to his work.

In his unfinished romance, the hero arrives at the castle of the Fisher King. There he witnessed a strange procession, where he saw a spear bleeding and a grail resplendent with light. Perceval is intrigued, but does not dare ask questions, what causes he is thrown out. He then learns that the spear is the one that wounded the Fisher King, causing at the same time the desolation of the country around; while the Grail is a "very holy thing," containing a consecrated host, the only food of the old father of the Fisher King. If he had asked for explanations of what he saw, Perceval would have cured the King and restored prosperity to his kingdom. Perceval tries therefore to find again the castle of the Grail. The romance then recounts the adventures of Gawain, himself also gone to look for it, then suddenly stops.

The procession of the Grail in the account of Chretien de Troyes.

"While they were talking thus, a boy came in through the door: he was carrying a sword round his neck, and presented it to his lord. He drew it half out of its scabbard, and saw clearly where it was made, for it was written on the sword. And he also learned from the writing that it was of such fine steel that there was only one way it could ever be broken, which none knew except the one who had forged and tempered it. The boy who had brought it to him said: Sir, the beautiful fair-haired

girl, your niece, has sent you this present; you never saw a finer sword as long and as broad as this. You may give it to whoever you like, but my lady would be most happy if it were put to good use where it’s bestowed. The one who forged the sword has only ever made three, and he’s about to die, so this is the last he will ever make.”

The lord of the place handed the sword to the young stranger holding it by the baldric, a baldric that was worth a small fortune. The pommel of this sword was of gold, of the best gold from Arabia or of Greece, and the sheath of golden thread of Venice. The Lord of the place handed the so richly ornamented sword to the young man while saying:

Biau sir (old French gentle lord) , this sword was destined for you since always , and what I wish most is that you have it. Gird it and draw from its scabbard.

The young man thanked him, girded it without tightening, took it out of his scabbard, and slid it back almost at once into the sheath. It suited him admirably, whether at his side or in his hand, and it was clear that in time of need he could use it as a good knight.....1).

“A young man came from a chamber clutching a white lance by the middle of the shaft, and passed between the fire and the two who were sitting on the bench (old French; et caus qui el lit se seoient). Everyone in the hall saw the white lance with its white head; and a drop of (old French vermilion) blood issued from the tip of the lance’s head and right down to the boy’s hand the red drop ran.”

Perceval therefore saw this marvel on the evening of his arrival there, but he refrained from asking the cause of all this, for he remembered the warning of the old master who had made him a knight; and who had taught and given instruction to him to refrain from speaking too much. He feared, by asking questions, to behave rudely, and that is why he was silent 2).

But then two other young men also appeared, holding in their hands candlesticks of fine gold decorated with enamels. They were handsome, with these candlesticks in their hands. In each of them burned at least ten candles.

Then came a grail held in her two hands by a young lady who followed the young men, she was beautiful, elegant and adorned with taste. When she entered the hall holding the grail, so brilliant a light appeared that the candles lost their brightness like the stars or the moon do when the sun rises.

After this young lady arrived another, holding a silver trencher (French tailleor).

The grail, carried at the head of the procession, was made of pure gold; there were precious stones of many kinds, the richest and most expensive in the sea or in the earth; for they surpassed all the other jewels, without a doubt.

The young man saw all that pass without daring to ask to whom the grail was destined for he always remembered the words of his noble and old teacher , qui li anseigna et aprist que de trop parler se gardast , and was afraid of speaking too much 2).

The death of Chretien de Troyes left the work unfinished, but the story of the Grail was the origin of an important literary production in the Middle Ages. In addition to the Continuations which end the narrative of the adventures of Perceval and Gawain, and of the quest for the Grail, without being exhaustive, we may cite other authors who have also been interested in the topic, while modifying it most often.

At the beginning of the thirteenth century, a German poet, Wolfram von Eschenbach, about 1205, tells the story of "Parzifal.” In his romance, the Grail becomes a precious stone. This author claims to be in line with a written source, which would have been unknown by Chretien of Troyes, and he questions his text. This source comes from a Provensal author "Kyot" (Guiot), which, moreover, has never been found. It is therefore believed that this is also a fake of the author, to give more radiance to his text than to that of his predecessor.

This Stone-Grail of the German poets has been brought closer to the Philosopher's Stone of the alchemists or to the mysterious Arar’s stone or more exactly of the fishes in that river called scolopids (scolopias or clupea), according to the druids evoked by the pseudo-Plutarch in his work about the names of rivers and mountains and about their curiosities (Chapter VI, 3). See also the theme of the fisher king.

Including the story of Peredur, a Welsh narrative that gives to read quite a different version of the quest for the Grail. The Grail is here a dish containing a cut head, very precisely that of Peredur's uncle killed by witches, and whose death must be avenged (see the druidic conceptions relating to the cut heads).

Different authors tried very early to finish the Perceval by Chretien. In one of these continuations, the Grail appears neither held by a girl, as in Chretien, but floating in the air, and serving to everybody delicious dishes. On its side, the bleeding lance is equated with the Holy Lance, with which a certain Longinus would have pierced the flank of Christ. A further step in Christianization was taken by Robert de Boron. He wrote in verse, a legend of the Grail depicting Joseph of Arimathea (partly inspired by the gospel of Nicodemus).

A Jew (or a man of Pontius Pilate) would have stolen the Holy Chalice and then handed it over to the Roman prefect. Some legends even add that Pilate would have drawn from it the water with which he washed his hands. In short, according to all these writings, Joseph of Arimathea would have gathered in the Holy Chalice that Pontius Pilate would have given him, or that he would have gone and sought from the Cenacle in Jerusalem; some drops of the blood coming from the wound made at the ribs of Jesus by a spear (the Gospels speak well of this wound; the gospel by Nicodemus give even the name of the soldier who inflicted the wound: Longinus.

N.B. The fact that Joseph of Arimathea gathered the blood of Christ is only mentioned in these legends.

Joseph of Arimathea is then confined then imprisoned (generally in the same evening towards the tenth hour). The gospel according to Nicodemus reports us this episode. That said, some versions of the legend place his arrest three days later, when people realize that the body of Christ has disappeared from the tomb.

It is also narrated that Jesus appeared to Joseph of Arimathea (on Friday at midnight, specifies the gospel according to Nicodemus as well as some legends).

In other versions, it is Jesus himself who gives him the Holy Chalice (either he gives it back to him or gives it to him for the first time).

While, in the gospel according to Nicodemus, Jesus "teleports" Joseph of Arimathea to his home, while demanding him to remain there for forty days; In the legend, he remains imprisoned in his cell for thirty or forty years, but a dove comes every day to place some bread in the cup. In the version of Joseph de Boron, Joseph of Arimathea transmits the Holy Chalice to his brother-in-law (Hebron, or Bron), husband of his sister (Enygeus), who in turn passes it on to his son, Alan; who in turn carries it to the Vaus d'Avaron, the valley of Avaron, an unknown place that some interpret as being the island of Avalon, thus founding the dynasty of the Fisher Kings. They keep the Grail hidden within the Waste land until a knight is admitted to the secrets of the divine chalice, and thus puts an end to the "enchantments."

It is to Perceval that this honor will come down after various adventures.

The Quest for the Holy Grail represents the ultimate degree of Christianity. This text was probably written by Cistercian monks, for its symbolism corresponds exactly to the theology of St. Bernard of Clairvaux. The Grail is here the vase of the Last Supper, and the spear that bleeds is the Holy Lance. But Perceval, although admitted to the contemplation of the Grail, will be supplanted by another hero,

Galahat, the pure knight, who alone will have the revelation of the ultimate secrets of the Grail. After which he dies, and the chalice is brought to heaven.

Galahat and Perceval are attributed a third companion, Bors, whose degree of perfection is less.

These three knights represent three levels of holiness, according to the doctrine of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, combining the ideas of grace and merit, divine will and human freedom. It is characteristic of the Cistercian attitude that the great heroes of Arthurian literature, Lancelot and Gawain, are denied access to the Grail because of impure life. It is Galahat who will be the Perfect Knight, created by Grace. All this is well in the mind of St. Bernard, preacher of the Crusades and spiritual inspirer of the Order of the Temple, whose rule he drafted.

The idea of the Grail as a sign, symbol, or metaphor, of the line of Christ, is relatively recent. Yet many modern authors try to make us believe that this truth has been known throughout the centuries by a handful of carefully chosen men who would have concealed this idea in works of art and architecture over the ages.

A theory, flattering for the French self-esteem, involves that Christ was married to Mary Magdalene before her death and that she carried his child. After the Crucifixion, Mary-Magdalene would have landed in the South of France with him. Thereafter, one of the descendants married in a Frankish tribe, thus giving birth to the Merovingian dynasty.

This intellectual swindle is experiencing today an astonishing revival thanks to the popularity of the Da Vinci Code.

An author of the early twentieth century argued that the Holy Grail was originally the famous temple "vasso galate" built in honor of the Celtic god Lug at the top of the Puy-de-Dome, still in France . Yes ! This is Auguste-Theophile Vercoutre (origin and genesis of the legend of the Holy Grail: a solved literary problem).

According to this author, the legend of the Grail would be based therefore on one or more translation errors. People would have translated the famous name of the temple "Vasso Galate" by the Latin vas. The Grail is sometimes also called "the sepulcher of the Savior" because a Latin meaning of "vas" is also "sepulcher." Finally, while some texts refer to a mysterious vessel built by Solomon, it is because a troubadour has taken “vas" in the meaning of "ship, boat" that it has also sometimes.

The sword that goes so often with the Grail would also come from a paronymic acceptation of vas signifying weapon, an acceptation made plausible by the historical presence of the sword of Caesar in this famous Vasso Galate of the Puy-de-Dome. This abundance of mistranslations could have begun only by being overdetermined by a real psychological vector. The temple, the vase, the sepulcher, and the nave are psychologically synonymous. In the case of the Grail, there would have been not only the presence of the blood of Jesus, but also the historical presence of a statue of the god-or-demon Lug, the Celtic duplicate of the Roman Mercury, in the temple in question.

Help ! Let us stop this typical purely French delirium! Truth is much simpler!

The works of Marx and Loomis have highlighted many similarities between the grail cup (or dish) and the cauldron of plenty of Celtic myths. Those who defend the Celtic thesis invoke patterns which are found in many accounts from Ireland and Wales; in which a magic receptacle, an olla or a cauldron, has the magical power of dispensing food and drink at will. Talisman of the Next World, the lance, too, appears frequently in the Celtic domain, for example that of the god-or-demon Lug. Celtic also are the patterns of the Perilous Seat and of the Waste land, as well as the theme of the three drops of blood on the snow, which plunge Perceval into a kind of ecstasy.

The Holy Grail of European medieval literature is therefore the heir, if not the continuator, to symbols of the pre-Christian Celtic religion: the cauldron of Suqellos Gurgunt Dagda and the cup of sovereignty.

This explains why this wonderful object is often a simple platter carried by a girl.

Among his innumerable powers, it has besides that of feeding (gift of life), that of enlightening (spiritual illuminations), but also that of making invincible.

This Quest requires conditions of inner life rarely gathered. External activities prevent the contemplation that would be necessary and divert desire. The grail is very close, but we do not see it. It is the drama of the blindness before the spiritual realities, all the more intense as you believe more sincerely to seek them.

1) A strange sword besides, because it is not reliable and has a hidden defect. Whole generations are lost in conjectures about the value of such a poisoned gift. "Where did you get that sword that hangs on your left side, which has never had occasion to be drawn? Beware! Don’t ever put your trust in it. It’ll betray you, I promise you, when you find yourself in a great battle (....) It could but there’d be great hardship for whoever took the road to the lake below Cothoatre. There you could have the sword beaten and tempered anew and made whole again if adventure led you there. You mist go to a smith named Triboet, and to him alone, for he made it and will remake it; it will never be repaired by any other man who tries. Make sure none else tries his hand, for he could not succeed.” (Chretien de Troyes, Perceval or the story of the Grail.) And indeed, in certain variations of the legend, Perceval is obliged to have his sword repaired by this mysterious blacksmith.

2).Some authors link this silence with the gessa or taboos of Irish Celtic tradition.

OTHER TODAY FASHION SWINDLE : JESUS SUPER DRUID.

A note of Peter DeLaCrau on loose sheets, found by his heirs, and inserted by them at this place.

"After his sojourn in Egypt, where he spent his early childhood, Jesus came to Gaul ... It is traditionally reported to us that Jesus traveled a lot and that his sojourn could be localized around Montsegur - which became the capital of the Cathars - in Chartres, and Even in Britain, especially at Yarmouth. Jesus, having been initiated by the Druids to this internal life of the globe, came to know how to hear its movements. You will understand why my father Paul Bouchet teaches within our druidic college: "Time is prepared underground and is realized in space.’

Jesus received all this secret initiation which earned him the title of "Son of the Earth.’ A secret tradition, which was revealed to the king at the time of his coronation, meant that it was at Rheims that Jesus acceded to the dignity of this first rank of the High Initiation, which was awarded to him by the Assembly of druids ... By telepsychic means, the high druid informed the Chaldean initiates of the accession of Jesus to the second title of the High Initiation: "Son of Man" and of his next coming in their country.

KA ELD, or land of the ancestors, received just a share of the Celtic tribes who had followed Ram ... "(Druidisme et Christianisme. Rene Bouchet. Éditions de l’Aurore. Janvier 1979. Page 33).

This type of intellectual swindle dishonored for a long time any attempt to renew more seriously druidism. Therefore we really warn our readers against this druidomania with an appalling intellectual level .

The Frenchman Phileas Lebesgue (1869-1958) was a great writer, full of terroir and of classical letters, having rightly drawn our attention to the Celtic origins of the great Latin poet Virgil. This farmer poet, born on November 26, 1869, at La Neuville-Vault in Picardy, enough known not to be ignored, but so little celebrated that we may wonder why his work did not have the impact it deserved; had the misfortune to translate the work published in 1931 and entitled "under the oak of the Druids" 1).

But he who succeeded him at the head of the movement, in very doubtful circumstances besides, the amateur painter Paul Bouchet; was only an intellectual crook of low level, and his son Rene was as good as him in this field.

We therefore warn once again our readers against this typically French druidomania on the intellectual level, and against its current heirs.

1) Book by Yves (Breton Erwan) BERTHOU, alias Kaledvoulc'h, Alc'Houeder Treger or Erwanig. In 1899 he was one of the twenty-two Bretons who went to Cardiff and were received by the Welsh Gorsedd. Engaged in the regionalist movement, he was also a member of the Breton regionalist union. He therefore participated in all phases of the creation of the Gorsedd of Armorican Britain, of which he was High Druid from 1903 to 1933. The druidism of Berthou, which unfortunately influenced so deeply French druidism, had all the characteristics resulting from the enormous literary swindle that is the work of the Welsh Iolo Morganwg.

REVISIONISM STILL: SMALL HISTORICAL REMINDER NOW.

The first Christian elements arrived in Great Britain within the general framework of the Roman Empire.

At that time Christianity extends a little beyond the borders of the Empire, on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates and in Armenia, but in a general way Christian world and Roman world coincide.

The organization of the first Christian world will be modeled consequently on that of the Roman Empire: the cities and their territories, a principal city, Rome.

We have already had the opportunity to see in what material conditions Christianity spread in the Persian empire but especially in the Roman empire. From this empire we will therefore repeat a few words to begin with.

The cities, more numerous in the east of the Mediterranean world, are the place of an active trade and of a great mix of populations and ideas.

The Empire is a world united by trade and language: with its roads and cities it is an ideal dissemination framework for Christianity (merchants and soldiers or their families).

The first Christians are Jews of the 1st century convinced of having found in the person of the great Nazorene Rabbi Jesus the messiah long expected and announced by their writings.

Christianity starts its extension when certain Jews of the Diaspora also become Christians.

Some of these first Christians or Judeo-Christians, of whom the best known but not the only one is Paul of Tarsus then convert Greeks, Syrians, inhabitants of the cities in Asia Minor who are not Jews. But only God-fearers, that is, non-Jews familiar with Jewish culture for various personal reasons. Antioch, in Syria, became then a great Christian city.

Therefore Christianity probably began to take root in Great Britain in the second century of our era because Tertullian in 208 in his tract entitled “Answer to the Jews (chapter 7) mentions “the haunts of the Britons - inaccessible to the Romans, but subjugated to Christ” (Britannorum inaccessa Romanis loca, Christo vero subdita).

These Christians will also be mentioned by fathers of the Church like Origen (Sixth Homily on St. Luke, Fourth Homily on Ezekiel, Commentary on St. Matthew) then , Eusebius, Chrysostom, Jerome, Theodoret).

John Fox also highlights the martyrdom of Saint Alban of Verulamium. "The names of all which that suffered in these ten persecutions, being in number infinite...We therefore thought here to insert, for the more edification of other Christians, which may and ought to look upon their examples, first beginning with Albanus, the first martyr that ever in England suffered death for the name of Christ………”.

The most probable is that this martyrdom took place on the occasion of the persecutions of Decius and Valerian (250-259).

Regarding Decius’s persecution quotation marks are required BECAUSE.

1) What this emperor ordered in 249 was a "supplicatio" and not an abjuration or apostasy.

2) This supplicatio was general and was not limited to Christians.

3) This supplication became an anti-Christian "persecution" only because some of them refused to join it.

Some historians think nevertheless that saint Alban’s cult is in fact an invention of St Germanus of Auxerre. Before him he would have been an almost anonymous martyr. But when St Germanus came to Great Britain to fight Pelagianism, he claimed to have had then a vision that would have told him his history, that is to say the first version of St Alban's passion.

Whatever it be, these first Christian communities will delegate three bishops to the Council of Arles in 314, Eborius Bishop of York, Restitutus Bishop of London and Adelfius Bishop of Lincoln. As well as two other clergymen. So 5 people in all.

THE COUNCIL OF RIMINI (353).

Did Arianism flourish at the time in Great Britain? Given the conditions in which this Rimini Council of 353 took place, it is difficult to know whether the three bishops representing Great Britain were - or not - Arians.

A few words indeed about this important council.

Liberius, who succeeds Pope Julius in 352, was immediately summoned by the entourage of the Emperor to go back on the reinstatement of Athanasius pronounced by Pope Julius and the Council of Serdica. And at that moment in the history of Christianity, Athanasius personified the Orthodox Catholic faith. Liberius reopens his trial in Rome and Athanasius sends him a report presenting his defense. The Party of the Emperor then provoked the meeting of the Second Council of Arles (353), where all the bishops, even the pontifical legates, condemn Athanasius. At the Council of Milan in 355, Lucifer, Bishop of Cagliari in Sardinia, and Eusebius of Vercelli, defend Athanasius amidst three hundred bishops, hostile or not daring to oppose the emperor. St. Hilary, the only opponent, is exiled in Phrygia; Athanasius must flee precipitately. The two legates are exiled in the East. In it Eusebius will have much to suffer. As for Lucifer, from there he writes lampoons of a total intellectual poverty but of a provoking violence of tone towards the Emperor. We'll find them again soon.

Liberius is exiled from Rome where an antipope, Felix, takes his place. The last witnesses of Nicaea are hunted down.

There is no doubt that Pope Liberius then had an unqualified reflex. He subscribes to a first equivocal formula, in the hope of getting back into the good graces. Then he signed the new homeousian form deliberately of Basil of Ancyra (Ankara), with the intention of standing together with these semi-Arians. This skill enabled him to return as early as 358 to Rome, which welcomed him as the champion of orthodoxy. The antipope Felix is driven out and until his death Liberius will enjoy an immense popularity.

In the meantime, the bishops of the whole world were summoned to a Council by the Emperor Constantius, anxious to put an end to all that. The Westerners will meet at Rimini (Ariminum) the Easterners at Seleucia, opposite Constantinople on the Bosphorus. Liberius, just come back from exile, is put in isolation. Then, under the threat of banishment and death, all, including the three Great British bishops, signed an equivocal formula which in itself was a denial of the creed of Nicea. Only St. Hilary will attempt to oppose it. The Emperor will send him home to Poitiers!

On December 31, 359, it is done. The triumph of the Acacians is total, universal. The very Catholic St. Jerome will even exclaim: "The whole world groaned, and was astonished to find itself Arian.” The three bishops from Great Britain to the Arian (or anti-Arian) Council of Rimini in 353 will nevertheless need to apply for financial assistance for their return journey.

What this Rimini Council of 353 shows is that in the fourth century most of the regions of the Empire were Christianized, that is to say, there are in their territory communities of Christians (even if all the inhabitants of these regions are not). These communities of Christians are then led by the bishop of their city, which is considered the successor of the apostles of the time of Jesus. The bishop is elected and surrounded by priests, deacons and deaconesses. The territory of the bishop, called diocese, groups together several communities: the parishes. The rare exceptions are the Alps and the valley of the Douro (present-day Spain and Portugal) as well as the north-west of Gaul and Great Britain, which are not countries organized in city-states but in tribe-states.

The mosaic found at Hinton St Mary in Dorset shows us a divine figure whose head is surrounded by a chrism (the Greek letters chi rho), what proves that Christianity was nevertheless already well established in the Dorset in the 4th century and it is also known that a bishop of the Continent (Victricius of Rouen) was sent in 396 in Great Britain to settle disciplinary matters.

THE END OF PELAGIANISM.

In Great Britain, the disengagement of the Roman Empire at the beginning of the fifth century (the last Roman soldier left the country in 407) will make way for the activity of a certain Ninian in the North and to the Pelagianism in the south.

Specialists call Pelagianism the variety of Christianity spread by two religious Scots (Irish or Scottish therefore) named Pelagius and Coelestius (Morgan and Celleagh or Kelly). The latter having gone much farther than the first in the working out of the spirituality, it is impossible for me to say whether the Pelagianism which then spread in Great Britain was that advocated by Pelagius himself or that defended by his disciple Celleagh / Kelly.

After the Council of Ephesus (431), Pelagianism no more disturbed the Eastern Church, so that the Greek historians of the fifth century spoke no longer of it. But this form of Christianity survived in the West and disappeared from it only very progressively. Its main centers were Provence (Marseilles) and Great Britain.

And what is undeniable is that the bishops of Great Britain had the greatest difficulty in fighting intellectually this approach of Christianity (it corresponded to the Celtic mind?) they had for that to accept the help of the Continentals (less Celtic minded perhaps).

In his chronicle Prosper of Aquitaine insists on the fact that Pelagianism was well established in this country. He mentions in relation to the year 413 that....

"Hac tempestate Pelagius Britto dogma nominis sui contra gratiam Christi Celestio et Iuliano adiutoribus Exserit multosque in suum errorem trahit, praedicans unumquemque ad iustitiam uoluntate propria regi tantumque accipere gratiae quantum meruerit quia Adae peccatum ipsum solum laeserit non etiam posteros eius obstrinxerit. Vnde et uolentibus possibile sit omni carere peccato omnesque paruulos tam insontes nasci quam primus homo ante praeuaricationem fuit nec ideo baptizandos ut peccato exuantur sed ut sacramento adoptionis honorentur”.

“At this time Pelagius the Briton put forth the doctrine against the grace of Christ that bears his name with the help of Celestius and Julian, and drew many people to his error, by proclaiming that each man is guided to righteousness through his own free will and receives as much grace as he merits since the sin of Adam harmed himself alone and did not also hinder his descendants. For this reason it is therefore possible for those who so wish to be free from all sin and for all children to be born as innocent as the first man was before his transgression. And people are not to be baptized in order to be divested of sin, but so that they might be honored with the sacrament of [divine] adoption”.

A little further, for the year 429, he went on while writing...

Chronicle of Prosper of Aquitaine. Year 429. The Pelagian Agricola, son of the Pelagian Bishop Severianus, corrupted the churches of Britain with his teachings. But, through the negotiations of the Deacon Palladius, Pope Celestine sent Germanus Bishop of Auxerre to act on his behalf, and he routed the heretics and directed the Britons to the Catholic faith.

A synod, held at Troyes in 429, was compelled to take steps against the Pelagians. It also sent bishops Germanus of Auxerre and Lupus of Troyes to [Great] Britain to fight the rampant heresy, which received powerful support from two pupils of Pelagius, Agricola and Fastidius. The whole without great result because almost a century later in 519 the Archbishop David of Menevia participated in the Synod of Brefi, which directed its attacks against the Pelagians and after he was made Primate of Cambria, he himself convened a synod against them. In Ireland also Pelagius's "Commentary on St. Paul" was in use long afterwards, as it is proved by many Irish quotations from it.

And even in Italy traces can be found, not only in the Diocese of Aquileia , but also in the center of the country; for the so-called "Liber Praedestinatus,” written about 440 perhaps in Rome itself, bears still not so much the stamp of the Semi Pelagianism as of the genuine Pelagianism . It was not until the Second Synod of Orange (529) indeed that Pelagianism breathed its last in the West, though that council aimed its decisions primarily against Semi Pelagianism.

Here, therefore, a few words on the content of this approach to Christianity, since it also meant in Great Britain at the time (the Anglo-Saxon invasions got everybody to agree in that they made the Catholicism able to make a clean sweep of it with Augustine of Canterbury).

HEAVEN HELPS THOSE WHO HELP THEMSELVES.

The "discovery" in the 19th century of the Corpus Caspari, that is to say, of a set of six Pelagian writings which had been little studied until then, made us able to shed new light on this doctrine and to realize that, beyond Christianity, it did indeed revive a very old pagan problematic, that of the existence or not of perfect men (some sages or high knowers).

What was at stake in the debate between Pelagius and Augustine? How did the Emperor Honorius and the Church come to the condemnation of Pelagianism in the spring of 418?

Although Pelagius uses the literary network of the Christian aristocracy to spread his works, many details of Pelagius's relations with the Roman aristocracy remain more obscure than it is generally admitted.

His letter to Demetria invites readers to spiritual exercises and thus pursues the old project of druidic philosophy: to learn a way of life which takes into account the essence of man and his destiny. Asked by an educated layman like the count Marcellinus, Pelagius and Augustine both affirm the possibility of the impeccantia, that is to say, of a state of perfection of man (called isma when it is a question of Muhammad) , while contesting the present existence of such a perfect man. Now, the same paradox is discussed in druidic philosophy, it is the paradox “of the extreme rarity of the sages, or even of their non-existence.” The Pelagian controversy - at least in its initial stage - presents itself as a resumption of this discussion.

The anonymous author of the Corpus Caspari, while advocating the possibility of the impeccantia in the manner of Pelagius and Caelestius, avoids taking a position on the baptism of the children and the original sin, dogmatized in the spring 418. The doctrinal profile of the Author of the Corpus Caspari raises therefore the question of the ideological coherence of the Pelagian movement.

The quality and intensity of the debate between Augustine and Pelagius (and, a little later, we can add, between Augustine and Julian of Eclanum) introduce a new speech as for the possibility, the reality and the ways, of the change of the man.

This doctrine, in fact, came to deny the reality of original sin. This resulted in the uselessness of the baptism of little children. It is doubtless besides this last aspect of Pelagianism which moved the episcopate of Africa at the beginning of the 5th century. Pelagius and his disciple Celestius were condemned by the XVI Council of Carthage (May 1, 418).

Although condemned by the Council of Carthage, whose decisions were approved by Zosimus bishop of Rome, Pelagianism generated further disturbances. These disturbances were provoked by the difficulty to understand the Augustinian doctrine of grace. For certain monks, such as those of Adrumetus (in modern Tunisia), those of Marseilles and Lerins, the grace, in the sense of Augustine, amounted to eliminate free will.

The strongest opposition to the Augustinian doctrine was that of the monks of Saint Victor in Marseilles. The monastery was founded by John Cassian, who still lived there and who had already published his Institutes of the Coenobia and his first Conferences. His authority was considerable in the Christian circles in the south. But these criticisms of Augustine's positions struck, in turn, a certain number of minds in the lay circles of Marseilles, otherwise admirers of Augustine. These lay people, led by Prosper of Aquitaine), will write to Augustine so that he refutes the doctrine which would be much later called semi-Pelagian. Augustine replied by the last two books published before his death: the De Predestinatione Sanctorum and the De Dono Perseverantiae.

The death of Augustine did not put an end to the crisis. Prosper of Aquitaine will continue the fight and will publish in the Indiculus (between 435 and 442) all the decisions of the Council of Carthage and of the Apostolic See on grace. Finally, it was in the following century that the Second Council of Orange (3 July 529), under the impulse of Caesarius of Arles, will condemn even the semi-Pelagian theses. This synod will be considered therefore, in spite of its local character, as the expression of the faith of the Church at that time on the subject.

THE CASE OF SCOTLAND NOW.

Though the Celtic people of Scotland must have been exposed to Christianity through their contact with the Romans, it was not until the 6th century that the new religion made real inroads in the northern region. Three men were primarily responsible for the spread of Christianity in Scotland; Ninian, Columba of Iona and Kentigern.

ST NINIAN (360? - 432).

Saint Ninian was born around 360 in the north-west of England (or south-west of Scotland) in what was a territory again become independent after the withdrawal of the Roman army. He was the son of the chief of a tribe called the Novantae. There was here indeed a well-established and most official church for several decades, since Ninian's father himself, apparently, was already a Christian.

Noibo* Ninian is considered the first great Christian preacher of the peoples living beyond the Hadrian's Wall, that is to say outside the territory having been under the rule of Rome.

He was a great friend of St. Martin and it is probable that he called his headquarters in the Solway, after the name of the foundation of Martin on the Continent, known as Logo Tecia (Lutetia, the White Hut). Log meaning "white, shiny" and tecia meaning "shack.”

The church of Noibo Ninian having been built out of stone and coated with white, an unusual construction in a country where almost all the buildings were out of wood, therefore he called it "Candida Casa" (Latin White House) or Whithorn in Old English. Archaeologists have cleared and partially restored his church in the twentieth century.

By evacuating the area, the Roman soldiers left behind them in the Solway region therefore a bishop who succeeded in doing what the legions had never been able to accomplish before in Caledonia. According to F.R. Webber indeed noibo Ninian did not need an interpreter to make himself understood of the Picts whereas it was the case of St Columban of Iona two centuries later.

From his Solway base, Ninian went to preach through the South of Scotland, the South of the Grampian Mountains, and led preaching missions among the Picts to the Moray Firth. His influence extended even beyond Caledonia, since many of the great Irish saints were trained at his school - notably St Tighernac and St Kieran, the founder of the great school of Clonmacnoise ; St Finnian of Movilla, the teacher of Colum Cille (Saint Columba), and St Caranoc, the great.

Some historians, however, think that the number and extent of his conversions have been largely exaggerated. St. Patrick, in his letter to Coroticus, describes the Picts as apostates, and allusions to a giving up Christianity among the converts of St. Ninian are also found in the writings St. Columba of Iona or St. Kentigern. What is certain, however, is that a large number of churches bear his name in the south of Scotland.

The oldest account of St. Ninian is found in Bede (Hist. Eccles, 3, 4). " The southern Picts, had embraced the truth, by the preaching of Ninias, a most reverend bishop and holy man of the British nation, who had been regularly instructed at Rome, in the faith and mysteries of the truth; whose episcopal see, named after St. Martin the bishop, and famous for a stately church (wherein he and many other saints rest in the body), is still in existence among the English nation. The place belongs to the province of the Bernicians, and is generally called the White House [Candida Casa] , because he there built a church of stone, which was not usual among the [Great] Britons.”

Editor’s note.The facts indicated by this passage represent practically all that we know of certain about the life and work of St. Ninian.

A later text, compiled in the twelfth century by St Aelred, claims to give a more detailed life, based on Bede, but also on a Liber de vita et miraculis eius “barbarice scriptus” (The book of his life and miracles written by a barbarian, therefore perhaps by a Pict member of his community). But the legendary elements in it are largely evident.

* Celtic word meaning saint. As Thomas Maclaughlin made clear, the word “saint” in the early Gaelic language meant “missionary” and nothing more. St Ninian is not a man who has been canonized officially by the Church. See F.R. Webber, the Pictish Church, a victim of history.

THE FIRST IRISH SAINTS.

St. Dubhan would have come from Wales in the 5th century and would have founded an abbey on the Hook Peninsula in County Wexford.

St. Declan was an active evangelizer monk in the south of the country in the early fifth century. He was related to Wales and was probably initiated into monastic life in southern Wales or in Gaul. He lived as a hermit at Ardmore in the County Waterford on what was then probably an island at the time.

There was also another monastery on the Great Island of the Barrow River in the port of Waterford.

St. Ailbe, a friend of Declan, was also an active evangelizer monk in the south of the island at the beginning of the 5th century. He would have founded a monastery at Emly in the County Waterford.

St. Ibar too founded a monastery on the island of Begerin in the county of Wexford at the beginning of the 5th century. The word "beg erin" means, "small Ireland.” It was an island in the port of Wexford.

St. Ibar and St. Abban may also have founded an abbey in Our Lady's Island in the County Wexford. Abban was Ibar's nephew.

There would also have been another St. Abban, having lived a few years earlier than the nephew of St. Ibar, who would have founded a monastery in Adamstown (= Abbanstown) in County Wexford. He also looks like having founded abbeys in all the south of the country.

St. Ciaran of Ossory (458?) would have done the same. Born in the territory of Corca Laighde (County Cork), he became a hermit. He too would have been trained abroad, more likely before the coming of St. Patrick in Ireland.

Lastly , St. Sechnall or Secundinus, St. Auxilius and St Iserninus (a British ?) were perhaps companions of Palladius; or some bishops of his next generation. What is certain, however, is that it is unlikely that they depended on St. Patrick in any way.

The churches of Dunshaughlin (Co Meath), Aghade (Co Carlow) KiIlashee and Kilcullen (County Kildare) would have been founded by them.

PALLADIUS OR PLEDI (431).

The life and work of Palladius are obscure. The Pope of the time sent him on a mission to counter the progress of Pelagianism in the British Isles.

Chronicle of Prosper of Aquitaine.

Year 429. The Pelagian Agricola, son of the Pelagian Bishop Severianus, corrupted the churches of Britain with his teachings. But, through the negotiations of the Deacon Palladius, Pope Celestine sent Germanus Bishop of Auxerre to act on his behalf, and he routed the heretics and directed the Britons to the Catholic faith.

Year 431. Nestorius was condemned, along with the heresy that bears his name, and with many Pelagians who supported a dogma related to his, by a council of more than two hundred bishops assembled at Ephesus.

Palladius was ordained by Pope Celestine and sent to the Scots believers in Christ [ad Scotos in Christum credentes] as their first bishop.

The expression “believers in Christ” (in Christum credentes) implies the existence, already on the spot, of Christian communities, and this mission emphasizes the will of Rome to make them enter the papal obedience.

But what Scots could it be? ? Those of Ireland or those of Scotland precisely? ? Undoubtedly Ireland. There were already Christians there at that time. Perhaps thanks to the maritime trade linking Spain and Gaul to Ireland.

And as Pelagianism was progressing there, it is probable that Celestine sent Palladius to fight against it also on this island. The oldest Irish traditions refer to Wicklow as the place where Palladius landed and penetrated inland.

The Scots of Ireland reserved him a rather cold welcome. Palladius's mission was a failure and the same year that saw his arrival also saw his departure. The Irish Christians mistrusted Rome and all that came from it. Its bishops, they knew it, followed in the footsteps of its emperors, and endeavored to seize the universal government of the Church.

In addition, the druidic priesthood was still powerful in Ireland, the Romans having never succeeded in settling there (permanently). The pagan Irish therefore were not even interested in him.

Palladius crossed the sea again and spent the rest of his life among the Picts of Scotland (Muirchu).

The precise spot of the Pictish territory where the unfortunate legate of Pope Celestine died, is indicated to us by another ancient biography. The scholium on Fiacc’s Hymn reported by Colgan, in his collection of the Biographies of Saint Patrick; says to us in connection with Palladius: "he was not well received, but was forced to go round the coast of Ireland towards the north, until driven by a tempest he reached the extreme part of Mohaidh towards the south, where he founded the church of Fordun, and Pledi is his name there."

Another biography dating from the year 900 indicates that Celestine, when he sent him on a mission, gave him the relics of blessed Peter and Paul; that he landed in Leinster that a chief named Garchon resisted him, that nevertheless he founded three churches (Teach-na-Roman/Tigroney, Kill-Fine/Killeen Cormac, Domnec Ardec/Donard) and deposited there the bones of the apostles as well as certain books that the Pope had given him; but that "after a short time he died in the plain of Girgin, in a place which is called Fordun."

Girgin or Maghgherginn is the Irish name for the Mearns. Another of his biographers writes that “he was crowned with martyrdom" at Fordun. This is far from being sure (another umpteenth lie) because the Picts of the South were already Christian at the time and therefore had no reason to treat him like that. See the case of St. Ninian. The story of Palladius or Pledi is therefore rather confused.

It is to the Scots in Ireland that he is sent, but it is among the Picts in the Mearns that we find the first monument attesting to his action. If Palladius had sailed directly to Rome, he should have landed in Wales or in the north of France. Instead, we find him landing on the eastern coast of Scotland. There was to be some reason for that. Palladius was in no hurry to return to Rome in order to announce the failure of his mission, namely that the Christian Scots had not wanted him as a bishop, and that the pagan Scots had completely ignored him. Expelled by King Garchon, he perhaps sailed northward in the hope of finding in another part of Ireland a tribe more favorable to his enterprise; and whose conversion to Christianity might have compensated for the failure of his first attempt. But a storm decided otherwise!

What is certain is that after years of wandering Palladius / Pledi spent the rest of his life at Fordun in the Mearns.

The village of Fordun is located on a spur of the Grampians, overlooking the cultivated plains of the Mearns. In its cemetery is a small house which looks very old. Its thick walls, its very low roof, and the little window, by which the sun struggles without great success in order to dissipate the darkness of the interior, make it rather a cavern than a sanctuary. This edifice is said to have been the chapel of Palladius.

When Palladius / Pledi arrived in Scotland, Fordun says that he found there individuals "habentes fidei doctores et sacramentorum ministros presbiteros et monachos, primitivae ecclesiae solum modo sequentes ritum et consuetudinem.” "Having for teachers of the faith and ministers of the sacraments presbyters and monks following only the rituals and customs of the primitive Church.”

There are doubts about this visit of Palladius in Scotland, but documents such as the Breviary of Aberdeen, although devoid of any historical value, have nevertheless preserved traces of them. The Breviary of Aberdeen tells us that St. Servan or Serf lived "subforma et ritu primitivae ecclesiae." So that there were Christians before St. Servan himself, in the region. Ninian's work among the Picts seems therefore to have been pursued, not only by his disciples, but by St. Palladius / Pledi, who died while leaving his office to his pupils St. Ternan and St. Serf / Servan. Banchory-Ternan is the Bangor or monastic school of St. Ternan. As for St. Servan (St. Serf), he continued the work of St. Ninian in the South-west of Scotland, but under another king than that of the Picts. He was the teacher of St. Kentigern or Mungo at Culross.

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH OF ST PATRICK (MAGONUS SUCCATUS)

(385-432 ???) IN GREAT BRITAIN.

The history of Roman Britain in the fifth century is little known, and the more we advance in the century, the rarer are the documents ... until completely disappear - or almost - after 450.

Coming from a Romanized and Christianized family, Calpurnius and Conchessa - his father was a decurion and his grandfather a deacon - Patrick was born around 385-390 in England in the Dumbarton area, or in Wales. His most probable birthplace is a small village along the west coast near the mouth of the Severn River. Whatever his country of origin is, on the other hand, what is certain is that it was Celt. He was named Magonus Succatus, abbreviated and in Welsh language Maelwyn Succat. His father, Calpurnius, being a Roman civil servant, this means that the young Maelwyn lived in a certain comfort until his sixteenth birthday. He himself acknowledged that he had not shown a very obvious Christianity until he was sixteen. If he had been at the time charged with Christianity, he would undoubtedly have been released as we say, "for lack of evidence.”

The young Maelwyn therefore had an easy life, but this life stopped abruptly in the early years of the fifth century (about 401 or 402) upon a raid of Irish pirates in his village. Hundreds of people were captured and then sold as slaves with him. For six years Maelwyn served as a pig keeper in the mountains of Northern Ireland, for the King of Antrim. Rude shock for the son of a good family who had hitherto lived an easy life. It was at this time (which was filled with long periods of solitude in these isolated mountains in the company of his herd of pigs) that Maelwyn seems to have really converted to Christianity; while learning Gaelic and the rudiments of druidism from the staff of his master; including the druid responsible for the herds of pigs, named Miluc. For it should be remarked that the pigs being a very important even sacred animal among the Celts, they are druids who generally took care of them in this country.

In 411, after he had seen in dreams God telling him that a ship was waiting for him in Westport 300 km away, he would have escaped, and would have managed to rejoin his family in Great Britain. He became a priest and went for twelve years to get on the Continent the religious formation which he lacked. According to some sources, he visited St Martin of Tours, what is chronologically impossible. Another late tradition that made him sojourn at Lerins, also seems to have no foundation. On the other hand, it is possible that he settled at Auxerre, as the life of St. Patrick according to Muirchu affirms, and even that he was ordained a bishop by St. Germanus, before being sent to Ireland by the pope Celestine. He takes then the name of Patricius (Gaelic Padraig).

Meanwhile he had made a whole series of other dreams in which his former captivity companions begged him to come back by saying, "We ask you, boy, come and walk once more among us." In one of these dreams a person by the name of Victor delivered him a message entitled "The Voice of the Irish." On hearing it, St. Patrick heard many voices beseeching him to return among them. His superiors, however, found him very ignorant and judged him in no way qualified for such a mission.

But when Palladius / Pledi left Ireland to go to Scotland two years later, Patrick renewed his request and his superiors finally agreed this time, for want of anything better, to send him on a mission to the country.

He embarks in 432 (or in 460 for other authors) and will arrive at the mouth of the Vartry, a river of the County Wicklow, or of the Boyne. According to the Annals of Ulster, Patrick would have arrived on the island in 432, landing in Saul, in the county Down. No matter, what is important it is to point out that he did not come in a completely unknown land and that there had been Christians in Ireland for some generations, probably following the wine trade with the city of Bordeaux on the Continent.

The written language of the Irish church has always been Latin. The formation of the Irish monks in Wales therefore had to play an important part in the birth of this Church.

SAINT COLUMBA OF IONA IN SCOTLAND (563-597).

Columba of Iona or Columbkill or Columcille or Colum Cille, church dove in Gaelic language (521 - 597). Irish monk of princely origin.

Condemned according to legend to convert as many new Christians as he had died by his fault on the occasion of the battle of Cul Dreimne in 561, in 563 he settles with twelve companions of whom St Odhran, Odran or Oran, under the protection of King Conall mac Comgaill of Dal Riada * on the small island of Iona, former holy place of the druids, located off the island of Mull and he makes it a hub of his missions and interventions, in the kingdom of Dal Riada as well as among the Picts.

By entering towards the north through the Great Glen, he tames ( according to the legend) the monster who (already) haunted the shores of Loch Ness and comes into contact with the druids (magi) whom he meets at the court of King Brude (at Inverness) whose Primate was a certain Broichan.

The conversion, during the ninth year of his reign, of the Picts of King Brude, though (perhaps) descended from a British family theoretically already Christian (that of the king Magloconus admonished by Gildas the Wise) , is not mentioned by St Adomnan biographer (or rather hagiographer) of the saint, but attributed to Columba by the Pictish Chronicle and implied by the Venerable Bede:

"Colomba arrived in [Great] Britain in the ninth year of the powerful Pictish king Bride, son of Meilochon. He converted that people to the faith of Christ by his preaching and example and received from them an island on which to found a monastery .”

Columba also enjoyed friendly relations with Rhydderch Hael, the King of Strathclyde who ruled at that time in Alt Clut.

According to Adomnan, besides Brude the king of the Picts, four other contemporary kings would also have been approached by Columba: Diarmait mac Cerbaill king of Tara, Áedán mac Gabráin king of the Scottish Dal Riada, Áed Sláine as well as Oswald of Northumbria.

The monastery of Iona became thus the center of a first missionary activity among the Picts, but also among the English in the north of the country.

Tradition attributes, of course, a large number of miracles to St. Columban of Iona.

While he was in Scotland, for example, some farmers came to his house, bringing a child to have him baptized. Finding no water nearby, Columba knelt down and prayed for a long time. Then he blessed a rock, and a torrent of water sprang from it, like the one whom God caused to spring at the prayer of Moses in the midst of the desert. Columba baptized the child, and made a prophecy about him, which becomes reality a few years later.

Tradition says that he died while he was recopying the Holy Scriptures. It was in 597, on the night of June 9th.

After the death of Columba (8/9 June 597), the leadership of the monastic community in Iona was carried out for at least a century and a half, with one exception, by abbot princes who came directly from the Cenél Conaill family, whose biographer and ninth successor as abbot of Iona, St Adomnan.

The relics of St. Columban remained two centuries and a half in Iona, performing many miracles, until 849; when they were moved to Dunkeld, because of the Vikings attacks. An Orthodox monastery in Massachusetts, under the canonical jurisdiction of Monsignor Nicholas, Archbishop of the Romanian Orthodox Archdiocese of America and Canada, placed itself under his patronage today.

* Kingdom which had the peculiarity at the time to stretch on both sides of the Irish Sea (Northern Channel of the Irish Sea) following various conquests carried out by Irish Scots to the detriment of the Picts in Caledonia.

MERLIN ? AND ST KENTIGERN OR MUNGO FIRST BISHOP OF GLASGOW (550-612).

After the departure of the Roman army in the 5th century, the Britannia Secunda, whose administrative capital was Eburacum (York), found itself independent without having really wanted it; and was administered by Coelestius Senex (Coel Hen), the former commander-in-chief (dux) of the Roman army in the region.

This kingdom of the Northern [Great] Britons or Gogleddd Hen was rather ephemeral and was divided among his various successors. The emergence of Christianity in the city of Eburacum (York) led to a splitting of the kingdom of York (Caer Ebrauc) and its partition between the grandsons of the last king Einion ap Mor. Peredur and Gwrgi, son of Eliffer, kept the south, with York as their capital, and their cousin Ceido inherited from the north.

Since he was by no means receptive to the siren songs of Christianity, his court quickly became the refuge or the base of all the intellectuals who hold the traditional culture (the cyfarwydd), and particularly of a certain ... Myrddin Willt (the druid Merlin also known as Lailoken).

Saint Kentigern, on the other hand, was the first bishop of Glasgow (c. 550-612). A contemporary of St. Columba of Iona, he is considered the apostle of the Kingdom of Strathclyde.

Kentigern is also known under the popular diminutive of "Mungo" which means the "Beloved,” nickname that St. Serf of Culross would have given to him. It would be of princely origin but of illegitimate birth.

Kentigern would indeed be the son of Owain mab Urien king of Rheged and of St. Thanew, a daughter of King Leudonus (Loth, Luwdoc?) of Gododdin (i.e. the Lothian or region of Edinburgh).

Chased by his father when he discovers her fault Thanew is abandoned in a small boat (curragh) on the Firth of Forth. She lands at Culross (Fife) where she gives birth to her child. She and her son were then taken in by the Celtic "bishop-abbot" St Serf (Servanus) who takes care of Kentigern's education and gives him his surname (i.e.: the favorite disciple).

Become adult Kentigern crosses again the waters of the Forth and is consecrated by an itinerant Irish bishop. A pagan reaction led by a king named Morken (Morcant of Galloway of the family of Coel Hen?) nevertheless obliges him to exile then in Menevia (Wales) where he would have met St David and built a monastery in Flintshire which bears the name of his disciple and successor, the future St Asaph.

What does seem certain is that Prince Ceido mentioned above had then carved out a stronghold at the border of the Rheged (Cumbria) and of Strathclyde. In order to consolidate his authority in this territory, he concluded an alliance with Aedan mac Gabráin, king of Dalriada, what made him a de facto enemy of the king of Strathclyde, Rhydderch Hael. The fact that Rhydderch Hael was then a friend of St. Kentigern did not fix things, of course.

Rhydderch Hael immediately formed an alliance with the sons of Eliffer of York: Peredur and Gwri. The encountering between the poor pagan forces of the son of King Ceido, Gwenddoleu, and of the king of Dalriada, with the forces of the very Christian Rhydderch as well as of Peredur and Gwri, took place in Arfderydd (today Arthuret) in 573.

The victor, Rhydderch Hael (the generous one) or Hen (the elder ) King of Strathclyde, who became the master of Cumbria, then recalled St. Kentigern and allowed him to establish an abbey in Hoddom where he would welcome up to 665 monks( ! ) and then to found the bishopric of Glasgow, of which he remained the patron saint until the Reformation.

Mythical and cultural literary consequences.

A named Lalliogenos Moridunios> Lailoken Myrddin / Merlin *; who in addition to his protector and patron Gwenddoleu, also lost his nephew, the son of his sister Gwenddydd, in this massacre, since he

was in the opposite camp (Gwenddydd indeed was married to Rhydderch) crazed with pain fled into the vast Caledonian forest.

A version of this story has been preserved to us by Walter Bower. The chapter De Mirabili pœnitentia Merlini vatis (Of the penitential marvels of the Prophet Merlin).

It is an account of the first interview betwixt St. Kentigern and Merlin. On being commanded by St. Kentigern to give an account of himself, Merlin says, that the penance, which he performs, was imposed on him by a voice from heaven, during a bloody contest betwixt the river Lidel and Carwanolow, of which battle he had been the cause. According to his own prediction, he perished at once by wood, rock, and river; for, being pursued with stones by the rustics, he fell from a rock into the river Tweed, and was transfixed by a sharp stake, fixed there for the purpose of extending a fishing-net.

Jocelyn of Furness, on the other hand, shows us Lalliogenos Moridunios> Lailoken Myrddin / Merlin having joined the court of his victor: King Rhydderc Hael.

“In the same year that Saint Kentigern was released from the affairs of men and departed into heaven, King Rederech stayed for a longer time than usual in a royal village which is called Pertnech. A certain foolish man, who was called Laleocen,lived at his court, and he received his necessary sustenance and garments. For it is customary for the chief men of the earth and for sons of kings to be given to vain things and to retain with them men of the sort who are able to excite these lords and their households to loud laughter by foolish words and gestures. But after the burial of Saint Kentigern, this man was himself afflicted with the most severe mourning, and he would not receive any comfort from anyone.

When they sought why he grieved so inconsolably, he answered that King Rederech and another of the first men of the land, named Morthec, would not be long in this life after the death of the holy bishop, but that they would succumb to fate in that present year. The deaths of those whom he mentioned that followed in that year proved that the words of the fool were not spoken foolishly, but rather they were spoken prophetically….Therefore in the same year in which the holy Bishop Kentigern died, both the king and the chief died as had been prophesied by the foolish man, and they were buried in Glasgow.

In the cemetery of the church of this city, as the inhabitants and country people of that place claim, six hundred and sixty-five saints rest. All the great men of the region have been accustomed to be buried there for many seasons. …..Amen. Here ends the life of the holiest Kentigern, Bishop and Confessor, who is also called Mungo in Glasgow.”

In Great Britain, or at least in the west, center, of Great Britain, therefore, Christianity has definitely prevailed in the sixth century with the battle of Arderryd (or Arthuret) in 572-3 which saw the triumph of the Christian party on the last supporters of paganism in the region .

* There are five or six poems in Old Welsh language traditionally attributed to this last of the Breton pagan great bards. Yr Afallenau (the apple trees), Yr Oianau (the greetings), Ymddiddan Myrddin a Thaliesin (the conversation between Myrddin and Taliesin) Cyfoesi Myrddin a Gwenddydd ei Chwaer (the conversation of Myrddin and of his sister Gwenddydd) Gwasgargerdd Fyrddin yn y bedd (the diffused song of Myrddin in the grave) and Peirian Faban (commanding youth).

ST AUGUSTINE OF CANTERBURY AND THE EVANGELIZATION OF ANGLO SAXONS (597).

Augustine is a Benedictine monk who died between 604 and 609.The head of the mission sent to convert the Anglo-Saxons, he became the first archbishop of Canterbury in 597.

Prior to an abbey in Rome, Augustine was chosen by Pope Gregory the Great to take charge of the mission. After his arrival in England in 597, he received permission from King Aethelberht of Kent to settle in Canterbury and to preach in his kingdom of Kent. Aethelberht himself received baptism. Augustine established bishoprics in London and Rochester in 604, and it is probable that he also founded schools for the training of local clergy.

Historical background.

A few years after the departure of the last Roman soldier in 407, in 410, Emperor Honorius sent a letter to the various cities in the island enjoining them to provide for their safety, an injunction therefore equivalent to a repeal of the Lex Julia which forbade ordinary citizens to carry arms.

This rescript of 410 therefore involves three things.

-Firstly, that the senate and other local institutions of the State bodies like the municipia had replaced the evacuated Roman officials.

-Secondly, that the island faced a beginning of Barbarian invasion.

-Thirdly, that the island had still enough men ready for the battle to overcome invaders (these fighters, moreover, could be of British stock or settlers from federated auxiliary troops).

We can summarize thus this rescript of Honorius of 410: "Rome to the Great British: now manage you and good luck, you are allowed to arm yourself!"

At that time the island was already converted to Christianity. It sent three bishops to the council of Arles in 314, and it is known that a bishop of the Continent (a bishop of Rouen called Victricius) was sent there in 396 in order to settle disciplinary matters. Pelagianism is also endemic there.

After the departure of Rome therefore, pagan Germanic tribes settled in the whole east coast of Great Britain making thus the economic and religious structures inherited from the Roman period disappear.

Although Christianity does not entirely disappear from the areas conquered by the Anglo-Saxons, as evidenced by the survival of the cult of Saint Alban and the presence of the affix eccles (from the Latin ecclesia "church") in several place names,the Christians of these regions does not appear to have sought to convert the Anglo-Saxons.

At the end of the 6th century, the kingdom of Kent, the closest to the continent, was ruled by Aethelberht.

According to some historians, Aethelberht, who remained pagan, was the cause of the sending of missionaries by Pope Gregory the Great; for others, the initiative of the mission would go to Gregory, but his precise reasons remain uncertain.

Gregory is certainly motivated by deeper reasons, such as the desire to see new provinces recognize the Roman obedience or the possibility of having an influence on the government in Kent.

It is perhaps necessary to envisage this mission as an extension of the missionary efforts of the papacy towards the Pagan and Arian Lombards.

The choice of Kent is perhaps not solely linked to the religion of its queen, Bertha, who was a Merovingian Christian princess. At the time, Kent was the most powerful kingdom in the south-east of England: Bede indicates indeed that Æthelberht had the dominion south of the river Humber. Archeology proves that the Frankish influence on Kent is also cultural and Bishop Liudhard represents the Frankish Church there.

In 595, Gregory chose therefore the monks who were to be members of the mission and asked Augustine, the prior of the Abbey of St. Andrew in Rome, to take their head. Gregory also sent letters to the Merovingian sovereigns Theuderic II of Burgundy and Theudebert II of Austrasia, as well as to their grandmother Brunhild, to ask them to support the mission; subsequently, he also sent a letter of thanks to the King of Neustria Chlotar II for his help. Bishops and Frankish kings grant hospitality to

missionaries during their journey, and also provide them with interpreters or priests to accompany them.

The reasons that led Gregory to choose a simple monk like Augustine to lead the mission are unknown. In a letter to Aethelberht, he praises his Biblical knowledge, what implies a certain level of education. Augustine must also be a competent administrator. As the prior of the abbey of Saint-Andrew, he is in charge of current affairs, since his abbot is none other than Pope Gregory himself.

Augustine was followed by some forty companions, including several monks. Shortly after their departure from Rome, the missionaries stop, frightened by the extent of the task imposed upon them. They return Augustine to the pope, asking him to allow them to come back. Gregory refuses and sends backs Augustine to his companions with letters urging them to continue.

Augustine will have free rein to convert the Anglo-Saxons: the violent racism of the first instructions, in conformity with what was then practiced on the Continent, see the documents that we will describe below, will be replaced by more hypocritical maneuvers. Cf. the contradiction between the two letters about the subject that Bede has preserved for us.

THE TYPICAL EVANGELIZATION BEFORE THE LETTER TO ABBOT MELLITUS IN 601.

YEAR 395. LETTER 29 TO ALYPIUS THE BISHOP OF THAGASTE CONCERNING THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH OF LEONTIUS BISHOP OF HIPPO.

“Therefore let me not fail to relate to your Charity what has taken place; so that, as you joined us in pouring out prayers for this mercy… When I was informed after your departure that some were becoming openly violent, and declaring that they could not submit to the prohibition of that feast which they call Lætitia (festivity)….

Next morning, however, when the day dawned, which so many were accustomed to devote to excess in eating and drinking, I received notice that some, even of those who were present when I preached, had not yet desisted from complaint, and that so great was the power of detestable custom with them, that, using no other argument, they asked, wherefore is this now prohibited? Were they not Christians who in former times did not interfere with this practice? On hearing this, I did not know what more powerful means for influencing them I could devise; but resolved, in the event of their judging it proper to persevere, that after reading in Ezekiel's prophecy that the watchman has delivered his own soul if he has given warning, even though the persons warned refuse to give heed to him, I would shake my garments and depart. But then the Lord showed me that He leaves us not alone, and taught me how He encourages us to trust Him; for before the time at which I had to ascend the pulpit, the very persons of whose complaint against interference with long-established custom I had heard came to me. Receiving them kindly, I by a few words brought them round to a right opinion; and when it came to the time of my discourse, having laid aside the lecture which I had prepared as now unnecessary, I said a few things concerning the question mentioned above, wherefore now prohibit this custom? saying that to those who might propose it the briefest and best answer would be this: Let us now at last put down what ought to have been earlier prohibited.

Lest, however, any slight should seem to be put by us on those who, before our time, either tolerated or did not dare to put down such manifest excesses of an undisciplined multitude, I explained to them the circumstances out of which this custom seems to have necessarily risen in the Church namely, that when, in the peace which came after such numerous and violent persecutions, crowds of heathens who wished to assume the Christian religion were kept back, because, having been accustomed to celebrate the feasts connected with their worship of idols in reveling and drunkenness, they could not easily refrain from pleasures so hurtful and so habitual, it had seemed good to our ancestors, making for the time a concession to this infirmity, to permit them to celebrate, instead of the festivals which they renounced, other feasts in honor of the holy martyrs, I added that now upon them, as persons bound together in the name of Christ, and submissive to the yoke of His august authority, the wholesome restraints of sobriety were laid— restraints with which the honor and fear due to Him who appointed them should move them to comply— and that therefore the time had now come in which all who did not dare to cast off the Christian profession should begin to walk according to Christ's will; and being now confirmed Christians should reject those concessions to infirmity which were made only for a time in order to their becoming such…..

At Hasna, where our brother Argentius is a presbyter, the Circumcelliones, entering our church, demolished the altar. The case is now in the process of trial; and we earnestly ask your prayers that it may be decided in a peaceful way and as becomes the Catholic Church, so as to silence the tongues of turbulent heretics. I have sent a letter to the Asiarch. Brethren most blessed, may you persevere in the Lord and remember us. Amen.

THEODOSIAN CODE. De paganis sacrificiis et templis (16.10.25).

14th November 435. “ Emperor Theodosius and Valentinian to Isidore, pretorian prefect: we forbid to all wicked pagan mind to perform abhorrent immolation of victims and condemned sacrifices and all other practices that have been forbidden for the authority of past sentences, and we demand that all their sanctuaries, temples and sacred places, if still there are any standing, are destroyed under the siege of magistrates and purified by putting in them the sign of Christian religion. If in front of the magistrate in charge with adequate proofs someone will be ascertained to have infringed upon this law, he’ll undergo the death penalty.”

Ramsay MacMullen, however, remarked that Augustine was perhaps not very sincere in this profession of toleration : he authorizes banquets for martyrs instead of banquets for the pagan gods when in reality he knows very well that the banquets of the ancestors did not so much concern gods than the deceased and that, of course, there is a much more marked continuity between the worship of the deceased and the cult of the martyrs than between the worship of such and such a pagan deity and that of the martyrs. It is clear that the tone of St. Augustine is not a priori favorable to these practices. It is a "detestable custom,” it admits only temporary concessions.

It is possible to distinguish two different situations.

In the first situation, Christians are so indifferent to pagan temples that they establish their own places of worship in a way totally foreign to these temples. By necessity this indifference had to prevail before the Peace of the Church. But even after 313, pagan sanctuaries continued to be visited and the churches were first located on original sites, martyrs' tombs outside cities, or lands (possibly with buildings) generously granted by imperial favor within the cities.

But a second situation could appear during the fourth century and a fortiori after the prohibition of the pagan worships during the reign of Theodosius. It is a head-on battle against paganism that leads, for example, St. Martin on the Continent to destroy pagan temples in order to establish Christian churches in their place. But the will to destroy the pagan temples and to relocate a church in the same place presupposes that a real and negative force (in the eyes of Christians) is perceived in the temple and that the place bears a sacredness whose sign is to be changed.

Gregory was not an obscure bishop in Rome. A doctor of the Church, he was one of the four fathers of the Western Church with St. Augustine of Hippo, St. Ambrose and St. Jerome. His influence was considerable in the Middle Ages.

We may therefore consider that his way of dealing with the challenge of the conversion to Christianity of the Anglo-Saxons is indeed the official Christian doctrine on this subject.

Gregory not being an obscure bishop in Rome, as we have had the opportunity to say, we have many testimonies on his vision of paganism, which is above all primarily that of the beginnings of Christianity (the Greco-Roman world, Goy of the new Israel, the gentiles in the Latin meaning of the word, etc.).

For example, he had already studied the case of Sardinia, where the little people of the countryside had remained predominantly pagan.

In a letter sent in 595 to the Empress Constantina, he writes, for example, still using the classical terminology in this field : gentiles instead of pagani).

“Since I know that our most serene lady ponders the celestial homeland and the salvation of her soul, I think that I would commit a sin most grievously if I were silent about those things that for fear of the Almighty Lord must be mentioned.

Since I knew that there were many pagans (gentiles) on the island of Sardinia and that in the custom of depraved paganism they were devoted to sacrifices of idols and that the priests of the same island

were sluggish in preaching about our redeemer, I sent there from the bishops of Italy one who, with the Lord assisting, led many pagans to the faith. But he has reported to me a sacrilegious practice: that those among them who sacrifice to idols pay a fee to a judge so that he will let them do this. While some of these were baptized and have now stopped sacrificing to idols, the fee that they were accustomed to pay before for the sacrifice to idols is still charged even after baptism by the same judge of the island *.

When the aforesaid bishop rebuked him, he responded that he had promised such high payment for honors that it could not be fulfilled except by such methods….

Our most serene lady should survey all of this wisely …..You must mention these things to your most pious lord at an appropriate time so that a great weight of sin such as this may be lifted from his soul. I know he will say that whatever is collected from the said islands is sent to us as payments for Italy. But I suggest that even if fewer payments are bestowed upon Italy, etc.,etc.”

* Temptation as old as the hills. Muslims will do the same a few centuries later. The dhimmis in Spain will be obliged to pay a personal tax (the jizya) and conversion to Islam will not be enough to exempt them from the land tax also demanded by the victors.

But let us come now to the central point of our remark, the two letters different from Gregory the Great about the Anglo-Saxon paganism: the letter sent to King Ethelbert and the letter sent to Abbot Mellitus.

The letter to King Ethelbert.

"To the most glorious lord, and his most excellent son, Ethelbert, king of the English, Bishop Gregory. Almighty God advances good men to the government of nations, that He may by their means bestow the gifts of His loving-kindness on those over whom they are placed. This we know to have come to pass in the English nation, over whom your Highness was placed, to the end, that by means of the blessings which are granted to you, heavenly benefits might also be conferred on your subjects. Therefore, my illustrious son, do you carefully guard the grace which you have received from the Divine goodness, and be eager to spread the Christian faith among the people under your rule; in all uprightness increase your zeal for their conversion; suppress the worship of idols; overthrow the structures of the temples; establish the manners of your subjects by much cleanness of life, exhorting, terrifying, winning, correcting, and showing forth an example of good works, that you may obtain your reward in Heaven from Him, Whose Name and the knowledge of Whom you have spread abroad upon earth. For He, Whose honor you seek and maintain among the nations, will also render your Majesty’s name more glorious even to posterity etc.etc….”.

The letter sent abbot Mellitus but also intended for Augustine of Canterbury.

“ We have been much concerned, since the departure of our people that are with you, because we have received no account of the success of your journey. Howbeit, when Almighty God has led, you to the most reverend Bishop Augustine, our brother, tell him what I have long been considering in my own mind concerning the matter of the English people; to wit, that the temples of the idols in that nation ought not to be destroyed; but let the idols that are in them be destroyed; let water be consecrated and sprinkled in the said temples, let altars be erected, and relics placed there. For if those temples are well built, it is requisite that they be converted from the worship of devils to the service of the true God; that the nation, seeing that their temples are not destroyed, may remove error from their hearts, and knowing and adoring the true god, may the more freely resort to the places to which they have been accustomed. And because they are used to slaughter many oxen in sacrifice to devils, some solemnity must be given them in exchange for this, as that on the day of the dedication, or the nativities of the holy martyrs, whose relics are there deposited, they should build themselves huts of the boughs of trees about those churches which have been turned to that use from being temples, and celebrate the solemnity with religious feasting, and no more offer animals to the Devil, but kill cattle and glorify God in their feast, and return thanks to the Giver of all things for their abundance; to the end that, whilst some outward gratifications are retained, they may the more easily consent to the inward joys. For there is no doubt that it is impossible to cut off every thing at once from their rude natures; because he who endeavours to ascend to the highest place rises by degrees or steps, and not by leaps. Thus the Lord made Himself known to the people of Israel in Egypt; and yet He allowed them the use, in His own worship, of the sacrifices which they were wont to offer to the

Devil, commanding them in His sacrifice to kill animals, to the end that, with changed hearts, they might lay aside one part of the sacrifice, whilst they retained another; and although the animals were the same as those which they were wont to offer, they should offer them to the true God, and not to idols; and thus they would no longer be the same sacrifices. This then, dearly beloved, it behoves you to communicate to our aforesaid brother, that he, being placed where he is at present, may consider how he is to order all things. God preserve you in safety, most beloved son. Given the 17th of June, in the nineteenth year of the reign of our most religious lord, Mauritius Tiberius Augustus, the eighteenth year after the consulship of our said lord, and the fourth indiction."

The success of Christianization, at least on the scale of a century, from Gregory to Bede, suggests that these guidelines have been applied. Among the possible sites of pagan temples that have become churches is the site of Yeavering, north of Northumberland, which was the subject of excavation in the 1950s.

The two letters thus seem to present contrary attitudes about the pagan temples. The situation advocated by the letter to Mellitus seems quite similar to the one mentioned above. The place of the pagan temple is to be converted into a church, but only the minimum is destroyed, the walls are to be reused.

This third situation is nevertheless more original than it seems. Gregory is aware of the links between worship and culture, between gods and festivals. It is not only the walls that he does not want to destroy but also the social tie, the forms of sociability. The fact of reusing the same building can of course indicate a change of sign of the sacredness, from the negative to the positive, like in the Martinian destruction. But the underlying force of paganism, certainly present, seems much less powerful for Gregory than for Martin. It is also, in a sense, a return to the first situation, a relative indifference or neutrality or secularism before the word is invented, facing paganism.

Editor's note. Various explanations have been put forward to explain the divergence of the contents between these two missives. Occam and his razor incite to choose as the best explanation the well-known Christian hypocrisy or its double personality (the god of love but also the avenger and warrior god of the old testament).

Whatever it be, the first Gregorian mission arrived in Kent in 597. Æthelberht allowed them to settle in his capital of Canterbury and to preach there, before converting himself to Christianity. The exact date of his baptism is unknown, but it probably took place in 597. The following year, Gregory wrote to the Patriarch of Alexandria to congratulate himself on the success of Augustine, who would have converted 10,000 pagans, but a so massive conversion (even if the figure can be exaggerated) could not have taken place without that of the king. Nevertheless, when Gregory wriyes to the patriarch Eulogius of Alexandria in June 598, he mentions the many conversions carried out by Augustine, but did not speak of the baptism of the king. This one occurred anyway before 601, probably in Canterbury.

Augustine established his see at Canterbury. It is not known exactly when or where he was sacred bishop. According to Bede, it was the archbishop of Arles who would have consecrated him after the conversion of Æthelberht. Yet the letters of Gregory gave him the title of bishop even before his arrival in England.

Quite quickly Augustine will send back one of the monks of the mission to Rome, charged with informing the pope of his first conversions and to ask him for advice on various points of doctrine and administration of the Church. Gregory sent new missionaries to England in 601. They brought with them sacred vases, relics, books and a pallium. A symbol of metropolitan authority, this pallium confers on Augustine the status of archbishop, directly linked to the Holy See. He is accompanied by a letter in which Gregory asks Augustine to ordain twelve suffragan bishops as soon as possible, and to send a bishop to York. The pope plans to divide the island between two metropolitan sees, one in York and the other in London, each having authority over twelve suffragan bishops. In agreement with Gregory's plans, Augustine should have transferred his seet from Canterbury to London, but this displacement never took place, presumably because the city does not belong to Æthelberht: it belongs to the kingdom of Essex , On which reigns his nephew Saebert. Augustine founded a bishopric in London in 604, and another in Rochester. He crowns their first holders, both arrived in England with the second wave of missionaries in 601: Mellitus in London and Just in Rochester.

On the death of Augustine, May 26, 604, the efforts of the Gregorian mission did not go beyond the borders of Kent. Nevertheless, his work marked the beginning of a more active Christianization of the British Isles, where the Irish and Welsh Christians had scarcely endeavored to convert the Saxon invaders. It is therefore he and his successors who will allow the definitive implantation of this religion in Great Britain.

ST AUGUSTINE OF CANTORBURY AND THE EVANGELIZATION OF THE WELSH CHRISTIANS.

Without having reached the level of Romanization of Gaul, England (that is, the part of Great Britain situated to the south of Hadrian’s wall, roughly Great Britain without Scotland ) was deeply and lastingly marked by the Roman occupation. Cities like London, York or Lincoln had market places, baths, theaters, like Nimes, Arles or Autun on the Continent. A network of roads covered the country; a complete hierarchy of civil servants carried the administration, and the army maintained order. We may speak therefore, without misuse of language, of a “Romano-British” civilization equivalent to the "Gallo-Roman" one of the south of the Channel.

The appearance of Christianity in Great Britain was a consequence of the Roman invasions and of their occupation of the country. Wherever the Roman Law prevailed, it is probable that there were Christians.

Therefore there was no massive upsurge of Christianity, but a progressive and gradual appearance which followed the ancient Roman ways; and which has not been regarded as a threat by the very knowing of the druidiaction (Druidecht) or the bards of the local tribes.

There were also territories subject to the Roman Law for some time in the south of Scotland . Between the Antonine wall and the Hadrian’s wall more in the south.

The Antonine wall is a wall that the emperor Antonius Pius made built around 140 by Quintus Lollius Urbicus between the Firth of Forth and the Clyde and which "doubled" to the north the fortification already built by his adoptive father Hadrian. It was overwhelmed by the Pictish (Scottish) invasions at the end of the second century. The Roman emperor Septimius Severus preferred to abandon the Antonine wall and strengthen that of Hadrian, the pressure of the people of the north of the island being too strong.

Christianity, therefore, also reached the garrisons of South Scotland, and especially the South of Galloway. It has undoubtedly spread in the valleys of the Dee and of the Don river from Roman camps like those of Normandykes, Raedykes, Kintore and Durno!

Tertullian, at the beginning of the third century (about 208?) speaks of Britannorum inaccessa Romanis loca, Christo vero subdita, British haunts inaccessible to the Romans, but subjugated to Christ.

As for Origen, about 240 (fourth homily on Ezekiel), he speaks of Christianity as a force capable of uniting the British (quando enim terra Britanniae ante adventum Christi in unius dei consensit religionem).

Given the predominantly rural nature of the country, Great Britain had undoubtedly none of the big bishoprics that can be found on the Continent, predominantly town-centered and expanding. The British bishops were therefore probably more "regional", although it seems that in Wales there were more similarities with the continental model (diocesan bishops with fixed sees).

The importance of this British Church can be deduced from the fact that its bishops were invited to participate in the great continental councils of the time: the bishops of York, London and Colchester at the Council of Arles in 314; including a bishop named Eborius (Yvor, Ifor), but there were also some at Nicaea in 325, at the Council of Rimini in 359; and by contrast in the fact that one of the big "heresies" of the time, Pelagianism, was born in Great Britain. Pelagianism testifies, indeed, indirectly it is true, to the profundity of the theological thought of this Church.

Pelagius or Morgan (360 - 418) was of course considered heretical by the Roman Church.

Little is known about the biography of Pelagius, but some of his writings or testimonies of the time give us indications. Pelagius was nicknamed Morgan, and therefore he was perhaps a British who had l Latinized his name in Pelagius, following the fashion prevailing at the time (for Augustine, it was a Brito, for Marius Mercator a Britannus).

He would have been from a tribe of what we now call Wales. As St. Jerome in his prologue to the Commentary of Jeremiah refers to him in a racist way as "pultibus Scottorum praegravatus" (filled with Scottish oat gruel: the famous porridge); this led some to suppose that he was a Scot, but in St. Jerome, Scotus is most often an insult like another.

He was a man of modest social background, but of a large culture. He had a companion also Scot (Scottish or Irish) called Celleagh, or Kelly, who also, to follow the fashion of the time, took a Latin name, Coelestius.

Morgan and Kelly, or as we shall call them henceforth, Pelagius and Coelestius, arrived at Rome before the year 400.

Although Pelagius gave his name to the heresy, he was not the most ardent propagandist of it. This role fell to his disciple Coelestius.

As we have seen, St-Jerome fought this first attempt at reformation, with energy, to say the least: he did not hesitate to resort to racist insults for that! He equated Pelagius to Pluto and Coelestius to his dog Cerberus, by speaking of them, for example, in these words: "The dog" is better than "the king."

After the departure of Jerome for the East, Pelagius undertook to preach to the Christian Roman aristocracy. He preaches a rule of life hard enough to make it "an elite". But for all that his message was not limited to aristocracy alone, this one was just better prepared to receive it. His ascetic life as a Servus Dei, as well as his teaching, became very popular.

In 410, after the fall and plunder of Rome, he left for Africa with his disciple Celestius and lands in Hippo to meet Augustine, but this one being absent, he met him finally in Carthage. He left in 411 for Jerusalem, Celestius remaining in Africa. The result is only justification, expulsion and condemnation. The date of his death is unknown, although it is generally situated around 420.

Here is the essence of his doctrine. There is no original sin. Adam was created mortal and subject to concupiscence. Baptism does not erase an original stain - which does not exist - but only the actual sins for those who committed some of them (we must not forget that at the beginning of Christianity baptism was reserved for adults). Baptism is only necessary to enter the community of the faithful, and Christ himself has endured the ordeal (for it is a ordeal, an initiation). As for grace, this word refers only to the natural goods given by God to man, particularly his freedom, to which are added the teachings brought to us by the revelation and the preaching of Jesus Christ.

This doctrine, which went very far, was taken up and developed by Celestius: "Sin is not born automatically with man. It is an act of his will to which his individual imperfection can lead, but it is not a necessary effect of the intrinsic imperfection of mankind. " Celestius did not want baptism for the children, lest the administration of this sacrament should give birth to this idea, so false and insulting for the Creator: "Man is wicked by nature even before he has committed any evil" ...

St Augustine of Hippo (354-430). Manichaean converted to Christianity, as we have already seen.

Cretin and Christian are two terms having the same etymology in French. In this field, St Augustine of Hippo was desolately both.

[Only a portion of men is predestined to eternal life, and the number of them is strictly fixed [as for the Jehovah's Witnesses if we understand well. Strange pettiness of God who, apparently, does not know the infinite. Editor's Note].

Saint Augustine of Hippo renounces to make predestination depend on the prescience or foresight by God of the merits of each one. Predestination is absolute and completely gratuitous; but in the strict sense it has as its object only the saved ... for the others, Augustine of Hippo admits, not that they are predestined to death, but that they are left, by a judgment of God, in the lump of perdition.

The refusal to admit the correctness of Pelagianism, at least partially (semi-pelagianism) , will complicate for centuries the reasoning (if we can say ) of Christian theology, and will make it a veritable puzzle (Jansenism and so on)

Three councils opposed Pelagianism: those of Carthage, 415 and 417, and that of Antioch in 424. The general Council of Ephesus, in 431, also condemned it, in spite of the corrections of Pelagius. Pelagianism survived until the sixth century. It was, therefore, chiefly opposed by St. Augustine, who, from 412, literally railed at his old friend, and who did all he could do so that Pelagius is excommunicated. In 419 the emperors Honorius and Theodosius solemnly condemned Pelagianism. Happily at the time, the stakes of Inquisition had not yet been invented.

The Pelagian doctrines were partly supported by John Cassian and Vincent of Lerins (semi Pelagianism). There was a slight disagreement between East and West on how to deal with this problem. Several Orthodox theologians will blame Augustine of Hipppo and on the contrary will support Cassian.

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The central axis of Pelagius' theology was the moral development of Man, as the ancient Druids apparently taught it. Pelagianism would therefore have been nothing but Druidism dressed in Christian fashion. It remains to be seen! Central idea of Pelagianism was that the free will of man is intact and that he is perfectly free to choose between good and evil. But our good doctor, all heir to the high knowers of the druidiaction (druidech) that he was, was mistaken. We now know (see the study of the dreams started by the true druids) that the human being is also determined by his unconscious and his instincts, because man is also an animal.

Pelagius, therefore, not only preserves, but accentuates the Druidic doctrine of the balance. God is only the cause and the end of man: in the meantime, the latter walks alone. Pelagianism is not Druidism, far from it. But we can only recognize a very clearly a Celtic tendency in this doctrine based on freedom. In rejecting the necessity of grace, Pelagius fought against the Latin superstition, restored the idea of human responsibility, and enhanced its dignity, that the first Fathers of the Church sought, on the contrary, to belittle, in the name of a very poorly understood evangelical humility.

In 429, Agricola, the son of a Pelagian bishop named Severianus, led the Breton churches after him. Bede adds that the other bishops were incapable of refuting the teachings of the Pelagians and that they had to be helped by continental bishops. Germanus of Auxerre and Lupus of Troyes, traveled to Great Britain to take part in a great debate against the Pelagians.

Official Christianity presents their mission as having been successful, but we can doubt it since St Germanus had to return a second time in 444, accompanied by a disciple of St. Lupus called Severus; still to fight Pelagianism in it.

Many of the later disputes of dogmatic Christianity emerged from this fault in Christian doctrine and were, in essence, only variants of Pelagianism.

LET US LEAVE OUT ST AUGUSTINE OF HIPPONE AND LET US COME NOW TO HIS WORTHY IMITATOR ST AUGUSTINE OF CANTERBURY.

The racial hatred ant the typically Roman hubris of St. Augustine of Canterbury therefore caused him the worst difficulties in this field ((The control of the Catholic apostolic and Roman Church over this church, especially in Wales).

Below is the text of Bede (this is the chapter 2 of book 2 of his ecclesiastical history of the English people) which proves it.

II. How Augustine admonished the bishops of the Britons on behalf of Catholic peace, and to that end worked a miracle in their presence; and of the vengeance that pursued them for their contempt.

“In the meantime, Augustine, with the help of King Ethelbert, drew together to a conference the bishops and doctors of the nearest province of the Britons, at a place which is to this day called, in the English language, Augustine's Ac, that is, Augustine's Oak, on the borders of the Hwiccas and West Saxons; and began by brotherly admonitions to persuade them to preserve peace with him, and undertake the common labor of preaching the Gospel to the heathen for the Lord's sake. For they did not keep Easter Sunday at the proper time, but from the fourteenth to the twentieth moon; which computation is contained in a cycle of eighty-four years. Besides, they did many other things which were opposed to the unity of the church. When, after a long disputation, they did not comply With the entreaties, exhortations, or rebukes of Augustine and his companions, but preferred their own traditions before all the Churches which are united in Christ throughout the world, the holy father, Augustine, put an end to this troublesome and tedious contention, saying " Let some sick man be brought, and let the faith and practice of him, by whose prayers he shall be healed, be looked upon as hallowed in God's sight and such as should be adopted by all."

His adversaries unwillingly consenting, a blind man of the English race was brought, who having been presented to the British bishops, found no benefit or healing from their ministry….

Immediately the blind man received sight, and Augustine was proclaimed by all to be a true herald of the light from Heaven.

The [Great] Britons then confessed that they perceived that it was the true way of righteousness

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which Augustine taught; but that they could not depart from their ancient customs without the consent and sanction of their people. They therefore desired that a second time a synod might be appointed, at which more of their number should be present.

This being decreed, there came, it is said, seven British bishops, and many men of great learning, particularly from their most celebrated monastery, which is called, in the English tongue, Bancornaburg [Bangor] , and over which the Abbot Dinoot [Dunod Fawr] is said to have presided at that time. They that were to go to the aforesaid council, be-took themselves first to a certain holy man, who was wont to lead the life of a hermit among them, to consult with him, whether they ought, at the preaching of Augustine, to forsake their traditions. He answered, "If he is a man of God, follow him."

"How shall we know that?"

"Do you contrive," said the anchorite, "that he first arrive with his company at the place where the synod is to be held; and if at your approach he rises tip to you, hear him submissively, being assured that he is the servant of Christ; but if he despises you, and does not rise up to you, whereas you are more in number, beware of him".

They did as he directed; but chance had it that as they approached, Augustine was sitting on a chair…..

He said to them, "Many things ye do which are contrary to our custom, or rather the custom of the universal Church, and yet, if you will comply with me in these three matters, to wit, to keep Easter at the due time; to fulfill the ministry of Baptism, by which we are born again to God, according to the custom of the holy Roman Apostolic Church; and to join with us in preaching the Word of God to the English nation, we will gladly suffer all the other things you do, though contrary to our customs." They answered that they would do none of those things, nor receive him as their archbishop; for they said among themselves, "if he would not rise up to us now, how much more will he despise us, as of no account, if we begin to be under his subjection?"

Then the man of God, would have threatened them, that if they would not accept peace with their brethren, they should have war from their enemies; and, if they would not preach the way of life to the English nation, they should suffer at their hands the vengeance of death. All which, through the dispensation of the Divine judgement, fell out exactly as he had predicted.

For afterwards the warlike king of the English, Ethelfrid, of whom we have spoken, having raised a mighty army, made a very great slaughter of that heretical nation, at the city of Legions, (Chester) which by the English is called Legacaestir, but by the British more rightly Car-legion [Caerleon]. Being about to give battle, he observed their priests, who were come together to offer up their prayers to God for the combatants, standing apart in a place of greater safety. He inquired who they were, and what they came together to do in that place. Most of them were of the monastery of Bangor, in which, it is said, there was so great a number of monks that the monastery being divided into seven sub-monasteries…….Many of these, having observed a fast of three days, had come together along with others to pray, having Brocmail for their protector….

King Ethelfrid being informed of the occasion of their coming, said; "If then they cry to their god against us, though they do not bear arms, yet they fight against us, because they assail us with their curses." He, therefore, commanded them to be attacked first, and then destroyed the rest of the impious army, not without great loss of his own forces. About twelve hundred of those that came to pray are said to have been killed, and only fifty to have escaped by flight. Brocmail, turning his back with his men, at the first approach of the enemy, and left those whom he ought to have defended exposed to the swords of the assailants. Thus was fulfilled the prophecy of the holy Bishop Augustine, though he himself had been long before taken up into the heavenly kingdom”.

Commentary by Peter DeLaCrau. We leave to the followers of the god of love (forever) the care of explaining the actions of each other (God, the divine providence, the poetic justice, St. Augustine of Canterbury, Welsh Christians, English pagans) Bede’s account being rather strange.

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THE SYNOD OF WHITBY AND THE END OF CELTIC CHRISTENDOMS (664)?

Technically speaking, the synod of Whitby was only a local synod, valid only for the kingdom of North-Humbria (North-East of Great Britain). At first it was only a North-Humbrian affair.

The English Reformation has made it the symbol of the triumph of the popery of the Church of Rome or of the Caesaropapism over the pure Christianity of the origins or who knows that and the decision of Oswiu was thus interpreted as the "subjugation" of the "British Church" to Rome. Until fairly recently, the Scottish Divinity Faculty course on Church History ran from the Acts of the Apostles to 664 before resuming in 1560 (cf. Patrick Wormald. The Times of Bede: Studies in Early English Christian Society and its Historian). Retrospectively, we see it is true that this synod had considerable long-term consequences.

HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL BACKGROUND: IONA LIGHT FROM THE NORTH.

Christianity in [Great] Britain at the end of the seventh century existed in two distinct forms supported by different liturgical traditions, known as the "Iona tradition” and the "Roman tradition". The practice "according to Iona" was that of the Irish monks from the abbey of Iona (a tradition belonging to "Celtic Christianity"), while the "Roman" tradition observed the customs of Rome. The two traditions coexisted in the kingdom of North-Humbria, and each had at one time received the approval of the royal house.

Edwin of Northumbria had converted to Christianity under the influence of the missionaries sent from Rome by Pope Gregory the Great and had thus established the Roman practice in his kingdom. But after his death in 633 and a brief period of political instability, Oswald of Northumbria acceded to the throne. He had followed the Christian practice of the monks of Iona during his stay there (in his youth), and had therefore helped missionaries from this island to evangelize the Northumbria, especially the famous bishop named Aidan.

The problem was that the traditions of Iona had not evolved since St Columba and the foundation of the monastery in this former sacred island of Druids in 563 a hundred years earlier while the rest of the western world including a part of Ireland, besides, had adopted a certain number of more "modern" uses from Rome, the most obvious being the computus of the Easter feast (lunar calendar or solar calendar) and the ecclesiastical tonsure.

The future archbishop of York, then a simple monk, Wilfrid, a protege of Queen Eanflaed, second wife of King Oswiu, a very devout Catholic, had returned from a pilgrimage of several years on the Continent (Lyons then Rome) also staunch

follower of the new methods of calculating the date of Easter. The son of Oswiu, Alhfrith, Prince of Deira, and friend of Wilfrid, also became an enthusiastic supporter of the Roman traditions of his mother-in-law Queen Eanflaed.

The disunity did not result in problems as long as the well-respected Aidan was alive. But after his death his successor Finan found himself challenged by a monk named Ronan, an Irishman who had been trained in Rome and who wished to see the Roman Easter established everywhere. Everything could have continued as before if the situations was not become suddenly critical in 660/1, when the son of King Oswiu, Prince Alhfrit, put his friend Wilfrid at the head of the monastery of Ripon in replacement of the Celtic abbot Eata. It seems that he then took the decision to subject the territory placed under his authority to the new uses from Rome, thus putting the former kingdom of Deira in an awkward situation with that of his father, Bernicia .In 661 also St. Finan of Lindisfarne was replaced by Colman, another Celtic monk from Iona. However the next Easter when the problem would arise, namely when the king would celebrate Easter while the Queen was still in Lent, was to be that of the year 665. Hence the problem!

Let us summarize the embroilment.

Christianity in [Great] Britain then lived two different forms of Christianity: Celtic Christianity in Wales and north of England as well as in Scotland, and Roman Christianity in the south and center of England, established by Augustine of Canterbury. Both were close, but with variations in certain visible rites. The main topics of discussion were the method of calculation of the date of Easter and the style

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of the tonsure of the monks. According to Henry Mayr-Harting (the coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England) the son of King Oswiu, prince of the vassal kingdom of Deira, was also politically interested in having his father's authority in Bernicia weakened and in having the abbot of Lindisfarne then in favor at the court of his father be replaced by another more aligned with him. But as often the affair broke out following a mundane couple problem between the king and the queen. Oswiu, who followed the Celtic practice - result from the ancient computus - celebrated Easter and interrupted his Lent, while the queen, according to the reformed practice from Rome, continued to fast.

Oswiu, now personally touched by these religious subtleties stemming from the mismatch of the solar and lunar calendars that threatened to destabilize his family and kingdom (the Northumbria being born from the Union of the kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira) decided to organize a meeting of the principal leaders of the Church in his country to resolve these issues once and for all. The place chosen to house this synod was the monastery of St. Hilda, a double monastery (men / women) led by an abbess of "Ionian" obedience and located in Streonshalh (now Whitby in north-east England ).

THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE SYNOD.

The synod took the form of a debate chaired by King Owiu himself, responsible for designating the winner of this "disputatio".

The meeting is attended by King Oswiu, his son Alhfrith, Queen Aenflaed his mother-in-law, Colman the Abbot of Lindisfarne (a great cultural and spiritual center in northeastern Great Britain founded in 635 by monks of Iona’s abbey justly) St. Chad and his brother Cedd, the Frankish Bishop Agilbert, Abbot of Ripon Wilfrid, and finally King Oswiu himself.

Supporters of the new Catholic and Roman tradition Alhfrith the son of the king, Queen Aenflaed second wife of the king, James the deacon, the Frankish Bishop Agilbert, bishop of Dorchester future bishop of Paris, and the abbot Wilfrid of Ripon who is skillfully used by him as interpreter for the English translation, the brother of St Chad, the bishop or abbot Cedd, serving as interpreter to both parties.

In principle supporter of the Ionan tradition, the Abbot of Lindisfarne Colman, St Chad, and his brother Cedd, as well as King Oswiu himself, who presides over the synod. Normally therefore logically the Celtic point of view should have prevailed because at the time everyone found it normal that a king decides the religion of his subjects by early application of the principle cujus regio ejus religio. But there you have t, in politics everything is possible! The argument of the primacy of Peter, based on a single passage of the Gospels, probably added: “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven etc. Etc”. (Matthew 16: 18-19) will play a decisive role in the king's mind.

No one at the time questioning the authenticity of this passage of the Gospel , Colman might well have referred to the Council of Nicaea, the discussion was definitely over in the mind of King Oswiu. Since St Peter was evidently an authority superior to St Columba of Iona, it was better for the salvation of the souls of his subjects and for the salvation of his own soul to him not displease him and follow Rome for what is the calculation of the date of Easter.

It is true that Colman had trapped himself by referring to St Colomba of Iona and St John and that Bishop Agilbert had cleverly chosen the racist St Wilfrid as his spokesman. The thing may seem incredible, but Bede himself says it plainly.

"About this time there arose a great and recurrent controversy on the observance of Easter, those trained in Kent and Gaul maintaining that the Scottish [Irish] observance was contrary to that of the universal Church.... King Oswy opened by observing that all who served the One God should observe one rule of life, and since they all hoped for one kingdom in heaven, they should not differ in celebrating the aforementioned sacraments of heaven. The synod now had the heavy task of determining which was the truest of the two tradition, and this should be loyally accepted by all.

Both sides presented their argument.....

The only people who are stupid enough to disagree with the whole world are these Scots and their obstinate adherents the Picts and [Great] British, who inhabit only a portion of these two islands in the remote ocean.... But you and your colleagues are most certainly guilty of mortal sin if you reject the decrees of the Apostolic See and the universal Church which are confirmed by these Letters. For although your Fathers were holy men, do you imagine that they, a few men in a corner of a remote island, are to be preferred before the universal Church of Christ throughout the world?"

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After asking whether Peter truly had been given the keys of heaven, King Oswy made his decision. " Peter is guardian of the gates of heaven, and I shall not contradict him. I shall obey his commands in everything to the best of my knowledge and ability; otherwise, when I come to the gates of heaven, he who holds the keys may not be willing to open them." (Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People).

Editorial Note. The life of Saint Wilfrid of York written a few years after his death by Stephen of Ripon gives us the complementary information needed to understand the proceedings of this dramatic confrontation (Latin disputatio) Bede being not always very clear on the subject.

THE POINTS BROACHED BY THE COUNCIL.

The various reports we have (the ecclesiastical history of Bede, the life of St. Wilfrid ...) focused on the calculation of the date of Easter.

n the beginning of the 7th century (around 602?) St Columba of Bobbio had already been condemned by a synod of French clerics for following his homeland's Easter calculations. (The French followed yet a third computus, devised by Victorius of Aquitaine.) The appeals to Pope Gregory I of this Columba had gone unanswered and he had been compelled to remove himself from the bishops' jurisdiction. Both the Victorian and the Dionysian calculations were more exact than the native calendar, and a synod in southern Ireland had already approved one of the new systems in the 630s. But some

Welsh and French both resisted the change for another century.

There were, however, other points of disagreement.

-The tonsure. Perhaps of druidic origin or peculiar to certain warriors. In any case different from that practiced in Rome.

In a more profound way the conflict can also be explained by the fundamental differences between Roman Christianity and that practiced in Great Britain on issues such as the hierarchical organization of churches, asceticism, and evangelization.

THE IMMEDIATE CONSEQUENCES.

The Church of Northumbria admits the primacy of the Universal Church, Abbess Hilda rallies behind the Roman fashion, Wilfrid takes the head of the Church in Northumbria and will be canonized.York replaces Lindisfarne as the seat or center of the Christian authorities in the north of the island. The irreducible Colman refuses to yield to the directives of the synod. He left Lindisfarne with his Gaelic monks and some thirty English monks with the relics of St Aidan, the founder of the abbey, and withdraws to the other side of Scotland, to the north-west of Ireland, more precisely in the island of Inishboffin, where he founds a new monastery (Sinn Fein).

To replace the departing ecclesiastics, Oswiu chose mostly monks who were from the parts of Ireland that kept the Roman Easter. Oswiu then appointed Eata, one of Aidan's English disciples' as abbot of Lindisfarne and Tuda, another Irishman of the Celtic tradition but compliant with Roman ways, as bishop.

MORAL OF THE STORY.

The elimination of a group of foreigners specialized in certain activities, whether religious or commercial, is one of the great classics of history. Edward I, at the end of the thirteenth century, will forbid England to the Jews, the English in the eighteenth century will deport the French from Acadia, after conquering it, Idi Amin will expel Indians from Uganda. By chasing them under some pretext, the beneficiaries of these expulsions think of taking their places and grabbing their profits. These deplorable processes have been repeated many times in the history of mankind.

Christian historians tell us that the stake of the synod of Whitby in 664 was the date of Easter. It was rather the future of the Irish in the Church of Northumbria. The Synod decided to get rid of them and to allocate their places to the members of the Northumbrian clergy whom the Irish had trained.

This expulsion from the Irish clergy has never aroused much remorse in Northumbria. On the contrary, it made it possible to Wilfrid to become famous and influential. In 705, after two long exiles ordered by the kings, Wilfrid continued to enjoy an unparalleled reputation and had many loyal disciples among the clergy and the Northumbrian monks.

Ecclesiastical History regrets that the Irish Aidan and his disciples observed the date of Easter in their own way rather than in that of Rome: Bede is as Catholic as Wilfrid as for the Paschal computus.

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However, the synod of Whitby, as Bede recounts, seems to be a tragedy rather than a triumph of truth, and Bede notes the arrival of the plague in England immediately afterwards, whereas the chronology did not impose the sequence of these two events. If Bede's feelings towards the Irish are still discussed today, it is probably because he accepted their expulsion while praising them. His portrait of Aidan is totally positive and Bede praises many other Irishmen. The high point of book five is reached when the great Irish monastery of Iona rallies to the Roman paschal computus. Bede could not question Roman ecclesiastical rules, but he devoted many of his finest pages to Irish missionaries in Northumbria.

The total unification and the integration into the Roman Catholic Church under the authority of the Pope was nevertheless completed only at the councils of Hertford (673) and Hatfield (680), under the diplomatic leadership of Theodore of Tarsus, Greek monk of the Orthodox Church, consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury by Pope Vitalian, arrived in England in 669.

LONGER-TERM CONSEQUENCES.

The Council of Whitby is a milestone in the history of the Church in Great Britain, but also in the Church in general.

The Roman practices were therefore adopted by the Northumbrians. The consequence in the medium term was, of course, an unprecedented expansion of Christianity of Roman obedience in Great Britain and therefore in the world, and the growing isolation of the Celtic churches.

According to the book (1864) of William Reeves on the subject, there existed in York, till the dissolution of monasteries, a hospital called St. Leonard's, the cartulary of which, a beautifully written volume, engrossed in the reign of Henry V., passed into the Cotton. From this book Dugdale has printed, in his Monasticon, an abstract, which furnishes us with the following particulars.

When King Athelstan was on his march against the Scotch, in 936, he halted at York, and there besought of the ministers of St. Peter's church, who were then called Colidei, to offer up their prayers on behalf of himself and his expedition, promising them that, if he returned victorious, he would confer suitable honor upon the church and its ministers. Accordingly, after a successful campaign, he revisited this church, and publicly returned thanks for the favor which heaven had vouchsafed to him. And observing in the same church men of holy life and honest conversation, then styled Colidei, who maintained a number of poor people, and withal had but little whereon to live, he granted to them, and their successors forever, for the better enabling them to support the poor who resorted thither, to exercise hospitality, and perform other works of piety, twenty-four sheaves of corn from every plow land in the diocese of York, a donation which continued to be enjoyed until a late period, under the name of “Petercorn.” The record goes on to state that these Colidei continued to receive fresh accessions to their endowments, and especially from Thomas, whom William the Conqueror advanced to the see of York in 1069. This prelate rebuilt the cathedral church, and augmented the revenues of its clerics. The Colidei soon after erected or founded in the same city, on a site which had belonged to the crown, a hospital or halting place for the poor who flocked thither ; to which were transferred the endowments which the said Colidei or clerics had hitherto received. William Rufus removed the hospital to another part of the city; and King Stephen, when further augmenting its resources, changed its name from St. Peter's to St. Leonard's hospital. It contained a master or warden, and 13 brethren, 4 secular priests, 8 sisters, 30 choristers, 2 schoolmasters, 206 beadsmen, and 6 servitors.

It would appear that these Colidei were the officiating clergy of the cathedral church of St. Peter's at York in 936, and that they discharged the double function of divine service and eleemosynary entertainment; thus combining the two leading characteristics of the old conventual system, which was common to the Irish and Benedictine rules. But when things assumed a new complexion, and a Norman archbishop was appointed, and the foundation of a new cathedral laid, and a more magnificent scale established for the celebration of divine worship in this metropolitan church, the Colidei, or old order of officiating clergy, were superseded ; and while they were excluded from their cathedral employment, they received an extension of their eleemosynary resources, and, in order to mark their severalty, they were removed to another quarter of the city, whither they took their endowments with them, and thus continued through several centuries, under an altered economy and title, till all memory of their origin had perished, save what was recorded in the preamble of their charter book.

The existence of the name Colidei at York in the beginning of the tenth century indicates some surviving traces of the Celtic school of ecclesiastical discipline. For the name is undoubtedly technical,

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and a form of Céli-dé suited to the ears of a people who were ignorant of Gaelic, but were familiar with Latin; and as the etymology of Colideus was in such harmony with the profession of the Céli-dé, the adaptation which the ear suggested was sanctioned by an apparent fitness. When this transformation of the name took place, it is hard to say; but the memoranda from which the charter book derived its earliest entry seem to indicate that before the year 936 the term had undergone the change.

Other trace of the presence of Culdees more in south. In the Cotton collection is preserved a Privilege which king Ethelred is alleged, to have granted to the church of Canterbury. It is written in Saxon, with a counterpart in Latin. In the former there is a passage to this effect: "I observe and clearly perceive this discipline far and wide corrupted through the laxity and negligence of the priests," which the Latin counterpart represents in these words: " Dei servitium passim nostra in gente a cultoribus clericis defleo extinctum et tepefactum." In the charters the prebendaries are termed cultores clerici, a singular expression, which seems to intimate that the collegiate clergy were even then styled Culdees, cultores Dei, in the south as well as the north of England.

WALES. Bardsey.

In a record of Carnarvon of 1252, the ecclesiastics of the place are styled Canonici, most probably regular ; for, as contrasted with them, the occupants of the neighboring house of Aberdaron were styled Canonici Seculares. The latter was subject to Bardsey, which probably adopted about this period the regular discipline called after St. Augustine [of Canterbury].

Here then, in the only Welsh institution where the existence of Colidei is recorded, we find regular canons as the representatives of the ancient order. Now, as the order of canons represented a class of ecclesiastics who occupied an intermediate place between the monks and secular clergy, so we may regard these Colidei, out of whom the British canons grew, to have been of a somewhat similar nature—at first all secular, that is, net bound by vows, and differing only from secular clergy in that they lived aggregately, having a common house, table, and oratory. But when, in the middle of the eleventh century, a separation took place between those who adopted the stricter observance introduced by Ivo of Chartres, and those who adhered to the old system, then the distinctive terms of regular and secular were introduced ; and the same variety which existed in practice between these two sections seems to have prevailed among the Keledei or Colidei, until the stricter portion abandoned the name for that of regular canons of St. Augustine [of Canterbury] ; and the laxer portion, which retained it longer, held on till they were either summarily extinguished by suppression, or gradually merged in the absorbing mass of the better organized and more effective system.

HYPOTHESIS.

What is certain is that the Culdees are not the direct descendants of ancient druids.

They are

-.Either some direct descendants of the lower druids of the type bard, gutuater, velede or vate and so on, converted by St. Patrick.

-or some descendants of the early ascetics of Celtic Christianity but with a discipline that would have been relaxed.

We leave to Christian scholars like William Reeves the care to decide.

-There is, of course, a third hypothesis, that there were always at the same time ascetics and simple artists or intellectuals gravitating around, coexisting in the same community.

Their Third Order, true synthesis between the Catholic unmarried monks living withdrawn from the world, and the priests engaged in the life of the society; matched well to the spirit of druidism (no obligation of celibacy, and action in the world, including while taking part in battles**). And they preserved (not much more than Celtic Christendom nevertheless, since they were members of them) many detail characteristics of druidism.

Skill as regards music, song, eloquence, frame, community life, but without obligatory celibacy and so on.

Hence their success in Ireland and Scotland, and the fact that the Roman Catholic church did everything in its power to replace them.

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In Ireland, in the island of Devenish, Culdees held out until the Reformation, jointly with canons of Roman obedience; and in the diocese of Armagh, they fulfilled a purpose which, with their name, even survived the Reformation; but in Scotland, where the Celtic use, when it competed with Saxon institutions, let them have precedence, and on a date much older, the name and the office of Keledei disappear from the History since 1332. The only vestige which survived to them some time was the direction of Kirkheugh at St-Andrews; while in York, it was reserved for the Norman policy to retrogress Colidei in subordinate rank and to move away them from this ancient church. On the ruins of which a splendid cathedral was built, with such sumptuous resources that the traditional poverty or original simplicity of Athelstan Colidei would have some difficulty to maintain it.

* In the original Greek text, the declaration of Jesus is in fact, based on a play on words which is no longer perceptible now except in French. The Greek word for the apostle "Peter" is petros (meaning stone, allusion to his baldness), and the Greek word for “rock” is petra (a boulder or a mountain).

** Defensive wars, or to help theirs in dying well (the vates).

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REVISIONISM STILL : AS IT HAPPENS IRELAND’S CHRISTIANIZATION NOW.

It is necessary here to remember the fact that there were Christians in Ireland before the arrival of St. Patrick in the country, and that he was perhaps only a missionary acting in a part of the island. Christianity gradually infiltrated Ireland, no doubt, in the fourth and fifth centuries, at the chance of circumstances; from Great Britain, or directly from the Continent.

British slaves captured by Irish pirates.

Irish settled in Great Britain.

Trade relations with Great Britain, the Continent even Spain.

Literary scholars or intellectuals could also to seek refuge in this island during what is still admitted to call the Barbarian invasions (beware of racism!) taking with them their design of Christianity at the beginning of the fifth century.

This is at least the hypothesis expressed by Kuno Meyer at the conference which took place on September 18, 1912, at the School of Irish Learning in Dublin.

Kuno Meyer indeed questioned himself about the reasons for the take-off of Ireland as a new home of classical culture in 7th century Europe.

“The part played by Ireland in the transmission of classical letters during the seventh and following centuries is known to all. But neither the way in which letters first reached this country, nor the causes which led to that remarkable outburst at the end of the sixth century have as yet been definitely established.

Those who have read Zimmer’s works on the Celtic Church will remember that one of his contentions, on which he dwelt more than once, is that the learning for which Ireland was celebrated during the sixth and following centuries could not have been the result of the labors of St. Patrick. Most people familiar with the personality of the saint as revealed in his own writings will admit this….

Most writers either express themselves in a vague way or assume that various influences emanating both from Britain and the Continent had somehow reached Ireland, but at what time and by what channels precisely, they have not been able to establish.

It is to Zimmer again that we owe the solution of this problem. With his wonted sagacity Zimmer first made use of a document, the importance of which for the history of Ireland it is impossible to overrate. It is only one simple sentence, but packed with information. Though published so long ago as 1866, this document has escaped the attention of most Irish historians. The reason is probably that it was buried in a German periodical with a title (" Sammelsurien ") which does not sound promising. Under that heading the late well-known German Latinist Lucian Miller, then professor at Leen, drew attention to a number of late Latin texts, among others " quaedam excerpta utilium verborum" from a Leyden MS. of the 12th century. This is a glossary of Latin words in the midst of which the scribe abruptly introduces a note on the barbarian invasions, as follows : “The Huns, who were infamously begotten, i.e., by demons, after they had found their way by the guidance of a hind through the Maeotic marshes, invaded the Goths, whom they terrified exceedingly by their unexpectedly awful appearance. And thanks to them, the depopulation of the entire Empire commenced, which was completed by the Huns and Vandals and Goths and Alans, owing to whose devastation all the learned men on this side of the sea fled away, and in transmarine parts, i.e., in Hiberia and wherever they betook themselves, brought about a very great advance of learning to the inhabitants of those regions.”

The form Hiberia for the usual Hibernia is undoubtedly a mere confusion by the late scribe of the usual name for Spain with that of Ireland, so that we should correct it to Hibernia.

The concluding part of the sentence on the great advance in learning maximus profectus sapientiae) accruing to the Irish from the settlement of the professors among them must have been written at a time when the fame of Ireland as a home and center of classical studies was already well established.

This passage makes clear what was before obscure and vague. A flood of light is thrown upon one of the darkest yet most important periods in Irish history, and a new starting point for investigation is provided. We have at last firm ground under our

feet, and can proceed with greater assurance. Here the first question to answer is, why it was in Ireland rather than any other country that these fugitives sought an asylum. It is true that Ireland was

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not likely to be exposed to such invasions as those from which they were fleeing but there must have been other reasons which directed the steps of the emigrants in the first instance to this distant island.

Ireland was not a terra incognita. As the researches of Mr. George Coffey, Zimmer and Mrs. A. S. Green have shown, intercourse and commerce between Gaul and Ireland had been constant and regular before the fifth century. The Irish were not outside that great unity of the Celtic world, which is one of the most remarkable facts in ancient history, so well illustrated — to mention a striking instance — by the Greek coins given by Alexander in the East to Celtic ambassadors, finding their way to Great Britain and becoming the model of its earliest coinage.

It was a Celtic country to which these fugitives came, inhabited by a kindred people of similar temper and character, speaking a closely related language. Nor were these men the first of their nation to come to Ireland. Apart from the traders, there were mercenaries in the service of Irish kings during the early centuries of our era. Again, Irishmen were even at that time familiar figures on the Continent.

Zimmer contended that Pelagius was an Irishman. Whether this was so or not, his faithful henchman, Caelestius, he of the same tongue, certainly was. And there were others. The grammarian Virgilius was to a certain extent acquainted with Irish speech. In his chapter de nomine, where he treats of the order of words in the Latin sentence, he remarks that, while the Irish put the verb first in the sentence, both in the spoken language and in composition, in Latin, on the other hand, the noun comes first…….If Ireland had been the barbarous country which so many historians assume it to have been at this and later times, these scholars fleeing from the inroads of barbarians would hardly have selected it for a place of refuge.

Our scholars must have been assured of a friendly and hospitable reception, of obtaining in their new home the

necessities and some at least of the decencies and comforts of the life to which they had been accustomed, and of being enabled to carry on their studies and to exercise their profession. They were the first of a long line of fugitives who, no matter what their nationality or creed may have been, were hospitably received by the Irish people : Britons fleeing from the Saxon invasion ; Angles …

Again, if Ireland had been wholly pagan it would hardly have been chosen by Christian men as a safe asylum. There were

no doubt, as we shall see later on, pagans among these scholars ; but by the beginning of the fifth century paganism was rapidly disappearing in their country, where about 450 all positions of trust or honor were in the hand of Christians. The South of Ireland, then, cannot have been a country in which a Christian would be received with hostility or subjected to persecution. The Christians among the fugitives must have known that they could there follow undisturbed the practice of their religion and would find Christian communities and places of worship.

The successive bands of these emigrant scholars would naturally cross to Ireland in the trading vessels plying between the mouths of the Loire and Garonne and the south and east coast of Ireland. They would be landed in one of those harbors of which Tacitus tells us that they were better known to commerce than those of Britain, and some of which besides Ptolemy enumerates.

Now skeptics might ask if this influx of foreign scholars was on such a large scale and had such an influence upon Ireland, how comes it that we have no reference to it in early Irish records. Answer: We have practically no records going back to such early times. The Annals, of local origin and rarely referring in their oldest portions to national events, are very meager in their information about the fifth century. If we had Lives of the early saints and founders of the oldest monasteries, written soon after their deaths, we might reasonably expect to hear something about the training they had received. For men like Finnian, Buite, Kevin and many others, who early in the sixth century founded schools which turned out in the course of that century such accomplished scholars as Columbanus, must themselves have received their training well within the previous century. Unfortunately, the lives of the early saints are mostly compositions of a much later age, and contain very little exact or trustworthy information on actual, events, and circumstances. …

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There is, however, one reference to these scholars in Ireland in an early document of undoubted authenticity, it is the passage in the " Confession " of Patrick, where the saint cries out against certain pagan " rhetorici " hostile to him : " You rhetoricians who do not know the Lord, hear and search who it was that called me up, fool though I be, from the midst of those who think themselves wise, and skilled in the law, and mighty orators, and powerful in everything."

This passage has always hitherto been a difficulty to commentators, who have put the most diverse constructions upon it. It is clear now, I think, that Patrick here refers to pagan rhetors become resident in Ireland, whose arrogant presumption, founded upon their superior learning, looked with disdain and derision upon the unlettered saint. These few brief but forcible epithets well describe a type of rhetorician common in Gaul.

Having now planted our Continental professors safely on Irish soil, we are unfortunately left almost wholly to surmises as to their subsequent career and fate amidst their new surroundings. We may assume that they settled mainly in the south and east — i.e., in Munster and Leinster, the two provinces which by their position facing the Continent and Great Britain, were undoubtedly always the centers of civilization in Ireland. Perhaps a closer study of ancient Irish place names will teach us something as to the districts where they chiefly settled.

"Bordgal" is a place name in the counties of Westmeath or Kilkenny, even a word designating a meeting place. Now this is the Irish form of the name of the chief university of, Burdigala, now Bordeaux, where perhaps some of these exiles had taught as professors until driven out by the

Visigoths. The Irish small " Bordeaux " in West Meath may have been one of their settlements, the seat of a school named after their lost parent company.

For this much is certain, these men taught, and found in Ireland willing and eager pupils. Whatever they may have left behind in their flight, one thing they would be sure to have taken with them — their books.

The Irish became therefore thus familiar with the arts of writing and reading books, which they soon applied to their own language. Palaeographers would have to investigate the origin, and early history of Irish writing in this new light. In the library of St. Gall, a monastery founded in 610 by the Irishman Gallus, there is a fragment of Virgil dating from the 4th or 5th century. It is not written in Irish script, but in a Continental hand. Brought there by Irish missionaries, may it not have been one of the books carried originally into Ireland by one of the intellectuals in question ?

These settlements of continental intellectuals who had taken refuge in Ireland probably survived for a long time in a milieu that was still pagan and the allusion of Saint Patrick (Confessio 13) to the rhetoricians or professors of rhetoric, above mentioned, is proof of this. Such is perhaps also the intellectual milieu (the descendants of these immigrants) who saw the birth of the Hisperica Famina after James F. Kenney.

The Hisperica Famina derive from a learned monastic milieu and mention God, prayer and a chapel. They are not religious writings, however, but are rather secular in tone and topics .They are seventh-century texts written in an obscure and artificial Latin. Much of the vocabulary has been derived from Greek, Semitic, or Celtic language sources and provided with Latin endings. Critics are not fully agreed on their purpose, but they would appear to be advanced school exercises in which the rhetorician describes a scene or phenomenon by deliberately using the most abstruse vocabulary possible. Many of these descriptions end in phrases which suggest that they are competing among themselves and composing under an imposed time limit.

The most interesting section of the A-text is called the Lex Diei, “The Rule of the Day.” Its opening describes the birds at sunrise in their search for food and proceeds with a true pastoral scene including cattle, sheep, swine, horses and even dolphins. The humans described are the peasants

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who undertake to herd and to labor field. The students we first encounter there are housed in large halls or dormitories among the peasants and not, apparently, in a monastery.

Like students everywhere, they claim to have been “burning the midnight oil” and complain of being awakened. They ask rhetorically, “Why do you oppress us with a thunderous crash of words …we have devoted an entire measure of moonlight to studious wakefulness.”

The students nevertheless rise, wipe their eyes, and begin study of their vellum books.

That they were foreigners and not Irish seems borne out by the following lines which precede their begging for food: “Who will ask these possessors to grant us a little bit of their sweet abundance? For an Ausonian chain (sic) binds me; hence I do not utter good Irish speech….”

Bede’s claim that the Irish provided foreign students with their daily food without asking for payment is supported by statements in the Lex Diei. “I have penetrated the remote farms of this country , and I seek out the charming inhabitants who feed the choirs of wandering students.”

The hospitality of the locals is stressed. Later in the text indeed, a bombastic rhetorician expresses his appreciation in this field by saying: “I hope from the deepest recess of my heart that the inhabitants may enjoy a prolonged and worthy life who have bestowed on us their honeyed abundance and have given us mounds of delicious food.”

The school’s articles, like book satchels and wax writing tablets, are also noted in the text. For example, the students at one point are exhorted to “Hang on the wall your lovely satchels in a straight line, so that they will be deemed a grand sight by the peasants…” A section entitled De Taberna describes a book satchel, how it is made of sheepskin, and how a craftsman stretches the hide….

Another section, entitled De Tabula describes a waxen writing tablet which has carved and painted designs along its borders. Such seventh-century wax tablets have been recovered from a bog in Co. Antrim.”

The most important thing with regard to the new learning brought to Ireland is therefore to remember that it was still to the full extent the best tradition of scholarship in Latin grammar, oratory and poetry, together with a certain knowledge of Greek, in fact, the full classical lore of the 4th century. For our exiled must all of them have received their training well within that century. And they came just at the right time. For the decay of learning the classical letters on the continent set in almost immediately after their departure. Indeed we wonder whether their flight and disappearance may not have had something to do with this general decay of learning on the Continent may not have hastened it. In 470 Sidonius Apollinaris laments that owing to the terrible devastation of the barbarians he could only call to mind one person at Treves — Arvogastis was his name — able to speak and write Latin in its purity, and the same state of things no doubt prevailed in many districts of Gaul.

Irish scholars having thus received classical learning at a time when it was still the natural study of every educated person were not like their Continental brethren troubled by any scruples as to the unfitness of that literature for the Christian, by that " lurking uneasiness of conscience which haunted the Continental monk who loved his Virgil.” While John Cassian cursed and bemoaned himself that the devilish witchery of Virgil's lines interfered with his pious meditations ; while the Council of Carthage (436) decreed that no bishop should read the books of the Gentiles (ut episcopus gentilium libros non legat) ; while Augustine and Ennodius laid it down that the liberal arts were but the handmaids of theology, the Irish continued to study and love the classics for their own sake. They were monks and priests by profession, but in reality, scholars and humanists : Doctos grammaticos presbiterosque pios Sedulius Scottus designates himself and his fellow countrymen at Liege. And when, late in the sixth century, they carried back this learning to the Continent, they found to their astonishment that they and their pupils were almost its last representatives.

"Thanks to them Europe was never again plunged into intellectual darkness quite as profound as that of the Merovingian period." The schools and libraries of St. Gall and Bobbio, that home of classical letters, the very mention of which, says Norden, makes the heart of the classical scholar throb ; Peronne, Corbie, St. Riquier, and scores of other centers, founded and conducted for a long time by Irishmen ; the foundations of -their pupils, Angles, Saxons and Franks ; the palace school of

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Charlemagne of Aix-la-Chapelle under Alcuin, the pupil of Colgu of Clonmacnois ; that of his own pupil, Hrabanus Maurus at Fulda ; the school of Charles the Bald under John Scottus Eriugena — these are some of the stages by which the torch of learning was handed on from one generation to another.

Let me now turn to another aspect of my subject, which will be of even greater interest to the students of this school, the question, namely, whether we can trace any influence of the art of the rhetor in the oldest vernacular literature of Ireland. It was not book-Latin, to use Bede's expression, but a living speech and literature in the making that was now heard in many parts of Ireland, oratory practiced by these rhetors, poets and professors in recitations, declamations and debates. Now we must remember that the Irish too had their native schools of oratory and poetry, in which their brehons and filid were trained.

And as we see that in the seventh century the Irish bards came gradually to adopt the metrical system of the Latin hymns which they heard sung at church, and introduced rhyme and a regularly recurring number of syllables into their native poetry, so we may well imagine that at this earlier period the technique of the rhetorical style exerted some influence upon the art of the fili…. And when we now find that the technical name for this kind of composition in the Irish language has at all times been rhetoric, can there remain any doubt that it owes its origin to the familiarity of the Irish filid with the art of the rhetor “?

Kuno Meyer will finish his lecture by quoting the very beautiful and very moving poem entitled in Gaelic language cétnad n-aise (a song for a long life), and some others, as remarkable, but not having much to do with Christianity. For example, the prophecy of the druid Cathbad about Deirdre.

Bede and Aldhelm confirm to us that Irish monastic schools also produced secular learning despite their priorities of promoting religious study and ecclesiastical education. For example, Bede related to us an anecdote, attributed to the Englishman Willibrord, and speaking of “a scholar of Irish race who was well read in literature but not concerned with the salvation of his soul” (H.E. III 13).

We have no clear evidence of what secular topics were actively taught at Irish monastic schools. We do, however, have texts which suggest the secular topics that intrigued seventh-century monastic students.

The Hisperica Famina was probably produced at the monastic school in Bangor but other texts which may also have originated in Bangor: “The Voyage of Bran,” the stories about Mongán and “The Cattle Raid of Fróech,”…

Bede (writing c. 731) stated that during the decades of the 650s and 660s, Englishmen of all social classes, “both nobles and commons,” left England in order to study in Ireland (HE iii 27) and that some of these Englishmen preferred to travel, studying under various teachers rather than submitting to a strict monastic regime. The “Irish welcomed them all gladly, gave them their daily food, and also provided them with books to read, without asking for any payment” (HE III 27). In short an easy access to higher education in a foreign country without financial strain for the student, regardless of social class. Many lines in the Hisperica Famina support Bede’s statements and explain how foreign students or professors were to be found among the Irish population.

But the principal Christian influence initially developed in the country is perhaps that which can be attributed to the Christian slaves captured on the coasts of Great Britain, for a very simple reason: they were more numerous than elsewhere in the entourage of great lords, the very example of Niall Noígiallach is there to prove it. He was the son of a local kinglet and of a Christian slave from Great Britain.

Let us not forget that at the time, many of the conquering colonies of Ireland flourished on the north-western and south-western coasts of Great Britain. Hence possible conversions with consequences on the south-east of the island (the Irish coasts facing Wales and Cornwall).

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Moreover it seems well that wine, oil, and even wheat perhaps, were at that time imported in large quantities from the Continent. Archaeologists have found traces of it in southern Ireland. The Corcu Laegde tribe (west of present-day Cork), which for a long time claimed the title of "first Christian people of Ireland," imported a great deal of wine from the Continent, and it is interesting to note in this respect that the Irish word "Bordgal," is in fact only an adaptation of the name Burdigala, today Bordeaux. The merchants of Bordeaux should doubtless have been more preoccupied with filling the stomachs of the Irish with wine than with deluging them with Christian faith, but they must nevertheless have played a part in this transmission of Christianity to Ireland.

In any case, the testimony of Tacitus shows us that the Breton or Continental merchants were quite ignorant of the inland of the country, but, on the other hand, had a fairly good knowledge of the Irish coasts and even of certain sectors of the inland along the Nore and Barrow rivers.

The Irish imported pottery, metal objects and a true jumble from the Roman Empire. In exchange, they exported copper, gold, slaves, skins, cattle and hunting dogs.

The cult of St. Martin of Tours (see the place name Kilmartin in County Dublin, the parish of Desertmartin in Kerry, Templemartin in Co Cork), as well as that of St. Ninian; testify to the slow and gradual infiltration of Christianity in the decade previous the preaching of Saint Patrick.

The study of religious vocabulary in archaic Irish shows that a certain number of terms come from Latin, via Briton language, and not directly, as it would have been the case if it was Saint Patrick who had introduced them. For example, Cáisc (Easter) and cruimther (priest). On the other hand, there is no ancient Irish word for "bishop."

Some Irish saints are considered as having practiced their activity even before Patrick. They are Ciaran of Saigir, Declan of Ardmore, Ibar of Beccére, Ailbe of Emly, Mochanoc and Mochatoc.

St Ibar (Iberius or Ivor). Patron of Bergerin. Worked mainly in what is now the county of Wexford.

St Ailbe or Elvis. Founder of the monastery and diocese of Emly in Munster. Would have baptized Saint David in Wales. A Rule of the IX is attributed to him.

Saint Ciarán of Saighir, founder of Seir-Kieran, in the County Offaly, first bishop of Ossory.

Saint Declan mac Eircc, Latin Declanus; Saint looking like having converted the Déisi Muman and having founded the monastery of Ardmore in the present Co Waterford.

The mission of Palladius in Ireland, in any case, is attested (see the three oldest churches in Co Wicklow). His work in Leinster was pursued by men like Sechnall or Secundinus, Auxilius and Iserninus. Auxilius and Iserninus were the authors of the document written in Latin, known as the "first synod of St. Patrick," the name of Patrick having been added afterwards.

And besides, the very escape of St. Patrick implies the existence of a whole network, whose mission was to make the fugitive Christian slaves pass out of Ireland.

Paragraph 51 of Patrick's confession also implies that there had already been more or less Christianized regions in Ireland before him, since he expressly refers to certain regions in Ireland where no one had come before him to baptize or to ordain priests, nor to bring people to fulfillment. This means by contrast that there were other regions in Ireland where this had already been done, by others ...

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ST. BRIGIT OF KILDARE.

Let us say at once that everything that touches on this Saint Mary of the Gaels is quite hypothetical. Her cult is so old in Ireland that some scholars think that there has probably been a religious syncretism, various legends concerning the goddess of the same name having been subsequently attributed to the saint. Who has indeed the same name as the goddess Brigindo, derived from the Proto-Celtic Brigant "high, exalted"? In Old Irish her name was spelled Brigit. In Modern Irish it was spelled Briġid / Brighid Bride. In Welsh she is called Ffraid (lenited to Fraid). Cf Llansanffraid = "St Brigit's church."

That St. Brigit really existed, historically speaking, is the subject of debate. She has the same name and feast day as the Celtic goddess Brigindo, and there are many supernatural events, legends and folk customs associated with her name. Some specialists suggest therefore that the saint is merely the Christianization of the goddess. Others think she was a real person who took on the goddess's attributes.

In short, St Brigid of Kildare would be born in 451 in Faughart near Dundalk, in County Louth, in Ireland. She died about 525 at Kil Dara (Kildare) etymologically interpreted as the "church of the oak" (a monastic cell). She is a saint of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. Celebrated on February 1st.

The father of St Brigid would have been a chieftain named Dubhtach, and her mother Broca or Brocessa a Christian slave baptized by St. Patrick. Her father, wishing to marry her, she refused and took the veil from the hands of St. Mac Caill or of St. Mel of Ardagh, a disciple of St. Patrick.

Then she built a shelter under (or in) a large oak around which several other women gathered and took her for a mother superior. She founded a convent, around which the town of Kildare was built. For this convent she adopted the rule of Saint Caesarius of Arles. This convent was the first double monastery in Europe: it included monks and nuns. This convent was renowned for its eternal fire and its work of goldsmiths.

Sainte Brigitte died in Kildare at the beginning of the 6th century and was buried in Downpatrick with Saint Patrick.

The cult of Saint Brigit is probably derived from that of the triple goddess Brigindo, which was celebrated at the druidic feast of Ambolc in early February. This cult would have been Christianized like many others after the evangelization of Ireland. Since the seventh century, the cult of the historical St. Brigit will be widely spread in Ireland because dedications to Brigit are found throughout the island. Variants of the name suggest that many places dedicated to the local deity Brigindo, were then transferred to the devotion of the saint; and the problem of the historians of Christianity is that in the preserved oldest documents mentioning Saint Brigit, the historical figure of the saint seems already forgotten.

Chronologically speaking, the first Life preserved for Ireland is a Life of Brigit written by Cogitosus. Cogitosus is probably not the first to write a biography of the saint. The characters named Ultan and Ailerán are said to have written before him but what do we know about them? This Life of Brigit by Cogitosus, on the other hand, had an important success. In Ireland, where no manuscript has come down to us, its literary influence was considerable, both for the later hagiography of Brigit and for the treatment of the lives of other saints. On the continent, her Life is preserved in more than eighty manuscripts.

After a prologue which suggests the foundation of Kildare by Brigit and the election of Bishop Conláed, follow thirty miracles, often introduced or followed by a praise of the saint. The chronological support is meager: the first three chapters deal with miracles that occurred during the youth of the saint; the last two chapters relate posthumous miracles; no other time dimension is provided. Finally, the epilogue emphasizes the greatness of Kildare and mentions the death of the saint. The thirty miracles performed by St Brigit during his lifetime are all constructed in the same way: a one sentence prologue, the miracle itself, a brief epilogue.

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There is no global thematic organization in the Life. The impression that emerges from a reading of these miracle stories is that of a presentation by the hagiographer of a basic traditional corpus that he has reworked.

According to some, the hagiographer would have drafted a Life of St. Brigit in order to compete with Armagh and St Patrick. This hypothesis is based on the idea that Cogitosus would have assumed for Kildare the territorial claims expressed for Armagh in the text entitled Liber Angeli. It presupposes therefore the anteriority of the Liber on Life. But T. M. Charles-Edwards proposed to reverse the relationship between the two texts. Cogitosus would have been the first to attempt to impose the supremacy of his religious center. Another problem therefore for Christian historians.

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DOCUMENTS.

St. PATRICK’S CONFESSION.

My name is Patrick. I am a sinner, a simple country person, and the least of all believers. I am looked down upon by many. My father was Calpurnius. He was a deacon; his father was Potitus, a priest, who lived at Bannavem Taburniae.

His home was near there, and that is where I was taken prisoner.

I was about sixteen at the time. At that time, I did not know the true God. I was taken into captivity in Ireland, along with thousands of others. We deserved this, because we had gone away from God, and did not keep his commandments. We would not listen to our priests (brrr!)…

One time I was put to the test by some superiors of mine. They came and put my sins against my hard work as a bishop. This hit me very hard, so much so that it seemed I was about to fall, both here and in eternity. But the Lord in his kindness spared the converts and the strangers for the sake of his name, and strongly supported me when I was so badly treated. I did not slip into sin and disgrace. I pray that God not hold this sin against them.

They brought up against me after thirty years something I had already confessed before I was a deacon. What happened was that, one day when I was feeling anxious and low, with a very dear friend of mine I referred to some things I had done one day – rather, in one hour – when I was young, before I overcame my weakness. I don’t know – God knows – whether I was then fifteen years old at the time, and I did not then believe in the living God, not even when I was a child. In fact, I remained in death and unbelief.

[Editor’s note. These typically Christian practices of individual or collective denunciation, finally or indirectly endorsed by Saint Patrick himself, since he makes a big deal of it, are of little interest for us. What could be the abominable crime of a fifteen-year-old teenager ?? Having made love without being married ?, it is really necessary to be a Christian to make such a big deal!]

My defense was that I remained on in Ireland, and that not of my own choosing, until I almost perished. However, it was very good for me, since God straightened me out, and he prepared me for what I would be today. I was far different then from what I am now, and I have care for others, and I have enough to do to save them. In those days I did not even have concern for my own welfare.

So on the day I was accused by those I mentioned above, that same night I saw in a vision of the night some writing before my dishonored face. In the middle of this, I heard an answer from God saying to me: “We have seen with displeasure the face of the one who was chosen deprived of his good name.”

He did not say: “You have seen with displeasure,” but “We have seen with displeasure,” as if he were identifying himself with me; as he said, “He who touches you as it were touches the pupil of my eye.”

For that reason, I give thanks to the one who strengthened me in all things, so that he would not impede me in the course I had undertaken and from the works also which I had learned from Christ my Lord. Rather, I sensed in myself no little strength from him, and my faith passed the test before God and people.

I make bold to say that my conscience does not blame me, now and in the future I have God for witness that I have not told lies in the account I have given you.

But I grieve more for my very dear friend, that we had to hear such an account – the one to whom I entrusted my very soul. I did learn from some brothers before the case was heard that he came to my defense in my absence. I was not there at the time, not even in [Great] Britain, and it was not I who brought up the matter. In fact, it was he himself who told me from his own mouth: “Look, you are being given the rank of bishop.” That is something I did not deserve.

How could he then afterwards come to disgrace me in public before all, both good and bad, about a matter for which he had already freely and joyfully forgiven me, as had God, who is greater than all?

Editorial Note. It goes without saying that these typically Christian treasons are of little interest to us, for the true sin (against the Spirit) of St. Patrick came only after the introduction in Ireland of the worst religious obscurantism that this region of the world has never known. Absolute obedience to priests, as he himself admits it since not doing so is punished by God. " I was taken into captivity in Ireland, along

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with thousands of others. We deserved this, because we had gone away from God, and did not keep his commandments. We would not listen to our priests” etc.

I pray for those who believe in and have reverence for God. Some of them may happen to inspect or come upon this writing which Patrick, a sinner without learning, wrote in Ireland. May none of them ever say that whatever little I did or made known to please God was done through ignorance. Instead, you can judge and believe in all truth that it was a gift of God. This is my confession before I die.

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THE COROTICUS CASE.

Coroticus (400 - 440) was one of the kings of Strathclyde in the 5th century. His real name was Ceretic Guletic in Brythonic language. Strathclyde (Scottish : Strathalcluith, then Strathcluaide: "Beyond the Clyde") is one of the Brittonic Celtic kingdoms that resisted the Anglo-Saxons, Picts, Scots and Vikings during the Early Middle Ages; before being reunited with the kingdom of the Picts and Scots towards the middle of the eleventh century.

Its formation, little known, took place during the Roman period of the island of Great Britain (before 410); during the Anglo-Saxon period, the Strathclyde had as its neighbors Dal Riada and Caledonia in the north, Gododdin and Bernicia in the east, Northern Rheged and Galwyddel (Galloway) in the south (450 to 600); then Cumbria in the south and Northumbria in the east (from 650) before merging into medieval Scotland.

From the middle of the fifth century, the advance of the Anglo-Saxons on the island separated the island Bretons into several groups. The greater part of them were confined to the western lands corresponding to the future Wales and subsequently formed the "Welsh people" of the Cymru; a smaller number found themselves isolated around the Clyde and the Forth, north of Hadrian’s Wall.

The latter constituted two Celtic "kingdoms," one of which, situated most to the east and named "Guotodin" or "Gododdin" (390 - 425) by the oldest sources - probably after the name of the tribe of the Votadini -; was integrated into Anglo-Saxon Northumbria during the reign of Ecgfrith, son of Oswiu (+ 685).

The other, situated to the west, of which the historian Nennius relates the foundation in the fifth century, survived under the Scottish name of "Strathclyde." The rare British sources are virtually silent during the period of its formation.

In fact, it seems that the territories that composed it can be identified from the Roman period as a territorium placed under the authority of a barbarian chief, vassal of Rome.

The first of these vassals, therefore, to whom we may attribute the control of the future Strathclyde, guarded the west part of the Antonine wall.Het is known as Ceretic Guletic or, in Latin language, Coroticus. At the beginning of the fifth century, the capital of this "chiefdom" was Alcluith (Dumbarton), established on a promontory overlooking the Clyde: its name literally means " fortress of the Bretons."

This British kinglet (Coroticus), helped by still pagan Scots and Picts, once made a raid into Ireland, massacred new converts to Christianity at the end of the Mass, and took the survivors with him. Patrick claimed their liberation in the name of Christ, since Coroticus was also theoretically Christian, but vainly. Coroticus sold or distributed them as slaves to his pagan allies.

Below is the letter to the soldiers of Coroticus written by St Patrick on this occasion. Patrick excommunicates Ceretic and invites him to do penance or to compensate. The local bishop, on the other hand, took sides against Patrick for the king in question (who was undoubtedly one of his parents). Editorial note. All these quarrels between Christians are obviously not brilliant and have only a historical interest.

LETTER TO THE VERY CHRISTIAN KING COROTICUS.

I declare that I, Patrick – an unlearned sinner indeed – have been established a bishop in Ireland. I hold quite certainly that what I am, I have accepted from God. I live as an alien among non-Roman peoples, an exile on account of the love of God – he is my witness that this is so. It is not that I would choose to let anything so blunt and harsh come from my mouth, but I am driven by the zeal for God. And the truth of Christ stimulates me, for love of neighbors and children: for these, I have given up my homeland and my parents, and my very life to death, if I am worthy of that. I live for my God, to teach these peoples, even if I am despised by some.

With my own hand, I have written and put together these words to be given and handed on and sent to the soldiers of Coroticus. I cannot say that they are my fellow citizens, nor fellow citizens of the saints of Rome, but fellow citizens of demons, because of their evil works. By their hostile ways they live in death, allies of the apostate Scots and Picts. They are bloodstained: blood-stained with the blood of innocent Christians, whose numbers I have given birth to in God and confirmed in Christ.

The newly baptized and anointed were dressed in white robes; the anointing was still to be seen clearly on their foreheads when they were cruelly slain and sacrificed by the sword of the ones I

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referred to above. On the day after that, I sent a letter by a holy priest (whom I had taught from infancy), with clerics, to ask that they return to us some of the booty or of the baptized prisoners they had captured. They scoffed at them. So I don't know which is the cause of the greatest grief for me: whether those who were slain, or those who were captured, or those whom the devil so deeply ensnared. They will face the eternal pains of Gehenna equally with the devil; because whoever commits sin is rightly called a slave and a son of the devil………….

I ask insistently whatever servant of God is courageous enough to be a bearer of these messages that it in no way be withdrawn or hidden from any person. Quite the opposite – let it be read before all the people, especially in the presence of Coroticus himself. If this takes place, God may inspire them to come back to their right senses before God.[Nota] However late it may be, may they repent of acting so wrongly, the murder of the brethren of the Lord, and set free the baptized women prisoners whom they previously seized. So may they deserve to live for God, and be made whole here and in eternity. Peace to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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ST. PATRICK (386? 461?)

On his youth and childhood in Great Britain in Wales or further north, see previous chapters.

With St. Patrick we meet the same problem as with St. Brigit: a certain number of real or supposed facts concerning other historical or legendary figures (his ephemeral predecessor Palladius, druidic legends and even myths) have been attributed to him.

The life of St. Patrick has been reported to us by two different biographers.

Tirechan (Collectanea).

Muirchu (Commentarius).

Without forgetting St. Patrick himself (in his Confessio, a very curious text, the future saint never ceases to stress the mediocrity of his culture, especially his knowledge of Latin. What, for a man called for carrying out such important responsibilities, was still somewhat annoying. The paragraph 26 of his confession and the first lines of his letter to Coroticus do not prove that he was officially ordained bishop one day because these two documents are, of course, from St. Patrick himself).

These ancient documents attributed to Saint Patrick or his disciples - two Latin writings, the Confession and the Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus - are therefore subject to doubt, and the accounts of his first biographers, Muirchu and Tirechan, are not very reliable. See Muirchu's confusion with regard to the ordainment (or ordainments - Patrick having been obliged to make several attempts) of the future evangelizer of Ireland. Written in the seventh century, during the conflict between Rome and Celtic Christianity, these documents clearly espouse the theses of the Roman cause.

The Bethu Phatraic or tripartite life of Saint Patrick by cons (anonymous author) is from the 9th or 10th century. It is written half in Latin and half in Gaelic language.

This Irish tradition makes St. Patrick the evangelizer of Ireland in the second third of the sixth century. He would have converted the island by challenging the high knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) in singular spars like the fire test; and explaining the mystery of the Holy Trinity by the trilobed leaf of clover, which, like the harp, will become the symbol of Ireland. The druidic symbol of the clover was indeed taken up by the newcomer to explain the mystery of the holy poly unity reduced to three persons. The fact that there is only one stem shows well that there are not three distinct gods, but one God, leading to three distinct entities. The feast of Saint Patrick is called "feast of the Shamrock," that is to say of the clover.

More precisely, St Patrick would have set up the Roman form of Christianity in the northern part of the country, mainly in the territory of the Ui Neill (Ulster) around Armagh.

Without wishing to offend Irish tradition or reducing the merits of St. Patrick, it is hard to believe that in 432 he found Ireland blank of all Christian influence; while the neighboring island, Great Britain, had been touched by the new religion at least two centuries earlier.

In the absence of precise historical landmarks, it is nevertheless difficult about him to extract reality from the magic.

Below nevertheless what can be deduced carefully.

Although his grandfather had a Latin name (Potitus / Potitos is one of the male names of the lead tablet discovered in the Larzac) and his father a plainly Roman name (Calpurnius); his genuine name was Sucatuos in Brittonic (what means "very combative").

Born in Great Britain in the last quarter of the 4th century. Grandson of the Christian priest named Potitus and son of the Roman decurion Calpurnius. Calpurnius, who was also a deacon of the Roman Church, lived in the vicus of Bennaventa or Benavente (Taberniae), a place in which he had a farm.

When he was about sixteen years old, Sucatuos was captured by pirates in a raid launched by them on Great Britain and was taken to Ireland with a certain number of his fellow country people. He

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remained a captive in a part of the country to the west called Foclut, to a druid named Miliuc. He was in charge of watching his herds of pigs in the forest, his herds of pigs or, more exactly, those of the king, of whom the druid Miliuc was responsible; until the feast of Trinouxtion Samoni (os), the day when they were killed en masse to be eaten. A little like sheep are still so in today Islam. With this difference that in the case of pigs, meat was preserved by salting. According to St. Adamnan indeed , in the seventh century still, in Ireland, immense hers of pigs were fattened during the autumn. This sheds a new light on the task devolved to the future St Patrick during his captivity in this country.

The exact location corresponding to this mysterious Foclut Forest could not be identified with certainty.

This first stay in Ireland lasted six years. Six years during which Sucatuos had plenty of time to learn the language and probably many other things from his master (Miliuc). Unless it is a legend due to an incomprehension of its name: succus = piglet, succatus =pig keeper. Whatever it be, what is sure it is that Sucatuos, after these six long years of captivity, succeeded in escaping.

He came back in Great Britain, where he had the good fortune to find again his parents, “who received him as a son, and pleaded that, after all the many tribulations he had undergone , he should never leave them again.” Alas, for the parents, sometime later, Sucatuos saw in a dream those of his compatriots who had remained at Foclut. They called out as it were with one voice: “We beg you, holy boy, to come and walk again among us.”

After several years spent on the Continent in order to become a bishop (fifteen years in Auxerre with Amator and Germanus for example, but vainly, St. Patrick does not stop in his Confession to complain about the mediocrity of his Latin and his culture);the first Irish or living on the spot Christians drew his attention to a man named Dichu, a kinglet of a region in Ulster just across from Great Britain, with which he had numerous, commercial or otherwise, relationship; in 432 (????) Patrick sailed with some companions to go along the east coast, to stop in the island named since this time Inis Patrick, at the mouth of the Boinne River, and go to Ulster by the Loch Cuan (now called Strangford Lough). On his arrival the future Saint Patrick was welcomed by the first core of Christians who already lived there and with whom, perhaps, he had still kept in touch.

The lowest blows, however, came not from the pagans, but from the Christians themselves.

Some persons (whom he calls his elders, seniores mei) took occasion of a fault committed by him when he was fifteen years old , and that he had confessed before being a deacon; to discredit his laborious episcopate, and to trample him. Even his best friend was not afraid to dishonor him publicly on the occasion.

What was the dishonorable fault committed by St Patrick when he was fifteen years old ? One loses oneself in conjectures about its nature. A suspect sympathy for paganism? What would explain the mistrust of other Christians about his apostolate? Mistrust also apparently explained by serious doubts about his, somehow "professional," abilities.

King Dichu having long had the opportunity to meet Christians, given his proximity with Great Britain, he made no difficulty in converting himself and he gave St. Patrick land in the region of Saul (near Downpatrick) to build a church there.

The conversion of a king, of a chieftain, was always a particularly happy event for the Christians. The sheeplike herd instinct being one of the characteristics of the human species, crowds, led by example, or desirous of pleasing, also frequently adopted Christianity following their leaders. And since kings and nobles were the only possessors of the land, they alone could supply to the missionary the place to build a church. Patrick is therefore seen to try his hardest everywhere to first convert the great. The next on the list was the high chief, not of the druids, but of the Irish veledae, a man named Dubtach, the brother of King Loegaire.

But the conversion to Christianity of the high chief of the Irish veledae caused in no way that of the druids above them, quite the contrary. Whenever St. Patrick prepared to evangelize a new region of Ireland, the latter met to prevent that. The true druids, the druid druids, besides, had felt this spiritual disaster (impiety) coming , provoked by the jealousy of the lower rank druids that were the veledae; at least according to the famous prophecy reported by Muirchu and attributed, not to veledae druids but to druids druids. "

Ticfa tailcend tar muir meircenn a bratt tollcend a chrand cromchend. A mias inairthiur a tigi, friscerat a muinter huili :amen , amen !"

The Gaelic word mias meaning altoir that gives us what follows:

“A man with a tonsured head [literally tailcend “adds head”] will come, with his head-holed mantle [a chasuble??] , his crooked-headed staff [a crosier ?]. He will chant impiety 1) from this altar in the east of his house and his whole household will respond: “So be it, so be it !” (Tripartite Life of St. Patrick).

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At Tara, the residence of the high king (ard ri) Loegaire, while lighting a fire on the heights to celebrate the feast of Caisc na Ngenti was a privilege of the high knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht), St. Patrick will dare to violate this (unwritten) law to celebrate Christian Easter.

He escaped punishment in spite of the well-understandable indignation of the high knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) facing such a sacrilege in their eyes, or such a dangerous blasphemy of the name of God-or-demons, and it is claimed that he succeeded in converting the king. By cleverly using the image of the clover, but also by beating obviously these druids hollow in the art of making a fire.

At the very origin of Irish Christianity, we see indeed Patrick opposing the druids, the druids and not the veledae or filid. Patrick, in fact, would not have been an angel, and he would have vigorously fought (to say the least) the duids druids s who tried to oppose his action .Two examples.

-The swallowing by the earth seems to be St. Patrick's favorite sanction, that which punishes blasphemy (blasphemy, according to him, of course). It is in this way that an unfortunate druid will end his life, not far from the estuary of the Boinne, according to these few lines of the Tripartite life.

"He [Patrick] went to Inver Boinde. He found fish therein : he bestowed a blessing upon it, and the estuary is fruitful.

He found a druid in that place who mocked at Mary’s virginity. Patrick made the sign of the cross on the earth and it swallowed up the druid.”

Here, to close this series, how St Patrick treats another druid. Still in the Bethu Phatraic or Tripartite life of St Patrick, a half-Irish, half-Latin passage.

"Each, then, asked tidings of the other, namely, Patrick and Loegaire. (The druid) Lochru went angrily and noisily [???] , with contention and questions, against Patrick ; and then did he go astray into blaspheming the Trinity and the Catholic faith. Patrick thereafter looked wrathfully upon him, and cried with a great voice unto God, and

this he said [in Latin language in the text] : " Lord, who can do all things, and on whose power depend all that exists, and who hast sent us hither to preach Thy name to the heathen, let this ungodly man, who blasphemes Thy name, be lifted up ; and let him forthwith die ! "

When he said this, the druid was raised into the air and forthwith again cast down, and his brains were scattered on the stone, and he was broken in pieces, and died in their presence. The heathen were adread at that” [Editor’s note. There was good reason to be so ! ].

Commentary by Peter DeLaCrau. Why so much hatred and lies? Everyone knows that Christianity has always had a problem with truth, that truth has never been its strong point, but really! Ah, the joys of the love religion, forever! All these lies are so stupid!

The action of Saint Patrick is therefore not made only of charity, it also has the irresistible force of magic. The difference is that the Christian incantation here is, externally at least, a prayer to God. It is not difficult, however, to note that the difference lies in the principle, not in the operation, nor in the result which is the same: some superstition or some low black magic.

That is for the druids. As for the veledae or filid by cons, St Patrick gets their support. Dubtach, brother of King Loegaire, and high chief of the veledae or filid (ard ollam), assisted him from the very beginning of his mission. His conversion would have caused many others.

This nevertheless appears to be a legend forged by the Christians. The father of King Loegaire, King Nial of the nine hostages, had to warn him against the dangers of Christianity (see what will happen to the unfortunate daughters of the king, Eithne and Fedelm, they will die immediately after having met St. Patrick. What was hardly encouraging, it is well necessary to admit it)?

Besides, according to Tirechan, the king would have died a pagan.

« Neel pater meus non siniuit mihi credere, sed ut sepeliar in cacuminibus Temro quasi uiris consistentibus in bello” (quia utuntur gentiles in sepulcris armati prumptis armis) “facie ad faciem usque ad diem erdathe” (apud magos, id est iudicii diem Domini) “(Tirechan, Collecteana).

What gives us, without prejudice because my 7 years of Latin are far away :

"My father Níall did not allow me to believe, but asked me to be buried on the ridges of Tara, in the manner of men at war for it was the custom of the heathen to be buried in their armor) their face

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turned towards the enemy until the day of erdathe 2) as the magi [Editor’s note: that is to say the druids] call it, that is, the day of the Lord's judgment).

What is probable, on the other hand, is that Patrick has had perhaps influence over the king's children as a tutor, and that his daughters in particular may have become nuns; although the narrative relating all this is at least paradoxical enough (the daughters of the king die immediately after they have converted).

We have said this before, but let us repeat it, because it is important; unlike the myth cleverly maintained by the Christians on this subject, the conversion of Ireland was not done from below, through the intermediary of the slaves or of the lower classes, but from above; by seducing the chiefs of a clan or tribe, who alone can authorize or support missionary activities within their people.

In short, by turning to the kings and their families in order to convert more easily the rest of the population, Patrick would have been, for some thirty years, with some disciples, the indefatigable propagator of the Christian religion in Ireland ; Baptizing thousands of people, founding many churches.

Legend has it that he has chased all the snakes from the country, an action which, like in the case of St Honoratus a generation earlier in Lerins 3), evidently symbolizes the conversion of the Irish people: snakes represent Satan, made responsible for the ignorance of the true god or Demiurge.

Now according to Solinus Ireland was already deprived of snakes in his time.

" Ireland comes the nearest to it in bigness: it is an uncivil country, by reason of the savage manners of the inhabitants, but otherwise so full of pasturage and cattle, that if their herds in summer time be not now and then restrained from feeding, they would run a great danger of over-eating themselves. There are no snakes there, and but few birds; the people are inhospitable and warlike. When they have overcome their enemies, they first besmear their faces with the blood of the slain; right and wrong, good and evil, all is one to them “( Caius Julius Solinus, Polyhistor, XXXIII).

There are no snakes! He what puts back in its rightful place the miracle of the ousting of snakes from Ireland, attributed to St Patrick. One more lie in the mouths of our Christian friends.

On the other hand, Saint Patrick burned hundreds of books brought from the Continent by the intellectuals fleeing the barbarian invasions (a web of fables and superstitions of heathen idolatry), at least according to Dr. Kennedy and John Toland in his history of the druids. And the author of the Yellow Book of Lecan (Leabhar Buidhe Leacáin) boasts of the fact that St. Patrick, at one time, would have burned one hundred and eighty books of the druids. "Such an example," he said, "set the converted Christians to work in all the parts of the island until the remains of the druidic superstition were utterly destroyed."

Christians have always had the unfortunate tendency to privilege this very particular form of dialogue with those who do not share their ideas, and these are examples that have been better followed than the precepts of the gospel.

After many years of evangelization, Patrick withdraws to Downpatrick where he died on March 17, 461. But the official history of Saint Patrick is a curious mixture of legends, myths, and truth. As it is often the case in Christianity and we do not know in reality how St Patrick, who was apparently during a certain time the only Catholic bishop of the island, if not the first Christian bishop, organized the Irish episcopate called to continue his work.

The Christian Ireland found in the 6th century is indeed of the monastic type and not organized in dioceses in the Roman style. Examples.

St Enda (450-530 ??) spent many years first as a hermit. Founder of a monastery and teacher of many on Inishmore, the main island of Aran Co Galway.

St Domangard or Donard at Maghera Co Down is said to have had a hermit’s cell on top of Slieve Donard in the Mountains of Mourne.

St Fortchern of Trim who is said to have been a bishop and then a hermit in Meath.

Finian of Clonard (470-550 ??) one of the traditional founders of the monastic movement. He was undoubtedly a great founder and teacher. But there were many before him.

St Buite (died circa 521) founded Monasterboice in Co Louth.

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St Senan (488-544) evangelized West and South Clare and he and his disciples founded many places around the coast and on the islands of the Shannon Estuary.

Finnian de Moville (495-589). Monastery of Druim Fionn in 540 and monastery of Moville in 545.

Many of these saints or abbots were later systematically associated with St. Patrick by tradition (another name for lie) but nothing is less certain.

It is for example very unlikely for Saint Enda. As for Finnian of Clonard, he would have been first trained in the abbey of Saint Martin of Tours and then in the monastery of Saint Cadoc in Wales.

The rest of this short list of prepatrician saints abbots is therefore in accord. The links with St. Patrick were invented later. By the famous "tradition."

Let us also remarks, still from the same perspective, that certain Irish penalties appear only in Christian canon law or in monastic practices. They appear in no secular legal text. We can therefore conclude that they were not part of the Irish mentality before the advent of Christianity.

Unlike many other judicial systems, dismemberment does not seem to have been a Celtic minded punishment. No ancient legal text mentions dismemberment, with the exception of the Cáin Aomnáin (a canonical text) which provides for a two-stage sentence, first dismemberment (left and right hand) and then the killing. In short worse than in Islam. Ah, the joys of the love religion, forever! ... The first dismemberment recorded for a crime dates from 1224, when a thief had his hands and feet cut off.

Very often mentioned in the old legal texts, especially as a punishment for slaves, flogging appears in Ireland only in the texts of canon law and in monastic rules. There is no reference to it in the old secular legal texts.

1) We have not found the Gaelic word corresponding to "impiety" but let us trust the Christian translator. This word impiety is perhaps to be understood in the sense given to it in the arguments of the antiquity where Christians were accused of atheia.

2) Individual Erdathe = reintegration into the Big Whole; collective or universal erdathe = renewal of the Bitus (of the universe)? We cannot draw from this word any conclusion as to the existence among the high knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) of a doctrine of the judgment of the dead analogous to that of Christianity. It is to be something very different, but such a loyalty from King Loegaire to the religion of his forefathers is moving.

3) “From this place Christ brought your Honoratus back to you and by His hidden craftsmanship made the journey back a bringer of health. For whatever he touched as he passed by, he made bright. Italy welcomed his entry, with joy as a blessing. Hallowed Tuscany took him to her bosom and through the hospitality of her priests, contrived the most agreeable prolongations of his stay. And then the Providence of God, planning future benefits for us, overturned everything. The desire for the desert had called him from his fatherland but Christ invited him to a desert not far from this city. So it came about that he sought to go a certain island uninhabited because of its utter desolation and unvisited for fear of its venomous snakes, lying quite close to the foot of the Alpine range. Apart from the facilities for solitude, he was attracted by the neighborhood of Bishop Leontius (a holy man most blessed by Christ) , and had ties of friendship with him. There were many who tried to draw him back from this new venture. For the surrounding population described the island as a terrible wilderness and tried their hardest, with an ambition inspired by faith, to keep him in their midst. But he was finding it hard to endure intercourse with his fellow men and craved to but cut off from the world by the barrier of the straits. He had ever in his thoughts or on his lips the words that he kept repeating, now to himself now to his followers : you shall walk upon the asp and the basilisk ; you shall trample on the lion and dragon…And also the promise in the gospels, made by Christ to his disciples : I have put it in your power to trample upon serpents and on scorpions. So he went fearlessly on the island and dispelled the alarm of his followers by his own unconcern.

The terrors of the solitude were put to flight ; the army of serpents gave way. But what darkness did not flee before that light ? What poison did not give way before that remedy ? This I consider truly unheard of and assuredly to be counted among his miracles and favors, that the encounters with

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serpents in that desolate land, which were so frequent, as we have seen, being stirred up especially by the agitation of the sea, were never a source of danger to anyone or even the cause of fear “ (Life of Saint Honoratus by Hilary of Arles).

SAINT ENDA EANNA ENNA ENDEUS (450? 530?)

A major figure in Irish Christianity, as Patrick Pearse named his Sgoil Eanna, or St Enda's School, in honor of the saint in 1908.

REMINDERS OF THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND.

In the Roman Empire, from Theodosius (347-395), Christianity became the official and exclusive religion in the country. The emperor is the high pontiff of the Christians, the chief of the bishops. It is he who presides over the general councils. On the death of Theodosius, the empire was divided into the empire of the East and the empire of the West. At first the Emperor of the East will have potentially the West under his thumb.

In 476, the Roman Empire of the West disappeared. Christianity survives it in many barbarian kingdoms that are being formed. But the bishops of these kingdoms cease to take the oath to the emperor, and many barbarian bishops mark even more their difference by remaining loyal to the Arian doctrine, which was definitively condemned by the Council of Constantinople in 381. The "churches" (town communities, ancestors of the dioceses) in the barbarian kingdoms are national. Their bishops owe loyalty to the sovereign of their kingdom.

As it spread to the Roman Empire, Christianity had established its hierarchy in accordance with the framework of civil administration. But in Ireland, which remained outside the Roman control, ecclesiastical institutions had to be modeled on a very different political and social constitution. Here there are no towns, a country without unity, divided into a multitude of antagonistic tribes, motivated by a particularistic and regionalist spirit, very pronounced, with not very well defined districts.

In the Celtic kingdoms as in all the new kingdoms, this Christianity is therefore national. It helps peoples to assert their identity against the attempts at (warlike or cultural) colonization. If the peoples of the Atlantic seaboard unexpectedly adopt the religion of the Roman enemy, it is because the empire of the West is no longer there to threaten them, and it is because Constantinople, in the fifth century, Seems to them too remote to represent a danger (the Emperor of the East starts a recapture of the West only in the sixth century). The geographical distance makes it possible to get over any reference to the emperor. It makes it possible to avoid the dogmatic quarrels, dear to the bishops. Finally, it makes Christianity able to adapt itself to local sensitivity (a thing permitted and common, in the early days of Christianity, provided that dogma is respected).

Without towns, Celtic countries cannot imitate the mode of organization prevalent in Romanized countries (an urban community, grouped around a bishop.) Celtic Christianity is rural and has no bishops, no secular clergy, but monks and hermits, each abbot (or each hermit) is totally independent.

So we cannot speak of "churches" as in Romanized countries. The name "Celtic Christianities" seems more appropriate than "Celtic Christianism." For here we are speaking of independent communities, not of a centralized government, not of a heretical or schismatic communion.

The first structured and organized Christian community of which traces are found in Ireland at the death of Saint Patrick is not the churches founded by Palladius in 431 but the monastic community of Killeaney in the Aran Islands. Catholic historiography also shows Saint Patrick leaving after him the diocese of Armagh. We, we’d like, but nothing proves by cons and especially not the Liber Angeli of Tirechan in the 7th century, that the bishopric of Armagh was founded by Saint Patrick.

This book is known as Liber Angeli because it is supposed to relate what an angel would have said in to St. Patrick a dream. The Liber Angeli speaks of a tribute to the benefit of Armagh (Ard Macha <Arda Magosias) in the whole extent of the “parochia.” This text also regulates the manner in which Patrick's successor is to be received during his visits and indicates what penalties are imposed on those who are guilty towards him, either to his household or to his parish. Every difficult case, or case the judges in Ireland would be incapable of judging, must be brought before the court of the archbishop of

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Armagh. By means of this document, we may have an approximate idea of the nature of the claims of this bishopric from the 7th century to the Reformation undertaken by Malachy: the preeminence of honor, some honorary privileges, a visitation right, the right of judging certain cases and, perhaps, of appeal, and finally the right to levy a tribute. But it does not constitute an evidence that the said bishopric was founded by Saint Patrick. Kildare had, moreover, the same pretensions, and perhaps older, for St. Brigit.

Anyway what we find essentially in the 6th century in Ireland are not dioceses but abbeys from where our few words about that to begin.

The words abbot or abbacy in Gaelic language (abb and abdhaine) have a very wide meaning in Ireland at the time and in fact refer to any higher temporal or spiritual authority. It is therefore often synonymous with a bishop.

What is massively obvious is that the Irish abbots almost never use Patrick’s name. There is no direct connection between Saint Patrick and the Celtic Christians, who are totally independent of the continental bishops, contenting themselves to be strictly aligned with the dogma defined by the general councils.

Various hypotheses have been put forward to explain the origin of this phenomenon.

If we do not keep the one claimed by the Frenchman Alexandre BERTRAND in 1897 (Our Origins page VIII of the Preface), who goes a little far away (to Tibet), we have only the influence of St. Martin of Tours, FORMER MILITARY of the Boian country in Pannonia (Sabaria). The almost military organization of monks' lives, including in the manual labor, is one of the characteristics of this way of life.

What is certain, on the contrary, is that many saint founders of abbeys belonged to the druidic suborder of the veledae or filid; St. Fiacc, for example, one of the first disciples of Patrick. It was besides to the intervention of St Columban of Iona at the meeting of Druim Ceatt that the veledae / filid owed the upholding of their corporation.

In many ways the School of the Monk is in fact closer to the School of the Fili. He is entrusted with the children of noble families, as the Fili was entrusted with them. They learn by heart the Scriptures, especially the Psalter, as they learned by heart with the Fili the heroic traditions of their nation. And when the monk, who, in addition to scholars, trains chiefs, judges, and poets, gives up religious subjects for non-religious subjects, Christian culture for national culture; he is only a rival of the Fili: he borrows themes and methods from him.

The resemblance between the two schools is all the more striking that the school institution joins the daltachas a form of adoption that goes back to the most distant ages. From a very young age, the child was handed over to a foster father (athair altroma), who became his father in the full sense of the word; for this type of adoption created more than bonds of affection. For this adoptive function, people chose a high-knower of the druidiaction (druidecht) or a renowned Fili, thus promoted teacher and father at the same time.

This system of boarding school in a tutor’s house was perfectly in harmony with the Christian design of the spiritual paternity.

Christianity, far from abolishing it, therefore used it: the monk took the place of the druid simply, becoming doubly the father of the child entrusted to him, the father according to the spirit, the father according to the law.

The first structured and organized Christian community found in Ireland on the death of Saint Patrick is not therefore the diocese of Armagh but the monastic community of Killeaney in the Aran Islands (Aranmore).

About 484 St Enda establishes the first Irish monastery at Killeaney on Aran Mor Island. St Enda is described as the "Father of Irish monasticism." Most of the great Irish saints had some connection with this monastery.

The legend of Saint Enda now (we say well legend because nothing is historically certain ).

According to the Martyrology of Oengus the Culdee, St. Enda was an Irish prince, son of Conall Derg of Oriel (Ergall) in Ulster. Legend has it that when his father died, he succeeded him as king and went

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off to fight his enemies. But the fierce warrior would have been converted by his sister, Saint Fanche, an abbess (???).The girl she promised to him as a wife turned out to have just died, and Fanche would have forced her brother to view the corpse, to teach him that he, too, would face death and judgment.

Then Fanche would have sent him to Rosnat (Candida Casa in south-western Scotland?) a great center of Celtic monasticism 1). Returning to Ireland, Enda built a church at Drogheda. Then about 484 he would have been given land in the Aran Islands by his brother-in-law, Aengus, King of Munster.

The monastery of Killeaney on Inismór is regarded as the very first Irish monastery.

The life of Enda and his monks was frugal and austere. They survived by farming and fishing.

The day was divided into periods for prayer, labor, and sacred study. Each community had its own church and its village of stone cells, in which they slept either on the bare ground or on a bundle of straw, but always in the clothes worn by the day. They assembled for their daily devotions in the church or oratory of the saint under whose care they were placed. They took their meals in silence in a common refectory, from a common kitchen, having no fires in their cloghauns or stone cells, however cold the weather or wild the seas.

Some fished around the islands; others cultivated patches of oats or barley in sheltered spots between the rocks. Others ground grain or kneaded the meal into bread, and baked it for the use of the brethren. They spun and wove their garments from the wool of their sheep. They could grow no fruit in these storm-swept islands and they drank neither wine nor mead. They had no flesh meat, except perhaps a little for the sick.

The monks who lived there loved the islands which "as a necklace of pearls," and all the more because they had been the scene of druidic worship. On the largest will stand Saint Enda's well and altar, and the round tower of the church where the bell was sounded which gave the signal that Saint Enda had taken his place at the altar. At the tolling of the bell the service of the Mass began in all the churches of the island.

During his own lifetime, Enda's monastic settlement on the Aran islands became an important pilgrimage destination, as well as a center for the evangelization of surrounding areas.

Enda also established a monastery in the Boinne Valley, and several others elsewhere. Along with Finian of Clonard is known as the father of Irish monasticism. He died in old age around the year 530.

At least two dozen canonized individuals had some association with the Aran’s islands.

-Saint Ciaran of Clonmacnoise came there first as a youth to grind corn, and would have remained there for life without St. Enda's insistence explaining to him that his true work lay elsewhere. Legend has it that Ciarán has then walked to Clonmacnoise with his pet cow, which was a particularly good milker. The Book of the Dun Cow would have been bound in her skin.

-Among those who also spent time with Enda was St. Brendan the Voyager. When Saint Brendan returned from his travels far to the West, he thanked God at the Abbey and laid down the only gift he brought back from his travels, a stone with an eye carved on one end and a rune 2) on the other . It was given him by a dwarf. This stone 2) was said to float if placed on water and the gem pointed to the Last Isle of the West.

-St. Finnian left St. Enda and founded the monastery of Moville (where Columba of Iona spent part of his youth , St. Columba who referred to Aran as "the Sun of the West") and some authors even say that he became bishop of Lucca in Italy under the name of Fridianus. Who would have believed it?

-Not forgetting Finian of Clonard, already mentioned above.

Thanks to them, Ireland soon became covered with monasteries, such as Clonard (520) in the east, Clonmacnoise (545) in the center, and Bangor (559) in the northeast.

As we have had the opportunity to see it, they were often whole clans who, following the conversion of their kings and their veledae/filid, became members of Christianity, and the monks appeared as the new spiritual guides of these communities, the direct heirs to the pagan priestly class. This "conversion from the top" of Ireland to Christianity explains perhaps why the Church had no martyr in it. It should be noted indeed that many of the founders of monasteries were of royal blood, or sons of veledae. For example, St. Ciaran, founder of Clonmacnoise, St. Columba in Derry, but also St. Kevin in Glendalough, St. Comgall in Bangor, etc.

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Monasticism therefore developed rapidly in Ireland, a country devoid of towns, in which rural monasteries were better suited than an urban bishop organization.

If the initiator of it was St. Patrick, but we can doubt it, what is certain is that there was then a considerable explosion of them.

- In Ireland in addition to Clonmacnois, Clonard, Bangor, Glendalough (by Kevin), already mentioned: Clonfert (by Brendan), Durrow (by Columba of Iona), Skellig Michael ,etc.etc...

- In Scotland: Lona (by Columba) ...

- In Wales: Bangor ...

- In Cornwall: Crediton ...

- In Armorica: Rhuis (by Gildas), Dol (by Samson), Leon (by Paul or Pol), Landevennec (by Winwaloe) ...

The Celtic monasticism was of druidic origin and was different from the monasticism of the south, not only by its structures (bishopric monasteries), but also by its aspirations and by the way of life that they implied.

- It combined eremitism and coenobitism (often repulsive places, inhospitable islands like Aran Islands, individual cells of stone or branches, with only an oratory in common). An ancient tradition of pagan origin according to the testimony of Plutarch.

"…Demetrius said that among the islands lying near [Great] Britain were many isolated, having few or no inhabitants. Some of which bore the names of deities or heroes. He himself, by the emperor's order, had made a voyage for inquiry and observation to the nearest of these islands which had only a few inhabitants, holy men who were all held inviolate by the [Great] British. Shortly after his arrival there occurred a great tumult in the air, and many portents; violent winds suddenly swept down and lightning flashes darted to earth. When these abated, the people of the island said that the passing of someone of the mightier soul/minds [in Greek megalai psychai] had befallen. "For," said they, "as a lamp when it is being lighted has no terrors, but when it goes out is distressing to many, so the great souls/minds [Greek megalai psychai] have kindling into life that is gentle and inoffensive, but their passing and dissolution often, as at the present moment, fosters tempests and storms, and often infects the air with pestilential properties." Moreover, they said that in this part of the world there is one island where Cronus is confined, guarded while he sleeps by Briareus; for his sleep has been devised as bondage for him, and round about him are many daemons as attendants and servants…. "(Plutarch, De defectu oraculorum 29).

-This monasticism implied a life of the military type, in St. Martin’s way, with corporal punishment, and a system of chargeable penances (for such and such fault, so many days, months, or years, of fasting) recorded in penitentials.

- It implied a heroic asceticism (individual prayer during whole nights in the rising tide, solitary trips at the risk of his life ...)

- But paradoxically (it was besides there a druidic characteristic), it was more open to the world (bishops/abbots and monks / priests responsible for the Christianization first of the clan, then possibly of the distant countries); hence the importance of the great missionary journey (peregrinatio pro Deo) in this mysticism. The Celtic law of brehons made the peregrinatio from a people or from a tribe to another mode of exile or punishment. One of the penalties provided by the Irish tradition was, in fact, a setting adrift on the sea sentencing a criminal to sail, deprived of oars and rudder, unto the wind would carry him. In both cases, the man was deprived of the help of his community and this was the greatest punishment that could occur to him. This forced pilgrim could thus count only on Divine Providence.

We have an excellent example of this in the Cain Adomnain of 697, the penalty replacing blood price for women (female offenders).

45. …A woman deserves death for the killing of a man or woman, or for giving poison whereof death ensues, or for burning, or for digging under a church….she is to be put in a boat of one paddle upon the ocean to go with the wind from the land. A vessel of meal and water to be given with her. Judgment on her as God deems it.

Let us remark in passing that we can wonder if a heavy weregild to pay as in the case of male offenders (the ancient Celtic society indeed did not know prison and rarely practiced death penalty but most often resorted to the principle of weregild if there was a man's death) would not have been a gentler punishment but God works in mysterious ways. Especially in Christianity (pagan gods were easier to understand because they were more logical).

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The first, Saint Colomban (Columba or Columcille), born about 521, founded the monasteries of Derry, Durrow then Iona (the best known) in Scotland in 563, and Aidan left Iona to found Lindisfarne in Northumbria around 635. Then it was the turn of the rest of Europe.

CONCLUSION.

Celtic Christianism (or "Celtic Christianities") is a phenomenon that was initially confined to lands that were little or not Romanized at all, and blank of Germanic invasions (western Great Britain, Ireland). It will constitute a mode of organization of the religious life, within the Christianity of the West. Unlike the Roman system, it is fundamentally decentralized. Monasteries play an important role in the organization of economic life. Some abbots, close to a sovereign, play a key role in political life.

In Ireland and Great Britain, the great monasteries will be able to house up to 3,000 souls. The absolute master of the monastery is the abbot. The abbots are equal. Each monastery is independent.

The various foundations of the same saint abbot formed what was called his familia (in Irish muintir, of the old Celtic mantera / manutera, which literally means "the household") of this saint. In this familia were included the foundations made, during the centuries, by the coarb or successors of the first abbot. The territories then belonging in full ownership to these monastic familiae, or those on which, because of spiritual or material services performed for the peoples, they practiced as a kind of protectorate, receiving offerings , levying tributes; constituted the parochia (in Irish fairche) of the founding saint. These monastic parishes were species of abbatial bishoprics, including rich estates scattered throughout Ireland, sometimes even beyond the sea, and enclosed in bishop dioceses. At first, the monks, missionaries, lost nothing of their importance or influence after the conversion of the country. The monasteries, endowed with rich estates, densely populated, remained centers of apostolates and piety, sought-after centers of non-religious and sacred culture, in short, some havens of peace, enlightenment and civilization, amidst general barbarism. In the eyes of the Christian populations, their prestige even eclipsed partially that of the traditional episcopate of the Roman Catholic type. This extraordinary importance of the monastic element has even led certain authors to consider the former Christian Ireland as a set of monastic federations.

In the seventh century, thanks to the Irish missionaries, Celtic Christianity grew rapidly in the West, as far as in Italy and Germany, but after its peak in the seventh century, it will turn off in the twentieth century.

We can distinguish two expressions or reference cultures.

- The Brythonic (of Brythonic language) culture.

- The Gaelic (of Gaelic language) culture or Irish Christianity.

Editor's note. On the Continent Armorica will soon occupy a separate place within Celtic Christendom. It has practically no monasteries. Hermits are isolated, each one in a favored site. Everyone is in charge of a certain number of families, themselves scattered. Thus is formed the rural parish (the plou, from the Latin plebs, the people) because the sense of the community remains very strong (it is particularly marked in Armorica with the pardons or annual pilgrimages).

1) In fact, Rosnat is a place in Great Britain to date still unidentified. The Candida Casa (Whithorn) of St. Ninian in Galloway ?

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2) Celtic runa, Welsh rhine, Irish run, "mystery." A kind of primitive compass in a way. But it is to be a later legend and dating from the time of Vikings.

THE PROBLEM OF THE CULDEE THIRD ORDER.

There also existed in Ireland and in neighboring countries a monastic third order devoted to art or crafts, the main characteristic of which was that they were in no way constrained to celibacy. Some authors think that these Culdees were the direct descendants of the first Christians of Saint Patrick.

From Ireland the institution passed in Scotland, where traces of it still exist in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. See our detailed study on the subject: "from the Fianna to the Culdees."

Warning to the reader. In what follows the adjective "regular" must be understood, for simplicity, as equivalent to "Roman Catholic" because the Culdees also ought to have a rule. Let us also note that secular means "who does not live secluded from society in a convent." In this sense it is opposed to "conventual" (who lives in a convent). A priest or a pastor are secular priests, a monk or a nun are "conventual."

A canon is a member of the clergy bound to the service of a church. In the Early Middle Ages, the word could refer to some members of the lay staff in church.

The main features of the Culdees were therefore the following ones: they did not live completely away from the world, and only partly in a community (common house, common table, and common oratory). They could be married, therefore to have children. They had not taken the wow of poverty, therefore could have possessions. They were priests saying the mass, but also often artists (poets, singers…) or some craftsmen, whose association (10 to 20 people) made the church of the place living. One does not know many things of the rules of the Christian worship in that time, except that on the Maundy Thursday, monks washed their feet mutually or that on the Easter Day, one practiced the old rite of the Easter fire.

But were these Culdees of the 12th century thus from the beginning, or was it the slackening of an initial ecclesiastical discipline much more severe than that of Maelruain of Tallaght (died in 792?)

Answer. According to Toland (Nazarenus), the Culdees appeared in Ireland and Scotland in the eighth century. It was a very egalitarian spirituality, not hierarchical, without a diocesan bishop, and without a pope, admitting for everybody a total freedom of conscience. According to him, the Culdees disappeared in the eleventh century and it was a bull of Pope Adrian IV which would have decided the English King Henry II, in 1154, to undertake the conquest of Ireland, to put an end to this original Christianity.

Let us say at once that William Reeves (1864) is more precise in this field. Hence what is following ...

The devotion and self-denial which characterized monastic life upon its introduction into Ireland procured for those who adopted it the designation of "Servus Dei," which in process of time became almost a synonym of the word monachus. Ancilla Dei was understood to signify " prioress " (nun) and "servire Deo," to lead a monastic life."

Familiarized, therefore, to the expression Servus Dei, it is only reasonable to suppose that the Irish would adopt it in their language and find an equivalent for it in the language of their country.

Célé = companion?

But the term céle, as well as the Latin words “puer” and “comes” , or Irish gilla, also admit like secondary meaning the submission or the relation being able to exist between a master and a servant. For minds full of declarations of the kind: “Henceforth I will all you no longer servants, but friends”; the adoption of the expression servus Dei in the meaning of brothers, companions, or comrades, perhaps suggested an equivalent like that of Célé-dé in Gaelic language. It is important to remind that the word that comes into the composition of certain proper or common nouns, in the same way as gilla and mael, with the more or less explicit meaning of a companion, servant, or dedication/devotion to God.

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To this origin we may safely refer the creation of the Celtic compound Céle-Dé, which in its employment possessed all the latitude of its model, and, in the lapse of ages, underwent all the modifications or limitations of meaning which the changes of lime and circumstances, or local usage, produced in the class to whom the epithet was applied. Of this we have an interesting example in the Irish Annals of so late a period as 1595, at which year the Four Masters apply the term CéilenDé to the Dominican Friars of Sligo, members of an order which was not formally instituted till the year 1215. The Book of Fenagh, a compilation or the sixteenth century, on the other" hand, anticipates the actual introduction of the term, and in applying, by a prolepsis of some centuries, the word Celedei to St. John the Evangelist, necessarily employs it in the general sense of devotional sanctity, and probably poverty.

Two earlier manuscripts, the Book of Leinster and the Book of Lismore, preserve a legend of St. Moling, in which that ecclesiastical classes himself among the Céle-nDé, and implies that his associates were chiefly to be round among the miserable, to wit, the sick and lepers. Now, St. Moling, the founder of Tech-Moling, which is known in modern times by the name of St Muffins, in the county of Carlow, was the contemporary of St. Adamnan, and died in the year 697. He was not only an abbot but a bishop, and was the successor to St. Moedoc in the episcopal see of Ferns.

Passing over to Scotland, whither the term had been imported with the language and institutions of the Scotic immigrants, we find, about the middle of the thirteenth century, certain ecclesiastics, entitled, Keledei sive Canonici. In fact, during the range of time in which the term is of record, we discover the greatest diversity in its application, sometimes borne by hermits, sometimes by conventuals ; in one situation implying the condition of celibacy, in another understood of married men ; here denoting regulars, there seculars ; some of the name bound by obligations of poverty, others free to accumulate property ; at one period high in honor as implying self-denial, at another regarded with contempt as the designation of the loose and worldly-minded.

Some, who would contend for the uniformity of an order having the name of Céli-dé, endeavor to reconcile these incompatibilities by supposing the existence of two classes in the order, the one of stricter, the other of laxer, discipline : but this expedient is unsupported by record authority; and when at last Céle-dé does become a distinctive term, it is only so as contrasting those who clung to the old conventual observances of the country with those who adopted the better organized and more systematic institutions of medieval introduction , —in fact, as denoting an old-fashioned Scotic monk in an age when the prevaIence of such surnames as Mac Anaspie, Mac Nab, Mac Prior, Mac Intaggart, Mac Pherson, Mac Vicar, Mac Clery, indicated a condition of clerical society not exactly in accordance with the received notions of ecclesiastical discipline.

The earliest instance in which I have observed the adoption of the Latin term by an Irish writer is in Tirechan’s memoirs of St. Patrick, written in the early half of the eighth century, where the bishop, from whom Killespugbrone in the County Sligo derives its name, is called Bronus filius Icni, servus Dei, socius Patricii. Had the Tripartite Life translated this into Irish, as it has must do Trechan’s narrative, we should in all probability be supplied with an important testimony as to the origin of our vernacular Céle-dé; but unfortunately it transfers the Latin sentence as it stands on to the body of its own recital.

We have, however, in another part of this ancient and valuable compilation an example of the Irish term, which is one of the earliest instances of it I have yet found. Speaking of St. Patrick in reference to a lad who had lost his life, it goes on to say : " He ordered a céle-dé of his family, namely Malach the Briton, to restore him to life": where Colgan incorrectly renders the term in question by cuidam advenoe, instead of monacho-or servo Dei, the more reasonable translation.

And now that the term has come before us in its primitive form, it is time to examine its component elements, céle and Dé.

The word céle is of frequent occurrence in the earliest Irish manuscripts and. is the usual gloss on the words socius and maritus, where they occur in the Wurtzburg copy of St. Paul’s Epistles, and the St. Gall Priscian ; it further supplies the grammarian Zeuss with the paradigm of an old declension of a noun in his first series. In like manner, céle ingine (i. e. socius filioe) is the gloss on " gener" , and coceilfine on "societas." From this it passes into the pronominal sense of alius, alter, and the adverbial of seorsum. The cognate Welsh word cilid (gelyd of a later time, now gilydd), the Cornish gele, and the Breton gile, are only found in this secondary use.

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More rarely the word céle has the sense of servus : thus the Wurtzburg Epistles gloss libertus by roirmug, roirchéle ; that is to say a " freed slave." In O'Davoren’s Glossary chéle is explained by gilla, that is "a servant," and with this interpretation it is found in modern Irish and Gaelic dictionaries. We also meet with the term in the composition of a few proper names, combined in the same manner that the commoner elements mael and gilla are found ; as, Celecleirech, Celeclamh, Celecrist, Cededabhaill, Celedulaisi, Celeisa, Celepetair, Celetighernaigh."

The other component, Dé, is the genitive of Dia, " God," and is occasionally found as a kind of religious intensive in combination with certain monastic terms, as ancor Dé, anchorita Dei, caillech Dé, monialis Dei; deoraidh Dé, peregrinus Dei : and a man was said to renounce the world ap Dia " for God."

Taking, therefore, into consideration the true form of the term, it may safely be pronounced that the Scotch charter of the twelfth century, which represents it by chelede and Jocelin, who latinizes it calledeus, and the generality of Scotch records, which have it in the form keledeus, are more correct than the York Chartulary, Giraldus Cambrensis, and the Armagh records, which presume some affinity between the Irish céle and the Latin colo when they represent the term by colideus and coelicola ; in fact, making céledé the Celtic equivalent for the familiar deicola.

We therefore wonder when we find Colgan , who was a master of the Irish language, say concerning Kele-De, " quae vox latine reddita Deicolam, seu Amadeum designat."

In Scotland, Hector Boece, followed by George Buchanan , gave currency to the term culdeus, out of which grew, in that country, the vulgar form, culdee, which has come into general acceptance, and has been the subject of so much mystification.

The foreign Culdees.

The class of persons denoted by the term Céli-dé were not supposed by the Irish to be peculiar to this country we learn, not only from the passage of the Tripartite Life of St. Patrick above cited, which represents Malach, a Briton, as a Céle-dé among the saint's companions, but also from two very curious entries in the Annals of the Four Masters, though the source whence they were derived is uncertain. At 806, which is 811 of the common era, they relate that " In this year the Céile-dé came across the sea with dry feet, without a vessel; and a written roll was given him from heaven, out of which he preached to the Irish, and it was carried up again when the discourse was finished. This ecclesiastic used to go southwards across the sea, every day when his preaching was finished."

Setting aside the marvelous part of this statement, which ill assorts with the matter of fact entries among which the compilers have inserted it, one can easily perceive that it records the arrival of a foreign monk, whose object was to bring about some reformation in morals, or change in discipline, among the natives, and whose exhortations possessed pretensions or force sufficient to invest his message with a heaven-sent character.

Again, at the year 919, the same annalists record that " Maenach, a Céledé, came across the sea westwards to establish laws in Ireland." The Celtic form of this individual's name suggests North Britain as the quarter whence he came, it being a common practice with the ancient Irish to style Scotland "the eastern country." Or else we may suppose him to have been an Irish settler on the Continent, who came pack charged with some temporary commission regarding ecclesiastical discipline.

IRELAND.

St Maelruain and Tamhlacht.

The close of the eighth century presents to us the term Céle-dé in a definite sense and in local connection with a religious class or institution.

St. Maelruain, founder, abbot, and bishop of the church of Tamhlacht, now Tallaght, near Dublin, gathered round him a fraternity, for whom, amidst the prevailing corruption of religion and laxity of monastic discipline, he ordained certain rules of stricter observance, which consisted partly of precepts for conventual and sacerdotal guidance. Of his history we know nothing beyond a few broad facts. A religious rule, ascribed to him, is preserved, in manuscript, in the Leabhar Breac, entitled Riagail na Celed-nDe, oMoelruain cecinit, that is, " The Rule of the Céle-ndé [ from the poem] which Moelruain composed." The language in which it is written is Irish; and is proved by the orthography and grammatical structure to belong to a date not earlier than the twelfth or thirteenth century. It may be

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fairly regarded as a modernized and perhaps amplified version [stanzas or paragraphs 59 to 65] of a much earlier document. The length of the tract allows of great variety in the subjects of which it treats but its contents are greatly deficient in arrangement and are in many places obscure. Though of importance in the illustration of the subject, in hand, its insertion here would break the continuity of this memoir and introduce matters foreign to the immediate discussion. It is therefore reserved for the Appendix. It is sufficient to observe in this place that the subjects of its precepts are in various places styled Céle-nDé, either in an application limited to a particular Order so called, or, what is more likely, in a sense allied to that of "ascetics," or " clerics of stricter observance."

Beside this, there is a religious poem of twelve stanzas preserved in another venerable manuscript, having the superscription, Do Cheliu De inrorir, "Of the Céli-Dé down here," or, " as follows," and chiefly devoted to precepts regarding divine worship, according as their subjects might be clerics lecturers, or laymen.

This poem forms the seventh division in a metrical com position of 145 stanzas, which is ascribed to St. Carthach or Mochuda of Lismore, and immediately succeeds a division containing nineteen stanzas on the duties of a monk. If this be a genuine composition, or even a modernize copy, it will follow that the Céli-dé were a separate class, previously to the year 636, when St. Carthach died, and that they were distinct from the order called monks.

St. Maelruain died on the 7th of July, 792 ; and his death is thus recorded at 791, in the Annals of Ulster : " Maelruain Tamlachta episcopus et miles Christi in Pace dormivit."

In his fraternity there lived an ecclesiastic, somewhat his junior, called Aengus, surnamed from his father, Mac Oengobann, and from his grandfather, Ua Oiblen, whose poetical compositions obtained great celebrity among the Irish. This distinguished writer, having spent the early part of his monastic life at Cluain-Eidhnech, now Clonenagh and having founded a church in the neighborhood, called after his name, Disert-Aenguis, now Disertenos, was afterwards induced by the celebrity of Maelruain's institution, and what was probably a stronger attraction, the congeniality of its discipline to his peculiar habits, to attach himself to the congregation of Tamhlacht.

Here he is said to have composed his metrical calendar, or Felire, and to have taken part in compiling the Martyrology of Tamhlacht. Besides these works, the authorship of various religious poems and tracts of a liturgical and historical character is ascribed to him, and the title by which he is invariably designated is that of Céle-dé ; so that " Aengussius Keledeus" in Latin, and " Aengus the Culdee" in English, is a name familiar to everyone at all conversant with Irish history.

As a member of the community for whom the title Céle-dé has been especially claimed, he may have borne it rather as denoting his order than for any peculiar quality which he possessed ; or, as Colgan supposes, his personal holiness procured him, par excellence, the title of Céle-Dé in the sense of " a Iover or worshipper of God": to which Dr. Lanigan adds, as a " surname peculiar to himself."

A better view to take of it in the case of Aengus is to suppose that it was a received term denoting rigid monastic observance, especially in the order of divine service, and to have been applied to him as one who both contributed to the devotional compositions of the church, and also lived according to the strictest sect of his religion.

From the manner in which it is mentioned in the Annals and the Rules, there can be no doubt that it was a common term; and we even find it, in one instance, coupled with the name of an obscure individual : Comgan céle-de, " Comgan the Culdee," is commemorated in the calendars of Tamhlacht, Marianus Gorman, and Donegal, at the 2nd of August, but without any comment concerning his date or place. It may appear strange that the title is not oftener applied to saints of conventual distinction, amidst the host of names which crowd the Irish Calendar; but it is to be remembered that the term only came into use with anything like a determinate application towards the end of the eighth century, when the Irish Calendar was nearly closed.

The church of Tamhlacht was founded about twenty-four years after the institution by Chrodegang of the order of canons, to whom the title of Fratres Dominici was given, and afterwards that of canonici.

They were an intermediate class between monks and secular priests, adopting to a great extent the discipline, without the vows, of the monastic system, and discharging the office of ministers in various churches. At the Council of .Aix-la-Chapelle in 817, a new rule and additional regulations were

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enacted for them. Possibly the institution of Maelruain may have borrowed from, or possessed some features in common with, the order of canons : for certain it is that in after ages both the Keledei of Scotland and the Colidei of Ireland exhibited in their discipline the main characteristics of secular canons.

Armagh.

The next church on record as having a fraternity of Céli-dé in connection with it is that of Armagh; and here we have a great range of time for their continuance, namely, from the commencement of the tenth century to the Reformation.

At the year 920, or 921 of the common era, the Annals of Ulster relate that " Ardmacha was pillaged on the Saturday before St. Martin's day, which was the 10th of November, by Gofrith, grandson of Ivar, and his army, who saved the houses of prayer with their people of God, that is Céli-dé, and their sick, and the whole church-town, except some houses which were burned through neglect."

The remarkable feature in this passage is that there is no mention of an abbot, subordinate officers, or monks, of Armagh, although it possessed several churches, and was from an early period very fully provided with all grades of conventual ministers.

There seems to have been no secnab or prior, no bishop, no ferleghinn or Iecturer, no anchorite, nor any of the usual officers of a great monastery at this date. In fact, the Viking pillaging and burning of the years 830, 839, 850, 867, 879, 890, 893, and 914, as recorded by the Four Masters, had so desolated the ancient establishment that we can conceive it almost deserted reduced to a condition in which scarcely any but the most devoted and self-denying ministers of its churches and hospitals would remain in it. Hence we can understand how the annalist despatches all the religious of the place under the term " people of God," or, more precisely Céli-dé,who would seem to have been the officiating attendants of the choir and altar, and in close connection with whom were the receptacles for the sick and poor. In this view the Céli-dé of Armagh would denote the ministerial portion of the old conventual society.

This is the first and last time that the Irish annals notice the Céli-dé of Armagh and it is not till the year 1366 that they reappear upon the page of history. In the interval, the Norsemen having ceased from their depredations, and Armagh having recovered her normal condition, the chief local clan acquired a religious as well as a secular ascendancy, and the six hereditary successions of lay abbots occurred, together with other abuses, which grew out of an enervated state of the conventual system. During this period we may suppose, however, that while the wealthier portion of the community became so much secularized, the officiating priests continued to discharge the duties of the sacerdotal office, as in former times, living in a community, and it may be, like the Céli-dé at Clonmacnois, or the Keledei of Scotland, occasionally entering the married state.

The laxity of their discipline was the probable cause which rendered the introduction of regular canons into Armagh a desideratum; and we can easily understand how the public recognition of this order in 1126 would greatly tend to diminish the influence and importance of the secular corporation, who hence forward took rank in the diocese after the regulars, though they represented the original clergy of the place.

The exact date when the cathedral economy was recast is not recorded, but it probably took place in the interval between the retirement of Malachi O'Morgair and the conquest of Ireland, during the episcopate of Gelasius: and then the normal cathedral staff of a dean, chancellor, treasurer, archdeacon, and canons, hitherto unknown in Ireland, but now borrowed from English or Continental usage, was introduced.

In other dioceses a different process took place, as in Down, where Malachi O'Morgair, in 1138, founded a priory of regular canons, leaving the cathedral church to its old corporation of secular canons, who, I presume, were akin to the Céli-dé, and who continued, to conduct its services till 1183, when John de Courcy turned them out, and Anglicized the church by bringing over Benedictines from St. Werburgh’s (Chester).

In Meath, however, there has never been a cathedral establishment of any kind, and the Céli-dé who formerly served the church at Clonard, merged, with their privileges, in the parochial clergy of the diocese.

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Editor’s note.

Malachy (Ireland about 1094 - France 1148) was the pioneer of the Gregorian reform in Ireland.

Son of a schoolmaster, Malachy became monk with the abbot Imar and was ordained a priest by saint Celsus in 1119. He continued to study during some time, under the direction of Malchus of

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Lismore. When Cellagh (Celsus), archbishop of Armagh, left for Dublin, Malachy directed his diocese as a vicar.

In 1123, Malachy was entrusted the re-establishment of the deserted abbey of Bangor and, the following year, he became bishop of Connor. With a handful of monks, he built a church out of wooden. He had few priests and few resources (the tithe was hardly lucrative), and the authority of the tradition overrode that of the Church. His perseverance and his skill had nevertheless results. But he was forced to leave because of the war. He flees in Lismore where he founded a monastery in lveragh.

In 1129, he was appointed archbishop of Armagh by Cellagh, dying. During several years, the powerful family which, by tradition, gave the holders to this see, prevented him from exerting this ministry. Malachy, eager to avoid the confrontations, waited for the intervention of the papal legate Gilbert of Limerick, to carry out the jurisdiction of the diocese. When Muirchertach died, his rival, Malachy requested the see of Armagh from his successor, Niall, who, however, kept a great influence in North.

Malachy resigned in 1137, and a compromise was found by all the parties, in the person of the abbot Gilla of Derry.

Coming back to Connor, Malachy divided the diocese into two sees, Connor and Down. He left for Rome in 1139, visited Bernard of Clairvaux on the way and left him some monks to be trained. His request concerning the pallium was rejected, but Pope Innocent II appointed him legate for Ireland. On his return, Malachy founded the monastery of Mellifont. Then he set out again for Rome, stopped again in Clairvaux, and died in the arms of St. Bernard who wrote his Life.

Prophecy on the popes. In 1595, the monk Arnold de Wyon published a document of a few pages which he wrongfully ascribed to this archbishop of Armagh. It is a succession of one hundred mottos which were to apply to all the popes since Celestine II (1113-1114). One realizes that some mottos adapt well to the reigns of the popes whom they designate. Brief comments reinforce the fit with it. But, starting from Urban VII who died in 1590, there is no longer comment, nor obvious fits. It thus seems well that true prophecy starts only with this motto and its realization becomes as a result more doubtful. After the motto of Paul VI, the last three mottos are the following ones: De mediatate Lunae; middle or half of the moon? (John-Paul 1st, pope from August to September 1978;) De labore solis, sun at work? (John-Paul II, pope in October 1978;) then De gloria Olivae, the glory of the olive tree…..

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But, to return from this digression, the ancient system was not altogether superseded, as elsewhere, but the old society of the Céli-dé, who now began to be called, after the Latin fashion, by the name Colidei, were continued in their endowments and religious functions, only in a less prominent position. Their ministrations in the " great church" proceeded as hitherto, and their head or prior (which was a title of precedence, but not authority) fell into the place, though not the name, of the ordinary first singer, while his fraternity of Colidei performed the office or vicars in the choir. They continued to be a severed corporation, and never merged in the chapter, their prior only having a place and voice in capitular meetings. Hence the formal communications from the archbishops ran thus—" Decano, Priori Colideorum…" or, " Decano, Priori Colideorum, omnibusque et singulis Canonicis et Colideis ecclesiae nostrae Armachanae."

The first place that the name appears in the records of Armagh is in the Register of Primate Sweteman, in 1367, where that prelate remonstrates with Ohandeloyn [O'Hanlon] for the injuries that he had offered to the " Decanus et omnes alii Canonici et Colidei." In the same year Cristinus, a Colideus, was the bearer or a letter from the primate to the dean. Odo M'dynim, or M'doynym, the prior of the Colidei, was despatched to Rome, in 1366, as the primate's proctor in a case pending there and he is also styled " Prior communitatis nostri capituli Armachani." In his absence he was elected to the office of chancellor in the cathedral, which had precedence, and was better endowed.

During the course of this and the following centuries there is repeated mention of the Colidei and their prior in the Registers, and from the incidental notices we collect the following particulars regarding their constitution and office:

1. The body consisted of a prior and five brethren. 2. The celebration of divine offices was discharged by them; and skill in music as well as eloquence in preaching were considered necessary qualifications for the office of prior, which, was in their election. 3. The office of Colideus was accepted

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as a title for holy orders. 4. The repair of the fabric of the church was in their hands; and among them was frequently found the office of " Magister operis Majoris Ecclesiae," and of Apparitor. 5. License to appoint a confessor was granted to them by the primate under certain conditions. 6. Their consent was not required for the ratification of the primate's official acts. 7. They had no voice in the election of the diocesan, except so far as their prior, in virtue or his first singer position, had a vote in the chapter. 8. They took no part in the custody of the spirituals of the diocese sede vacante. 9. In the order or precedence, as a body, they ranked third in the diocese; the dean and chapter being first, the convent of regular canons of St. Peter and St. Paul being second, they third, and the clergy at large fourth. 10. Their inferior position was implied in the title of canonici majores, which was applied to the non-dignified members of the chapter while the secular character of their head distinguished him from the prior claustralis, who was an officer among the regular canons. 11. Their prior ranked in the cathedral next after the chancellor. 12. Rectories or vicarages with the cure of souls were generally held by the priors, and occasionally by the inferior rnembers, as the rectories of Achlunga [Aghaloo], Carnsegyll [Carnteel], and the vicarages of Twyna [Tynan], Onellan [Kilmore], and Drumcrygh [Drumcree]. 13. In 1427 they were possessed of the rectory and certain town lands in the parish or Derenoysse [Derrynoose]. 14. At the dissolution they were found to have been seized of seven town lands, now in the parish of Lisnadill, consisting of 1423 acres ; the rectories of seven parishes, with the vicarages of three ; and some small holdings, all in the county of Armagh. 15. The archbishop had a residence among them; for in 1462 Primate Bole speaks of his accustomed abode " in loco collideorum vulgariter nuncupato -" This connection was probably a vestige of their ancient relation, when the " Successor of Patrick" was an abbot, and their predecessors his brotherhood.

In Primate Mey's Register" is entered a long and detailed account of certain proceedings which took place relative to the title of one of the vicarages above mentioned; and as this involved an examination into the nature of the office of Colideus, we possess in the record an amount of contemporary evidence which is of great importance in the discussion of this question.

In the year 1430, David McGillade, prior of the Colidei of Armagh, died, and Donald O'Kellachan, a canon of the church, was unanimously elected by the college of Colidei to succeed him, who was thereupon duly installed. On the 17th of May he presented himself to Primate Swayne, at his residence in Drogheda, for confirmation, which was readily granted, inasmuch as he was, to use this prelate's words, " in expositione verbiDei , etaliorum exponendorum plurimum facundus," and also qualified to conduct divine service as being " cantilena peritus:' The primate further, with the approbation of the dean and chapter, granted him a dispensation for holding the perpetual vicarage of Tynan whereof he was then possessed.

But towards the close of 1442, Donald McKassaid, a priest of the diocese of Clogher, having misrepresented the case at the court of Rome, by stating that the office of prior was incompatible with a benefice having cure of souls, obtained a decree that the vicarage of Tynan, which Donald O'Kellachan had held for twelve years, and was estimated at the annual value of five marks sterling, was now unlawfully occupied, and therefore void, and, by virtue of a canon of the Council of Lateran, devoluted to the see of Rome. Accordingly a bull of Eugenius IV was obtained, dated February 28, 1443, directed to the dean and Arthur and John McCathmayll, canons of Armagh, empowering them to evict Donald. O'Kellachan from his benefice, and induct McKassaid therein ; to whom, " propter defectum natalium, urpote de soluto et soluta natus," a dispensation was granted, together with license to hold two or more vicarages, or two prebends or canonries, and liberty of exchange; as also an express faculty to hold the rectory of Teachtalan [Tehallan], in the diocese of Clogher. Whereupon Arthur McKathmayll proceeded to execute the said mandate, declaring the vicarage empty, and Donald the prior smote and to be expelled as an unlawful intruder. Donald McKassaid, on bended knee, received investiture, and was decreed into corporal possession. At the same time sentence of canonical censure was pronounced against all contraveners, not excepting the diocesan himself .Having no seal of his own, the commissary borrowed that of Eugenius, abbot of St. Peter and Paul's of Cluaineysse (now Clones).

The prior appealed to the court of Rome directly, and to that of Armagh , employing John White as his proctor, who died at Rome on the 13th of October, 1445, before he was able to execute his commission. A delay consequently occurred in the prosecution of the suit, and, owing to the poverty of the prior, as well as the detention of the vicarial revenues by the friends of Donald McKassaid. (Patrick McKassaid, a kinsman, being herenach of Tynan), he was unable to employ a fresh proctor till the close of the following year, when Thomas O'Kellachan, a clerk of Armagh, was despatched by the prior and Colidei. In his journey he was waylaid near Carryk, in Meath, by certain malandrini, and

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robbed of his money and credentials. The appeal, however, was proceeded with, and, pending the decision, the primate sat in court in Armagh cathedral, on the 24th of July, 1445, to receive evidence and pronounce judicially on the matter of fact whether the priorate of the Colidei was an "office" or " dignity with a cure."

The following parties were examined on oath:—Charles O’Mellan, the dean. Salomon McCreanayr, the chancellor ; Arthur McCathmayll, official of Tullaghog; Thomas McGillacrany, Nicholas McGillamura, Donatus O'Hallian, and John McGeerun, Colidei ; Philip McKewyn, herenach of Dareynoysse ; William O'Moryssa, prier claustralis ; John O'Goddane, canon regular ; O'Coffy, O'Martanan, and McGillamura, captains of their clans

The primate thereupon delivered judgment that the priorate was not incompatible with a benefice having a cure. Meanwhile the prior's appeal was pressed at Rome, and a bull of Nicholas V, dated 1447, was issued, stating that the petition of Donald O'Kellachan, vicar of Tynan; had been received, setting forth that the " Prioratus collegii secularium presbyterorum, Colideorum vulgo nuncupatorum," was a simple office, and praying that the accidental delay in the appeal might not bar his rights. The rescript empowers the primate and the abbot of St. Peter's and St. Paul's of Armagh, or either of them, to hear the appeal, and to affirm or annul the antecedent decision, as the ends of justice might demand. This was lodged with the primate on the 23rd of March, 1448, by Thomas O'Kellachan, the prior's proctor; and after some preliminary hearings, the archbishop sat, on the 7th of November, in the house of the Friars Minor of Armagh, outside the town, which was chosen for safety's sake, as the plague was raging within. After various adjournments, the appellant produced in court a,'' liber notabilis de antiquis cronicis," and proceeded to examine witnesses, among whom was William O'Moryssa, a canon regular and prior claustralis, who swore that the priorate was not a dignity, but only a precedence among the Colidei, and that at the time he himself " intravit religionem," David McGillade, prior of the Colidei and vicar of Onellan, was his kind master, but that he incurred his displeasure by entering a regular order instead of becoming a Colideus.

Nicholas O'Hernaid swore that the prior was only " inceptor in executione divinorum." On the 16th of November, 1448, the primate gave definitive sentence, declaring McKassaid's title null and void, and decreeing the said priorate to be merely an office, and tenable with a beneficed cure; at the same time condemning McKassaid in all the costs and fees of court incurred by reason of his temerary vexation. On the 16th of December refutatory letters were despatched to the pope, refusing to admit McKassaid’s further appeal, as being frivolous. Thus was delivered from the gravest ecclesiastical tribunal in the land an authoritative definition of the office and functions of the Irish Culdee in the middle of the fifteenth century.

There are occasional notices of the Colidei in the Armagh registers during the succeeding century, after which they become silent; but the Antiphonary of Armagh, which came into the possession of Archbishop Ussher, and is preserved among hic manuscripts in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, contains some obituary entries, which are of importance in confirmation of what has been now advanced.

These entries are all subsequent to the Act for the suppression of Religious Houses, and seem to imply that, notwithstanding the inquisition which had been taken, in 1541, on the priory of the Colidei of Armagh, means had been found to evade its operations. This was in a great measure effected by annexing the office of prior to that of the dean, thus divesting the corporation of that appearance of severalty which it had hitherto possessed, and by the primate's subjecting its revenues to his own more immediate control. On the death of Edmund McCamyl, who was both dean and prior, Terence Danyell succeeded to the deanery ; and on the 31st of May, 1550, received a commission from Primate Dowdall to exercise the rule and government of the Colidei and other ministers of divine service in the college, " sub nomine Magistri aut Rectoris collegii, et non Prioris," but was at the same time inhibited from the alienation or disposal of any lands, rents, tithes, or other emoluments belonging to the said Colidei, without his and their consent. The religious changes which soon after took place broke up the corporation, and the succession of the Colidei was interrupted, so that before 1600 they were found to have died out entirely. The Crown, however, neither took possession, nor made any grant of their estates, but they continued to be farmed by the primates and others for the use of the cathedral till 1625, when Charles I. ordered an Inquisition of Discovery concerning their possessions as unlawfully concealed or detained. Whereupon it was found that, previously to the year 1541, there had been a priory or religious house incorporated at Armagh under the name of "Prior et Collodei" , " the prior and vicars choral of Armagh."

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Two years after the king granted a charter incorporating a prior and five vicars choral, to be called '"The College of King Charles in the cathedral church of Armagh." In this instrument he confirmed to them all the original estates of the Colidei, excepting the rectories and vicarages of parishes which had been consolidated under James I. And it is a curious historical fact that the ancient title survived the Reformation, and existed in the year 1628, when a deed was executed in which the lessor was " Edward Burton, prior of the cathedral church of Armagh, on behalf of the vicars choral and Colideans of the same." The corporation was soon after increased to eight, but the office of prior was suppressed, there being now a first singer in the capitular body. Their endowments were also augmented, without disturbing their old estate, which continues in their possession to the present day, and contributes towards the maintenance of a body who, within the same walls, discharge the same duties in person, or by representation, which the Colidei did six hundred years ago.

Culdees are also mentioned at :

— Clonmacnois (in 1031).

— Clondalkin (in 1076).

— Monahincha (in 1143).

— And lastly Devenish

The island of Daimh-inis, in Loch Erne, was celebrated for its monastery, which St. Molaisi founded in the sixth century, out of which grew that striking memorial of pristine importance, the noble round tower which still remains there in its original proportions.

[Editor’s note. These round towers which stand as lanterns of the dead (cf. that of Saint-Pierre d’Oleron) , near the Culdees churches, are a specificity of Celtic Christianity].

In the twelfth or thirteenth century, a body of regular canons superseded the ancient community of the island, and became possessed of their church and endowments, allowing, however, a small society of secular canons, probably the representatives of the original occupants, to remain, but in a subordinate position. The notices of Devenish in the Annals of the Four Masters contain the names and offices of various individuals connected with its monastery; but there is only one which specifically mentions the fraternity under consideration, in which they record, in 1479, the death of Piarus (or Piers), the son of Nicholas O'Flanagan, who had been a canon chorister, a parson, and prior of Céle-ndé, a, sacristan at Devenish, and an official of Loch Erne. Here, as in the case of Armagh, we observe the musical qualifications in the prior of the Céli-ndé. He was a canon choral of the cathedral of Clogher.

The O'Flanagans were the chiefs of Tooraa, a district on the west side of Loch Erne, and for several generations furnished incumbents to the parishes of Devenish, and Inismacsaint. Nicholas, father of the above-mentioned Piers, was the parson of Devenish, and died in 1450. A son of the same Piers, also called Nicholas, who died in 1520, was also the parson of Devenish. Thus we again perceive that the office of Céle-dé did not necessarily require a single life, unless we make an exception in favor of Piers O'Flanagan and the O'Neacbtains of Clonmacnois on the score of their being priors and therefore entitled to the exemption enjoyed by heads of houses in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

At the dissolution of monasteries, there were two conventual societies on the island, one a priory of regular canons, and the other described as " the late priory or house of secular priests of Collidea in the same island, with an orchard

thereunto belonging, and four tates of land possessed by Rory Ballogh O'Corcon as the coarb ; the tithes of which were possessed by the prior O'Flanagan of the abbey." In a patent of James I., the buildings are described as " a cell or chapel called Callidea alias Colldea, in the said island, to the said abbey near and belonging."

The house of these secular priests appears to have been a relic of the ancient establishment of St. Molaisi, whose monks were superseded by the regular canons, and to whom they stood in the same relation that the Colidei of Armagh did to the cathedral chapter.

Inis-Catbaigh, is situated in the River Shannon, near its mouth. A church was founded upon it by St. Senan, son of Gerrcind, about the year 540. This foundation came to an end when the see of Inis-Cathay was annexed to that of Killaloe, about the close of the twelfth century, and the lands were transferred to the bishop. In 1599, a deed was executed by Maurice, bishop of Killaloe, to Teige

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McGillchanna, or Gillehanna, prior of Inis-Cathay, the representative of the ancient society, who was married, and whose son and daughter were living in 1667. Bishop Worth, in his rental of Killaloe, drawn up in that year, recites the above inquisition, and adds as a note on the thirty-three canons, " these in Ulster are called Culdees, i.-e. Dei Cultores."

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ST COLUMBA OF IONA (born in 521- passed in Scotland in 563)

AND THE TRIUMPH OF CHRISTIANITY IN IRELAND.

Columba of lona, "also known as Columcille (not to be mixed up with Columba of Bobbio, a missionary in continental Europe).

Born in 521 under the name of "Criamtham." It is in a prince of the house of the O'Neill in Tir Conail in the present County Donegal in Ireland. He is the son of Feidlimid mac Fergus Cendfota mac Conall Gulban, his ancestor is the eponymous founder of the Cenel Conaill. By his grandmother, Erca, daughter of Loarn mac Eirc, the founder of the Cenél Loairn, he is also related to the kings of Dal Riada.

He received his literary education and his religious training at Moville, then at Clonard, then directed by Saint Finian. He took in it the name of Colum (dove), in Latin Columba. He was subsequently given the name of Columcille, which means "church dove" or "monastery dove".

Because of his origins, Columba of Iona is very representative of the Irish High Middle Ages when the reality of power is held by the abbots from the princely families perpetuating the clan society. He would have founded, according to tradition, several schools and monasteries in Ireland: Derry in 545, Durrow in 553 and Kells in 554.

Columba of lona deserves, therefore, that we emphasize some features of his personality, for he is like the most perfect embodiment of the Celtic monk. He is a prince; he has the heroism, the ardor, the authority of the great tribe chiefs; Adamnan, his biographer, calls him insulanus miles, the soldier of islands. He is an ascetic who imposes on himself the most terrible mortifications: he sleeps on stone, his pillow even is a stone; he forces himself to cruel vigils during long winter nights, and to still more cruel fasts. But he collects the mystical fruits of this fierceness. On several occasions his monks surprised him in ecstasy. Adamnan tells us that he remained three days and three nights on an island, without eating or drinking, filled with the graces of God; a bright light filtered from the door of his cell. He is still a man of great culture. Tradition makes him a scribe and legend shows his passion for manuscripts. He is attributed the paternity of the Altus Prosator. This culture was not only a Latin and Christian culture; fili or velede himself, Columba of Iona will defend the velledae / filid at the assembly of Druim Ceatt 1), where the abolition of their corporation was demanded. According to tradition, many of the founding saints of the Celtic Church were members of the order of the filid; for example, St. Fiacc, one of the first disciples of St. Patrick.

Legend has it that Columba went one day to visit Finnian, Abbot of Moville, to consult a book of psalms received from Rome. Manuscripts were rare, and the thirst for the word of God great among these monks. The precious book, therefore, was well worthy that a man comes to consult it. But Columba wanted more. He let himself be shut up in the church during a night in order to copy the manuscript. A monk surprised him and there followed a bitter quarrel between the two abbots, for Finnian wanted to reserve himself up to the text. He demanded, therefore, that Columba should give him back the copy of it he had made. The case came before the supreme king Diarmait mac Cerbaill (544-565) who decided that the copy also belonged to Finnian "as the calf belongs to the cow." Columba refused to submit. And the war broke out, not a war of arguments, but a real war. Columba led all his own, that is, the O'Neill of the North, against Diarmait.

It can be considered that in Ireland Christianity definitely won the game with this battle of Cul Dreimme which took place in the 560s (3000 dead) and which was won by the supporters of St. Columba, who brandished before them the famous book of psalms ( Cathach) in order to win the victory. Columban indeed came out of it victorious, without one of his men dying, while the enemy camp had up to three thousand dead. So it was clear that God wanted his victory.

It is therefore here the Irish equivalent of the famous battle of Arthuret or Arfderydd, which saw Merlin sink into madness following the death of his sponsor and patron the pagan prince Gwendolleu of Strahclyde (in 573).

Colomba was forgiven at a synod summoned up in Teltown, County Meath, but had to go into exile.

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He therefore left Ireland and settled in a small island, about five kilometers long, on the west coast of Scotland; which belonged to a particular tribe, but on which another person undoubtedly exercised some rights. He had probably obtained this land from his relative Conall, king of Dalriada, a donation which will be confirmed by Brude, king of the Picts, when this last was converted to Christianity. Landlords and suzerains gave up to him their privileges therefore, and Columba could settle there safely. This island was part of the kingdom of Dal Riada, located in the west of Scotland. This kingdom was distinguished by its language. Its inhabitants spoke Gaelic, just like the Irish. While their eastern neighbors (who are grouped for convenience under the name of Caledonians) had their own language, little known, the Pictish. And while their southern neighbors, themselves, spoke Brythonic.

This small island, 115 kilometers away from Ireland, was separated from the rest of Scotland by the island of Mull, and from it by a strait of about 1600 meters. It was called leua, hence Eu in late Pictish, then I or Hy, whence also the adjective lova, which, by a mistake in written form, produced Lona, name that remained to it.

Columban of Iona was also, as we have seen, a great missionary. But what makes nearer to us this prince of barbarous times, this ascetic of a heroic and fierce Christianity, the representative of a distant culture, this intrepid missionary, it is his extreme charity. He called his monks his grandchildren; and showed towards the beasts quite a Franciscan tenderness, illustrated by the story of the crane fallen from exhaustion on the coasts of his island and that he made treated for three days by a brother so that she could leave again .

1) This assembly of Druim-Cetta was essentially political (a conflict to be decided between kings of Scotland and kings of Ireland), but it also settled the fate of the veledae or filid who remained more or less pagan. St. Columban again intervened personally and a compromise was found. The veledae or filid could continue to carry out their activities but provided they were confined to their literary vocation alone. They were therefore equated to simple poets or simple bards. Hence the fact that in Gaelic language the word fili or filid is systematically translated as poets or bards and that it is forgotten that it was a subdivision of the Druid Order.

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ST COLUMBA CONTINUATION .

ST COLUMBA OF IONA (passed into Scotland in 563,

passed in the other world in 597).

The historical Columba of Iona is essentially known to us thanks to his biographer, Adomnán, ninth abbot of Iona. Colomba of Iona was born in 521 and died on June 9, 597. In 563, aged 42, he left Ireland to found the monastery of Iona. The reasons for this departure have given rise to multiple interpretations.

A certain number of authors, and not the least of them, have questioned the remorse motivation to explain the installation of Colomba at Iona in 563. As we have already had the opportunity to say it , Columba was in fact perhaps driven from Ireland by remorse, but above all because he had been exiled there, perhaps not as the legend would have it, for having carried out and carried away without the consent of his owner Finnian of Moville, a copy of a precious manuscript from Rome, but rather for political reasons connected with his role in the rivalries between members of the royal family. These rivalries end in 56? To the bloody battle of Cúl Dreimne (3000 dead) between the O'Neill of the North and the Ard rí Erenn Diarmait, do not forget it.

The territory of Iona was undoubtedly given to Columba by the king of Dál Ríata in Scotland. He was immediately set to work in order to build the monastery, which was perhaps the largest and most famous of the Irish monasteries but which was at the beginning only made up of various structures of branches covered with clay. Hence comes that there remains no longer some trace now, current ruins dating from the Middle Ages. The own cell of St. Columba was, according to his biographer Adomnan, tabulis suffulta, made out of boards and harundine tecta, covered with thatch of reeds.Then he devoted the rest of his life to prayer, asceticism and conversion of Scotland.

To more easily put an end to the paganism of the Picts, Columba did not hesitate to go to their king, Brude. The latter, like Loegaire in Ireland, was surrounded by druid druids, who were very opposed to the action of the Christian missionaries. But, like St. Patrick, Columba of Iona succeeded in converting Brude; and after that Christianity evidently spread more easily in the north of the country.

St. Columba, on leaving Ireland, was accompanied only by twelve monks but the disciples did not take very long to come in large numbers to lona. In 574 at the latest, Iona already has a subsidiary, Hinba / Himba (Canna). Other monasteries or hermitages had to be organized in the neighboring islands, in Ethica (Tiree), Elena (Islay), Scia (Skye), in Argyll, but also in Ireland. These establishments formed, with those of Scotland and Ireland, which the holy founder had not ceased to direct, a vast monastic confederation, that our texts designate by the names of muintir Columcille or familia Columbae. Led by personalities set up by Columba, these annexes evolve within an organized hierarchical structure.

Unlike a large number of Irish abbots of the same period, the Abbot of Iona was not a bishop. He exercised, however, on the churches and monasteries of neighboring countries, a jurisdiction comparable to that of a metropolitan primate. This surprising state of things still existed in favor of his successor in the days of Venerable Bede. The island, according to this author, is governed by a priest abbot, to whose jurisdiction the whole province, including the bishops, is subject, by an unusual disposition (ordine inusitato). This is in accordance with the condition of the first doctor of that island, who was not a bishop, but a priest and a monk. England owes him a special gratitude. For it was the sons of Columba who settled at Lindisfarne, and thence spreading themselves among the northern angles, preached to them Christianity, whose progress had been abruptly interrupted by the victory of the pagan king Penda over Edwin in 633.

One of the works attributed to St Columba of Iona is the Altus Prosator. The text presents many of the characteristics of hiberno-latin or Ireland’s Latin. The word prosator, "the first sower" which designates the Creator, refers to God using a neologism.

Altus prosator, vetustus

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dierum et ingenitus

erat absque origine

primordii et *crepidine

est et erit in sæcula

sæculorum infinita;

cui est unigenitus

Xristus et sanctus spiritus

coæternus in gloria

deitatis perpetua.

Non tres deos *depropimus

sed unum Deum dicimus,

salva fide in personis

tribus gloriosissimis.

Translation :

“High creator, Ancient

of Days, and unbegotten,

who was without origin

at the beginning and foundation,

who was and shall be in infinite

ages of ages;

who is uncreated

Christ, and Holy Ghost,

co-eternal in the everlasting

glory of Godhood.

We do not propose three gods,

but we speak of one God,

saving faith in three Persons.”

Another of the poems ascribed to St. Columba of Iona is the one which begins in Gaelic language with the words

M'oenuran dam is in sliab,

A rig grian rop sorad sad,

Nocha n-eaglaigi dam ni,

Na du mbeind tri ficit ced.

And which can be translated as follows.

“Lost am I upon the mountain;

O Royal Sun, be the way that will guide me;

I have no more fear of aught

Than if there were six thousand with me.

Because even if there were six thousand with me

Of people, though they might defend my body,

When the moment of my death shall come,

There is no fortress that can resist it.

They that are ill-fated are slain even in a church,

Even on an island in the middle of a lake;

They that are well fated are preserved in life,

Though they were in the first rank of a fierce battle.

Whatever god destines for one,

He shall not go from the world till it befalls him;

Though a Prince should seek something greater

Not as much as a mite shall he obtain....

O Living God, O Living God!

Woe to him who for any reason does evil around him.

………………

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What you see escapes from your will

Our fortune does not depend on sneezing.

Nor on a bird on the point of a twig,

Nor on the trunk of a crooked tree,

Nor on a sordan… *

Greater is He on whom we depend,

The Father,—the One,—and the Son....

I am not afraid of the voices of birds,

Nor of sneezing, nor of any charm ,

Nor of a child, nor of a sign of the fate, nor of a woman;

Na mac, na mana, na mnan,

My Druid is Christ, the Son of God.

Christ the Son of Mary, the great Abbot,

The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,

My Possession is the King of Kings,

My community is in Kells and Moone !

* Sordan = wind noise ? In the branches?

Columba was, of course, an accomplished copyist and illuminator if the Book of Kells can be ascribed to him. He was besides recopying a psalm when, caught up by a fatal disease, he died after having ordered his nephew Baithen to finish the work. St Columba of Iona therefore died June 9, 597 but was then buried at Downpatrick with Saint Patrick and Saint Brigit of Ireland, who are the other patron saints of this country.

Baithen during his short three years succession following Columba, is said too, like his teacher, to be engaged “in writing, prayer and teaching, until the hour of his death.” Questioned in connection with Baithen, Fintan, one of his monks, answered one day what follows. “Be certain that he was second to no one on this side of the Alps as regards the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures or the profundity of his science.” As he was a former student and teacher of the School of lona, one could regard that as exaggerated if we did not also have the writings of Adamnan, the ninth abbot of lona, a famous scientist, to confirm it.

The oldest biography of St. Columba of Iona is in fact a poem entitled in Gaelic language Amra Choluimb Chille. If the kept oldest manuscript dates from the eleventh century, the language used reveals a composition around 600. This date confirms the author's testimony that the poem was written at the death of the saint. The Amra belongs to the literary tradition of the poem of praise (it’s an eulogy) and paints us the portrait of an ideal hero. It is interesting to note, however, that Columba's main virtues, according to this poem, lie in his humility and his intellectual knowledge, and that there is no reference to any miracle in its text. The importance of teaching and asceticism in the Celtic Church of the beginning of the seventh century.

The Liber de uirtutibus sancti Columbae was written by Cummene, abbot of Iona from 657 to 669. The only known trace of this work is the quotation of a passage of it by Adomnán between the paragraphs III.5 and III.6 of his Life. This passage recounts a prophecy of Columba concerning the king of Dál Ríata, Áedán, his descendants and his kingdom.

But the more time will pass, the more the miracles attributed to St. Columba of Iona will multiply. Their number will culminate in the Vita Columbae written by Adomnan. The Life of Columba by Adomnán is a text easy to apprehend: a manuscript almost contemporaneous with the writing is preserved; external sources inform on the hagiographer; the Latin of the Life and the structure of the work are more "continental" than in other texts; lastly , on the level of the tools, a good edition and numerous studies exist.

Like Columba, Adomnán is a member of the Cenél Conaill, and is an abbot of Iona. He is a scholar of the highest order. Before his life was written, he completed a work on the holy places: De locis sanctis, whose influence, especially on Bede, will be considerable. Finally, Adomnán is known by his promulgation in 697 of the "Law of Innocents," a legislative work on which we will return because of its exploitation to heart’s content by the sycophants of Christianity.

Adomnán announces at once that his Life of Columba will be divided into three books: the prophecies of the saint, his miracles and his angelic visits. After an introduction which gives some information on

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the historical Columba, we find three books, clearly divided and respectful of the categories announced. The narration is therefore not chronological.

The originality of Adomnan does not end there. In addition to the fact that he has categorized the miracles, Adomnan sought to show a progression in the manifestation of divine power: the first book presents Columba with the attributes of a contemplative saint; the second makes him the emulator of the apostles, and even of Christ; the third confirms the divine origin of his supernatural powers and tends to show that even in his lifetime the saint belonged to the heavenly world.

On the death of St Columba, the monastery remained in the hands of the Cenél Conaill, whose king will have the upper hand over the Ui Néill for the supreme kingship in Ireland (ard ri Erenn) in 695. The link between Iona and the Cenél Conaill is strong. It is a family bond, but also a political bond, since in 697 the ninth Abbot of Iona Adomnán and the King of Cenél Conaill cooperated in promulgating a civil law known as the Law of Innocents (Lex Innocentium or Cáin Adomnáin).

The sycophants of Christianity make it a declaration of the human rights before the word is invented. It remains to be seen! The Cain Adomnain is a confused work whose purpose is not to legislate but to gloss over the circumstances that led to the drafting of this law. In Islamic land, this Cain Adomnain would be classified in the category of the Asbab an Nuzul defined as follows….

Info Islam-mag, an Islamic view of the world: "As we have said before, the Quran aims to guide mankind towards the path of God. It sheds light on the path to follow and rectifies the mistakes made. It makes the faith of believers fructify and strengthens their conviction in their lord. Its fragmentation over twenty-three years demonstrates its vitality and dynamism. Its distribution over more than two decades plunges us into the heart of the first Muslim society and its concerns. It is nevertheless essential to note that the majority of the Quran was revealed without any event requesting it. The angel Gabriel came down with the word of God to educate the Prophet, PBUH, and explain to him the reasons of his mission and then this message was communicated to the community of believers. There remains therefore a minority part of the Quran which is concerned by the circumstances of the revelation. So, when an incident happened, the revelation occurred at once to comment and frame it. Let us note, moreover, that this knowledge of the circumstances of revelation is based exclusively on the narration. This circumstance must refer to a proven historical fact. It is then necessary that the reported information goes back imperatively to the companion (sahabi) who attended this event or that this information is transmitted by one of his disciples. Indeed, Al-Suyuti somewhat reduces the condition ... etc. and ... ". For the continuation see your usual mosque.

The Cain Adomnain was promulgated at the Synod of Birr in 697. This law was a clever fusion of secular legislation on compensatory legislation, ecclesiastical canons and Irish penitentials (Bieler). As a secular law enforced by ecclesiastics, it was perhaps the first of its kind in Great Britain and Ireland.

Man is neither angel nor beast, and unhappily whoever wants to act the angel, acts the beast.The Cain Adomnan or Law of the Innocents of 697 starts from a good feeling. Since we cannot directly, totally and squarely forbid war, let us at least limit its horrors. In this case the abbot of Iona behaved a little like the ancient druids: they did not directly, totally and squarely forbid human sacrifices but limited them by resorting to criminals sentenced to death kept in reserve for this purpose. A law of the guilty in a way.

Caesar. Book VI chapter XVI: " They consider that the oblation of such as have been taken in theft, or in robbery, or any other offense, is more acceptable to the immortal gods."

Diodorus of Sicily Book V chapter XXXII: "Their criminals they keep prisoner for five years and then impale in honor of the gods, dedicating them together with many other offerings of first fruits and constructing pyres of great size. Captives are also used.”

Adomnan's idea was therefore initially to protect certain categories of people who today would be described as civilians or noncombatants but who at the time could also take up arms, everyone being concerned by this type of conflict where the mobilization was from suzerain to vassal down to the last levels of society, all and sundry, from the great lord richly armed to the last of the peasants with his scythe or his pitchfork as in the Jacobite army of Culloden.

This was demonstrated with a precision that bordered on cruelty by Peter Watkins' 1964 documentary film. Watkins obviously exaggerates on certain points (he is a militant filmmaker) by focusing on the charge of the Highlands warriors (although there were also an Irish cavalry, the Royal Écossais, some artillery, etc.), but the picture he paints for us with regard to certain people is well within the category of

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situations that legitimately moved Adomnan. Peter Watkins behaved like Adomnan in this case (he shows us terrorized children in the rain for example). On the other hand, for others he was totally right. And I am thinking in particular of the vitriolic portraits he paints, of James and Alexander Macdonald to John William O'Sullivan, as regards the choice of the ground.

Adomnan, legitimately upset by the terrible spectacle of one of these battles in which even women and children took part with all the consequences that we can imagine, decided to frame them and put all his prestige in the balance to make a half-religious half secular synod summoned in Birr in Ireland bringing together 40 Irish bishops or abbots and 51 princes or Gaelic great lords.

Let us be clear! Although starting from a good feeling aroused by the shock of the horrors of war (like the bullet holocaust of the 1940s by the einsatzgruppen in Russia or the atrocities of the war in Syria in the 2010s) this law of the innocents did indeed have the long-term consequence of depriving women of the capacity of inheriting a fiefdom in its entirety (whereas until then they could perfectly well have a fiefdom and run it according to the Ancient Laws of Ireland. Volume 4. Of Taking Legal Possession. Pages 40 and 41).

Din techtugad. "Orba cruib ocus sliasta na mathar-sunn, ocus dibugad ro-dibaighi in mathir, ocus ni fuilit mic acht ingeana nama; ocus beraidh in ingean in fearann uili co fuba ocus co ruba, no a leth gan fuba gan ruba; ocus comde fuirre re aiseac uaithe iar sna ré."

Din techtugad. "Inheritance of the mother's hand and thigh (that is, from the will) of this mother, if the mother is dead, and there are no sons, only daughters. The daughters shall obtain all the land with obligation to perform service of attack and defense, or the half of it without obligation to perform service of attack and defense3.

The last part of this law (the possibility of escaping military service by contenting herself with only half of the fiefdom) had to be added after the adoption of the Cain Adomnain, and the possibility of choosing remained probably purely theoretical in a first time: EVERYBODY PREFERRING OF COURSE INHERIT THE WHOLE OF THE LAND AND NOT ITS HALF.

What was the immediate effect of this law is not known, but the fact remains that the author of the Felire Oengusso Céli Dé or martyrology of Oengus the Culdee, more than a hundred years later, around 830, credits St. Adomnan with this abolition of the obligatory military service for women.

After his dithyrambic obituary concerning Adomnan, on September 23rd ...

“To Adamnan of Iona

Whose troop is radiant,

Noble Jesus has granted

The lasting liberation of the women of the Gaels”…..

He clarifies a few lines later what he means by "lasting liberation."

Here is what is reported in his note 23: pages 210:211.

“It came to pass that Adamnan was once traveling in Mag Breg with his mother Ronait on his back, and they saw two battalions smiting each other. It happened, moreover, that Ronait saw a woman, with a sickle in her hand, dragging another woman out of the opposite battalion, and the sickle was in her pap. For at that time women as well as men used to be delivering battle. Then Ronait said : " You shall not carry me out of this place until women are freed for ever from fighting and hosting.”

Then Adamnan promised that thing.

There chanced to be a great convention in Ireland. So Adamnan with the pick of Ireland's clerics went (thither) and freed the women. Now these are the four laws of Erin : Patrick's law, not to kill the clerics ; Adamnan's law, not to kill women : Daire's law, not to kill kine ; and the law of Sunday, not to transgress at all (thereon).

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What is in line with paragraphs 7 and 52 of the aforementioned Cain Adomnain which states…

“…..However, that is not the duty I desire, but that you should free women for me from encounter, from camping, from fighting, from hosting, from wounding, from slaying, from the bondage of the cauldron.

7. Then she went on her son's back until they chanced to come upon a battlefield. Such was the thickness of the slaughter that the soles of one woman would touch the neck of another. Through they beheld the battlefield, they saw the head of a woman in one place and the body in another, and her little babe upon the breasts, a trickle of milk upon one of its cheeks, and a stream of blood upon the other, etc.etc.”

52. ……If women be employed in an assault or in a fight or host, seven cumals ** [to be paid] .

* After these war horrors (type Islamic crusaders beheading prisoners in Syria in 2015) another miracle of Saint Adomnan follows.

** Namely 21 milch cows.

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IONA AND THE CULDEES IN SCOTLAND.

In close relationship with Ireland during at least six hundred years, Iona can be regarded as an Irish island in Scottish sea. Columba landed here one day with twelve of his monks at the southern end of the island - called since Porta Churraich, or Bay of the Island - on May 12th, 563.

Iona is the modern name of the Ioua of Adamnan. In Bede, it is Hii. The Gaelic form is always I or Y, which becomes Hy by the interposition of a euphonic H. This storm-swept harsh island , is five kilometers long and two kilometers wide on average, it was the ancient monastery of Columba, or Colomban or Columkill or Colomkille or Colum (b) Cille in Gaelic (i.e. “church dove”), born in 521 died into 597; “a primatial island ” light of all Northern Europe.

As we have seen in what is previous, Iona will also play an important role in the evangelization of the island of Great Britain. Adamnan, the most famous ornament of the School of lona, just after Columba himself, in his “Life” of the founder, refers explicitly to the tabulae (tablets) out of wax to write; to the calami (feathers) and to the cornicula atramenti (horn containing ink) which one could find in the scriptorium.

It is still best to go back to William Reeves's thesis on this subject to understand it.

Adomnan/Adamnan, in other words, Eunan, originating in the County Donegal, and a member of the same clan that Columba, was taught in the island, and in a sense his knowledge was that of lona. His “Life of St.Columba,” written at the request of the community, in Latin, and not in Gaelic, one of the most interesting works of the Western Church at the seventh century. It provides us more accurate and authentic information on the Gaelic Churches of Ireland and Scotland than any other author, even the Venerable Bede . We know thanks to his writings that Adamnan was an accomplished Latinist, and that he knew very well also the Greek, even Hebrew rudiments.

He was, moreover, meticulous, judicious, and careful in his quotation of these authorities. This outstanding well-read man was a true monk and as Columba himself it took part in the manual work of the monastery. He helped to skid with his own hands many oaks of one of the close islands - perhaps Erraid - enough to load twelve boats with them in any case. And he perhaps took part in the building of the monastic cells, like in the case of that of Columba, which was, he says us, tabulis suffulta, made out boards and harundine tecta, covered with thatch of reeds. Columba and his monks had converted the whole Pictland like its leaders. Lona glowed with all its glory during the century which ended with the death of Adamnan/Adomnan. It gave three famous prelates. Finan, Aidan, and Colman, were deserving men, even in the eyes of the venerable Bede. The unhappy controversies in connection with the tonsure and the calculation of the Easter date disturbed much in the seventh century, as well Lona as its new houses. When Ireland and England gave up it, monks of lona, by respect for the traditions of their saint founder, clung with tenacity to their Easter to them. After 716, when Lona itself ends up conforming to the Roman use, some new dependent houses in the Pictland persisted . Besides this obstinacy led a few years later to the expulsion of the Columbite monks from the country by King Nechtan, this one having rallied to the Roman mode.

The ninth century brought sorrow and disaster as well to Lona as to Lindisfarne. In 793, Vikings destroyed the church of Lindisfarne, and ransacked it. In 795 they took it out first once also on lona, but the monks then seem to have survived. In 806, on the other hand, sixty-eight members of their community were killed, in Port na Mairtir on the eastern shore of the island. In 825 there was a new massacre of monks in lona. That of St. Blathmac, who had refused to give up this holy place and his companions (poems of Blathmac in the honor of the Virgin Mary , show a great tenderness and much humanity). His heroic death was celebrated in Latin lines of verses by Walafrid Strabo, the abbot of Reichenau, in the south of Germany.

REMARKS.

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Having examined the origin of the name Céle-dé, and traced its application in the country where it took its rise, I now, proceed to notice its appearance in British records, in connection with foundations, which either were direct off-shoots of the Irish Church, or were to a great extent influenced by it. In this inquiry I shall have to do with Scotland extendedly, and with England and Wales in the single cases of York and Bardsey, respectively.

The primitive history of the Church of Scotland is essentially Irish in its character; and during a long period our annals afford the most trustworthy materials for the chronology of that country.

Situate in the west, the great monastery of Hy exercised a religious influence which was felt in every quarter of Scotland. In the extreme north, the Orkneys were rendered safe to the devout pilgrim by St. Columba of Iona ; in the far south Melrose attained its greatest celebrity under Eata, one of St. Aidan's twelve disciples; and in the eastern extremity of Pictland, Drostan son of Cosgreg accompanied the indefatigable Columba of Iona, when he founded the churches of Aberdour and Aberlour, becoming their joint patron saint, and perpetuating in Buchan the remembrance of fraternal attachment, in a church whose name of Deir, that is, " tear," commemorated their parting scene, and whose after history, now preserved in the oldest book of Scotland, as well as the sole relic of its early literature, gave proof of the fulfillment of the promise which was made to them who " sow in tears." Even the nunnery of Coludi, or Coldingham, is introduced to notice by the father of English history, to illustrate his narrative of one Adamnan, a Scot of Ireland.

There were, it is true, two ecclesiastical establishments in the south-west which were not of Columbite origin. Rosnat, the Whithorn of Saxon, and the Candida Casa of Latin history, was founded by St. Ninian, prior to St. Columba of Iona's time ; while the see of Glasgow owes its origin to St. Kentigern, a Strathclyde Briton. But Ninian, though a British by race, and a Roman by education, was intimately associated with many Irish ecclesiastics of his day, and, if we may credit his Irish life, as cited by Archbishop Ushher, finished his course in a monastery which he had founded at Cluayn-Coner in the modem county of Kildare. St. Kentigern, or Munghu, as he was familiarly called, was consecrated, after the Irish fashion, by a single bishop, who had been brought over from Ireland for the purpose; and Rhydderch Hael, his regal patron, had been baptized by St. Patrick's disciples in Ireland.

In the history of St. Kentigern, as compiled by Jocelin, we have the earliest Scottish record of the name and discipline of the Céli-dé. For, although this piece of biography was not written till close of the twelfth century, it was compiled from much earlier authorities.

Thus we learn that the Céli-dé, (latin Calledei), were understood by the Scotch, in the twelfth century, to have been a religious order of clerks who lived in societies, under a superior, within a common enclosure, but in detached tells, associated in a sort of collegiate rather than cenobitic brotherhood—solitaries in their domestic habits, though united in the common observances, both religious and secular, of a strict sodality. Such was the core of the city of Glasgow. With St. Kentigern's death, its church and monastery disappear from history till 1116, when David, prince of Cumbria, and brother of King Alexander I., ascertained by an inquisition of the seniors and sages what were the ancient possessions and jurisdiction of the see ; and, having probably cut off the hereditary entail of its estates, caused his tutor, John, to be consecrated under the long dormant title of bishop of Glasgow. This was just the time when Malachy O’Morgair (in Ireland) found the once famous abbey of Bangor, a kindred institution, in lay occupation, and its church in ruins ; an evil result which in both countries had grown out of the universal prevalence of the monastic, as distinguished from the diocesan system. The distribution of the country into dioceses and parishes was practically unknown in the Scotic Church tilt the beginning of the twelfth century. The whole ecclesiastical fabric was constructed on the monastic foundation, and its entire economy regulated by the discipline of conventual life. This was the system which for ages placed the episcopate in subordinate position, exalting the office of an abbot to the pinnacle of preferment, and subjecting all other relations to its social weight, until, in the lapse of time, it lost much of its sacred character, and became compatible with a secular life.

Sometimes the abbot was in holy orders, sometimes not and at all times the monastic profession was respected above the ministerial calling.

Thus the ferleghinn, or lecturer, and the contemplative anchorite, often in our annals take precedence of the bishop. The essential officer was the abbot, but the presence of the bishop was an accident ; and hence, even in the best times, his office was intermittent, so that in the worst it became defunct, and with it, in many instances in Scotland, the entire religious character of a monastery perished except in name ; and a species of lay property called an Abthein, or Abbacy, is presented to view in the twelfth century, embracing the site of a primitive abbey, accompanied, it may be, by a cemetery

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and holy well, the annual resort of a whole country side, and held in prescriptive right, by the simple tenure of a bell or crosier (bachall).

Where secularization was only partial, a shadow of the old society continued to exist. The representatives were known as Kele-dei, a title which, with portions of the church property, in some cases descended from a father to his son, and in others was practically entailed to members of certain families.

In any districts where secular influence led to the erection of a stated diocese, the principal monastery therein became the bishop see, and the appointment of the bishop, as of old, was exercised by the conventual body who had hitherto been the officiating clergy of the place. Thus the diocese of Dunblane, on its creation, was made conterminous with the earldom of Stratherne, the core being the ancient monastery of Dun-Blaan, which was founded by, and derived its name from, Blaan, an Irish ecclesiastic of the sixth century. Now, although Dunblane was so ancient a foundation, the first recorded bishop is of the date 1160, alter the restoration of the see under David I., when little more seems to have been done than secure an endowment, and define the limit of jurisdiction.

Sometimes a bishop's see was erected, as at Aberdeen, in a town of growing importance, where there had not previously existed a monastic foundation of any celebrity. Here, as might be expected, we discover no trace of Kele-dei.

Again, we meet with churches which possessed Keledei, but were never raised to the rank of bishop sees. This was owing to some secular influence or peculiarity of position. And these merely retained their conventual character, with diminished importance, as being inside the jurisdiction of more favored churches, until, in the course of events, their societies were suppressed or died a natural death. In Ireland, in like manner, churches such as Bangor, Moville, and Lusk, though of great celebrity as seats of learning and sanctity, and possessing long catalogues of abbots, bishops, and other functionaries, never rose above the level of monastic distinction ; while churches of much inferior rank claims, as Kilkenny, Kilfenora, Killaloe, and Aghadoe, or of recent origin, as Dublin, Limerick, and Waterford, became the seats of bishops and the centers of ecclesiastical jurisdiction.

In fact, the generality of monasteries, both in Scotland and Ireland, were in a state of decrepitude at the beginning of the twelfth century, and those which survived for any length of time owed the continuation of their existence either to the super addition of a bishop and chapter, or to their reconstruction on a new model. Most of the old religious communities were Keledei, till the changes just mentioned took place.

It was in the reign of David I (1124-1153) that the great change in the framework of the Scottish Church took place. His biographer states that he found three bishoprics in Scotland, but left nine. By which we are to understand that he revived, and perpetuated the succession of bishops in six decayed communities, securing to them a mensal provision, or assigning to them respectively a defined diocese.

He merely added a bishop to the existing societies at Brechin, Dunblane, Ross, and Caithness ; while in the earlier sees of St. Andrews and Dunkeld, he superseded the Keledei by instituting chapters of regular canons. His English education and connections, no doubt, weakened his attachment to the institutions of his native country; and Robert, the bishop of St. Andrews, an Englishman born, seems to have quickened his distaste for the old-fashioned Keledei. The encouragement of their lax and impotent system would have ill accorded with the vitality and reforming spirit which pervaded all his measures ; and further, as the representatives of the Celtic clergy, they were little likely to be acceptable to a prince who wished to infuse the Saxon element into the Scottish Church.

Note. What goes to show that perverse effects of anti-racism and of globalization are not new ! To when the independence of Scotland?

Among the Cotton manuscripts in the British Museum is preserved a catalogue of the religious houses of England and Wales, at the end of which is a list of the Scotch sees, and the orders of their respective societies. It is annexed to Henry of Silgrave's Chronicle ; and as that compilation comes down to the year 1272, and is in the same handwriting as the catalogue, the latter cannot be referred to an earlier date. Ussher, Lloyd, and Tanner, regard this catalogue as the work of Silgrave. I select from it those names which are to the present purpose

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Episcopatus S. Andree : Canonici nigri – Keledei.

Episcopatus Dunkeidre, S. Columkille : Canonici nigri – Keledei.

Episcopatus de Brechin : Keledei.

Episcopatus de Ros Keledei.

Episcopatus de Dublin : Keledei.

Episcopatus de Katenesio : Keledei.

Episcopatus d’Argiul : Keledei.

Abbatia in Insula (Iona): Keledei.

These are the only instances where the term Keldei, or Keledei occurs in the record. The Canonici nigri are regular canons of St. Augustin, and are represented as existing in St. Andrews and St. Columba's of Dunkeld collaterally with Keledei. The societies at Mureve (Moray) and Glascu are styled Canonici seculares.

To these may be added, from charter sources, some non-cathedral monasteries, namely...

The church of Lochlevin (Kirross).

The church of Abernetby in Perthshire.

The church of Monyrnusk in Aberdeenshire.

The church of Muthill in Perthshire.

The church of Monifeith in Forfarshire.

This list might be considerably enlarged, if such churches as Scone, Melrose, Montrose, Abirlot, Dun, Ecclesgirg, and others, which are presumed to have resembled the foregoing, were admitted but my object is to treat only of those in which we have record evidence that Keledei did exist. These, however, are twice as numerous as the analogous societies which are on record as existing in Ireland, an anomaly which is best accounted for by supposing that the term Céle-dé was not so generally applied in Ireland.

Without attempting the hopeless task of determining the priority of foundation among the Scotch Keledean houses, we shall now proceed to treat of them briefly.

— Iona.

Silgrave's catalogue styles the Monastery of Ionea Abbatia in Insula, and its society some Keledei.

Notwithstanding all that has been written concerning the emanation of the Culdees from Iona, and their essentially Columbite nature, there is only one other record of their existence, and that of a comparatively recent date. The Annals of Ulster relate, at 1164, that a deputation of the chiefs of the family of Ia, consisting of Augustin the archpriest, Dubsidhe the lecturer, MacGilladuff the recluse, MacForcellaigh head of the Ceili-ndé, and such as were of eminence in the island, waited on the abbot of Derry, and invited him to accept the abbacy of their church. From this we learn that the Céli-dé of Hy were only a section of the community, whose superior was styled a " head" not "prior," and took a low rank among the notables of the place. He probably held a position similar to that of the first singer elsewhere, and his subordinates were most likely the clerical body who performed the ordinary services of the church.

At the beginning of the thirteenth century (1204), the Celtic ancient monastery had definitively disappeared, and some Benedictine monks had settled there. But the original cemetery - Reilig Odhrain - is always regarded as the holiest land in Scotland, the grave stones of the kings, chiefs and prelates, pile up there.

N. B. The Culdees of lona therefore probably represent the primitive occupiers of this island, an older form of Celtic Christianity, ousted by a new one, the Roman Catholicism. As in the case of Monahincha, of Devenish and of Armagh.

— St. Andrews.

This church, whose Celtic name was Cill-Righmonaigh, appears, like most of the early Scottish foundations, to have been of Irish origin. St. Cainnech, the patron of Kilkenny and the diocese of

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Ossory, whose labors in Scotland were followed by the wide diffusion of his celebrity in that country, died in 600, and is commemorated in the Scotch as well as Irish calendars at the 11th of October, two churches only are associated with his memory, namely, Achadh-bo, now Aghabo, in Ireland, and Cill-Righmonaigh (in Scotland).

The probability is that the ancient but inconsiderable church which existed here from primitive times, and of which we have one notice in the Irish Annals, at the year 747, was, about the beginning of the ninth century, extended and endowed by the Pictish sovereign, under the title of St. Andrew the Apostle, and that, to shed luster on the proceeding, the story was circulated that the relics of the saint, consisting of three fingers of the right hand, the humerus and patella of the same side, and one tooth, were stolen from Patrae, and brought by Regulus to this place, and, by their supposed importance, helped to procure for the church which possessed them a degree of distinction which resulted in its becoming the seat of the Scotch primacy. The unhistorical nature of the legend is shown by its representing the emperor Constantius as the contemporary of AtheIstan, Hungus, and Regulus, an anachronism of nearly five centuries, which stamps the whole story of the origin of St. Andrews with the character of a gross and comparatively modern fabrication. Authentic history pretends to no earlier bishop at St. Andrews than Cellach, or Fothadh, in the tenth century.

The early condition of the see appears to have been similar to that of the principal monasteries in Ireland, wherein the bishop was incorporated with the brotherhood, at first in a subordinate position as regarded local jurisdiction, but gradually gaining more and more official importance till he emerged from the society as its chief, and eventually depressed it by his influence.

The names of the first twelve bishops of St. Andrews are Celtic in form, and indicate an undisturbed possession of the see by native ecclesiastics for a period of above two centuries.

Owing to the Saxon relations created by Queen Margaret, an element was introduced into this society which paved the way for its extinction.

There can be little doubt that Bishop Turgot checked the Culdees in their alienation of church property at St. Andrews.

Eadmer, a monk of Canterbury, was sent for by the king, and was, at his instance, elected successor to Turgot, but did net receive consecration. Robert, an Englishman, and a canon of St. Oswald's in Yorkshire, was brought to Scotland, with five others, to promulgate the rule of St. Augustine, and made abbot of Scone, from which office he was promoted to the see of St. Andrews, in 1124, but was net consecrated until 1128. He carried out with great zeal the work which his predecessor had commenced and finding in King David a prince whose views regarding monastic discipline were coincident with his own, he founded and endowed at St. Andrews a priory of regular canons; to which the hospital formerly belonging to the Culdees, was transferred, and in juxtaposition with which the older community became enfeebled, and eventually sank into insignificance.

Keeping up their old rules and observances, the representatives of the primitive establishment retained the title of Keledei ; and when they first present themselves, after the long night of silence in which their history slumbers, we find them giving way to the newly introduced order of regulars, who had taken in hand to reform the ecclesiastical discipline of the church, and awaken the dormant religion of the diocese. The priory of regular canons of St. Augustine was formally recognized at St. Andrews in 1114, and, shortly after, one of the fraternities undertook to draw up a sketch of the history of its church, partly with a view to appropriate its past glory, and partly to justify the recent reform of its economy. The writer, probably Bishop Robert, or the prior of the same name, strongly condemns the degenerate condition of the Keledei; and though the picture is perhaps overdrawn, as by an unfriendly hand, and occasionally indistinct in its representations, it is still a record of great historical importance. Having adverted to the decay of religion at St. Andrews, consequent upon the death of St. Regulus and his followers, it proceeds to describe the more recent particulars of its ecclesiastical condition in the following manner.

" There were kept up, however, in the church of St. Andrew, such as it then was, by family succession, a society of thirteen, commonly called Keledei, whose manner of life was shaped more in accordance with their own fancy and human tradition than with the precepts of the holy fathers. Nay, even to the present day their practice continues the same ; and though they have some things in common, these are such as are less in amount and value, while they individually enjoy the larger and better portion, just as each of them happens to receive gifts, either from friends who are united to them by some private tie, such as kindred or connection, or from those whose soul friends, that is, spiritual advisers, they are, or from any other source. After they are made Keledei, they are not allowed to keep

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their wives within their lodgings, nor any other women, who might give rise to injurious suspicions. Moreover, there were seven beneficiaries, who divided among themselves the offerings of the altar ; of which seven portions the bishop used to enjoy but one, and the hospital another ; the remaining five were apportioned to the other five members, who performed no duty whatever, either at the altar or church, and whose only obligation was to provide, after their custom, lodging and entertainment for pilgrims and strangers, when more than six chanced to arrive, determining by lot whom and how many each of them was to receive. The hospital, it is to be observed, had continual accommodation for a number not exceeding six; but from the time that, by God's goodness, it came into the possession of the canons till the present it is open to all comers.

The above-mentioned beneficiaries were also possessed of their private revenues and property, which, upon their death, their wives, whom they openly lived with, and their sons or daughters, their relative; or sons-in-law, used to divide among themselves : even the very offerings of the altar at which they did not serve, a profanation which one would blush to speak of, if they had not chosen to practice. Nor could this monstrous abuse be corrected before the time of Alexander of happy memory, a sovereign of exemplary devotion to God's holy Church, who enriched the church of the blessed Apostle Andrew with possessions and revenues, loaded it with many and valuable gifts, and invested it with the liberties, customs, and royalties which appertained to his royal donation. The lands also called the Boar’s Chase, which the above-named King Hungus had presented to God and to the holy Apostle St. Andrew at the time that the relics of St. Andrew arrived, but which were subsequently usurped, he restored to their possession, with the professed object and understanding that a religious society should be established in that church for the maintenance of divine worship. Because hitherto there had been no provision for the service at the altar of the blessed Apostle, nor used mass to be celebrated there, except upon the rare occasions that the king or bishop visited the place: for the Keledei were wont to say their office after their own fashion in a nook of a church which was very small. Of which royal donation, there are many witnesses surviving to this day. And it was further confirmed by his brother Earl David, whom the king had constituted his heir and successor upon the throne which he now occupies.”

From this labored and ill-digested statement we learn that, at some period anterior to 1107, the ecclesiastical community of Cill-Righmonaigh had become parted into two sections, and that each carried with it a portion of the spiritualities and temporalities, which we may reasonably conceive had been originally combined. One party was the Keledei, consisting of a prior and twelve brethren, who numerically represented the old foundation, and as clerical vicars performed divine service, having official residences, and enjoying certain estates as well as the minor dues of the sacerdotal office. With them also, as the clerical portion of the society, rested the election of the bishop, when a vacancy occurred in the see. The other party included the bishop, the eleemosynary establishment, and the representatives of the abbot and other greater officers now secularized, yet enjoying by prescription another portion of the estates and the greater ecclesiastical dues.

In 1144 the hospital, with its parsonage or impropriation, was transferred to the regular canons, and they were confirmed in the possession of two more of the parsonages which had already been assigned to them, the bishop retaining his own seventh, thus leaving three of these sinecures in the former condition. And matters continued so till 1156, for in that year Pope Adrian IV only confirmed to the canons regular the hospital and their two sevenths (of the offerings). But in that or one of the two following years, the old impropriators having probably dropped by death, resignation, or amotion, Bishop Robert granted to the canons all the portions, reserving only his own. Finally, in 1162-3, Bishop Arnold surrendered his seventh, and thus put them in possession of the whole. The seven portions were then consolidated, and went into a common fund. Thus, in the first instance, the regular canons seem to have been established on the reversion of the secularized property of the old foundation.

There were now two rival ecclesiastical bodies in existence at St. Andrews, one, the old corporation of secular priests, who were completely thrown into the shade, and shorn of many of their privileges and possessions ; and the other, that of the regular canons.

But this rivalry or coexistence was very distasteful to the chief authorities both lay and ecclesiastical, as soon became manifest. Immediately upon the foundation of the latter house, King David, as he also did in, the case of Lochlevin, made an ordinance that the prior and canons of St. Andrews should receive into incorporation with them the Keledei of Kilrimont, who were to become canons, together with all their possessions and revenues; that is, provided they would consent to conform to the

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canonical rule. But in case they should refuse, they were to have a life interest in their possessions; and, according as they dropped, their places were to be filled up on the new foundation by regular canons. All the farms, lands, and offerings of the Keledei should be transferred to the use of the canons of St. Andrews in frank and quit almoigne. In 1147, Pope Eugenius III decreed that thenceforward the places of the Keledei, according as they became vacant, should be filled with regular canons. But the Keledei were able to withstand the combined efforts of the king, pope, and bishop for we meet with a recurrence of this provision under successive pontiffs till 1248 ; and yet we find the Keledei holding their ground.

Nay, in 1160, King Malcolm actually confirmed them in a portion of their possessions. In 1199 we find them engaged in a controversy with the prior of the other society, which terminated in a compromise by which the tithes of their own lands were secured to them, they at the same time quitting claim to all parochial fees and oblations. And it was not till 1273 that they were debarred from the prescriptive right to take part in the election of a bishop.

They met with like treatment in 1279, and again in 1297, when William Comyn, the provost of the Keledei, went to Rome, and lodged a protest against the election then made, on the ground of their exclusion but Boniface VIII decided against him. He appealed again in 1328, but with no better success.

Neither does the name Keledei occur again in existing records, although the corporation still continued in the enjoyment of their privileges and possessions. In the succeeding centuries frequent mention is made of the institution under the names of the " Praepositura ecclesiae beatae Mariae civitatis Sancti Andreae; the " Ecclesia beatae Mariae de Rupe," and " the Provostry of Kirkheugh" ( the society is said to have consisted of a provost and ten prebendaries). Their superior was variously styled " Praepositus Sancti Andreae," " Praepositus capellae Sanctae Mariae," " Praepositus capellae regiae" . After the Reformation the provostry became vested in the Crown; and in 1616 was annexed, together with the appendant benefices, to the see of St. Andrews.

— Dunkeld.

Culdees are also mentioned at Dunkeld (a church founded in 840).

Dean Mylne, who was a canon of Dunkeld, about 1485, has left to us, in his History of the Bishops of Dunkeld, the following description of their ancient chapter. " In this monastery Constantine, king of the Picts, placed religious men, commonly called Kelledei, otherwise Colidei, that is, God-worshippers, who, however, after the usage of the Eastern Church, had wives, (from whom they Iived apart when taking their turn in the sacred offices). But when it seemed good to the supreme controller of all Christian religion, and when devotion and piety had increased, St. David, the sovereign, who was the youngest son of King Malcolm Canmor and the holy Queen Margaret, having changed the constitution of the monastery, erected it into a cathedral church; and, having superseded the Kelledei, created, about the year 1127, a bishop and canons, and ordained that there should in future be a secular college. The first bishop on this foundation was for a time abbot of that monastery, and subsequently a counselor of the king."

In the concluding passage, the writer seems to imply that the Kelledei, who occupied the monastery which was attached to the mother church, were removed from this position, and constituted a college of secular clergy, while their former place was assigned to a society of regular canons, with the bishop, now made diocesan instead of an abbot, at their head. These two corporations coexisted for nearly two centuries; and as at St. Andrews, so at Dunkeld, Silgrave's catalogue notices the collateral societies of Canonici nigri and Keldei.

— Rosemarkie.

Silgrave's catalogue designates the society as Keledei, that is, the representatives of the old secular college.

Early in the thirteenth century, however, the cathedral body was reconstituted, for at 1224 we find a dean of Rosmarkyn, and a chanter, chancellor, treasurer, archdeacon, sub-dean, second singer, and canons.

— Brechin (1180 et 1222).

— Dunblane (1238).

— Dornoch (1222).

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— Lismore. The diocese of Argyle, or Argiul, as the name is written in Silgrave's catalogue, had as its cathedral the church of St. Moluoc, in the island of Lismore. It was founded by St. Lughaidh, familiarly called Moluoc, an Irishman, who died in 592. He is noticed in the principal Irish chronicles, and in all the Irish calendars at the 25th of June ; on which day he is commemorated in the Scottish calendars also, under the name of Molocus, and in the Aberdeen Breviary is styled a bishop. His bell and pastoral staff were long preserved in this church, and are still in existence.

The monastery founded by St. Moluoc no doubt continued to exist through successive ages, until, in the course of time, its society, in conformity with the progress of native monasticism, settled down into the condition which obtained for them the name of Keledei. During this long period the office of bishop, if it was preserved in this church, was, in all probability, intermittent, and at such times as it did exist, was of a conventual rather than of a diocesan character. And after that, in the infancy of diocesan distribution, Dunkeld obtained territorial jurisdiction, Lismore was included in it, and continued to be a portion of that great diocese till about the year 1200, when it was severed by Pope Innocent III, and formed with the mainland of Argyle into a diocese, sometimes named Lismorensis, but more generally Ergadiensis. Silgrave's catalogue calls it Argiul, and styles its chapter Keledei. But this society did not long retain their cathedral position, for there is charter evidence to show that before 1251 a dean and chapter had been called into existence; and in 1249 Pope Innocent IV. recognizes the right of electing the bishop as vested in the Canons of this church.

— Lochlevin.

The fate of the Keledei in this place was sealed about 1145, when King David, under the influence of feelings which I have already adverted, declared that "he had given and granted to the canons of St. Andrews the island of Lochlevene that they might establish canonical order there ; and the Keledei who shall be found there, if they consent to live as regulars, shall be permitted to remain in society with, and subject to, the others ; but should any of them be disposed to offer resistance, his will and pleasure was that such should be expelled from the island ." Robert, the English bishop of St. Andrews, who dictated this stern enactment, was not slow to carry its provisions into effect ; for immediately after, he placed these Keledei in subjection to the canons regular of St. Andrews, and converted their old conventual possessions into an endowment for his newly erected priory. He even transferred the ecclesiastical vestments which these Chelede possessed, and their little library, consisting for the most part of ritual and patristic books, the titles of which are recited in the instrument.

Thus terminated the separate and independent existence of one of the earliest religious foundations in Scotland, which probably owed its origin. to St. Serf/Serban, in the dawn of national Christianization; and was, before the middle of the eleventh, brought into close connection with the see of St. Andrews, through the influence of one of the earliest recorded bishops of the Scottish Church, who was probably a Céle-dé himself, and allowed to exercise a kind of bishop superintendence over his own community of St. Andrews and the neighboring monasteries, foreshadowing a function which afterwards developed itself in diocesan jurisdiction, and eventually became invested with metropolitan preeminence.

— Monymusk. In 1211 a complaint was laid before the Pope, by William, bishop of St. Andrews, in which he stated that certain Keledei who professed to be canons, and certain others of the diocese of Aberdeen, in the town of Monymusc, which pertained to him, were endeavoring to establish a system of regular canons, contrary to right and his desire. Whereupon a commission was issued to the abbots of Melrose and Dryburg, and the archdeacon of Glasgow, empowering them to examine into the case and adjudicate thereon. Accordingly they held their court ; and their award was that the Keledei in future should have one refectory and one dormitory in common, and one oratory without a cemetery ; and that the bodies of the Keledei, and of clerks or laymen who might die when with them, should receive the rites of sepulture at the parish church of Monymusc ; that the Keledei should be twelve in number, and that Bricius the thirteenth, whom the Keledei were to present for confirmation to the bishop of St. Andrews, should be their master or prior ; that on his retirement or death, the Keledei were to choose three of their society, from among whom the bishop was to select the one he considered best suited to become prior or master ; that it should not be lawful for them at any future time to take vows of canonical or monastic life without the bishop's consent, nor exceed the limitation prescribed for the number of their body ; that when a Keledeus died or withdrew, those who remained were to fill up the vacant place; and that the newly elected member was, upon his admission, to swear before the bishop or his deputy that he would observe the terms of this composition.

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This society, which consisted of secular priests, thirteen in number, was probably the representative of an ancient monastic foundation.

DOCUMENTS.

THE EVANGELIZATION OF COUNTRYSIDE

IN EUROPE FROM THE 6TH TO THE 8TH CENTURY.

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SERMON No. 13 BY ST. CAESARIUS OF ARLES

(Imprimatur April 20, 1956).

Now, I believe that the unfortunate practices which have remained from the profane customs of the pagans have under God’s inspiration been removed from these places because of your reproaches.

However, if you still know some people who practice that most sordid and disgraceful act of masquerading as old hags and stags [Editor’s note: see the custom of the Black Peter called krampus in Austria] rebuke them so harshly that they will repent of having committed the wicked deed.

If, when the moon is darkened, you know that some people still shout, admonish them, telling them what a grave sin they are committing, for in wicked boldness they are confident that by their shouts and sorcery they can protect the moon which is darkened at certain times by the Lord’s bidding.

Moreover, if you still see men fulfilling vows to fountains or trees, and, as was already said, consulting sorcerers, seers, or charmers, hanging devilish phylacteries, magic signs, herbs, or charms on themselves or their family, rebuke them harshly, telling them that one who docs this evil loses the sacrament of baptism.

Since we have heard that some men and women are so much deceived by the Devil that they do no work or weaving on Thursday [Editor’s note: In other words, who have as a day of rest in the week not Friday like among the Muslims, or Saturday for the Jews, or Sunday for Christians, but Thursday], we assert before God and His angels that anyone who wants to do this will be condemned to the place where the Devil will burn him, unless he corrects his grave sin by prolonged hard penance. I do not doubt that those most unfortunate and miserable people who refuse to work on Thursday in Jove’s honor neither fear nor blush to do so on Sunday.

Therefore, rebuke most harshly those whom you know do this. If they refuse to amend their life, do not allow them to have conversation with you or to come to your banquet. Moreover, if it is your affair [????Some slaves of Christians ????] even whip them so that they may at least fear physical blows if they do not think about the salvation of their soul.

As we think of our danger, dearly beloved, on our part we advise you with paternal solicitude. If you willingly hear us, you will both give us joy and arrive happily yourselves at the kingdom. May He deign to grant this, who, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns world without end. Amen.

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SECOND COUNCIL OF TOURS

18 NOVEMBER 567 (CANON 23).

We have learned that there are some people to be found who follow the ancient error [Jahiliyyah would say the Muslims] who celebrate the first of January, though Janus was a pagan man, a king indeed but he could not be God [Editor’s note: in fact Romans believed simply and only that Janus was a god or a fallen angel, a demon]. Therefore whoever believes in one God reigning together with the Son and the Holy Ghost cannot be said to be a complete Christian if over and above this he maintains some pagan practices.

There are also those who at the feast of the Chair of St. Peter (18 January) offer mashed food [perform libations] to the dead and, returning to their own homes from mass, go back to the errors of the pagans and after the Body of the Lord take food [ some offerings] consecrated to a demon.

We call upon pastors as well as priests to take care that whoever they see persons persist in such foolishness or perform deeds incompatible with the Church at any rocks, trees or springs, the designated places of the pagans, they should with their sacred authority expel from the Church and not allow people who maintain the practices of the pagans to share in the holy altar. For what do demons have in common with Christ, when they appear to add to, rather than purge, their sins which require punishment.

SYNOD OF AUXERRE (585 ???) CANONS 1 AND 2.

1) It is not permitted on 1 January to do the calf or stag or to observe the practice of New Year’s gifts but on the day itself every kindness be practiced as on other days…..

2) It is not permitted to make special offerings in one’s own house nor to have wakes on the feast days of saints nor to discharge vows among bushes or at sacred trees or at springs, except if whoever has made a vow keep vigil in a church and make the vow for the register (?) or for the poor and does not obstinately have sculpted things, a wooden foot or a man, made.

Editor’s note. Far away from us every bias! We readily admit that early Islamism was not less sectarian or fanatical!

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THE DE CORRECTIONE RUSTICORUM

BY SAINT MARTIN OF BRAGA (Portugal).

Contrary to popular beliefs, or more accurately instilled by Christian ideologues, the spread of Christianity was relatively easy in the time of the Roman Empire: the trade routes carried out its penetration into even remote cities. The situation was different with regard to the countryside, where powerful agricultural worships of Celtic-Druidic origin 1) were perpetuated.

Most abbeys will be bridgeheads built in hostile territory with the mission of conquering the neighboring area, by seduction if possible, by force if necessary. In every period of Christian development, there will be a decline of the living conditions of the people and vice versa.

Christianity having been originally an exclusively urban religious phenomenon, it was therefore up to the competent authorities to evangelize the countryside, multiplying rural parishes, and striving, with varying degrees of success, to uproot pagan rites.

Example Martin de Braga (Martinus), born between 510 and 520 in Pannonia (as Saint Martin of Tours, therefore the climate wants that) died March 20, 579 in Bracara Augusta.

Romanized Pannonian too, therefore, this second Martin will become a monk after a brief stay in Palestine. He then went to the Suevian Kingdom (which matches roughly the Roman Gallaecia, then the Kingdom of Medieval Galicia and today the north of Portugal), where he settled around 550, with the intention to convert the Suevi, who are then still pagan or Arian.

He began by founding the monastery of Dumio (a parish of Braga). In 561-563, he will take part in the First Council of Braga, where he will sign as "Bishop of Dumio." He was then elected Archbishop of Braga, the metropolis of the Suevian Kingdom. In 572 he thus will preside over the Second Council of Braga. It is he who will introduce monasticism in his diocese in order to evangelize the countryside and it is in this perspective that he will write his major work for us in this field, the "On the correction of the rustic."

It is a correspondence written by St Martin of Dumio about 573, which constitutes a qualified attack against the nature or ecologist before the word is invented, faith, then characterizing the country dwellers in Galicia. Martin sees the Devil behind all the facets of paganism: the belief in gods, the practices of worship and the prophecy.

This book by Martin de Braga, written about 572-74, shows us clearly the racist contempt in which these poor farmers remained pagan were held and which is quite comparable to that of the Christian Taliban or Parabolanus called Martin of Tours towards the pagani. Let us note in the process, what is frequent with these philosophers following the love god, despisers of the superstitions of all kinds; that the Christian Taliban or Parabolan Martin of Braga in no way denies the existence of the gods, but that he only makes them some demons driven from heaven.

The denounced practices being also denounced by several other authors of the time (Caesarius of Arles, etc.), the question that arises is whether these are really observations collected on the ground by St Martin of Dumio; or some "politically correct" fashionable language among the Christians of the time.

The exclusive predominance of Greco-Roman elements or god names in paragraph 7 (Jupiter, Mars, Venus ... ..) to the detriment of the Celtiberian elements (although well attested by epigraphy ...) makes us lean towards the second hypothesis what shows clearly that, at the height of racism, the Christian intellectuals of the time did not even seek to know or understand what it was exactly in these unfortunate people before condemning it. It is not an objective ethnographic analysis but a mere propaganda or waffle artificially plated on a very different reality, or even better, disconnected from reality.

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Below are some excerpts from this appalling document, a forerunner of the writings of Saint Eligius a century later, and in which Martin of Braga quietly explains that the gods exist but that they are (simply if we may say) fallen angels, therefore demons, and that ...... etc.

On the Correction of the Rustic………..

To the much venerable lord and beloved brother in Christ, the Bishop Polemius.

I have received the letter of your holy charity in which you ask me to write to you about the remonstrance to express to the peasants whom, still tied to the ancient superstitions of the heathens, pay more cult to the demons than to God, and also about the origin of the idols and of their crimes. So I shall write to you on many things in few words. But, because it is convenient to develop a brief report of what happened since the beginning of the world, so that they shall understand well, it is necessary for me to….

In the beginning, having God created Heaven and the Earth, he made for the dwelling heavenly spiritual creatures, that is, angels, so that they would worship Him. One of them, which had first been made an archangel, seeing himself in the splendor of so much glory, adored not God, his creator, but considered himself equal to Him. He was expelled from that celestial residence in the company of many other angels which had followed him. He, who had been the first archangel, having lost the glory of his light, became a dark and horrible devil. In the same way, the other angels, which made a common cause with him, were also brought down and, losing their splendor, became demons. But the remaining angels, who kept faithful to God, retained the glory of their light. Those who, with Satan, their prince, were expelled for their loftiness are called rebel angels or demons….

The Devil or his ministers, the demons, which had been brought down from Heaven, seeing men's ignorance, began then manifesting to them in different ways, speaking and influencing them, making them offer them sacrifices in the high hills and in the leafy woods and considered them as gods, calling themselves names of bandit men, who spent their lives in crimes and evilness. Thus, one called himself Jupiter, who was a magician….. Other pretended to be Venus, who was a woman of ill life.

8. Here is what were these lost men, whom the ignorant peasants adored and whose names were used by demons so that they would worship them as gods, would offer them sacrifices and imitate the actions of those whose names they invoked. Equally, those demons were also capable that temples were built to them, that in them images or statues of bandit men were set and altars erected, in which they would sacrifice them blood, not only of animals, but of humans as well. Besides this, many demons among those that were expelled from Heaven preside to the rivers, the fountains and to the forests and to them in the same way do men, ignorant of God, worship them as they were gods and offer them sacrifices. And in the sea they call them Neptune, in the rivers Lames, in the fountains Nymphs, in the forests Dianas but they are no more than demons and evil spirits damaging and tormenting the infidel men who not to defend themselves with the sign of the cross…..

11. And with what grief must we also refer to that foolish error of honoring the day of the clothes moths and of the mice? And is it allowed to say that a Christian worships the mice and the clothes moths instead of God?.... The miserable man believes in these mistakes without any basis, just as he believes that if he is fed up and joyful in the first day of January; thus he shall be kept himself throughout the year. All these observations are from the heathens and inspired by inventions of the demons.

16. ….Indeed, to light candles by the rocks, the trees, the fountains and in the crossroads of the paths, what is this if not evil worshipping? To keep the foretelling, auguries and the days of the idols, what is this if not evil worshipping? To keep the Vulcanalia and the Calends, to garnish to tables, to lay laurel, to enter with the right foot, to shed in the fire place, over the burning timber, food and wine and to throw bread into the fountains, what is this if not Devil worship? The fact that women invoke Minerva at their looms and chose as wedding day the day of Venus [Friday] and to remark in what day one should travel, what is this if not evil worshipping? To make potions with herbs and to invoke the names of demons when you do it, what is this if not evil worship?

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Conclusion.

The unfortunate peasants will reconcile the benevolence of these missionaries by lending a Christian outlook to their immemorial divinities. The attitude of the Christians towards these superstitions, some of which being very innocent, is obviously explained; besides the fact that these bishops act like today's journalists and do not stop copying each other infinitely, even when it has nothing to do with reality (a thousand times repeated mistake becomes a truth) ; by the Jewish superstitions themselves in this respect. Thus Exodus 22, 17 sentences to death the sorceress without explanation. Leviticus 19, 26 and 31 forbade magic, fortune-telling, spiritists and divination. Deut. 18:10 summarizes up by proscribing diviners, astrologers, magicians, sorcerers, enchanters, those who call up the dead…

1) Monasteries, churches, or chapels, often will be erected on archaic places of worship, objects of veneration for the peasants. For example, St. Cornely in Brittany. Elsewhere in Europe some druidic or pre-druidic gods or devils have been changed into saints, it will happen that their worship will continue. In Ireland, the sacred fire of the belisama * "Brigindo," or "Brigantia," become Brigid, was kept alight in the monastery of Kildare until the time of Henry VIII (early sixteenth century).

* Celtic term meaning "very bright."

2) Design which is not as atheistic materialistic as that of the Greek philosopher Euhemerus, since Martin admits that these names corresponded to true superhuman creatures by definition, some (fallen) angels.

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ST COLUMBANUS OF BOBBIO (543-615).

(Columbanus in Latin means dove.)

Columbanus of Bobbio (born about 543 in Leinster died on November 21, 614 or 615 in Bobbio near Piacenza, Italy). Celebrated on November 23 according to the Roman martyrology, because he died on the day of the presentation of Mary in the Temple on November 21st. He is sometimes considered the patron saint of bikers, especially in Italy.

Columbanus was born in a rich family of the County Meath. His mother saw for him a brilliant secular future, but after studying grammar, rhetoric, geometry and holy scripture with Sinell at Cluain Inis in Donegal County when he was about 20 years old he entered the monastery of Bangor near Belfast under the direction of Comgall where he remains until he is 40 years old.

With 12 other monks (this detail implies that Comgall gave his blessing to this project: Gall, Eogain, Columbanus the Younger, Lua, Sigisbert .......) and after a brief stop in Britain, most likely on the Scottish coast , he follows the coasts of Cornwall and crosses the Channel to land on the Continent near Saint-Malo in 585.

Historical background.

After the break-up of the Roman Empire in the 5th century, western Europe was invaded by the Germans from the East. The Franks are in the north, the Visigoths in the south-west and the Burgundians in the south-east. The last part of the Roman Empire disappears in 486 on the occasion of the battle of Soissons where its last representative Syagrius is defeated by Clovis. Birth of the kingdom of France. By being baptized, around 498, Clovis becomes the first barbarian king to convert to the Christian religion but his succession divides the country again. In the north-west, Neustria is governed by Chlothar II and Fredegund, in the east is the Austrasia of Theuderich II and Brunhilda, in the south-east Burgundy. Armorica remains a separate world.

Church’s life is based on a secular clergy centered on the city or diocese; the bishop dwells in the capital and takes care of the cathedral. The quality of the clergy is sometimes questionable, especially in rural parishes. The people in them are officially Christian but continue to follow pagan customs. A century earlier St Benedict in Italy endowed his foundations with a rule, but this rule became widespread only at the end of the 6th century, when it came up against the new rule brought by St. Columbanus.

Columbanus and his companions then proceeded to Reims, passing by Rouen and Noyon. Columbanus wished to meet Childebert II, the king of Austrasia, to ask for a place to stay. He gets the right to settle in his kingdom. The group sets off again towards Chalons, Langres, in search of a suitable place for their settlement.

About 587 they arrived in the Vosges and settled on the site of Annegray (Anagrates) at the foot of the mountain Saint-Martin, on the site of a former ruined Roman castrum. There St. Columban and his people set about clearing the land or assarting in order to build there thatched houses. At the same time, they welcome the sick and begin to train new monks. Columban then made his first retreat in a mountain cave (now on the territory of Sainte-Marie-en-Chanois). According to legend, the cave was occupied by a bear which gave it to him, and Columban himself would have caused the "miraculous spring" nearby to burst forth. The life of St. Columban of Bobbio also abounds in miracles, of course. At that time people could not do without them, these men of little faith needed them to believe.

Given the growing number of vocations, around 590 Columban decides to create a new monastery in Luxeuil, a more accessible place with sources of thermal properties recognized since the earliest antiquity (cf. the god Luxovius). He and his monks lead a contemplative life balanced by sustained manual labor. They also devote themselves to the education and evangelization of the countryside.

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Besides the outhouse rapidly surpassed in reputation its parent company and Luxeuil quickly found itself at the very heart of the Colombanite spirituality: our saint lived there for nearly twenty years. Finally, there was a monastery at Fontaines, about fifteen kilometers to the north.

A single abbey therefore, but in three monasteries, forming a harmonious whole, both spiritual and economic, with a single abbot, and a leader at the head of each house.

At the same time, Colombanus battled firmly against the turpitude of the Christians of the time. Although he had benefited from the favor of the Court of Burgundy, which had supported him against the reluctance of the episcopacy during his settling at Luxeuil and at Fontaines; the intransigence of our Scot caused him some formidable enemies, but also the admiration and fervor of many young men who were taken with asceticism.

The originality of the Colombanite monasticism resided in a state of mind demanding a high moral value and a life made of sacrifices. The Colombanite rule was inspired by the Irish harsh tradition. This country, which is an island, which is a deserted moor swept by winds and rain, whose land is covered with stones, has forged men of strong character. The people it has begotten has a will rooted in the flesh and the soul. Many peoples have been nearly this combative and obstinate character, but none has been able to incorporate in addition this impassioned impetus of distant and uncertain quests; In the image of the life of Saint Brendan, possible discoverer of America before Leif Erikson or Christopher Columbus.

For having publicly condemned in 607 the adulterous relations and debauchery of Theuderich II, King of Burgundy; for having refused to bless his illegitimate children, for having compared his grandmother Brunhilda with Jezebel, for not submitting to the date of the Roman Easter 1); for having opposed the bishops of Burgundia, to whom he refused, as a good heir to Irish monasticism as he was, that his foundations were submitted; Colombanus was finally expelled from the kingdom of Burgundy. In 610 indeed Brunhilda will profit from the conflict of Columbanus with the Frankish Church to order him to leave with his Irish disciples.

They therefore leave Luxeuil for Nantes where they embark on a ship going to Ireland. But after being wrecked, they find themselves on the south coast of Armorica. Back to square one !

Many were those who saw this as a sign of God. Colombanus’s reputation as well as that of his foundations enlarged again and increased the arrival of lay aristocrats close to the Merovingian court. Columbanus, continuing his journey, met Chagneric, father of Faro (future bishop of Meaux and protector of the Scots), of Cagnoald (future bishop of Laon). He also got the support of many lay aristocrats, among whom he aroused many conversions, for example in the family of the great owner Audecharius; whose three sons, Dado (future Saint Audoin and Bishop of Rouen), Ado and Rado (in charge of the treasures of Dagobert, a monk at the end of his life) founded abbeys in turn.

Most of the great holy men and great holy women of the seventh century, founders of monasteries and fervent missionaries (in Irish fashion) were therefore converted by Columbanus; and not only Dado founder of Rebais or Ado founder of Jouarre, but also Eligius (Solignac), Philibert (Noirmoutier, Jumièges), Wandregisel (Fontenelle, later Saint-Wandrille), Amandus (Elnone, later Saint-Amand), Fara (founder of the double monastery - men and women - of Faremoutiers) ...

These good relations with great Merovingian families illustrate the influence of Colombanus. The latter was welcomed, requested and recommended. We cannot ignore the family and almost clan side that reigned around this character. We have just seen the relations of kinship which united certain young aristocrats. These links make it possible to better understand the role that all this circle of youngsters played in the Colombanite monasticism after the death of their spiritual father.

After this stay in the region of Meaux, Columbanus appeared briefly in Annegray; in order to confirm the responsibility of Saint Eustace over Luxeuil, and to choose some monks to accompany him in Switzerland or Italy: St. Gall, St. Cagnoald and St. Jonas of Susa (or Bobbio). With them he went to evangelize the Alemanni and the Suebi.

Columbanus crosses Mainz, then goes back up the Rhine to Basle and Waldshut. Following the Aar and the Lake Zurich, they arrive at Tuggen. They set out and “at length they arrived at the place designated [Bregenz], which did not wholly please Columban ; but he decided to remain, in order to spread the faith among the people, who were Swabians. Once as he was going through this country,

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he discovered that the natives were going to make a heathen offering. They had a large cask that they called a cupa, and that held about twenty-six measures, filled with ale and set in their midst. On Columban's asking what they intended to do with it, they answered that they were making an offering to their God Wodan (whom others call Mercury). When he heard of this abomination, he breathed on the cask, and lo! it broke with a crash and fell in pieces so that all the ale ran out. Then it was clear that the devil had been concealed in the cask, and that through the earthly drink he had proposed to ensnare the soul/minds of the participants. As the heathens saw that, they were amazed and said Columban had a strong breath, to split a well-bound cask in that manner“.

Editor’s note.

The cask is a Celtic invention intended originally to preserve beer. Wotan is a Germanic god-or-demon, but Mercury is a Roman god-or-demon. Corresponding to Celtic Lug. Swabians were in the beginning mixed people, half-Germanic, half-Celtic. Most famous of their kings, called Ariovistus, was for example bilingual, and even bigamist: a Germanic wife a Celtic wife. The heathens in question were therefore devilishly mixed, even supporters of cultural diversity, and before even that became like today a fashionable impossible to circumvent political conformism, depending on the dominant ideology.

In 614, again threatened by the hatred of Brunhilda, at the height of his power after the victory of Theuderich over Theudebert , Columban prefers to leave Bregenz and pass the Alps. But the group has grown old.

Gall of his original name Cellach, Latinized in Gallus, had already been on the Rhine frontier, where he had gotten familiar with the local languages. Arrived at Bregenz, he had fallen ill and, unable to continue the journey, he asked Colombanus to stop and finish in this place a life withdrawn from the world. Not far away from Lake Constance, he had a cell built and died a few years later. In the place where these events took place, a church was erected in his honor, changed in the eighth century into a monastery dedicated to his name. In Chur, the monk Sigisbert also separated from the group and sets out to found a monastery in Disentis.

Having left their suffering brother, Columban, Cagnoald, and a few others, went into the hills of the Austrian Vorarlberg. They reach the Septimer pass and come down towards Lake Como then the Po plain. There Columbanus solicits the grant of land from Agilulf, king of Lombardy. He gets his protection and, above all, that of Queen Theodelinda. After some time in Milan, Columban sets out to settle in the valley of Bobbio. He and his monks built a new monastery around an old chapel.

The community of Bobbio having taken its rise, Columban withdraws in a hermitage on the heights of Coli where, worn out by years of walk, of privation and suffering, the old "insular soldier" will die on November 23, 615. He was the first to use the word "European."

St Columbanus has left us many writings, all in Latin language. A penitential; seventeen sermons; six letters; religious poems; a monastic rule, in ten chapters.

The life of Saint Columbanus was written by a monk of the abbey of Bobbio, Jonas of Bobbio.

Among the contemporary disciples of Columban, there is the Missionary Society of St. Columban, established in 1918, by two priests of the St Patrick’s College at Maynooth. The Missionary Sisters of Saint-Columban, founded in 1924 by Lady Francis Maloney and Fr John Blowick (in Magheramore, Ireland), collaborated with the Columban Fathers and carried out their own missionary work.

1) In 603 a council met at Chalon to decide on the question of calculating the date of Easter (again!) Which is then fixed differently by the Roman Church and Celtic Christendom. Columbanus does not yield and appeals to Pope Gregory I.

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THE RULE OF THE MONKS OF ST COLUMBANUS OF BOBBIO.

THE REGULA MONACHORUM.

I.OF OBEDIENCE.

At the first word of the senior, all on hearing should rise to obey, since their obedience is shown to God, as our Lord Jesus Christ says: "He who hears you hears Me.’’ (Luke 10,16).Therefore if anyone hearing the word does not rise at once, he is to be judged disobedient.

II. The rule of silence is decreed to be carefully observed, since it is written: " the nurture of righteousness is silence and peace.’’ (Isaiah 32.17). And thus, lest one be apprehended as guilty of much talking, it is needful that he keeps silence except for things profitable and necessary, since according to Scripture : in many words sin will not be lacking.’’ (Proverbs. 10.19). Therefore the Savior says: "By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.’’(Matthew 12.37).

Justly will they be damned who would not say just things when they could, but preferred to say with garrulous loquacity what is evil, unjust, irreverent, empty, harmful, dubious, false, provocative, disparaging, base, fanciful, blasphemous, rude, and tortuous. Therefore we must keep silence on these and kindred matters, and speak with care and prudence, lest either disparagements or swollen oppositions should break out in vicious garrulity.

III. OF FOOD AND DRINK.

Let the monks' food be poor and taken in the evening, such as to avoid repletion,and their drink such as to avoid intoxication, so that it may both maintain life and not harm; vegetables, beans, flour mixed with water, together with the small bread weighing a paximatis (200 grams???), lest the stomach be burdened and the mind confused. For indeed those who desire eternal rewards must only consider usefulness and use. Use of life must be moderated just as toil must be moderated, since this is true discretion, that the possibility of spiritual progress may be kept with a temperance that punishes the flesh. For if temperance exceeds measure, it will be a vice and not a virtue; for virtue maintains and retains many goods. Therefore we must fast daily, just as we must feed daily; and while we must eat daily, we must gratify the body more poorly and sparingly; since we must eat daily for the reason that we must go forward daily, pray daily, toil daily, and daily read.

IV.OF POVERTY AND OF OVERCOMING GREED.

Since this is so, we have need of few things, according to the word of the Lord, or even of one.’’ For few things are true necessities without which life cannot be led, or even one thing, like food according to the letter. But we require purity of feeling by the grace of God, that we may understand spiritually what are those few gifts of love which are offered to Martha by the Lord.

V. OF OVERCOMING VANITY.

Let no large word proceed from a monk's mouth, lest his own large labor perish.

VII. OF THE CHOIR OFFICE.

But concerning the synaxis, that is, the office of psalms and prayers in canonical manner, some distinctions must be drawn, since its observance has been variously bequeathed to our remembrance by different authorities. Thus, in accordance with the nature of man's life and the succession of the seasons, the same will be variously suggested by myself also in writing. For it should not be stereotyped in view of the mutual changes of the seasons; for it is fitting that it be longer on the long nights and shorter on the short ones. Hence, in agreement with our predecessors, from the twenty-fourth of June, while the night increases, the office begins to grow gradually from twelve chants of the shortest measure on the night of the Sabbath or the Lord's Day, up to the beginning of winter, that is, the first of November. Then they sing twenty-five antiphonal psalms [of twice the same number] which always follow third after two chanted, in such a way that within the two aforesaid nights they sing the entire total of the psalter, while they modify the remaining nights for the whole winter with twelve chants. At winter's end, gradually each week throughout the spring, three psalms are always dropped, so that only twelve antiphons remain on the holy nights, that is, the thirty-six psalms of the daily winter office, but it is twenty-four throughout the whole spring and summer and up to the autumn equinox, that is, the twenty-fourth of September. Then the fashion of the synaxis is like that on the spring equinox, that is, the twenty-fifth of March, while by mutual changes it slowly grows and lessens.

Thus we must weigh our watching according to our strength […..]

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However, as I have said, the true tradition of praying is that the capacity of the man devoted to this work should be realized without wearying of his vow, whether the excellence of his capacity allows this, or whether his mental grasp or physical condition could allow it, considering his limitations, and that it should be realized as far as the zeal of each demands, if he be unhampered and alone, or as far as the scope of his learning requires, or the leisure of his position, the amount of study, the type of occupation and the difference of ages permits, although this is to be reckoned as the excellence of a single work in such various ways, because it alternates with labor and circumstance. And thus, although the length of standing or singing may be various, yet the identity of prayer in the heart and mental concentration that is unceasing with God's help will be of a single excellence.

VIII. OF DISCRETION.

How necessary discretion is for monks is shown by the mistake of many, and indicated by the downfall of some, who beginning without discretion and passing their time without a sobering knowledge, have been unable to complete a praiseworthy life;’ ’since, just as error overtakes those who proceed without a path, so for those who live without discretion intemperance is at hand, and this is always the opposite of virtues which are placed in the mean between each extreme. Its onset is a matter of danger, when beside the straight way of discretion our foes place the stumbling blocks of wickedness and the offences of various mistakes.Therefore we must pray God continually that He would bestow the light of true discretion to illumine this way, surrounded on every side by the world's thickest darkness, so that His true worshippers may be able to cross this darkness without error to Himself.

So discretion has got its name from discerning, for the reason that it discerns in us between good and evil, and also between the moderate and the complete. For from the beginning either class has been divided like light and darkness, that is, good and evil, after evil began through the devil's agency to exist by the corruption of good, but through God's agency Who first illumines and then divides (Genesis 1, 364). Thus righteous Abel chose the good, but unrighteous Cain fell upon evil (Genesis 4, 1-8) .

[Editor’s note. Let us remind, with due respect to noibo Columbanus, that nothing, but then nothing, in the biblical text, indicates that Cain was impious BEFORE being the victim of the divine discrimination which one knows. If he became impious, it is after, without confessed reason, being rejected by God, finally at least by the god-or-demon, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob].

God made all things good that He created (Genesis 1, 31), but the devil sowed evils over them ( Matthew 13 , 24-30) by cunning craftiness and the sly inducement of a perilous design (Genesis 3, 1-5) . What things then are good? Doubtless those which are untouched, and have remained in the undefiled state of their creation; ’’which God [alone] created and "prepared’’, according to the Apostle (Ephesians 2. 10), " that we should walk in them; [which are] the good works in which in Christ Jesus we were created,’’ namely goodness, innocence, righteousness, justice, truth, pity, love, saving peace, spiritual joy, together with the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5 , 22). All these with their fruits are good.

But to these evils are opposed, namely wickedness, seduction, unrighteousness, injustice, lying, greed, hatred, discord, bitterness, together with their manifold fruits, things which are born from them. For countless are the things that are produced from the two opposites, that is, from goods and evils. But what departs from its established goodness and innocence is the first evil, which is the pride of primal wickedness; the opposite of which is the lowly esteem of a righteous

goodness that acknowledges and glorifies its Creator, and this is a rational creature's first good. Thus the rest also has gradually grown to a huge forest of names in two sections.

Since this is so, the good must be firmly held by those that have God's help, which is ever to be prayed for in prosperity and in adversity, lest either in prosperity we be lifted up to pride, or in adversity be cast down to despair. Thus we must always restrain ourselves from either danger, that is, from all excesses by a splendid temperance and true discretion, which cleaves to Christian lowliness and opens the way of perfection to Christ's true soldiers, namely by ever discerning rightly in doubtful cases, and everywhere dividing justly between good and evil, whether between both in external acts, or between flesh and spirit in the inner life, or between good works and character, or between action and contemplation, or between official duty and private devotion.

Therefore the evils are to be equally avoided, hubris, ill will, lying, seduction, unrighteousness, wicked transgressions of morality, gluttony, fornication, avarice, wrath, dejection, inconstancy, vainglory, boasting, slander; the goods of the virtues are also to be followed, lowliness, kindness, purity, obedience, temperance, chastity, liberality, patience, cheerfulness, constancy, zeal, persistence, watchfulness, silence, which through an enduring courage and sobering moderation, as in some weighing balance of discretion, are to be weighed in the performance of our customary work, according to the capacity of our endeavor, if everywhere we seek sufficiency. For it is doubtful to none

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that the man to whom sufficiency is not enough’’ has overstepped the measure of discretion, and whatever oversteps the very measure is clearly a vice.

Thus between the little and the excessive there is a reasonable measure in the midst, which ever recalls us from every superfluity on either side, and in every case posited provides what is universally fixed by human need, and spurns the unreasonable demand for superfluous desire. And this measure of true discretion, weighing all our actions in the scales of justice, in no wise allows us to err from what is just, or to suffer a mistake, if we ever follow straight behind it as our leader. For while we must always restrain ourselves from either side, according to that saying "Keep yourselves from the right and from the left,’’ (cf. Deut. 5. 32) we must ever proceed straight forwards by discretion, that is, by the light of God,

while very often we say and sing the victorious psalmist's verse, "My god, enlighten my darkness, since in You I am rescued from temptation’’(Ps. 17. 29-30). For "temptation is the life of man on earth’’ (Job 7. 1)

IX. OF MORTIFICATION.

Thus there is a threefold scheme of mortification: not to disagree in mind, not to speak as one pleases with the tongue, not to go anywhere with complete freedom. Its part is ever to say to a senior, however adverse his instructions, "Not as I will but as thou wilt,’’ (Matt. 26. 39) following the example of the Lord and Savior, Who says, "I came down from heaven, not to do My will, but the will of Him Who sent Me, the Father (John 6 , 38).

THE END.

Bobbio manuscripts add a paragraph.

X. OF THE MONK’S PERFECTION.

Let the monk live in a community under the discipline of one father and in company with many, so that from one he may learn lowliness, from another patience. For one may teach him silence and another meekness. Let him not do as he wishes, let him eat what he is bidden, keep as much as he has received, complete the tale of his work, be subject to whom he does not like. Let him come weary to his bed and sleep walking, and let him be forced to rise while his sleep is not yet finished. Let him keep silence when he has suffered wrong, let him fear the superior of his community as a lord, love him as a father, believe that whatever he commands is healthful for himself, and let him not pass judgment on the opinion of an elderly person, to whose duty it belongs to obey and fulfill what he is bidden’’. As Moses says, "Hear, O Israel and be quiet’’ (Deut. 27. 9).

COMMENTARY.

As we have seen, the Colombanite rule was inspired by the harsh Irish tradition of the monastery of Bangor and of St Comgall.

The rule of St. Columbanus consisted of a list of the monk duties centered around ten values: obedience, silence, food moderation, poverty, chastity, reciting psalms, discretion, mortification and perfection.

As soon as you were admitted into the community, you were reduced ipso facto to the zero degree of personality: the brother owed his superiors the obedience of every moment, passive and absolute. Except for useful and necessary motives, he had to be buried in perpetual silence. To the Colombanites, whatever their state of health, only vegetables, water-soaked flour, and a piece of bread were allotted. And again, only once a day, in the evening; the day being to be devoted to fasting, prayer, reading and work. (The rule does not speak of fish, which ought to be tolerated, for, as we have said, people fish all the time in the lives of Irish saints.) Silence was the usual thing only with regard to men; in regard to God or the Demiurge, the prayers were interminable; thirty-six psalms followed by twelve antiphons for the ordinary days; on great festivals, they go up to seventy-five psalms brightened up with twenty-five antiphons. Sleep was reduced to a few hours, five or six. One

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went to bed, dressed, on a board, and without leaving his shoes. The rule stated that a monk must be so tired that he sleeps on going to bed, and that he gets up before he has slept enough.

Thus life passed, in a rigid austerity. The slightest false step was, moreover, rigorously punished.

The rule was accompanied by a penitential, which determined the penalties to be imposed on the guilty. If you had spoken to a woman without a witness: two hundred blows with a rod; if you had slept under the same roof as a woman, three days on bread and water (but reduced to one day if you did not know it). Almost all repression consists in rod blows and in days of fasting. Reserved for uncommon crimes among the Benedictines (of Latin origin), the rod comes into play for the least peccadillo among the sons of Columbanus: from six to two hundred strokes; for having forgotten prayer before or after meals: twelve strokes; for having forgotten to do one’s nails or beard before saying mass: six strokes; for having unnecessarily broken the law of silence: fifty strokes; For having forgotten a tool in the fields: twelve psalms; for having fallen asleep during prayer: six psalms, and three strokes with a rod for him who forgot to answer amen. Eating outside the daily meals caused you two days on bread and water; a lie fifty strokes with a rod.

Every personal initiative was harshly repressed: he who undertook a work without permission received not fewer than a hundred strokes. All this, of course, gives an idea of the harshness of the seventh century, but also of the formidable physical resistance of our land clearing monks.

To note. The rules governing Luxovian monasteries owe to St Colombanus the frequent recourse to the spiritual adviser ( a confidant called anamchara) and therefore to the private confession of auricular type.

Thanks to Colombanus and his disciples, the number of the monasteries in Europe tripled during the 7th century (from nearly 200 to more than 600).

This shows how much Colombanite spirituality, with its spiritual and moral demands, was expected on the Continent. But it adapted. The Colombanite always asserted their respect towards the pope; what made easier their later rallying to the liturgical customs from Rome ... and to the rule of St. Benedict.

This was almost adopted at Luxeuil from the abbacy of Waldebert, the second successor of Columbanus, and many of the foundations quoted above adopted the rule of St Benedict in the way of Luxeuil; that is to say a rule of St. Benedict in which there was a greater openness to the world, and in which monks were encouraged to evangelize the populations.

These monks contributed, by their missions in the countryside and by the missions beyond the borders of Christendom, in consolidating Christianization and extending the limits of Christianity.

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THE MONASTIC MOVEMENT IN EUROPE.

The Christianization of the countryside was mainly done from the monasteries. The monks of the time were far from resembling brother Cadfael by Ellis Peters (see the television series of the same name). The monks of the 7th and 8th centuries were not confined to a closed monastic community but traveled extensively, usually on foot, to the surrounding countryside in order to preach and convert the villagers. This was especially true for the monks of the Celtic abbeys. Regional monasteries were even knowingly founded to better serve specific geographical areas.

Many examples in the English place names for example, to quote only it (Warminster, Axminster, etc.).

The bishop's crosier of these great travelers was therefore more like a cane or a pilgrim's stick than a hubristic staff of command in the style of a bishop's crosier.

For example, the cambutta of St Columban of Iona. For as Thomas Maclaughlin established it, the word "saint" in early Gaelic language meant "missionary" and nothing more. A note from the Martyrology of Oengus attributes to this saint the manufacture of three hundred staves. The baculus of a famous saint was preciously preserved. In Wales and Scotland people swore an oath on it, as on a relic.

In order to avoid the deterioration and the risk of loss, his custody was entrusted to a clan, a family, generally to the plebilis progenies of the saint, who had to hand over hereditarily the precious deposit to his offspring. This explains how so many old pastoral staves have survived in the British Isles.

Some of these primitive wooden staffs were ennobled afterwards, adorned with silver and gold, embedded in bronze crosiers, in accordance with the tastes of later ages, sometimes even adorned with gems.

But these crosiers still take after the primitive cane. Their curvature, instead of winding, is flattened by the tip and falls vertically. The neck and the head of the crosier were divided into small rectangular or diamond-shaped compartments, most often filled with filigree.

The manufacture of staves and of their accessories (setting, cases) seems to have constituted a branch in itself of Irish monastic art. The artist who worked on the staff of command of the bishop of Lismore, an artifact of the eleventh century, is known; he left us his name in the following inscription “pray for Nectan, the artisan who did this work of art.”

Specialists also mention among the famous craftsmen Daigh, who made many objects relating to worship, quaedam horum nuda, quaedam vero alia auro atque argento gemmisque pretiosis circumtexta, and Tassach, who made a case for the Bachall Isu, the staff of St. Patrick. The most famous of these staff of command was indeed that of St Patrick, the Bachall Isu. It was burned as a symbol of superstition during the Reformation (1538). But the Museum of Scottish Antiquities in Edinburgh, the British Museum, the National Museum of Dublin, and some private collections, still keep a good number of these former Celtic pilgrim staves.

This monasticism implied therefore a very harsh discipline, with corporal punishment, and a system of penances (for such and such fault, so many days, months, or years, of fasting) recorded in penitentials.

- It implied a heroic asceticism (individual prayer whole nights in the rising tide, solitary trips at the risk of his life ...)

- But paradoxically , it was more open to the world (abbots / bishops and monks / priests responsible for Christianization first of the clan, then possibly of the distant countries); hence the importance of the great missionary journey (peregrinatio pro Deo) in this mysticism.

As we have seen above, but given the importance of the matter, allow us to repeat it, the Celtic law of brehons made the peregrinatio from a people or from a tribe to another mode of exile or punishment. One of the penalties provided by the Irish tradition was, in fact, a setting adrift on the sea sentencing a criminal to sail, deprived of oars and rudder, unto the wind would carry him. In both cases, the man was deprived of the help of his community and this was the greatest punishment that could occur to him. This forced pilgrim could thus count only on Divine Providence.

We have an excellent example of this in the Cain Adomnain of 697, the penalty replacing blood price for women (female offenders).

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the ocean to go with the wind from the land. A vessel of meal and water to be given with her. Judgment on her as God deems it.

In a completely different context, the supreme danger will therefore be tempted by certain monks who, feeling themselves culprits (or sinners), voluntarily break their ties and go into exile to do God's will. And that is why the Irish monks have gone to the spiritual conquest of Great Britain. The first St Columban (Columba or Columcille), born about 521, founded the monasteries of Derry, Durrow then Lona (the best known) in Scotland in 563, and Aidan left Lona to found Lindisfarne in Northumbria around 635. Then it was the turn of the rest of Europe.

The gyrovague monk was an itinerant and solitary monk, living in roaming from monastery to monastery, without being a member of any. The monastic ideal is then founded on a traveling quest, a peregrinatio pro Christo which leads to detach oneself from all attachment to walk in the footsteps of Christ, passing from one master to another according to his spiritual progress. The monk is ready to set off at any moment, waiting for a divine sign that indicates him where to go, without forcing the hand of destiny. We are here polar opposite the desert Fathers and of the monks of Nitria in Egypt.

If the gyrovague wandering contributes to spreading and popularizing the eremitic themes such as the Life of Anthony, the multiplication of these peregrines, often proselytizing but outside any religious structure, leads to reactions.

In 451 the Council of Chalcedon, which recognizes monks and monasteries under the authority of the Emperor Marcian, had imposed the obligation of monastic stability (a place stability besides which will be confirmed in 787 by the Second Council of Nicaea).

The influential Benedict of Nursia will also be firmly opposed to this type of monasticism. The first chapter of the Rule of St. Benedict, in which the author describes the "four kinds of monks" and favors the cenobites and anchorites who spent several years of life among brothers in the monastery before submitting to the "single combat in the desert ," is extremely negative towards the peregrine monks :" the fourth class of monks is that called Landlopers, who keep going their whole life long from one province to another, staying three or four days at a time in different cells as guests. Always roving and never settled, they indulge their passions and the cravings of their appetite (….) It is better to pass all these over in silence than to speak of their most wretched life.”

Peregrine and pilgrim monks do not disappear for all that and this type of big personality will flourish among the Irish monks re-evangelizing medieval Western Europe.

It is important to remember that at the time papacy, even if it claims spiritual authority over all the Western Churches, is in no way admitted as the hierarchical and disciplinary head of the aforementioned Churches. Were the bishops the principal agents of the Christianization of Germany in the sixth century? We can doubt this, for it appears that the monks, the main vector of this new evangelization, often came from elsewhere. There are many testimonies (especially those of Jonas of Bobbio and Ekkehard of St. Gallen) about these monks who, at each generation, came from Ireland full of zeal and culture, establishing Germanic-Irish-Latin lexicons to touch queens and convert kings; some guides of Rome, ruin by ruin, house by house, some workshops of painting, workshops of experienced copyists, etc.....etc......... ...

Those the French Dom Gougaud called, we wonder why, minores peregrini, followed a few years the arrival of Colombanus on the Continent. The first character who stands out from this wave is perhaps the bishop or chorepiscopus Saint Fursey.

St Fursey (Fursa, Latin Furseus and Furseus), an Irish monk from a noble family (Fursey was the son of Fintan, son of the king of Munster, and Gelges, the daughter of a chief). His vita prima says him baptized by the famous St Brendan. Fursey, whose name means virtue, was educated in the

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monastery of Cluain Fearta (Clonfert, Munster) and had the usual career of an Irish monk, founding a monastery in Rathmat, presumably in the north-west of County Clare (Killursa?)

After a rather obscure journey through Ireland for ten years, during which he made many enemies for himself, Fursey sailed to join Great Britain. What is certain is that in the early 630s Fursey landed in England, in the Kingdom of Sigeberht. He would then, according to Irish custom, have brought the relics of Brendan, Beonan and Meldan. Such “talismans” were considered as reservoirs of courage and spirituality from which their carriers drew strength. It should not be forgotten that most of these monks walked. Whence the importance for them of the pilgrim’s staves kind Cambutta or Bachal Isu.

Burdened also with books and objects of worship, he traveled through the country of King Sigeberht of East Anglia, of whom he became the adviser, as well as that of Bishop Felix, by strengthening Christianity among populations only half converted.

He founded a monastery at Cnobheresburg (Burgh Castle, near Great Yarmouth) and then withdrew to live alone with his brother Ultan who preferred eremitism.

At the end of a year, threatened by Penda, the pagan king of Mercia, he left the country and landed at Quentovic (Etaples) on the Continent, about 639.

He had contact with Erchinoald who asked him to baptize his son and Clovis II who allowed him to found a monastery in Neustria. Fursey chooses the locality of Latiniacum (Lagny in Brie, in the French department of the Marne). In 644 he built three chapels in a monastery which was probably a Scottorum monasterium.

The brothers of Fursey, Foillan and Ultan, came to the continent accompanied by other companions who are not well known. We know that Emilian had joined Fursey one year after his installation in Lagny. Although less active than Colombanus of Bobbio, the reputation which spread on his death made him a character of the first order. He was venerated by his family and his many successors. It must be known that when these Irish monks, endowed with certain charism, frequented the higher spheres of society, and this was the case for Fursey, since he knew the courts of England and Neustria; their reputation extended widely to the lower strata of society which also had a sense of the sacred and contributed to the development of their worship. A certain number of miracles were therefore attributed to St Fursey, including during his lifetime.

The death of the saint was rich in adventures recounted by the vitae or the virtues. These virtutes, work of a monk of Peronne who lived a century and a half after the events, are not devoid of a certain partiality in favor of this monastery. Besides the place and date of the death of Fursey, the translation of the relics of the saint was the object of controversy. Saint Fursey would die in 649 in Macerias, Mezerolles, near Frohen, on the route of the British Isles, in the Ponthieu. It was by wishing to see his brothers again that he would have died on the way.

The place of his death being able to have consequences for the awarding of his relics or the location of his grave, difficult disputes broke out between the laymen who wanted to benefit from the proximity of the saint: Duke Haymon, Erchinoald, and Bercharius, the count of Laon. The latter claimed that Fursey had received many lands in the county Laon, but had never been able to go there since the mayor of the palace in Neustria had prevented him from it .

It is obvious that the possession of the relics or of a place of pilgrimage having important economic consequences could have fostered such an attachment for a simple monk. Erchinoald hurried therefore to finish the building of the church in Peronne to receive the remains of Saint Fursey. We find again in the virtutes the known theme of the corpse laid down in a cart drawn by oxen and thrown around at random. This judicium Dei or trial by ordeal already used for St Ronan in Armorica in the sixth century, played for Peronne. (Same kind of episodes in the Vita Muhammadi where, on the occasion of the arrival of the prophet in Yathrib / Medina, it will be his camel who will determine where to build his first mosque.)

Whatever it be, a new monastery, called Peronna Scottorum, was soon erected in this place, which will serve for the exclusive use of the Scots in their future peregrinations.

As we have seen, Saint Fursey could have been killed by thieves near Corbie if he had not been able to convert them just before. Evangelists of the countryside, the Irish indeed often met brigands who did not hesitate to use their knife for a word or a coin that these missionary travelers had in excess. The violent death of Foillan in Nivelles has been mentioned, we will also remind of that of St. Gobain in the forest of Voas in 670, that of Boetianus in the marshes of Pierrepont in 668. The list is long and proves the real desire of Irish pilgrims to evangelize the whole world. It was not a form of suicide,

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death was not wanted, but when it arrived, it was not fled. Jean Heuclin (At monastic origins, hermits and recluses) believed that a quarter of these holy hermits died a violent death. The insecurity varied according to the regions in which our pilgrims were traveling. If the southern cities of first and second Belgium appear rather safe, many monks there underwent the constant pressure of undesirable individuals, for example hunters. Such was the case, for example, of St. Florentius of Strasbourg in Alsace). What explains the group movements of these peregrines. However, their willingness to live detached from constraints often also led to the separation of the group, or even its subsequent reconstruction, at the chance of the journey. For most of these Celtic monks, during their journeys, stopped, of course, in the monasteria Scottorum founded by their predecessors or their disciples.

Among the other great Irish names, there are many hermits, most of whom worked in the North of the country, the hermits St. Kilian of Aubigny (not to be mixed up with the Kilian, who preached in Franconia, converted Duke Gozbert and died in 685, in Wurzburg, victim of his "apostolic zeal") and St. Fiacre, who died in 670, benefited from the favor of Bishop Faro of Meaux.

Irish in origin, Fiacre (Irish Fiáchra, Latin Fiacrius, Fiacrus) is the founder, probably in the seventh century, of a monastery close to Meaux which later took his name and became the center of a famous pilgrimage.

Patron saint of the gardeners, but also holy healer specialized hemorrhoids, cankers and cancers, Fiacre was one of the most popular saints in the country. Many churches and chapels, including Belgium and Rhineland, still have a more or less rustic statue of this monk with scapular and hood, looking serious and sometimes ecstatic, holding a spade in one hand and a book in the other. An abundant iconography - miniatures, illustrations, signs, medals - has supported his worship for centuries. This pious and helpful character lose to the faithful, combines symbols of work and prayer.

If the folklorists have devoted much attention to these today almost forgotten devotions, history is more miserly. Only two dates are really sure in our quest for the historical saint.

The first to speak of Fiacre is a bishop of Meaux, Hildegar, who under Charles the Bald, probably in 870, undertook to write a long biography of his predecessor, St Faro, who died two centuries earlier. In chapters 97-99 of his narrative, he tells us that Faro was in high reputation with the Celtic monks (the Scots) who then traveled as a pilgrim throughout the country that he welcomed them willingly in his diocese and that he never hesitated to make them benefit from his generosity. Thus a certain Fefrus, in whom we must recognize our Fiacre, received from him a land at the place called Breuil (Broilum), a dozen kilometers south of Meaux, to build a monastery there. In the next chapter, we learn that Faro urged another transiting Scot, Kilian, to go and settle in Artois to evangelize this country ( but St Kilian preferred to continue as far as Bavaria where he became bishop of Wurtzburg).

The Lives of St Faro and St Kilian have in common to be quite fanciful. There is, however, no reason to doubt the existence of Fiacre. Someone was well needed to found the monastery in Breuil and to occupy the tomb of his church. Moreover, the typically Irish name of Fiacre is, outside of him, unknown on the continent.

Assumptions about the historical Fiacre.

Fiacre was educated in a monastery in County Kilkenny in Ireland. He got important knowledge in herbal medicine. His rapidly growing reputation as a healer and a saint led him to leave Ireland in search of greater solitude.

Unlike his predecessors, Dom Dubois attaches great importance to the mention of the Senate martyrology. It is a simple addition in the margin of a manuscript of the Hieronymian martyrology, which dates from the tenth century. It indicates on the 30th of August : "In the country of Meaux, death of Saint Fiacre, bishop and confessor."

The author of the note, probably a cleric of Sens, does not specify his see and the location he gives - "in the country of Meaux" and not in Meaux itself - suffices to show that he did not mistake him for a former bishop of this city.

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So we could see in Fiacre, bishop without bishopric, one of the Celtic chorbishops accompanied by a few companions who had become gyrovague on the Continent, and whose epoch gives us other examples. They would have stopped at Meaux where they would have been detained by the bishop or would have put themselves under his protection for reasons that we do not know. Faro (why not him?) would have installed them at the Breuil which was perhaps one of his estates, as the life of the twelfth century affirms it.

The importance and the very nature of the new foundation are difficult to appreciate. A "breuil" - a word of Celtic origin - seems to indicate from the Early Middle Ages an enclosed but uncultivated space, such as a game reserve or a horse park. We are tempted to think that the "breuil" of Fiacre owes its name to the ditches that demarcated it and that were still seen in the twelfth century. However, in the Merovingian period, the use of a strict separation between clergy and laity seems rather characteristic of the Colombanite monasticism. It is known how Columban himself heaped abuses on King Theuderic, for whom this segregation was incomprehensible, and which quietly broke the rule established at Luxeuil.

We are tempted therefore to bring the Irish settled in the Breuil together with monks of Luxeuil. Would not have been Bishop Fiacre also a chief of a monastery of Colombanite culture? And, like at Luxeuil, would not be the exclusion of women a vestige of an ancient ideal of separation from the lay people, all genders together?

Hildegar would have erased the bishop characteristic of Fiacre because, in his time, the war waged by the established bishops against the gyrovague bishops (episcopi vagantes) was not completely extinguished.

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ST ELIGIUS (588-669).

BISHOP OF NOYON AND TOURNAI (Belgium). During one of his pastoral visits to a village near his diocese of Noyon, this Talibanus or Parabolanus of Christianity attacks popular festivities (one wonders why) that he had, as usual, threatened with the flames of hell. (Oh the joys of love religion, forever!) Saint Eligius having reiterated, with still more violence, his threats, some time later, standing on a height in front of the church; one of the men of the entourage of Erchinoald, the mayor of the palace of Neustria, cut him off by daring to answer this. "Never, Roman, however hard you try, shall you uproot our customs but we will attend our solemnities always and forever as we have done till now nor can any man forbid us our ancient and gratifying games." (Book 2 chapter 20).

It is easy to guess the continuation. Touched by the grace and joy of life, Saint Eligius kneels down and joins the poor people who were celebrating ...

Ah no, sorry, there is a mistake, the adept of the god of love corrected about fifty of these rebels by making them prey of the demon for a year, despite the entreaties of their close relations.

Book 2 chapter 16.

“Before all else, I denounce and contest that you shall observe no sacrilegious pagan customs. For no cause or infirmity should you consult magicians, diviners, sorcerers or incantators, or presume to question them because any man who commits such evil will immediately lose the sacrament of baptism. Do not observe auguries or violent sneezing or pay attention to any little birds singing along the road. If you are distracted on the road or at any other work, make the sign of the cross and say your Sunday prayers with faith and devotion and nothing inimical can hurt you. No Christian should be concerned about which day he leaves home or which day he returns because God has made all days.

No influence attaches to the first work of the day or the [phase of the] moon; nothing is ominous or ridiculous about the Calends of January. [Do not] make [figures of?] vetulas, little deer or iotticos or set tables at night or exchange New Years' gifts or supply superfluous drinks. No Christian believes impurity or sits in incantations, because the work is diabolic. No Christian on the feast of Saint John or the solemnity of any other saint performs solestitia [solstice rites?] or dancing or leaping or diabolical chants. No Christian should presume to invoke the name of a demon, not Neptune or Orcus or Diana or Minerva or Geniscus or believe in these inept beings in any way. No one should observe Jove's day in idleness without holy festivities not in May or any other time, not days of larvae or mice or any day but Sunday. No Christian should make or render any devotion to the gods of the trivium, where three roads meet, to the fanes or the rocks, or springs or groves or corners. None should presume to hang any phylacteries from the neck of man nor beast, even if they are made by priests and it is said that they contain holy things and divine scripture because there is no remedy of Christ in these things but only the devil's poison. None should presume to make lustrations or incantations with herbs, or to pass cattle through a hollow tree or ditch because this is to consecrate them to the devil. No woman should presume to hang amber from her neck or call upon Minerva or other ill-starred beings in their weaving or dyeing but in all works give thanks only to Christ and confide in the power of his name with all your hearts. None should presume to shout when the moon is obscured, for by God's order eclipses happen at certain times. Nor should they fear the new moon or abandon work because of it. For God made the moon for this, to mark time and temper the darkness of night, not impede work nor make men mad as the foolish imagine, who believe lunatics are invaded by demons from the moon. None should call the sun or moon lord or swear by them because they are God's creatures and they serve the needs of men by God's order. No one should tell fate or fortune or horoscopes by them as those do who believe that a person must be what he was born to be. For God wills all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of truth and dispenses wisdom to all as he disposed it before the constitution of the world. Above all, should any infirmity occur, do not seek incantators or diviners or sorcerers or magicians, do not use diabolic phylacteries through springs and groves or crossroads. …Diabolical games and dancing or chants of the gentiles will be forbidden. No Christian will do them because he thus makes himself a pagan. Nor is it right that diabolical canticles should proceed from a Christian mouth where the sacrament of Christ is placed, which it becomes always to praise God. Therefore, brothers, spurn all inventions of the enemy with all your heart and flee these sacrileges with all horror. Venerate no creature beyond God and his saints. Shun springs and arbors which they call sacred.

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You are forbidden to make the crook which they place on the crossroads and wherever you find one you should burn it with fire. For you must believe that you can be saved by no other art than the invocation and cross of Christ. For how will it be if groves where these miserable men make their devotions, are felled and the wood from them given to the furnace? See how foolish man is, to offer honor to insensible, dead trees and despise the precepts of God Almighty. Do not believe that the sky or the stars or the earth or any creature should be adored beyond God for he created and disposes of them all. Heaven is high indeed, and the earth vast, and the sea immense and the stars beautiful but more immense and more beautiful by necessity is he who created them. For if the things seen are so incomprehensible, that is none of the variety of fruits of the earth, the beauty of flowers, the diversity of fruits, the types of animals, some on earth, some in water, some in the air, the prudence of bees, the breath of the wind, the dewy clouds and clashing thunder, the turning of the seasons, the alternation of day and night, can be comprehended by the human mind.”

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VARIOUS COMMENTS.

The previous violent diatribe is therefore an excellent testimony to the childish and anthropomorphic or anthropocentrist design of God or of the Demiurge that Jewish-Islamic Christians have always had in mind. God or the Demiurge made the moon for ... to mitigate the night, mark the time. He made the sun to meet the needs of Man, and so on ... It was like listening to the Qur'an or Doctor Maurice Bucaille! It is also a text characteristic of the incredible racist disparagement that the Talibani or Parabolani of Christianity have always shown towards the freedom of worship or the spiritualities other than their own.

The devil ... Saint Eligius therefore believes in the existence of an autonomous EVIL, external to man, and not dependent on him, on the contrary, which he calls the Devil. Scotus Eriugena himself no longer believed in him already in his time.

Demons from the moon ... a concept may be "Mediterranean." The farmers of this region of the world believed rather in the notion of "bacuceos" or "seibaros," that is, "reincarnated" totally or partially, on earth, in order to benefit thereby from a second chance .

The possibility of knowing the future (soothsayers, augurs, birds, fate, lucky star, and horoscopes)? St Eligius believes in it, but wants to hear it only from the mouth of God or the Demiurge, or from one of his official interpreters, according to him.

"The attitude of the Church, as far as the knowledge of the future is concerned, is as follows. If an event is not contained in its causes ... The Church believes that no human being can foresee this future event and that only the divinity, directly or through an intermediary, could announce this event which will be realized later " (Reginald Omez).

What do you think of that ???

In everyday life, the personal and social activity of individuals is so complex that we cannot normally predict (except, to some extent, through statistics) the behavior of each individual, or of a group of individuals, in the long term. To this are to be events so foreign to each object (in a broader sense) that it is impossible to forecast if the truck left the day before in such a place will overthrow a person while arriving at its destination today; or will overthrow an animal, or will strike a wall.

The precognition can be imagined as a "super intuition" which would be aware of all these elements, and would arrange them in a relevant way to predict what will happen - according to the elements of now - tomorrow when the truck will arrive at its destination.

This makes a talented person able to announce the event of tomorrow (an accident) with more or less details. The uncertainty being due to the new elements, appearing between yesterday and tomorrow, when the moment of truth will arrive. This can help avoid the accident of tomorrow if the trucker is warned of precognition. At the moment of the scene seen by precognition, the trucker will recognize the moment, and will be able to say to himself, "Be careful, it is now! What will make him able to brake - or stop - before even the risk of an accident, and thus to avoid it.

The existence of precognition does not imply that the future is predetermined, but that it is a future, let us say, a probable future on which we can always act.

In the example above, there was indeed "precognition," yet the object target of this precognition - the accident - did not occur.

Let us now turn to another point in the text of Saint Eligius, the possibility of acting on matter, or on other persons, without direct contact (magicians, sorcerers, enchanters). Here too, Saint Eligius believes in it, but of course, vigorously warns against this possibility.

So what about that ??

The Global Consciousness Project (GCP) is an international project, launched in 1998 to study a badly known aspect of the relationship of Man’s consciousness with the physical world.

Random digital generators provide a sequence of computer binary digits. The samples are provided by shot noise, expressed into a non-predictable sequence of one and zero. Software, present in each computer, acquires the data, stores it locally, and sends the new data, every five minutes, to the Princeton server.

This process can be compared to the action of throwing 200 times a coin, the result showing a majority of heads or tails.

Generally, the data oscillates around the zero line until a deviation occurs. However, it was found that the data stream of the sensors tended to move away from the expected values when a public event

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generated a communion of thoughts or emotions. We do not yet know how to explain these subtle relations between events of importance for men and the recorded data, but they are undeniable. These results show clearly that the physical world and the world of the human mind are linked by a still unknown relationship. (Noosphere, Princeton.edu.)

Special days, adverse circumstances, sneezing, first phase of the moon, various superstitions. Noibo Eligius is right.

Festivities as well as the carnival of the New Year, of St. John's day, gifts, Thursday rest day (for Jews it is Saturday), etc. What harm is there ??

Neptune, Orcus, Diana, Minerva and Geniscus are probably Roman gods or demons, corresponding to druidic deities (by interpretatio romana), but which ones ??? Minerva for the belisama Brigindo / Brigantia / Brigid ??? This would go well with the amber necklaces.

The heaven, the stars, the sun, the moon, or the earth. Ecologists before the word is invented, the pagans of that time attached great importance to all these celestial bodies, especially the sun, source of life, and the moon, to whom they almost attributed a personality.

The moon has always fascinated men who ascribe her much influence over their lives, and among these influences, some are real like the tides, of course, or the moonlight. It is in the moonless nights that the murders sneak in ... Other influences are indirect, that is to say that the moon does not play an actor role, but a warning role. This is the case with the April frost ( April moon), which is called so because it is accused of freezing and scorching plants. She scorches nothing at all, of course, but if we see her in the sky, it is because there are no clouds, and if there are no clouds, it is because the night will be colder; and therefore the plants will be frozen. The moon is also the only celestial body that is seen to grow and shrink, then again grow and shrink, which evidently tends to associate her with the idea of growth. But beyond this it is the cycle of these changes which is doubtless in play, since the moon cycle is the same as that of the woman fertility. A mere coincidence, of course, since the fertility of the mouse or of the elephant does not have the same cycle at all but this coincidence is at the origin of the immemorial link established between the influence of the moon and the woman.

Trees and sacred groves. St. Eligius apparently agrees with the policy of religious intolerance carried out 3,000 years ago by certain Kings of Judah like Hezekiah or Josiah. Destruction and execution of all they did not like in matters of religion or worship; and especially sacred mounds or offerings, or even heretics or witches, who are to be burned, and their songs, dances, or release rites, forbidden.

Lustrations (the lustration is purification, a kind of baptism), demonstration of respect for small country chapels (fanas) or ecological homage before the word is invented for stones, springs or groves, for instance by lighting candles or placing offerings there. How does this differ from the prayers or religious offerings in Christian churches? Apart from the fact that this is here obviously an attitude more ecologist than that of St Eligius. As the apostle Stephen had already said very well in his day, the divinity could not be confined in a temple out of stone, even that of Jerusalem. HE IS EVERYWHERE !

And as for the jewels worn as pendants, or the cowbells around the neck of the cows to protect them, what harm is there, if we do not make a fuss with that?

In any case, St Eligius confirms that many Christians believed in them at that time, and that the priests of his Church even went so far as to bless them or to use relics to make them.

Many of these customs, moreover, persisted long after this hateful and intolerant diatribe of St Eligius.

The use of herbs or plants itself is the beginning of medicine, and the incantations accompanying their administration pertain to the placebo effect, unknown by St Eligius, but well known of the physicians of today.

To make livestock pass through a hollow tree, or a ditch dug in the ground? In the minds of those who carried on these customs, it was necessary to regenerate the cattle by imprinting it with the force of Nature.

Shouting when the moon is obscured ?? The high knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) were renowned astronomers. It is unlikely that they feared to such a degree a natural phenomenon that they were to know well. This irrational reaction was to be an ancient reflex, the remnant of the very distant fear which seized prehistoric men during eclipses.

CONCLUSION.

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We agree with the striking beauty of all the jewels of nature evoked by Noibo Eligius, but we don’t agree with him about the impossibility of understanding them. The human mind begins to decipher one by one all the secrets of it (relativity theory, quantum mechanics, etc.) and we can only entirely refute this obvious obscurantism of St Eligiusi. In spite of the beauty of his description of the nature, St Eligius confirms with this sermon that he puts himself instinctively into the creationist design of the world. He believes absolutely in the existence of a god or Demiurge having created the universe ex nihilo, what is by no means obvious. The material universe exists, it is undeniable, but what is not less undeniable is that it was in no way created like that, with the wave of a magic wand, by any higher being. Fortunately there always existed some less simplistic reflections on the origin of our Bitos.

The following customs may be considered as pertaining to popular druidism.

The attention paid to birds and therefore to augurs.

The custom of greeting sneezes by wishes.

Stag masks.

The masks of old women (vetulas). The oldest specimens engraved in stone were found in the south-west of France (11 in all, Cleyrac in Charente, Fontaine d'Ozillac ...) and date from the 12th century, but these Romanesque stone sculptures had to come after wooden sculptures having since disappeared. The immense majority of the specimens that have been preserved to us are now in Ireland (more than a hundred), hence the etymology of their names.

Shee: from the Gaelic word sidhe meaning Other World (like in ban shee). Gig. Usually interpreted in gCioch or Giob meaning breasts, buttocks. Sile-ina-Giob. In this country, the (engraved, carved, or drawn) figures representing a horrible old woman, naked, bald, with bulging eyes and dilated genitals (that she spreads with her own hands), are called so. Certain manuscripts of Irish medieval literature doubtless refer to her through various names (the idol, the old woman, the hag, the cailleach, etc.).

The solstitial rites, such as the bonfires lighted on Midsummer Night (even though it was not the four main druidism festivals that are Samon-ios, Ambolc, Beltene, and Lugnasad).

The reference to Minerva ( interpretatio romana of the belisama Brigindo / Brigantia / Brigid) for women's work such as weaving or dyeing and amber necklaces in her honor.

Various candles or offerings to temples (fana) crossroads, frontier pillars, springs, sacred trees as well as to groves.

To make livestock go through a hollow tree or into a ditch.

Shouting during eclipses.

Veneration of the heaven, the stars, the sun, the moon, and the earth.

The taking of an oath.

We say well folk druidism, for high-level druidism was surely more philosophical and considered. But AS IN ALL RELIGION, there was what the little people thought and what the elites thought.

"And you druids ... to you alone it is given the gods and celestial powers to know or not to know " (Lucan, Pharsalia, I, 444-462).

In other words, the high-knower of the druidiaction (Druidech) sorted and distinguished between what was scientifically explainable by natural and physical laws, and what was not so; between credible beliefs and common superstitions, such as the belief in an eternal hell.

And in 851, John Scotus Eriugena also noted in his Treatise on divine predestination: God foresees neither punishment nor sins: they are fictions. For Eriugena too, therefore, hell does not exist, or then he calls it remorse.

The high knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht), apparently, just like Scotus Eriugena later, did not believe therefore in this idea of hell.

Bernese scholia commenting on Lucan's Pharsalia.

Hermann Usener. Scholia in Lucani bellum civile/Commenta Bernensia. Liber I (1869).

451 "Druids deny that souls can perish

[Driadae negant interire animas]

OR GO TO HELL »

[Aut contagione inferorum adfici] and

454 "They do not say that the Manes exist"

[Manes esse, not dicunt].

The point No. 25 of the small list appended to the fifth canon of the Council of Leptines in 743, under the Latin title of indiculus superstitionum et paganiarum goes clearly in this direction. It evokes the idea that every deceased is saint.

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TOWARDS A NEW WESTERN ROMAN EMPIRE (RENOVATIO IMPERII).

The last part of the Western Roman Empire (the cities located between Meuse and Loire) disappears with Syagrius during the battle of Soissons in 486. But Clovis was never crowned king by a bishop, neither of Rheims nor of Rome, he was only baptized by a bishop (in this case the bishop of Rheims, Saint Remi). Several years after its conquest by Clovis and his descendants, the Frankish kingdom was plagued by fratricidal wars. The wealth of the Merovingians having ceased to grow because of the greed of the officials in charge of the levying taxes as well s of the absence of new conquests which deprived the kingdom of its booty and tributes, the last Merovingians were forced to spend their treasure to buy the loyalty of their men. Deprived of his wealth, the royal power will be considerably weakened in favor of a rich aristocratic family of the Meuse River: The Pipinnids, ancestor of the Carolingians.

At the death of his father, Chlothar II, in 629, Dagobert I became king of the Franks, he nevertheless gave up Aquitaine to his brother Charibert II. After the assassination of his brother, Dagobert reconstituted once again the unity of the Frankish kingdoms and chose Paris as capital. He then surrounded himself with clever advisers, aristocrats such as St Eligius or St Audoin. He subjected the Gascons and imposed his suzerainty on Brittany. Dagobert relies entirely on the clergy to govern as his ancestor Clovis, he knows perfectly that religion is the only coherent force in the Kingdom. He is also a patron, patron of arts, for example, he decides to lavish presents on the basilica in Saint-Denis. During the ten years of his reign Dagobert will enjoy absolute power, he keeps good relations with Byzantium and tries to oppose the new Slavic power. However, very quickly, he is threatened by non-direct heirs to Chilperic, who allied with the Gascons seize almost the whole kingdom of Aquitaine. At the death of this great sovereign, anarchy is re-established and the dynasty definitely becomes weakened, no king will have such prestige in the kingdom.

Pepin II of Herstal, known as Pepin the middle or Pepin the younger (born about 645 - died on December 16, 714 ), mayor of the palace of Austrasia, but his authority is hardly accepted . The characteristic of the government of Pepin II was the restoration of the annual assemblies, known as Field of March. Most of them dealt with military issues. The conquest of Friesland was the great undertaking of his "reign." Controlling the mouth of the Meuse and of the Rhine, the region is crucial for the Frankish economy. The method he used inspires all his successors, even Charlemagne himself: he binds military conquest and Christianization. He thus helps Willibrord in his efforts to Christianize the entire Friesland and to establish an ecclesiastical hierarchy (creation of the bishopric of Utrecht).

From the death of Theuderic III in 691, it is he who does and undoes the kings. The Merovingian dynasty is no more than a toy in the hands of the one who takes the title of princeps. However, his power remains personal.

Shortly before his death, in order to avoid quarrels for his succession as Mayor of the Palace, Pepin of Herstal designates his illegitimate son Charles Martel as sole successor. In 717, at Vincy he inflicts a sharp defeat to his enemies and can make his triumphal entry into Paris.

Charles Martel is now the sole mayor of the palace of the kingdoms of Austrasia, Neustria and Burgundy united. He governed the kingdom in place of the Merovingian Theuderic IV, a10 year-old child. He then decided to restore the unity of Franks. For that he relies on the aristocratic families who owe him his fortune, he secures the support of the Church by ousting the bishops who are hostile to it and by approaching the papacy of Rome. At the head of a powerful army, he crushed the Frisians and the Saxons and subjects Thuringia and Bavaria. But Charles Martel also began a policy of secularization of the Church's property, in order to have new lands to be given. Having bought their loyalty by some lands, Charles Martel thus contributes to the rise of the feudal system.

Less than a century after the death of Muhammad, the Muslim warriors had invaded Spain. At the beginning of the eighth century, they cross the Pyrenees, Christendom has never been so threatened. The Duke of Aquitaine, Odo, manages to curb the Islamic thrust near Tolosa in 721.

About a decade after the defeat of the Umayyads in Tolosa in 721, Abdul Rahman launches a new expedition beyond the Pyrenees, mainly made up of Berbers and contingents recruited from the Iberian peninsula. Among the participants in the Umayyad expedition, the Mozarabic chronicles distinguish between Arabs from Arabia and Syria in particular, formerly Islamized, and "Moors," Berbers from North Africa (ancient Mauretania). The high number of Berbers among the Muslim

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conquerors explains that the latter are also globally referred to as Moors. The incursion of Abdul Rahman is not primarily for conquest but for looting. The Umayyads invaded the Aquitaine, ransack the country and capture the suburbs of the city of Bordeaux. Odo gathers an army to counter them, but he was defeated between the Garonne and the Dordogne and flees.

Abdul-Raḥman continues his advance, marches on Poitiers, loots and possibly burns the church of Saint-Hilary. Attracted by the riches of the abbey of Saint Martin, he then heads towards Tours, probably while fixing for himself as the only goal the sacking of the Saint Martin's Basilica. Charles Martel, answering the call of Odo, also marches towards this town after having gathered an army consisting mainly of Frankish infantrymen. For the Christian historians, it will be to defend the sanctuary of Tours that Charles Martel will start campaigning; this is why, from the sixteenth century, this battle is also called Battle of Tours.

He decides to wait until the Umayyads are heavily loaded with booty to attack them. The battle of Tours-Poitiers or, in Arabian sources " Battle of the Highway of the Shaheeds " will be won by the army led by Charles Martel but there is no certainty as to the place, the date or the size of the staff involved. The uncertainty about the place itself leads to variations and discussions as to the naming of the battle, according to the epochs, the authors and the languages (Tours? Poitiers?) Whatever it be the result of this battle will have a great impact on both sides. The chroniclers of the ninth century, then the authors of epic lyrics, gave the mayor of the palace, Charles, the nickname of Martel (hammer), while Venerable Bede will see in this opportunity for Charles to impose on the Merovingian dynasty, a punishment of God (well well well). Contemporary historians are more divided about the real importance of the Battle but agree that it was decisive in the establishment of the Carolingian dynasty.

The Arab allusions to the Battle of Tours-Poitiers are very abrupt and state simply that Abdul -Raḥman and his companions experienced martyrdom.

On the strength of his victory, Charles seizes Bordeaux and gets a toehold in Aquitaine without immediately submitting it: on the death of Odo, his sons succeed him. The battle of Tours-Poitiers will not therefore lead to the definitive departure of the Muslim troops. Allied to the Lombards, Charles Martel still will have to campaign against them in Provence and Septimania between 737 and 739 but will fail to recapture Narbonne.

In spite of the criticisms of the ecclesiastical circles, due to the secularization of Church property, Charles Martel will open the court to the ecclesiastical and particularly monastic cultural influences.

It has been quite rightly said that the religious education and literary education in Ireland were two parallel and simultaneous facts. The liberal arts, the study of ancient languages, the whole non-religious culture, had as their object, in principle, only to make minds fit for the lectio divina; that is, to the study of the divine thought contained in its expression and tradition. Well, it was the same thing on the Continent ant this monastic impulse will prepare the rise of the later Christian schools. The activity of the monasteries scriptoria of the monasteries will prepare the Carolingian cultural renewal. In spite of the book-burning or church censorship which has been practiced over the centuries on some authors, pagan or judged to be really incompatible with the Christian religion, let us pay to their credit the safeguarding of numerous texts, in Ireland from the Gaelic antiquity (the voyage of Bran , the stories about Mongan and the cattle raid of Fraech , the very beautiful and very moving poem entitled in Gaelic language cétnad n-aise, and some others, also remarkable, but not having much to do with Christianity, for example, the prophecy of the druid Cathbad about Deirdre), on the Continent from the Greco-Roman Antiquity Among the most important are Virgil, Horace, Terence, Quintilian, Seneca, Cicero. We have at our disposal now only about a hundred and fifty works out of all the eight hundred names of Latin authors we know, but this legacy is due, in addition to the texts that have come down to us through Byzantium and Muslim world, to the activity of the Carolingian scriptoria. A classical heritage mixed with the Christian (and especially monastic) culture by the scholars of the period in an approach comparable to that of the humanists.

This progress is accompanied by similar efforts in the field of vernacular languages, the Carolingian princes wanting that Christian texts to be written or translated into Germanic or Romance languages for aristocrats who did not know Latin, as well as the bishops are invited to write their homilies and to say their preaching in barbarian language.

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INDICULUS SUPERSTITIONUM ET PAGANIARUM.

RECAPITULATIVE INDEX OF (PAGAN OF COURSE!) SUPERSTITIONS OR BELIEFS IN 743.

On 1 March 743 Carloman, Charlemagne's uncle, summons a synod in Leptines, today Estinnes in Belgium, to take stock of the (forced) evangelization of the peoples in the north. This will give us 7 canons, the fifth of them is devoted to the practices to be forbidden and suppressed, of which an appendix attached to this canon makes a long list showing how well the triumphant Christianity has meticulously fought the religion of others, has oppressed to the absurd the simple people the poor and the farmers still imprinted with an ecological spirituality before the word is invented.

In the name of our Lord J.-C. I Carloman .......

Canon 1

Canon 2

Canon 3

Canon 4

Canon 5. We ordered that every bishop, with the help of the graphion * (count) defender of his church, should watch over the complete abolition of pagan superstitions, such as the sacrifices intended to the dead, sorcery, enchantments, the strips of cloth, the victims that foolish men immolate, like the idolaters, near the churches, in memory of the martyrs or confessors [about this distinction see above] , and lastly those sacrilegious fires which they call nedfratres **.

Latin text of the attached list.

1de sacrilegio ad sepulcra mortuorum

2de sacrilegio super defunctus, id est dadistas

3de spurcalibus in februario

4de casulis id est fanis

5de sacrilegis per ecclesias

6de sacris sylvarum quoe nimidas vocant

7de his quoe faciunt super petra

8de sacris mercurii et jovis

9de sacrificio quod fit alicui sanctorum

10de philacteriis et ligaturis

11de fontibus sacrificiorum

12de incantationibus

13de auguriis, vel avium, vel equorum, vel ex boum stercore et sternutatione

14de divinis vel sortilegiis

15de igne fricato de ligno i. e. nodfyr

16de cerebro animalium

17de divinatione pagana in foco vel inchatione rei alicujus

18de incertis locis que colunt pro sanctis

19de pretendo quod boni vocant s. marioe

20de feriis quoe faciunt Jovi et Mercurio

21de luna defectione, quod dicunt vince luna

22de tempestalibus et cornibus et cochleis

23de sulcis circa villas

24de pagano cursu quem yrias vocant, scissis panis et calceis

25de eo quod sibi sanctos fingunt quoslibet mortuos

26de simulacro de conspersa farina

27de simulacris de pannis factis

28de simulacris quod per campos portant

29de lignis, pedibus et manibus pagano ritu

30de eo quod credunt, quia foeminoe lunam commendent ; quod possint corda hominum tollere juxta paganos.

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Translation.

1) on the sacrilege of burials (speaking of the cremation of corpses, or of burial with the deceased of food and drink).

2) on sacrilege on the occasion of the deaths (pagan practices, funeral songs).

3) on shameful practices of February.

4) on the temples of the pagans (fanum plural fana).

5) on sacrilegious rituals in churches.

6) on the sacrifices performed in the forests called Nimidas [from the Celtic nemeton].

7) on the oblations made on the rocks (worship practiced in certain places, in churches, for an idol, a well, a tree ...)

8) on the worship of Mercury and Jupiter.

9) on the sacrifice made to a saint.

10) on phylacteries and amulets.

11) on wells where it is sacrificed.

12) on incantatory songs.

13) on predictions from birds, horses, cattle manure or sneezing.

14) on the soothsayers or sorcerers.

15) on the sacred fire nodfyr **

16) on the brain of animals.

17) on the pagan superstitions attached to the hearth of the houses and to the beginning of some work.

18) places without a master that are honored as sacred.

18) on a prayer that people of good faith dedicate to St. Mary.

19) on celebrations in honor of Jupiter and Mercury.

21) on the eclipse of the moon when people shout "Stay strong Moon."

22) on the conjuration of storms, horns and shells of snails.

23) on furrows traced around the estates (to ward off evil spirits).

24) of the pagan procession called "Yria," with pieces of bread and stones.

25) on the use of considering as saints all the dead.

26) on simulacra made out flour.

27) on simulacrum made of fabrics.

28) on simulacra that are carried in the fields.

29) on wooden feet and hands in pagan rituals.

30) on the belief that some women command the moon and that they can take off the hearts of men.

* See German Graf count.

** Or nodfir, a fire got by rubbing of two pieces of wood.

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THE NEW COVENANT

(OF CHURCH AND STATE)

Pepin the Short decides to restore the lands confiscated by his father from the churches, in precaria (precaria verbo regis), and proceeds to a reorganization of the Frankish Church under the control of Bishop Boniface of Mainz, what ensures him the papal support. In 750 Pepin the Short sends a Frankish delegation to Pope Zachary to ask him for permission to put an end to the decadent reign of the Merovingians, and to take the crown in place of Childeric III: this was deposed in November 751, Pepin the Short was elected in his place at Soissons and thus changes the Carolingian family into a dynasty.

Sunday, July 28, 754, at the royal abbey of Saint-Denis, Pope Stephen II personally crowns Pepin. He confers on him the titles of King of the Franks and patrician of the Romans (Patricius Romanorum). The sons and heirs of Pepin, Carloman I and Charlemagne, both future kings, are also crowned at the same time. By confirming the kingship of Pepin the Short on the Franks and by conferring himself the anointing personally, the pope also distances himself from the emperor who reigns in Byzantium. Another consequence of this coronation is that the legitimacy of the King of the Franks, henceforth of divine right, depends no longer on the Frankish lords, electors of their king. Pepin considers himself as a king by the will of God, and the principle of this royalty of divine right will last without interruption for eleven hundred years.

Charlemagne succeeds his father Pepin the Short as king of the Franks in 768. He also becomes by conquest king of the Lombards in 774. The idea of restoration of the Roman Empire (renovatio imperii) is actively supported by Rome, which sees it as a means of definitively ensuring its security. It was at Christmas 800 that Pope Leo III, succored and saved a few months earlier by Charles, finally crowns him Emperor. Triumph of Roman Christianity! It is no longer the emperor who makes the popes but the pope who makes the emperor! More than a title, the coronation symbolizes the culmination of a form of intrinsic or consubstantial union of Church and State.

The true turning point in Charlemagne's religious policy is located, as everyone knows, in the late seventies, probably after the arrival of the Anglo-Saxon deacon Alcuin (735-804). The sovereign admits and proclaims for the first time his personal responsibility in promoting the "worship of the true God" in the prologue of the famous Admonitio Generalis, promulgated in Aachen on 23 March 789.

This proclamation of 789 is fundamental to the Carolingian reform. This is the second major capitulary of the reign of Charlemagne after that of Herstal in 779. This General Admonition aims to put order in Christian society by taking over the directives of the great general councils and decretals of the IV or V centuries: All its composition heads towards this direction. Its transmission and application were not, however, reserved for clergymen - it is enough to be convinced of this to see that Article 81 is not specifically intended for the Church people.

The articles beginning with the formula "to everybody" (Latin "omnibus") constitute more than half of the Admonitio and therefore target the Christian people as a whole.

Through this document, Charlemagne thus shares with all his subjects his political or societal program: the complete Christianization of society. Its article 64 is "omnibus" including for its last part which is nevertheless a common worship of nature or an environmental demonstration before the word is invented.

This "revolutionary" program therefore will be at the origin of what is commonly called the "Carolingian Renaissance."

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THE ADMONITIO GENERALIS (789).

" Regnante domino nostro Iesu Christo in perpetuum. Ego Carolus, gratia Dei eiusque misericordia donante, rex et rector regni Francorum, et devotus sanctae aecclesiae defensor humilisque adiutor, omnibus ecclesiasticae pietatis ordinibus, seu saecularis potentiae dignitatibus, in Christo domino deo aeterno, perpetuae pacis et beatitudinis salutem. Considerans pacifico piae mentis intuitu, una cum sacerdotibus et consiliariis nostris…..

Our Lord Jesus Christ ruling eternally, I Charles by the grace of God and by his mercy, King and rector of the kingdom of the Franks and fervent defender as well as a humble servant of the holy Church, to all orders of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and dignitaries of the secular power, greeting of perpetual peace and bliss in Christ, eternal Lord God. Considering with our priests and counselors, in a spirit of piety and ....

OMNIBUS. - 64. Item habemus in lege Domini mandatum: “Non auguriamini”; et in deuteronomio: “Nemo sit qui ariolos sciscitetur, vel somnia observet, vel ad auguria intendat”. Item: Ne sit maleficus, nec incantator, nec pithones consultor.

Ideo praecipimus ut cauculatores 1) nec incantatores, nec tempestarii vel obligatores non fiant; et ubicumque sunt emendentur, vel damnentur.

Item de arboribus vel petris vel fontibus, ubi aliqui stulti luminaria vel alias observationes faciunt, omnino mandamus, ut iste pessimus usus et Deo execrabilis, ubicumque inveniatur, tollatur et distruatur 2).

TO EVERYBODY. 64. We also have in the law the commandment of the Lord: "You shall not have recourse to augurs," and in Deuteronomy: "There shall not be found among you anyone who consults soothsayers, interprets dreams, nor consults augurs”; likewise: there shall not be found among you anyone who casts an evil spell, or an incantation, no anyone that consults pythonic spirits.

I demand similarly that calculators 1), enchanters, storm makers, and other conjurers, are everywhere punished or sentenced.

With regard to the trees rocks, the springs, where some stupid people do light candles and worship them, we demand from everybody that these horrible practices loathsome to God be removed or eradicated wherever they are found 2).

SACERDOTIBUS. - 71. Sed et hoc flagitamus vestram almitatem, ut ministri altaris Dei suum ministerium bonis moribus ornent, seu alii canonici observantiae ordines, vel monachici propositi congregationes obsecramus, ut bonam et probabilem habeant conversationem, sicut ipse Dominus in Euangelio praecipit: Sic luceat lux vestra coram hominibus, ut videant opera vestra bona, et glorificent Patrem vestrum qui in celis est; ut eorum bona conversatione multi protrahantur ad servitium Dei. Et non solum servilis conditionis infantes, sed etiam ingenuorum filios adgregant sibique sociant. Et ut scolae legentium puerorum fiant. Psalmos, notas, cantus, compotum, grammaticam per singula monasteria vel episcopia, et libros catholicos bene emendatos; quia saepe dum bene aliqui Deum rogare cupiunt, sed per inemendatos libros male rogant. Et pueros vestros non sinite eos vel legendo vel scribendo corrumpere. Et si opus est euangelium psalterium et missale scribere, perfectae aetatis homines scribant cum omni diligentia.

TO PRIESTS. 71 "Let the priests draw not only children of servile status, but also the sons of free men. We want schools to be created to teach children how to read. In all the monasteries and bishoprics, teach psalms, notes, singing, computus, grammar and carefully correct religious books, for often, while some wish to pray to God, they do not manage to do it well because of the imperfection and mistakes of books. Do not allow your children to turn them away from their meaning, either by reading them or by writing. But if it is necessary to copy the Gospels, the psalm book or the missal, let it be men who are already mature who write them with great care. "

OMNIBUS. -79. Statuimus quoque secundum quod et in lege Dominus praecepit ut opera servilia diebus dominicis non agantur, sicut et bonae memoriae genitor meus in suis synodalibus edictis mandavit, id est quod nec viri ruralia opera exerceant nec in vinea colenda nec in campis arando, metendo vel foenum secando vel sepem ponendo nec in silvis stirpare vel arbores caedere vel in petris laborare nec domos construere nec in orto laborare; nec ad placita conveniant nec veuationes

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exerceant. Et tria carraria opera licet fieri in die dominico , id est ostilia carra vel victualia vel si forte necesse erit corpus cuiuslibet ducere ad sepulcrum. ltem feminae opera textilia non faciant nec capulent vestitos nec consuent vel acupictile faciant; nec lanam carpere nec linum battere nec in publico vestimenta lavare nec berbices tundere habeant licitum , ut omnimodis honor et requies diei dominicae servetur. Sed ad missarum solemnia ad ecclesiam undique conveniant et laudent Deum in omnibus bonis quae nobis in illa die fecit.-

TO EVERYBODY. -79. "No servile 3) work is to be done on Lord’s day... Men must not engage in the work of the countryside. They will not cultivate the vineyard, plow the fields, harvest, make hay, make hedges, clear forests, cut trees, carve stones, build houses, work in the garden, go to court, hunt. Only three types of transport will be allowed on holiday: for the army, for food, for funerals. Women should also not work on fabrics, neither cut clothes, sew them, embroider, card wool, grind flax, wash clothes, nor shear sheep. So that everyone can, etc.

OMNIBUS. - 81. Sed et vestrum videndum est, dilectissimi et venerabiles pastores et rectores aeclesiarum Dei, ut presbiteros quos mittitis per parrochias vestras ad regendum, et ad praedicandum per aeclesias populum Deo servientem, ut recte et honeste praedicent; et non sinatis nova vel non canonica aliquos ex suo sensu, et non secundum scripturas sacras, fingere et praedicare populo. Sed et vosmetipsi utilia honesta et recta, et quae ad vitam ducunt aeternam, praedicate, aliosque instruite ut haec eadem praedicent.

Primo omnium praedicandum est omnibus generaliter, ut credant Patrem et Filium et Spiritum sanctum unum esse Deum omnipotentem, aeternum, invisibilem, qui creavit caelum et terram, mare et omnia quae in eis sunt, et unam esse deitatem, substantiam, et maiestatem in tribus personis Patris et Filii et Spiritus sancti. Item praedicandum est quomodo Dei filius incarnatus est de Spiritu sancto et ex Maria semper virgine pro salute et reparatione humani generis, passus, sepultus, et tertia die resurrexit, et ascendit in celis; et quomodo iterum venturus sit in maiestate divina iudicare omnes homines secundum merita propria....

TO EVERYBODY -81. It is up to you, venerable shepherds and guides of the churches of God, to ensure that the priests whom you send into your dioceses to lead the people serving God and to teach them in the churches, preach correctly and virtuously. You must not allow anyone to lie to the people and teach them new things and non-canonical things, from his own invention and not in accordance with the Scriptures. You, on the other hand, you must preach the useful, virtuous and upright things that lead to eternal life. You must teach others so they can preach the same things. First, in a general way, everyone must be educated, so that everyone believes that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are the one, omnipotent, eternal and invisible God who created heaven, earth and sea and all that is therein, that there is only one divinity, one substance, one majesty in the three persons of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Similarly, it is necessary to teach how, from Mary still virgin, the Son took flesh by the Holy Spirit, for the salvation and redemption of mankind, how he died, was buried, rose again on the third day, ascended to heaven, how he will come again in his divine majesty to judge all men .....

Anno dominicae incarnationis 789, indictione 12, anno 21 regni nostri, actum is huius legationis edictum in Aquis palatio publico. Data is haec carta die 10. Kalendas Aprelis ."

1) Latin term difficult to translate. Refers to the concept of calculation. The astrologists? This first part of Article 64 proves in any case that the Christians, at least at the time, still believe in the possibility of knowing the future outside any rational or scientific means. On the other hand, the interpretation of dreams is still rich in teaching, but on the psyche of the individual, not on a future that nothing makes able to anticipate.

2) This not very ecologist obsession of Christianity will be taken over again in the 10th century by Regino of Prum (De synodalibus causis et disciplinis ecclesiasticis, in 906).

3) Servile works. Work that aims to earn money. Painful bodily work. Prohibited in principle by the Church on Sundays and holiday

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NETWORKING AND COVERING OF THE TERRITORY.

In the late Roman Empire, the dioecesis (starting from the Tetrarchy founded by Diocletian), is an administrative district composed of several provinces and under the responsibility of a vicar, the civil representative of the emperor. The diocese bears the name of the city where the bishop lives and where the cathedral is located. In Great Britain the first bishops were found in the chief town of the ancient Celtic Tribe-States, such as York, Lincoln, become Roman districts and then left escheated in the Late Empire. The word diocese keeps its secular nature and designates a territory as well as the whole of its population when it includes both Christians and non-Christians. For the bishops also had the spiritual jurisdiction of non-Christian communities that had the right to reside there and to practice their own religion, such as Jewish communities.

We will say for example, "The bishop has good relations with the Jewish and Muslim communities in his diocese," "St. Martin founded rural parishes in the periphery of the diocese of Tours ."

The chorepiscopi were bishops attached to a "country" (pagus or vicus), with the function of helping the bishops of episcopal cities in the administration of population groups living in the countryside. Although the word "chorepiscopus" entered the church vocabulary of the Christian West only in the sixth century, the institution, eastern in origin, was known since a long time.

It did not really take off until the end of the seventh century. Its expansion area was, however, limited to mission countries. Indeed, the sees were disseminated and isolated by long distances, so the urban bishops did not regard the chorepiscopi as competitors liable to question their authority. The powers of the chorepiscopi were extended to include instruction of clerics, visit of rural parishes and inspection of churches, but also solemn administration of the sacraments in the towns, confirmation of children and adults, consecration of churches, granting of minor orders. Sometimes even they were charged with the ordination of major orders. From then on, the chorepiscopus was considered a coadjutor (a co-bishop). This practice was widely used in Germany by the Anglo-Saxon missionaries.

In the Church of England, and in some of the Lutheran churches, such as the churches of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, the diocese 1) has the same meaning as in the Catholic Church.

In the Presbyterian churches where the bishop is not necessary as the founding principle and guarantor of the Eucharistic community, the baptized Christians of a given territory, provided they are organized, constitute from the outset a church.

The missi dominici (a Latin word meaning literally "lord’s envoys," in the singular missus dominici, more rarely used) are also an essential governing mean of the Carolingian power.

Already present in the Merovingian administration, their institution dates from Charles Martel and Pepin The Short, who send them to check the execution of their orders. When Pepin becomes king in 751, he sends missi irregularly. Charlemagne made it a key element in the administration of his kingdom as early as 775.

The Library of the Royal University of Leyden has preserved to us a very interesting manuscript on this subject: the Voss. Lat. Q119 manuscript. The assembly of the collection illustrates the particular concerns of a delegate of the power. In addition, the programmatic capitularies, such as the Admonitio Generalis, are combined with the legislative addenda and the ticklers for the missi. The important proportion of the latter makes it possible to associate with certainty the compilation with the work of the representatives of the power and to suppose that it was used by one of them.

The extracts from capitularies revolve around the following themes.

The capitulary headed Pippinis regis capitulare aquitanicum (taken again in full).

This is a series of recommendations attributed to Pepin III, but reused and copied under Charlemagne.

The themes taken up in it deal with the disorder caused by clashes: clarification of the property rights of the churches; reformation of clergy and monastic communities; protection of the poor; cultivation of the benefices; respect for the separate laws of the Franks and of the Romani. The restoration of order concerns all the meshes of the power networks, that is to say, ecclesiastical institutions, monasteries and aristocratic elites.

The capitulary headed Duplex legationis edictum (partially taken again).

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It deals with the following themes.

1. De monachis gyrovagis vel sarabaitis.

About gyrovagues or sarabaite monks.

2.De anachoritis: melius is ut hortentur in congregatione permanere, quam animus eorum aliubi ambulare temptet.

About the anchorites. It is preferable that they are encouraged to stay in a community, rather than their soul dares to wander anywhere..............

29. De manu leprosi.

About the hand of the leper.

The subjects covered in the collection are therefore very varied. The whole is consequently difficult to grasp. A quick reading does not make us able to understand the logic of it, and can leave the impression that we have before oneself a random montage. It is not possible to explain the presence of the chapters, or the slightest modification of the text according to a general plan followed rigorously by the compiler. Nevertheless, the form of the tool must betray its function: the particular use to which this collection has been consecrated must be reflected in its composition. Thus, affairs concerning churches and monasteries occupy too much space for it to be possible to attribute their presence to a chance, a mistake, or even a taste for diversity.

The attention given to the proper functioning of the legal system and the organization of the armed service proves that it was a secular envoy. The abundance of chapters concerning the monastic communities and the affairs of the clergy does not allow us to question this attribution. First, a strict distinction between the affairs of the Church and that of the secular world would be anachronistic; there is no reason to believe that the responsibilities of the representatives of the power were shared on either side of such a categorical boundary. Then, if one looks closely at it, it becomes obvious that the chapters concerning monks and clerics also bear witness to the secularity of the missus who has kept a copy of them.

In fact, what is most interesting is that within certain limits, this character would have to do with questions of dogma or worship. Clerics, monks or laymen, missi represent a royal authority closely linked to the Church, conscious of its responsibilities towards the Christian community.

By communicating the concerns of a secular missus in the early ninth century, the mss. Q 119 obliges us to add – still within certain limits - the correction of the Christian life, the good behavior of the monks and the organization of the ecclesial institution to the fields of action of the lay envoys of the emperor. Should we be surprised? That would be to ignore many of the characteristics of the period. The organization and presidency of the great councils remain royal prerogatives. The monastic communities and the sees are closely associated with the great aristocratic families of their regions, notwithstanding the interference of the Carolingian princes. Advocati and secular abbots are certainly not ignorant of the affairs of the communities of which they have control over land, income and relations to the mundane world.

1) For the record. The apostles did not establish dioceses, they founded churches, that is, parishes, by gathering Christians and by putting them under the responsibility of a bishop .

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THE STATUS OF THE JEWS UNDER LOUIS THE PIOUS.

Religious anti-Judaism is still very much alive in the new Roman Empire, as exemplified by St. Agobard born in 769 in Spain. Between 823 and 827/828, he wrote no less than five letters against the Jews of Lyon.

The latter had in fact got from Louis the Pious important rights placing them outside the jurisdiction of the bishop, and separate in the city of Lyon. They were judged by an independent "Magister Iudaeorum" and placed under the protection of the emperor. They were also exempt from tolls and enjoyed important guarantees in matters of justice and religion which made their situation so enviable that Christians attended synagogue services, stopped all work on Saturdays and followed rules of ritual purity in matters of food.

According to some people, Agobard's Spanish origin would explain his "anti-Semitism."

It was natural," writes Wiegand, "that a son of Spain was distrustful and saw in Jews dangerous enemies of the state.

It should be remarked, however, that Agobard's Spanish origin is not certain and that in any case he would have passed into the Narbonese at the age of thirteen.

It should also be remarked that Agobard did not call the Jews enemies of the State but of the religion.

Finally, let us remark that Saint Agobard's point of view on the Jewish question was never endorsed by the civil authorities and that he even ended up being exiled by Louis the Pious.

The historian of the early Western Middle Ages has a variety of sources at his disposal to describe these societies, which were part of the continuation of antiquity and at the same time undergoing profound changes. The Frankish world, in particular, is characterized by the contributions of Germanic culture and Roman tradition more or less combined, depending on the place and time, with the influence of Christianity on institutions and mentalities. The evaluation or re-evaluation of what historiography since the nineteenth century has called the "Carolingian Renaissance," the appreciation of the political edifice that is the renovatio imperii and the understanding of the socio-economic particularities of the period therefore mobilize all the available evidence.

The fact is that all degrees of deprivation of liberty, even slavery, do indeed exist in the Carolingian social landscape. Claudius and Agobard of Lyon († 840) were able to see hordes of war captives passing through this city, who were transported from Verdun to Arles and from there to Spain and sold to Muslims. The market was thus fueled by the conflicts that regularly opposed Franks and Slavs between 815 and 823 on the eastern margins of the Empire. On the other hand, Arab attacks in the Mediterranean led to the taking of captives at the expense of the Frankish world and in particular of the clergy itself, as shown by the example of the sixty monks from the island of Pantellaria sold to Spain by the Moors in 807.

The first of Agobard's writings against the role of the Jews in this trade is a letter to Adalard, Wala and Helisachar.

Agobard had met these great figures at Attigny's plea of 822, where he himself had spoken on the question of Church property, without his way of seeing it receiving the approval of the majority: Adalard and Helisachar, who presided, had been only half in favor of iti, Wala, it seems, more. Agobard had told them about the Jews of Lyons and had asked them to present his case to the Emperor.

Back in Lyon, Agobard took up his pen to write to these three men whom he considered to be his protectors at the palace. He asks them for a decision on a specific point: what should he do if pagan slaves, belonging to Jews, living in their homes, ask for baptism? Can it be given to them without the consent of their master?

Agobard does not dare to act without being covered by sovereign authority, but as for him, the solution is not in doubt. Every man, he says, is a creature of God, even if he is a slave. God retains more rights over him than he who, having given twenty or thirty shillings, enjoys the service of his body. He concludes his letter with these words: "We do not want the Jews to lose the money they paid for the slave," he says. We have offered them compensation in accordance with the old regulations, but they do not accept it".

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The ancient regulations to which Agobard refers are in all likelihood the canons of the Council of Mâcon (581). Canon XVI sets at twelve shillings the price of the repurchase pro quolibet bono mancipio. The question has been asked whether this price was not much lower than the market price of the slave, but in any case the dispute was not so much about the price as about the very principle of the right to baptism and to be bought back. That is the central question.

Agobard accuses the magister judeorum of Lyons of being the cause of all the difficulties and of not having wanted, in spite of the orders he had received, to let him carry out his ministry. "Nothing would have happened if he had wanted to act reasonably. »

It has not been possible to establish exactly what the functions of the magister judaeorum were. Master of merchants, or simply a rabbi, a local official in charge of watching over the Jews in Lyon, or an official whose remits extended to the whole Empire? He is apparently subject to the high officials; his powers are not great, for he can do nothing more in front of Agobard than to threaten him with calling for missi, and it is not to him but to the missi and the count that the emperor hands over the defense of the Jews.

Agobard demanded a precise answer. He got it. But it was not the one he expected. In a letter to Wala and Hilduin, we see him complaining that the Jews are boasting everywhere that they have obtained a rescript from the emperor forbidding anyone to baptize their slaves without their permission.

Agobard refuses to believe in the authenticity of the document "It is not possible," he writes, "that the very Christian and pious emperor 'has taken a decision so contrary to the laws of the Church, as indeed to all apostolic practice.

In reality the authenticity of the answer is not in doubt. One can only wonder whether there was a general rescript which did not reach us, or whether the Jews simply referred to these personal letters of protection which were granted to them by the emperor and of which we have several formulas. These letters, in fact, forbid the baptizing of the slaves of the Jews without the consent of their masters.

The reason for this decision of Louis the Pious does not matter, the fact is enough! There was such a rescript.

Saint Agobard therefore wrote directly to Louis the Pious in 826 to complain about what he described as insolence from of the Jews. Agobard complained, among other things, that the magister Judaeorum threatened him with missi « Because we preached to Christians that they should not sell Christian slaves to them; that they should not allow these Jews to sell Christians to Spain nor to possess them as paid domestics lest Christian women celebrate the Sabbath with them, work on Sundays, eat with them during Lent, and their paid servants eat meat on these days; and that no Christian should buy meats sacrificed and butchered by Jews and sell them to other Christians; and that they should not drink their wine or other things like this.

For it is the practice of the Jews that when they slaughter an animal to eat and kill it using three cuts so that it is not strangled, if the liver appears to be damaged when the entrails are opened, or if a lung clings to the side or breath inflates it, or bile is not found, and other things like this, the meat is considered to be unclean by the Jews and sold to the Christians and these meats are called by the insulting expression, "Christian beasts" …….They boast that they are dear to you because of the patriarchs; that they enter and leave your sight with honor; that most excellent people desire their prayers and blessings and confess that they wished they had the same author of the law as the Jews; when they say that your counselors are aroused against us for their sake, because we forbid Christians from drinking their wine; when, in trying to claim this, they boast that they have received from Christians many, many pounds of silver from the sale of wine and cannot find out, after running through the canons, why Christians should abstain from their food and drink; when they produce commands signed with golden seals in your name; when they show people women's clothes as if they were sent to their wives by your kinsmen or matrons of the palaces; when they expound upon the glory of their forefathers; when they are permitted, to build new synagogues, when the aforementioned agents ordered that the markets that usually occur on Saturdays should be moved to Sunday lest [the Jews’] Sabbatism be impeded,"

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Agobard therefore asks the emperor to put an end to these favors which accredit the noise that he prefers Jews to Christians themselves and which are not without danger for religion because the common people come to say, in fact, that the Jews speak better than their priests.

In order to enlighten the Emperor and to show him in what distrust he must hold the Jews, the Bishop of Lyons, with several of his brothers, prepared a work which he announced would be sent to him. The Emperor will see in it the genuine tradition of the Church in this matter. It is doubtful, however, that a treatise of this kind would have changed anything to the tendencies of the court, and Agobard himself probably doubted it.

In this treatise addressed to Louis the Pious and entitled "On the superstitions of the Jews" (De Iudaicis superstitionibus et erroribus; composed about 826/827) St. Agobard reminds of the Church's duty of mission towards the Jews, and expresses his fears in the face of their proselytism.

A similar sentiment would also animate his letter to Nibridius of Narbonne entitled "On Being Wary of Eating and Associating with Jews " (De cauendo conuictu et societate Iudaica; perhaps written about 827), in which Agobard urges his flock to avoid all familiar relations with members of the Hebrew community.

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THE IRISH WAVE OF THE 8TH AND 9TH CENTURIES.

This wave of islanders, although equivalent to the previous one in its objectives, differs in its form. These Irish people were also very diverse.

Fergal, a name Latinized in Virgil, after being abbot in Ireland, entered the continent around 743. After having founded the monastery of St. Peter of Salzburg, he replaced Bishop John in the ecclesial seat of that city, but was ordained bishop of it only in 755, after the death of Boniface; with whom he had had trouble about baptism and his positions, very audacious for the time, about antipodes.

Besides these peregrini like Fergal/Virgil , which the esteem of the continents had consequently raised to the episcopacy, there were also still many episcopi vagantes in Europe at the time; already endowed , when leaving their country, with the dignity of a bishop or at least claiming it, but who, having never been linked to a diocese, exercised without express authorization the powers they held of their consecration .

Such was the case of a certain Aldebert or Adelbert, a religious preacher of the eighth century, flourishing in the years 730 and 740, condemned as heretical by the official Church.

His preaching is mentioned for the first time in a letter from Pope Gregory III in 741.

He was a priest, ordained without particular assignment who preached in the region of Soissons. A synod of bishops was held in this city in March 744 under the impulse of Pepin the Short. Aldebert was condemned as a heretic, dismissed from his priestly office and imprisoned.

At the beginning of the year 745 another council organized by Pepin the Short and his brother Carloman on the territory of the latter, and presided over by Archbishop Boniface, condemned and excommunicated him at the same time as a certain Clement, an Irishman settled in Germany. Apparently, he had escaped and resumed his activity, and his case was again evoked in October 745 in a synod held in Rome by Pope Zachary, where Boniface was represented by a priest named Deneard, bearing a missive reporting the wrongdoings of Aldebert. The acts of this Roman council, which are preserved, are the principal source of information on this affair. Subsequent documents show that this preacher was still active in 746 and 747, but we are not sure of the way his career ended.

According to the acts of the Roman Council of 745, he claimed to be "equal the apostles of Christ." He attracted many listeners who seem to have preferred him to their ordinary pastors. He had a reputation for holiness supported by various "miracles" and "prodigies."

He used prayers of his composition in which he invoked angels with various names (Uriel, Raguel, Tubuel ... denounced by his detractors as demons), one of whom would have brought him very precious relics from the whole world. He claimed to know the sins of his faithful without they confess them, and therefore denied the necessity of confession.

Rejecting the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and mocking among other things the pilgrimages to Rome, he would have instituted a true" Counter-Church." His preaching having been forbidden in the churches dependent on the diocese, he sprinkled the countryside with crosses and small oratories in which he preached. The Council of Soissons of 744 ordered that the crosses that Aldebert had erected should be destroyed by fire. The Roman Council of 745 applied to him the passage from the Second Epistle to Timothy (3, 6), often used to denounce "heretics" and "pseudo-doctors."

Our "official" sources even add (but can we believe them?) that he presented himself as an apostle sent by God , distributed relics from his own body (nail clippings, hair locks, etc.) and claimed to be the holder of a letter from Christ to the Christians in Jerusalem.

Less is known of the bishop Clement, "genere Scottus" excommunicated with him. He rejected ecclesiastical celibacy, the tracts of the Fathers of the Church Jerome, Augustine, and Gregory, and the laws of the councils, but professed that Christ, descending into hell, had liberated all those who were locked up in this state, good and evil. [We cannot help but think of the Irish texts presenting Cuchulainn as having triumphed over the hell’s ice. Siaburcharpat Conculaind].

"We will all go to heaven."

A certain Sampson by name, as for him, proclaimed the non-necessity of baptism for the salvation of souls (Pelagianism?)

Many councils condemned them, and they were prosecuted or persecuted vigorously. The Council of 742, held at the instigation of Boniface, the Council of Soissons of 744, the Council of Ver in 755, of Mainz, of Tours, and of Chalon-sur-Saone in 813. During this last council the nullity of the ordainments bestowed by the "Scotti" bishops was decreed.

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PALATINE SCHOOL 1) AND ACADEMY.

THE CAROLINGIAN RENAISSANCE.

Charlemagne wanted educated officials. He will bring together cultivated people to run his Palatine School. Charlemagne, not having created but only developed the Palatine School 1) that is to say, the school adjoining his palace at Aachen, it is difficult to know who was its first master. Tradition hesitates between two names: St Clement of Ireland (750-818) and Alcuin of York (735-804), disciple of St Colgan but more turned towards Rome.

An Irish monk of St. Gall, usually identified as Notker the Stammerer, in his Life of Charlemagne dedicated to Charles the Fat, mentions that Clement with his unnamed companion 2) but both "Scots of Ireland" traveling in the company of traders, arrived on the coast of the country "in the moment when Charlemagne had begun to reign as sole king" (i.e., ca 771). And that they set themselves up in the market as venders (sic) of grammar. Word of them would have reached the ear of Charlemagne, who would have sent for them to come to his court. These events may have taken place in the winter of the year 774, after the expedition of Charlemagne in Italy.

Many anecdotes are related of this St. Clement's life, especially as regards his success as a teacher. Among his pupils indeed were Candidus Bruun, Modestus (Reccheo), and Candidus Wizo, who had been placed under his care in 803 by Ratgar, Abbot of Fulda.

Though St. Clement is today no longer considered as the founder of the University of Paris-Sorbonne, the fact remains that this remarkable Irish scholar was the distant precursor of the Sorbonne University.

John Colgan in his Acta Sanctorum Hiberniae (Louvain, 1645), said that he still lived in 818 and gave March 20 as the day of his death, the church of Saint Amator in Auxerre as the place of his burial.

It was not until 782 that Alcuin became master of the royal school at Aachen, but even his fame in no wise could diminish the reputation of Clement. See the querulous comments that as an old man, Alcuin wrote indeed to Charlemagne, from his retirement in Tours, on "the daily increasing influence of the Irish at the School of the Palace."

It is indeed from the second epoch of Clement as master of the Palatine School that the development of the influence of the Irish on the continent can be dated.

The grammarian Cruindmelus, the poet Dungal of Bobbio and Bishop Donatus of Fiesole were among the many Irish intellectuals who enjoyed the favor of Charlemagne. The emperor, according to Einhard, "loved the strangers" and "had the Irish in special esteem."

His successors likewise invited the Irish intellectuals to their court. Louis the Pious was the patron of the Irish geographer Dicuil. He wrote about 825 a book entitled De mensura orbis terrae, in which he declared (besides the fact that for him the earth was ... round, as its title clearly shows); that the Irish had discovered the Faroe Islands beyond the island of Thule, seventy years before the Scandinavians! The geographical and astronomical knowledge of the Irish may seem astonishing for the time, but they prove above all that a spirit of openness and scientific progress persisted on their island.

About 840 Irish emigration became important again. Naturally, the Irish teachers flocked to the places already known to them by the missionary activity of their fellow countrymen of former generations. For example we find them at Reichenau, St. Gall and Bobbio, "a whole herd of philosophers" as a ninth-century writer expresses it.

There are Scots established in various countries of the Empire, Milan, Verona, Lucca, Bobbio (St Cummian), and Fiesole for Italy. In Alemannia Moengall directed the scriptorium and the school of the palace. In Lotharingia, Drogo of Metz welcomed Muiredach, who composed a commentary upon Donatus.

It was, however, at Laon that the Irish were the most numerous and the most reputed, as Heiric of Auxerre says in his preface to the life of St. Germanus. Even Greece he observes could be rightly

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envious of a country where “the more learned a man is, the more likely is he to sentence himself to exile that he may serve the wishes of our wisest Solomon.”

The master of the cathedral school in Laon was, in fact, the Scot named Martianus Hiberniensis. The annals of Laon give us two valuable information about him. They indicate that "in the year 819 Martinus was born, he will be a teacher scribe and master of the cathedral school at Laon" and that in "875, Martinus fell asleep in Christ." After hard work and with the help of his companions, he left several books. The first concerns the commentary on a work by Martianus Capella, a pagan lawyer in Carthage and a contemporary of St. Augustine.

In 845, Sedulius Scottus, a multifaceted scholar, poet, grammarian, theologian, exegete and moralist, settled in Liege with a few companions of the same caliber (Dermoth, Fergus, Blandus, Marcus and Bentchell). He soon imposed himself on the bishops of Cologne, Metz, and that of the town where he lived, Bishop Hartgard. The lessons which he proposed would bring him the necessary resources, especially when he was interested in Lothair and his wife Ermengarde, as well as Louis the German.

Charles the Bald equaled his grandfather in his esteem for the Irish teachers. Under him Elias taught at Laon, Dunchad at Reims, Israel at Auxerre, and the greatest of all the Irish scholars, Johannes Scotus Eriugena, was head of his palace school.

1) Not to be mixed up with the Palatine Academy, name of an informal circle of intellectuals living at the court or in the entourage of Charlemagne. The actors of the Carolingian renaissance gathered at the court of Aachen in Belgium flock from all the West. The Italian masters, Peter of Pisa and Paul the Deacon were the first. Two main provenances emerge: Spain and the British Isles.

The "Spanish" are mainly refugees from Spain conquered by the Muslims since 711. Besides the Mozarabic activity, outside the Carolingian influence area, the regions of northern Spain and the Borderlands are very active. In Christian Asturias (which became since the ninth century the object of a great pilgrimage after the discovery of the relics of Saint James in Compostela, Galicia) and in the Spanish Borderland controlled by Charles, Christian scholars flock , as in Urgell under Bishop Felix, leader of the Adoptionist heresy. Theodulf of Orleans is the most famous of these refugees, but we may also mention Claudius of Turin and the famous Agobard (this of Magonia).

As for the Anglo-Saxons and Irish, many of them imitated Willibrord and Boniface by joining the continent, this time to stay at the court: Alcuin, of course, but also Lull (Abbot of Fulda) and, for the Irish, Clement and a certain Joseph of whom we know only the name. This influence is also found in the production of manuscripts and in the painting, notably in workshops such as that of Alcuin in Tours and the one in St. Gallen.

Under the direction of Charlemagne, new Gospels and liturgical works, as well as historical, literary and scientific documents by ancient authors, were therefore copied and copied.

2) Dungal? But there would have been several characters of that name. One of them would have informed Charles about the double sun eclipse of 810. It is sometimes identified with the mysterious Hibernicus Exul, another Irishman, by profession bishop, who is known to us by Alcuin.

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SCOTUS ERIUGENA (810 - 876).

John Scotus Eriugena (Iohannes Scottus) is an Irish monk of the ninth century. It seems to us impossible to offer about his origin, his youth, and the end of his life, something other than approximate and very hypothetical indications.

It is probable that he was born between the years 800 and 815, in Ireland. A passage from one of his writings suggested that he had visited Greece and the East. He died in 876, on the Continent, like many Celtic monks from Ireland.

On the Continent, he will double up the nicknames : Scotus but also Eriugena or, in Latin language, Eriugena. According to Sean O'Faolain, Eriugena means simply means "born in Ireland." The denomination Scotus Eriugena is therefore a redundancy or a pleonasm. Between 840 and 847 he came to France, called by Charles the Bald, and spent nearly the whole of his life at the court of that prince, who made him the rector of his palatine school. On his way to Laon, where many fellow countrymen lived, he resorted to the service of Martianus Hiberniensis (Martin of Laon) in the translations of Greek texts which were necessary for his studies. Besides Dionysius, he translated the work of Gregory of Nyssa known as “De hominis opificio” and annotated or commented on MartianusCapella, and Boethius.

But these Scots, because they came from a world opposed to the columns of the Parthenon, were never well considered in the field. The Roman Anastasius the Librarian commented severely on the translation of Dionysius the Areopagite made by Eriugena. Hard to be more racist and of a bigger bad faith. If Eriugena, in his translation, stuck to the literal meaning, it was simply by intellectual honesty on his part, that's all! Like Plato, he also supported the thesis affirming that the sun is at the center of the world, thus joining on this subject the rash and adventurous attitude at that time of his fellow countrymen Fergal / Virgil and Dicuil.

An original thinker, knowing Greek, some say also Hebrew, nourished with the reading of the writings of Origen, translator of those who were then attributed to Denis the Areopagite, Scotus Eriugena was rather a philosopher than a theologian. He is the only scholar of the ninth century, independent of the Orthodox or Catholic tradition of creationism; and represents, in the middle of this century, the singular character of a pantheistic metaphysician, lost in the midst of an epoch unable to understand him.

His two main works are the "De divina praedestinatione" (On divine predestination), written in 851, and the "De divisio naturae" (The Division of Nature) written in 865.

The theory of predestination was that which Augustine had maintained at the end of his life: the will of God has decided since always whether a man will go to the kingdom of God or that of Satan. Man can do nothing to change his destiny, some are doomed to evil and sin. Christ is not dead for all men, but only for some chosen ones.

Bishop Hincmar of Rheims therefore asked John Scotus Eriugena a report on the question.

The thesis of Eriugena was simple: God is one, timeless, infinitely good. He cannot, therefore, predestine men to evil. Evil, besides, does not really exist, it is only a lack of being, the incompleteness of a being which is not perfect. Hell is to be understood in the figurative meaning, it signifies the remorse of the sinner, it exists only in imagination. Eriugena relies, like Gottschalk ... on Augustine, but on earlier Augustine texts, of Augustine when he was young, where Plato's influence is still strong. His report made a scandal, and he was condemned for having defended in his work that God could not want the predestination of human beings. God being pure spirit, he does not care about things and knows neither the world nor the future nor himself. In short, God provides for neither punishments nor sins: they are fictions! Hell does not exist, or it is called remorse.

For his treatise entitled "periphyseon" or "de divisio naturae," Eriugena made a compilation and synthesis of what Latin culture said about it. This "on the division of nature" was intended as a clarification of the dogma. Eriugena used logic and Platonic dialectics for this. This is undoubtedly his masterpiece.

This important work consists of five books of dialogues between a disciple and a master. The unity of philosophy and religion is affirmed in them: both have the same object, which is God, the primary cause of all things. Philosophy seeks him by reflection, religion worships him with humility. The first

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follows reason, the second is guided by the authority of the Church. Reason and authority cannot contradict each other, for they derive similarly from God. Even if one seems contrary to the other, the conflict exists only in appearance.

All human aspirations to knowledge have as their starting point the question of the belief in Revelation. Nevertheless, it is to the reason that falls the duty to explain the meaning of Revelation. No contradiction can arise between faith and true reason. We must follow the authority of the Fathers of the Church as long as this is in agreement with the revelation.

But in the case of a contradiction between Authority and Reason, reason prevails. (It seems as listening the neo-druid John Toland ....)

The system expounded in these dialogues seems to us to be thus summed up. Nature, that is to say, the whole of the universe, presents at first sight two large categories. The things that are, and those that are not, being and non-being, God and phenomena. We then distinguish in it a new division, opposing immobility and movement, immutability and change. Combining these various categories, we find four general forms, that Scotus Eriugena calls "species."

1. That which is not created and creates: God as the origin of everything, as the one from whom all things are derived.

2. That which is created and creates itself: the primordial causes. The eons would have said the Gnostics.

3. That which is created and does not create, the visible universe.

4. That which neither is created nor creates: God as the end of everything, like the one to whom everything comes back.

BOOK I THE FOUR EFFECTS OF THE CREATION.

Teacher. As we have just said, then ‘nature’ is a general name for all things, whether or not they have being.

Student. It certainly is, for we can think of nothing at all to which such a designation does not apply.

Teacher. Since we have agreed that this is a generic designation, I should like you to tell how it is divided into species by differences; or if you prefer, I shall try to establish the divisions first and your task will be to judge them.

Student. Please begin. I am eager and impatient to hear you give a true account about these matters.

Teacher. The division of nature seems to me to admit of four species through four differences.

-The first is the divisions into what creates and is not created.

-The second into what is created and creates.

-The third into what is created and does not create.

-The fourth into what neither creates nor is created.

The whole creation is therefore to be understood therefore as a self-revelation (theophany) of the hidden God, who thus determines himself. The mind of man is the key of the world that opens up to this self-revelation of God.

In the traditional Jewish-Muslim - Christian ontology, God or the Demiurge is the first Being, immutable, free from becoming and unknowable in himself. While being present to his creation, he does enter it, he remains outside the Whole. God or the Demiurge acts through his creating power - theologians and philosophers speak of "continuous creation" - but the divine essence is not involved in the creating act. John Scotus Eriugena will be the first to take over another tradition. If God has assumed our human condition and does not cease to assume it, he gets involved in his creation.

The idea of God's becoming is the fundamental idea of his work entitled "On the Division of Nature."

The "Nature" of which we are speaking is the divine Nature, and its "classes" correspond to the different moments of the divine becoming. Eriugena takes over the idea of the Unknowable One and, in a certain way, foreign to Thought, since it is necessarily multiple. The Godhead is the super-essential "Nothingness" which, in order to know itself, is to engender its Word, in which it manifests itself. It becomes thus the divine Being. The One expresses himself and knows himself in his Word, his Single Thought, and then in the totality of the Ideas which expound this Thought. The Cause of all things doesn’t let be known through itself, in what it is, neither by itself nor by anyone, but it makes

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itself knowable through its theophanies, that is, in its manifestations . By manifesting itself in the Word and in its Ideas, the Super-essential One creates itself as Trinitarian God. As the Father of the Son (the Logos) who is one with Him, through the bond of Love (the Holy Spirit) that unites them.

Going down first from the super essentiality of his Nature, where he deserves the name of Non-Being, God creates himself from himself in the primordial causes. Creation, then, is, first of all, a self-creation of God by himself. The creation of "visible" things, finished, is only the last moment, the ultimate stage of the divine becoming and of manifestation. Since the primordial causes, which mediate between God and the (finite) creature, God goes down into the effects of these causes, and he reveals himself openly in his theophanies. He proceeds through multiple forms, down to the last hierarchical order of the whole, which is that of bodies. And thus progressing in an ordered course in all things, God creates all things, and becomes all in all. But even though he is thus created in all things, he does not cease to be above all. God is therefore, as an ineffable and super-essential One, transcendent to creation, and, as the sole Essence of all things, totally immanent.

But if God is All, he does not cease to be what he was: the super-essential One. If he becomes, if he "gets lost" in things, it is to find himself. God empties himself out of love, and he remains, paradoxically "the same one," the one he "was" before going down into creation; to return, at the end, to oneself, bringing back all things into himself.

God "comes out" of himself only to come back to him and to bring back all things in him, following a circular movement of which the ancient druids had already had the presentiment. "Men’s souls are indestructible although both fire and water will at some time or other prevail over them " (Strabo IV, 4). But let us return to Eriugena

There is thus a circle of evolution starting from God and returning to him, God forming thus the beginning, the middle and the end of the whole universe. God is superior to all his attributes, because all these attributes are limited, and it is always possible to oppose to each one of them an opposite term (justice and goodness, infinitely great and infinitely small, etc.).He is above the being, "super essentially beyond all that is." Inaccessible and incomprehensible in itself, he manifests himself in creatures, which thus become theophanies. The highest of these theophanies is human intellect. The more it recognizes itself, the more it knows God. The two knowledges are merged into one, the intellct vertitur in Deum. It is capable of this change, because it has within it an imprint of the Trinity.

The manner in which Scotus Eriugena designs the Trinity is therefore very far from the orthodox doctrine. The Father is the first creating cause; The Son or the Word is the organ of this creation, which exists in him in the state of ideas; the Holy Spirit is its producer. It diversifies effects and phenomena. But the three persons are not realities, they are only names given to divine relations. God is more than unity and more than trinity.

Editor’s note. It was like listening to the tawhid of the Muslims.

This higher Being has evolved to produce creation. Creation existed in the Word, in the state of ideas: it was realized by the primordial causes contained in the Word and which emerge from it as theophanies. Nothing has a real existence apart from God, and nothing is within God, which is not God himself. God is therefore all in all. Religion teaches that the world has been drawn from nothingness, ex nihilo factum est. This nihil is God. By creating, God emerges from the nothingness of his absolute; It appears, and the finite world manifests the form of the infinite. This is why God and creation are the same nature: God is all, and all is God.

As human intellect has within it the image of the Trinity, it becomes the object of a similar evolution. It creates things by designing them. By relating them to God; it comes back itself into God. God is God through the excellence of his nature; The human being becomes God by an effect of grace. Grace is necessary because of the fall. The fallen human has never ceased to be a living summary of creation but he is no longer conscious of that. He can no longer fulfill his function of relating everything to God. To bring it back to the good, the Word appeared in a human form; it is the ideal and eternal human being, the God man. In him we contemplate the unity of the finite and of the infinite. This contemplation frees delivers us from evil, it teaches us to suppress differences. We become one with God, through the efficacy of contemplation. The end of the universe will be the absorption of everything in God; Evil will be consumed in eternal Good, misery in beatitude, death in life.

For Eriugena, Christ possesses, like us, a body and senses, a soul and a mind. Human nature itself is constituted of these components, of these four parts, that Christ as a true man assumed and unified in him. For Christ made himself a perfect man.

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Restored to his original, genuine nature, Man plays a fundamental role in the process of the return of all things to God. This return consists in the gathering and unification of all creatures around Man. Man was created among the primordial causes in the image of God; so that in him all intelligible and tangible creatures, of which he is composed as opposite extremes, become an indivisible unity, and so that he can be the mediation and the gathering of all creatures. It is why in the Scriptures man is called "every creature" (omnis creatura). Now the essence of Man - Man as originally created in God, among the primordial causes - is the intellect. If man can unite all things in himself, it is by the activity of the intellect, by thought. He thus becomes the Whole, he spiritualizes himself by breaking down the narrow limits of his self, in short he becomes a pure intellect capable of contemplating God. This statement is to be understood in an ontological sense rather than in relation to the Result of the verb to be. The body must not to disappear in order to no longer block. When all things have been subjected to the intellect, the latter, having integrated or enlightened the universe, will be able to contemplate God.

Will be able to contemplate GOD and even ... BE GOD we could add WITH Teilhard de Chardin (Died in New York on 10 April 1955).

In short, the universe is therefore designed in four different categories whose origin is God and whose term ends in God. All the created beings are finally absorbed into their creator. The notion of good and evil is abolished, guilty and innocent finally having to live the same destiny.

Protected by the king, Eriugena was not much troubled but it is assumed that he withdrew then in a convent and died there, about 876.

The pantheism of Scotus Eriugena was indeed very close to ancient Druidism. When you study ancient Druidism, you realize indeed that the famous god-or-demons of the ancient Celtic panth-eon or pleroma are only objectified forms of the attributes ascribed to the Divinity, undoubtedly single, never named, never described, never defined. Moreover, to define God or the Demiurge would be absurd: to define the infinite is an aberration of the mind. God-or-Devil is unnameable, incomprehensible and incommunicable.

It is perhaps what was already said by the ancient high knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht). And the so-called Celtic god-or-demons Lug, Belenus, Ogmius, Noadatus / Nodens, Teutates, Esus and Taranis ... are only manifestations, hypostases (vyuha in Hinduism) of the Universal Spirit or Fate considered under a temporary and special aspect.

It has been said of Erigena that he was the Father of Antischolastic ones, the father of rationalism, theosophy and pantheism. This is probably a little improper. John Scotus Ériugena teaches simply that Nature must be understood in four different aspects while being one. The first nature is that which creates, but is not created: it is God uncreated and creator [cf. The Altus Prosator of Columba of Iona, the Fate].

The second is the created Nature which creates: these are the primordial causes, the Ideas [even the god-or-demons, since they are ideas in the Platonic meaning of the word. Editor’s note].

The third is the created Nature which does not create: it is the creation in the usual meaning of the word as a whole.

The fourth is uncreated Nature which does not create: it is God himself again but as the superior end of things to whom everything is to return.

Human life is therefore traced out: it is to deserve a return to God, and for this purpose the soul, collaborating with the divine grace which pervades it, must increase in religious knowledge, which is at the same time philosophical knowledge.

Pardulus of Laon, Florus of Lyons, and the Council of Valencia of 855, reproached John Scotus Eriugena for his abuse of the merely rational method in theological discussions. While his contemporaries, in order to clarify articles of faith, relied chiefly on the authorities, drawing from Scripture, from the Fathers, from the decisions of councils; John Scotus, on the other hand, claims to solve, almost exclusively with the help of dialectics, the most difficult questions. Through four logical processes, division, definition, demonstration, and analysis, he decides on all theological matters. The Scot claimed, for example, that prescience and predestination in God are the same thing; he rejected the predestination of the “wicked” to the eternal punishment of hell and admitted only that of the chosen ones to life. His De Praedestinatione contained radical criticisms regarding the hell fire, the eternity of the penalties, and several propositions with a pantheistic or Pelagian flavor.

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An army of theologians immediately stood up against him. The councils of Valencia (855), as we have seen, but also of Langres (859), will be raised against Eriugena’s method; calling his syllogisms "inventions of the devil," foolish reasoning, "stories of old women" and finally, taking over the word of Saint Jerome against Pelagius, "Scottish porridge” (Pultes Scottorum).

His treatise on the divisions of nature was condemned by Honorius III in 1225 and by Gregory XIII in 1585. The time for the holy spirit to reflect perhaps. To have or read his book will be punished with death.

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EUROPE OF THE YEAR 1000.

The formation in the East or in the South of Europe, from the 7th to the 8th century, through peaceful preaching or self-defense (the Muslim empire is indeed the only example in history of an empire constituted only with the help of defensive wars) will make possible the all-out movement from East to West of remarkable inventions, Chinese paper and Indian, figures, especially zero, to the humble couscous chickpea, through the Roman thermal baths or arch ... ..

On the other hand, a heavy, oppressive, sleep fell upon the West. The eyes are too weary to open and look around them, the senses too exhausted to develop their curiosity. The spirit of Mankind at that time in Europe is paralyzed as if it was through a mortal disease; it wishes no longer to know something about the world which is its own. Even stranger: what it knew before, it has forgotten. People have unlearned to read, to write, to count, even the kings and the emperors of the West are no longer able to put their name at the bottom of a parchment. The sciences were frozen, mummified by theology.

Until the 9th century, Arab-Muslim scholars will content themselves, like the European monks, to translate the texts of the Ancients. They translate the major works of Greek science, assimilate them, but enrich them little enough, except for rather significant contributions in mathematics and astronomy, which, however, owe much to the translation of certain Indian texts.

After the time of the great translations comes, in the ninth century, that of an Arab-Muslim science represented by al-Khwarizmi, a mathematician and astronomer, al-Kindi, a philosopher and geometer, Thabit ibn Qurra, a mathematician astronomer and musicologist, Al Battani, a mathematician.

Al-Khwarizmi has written a treatise on astronomy which takes up most of an Indian astronomical work, but is not identical to it: to the Indian and Persian elements, themselves dependent on Greek astronomy, are added indeed direct borrowings from Ptolemy.

Al-Kindi wrote or commented on a large number of works, estimated at times at 230, 270 or 300 theses and books, dealing with various themes, notably philosophy, astronomy, arithmetic, architecture, medicine, physics, logic, tides, mineralogy, gemology, metallurgy, as well as swords. He was also among the first translators of Greek works in Arabic.

In addition to the four books he wrote on the use of Indian numerals, al-Kindi has worked extensively on spherical geometry in order to advance in his astronomical studies.

Thabit ibn Qurra. Abu al-Hasan Thabit ibn Qurra would have written a music treatise of 500 pages in Syriac language.

But Thabit is above all known as a mathematician and major translator of the mathematical and astronomical work of the Ancient Greeks towards Arabic: Archimedes, Euclid, Ptolemy, Apollonius ... Many of the texts of these authors are only accessible to us by these translations and have arrived in this way in Western Europe.

Al Battani. Probably without knowing the work of the Indian astronomer of the fifth century Aryabhata, he introduced the use of the sinus in calculations and partly that of the tangent, thus forming the basis of modern trigonometric calculation. His major work, Kitab al-Zij al-Sabi (the "Book of the Sabian Tables"), which was composed of 57 chapters, translated into Latin under the title De Motu Stellarum in 1116 (printed in 1537 by Melanchthon, annotated by Regiomontanus), has considerably influenced European astronomy.

Initially limited to Mesopotamia, this Arab-Muslim science gradually spread, from the tenth century onwards, to the southern periphery of the Mediterranean Basin and in Spain. From the 11th century until the 14th century, a significant scientific activity developed in cities such as Baghdad, Cairo and Kairouan or, for Spain, Cordoba, Seville and Toledo. In Spain, little by little recaptured by Christians (a historical movement known as Reconquista) , numerous contacts will be established between the Arab-Muslim culture and the Christian culture.

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Much of what scholars had received from Greek science and philosophy, and a no less considerable part of what they built from this inheritance; was handed over in Europe in the twelfth century through translations made in Latin from Arabic.

Greek and Indian influence.

For the most part, Arab science still remained Greek in character. But Hellenistic science had already incorporated astern elements. Many of these elements have found their place directly in Arab science, such as the zero and its use in calculation, the so-called Arab figures and certain trigonometric or astronomical techniques - all elements coming from India. This mutual enrichment of Greek and Indian ideas explains the important progress made in the fields of arithmetic, algebra and astronomy; but also certain results got by the Arab-Muslims, and which do not have their origin in the ancient science of Greeks.

It remains that for the medieval scholars who wrote in Arabic, the Greeks represented the supreme authority: Euclid, Archimedes and Apollonius of Perga for mathematics; Ptolemy for astronomy; Galen and Hippocrates for medicine. This does not mean that the scholars of medieval Islam were mere followers. The Muslim civilization produced a large number of original scholars - often of Iranian origin - independent and gifted with a critical mind, such as al-Razi, al-Masudi, al-Biruni and Alhazen. But their innovations in the fields of astronomical observation, of clinical medical experience and even optics - science to which Alhazen gave a decisive turning point- have been introduced into the general framework of ancient Greek disciplines, or according to Greek models; the criticisms were also expressed according to the terms forged by the Greek founders.

Arab science has not produced a scientific revolution comparable to that of Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. But the idea that the Arab-Muslim contribution has confined itself to preserving and then handing over the scientific heritage of antiquity to Europe is only very partially correct. Alongside this relay handover, for a legacy they had kept living by their enthusiasm and by their active participation, Muslim scholars also brought substantial results entirely of their own.

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DOCUMENT.

LETTER FROM BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX TO THE FIRST KNIGHTS TEMPLAR

(WRITTEN ABOUT 1134.)

“To Hugh, soldier of Christ and master of Christ’s militia : Bernard in name only abbot of Clairvaux, wishes that he might fight the good fight.

If I am not mistaken, my dear Hugh, you have asked me not once or twice, but three times to write a few words of exhortation for you and your comrades in arms. You say that if I am not permitted to wield the lance; at least I might direct my pen against the tyrannical foe, and that this moral, rather than material support of mine will be of no small help to you. I have put you off now for quite some time, not that I disdain your request, but rather lest I be blamed for taking it lightly and hastily. I feared I might botch a task which could be better done by a more qualified hand. Having waited thus for quite some time to no purpose, I have now done what I could, lest my inability should be mistaken for unwillingness. It is for the reader to judge the result. If some perhaps find my work unsatisfactory or short of the mark, I shall be nonetheless content, since I have not failed to give you my best.

It seems that a new knighthood has recently appeared on the earth, and precisely in that part of it which the Orient from on high visited in the flesh. As he then troubled the princes of darkness in the strength of his mighty hand, so there he now wipes out their followers, I want to say ….

When someone strongly resists a foe in the flesh, relying solely on the strength of the flesh, I would hardly remark it, since this is common enough. And when war is waged by spiritual strength against vices or demons, this, too, is nothing remarkable, praiseworthy as it is, for the world is full of monks. But when the one sees a man powerfully girding himself with both swords and nobly marking his belt, who would not consider it worthy of all wonder, the more so since it has been hitherto unknown? He is truly a fearless soldier and secure on every side, for his soul is protected by the armor of faith just as his body is protected by armor of steel. He is thus doubly armed and need fear neither demons nor men. Not that he fears death, no, he desires it. Why should he fear to live or fear to die when for him to live is Jesus Christ, and to die is gain? Gladly and faithfully he stands for Christ, but he would prefer to be dissolved and to be with Christ, by far the better thing.

Go forth confidently then, and repel the foes of the cross of Jesus Christ with a stalwart heart. Know that neither death nor life can separate you from the love of God which is in Jesus Christ… What a glory to return in victory from such a battle! How blessed to die there as a martyr! Rejoice, brave athlete, if you live and conquer in the Lord; but glory and exult even more if you die and join your Lord. Life indeed is a fruitful thing and victory is glorious, but a holy death is more important than either. If they are blessed who die in the Lord, how much more are they who die for the Lord!

To be sure, precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his holy ones, whether they die in battle or in bed, but death in battle is more precious as it is the more glorious. How secure is life when the conscience is unsullied! How secure, I say, is life when death is anticipated without fear; or rather when it is desired with feeling and embraced with reverence…soldiers of Christ may safely fight the battles of their Lord, fearing neither sin if they smite the enemy, nor danger at their own death; since to inflict death or to die for Jesus Christ is no sin, but rather, an abundant claim to glory. In the first case one gains for Christ, and in the second one gains Christ himself. The Lord freely accepts the death of the foe who has offended him, and yet more freely gives himself for the consolation of his fallen soldier.

The knight of Christ, I say, may strike with confidence and die yet more confidently, for he serves Christ when he strikes, and serves himself when he falls. Neither does he bear the sword in vain, for he is God's minister, for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of the good. If he kills an evildoer, he is not a man-killer, but, if I may so put it, a killer of evil. He is evidently the avenger of Christ towards evildoers and he is rightly considered a defender of Christians. Should he be killed himself, we know that he has not perished, but has come safely into port. When he inflicts death it is to Christ's profit, and when he suffers death, it is for his own gain.

The Christian glories in the death of the pagan (sic), because Christ is glorified; while the death of the Christian gives occasion for the King to show his liberality in the rewarding of his soldier . In the one

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case the just shall rejoice when he sees justice done, and in the other man shall say, truly there is a reward for the just; truly it is God who judges the earth.

I do not mean to say that the pagans (again sic) are to be slaughtered when there is any other way to prevent them from harassing and persecuting the faithful, but only that …if it is never permissible for a Christian to strike with the sword, why did the Savior's precursor bid the soldiers to be content with their pay, and not rather forbid them to follow this calling (Luke III, 13)? But if it is permitted to all those so destined by God, as is indeed the case provided they have not embraced a higher calling, etc.etc."

That being said, that our Christian and Muslim friends reassure themselves, I agree completely with them, St Bernard of Clairvaux was a brute, a big Nazi swine, and it is better to forget him once again.

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LIFE AND DEATH OF THE GOOD (OR BAD) CHRISTIAN

IN THE MIDDLE AGES.

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HOLY DAYS OF OBLIGATION.

Religious celebrations have gradually emerged in the history of Christianity: first Easter as soon as the second century), then the whole of the Pascal cycle from Lent (3rd century) to Pentecost (4th century), Christmas (4th century), the Marian days and those of the great saints (4th-5th centuries).

If some of these celebrations are the result of the Christianization of earlier pagan holy days (Samon-ios, Beltene, Lugnasade, Ambivolc ...), it was above all for Christians to fit into the social rhythm of their time, while giving it a Christian meaning.

The nature of these Christian holy days of obligation differed greatly from the ancient holy days; they were only religious; not only the public life was suspended, but any play or entertainment which could divert from devotion, was forbidden; people went to the church adorned with their finest clothes; it was strictly forbidden to fast.

The laity could omit the feasts of devotion, but the days known as holy days of obligation were, on the contrary, equated with Sundays, for the provisions concerning rest and sanctification. These provisions were contravened in three ways:

1. By neglecting the works of piety which are ordered in those days.

2. By working or by practicing a prohibited trade.

3. By giving oneself over to prohibited entertainment.

With regard to works of piety, the canons impose on the faithful the obligation to attend mass, on Sundays and holy days of obligation.

With regard to labor, the regulations differed and differ still, according to the churches, places, and times but the general precept is to abstain from any kind of labor except that which is indispensable to life or which is demanded by a pressing reason of necessity or piety.

As soon as Christianity was become State religion, the secular power took care of sanctioning by coercive measures the ordinances of the Church, relating to Sundays and holy days of obligation. From the time of Childebert, the dictates of the Roman emperors were reproduced and developed by numerous ordinances of the kings.

Charlemagne's admonitio generalis (article 79) forbids, for example, every "servile" work on Sundays (a detailed list of agricultural or typically feminine works follows), so that everyone can physically go to the church and thank the lord of his benefits.

With regard to the definition of the "servile" works in order to avoid abuse of individual interpretations, the ordinary must be consulted and decide on exception or dispensation cases. Remain absolutely condemned, markets, fairs and generally every public trading; as well as games, dances, fights and other shows.

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THE CONFESSION.

THE PUBLIC CONFESSION.

In the second century, the faithful were only encouraged to remain faithful to the promises of their baptism. Only three sins lead to damnation: murder, adultery and apostasy.

The Church knows only two sacraments: baptism and confession. There is usually only one confession, just before death, and there is no second chance.

In this context of penitential vacuum, a new practice appeared among the monks in Ireland, spread rapidly throughout Europe towards the seventh century, thanks in particular to the influence of the disciples of St Columban of Bobbio. A personal and secret avowal of his sins (in the line of the monastic "beating one’s breast") to a priest - the bishop being no longer the only minister of the sacrament of reconciliation - renewable absolution, penance now located after reconciliation, such are its characteristics.

THE PRIVATE CONFESSION OR AURICULAR CONFESSION.

The practice of auricular or private confession, now the rule in all Catholicity, was therefore introduced on the continent by the Celtic monks (the druids were mostly spiritual advisers or doctors of the soul / mind).

According to Loening and his upholders, private penance would originally be only a monastic practice. It was introduced in the secular world in the seventh and eighth centuries under the influence of St Columbanus of Bobbio and of the Irish or Anglo-Saxon missionaries, and gradually became a universal ecclesiastical institution.

Rule No. 28 given to the Culdees by St. Maelruain of Tallaght.

“Irksome, truly, is the matter of soul friendship, because if the proper remedy is prescribed, it is more often violated than fulfilled: while if the soul friend does not prescribe it, liability falls upon him; for there are many who deem it sufficient to make a confession without doing penance. So it is better for the soul friend to admonish them of what is profitable for them, even though he does not demand confessions.”

We find here again well the role of spiritual counselor of the ancient druids.

Penitential known as Bigotian.

Paragraph 2. “Hence those who take care to heal the wounds of others are to observe carefully what are the age and sex of the sinner, what instruction he has received, what his strength, by what trouble he has been driven to sin, with what kind of passion he is assailed, how long he remained in sinful delight, with what sorrow and labor he is afflicted, and how much he is detached from worldly things. For God does not despise the contrite and humbled heart.

Wise men, in regulating penance, are to look carefully also to this: not to punish with the rod a crime worthy of the sword and to smite with the sword a sin worthy of the rod.”

Druidic contribution into these texts, although, as we have seen, section V of the Table of Arras written in Old Irish places druidism between brigandage and adultery as regards reprobation.

Penitential of Saint Finian.

"Sins can be absolved in secret by penance and control (studium diligentius) of heart and body."

This is there a remnant of Druidism (of the druidic soul / mind Medicine or of the druidic jurisprudence. You choose).

This druidic principle at the origin of the medieval confession is particularly obvious in the penitential of St Columbanus of Bobbio. "

7°. For doctors of the body also compound their medicines in diverse kinds; thus they heal wounds in one manner, sicknesses in another, boils in another, bruises in another, festering sores in another, eye diseases in another, fractures in another, burns in another. Then so also should spiritual doctors treat

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with diverse kinds of cures the wounds of souls, their sicknesses, offenses, pains, ailments and infirmities of souls. But since this gift belongs to few, namely to know to a nicety all these things, to treat them, to restore what is weak to a complete state of health.

8 ° So let us set out even a few prescriptions according to the traditions of our elders, and according to our own partial understanding……… The diversity of offenses makes a diversity of penances.”

The popular practice of the auricular confession to a spiritual adviser, in the monastic way, will impose itself to the point of completely eclipsing the ancient ritual of public penance and of being gradually admitted by the hierarchy. And as the confessors" will quickly find it difficult to know how to give or to dose "penances” they will base themselves for that on the “Irish” penitentials of the Celtic monks.

The Carolingian reformers will try to re-establish public penance (see Louis the pious) and the doctrine will then be: "to public fault, public penance"; But in the ninth century private confession and penance will prevail. There will be then a double system: private confession before a priest, and semi-public confession before a bishop or the Pope, according to the seriousness of the sins. In the tenth century, it became common to ask for confession before Easter. In 1215, the decree Utriusque sexus of Lateran IV will impose the annual sacramental confession of the important sins, before the obligatory Paschal communion.

1545-1563. Council of Trent. Confession and penance become an obligatory sacrament (at least once a year). In the sixteenth century in Spain and then in the following century in France, a concern for good morals and discretion led to the setting up of a specific piece of furniture: the "confessional," a kind of “polling box.”

Catholicism therefore from that moment on asks the faithful to confess their sins to a priest. "One who desires to obtain reconciliation with God and with the Church must confess to a priest all the unconfessed grave sins he remembers after having carefully examined his conscience. The confession of venial faults, without being necessary in itself, is nevertheless strongly recommended by the Church” (article 1493, of the new catechism)."

“The confession to a priest is an essential part of the sacrament of Penance" (article 1456).

“It is called the sacrament of confession, since the disclosure or confession of sins to a priest is an essential element of this sacrament" (article 1424).

Millions of Catholic believers now crowd in confessionals, convinced that the priest has the power to forgive their sins. None of these doctrines can come from God. They come only from purely human reflection. But what sneaky weapon used against the Catholics of the whole world! In essence, if a faithful leaves the Church, he will no longer be able to get the forgiving his sins ... and therefore will be no longer able to ascend to heaven!

Nevertheless let us never forget that confession was, at the beginning of Christianity, and as we have seen, a public and solemn procedure concerning very serious sins which could not be renewed. It has been replaced by the frequent and private confession. This change is due to a druidic influence. The evolution took place in Ireland, where the heirs to the druids were the most powerful social element, and diocesan bishops were rare. The public confession of the Roman type did not exist, and penitentials established a whole scale of mortification for faults. These uses of druidic origin were then taken over by the Anglo-Saxon Church at the beginning of the eighth century, and the penitentiaries authorized by St. Theodore of Tarsus (602-690), archbishop of Canterbury. Venerable Bede and Alcuin (735-804) were ardent apostles of private confession.

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PENANCE AND INDULGENCE.

Before the third century, the remission of sins seems to be celebrated only by the baptism in water, confirmed by the baptism of the Spirit. It probably does not yet give rise to any particular sign, and once the baptism is performed (after the long preparation of the catechumenate), the participation in the "Lord's Supper" -that is, the Eucharist-seems sufficient to convey this situation.

It was during the third century, especially after the end of the general persecutions (general supplication of Decius in 250 and true persecution of Diocletian in 303-311) that the sacrament of penance ( for the lapsi) will truly enter the life of the Church. It will be a matter of resolving the problem caused by the numerous, and perhaps even majority, people, who, having had the weakness to satisfy their legal obligations in this matter, are asking to be reinstated in their church. After fierce debates (see the Donatist schism among others), the Christian communities will end up in admitting the principle of the possibility of reconciliation. To these "lapsi" ("those who have failed"), a certain form of penance will be offered, a bit like a second baptism, BUT WITHOUT BEING A TRUE SECOND BAPTISM. The discipline of this penance is fairly rapidly harmonized around three major characteristics.

- Penang is previous reconciliation: it is a long period of prayer, fasting, provisional or definitive renunciation of certain offices or professions, important alms. In order to reconstitute the stocks of books seized during the two official persecutions, to be materially reorganized and so on.

- Penance is public. The one who failed is part of the "Penitent Order."

- Reconciliation can only be given once. It is never done privately. It is the community that reinstates the sinner, who publicly proclaims his repentance, without entering to the public revelation of his personal sins.

Considering such demands, we can understand that this sacrament is frightening and that one comes to ask for the reconciliation only at the point of death, to benefit from necessarily simplified and softened forms ...

If it is well defined in the texts, this ecclesial penance will concern only a small part of the Christian people, and this for several centuries (roughly from the fourth to the tenth century).

The ancient druids thought that the god-or-devils could be appeased by various sacrifices.

" They think that unless the life of a man be offered for the life of a man, the mind of the immortal gods cannot be rendered propitious" (Caesar, B. G. VI,16). They thought that prayers and sacrifices could have a real influence on God-or-devils or even the dead.

The God or Demiurge of Christians, since the rejection of the Marcionite Reformation, being more than ever become once again the pitiless YHWH of the Old Testament, as we have had many occasions to see it; it is quite naturally that they came to think that it was necessary to mortify oneself ad infinitum to soften him somewhat and deserve his heaven.

When Theodore of Tarsus arrived in England to take up the archiepiscopal see of Canterbury, he found that the public penance and the solemn reconciliation of the penitents were unknown in that country. It is, moreover, probable that they were no more practiced in the neighboring Celtic regions.

The texts mentioned below show that, according to the Celtic monks, an ethic or an insufficient morality in this world could be completed or supplemented by prayers and even sacrifices from the living.

The ascetic practices of this first Irish Church are therefore to be placed among the druidic prayers or sacrifices supposed to influence the goodwill of the gods or demons.

The penitential regime in force in these countries, at least since the sixth century, was that of the chargeable penance, a special penance was imposed on the sinner by the minister without any solemnity; according to rates contained in booklets called penitentials.

In these penitentials the works of satisfaction are proportionate, in rigor and length, to the committed faults. For the most serious crimes: incest, parricide, perjury, etc. they prescribe, according to circumstances, either exile or confinement in a monastery for their whole life or for a period of ten, seven or even three years. [ Editor’s note. It is well, therefore, in fact, the taking over of druidic customs as regards justice. This is obvious in the case of exile].

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The oldest texts seem to come from Great Britain , as their titles indicate, and also several peculiarities of their content. These are the Exercpta quaedam de Libro Davidis, the canons of the Synodus Aquilonalis Brittaniae, the Altera synodus Luci Victoriae, the Praefatio de Paenitentia of the pseudo-Gildas, all probably of the sixth century, and the Canones Wallici, probably from the first half of the 7th. All these texts have been published by Haddan and Stubbs, Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents relating to Great Britain and Ireland, Oxford, 1869-1878.

The earliest Irish penitential is a collection of the sixth century placed under the name of a certain Vinniaus (sic), which caused it to be sometimes ascribed to Finnian of Moville, sometimes to Finnian of Clonard. The later penitentials, that of Columbanus of Bobbio and that of Cummian, the latter of the seventh or eighth century, proceed largely from it.

It should be noted, however, that the four oldest known penitentials (6th century); the preface of St. Gildas the Wise on penances (the Praefatio de Paenitentia), the extracts from the book of St. David (Excerpta quaedam de libro Davidis); the decrees of the synod of Northern Britain (Synodus Aquilonalis Britanniae, i.e., Lowlands, Strathclyde, Gododdin, and Reghed, the country of Merlin after the battle of Arfderydd / Arthuret about 573); those of the Victory Grove (Luci Victoriae); are nevertheless not Irish, but Welsh. They constitute a mixture of civil laws and religious penances.

The Irish canons properly so called are the penitentials of Saint Vinniaus (Finnian), Saint Columbanus, Saint Cummian, as well as the canons of Adomnan or Adamnan.

The penances provided for in them are generally more serious than those of the Welsh penitentials which inspired them, the Culdee monks in Ireland having apparently hardened these mortifications called arras.

The way of life attributed to the monks by the canon XVII of the second synod of Saint Patrick resembles closely some of the "warrior" trainings that are now fashionable under the name Survivalism. "To live in cold and nakedness; in hunger and thirst, in vigils and fasting ." As for spending the whole night in icy water on beds of nettles or walnut shells, as recommended by the Arreum No. 8 of the Table in old Irish for the simple lay people; this evokes more fakirs and their bed of nails than anything else.

Revenge or punishment, however, does not seem to be the main aim of the druidic mortifications at the origin of these arras of Irish medieval Christianity.

And the best definition of them is perhaps provided by the penitential of St Finnian, they had a mental or spiritual goal according to the section X of the penitential of this saint. "... Sins can be absolved by penance and by control (studium diligentius) of heart and body."

See also section VI of the Table of Arras written in Old Irish.

"The Sages enumerate four reasons why the arras are practiced :

- For a speedy separation from the sin with which one has been united.

- For fear of adding to the sin in the future.

- For fear that one’s life be cut short before the end of the penance decided by a soul friend" (the anamchara was a kind of spiritual guide or adviser, of druidic origin).

- In order to be able to reach again more quickly the Holy Sacrifice (Eucharist) by shortening as much the period of penance ."

As well as its sections 31: "Fervent concentration on God" and 32 "Intense mental focusing on the sufferings of Christ."

Typically Judeo-Christian contribution to these penitentials on the other hand.

Sex obsession . Dietary restrictions: illicit drinks (inlicite bibitionis) or prohibited foods (horse meat and so on) in the Jewish or Muslim way (principle of kosher or halal food. See on this subject the Canons of Adamnan).

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HELL.

Christianity today has 6 different types of hereafter: heaven hell but also purgatory the limbo of patriarchs the limbo of the children died before they were baptized. But in the Middle Ages only the first two were known, and even today in the West, death is almost exclusively seen through this filter yet it was not so originally initially in our latitude.

The originality of Christian death has appeared only gradually. The first Christianity was immersed in Jewish controversies and had to be distinguished from paganism. It went itself through many crises during which the interpretation of the New Testament gradually gave rise to Christian doctrine.

From Origen is spread, especially in the East, the belief in the fire ordeal and in the salvation for everything (apocatastasis).

It matches the notion of (collective) Erdathe in the druidic religion or the Ragnarok in the Germanic tribes.

But at the center of Christian theology is the idea that death is due to original sin. Unlike the pagan religions of the (Celtic Germanic ) West , which tend to play down the phenomenon, the Christian religion accentuates its traumatizing characteristics.

The origin of this myth mind’s tragedy comes from Judaism. From the second chapter of Genesis, when God shows to Adam the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he adds: " You shall not eat of it, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Death is therefore the result of disobedience, the wages of sin but it is a punishment that leads into nothing (Sheol).

In the sixth century, therefore, will appear the notion of Hell as we know it today. It is an underground place of torture. In it the damned undergo unequal penalties according to the seriousness of their faults, but these penalties are eternal. It is the centerpiece of this "fear religion" which was set up at the end of the Middle Ages: fear of sin, death, judgment, Hell. The Church maintains this fear only in order to provide it with remedies, of which it proposes a true variety: sacraments (baptism, marriage, Eucharist, etc.), repentance, confession, penance, indulgences, prayers and masses, not forgetting the sacramentals (sign of the cross and so on).

The little eagerness of the populations, of the lords, or of certain clerics; to respect the property of the Church, the relics, the gifts and the tithes to give or pay (see the visions of St. Adamnan or Tondal); to go to the Mass, to submit to the confession, in short to obey the Church; have prompted the theologians of Christianity to further develop the theme of hell and throes of after-death punishment for those who sought to evade their demands.

People then imagine two types of judgments: the first, immediately after death, is particular, individual; the second, or Last Judgment, at the end of time, is collective.

The frescoes and statues of the Romanesque churches are the comic strips of such a fear propaganda . Cf. also the pattern of the Sheela na gig in Ireland.

Shee: from the Gaelic sidhe meaning Other World (like in ban shee). Gig. Usually interpreted in gCioch or Giob meaning breasts, buttocks. Sile-ina-Giob. People call so indeed, in this country, the (engraved, carved, or drawn) figures representing a horrible old woman, naked, bald, with bulging eyes and dilated genitals (that she spreads with her own hands). Certain manuscripts of Irish medieval literature doubtless refer to her through various names (the idol, the old woman, the hag, the cailleach, etc.). The oldest specimens of masks of old women (vetulas) engraved in stone were found in the south-west of France (11 in all, Cleyrac in Charente, Fontaine d'Ozillac ...) and date from the 12th century, but these Romanesque stone sculptures had to come after wooden sculptures having since disappeared. The immense majority of the specimens that have been preserved to us are now in Ireland (more than a hundred), hence the etymology of their names. We shall return to this with more details in our chapter on Romanesque art.

The representation of the capital sins and the punishments they cause, by arousing a reverse enjoyment, was a true school of popular sadism or masochism (Visions of St. Adamnan and Tondal still). Thus the depths of earth, which for the Greeks and Romans sheltered hardly only the abode of the dead, gradually became the antithesis of the dwelling of God. A gigantic room of infinite tortures, an eternal apocalyptic furnace, where sinners burned for eternity, or at least for a very long time

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(purgatory). This idea (increase the grip on the minds by a deliberate strategy of terror) will explain the favor given to the texts of Irish origin which we will briefly review in our next booklet dealing with the subject.

While waiting to see on this subject the incredible rules Nº 63, 64, and 65, given to the Celtic monks (Culdees) by St. Maelruain of Tallaght in Ireland. Or more precisely the end and the (probably added) last part of the Rule given to the Culdees by St. Maelruain of Tallaght.

63.This is the most excellent of all labors, to wit, labor in piety; for the kingdom of heaven is granted to him who directs study, and to him who studies, and to him who supports the pupil who is studying. It is the duty of everyone in Orders with whom these boys study to correct and chastise them and to press them to take ecclesiastical Orders forthwith, because they are being bred up for the Church and for God with a view to receiving Orders.

64.It is the duty of any one in Orders who undertakes the charge of a church to hear the confessions of that church's tenants, men, boys, women and girls. If anyone will not accept the yoke of a confessor, so that his is not under the authority of God or of man, he has not claim to be given Communion, nor to have intercession made for him, nor to be buried in God's church because he has refused to be under God's authority in the churches in the land or Erin. For it is right to show reverence to ordained priest, and to fulfill their behests, just as if they were God's angels among men; seeing that it is through them that the kingdom of Heaven is to be won, by means of Baptism and Communion and intercession, and by the Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ, and by preaching of the Gospel and by building up the Church of God, and by unity of law and rule and this is what is pleasing to God on earth.

65.Anyone therefore, who violates the Church of God, that is, who buys or sells her out of greed and envy, will be selling the resting place of his soul in Heaven, if [otherwise] he might reach it. For this is the worst bargain a man makes in the world, to sell his seat in the Church of Heaven, and to sell his soul to the Devil, and to sell his body in order to earn much hire from the churches, so that he eats the wage of his flesh before he dies. For this cause, he has nothing of his own, either body or soul or land, but all belongs to the Devil. For he who constantly violates God's church, it is God whom he violates and resists, even the man who does not abide in His Commandments in the bosom of the Church of God. Through him the powers of all princes have perished, and their children and their sovereignty after them. Through him moreover, belief in the Lord has perished in states and kindred. Through him are the doors of heaven shut and the doors of hell open, and the angels of God cease from watching over the earth, save when they come to wreak vengeance on this race of men, to wit, on wicked, full of hubris erenaghs 1), and on wicked greedy kings, who transgress the behests of Patrick, both in violating the Church and in buying and selling her, and in exalting pride and vainglory, so that their reward hereafter is in hell. But he that protects the Church of God with humility and obedience and observance of these behests of Patrick, may he receive a hundredfold in the present world and [inherit] the Kingdom of Heaven without end! many we dwell therein for unto ages of ages. Amen.

In all these texts, Peter Brown found a strong influence on the legal principles of Irish society at the time. They emphasize not only the need for penance, but also the need to complete it, including in the other world. What is not treated in this world must be treated in the next one.

In any case, it was a well-known druidic principle opposite the Jewish design of Sheol.

" Tradition has it that the Celts will lend you money, but you will have to pay back the loan in the Otherworld " (Valerius Maximus, memorable deeds and sayings II, 6, 10).

“Long ago traders’ accounts and debts registers also accompanied the dead, in order to be balanced or honored in the other world” (Pomponius Mela, De Chorographia III, 2.19).

" Having received some silver or gold money, and some even for a number of earthen vessels full of wine, having taken pledges that the gifts promised shall really be given, and having distributed them among their nearest companions, have laid themselves down on shields, with their faces upwards,

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and then allowed some bystander to cut their throats with a sword " (Athenaeus IV, 154, quoting Book XXIII of the histories by Posidonius).

1) In medieval Ireland kind of steward or manager responsible for the administration of ecclesiastical property. Advocatus in medieval language.

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THE PLACE OF DEAD IN SOCIETY.

The attitude of classical antiquity facing the dead was very simple: the dead were relegated far from the places of residence and their bodies grouped outside the cities, in true necropolises, or simple funerary enclosures or even urn fields in the countryside.

Now, with Christianity, we will witness the rise in the minds of certain very archaic psychological mechanisms.

The belief in magic is explained by two principles governing the association of ideas in every "basic" human mind: the principle of similarity and the principle of contact. The imitative magic governed by the principle of similarity consists for example in planting or drawing arrows in a representation of the game in order to kill it. Contagious magic, governed by the principle of contact, consists in taking part of the body of an enemy (or friend in the case of love magic) as his nails or his hair so that anything that will affect this part of the individual is also felt at a distance and without physical or material contact by the body of the man or woman in question.

The two principles of this sympathetic magic will therefore act on the subconscious of the Christians of the Middle Ages.

Praying for the repose of the soul of a deceased person, who is neither in hell nor in heaven, will be able, for example, to accelerate his passage from Purgatory to Heaven. But it will be especially in the treatment of the body of the deceased that this magical thought will express. If the Reilig Odhrain, or cemetery of Iona in Scotland, weighs down under the number of graves of kings princes or great lords, including come from afar, it is because the earth surrounding the abbey was a special place (the strange death of Saint Odhran has something able to make us think) a sacred, holy, blessed, ground. All the deceased reposing there could only feel the beneficial effects (the principle of contagious magic) and participate in the holiness of the place.

Worship of the dead is a bit schizophrenic (the first Oriental Christians were totally disinterested in the bodies, see the famous formula "let the dead bury their own dead" (Matthew 8:22).

This phenomenon of "taming of death" (of Celtic origin, since Iona seems to have sheltered druids before St-Odhran landed there), after having reached the towns, will win the countryside.

Everything will begin in the urban peripheries: the basilicas built on the graves of the saints (4th - 5th centuries) will become, especially with the increase of their clergy, their wealth and their outhouses, places of life in the midst of the dead. The search for the mediation of the saints (principle of magic by contact) will lead the people to want to bury their dead near the saint bodies or their relics, therefore near places of worship, which were at the same time places of life.

In the Middle Ages, the following typically druidic equation was used: grave or reliquary of the saint = place of worship = favored burial place = kernel of the cemetery.

The phenomenon reached the countryside in the seventh century: the churches, built in the immediate vicinity, even in the heart of the housing, endowed with relics coming from elsewhere, attracted the cemetery to them.

It is therefore a fundamental characteristic of the Celtic landscape that, in town as in the countryside, has been reinstated, a feature of civilization which had it that the whole community, dead and alive, united, remained connected even outside the period of November 1st (Samon-ios was indeed in Celtic land the equivalent of the communion of saints).

Anyway, what is undeniable is that there was in the West, via the Celtic monks ... ...

- Cult of saints (in which the faithful see the necessary intercessors for getting their salvation).

- Pilgrimages renowned as redeeming on their graves (St. Augustine in Canterbury ...)

- Transportation, or even traffic, of relics (pieces of saint bodies) to honor the places of worship that have not had the chance to be built on graves of saints.

- Multiplication of hagiographic literature (lives of saints, stories of miracles performed by saints, living or after their death), written by clerics and monks attached to their cult and which was undoubtedly the most popular literary genre during the first centuries of the Middle Ages ...

- Explosion of the churches erected on the remains of those who died in the odor of sanctity (after the martyrs and the founding bishops, will be honored the pioneers of monasticism : Columbanus of Bobbio, Benedict and the good bishops, Eligius, Desiderius.

Not to mention the local phenomenon of the enigmatic monuments called "lanterns of the dead."

In the Romanesque era indeed the cemetery still seems dangerous. Space of the deceased, where corpses decompose, concentrates the anguish of death and that of the unknown, revealing the mysteries of the other world (cf. St Odhran). This is where the ghosts come. Intermediate place between the non-religious ground of the village and the sacred space of the church, between daily activities and liturgical celebrations, the cemetery and its graves (mostly anonymous) play a mediating

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role between the here below and the hereafter. The Purgatory opens its doors in it and lets the souls in torment who need prayers, escape, especially at night, very close to those bodies that they do not resolve to abandon yet.

In the Romanesque era, the cemetery, archetypal space of the community, is the place of the collective apparitions. Predecessors, ancestors, deceased anonymous are there, sometimes benevolent, sometimes threatening.

In Wales Arawn, king of Annwn, helped by his hounds, or Gwyn ap Nudd, seeks to catch them during the nights when the wild geese pass (in Ireland it is a named Donn the dark one who plays this role at Tech Duinn). In a more general way besides, the stories of ghosts are multiplied at the end of the eleventh and at the beginning of the twelfth century. We owe to Orderic Vitalis the oldest story about the Harlequin’s Hunt the host of dead, of which he tells the appearance (Ecclesiastical History. Orderic clearly regards the source as unimpeachable and the tale as true. We are even told the date of the event: January 1, 1092.The narrator is the priest Walchelin).

In the twelfth century, we therefore observe a "trivialization" of the stories of apparitions of ghosts in the exempla, copied and reused over and over again by preachers. The latter teach in particular that it is hardly dangerous to cross the cemetery if you pray for the deceased; they may then end themselves the prayer by a resounding Amen, even bodily protect the pious man against his worldly enemies. On the other hand, they can become violent with regard to who despises them.

The crossing of the cemetery can therefore, according to the attitude of the passerby, be peaceful or become fiendishly dangerous, especially at night. For in the Middle Ages, it belongs to the dead. Generally speaking, the obscurity, which reminds of the darkness, befits the disturbing supernatural manifestations. Night is the kingdom of devil and demons; it is also that of the evildoers. The worldly night, black as the darkness of hell, is peopled with souls deprived of divine light. All the supernatural dangers present at night in the cemetery are to be found in the literary theme of the perilous cemetery, which is developed in writing from the end of the eleventh century after earlier motives.

In several romances of this period, such as Amadas and Ydoine, the Perilous cemetery, or Perlesvaux, we find the story of a hero, or heroin, if necessary, who must go alone and nightly in a cemetery, for various reasons. It is an opportunity for him, or her, to fight the diabolical creatures who are gathered there and who attack him (or her). Thanks to his or her faith and courage, the hero defeats his or her enemies - in spite of their supernatural strength - and arrives safely in the early morning.

In the literary or hagiographic cemetery of the twelfth century, so dangerous at night, only light is benevolent. The clarity emanating from the chapel at the heart of the perilous cemetery of the Perslevaux, the light of the torches of the monastic processions, the soft glow of the lantern of the dead of Peter the Venerable pertain to the same culture: it is the presence of God which removes the demons from the space of the dead, in the heart of the night, and protects the living and the dead from all supernatural dangers. It is found in the heart of the monastic practice of the light lit in the dormitory. The rule of St Benedict, in the sixth century, prescribed simply: " A candle shall be kept burning in the room until morning."

In his De miraculis, Peter the Venerable also stages a monk, a wood craftsman, sleeping in a somewhat isolated place in the community. "As is the custom in monastic dormitory, a lighted lamp illuminated this place" what does not prevent demons from meeting at his bedside to discuss their nightly misdeeds, but prevents them from bruise the poor monk when they realize his presence. The protective light of the monastic dormitory may have a certain correspondence with that of the lantern of the dead.

Since the Carolingian period at least, the etymologists point out that cœmeterium comes from a Greek term meaning dormitory, because the dead sleep there while expecting resurrection. The lantern of the dead, in the monastic perspective, especially the clunisian viewpoint of Peter the Venerable, could well be the material light that protects the sons of the divine light in the cemetery, bodily and spiritually. Yet at the same time, another mode of protection of the funerary space was diffused: the bishop consecration, a sacramental appeared in the Roman pontificals in the tenth century and that Urban II promotes during his journey in 1095-1096.

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Indeed, since the tenth century, the burial places are subject to a jealous control by the ecclesiastical authority which also arrogates the right, at the same time, to excommunicate or curse those who oppose it by depriving them of eternal light. It is the role of the impressive rituals of monastic curse accompanied by the extinguishment of candles or more simply that of the deprivation of ecclesiastical burial. Even before that time, the cemetery enjoyed a special legal status, protected from late antiquity by the right of asylum. This local immunity allows anyone who wishes to seek refuge there, for himself or his property.

The legal protection of the right of asylum and the ecclesiastical protection of the Peace of God are strengthened, from the tenth century at least, by the sacramental of the bishop consecration. Consecrated by the bishop, the cemetery protects the deceased who repose there from unclean spirits, but rejects from the burial ground those who are not part of Christian society. The consecration of the cemetery has for stated purpose (in the pertaining prayers) to purify the space, to assign it to the burial of the faithful and to defend the buried corpses from the attacks of the demons. There is hardly question of light, except through the four candles lighted at the corners of the cemetery to be consecrated before the sprinkling holy water. The essence of the rite in fact aims for protecting the Christian faithful who repose there from the proximity of the corpse of infidels and of the evil spirits that prowl.

The profile of the lanterns of the dead, column shafts a few meters high topped with a lantern, is familiar to the inhabitants of Limousin, Poitou and Saintonge. These beautiful buildings, often of the Romanesque period, are sometimes found today in the main square of the villages or in some isolated place of the municipality. In the Middle Ages, they were all in the middle of the cemetery and were used to protect, it is said, the dead, from the devil, and the living from the ghosts. However, little is known about their precise medieval use, before legend and mythology tackle it 1).

As for the shape, the "Aquitaine" or "limousine" lanterns (which some authors call "traditional") are distinguished first by their height and their verticality, which breaks up with the horizontality of the neighboring graves while responding to the bell tower of the neighboring church and making them visible sometimes from far away. The body of the lantern, generally six to eight times higher than wide, is made, according to the cases, of a column, of a bundle of small columns, or of a square or polygonal, built shat. At the base, a small door gives access to a gap inside, space that can accommodate a staircase or, more often, a few side notches making possible the ascent of a man. At the top, openings in variable number are made or formed by the regular spacing of the top small columns. In the center of this openwork space, which could be glazed (some lanterns indeed keep traces of rabbets), a hook could fix a lamp and / or a pulley reserved for hoisting it. The whole is topped with a roof of variable shape (cone, bell tower or pyramid) and a cross. The feeling of verticality is sometimes accentuated by the topographical situation of the lantern and, above all, by an important stairway forming a platform which is not without reminding of that of the hosanna crosses. All these architectural features can be found in the thirty or so still preserved lanterns. See for example that in the churchyard at Bisley Gloucestershire which is referred to as the Poor Soul’s Light.

The column, hollow and open at the top, makes possible the more or less easy ascent of a man and that of an oil lamp whose light is visible at night through the openings of the lantern. These elements, however, do not seem sufficiently significant to assign to the lanterns a precise date, which often ranges from the twelfth to the thirteenth centuries, without convincing arguments being put forward.

The only written testimony that evokes such a structure in the background of the twelfth century is a passage from the De miraculis by Peter the Venerable. The scene takes place on the eve of Christmas, around 1150, at the clunisian priory of Charlieu. A young oblate sees his uncle appear, who had died for some years, but who invites him to follow him to contemplate wonderful things. In fact, after leaving the dormitory and crossing the major cloister and the cloister of the sick, they arrive at the cemetery. There, in an indefinable light, the child sees an innumerable crowd of men clothed in the monastic habit. The scene continues with the description of a true lantern of the dead.

There is, at the center of the cemetery, a stone structure (structura), on top of which is a place that can house a lamp (lampas), its light (fulgor) brightening this sacred place every night as a sign of respect (ob reverentiam) for the faithful who are resting here. There also are some small steps (gradus) leading to a platform (spatium) which can be sufficient for two or three men, standing or seated.

To the mysteries of the time and place is added the magic of figures: the lantern of Fenioux, with eleven columns for the shaft and its thirteen small columns for the lantern, lends itself admirably to all numerological reflections.

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Combined with ancient cemeteries, the lanterns of the dead have also sometimes given rise to real legends: thus, it is said that in Saint-Pierre d'Oleron, a subterranean passage went from the lantern to the neighboring church.

Apart from these few stories, which do not properly belong to scientific analysis, we can also mention two hypotheses to be considered with extreme caution: the Celtic tradition and the eastern influence. Such a pseudo-Celtic origin, which is part of a current of thought characteristic of the time, is based on the history of the evangelization of Limousin, attributed to Irish monks. 2) The search for a foreign origin of the lanterns of the dead can be found in the Orientalist viewpoint, also noticeable in the nineteenth century. It finds a support, equally fragile, in the lantern of Fenioux, one of the four balls adorning the damaged summit pyramid appears from the ground (to the east) as having the shape of a moon crescent.

CONCLUSION.

The action of the bishops, that of the monks, and the relay provided by the "converted" aristocrats have therefore completed the Christianization of the West. But did the "Christianized" populations have really the cultural and spiritual means to participate and understand the liturgy, especially the Sunday Mass? We can doubt it. Priests trained quickly; liturgical form in a Latin that could not be understood by the German-speaking or Celtic-speaking populations, and which no longer corresponded to the lingua romana rustica, that is to say, to the Latin spoken in the Romance-speaking countries; separation in each church by a wooden or stone barrier (the choir screen ) of the choir (place reserved for the clergy, for the celebration) from the nave (reserved for the faithful): nothing was done for the faithful participate actively. Only the "devogdonion" meal of commensality (the Eucharist or communion) could give the liturgy a truly sacral force. But the councils suggest that the faithful communicate very rarely, and often besides still in a sin state (when they should have done penance before).

Does this mean that Christianity was only a facade phenomenon? The condemnation repeated by the councils and synods, of ritual or magical practices inherited from the old paganisms, might give it to think.

1) In the more specifically funerary context, the use of light placed on the grave is an ancient tradition and persists at the time that interests us. In 1218, the general chapter of the Cistercian order prohibits, for example, lighting lamps on graves.

2) One cannot help but think of the round tower that was built in the 19th century in Milford Cemetery, Massachusetts, as a memorial to the thousands of Irish emigrants who repose there. Built in granite, it is the only one in North America.

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THE ROMANESQUE ART (10th 12th century).

The Romanesque period extends from the end of the 10th century to the beginning of the13th century, but there is no precise limit, each region evolving at its own pace, and each work of art may have different parts, which can be distinguished today by their style, inspiration or decoration. Given the rise of Romanesque sculpture, the distinction between a religious and a secular field is not justified: it is a work of the Church that will be used from time to time and without noticeable change, for the decoration of civil architecture.

Given the rise of Romanesque sculpture, the distinction between a religious and a secular field is not justified: it is a work of the Church that will be used from time to time and without noticeable change, for the decoration of civil architecture.

The foundations will be laid since the late antiquity, with the Christianization of society. This society is literally dominated by Christianity. Nothing-or almost of what will be accomplished during this period can be exactly appreciated only in terms of Christian principles. Political organization (kingship by divine right) is, essentially, inseparable from Christianity; social life, economic activity, spiritual life, everything is connected.

Indeed, in medieval society, the church occupies a privileged place thanks to its specific activity, prayer, considered as a public utility. In the medieval vision of the world the body as such does not exist. The soul is always closely combined with it, and the concern for the hereafter is widely shared.

The first carved elements are funerary monuments, sarcophagi, small objects. At this stage, Christianity adopted patterns that had no particular Christian meaning. Due to the population explosion, the needs are enormous. Men rarely have so much constructed, and this widespread activity carried out the spread of the Romanesque style to the frontiers of western Christendom. It also spread even in the most remote countryside, taking on a popular characteristic which distinguished it from the former styles, essentially aristocratic. A clunisian monk of the year 1000, Rodulfus Glaber, was perhaps the finest observer of the origins of Romanesque architecture and medieval art. In the 11th century, the churches that had been destroyed by the Normans were rebuilt. This architecture, at first quite massive, was sober and pared down.

New spots being adapted to the sculpture in the churches, it was necessary to find sculptors to decorate these religious buildings. But monumental sculpture was given up for 500 or 600 years, and no one was able to carve images in stone. It took almost a century to get the first results. This art will be thus displayed in its whole splendor: the capitals, the columns and their base for the interior, the portals and the windows for the outside.

We are sometimes surprised by some of the scenes represented in these religious buildings. In the Middle Ages the scenes of transgressions are globally images of norms, they are there as a moralizing reference, by contrast, implicitly. They are asked by the sponsors in a didactic logic based on the image of evil. The maintenance of law and order here goes through the image of what should not be done. The medieval authority believes that behaviors conforming to normative values – the models - are more easily favored by the representation of what is not allowed to do – the counter-models. In this perspective, the abnormality seems to be able to refer to the norm enacted by the Church, a major source of moral values. The religious authorities therefore ordered official images of good behavior, but they also ordered representations of the practices they condemned most. These images of counter models can be understood only by reference to canons, to strictly defined models.

One of the Church's most usual means of fighting avarice or lust was to stigmatize these sins in the representations of hell, often at the tympanums of the portals. The disqualification of behavior can be signified by their punishment.

So here we are faced with an attempt at a Christian representation of good and evil using well-designed normative categories. It is perhaps easier to make images of hell likely to inspire good behavior by the fear of punishment than to suggest the state of heavenly bliss. Of course today, in an entirely different societal logic, it is hardly conceivable to use images of bad acts to define the good act. See the trials on this subject. But at the time, represented in many ways, Satan, a cunning and multifaceted tempter like the eternal Nemesis, is one of the most familiar figures of the eleventh-twelfth-century buildings. According to Rodulfus Glaber, he possessed a ‘scrawny neck,’ ‘pointy hairy ears,’ ‘fangs like a dog,’ ‘a humped back,’ ‘wobbling buttocks’ and was adorned with ‘dirty’ garments (sic).

It is the Romanesque imagery that will put on the front of the stage this evil being seeking to seduce, to deviate and to harass the weak and sinful men. In their abundant figuration of Satan and of the diabolical activities, the Romanesque illustrators, portraying ever more the vices than the virtues, will show a rich figurative inventiveness.

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The canonical texts bringing little description of the beyond of this world, it is in some apocryphal writings that the master sculptors will draw a part of their inspiration to evoke in the stone heaven but especially hell.

As we have already had the opportunity to say about the Sheela na gig in Ireland, but the same can be said of the devil, the frescoes and statues in Romanesque churches are the comic strips of such a fear propaganda. Thus, the depths of the earth, which for the Greeks and Romans housed hardly the abode of the dead, and even nothing like that for the druids who did not believe in the existence of hell 1), gradually became what we understand today by this term: disaster or horror movies with infinite torture.

More symbolically, whatever credibility that t is nowadays recognized to him, the devil is at the time an allegory of Evil. The Romanesque man fears the Devil One who is thought to be constantly watching for the opportunity to grasp the slightest human weaknesses. Satan is omnipresent in the culture of the time which reports his frightening demonstrations.

From the tympanums and capitals, grimacing or sneering - at once human, animal and monstrous creature - the Devil One pursues the medieval man whom he never ceases to question.

The attributes of the devil, perceived as the spirit of Evil, are to be found in all the Romanesque imagery. Angel who has fallen, in Judeo-Christian thought, by wanting to challenge God, by claiming to be his equal and by rejecting him, he rejected Good and is behind Evil.

For the Romanesque man the devastating consequences of sin are the anguishing and nagging question. He knows that all his life on earth, and his eternal fate in the hereafter, gravitate around this drama. He never ceases to scan it, to look at it in the light of the revelation, he reflects on his experiments of a sinner – that his sin irresistibly brings down.

Romanesque art is also par excellence a monastic art; the 12th century is on the top of the contemplative life: all these monks study, they renounced the world, but not the studies. The monasteries are financed thanks to the patronage of the princes ( the monks often come from the same aristocratic families, the powerful have thus the opportunity to redeem their faults) and through the worship of relics, very popular at that time . The monasteries play a decisive role in the dissemination of architectural and artistic forms.

The narrative cloister makes its appearance. This place, the very center of monastic life and reserved for the religious community, will be illustrated with scenes from the Old and New Testaments, or hagiographies. That of Moissac, completed in 1100, is a perfect example of it among the most beautiful and the oldest: it contains 76 capitals carved on their four faces, a tympanum with the Last Judgment, a trumeau with tangled lions and lionesses, a very rich iconography, a lively, expressive decoration and a search for movement already very far advanced.

The sculptors then enjoyed a favored place in society. They dedicated their work to God or to the Saints and sometimes signed their work: "Gislebertus hoc fecit" we may read at Autun, in the middle of the tympanum.

EDITOR’S NOTE. This fear of the Devil of the Hell and of the Last Judgment will produce besides a few generations later, from the 14th century onwards, the theme that it is agreed in the history of art to call dance of death or dance macabre . Whereas in Romanesque art in the strict sense of the term what was found was the representation of the last judgment. This one is indeed very present in the monumental Romanesque sculpture with its picturesque extensions on the theme of the hell and its tortures. But in this whole set of themes we see no representation of a corpse: they are the living who are driven by contorted demons in the jaws of hell or brought by smiling angels towards the peace of Paradise. All this is perfectly consistent with the Christian doctrine that Christ overcame death, and that the final judgment implies the resurrection of the flesh.

The recumbent statue, which will appear in the twelfth century, will be on the contrary, for 200 years, a glorious image of the dead, adorned with his warrior or lordly attributes. It secures the memory of the deceased and reminds of him the prayers of the faithful; it has nothing funereal before the end of the fourteenth century. And then things will change. The theme of the dance of death appears at the beginning of the fifteenth century, and will triumph during the sixteenth.

The prospect of the last judgment moves away. The invention of purgatory in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries created a new, intermediate, supernatural space, influenced in good or evil by the individual behavior during life. Indulgences multiplied to reduce the length of this purgatory. The auricular confession due to the Celtic monks is institutionalized in the Lateran Council in order to guarantee to each one the forgiveness of sins ... At the same time, the marriage receives a sacramental expression so that the Church can accompany all the stages of the life of the faithful and make an access to salvation possible, compatible with a sex life. Salvation becomes the business of the individual, king or

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shepherd, man or woman, and not of professionals. At the same time, mendicant orders (Franciscans, Dominicans) appear to preach lay people without locking themselves in their monasteries. It is also for this purpose that cathedrals and churches are decorated with rood screens, from which preaching becomes possible (and which will be destroyed after the Council of Trent so that the lay people participate fully in the masses). This necessity of preaching reveals, implicitly, the tepidity of the faithful, and even their skepticism before the solutions proposed by the Church for their salvation. It is also the time when piety becomes pathetic and even doloristic : worships of the Five wounds of Christ or of the Virgin of the Seven Sorrows succeed the triumphant Christ of the Romanesque period, the crowned Our Lady of the beginnings of the Gothic, ... The Christs are no longer in glory, but in cross, the images of ecce homo or of pieta spread. It matches, of course, the emergence and development of Christian doctrines which are more or less separating from the Roman Catholic : Beguines, Hussites, Evangelists, Reformists.

This type of fresco appears in the middle of the 15th century in the churches of Amiens, Angers, Dijon, or Rouen, both on the ground and on the facades.

Generally, the dances of death are painted (or more rarely carved) on the outside walls of cloisters, ossuaries or inside some churches. On these frescoes, a scraggy corpse or a skeleton is coupled with a representative of a certain social class. The number of the characters and the composition of the dance depend on the place of creation. The dance of death usually takes the form of a farandole. Below or above the illustration are depicted lines of verse addressed by Death to his victim, often in a threatening and accusing tone, sometimes in a sarcastic and cynical, tone. Then follows the supplication of the Man, full of remorse and despair, begging for pity. But Death drags everyone into the dance: from the whole clerical hierarchy such as popes, cardinals, bishops, abbots, canons, priests, through representatives of the secular world, emperors, kings, dukes , counts, knights, doctors, merchants, usurers, thieves, peasants and even the innocent child.

The theme of the Danzas de la Muerte will persist until the Spanish War of 1936 (see the famous motto Viva la Muerte).

1) Bernese scholia commenting on Lucan's Pharsalia.

Hermann Usener. Scholia in Lucani bellum civile/Commenta Bernensia. Liber I (1869).

451 "Druids deny that souls can perish

[Driadae negant interire animas]

OR GO TO HELL »

[Aut contagione inferorum adfici] and

454 "They do not say that the Manes exist"

[Manes esse, not dicunt].

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SHORT HISTORY OF THE INQUISITION.

PSYCHOLOGY AND ETHICS.

Even in error conscience obliges. That is to say, it is normal and therefore just that man follows his conscience.

Tertullian, Letter to Scapula, 2.2. " However, it is a fundamental human right, a privilege of nature, that every man should worship according to his own convictions: one man's religion neither harms nor helps another man. It is assuredly no part of religion to compel religion— to which freewill and not force should lead us— the sacrificial victims even being required of a willing mind. You will render no real service to your gods by compelling us to sacrifice. For they can have no desire of offerings from the unwilling.”

But if conscience is free, this freedom comes up against two duties in Christian thought:

-The moral duty of each individual to seek truth and to live accordingly;

-The institutional duty of the Church to announce and defend what it believes to be the Truth, that is to say, finally, dogma.

In France, the historical memory laws - for example, the Gayssot Act- have all the characteristics of being in an Inquisition logic: with them the public authorities have the mission to prohibit opinions by a legal arsenal. The supreme crime par excellence is therefore today to be racist but at the time it was that of being heretical. The Old Testament is indeed categorical about this subject.

Exodus 20: 3-5: " You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation….”

The tragedy of Christianity is that its mitochondrial DNA is its Jewish origin (spiritually Semitic, Pope Pius XI said). The first big spiritual disaster for humanity, in view of the extent this superstition took with Christianity, was indeed to believe

A) That the future can be predicted outside any rational mode of forecasting, for example by revelations;

B) that an extraordinary man or even a god (a messiah) must come to wrest from his difficult coexistence with other nations the people chosen by the only true god existing in the world;

C) that the coming of this Messiah has been announced with precision in certain writings (in this case the Jewish Bible).

As a result, unlike Buddhism or Greek philosophy, what was important was not to convince one’s interlocutors by exchanging rational arguments, nor even to behave in a way that was already morally irreproachable, but to re-cognize the Messiah in the man in question, and not to oppose his action or even to support it.

The other true spiritual disaster for Humanity was that, unlike the Greek philosophers or Buddhism, for example, Christianity started from a milieu (the Jewish people or its God-fearing sympathizers) that an undeniable feeling of national superiority put a priori in a state of latent conflict with other populations (the non-Jew goyim or pagans) to which it quickly spoke. Hence the racist hatred of the early Christians for freedom of religion, for temples and statues outside the field of their belief or mythology. Disaster aggravated by the impossibility of any rational dialogue since the only thing that mattered was to recognize in this man the messiah announced by the Jewish writings: in other words the faith.

It is enough to turn a few seconds towards the god of the philosophers or Buddhism to realize the gap that separates them from Christianity.

The Greek philosophers tried to convince their interlocutors by demonstrations, Buddha also. But as for Christianity, faith being necessary to salvation, orthodoxy is therefore capital and heterodoxy or heresy risks eternal damnation.

Now, heresies, God knows that there were many of them. But first of all, what is heresy?

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Etymologically speaking heresy (Greek hairesis), is a school of thought, a choice made within a common doctrine or faith.

Culturally speaking in Judaism the divergence of interpretation is admitted and even encouraged as evidenced by the discussions recorded in the Talmud. After a lengthy discussion, to review all cases, the case-law decision was voted on; the minority opinion is preserved in case it could prove useful.

Generally, a heresy, in Judaism, leads to a split, without any real consequence for the minorities, who are always considered as belonging to Judaism, except in contemporary ultra-Orthodox congregations. This comes from the fact that being a member of the "chosen people" does not depend on opinions or faith but on another criterion: matrilineal filiation. Spinoza is an extreme case. He was declared Herem, i.e., a "heretic" by the Jewish community in Amsterdam. However, this condemnation is more due to the history of the aforementioned community, mainly made out of Marranos from Portugal than to the heterodoxy of Spinoza's positions, at least until his exclusion.

Within Christianity, heresy is, FROM THE BAPTIZED (IT DOES NOT CONCERN THE JEWS OR THE PAGANS) the deliberate refusal of a proposition defined by the Church as revealed truth.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines it in these terms: "Heresy is the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and Catholic faith, or it is likewise an obstinate doubt concerning the same (2089).

Heresy must not be mixed up with apostasy (total rejection of faith) or schism (refusal of submission to the pope). But in a Christian context, heresy describes a complex situation of conflict and break, in which are generally superimposed the heresy properly so-called (deviance on the content of faith) and schism (non-obedience to church authority).

At the beginning of the Christian era, as the dogma was not very developed, there could be a great variety of conceptions of Christlike message. But the more the dogma developed (up to concern the least details) the more the opportunities for being heretical were multiplied.

During the first three centuries, that is, as long as Christianity was not in power, the different Christian tendencies coexisted in spite of themselves.

The first great division took place between the Judeo-Christians and the Pagan-Christians. The two movements had different conceptions of the practice of religiosity, but they lived together and even helped each other economically speaking. The heresy for these Christians was fought by reference to the scriptures and the debate. The different Pauline and post-Pauline epistles attest to this logic.

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ANCIENT ROOTS.

The ideological clashes between Jews, Christians and Hellenized Christians, between hedonistic Gnostics and Christian Gnostics, between Marcionites and anti-Marcionites, between Montanists and proto-Catholics (for example, are rejected by the Christian Gnostic philosophers as Valentinus or Theodotus , fervent promoters of the idea of Trinity 1) etc.etc..... had never led to persecution. Everything will change, of course, as soon as a state religion will emerges, claiming to be in line with an eternal truth ... completely fabricated.

All these retroactive exclusions have a purpose: to suggest that orthodoxy existed as early as the 1st century and was to defend itself against doctrines that falsified it. The future official Church will consider that it partakes of the holiness of Christ through its connection and grants itself the title of "holy." This tendency become official will also give the title of "saints" to the thinkers whom it wished to point out as being in compliance with its doctrine of the 5th and 6th centuries. Now, as John Toland had very well anticipated it, in regard to the Fathers of the Church having written, their works have been corrupted and distorted in a striking manner, or have only been partially preserved. And if they were preserved, their meaning is still much more obscure or controversial than that of the Holy Scriptures (memory quote). Even St Irenaeus was suppressed by the incipient Church which removed from him the millenarian expectations. A manuscript of 1575, escaped from this censorship, and containing precisely hitherto unknown chapters of St. Irenaeus, shows it.

The official Christianity of the fourth century besides will go as far as retroactively accusing of heresy thinkers who nevertheless who rank among the great founders of the Church. Tatian is anathematized (for Dualism and Docetism) and Montanism becomes a schism a posteriori, whereas it has done so much for the success of the current which will produce the Christianity we know today (Tertullian will never be canonized: there is no St Tertullian ). The dogma sketched in 325 will endeavor to prohibit any new enlightenment by the Holy Spirit of the kind of those of Montanus and his prophetesses.

Inventing a past that goes right back to Jesus, Christianity of the fourth century fabricates also for itself an orthodoxy, by means of a line going artificially from Christ to Nicaea.

The end of the few persecutions incurred by the tendency of Christianity, which has become a state religion (there were only two real moments of official and general persecution, for essentially political reasons besides), will sound the death knell of the other Christian branches. Until then, the future official Christianity had fought against Judaism, Judeo-Christianity, Christian and non-Christian Gnostics, its first churches, that of Marcion and Montanus, without physical violence.

But from 325 onwards, and from the seizure of power by one of the sects of incipient Christianity, the notion of heresy will apply on the contrary with a rigor which will not cease to grow until the end of the sixteenth century, because as soon as it acceded to power, official Christianity will appropriate the centralized authority of the Emperor.

Arianism, arisen from of a power rivalry between bishops, will justify executions under Theodosius. With the Donatists, in Africa, that will become a real war of religion, on one side as well as the other. The Circumcellions supporting Bishop Donatus will end drowned in blood.

The Orthodox of Byzantium, as for them, will undertake to massacre just as pitilessly a Manichaean movement known as Paulicianism, distant ancestor of Cathars.

In fact, the Church has established a power. Preaching was gradually accompanied by the forces of law and order like in St. Martin’s case. Christianization has been a long-lasting phenomenon, much slower than it was believed; the constraint was significant; the role of the political power and of the bishops determining. It is from the moment when power will impose Christianity that the latter will triumph. And this power favors "one Christianity": the one who has the support of the emperor becomes, in fact, orthodoxy.

The gradual substitution for the ancient culture of Christian culture was not done without opposition nevertheless, especially from the aristocracy, which defended for a long time the taste for (pagan) culture.

The heirs to Constantine were not long in persecuting the pagans and the ancient cults (with the exception of Julian the Apostate, of course!)

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The Emperors Constantius and Theodosius were great Christians, fanatical and intolerant, like the clergy of his time we have just evoked.

The Christians had an aggressive attitude towards the pagans, and many besides demanded against idolatry the application of the penalties enacted in the Old Testament. Constantius and Theodosius closed the temples, prohibited the sacrifices under death penalty (capital punishment against those who were convicted of worshiping divine representations and of celebrating sacrifices) made the statues of gold or silver molten in order to embellish the churches. The ancient gods then sought refuge in the remote localities of the country; hence the words pagani and paganismus in Latin language.

1) In the fourth century, Marcellus of Ancyra declared that the idea of the Godhead in three hypostases came from Plato through the teachings of Valentinus, who is quoted as a heretic teaching that God consists of three hypostases and three prosopa (persons) called the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.But what Tertullian says about that (in his treatise on the soul) seems to differ a little. As well as Sabellius, for whom monad could become triad. But here too this particular form of Modalism was rejected. So who would believe?

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AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS AND THE RELIGIOUS POLICY BY THEODOSIUS.

"Julian knew from experience that no wild beasts are such enemies to mankind as are most of the Christians in their deadly hatred of one another” (Ammianus Marcellinus, XXII, 5, 3-4).

" Damasus and Ursinus, burning with a superhuman desire of seizing the bishopric [and therefore the papacy], engaged in bitter strife because of their opposing interests; and the supporters of both parties went even so far as conflicts ending in bloodshed and death. Since Viventius [ the head of the city in 366. Author’s note], was able neither to end nor to diminish this strife, he was compelled to yield to its great violence, and retired to the suburbs. And in the struggle Damasus was victorious through the efforts of the party which favored him.

It is a well-known fact that in the basilica of Sicininus, where the assembly of the Christian sect is held, in a single day a hundred and thirty-seven corpses of the slain were found, and that it was only with difficulty that the long-continued frenzy of the people was afterwards quieted. Bearing in mind the ostentation in city life, I do not deny that those who are desirous of such a thing ought to struggle with the exercise of all their strength to gain what they seek; for when they attain it, they will be so free from care that they are enriched from the offerings of matrons, ride seated in carriages, wearing clothing chosen with care, and serve banquets so lavish that their entertainments outdo the tables of kings. These men might be truly happy, if they would disregard the greatness of the city behind which they hide their faults, and live after the manner of some provincial bishops, whose moderation in food and drink, plain apparel also, and gaze fixed upon the earth, commend them to the eternal Deity and to his true servants as pure and reverent men. ….Through his authority and his decisions based upon justice and truth the outbreak which was stirred up by the quarrels of the Christians was quelled, and after the banishment of Ursinus profound quiet reigned, which most suited the wish of the citizens in the City” (Ammianus Marcellinus XXVII, 3, 12-14).

N.B. If we understand well this testimony of Ammianus Marcellinus, the bishops of Rome or the popes of the Borgia type, this already existed in the 4th century.

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THE PRO TEMPLIS OF LIBANIUS.

Warning to the reader. It is true that at the moment when Libanius wrote this speech to Theodosius, this very Christian emperor had not yet shown the full extent of his fanaticism of a Talibanus or Parabolanus of Christianity. Libanius could still have illusions about him, about his level of toleration, but the poor will soon be disappointed. Let us hope for our nation that it will never experience again, despite its decline, such positive or negative discrimination (positive for the visible minority that Christians then constituted, negative for the silent majority of other citizens).

Historical Background. In the reign of Theodosius several pagan temples, some of them magnificent, were pulled down and destroyed in the cities, but especially in country places, by the parabolani monks, with the consent and connivance of certain bishops, as Libanius intimates, and without express order of the Emperor to that purpose. Of this Libanius therefore complains, and implores the Emperor's protection, that the temples may be preserved.

“Having already, O Emperor, often offered advice which has been approved by you, even when others have advised contrary things, I come to you now upon the same design, and with the same hopes…

Men then having at first secured themselves in dens and huts. Having there experienced the protection of the gods, they soon perceived how beneficial to mankind their favor must be. They therefore, as may be supposed, erected to them statues and temples, such as they could in those early times. When they began to build cities, upon the increase of arts and sciences, there were therefore many temples on the sides of mountains and in plains: and in every city [as they built it] next to the walls were temples and sacred edifices raised, as the embryo of the rest of the body. For from such patron saints they expected the greatest security: if you survey the whole Roman empire, you will find this to be the case everywhere. In the city next to the greatest there are still some temples, though they are deprived of their honors, a few indeed out of many, but yet it is not quite destitute. With the aid of these gods, the Romans fought and conquered their enemies…

When I was a child, he who led the army overthrew him that had affronted him; they having first prayed to the gods for success before they engaged. But having prevailed over him who at that time gave prosperity to the cities, judging it for his advantage to have another deity, for the building of the city which he then designed he made use of the sacred money, but made no alteration in the official worship. The temples indeed were impoverished, but the rites were still performed there. But when the empire came to his son, or rather the appearance of the empire, for the government was really in the hands of others.....therefore being governed by them, even when he was Emperor, he was led into many wrong actions, and among others to forbid sacrifices. These his cousin, possessed of every virtue, restored, what he did otherwise, or intended to do, I omit at present. After his death in Persia, the liberty of sacrificing remained for some time: but at the instigation of some revolutionaries, sacrifices were forbidden by the two brothers but not incense; which state of things your law has ratified. So that we do not have more reason to be uneasy for what is denied us than to be thankful for what is allowed. You, therefore, have not ordered the temples to be shut up, nor forbidden any to frequent them: nor have you driven from the temples or the altars, fire or frankincense, or other honors of incense. But those black-garbed people 1), who eat more than elephants, and demand a large quantity of wine from the people who send them drink (?????) for their chanting, but who hide their luxury by their pale artificial countenances, these men, O Emperor, even whilst your law is in force, run to the temples, bringing with them wood, and stones, and iron, and when they do not have these, hands and feet. Then follows a Mysian prey 2) , the roofs are uncovered, walls are pulled down, images are carried off, and altars are overturned: the priests all the while must be silent upon pain of death. [Oh really, but I believed that Christianity was a religion of love? ? ?] When they have destroyed one temple they run to another, and a third, and trophies are erected upon trophies: which are all contrary to [your] law. This is the practice in cities, but especially in the countries. After innumerable mischiefs have been perpetrated, the scattered multitude unites and comes together, and they require of each other an account of what they have done and he is ashamed who cannot tell of some great injury which he has been guilty of. They, therefore, spread themselves over the country like torrents, wasting the countries together with the temples: but wherever they demolish the temple of a country, at the same time the country itself is blinded, declines, and dies. For the temples are the soul of a country; they have been the first of the buildings in the country, and they have subsisted for many ages to this time; and in them are all the husbandman's hopes, concerning men, and women, and children, and oxen, and the seeds and the plants of the ground. Wherever any country has lost its

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temples, that country is lost, and the hopes of the husbandmen, and with them all their energy: for they suppose they shall labor in vain, when they are deprived of the gods who should bless their labors; and the countryside not being cultivated as usual, the tribute [due to the emperor] is diminished equally. This being the state of things, the husbandman is impoverished, and the State revenue suffers. For, be the will ever so good, impossibilities are not to be surmounted. Of such mischievous consequence are the arbitrary proceedings of those persons in the country, who say: 'We make war against temples.'

But that war is the gain of those who attack the temples: and robbing these miserable people of their goods, and what they had laid up of the fruits of the earth for their sustenance, they go off as with the spoils of those whom they have conquered. Nor are they satisfied with this, for they also seize the lands of some, saying it is given [to the gods]. Many are deprived of their paternal inheritance upon a false pretense. And if they who are abused come to the pastor in the city (for so they call a man who is not one of the meekest) complaining of the injustice that has been done them, this pastor 3) commends these first ones, but rejects the victims, as if they ought to think themselves happy that they have suffered no more. [If we understand correctly, these Christians, faithful and priests, as soon as they were able to do it, have done unto others what they do not like at all that people do unto them, for example like today in certain Muslim countries, like Egypt. Author’s note].

Although, O Emperor, these also are your subjects, and so much more profitable than those who injure them, as laborious men are than the idle, they are like bees, these like drones. Moreover, if they hear of any land which has anything that can be plundered, they cry presently, 'Such a one sacrificed, and does abominable things, an army ought to be sent against him.' [This is besides also what St Martin did at the other end of the empire if we understand correctly certain episodes of his life. Author’s note]. And presently the reformers are there: for by this name they call their depredators, if I have not used too soft a word. Some of these strive to conceal themselves and deny their proceedings; and if you call them robbers, you affront them. Others glory and boast, and tell their exploits to those who are ignorant of them, and say they are more deserving than the husbandmen. What is this but in time of peace to wage war with the husbandmen? By no means it lessens these evils that they suffer from their countrymen. But it is really more grievous to suffer the things which I have mentioned in a time of quiet, from those who ought to assist them in a time of trouble. For you, O Emperor, in case of a war collect an army, give out orders, and do everything suitable to the emergency. And the new works which you now carry on are designed as a further security against our enemies, that all may be safe in their habitations, both in the cities and in the country: and then if any enemies should attempt inroads, they may be sensible they roust suffer loss rather than gain any advantage. But how is it, then, that some under your government disturb others equally under your protection, and permit then not to enjoy the common benefits of it? How do they not defeat your own care and providence and labors, O Emperor? How do they not fight against your law by what they do?

They say, 'We have only punished those who sacrifice , and thereby transgress the law, which forbids sacrifices [to gods] '. O Emperor, when they say this they lie. For no one is so audacious, and so ignorant of the proceedings of the courts, as to think himself more powerful than your law. When I say your law, I mean the law against [to gods] sacrificers. Can it be thought that they who are not able to bear the sight of a collector's cloak, should despise the power of your government? This is what they say for themselves. And they have often been alleged to Flavian himself [bishop of Antioch] , and never have been confuted, no not yet. For I appeal to the guardian of this law….

Someone therefore may say: 'They have not sacrificed.' Let it be granted. But oxen have been killed at feasts.

Still there is no altar to receive the blood nor a part burned, nor any libation follow. And if some persons meeting together in some pleasant field kill a calf, or a sheep, or both, and roasting part and broiling the rest, have eat it under a shade upon the ground, I do not know that they have acted contrary to any laws. For neither have you, O Emperor, forbid these things by your law; but mentioning one thing, which ought not to be done, you have permitted therefore consequently everything else 4). So that though they should have feasted together with all sorts of incense, they have not transgressed the law, even though in that feast they should all have sung and invoked the gods. Unless you think fit to accuse even their private method of eating, by which it has been customary for the inhabitants....

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It is said that this is not permitted by their own law, which commends persuasion, and condemn compulsion 4). But why then do you run mad against the temples? When you cannot persuade, you use force ? In this they evidently transgress their own law.

They will further say: 'By this means some have been converted...... but when the latter are alone in a praying posture, they address to no one, or else they invoke the gods…

They add: 'It is for the good of the world, and the men in it, that there should be no longer temples.' Here, O Emperor, I need freedom of speech; for I fear lest I should offend………

'Let no man within my empire believe in the gods, nor worship them, nor ask any good thing of them, neither for himself, nor for his children, unless it be done in silence and privately; but let all present themselves at the places where I worship my god, and join in the rites there performed. And let them offer the same prayers which they do, and bow the head at the hand of him who directs the multitude. Whoever transgresses this law, shall be put to death.'

It was easy for you to publish such a law as this but you have not done it. But though you think one way better than the other, yet you do not judge that other to be an impiety, for which a man may be justly punished. Nor have you excluded from honors those followed still this path, but have conferred upon them the highest offices, and have given them access to your table, to drink and eat with you. This you have done formerly, and at this time; beside others, you have associated to yourself thinking it advantageous to your government, a man (which one ????) who swears still by the gods, both before others, and before yourself. You are not offended at it; nor do you think yourself injured by those oaths: nor do you account him a wicked man who places his best hopes in the gods.

When, therefore, you do not reject us, as neither did he who subdued the Persians by arms reject those of his subjects who differed from him in this matter, what pretense have these to reject us? How can these men reject their fellow subjects differing from them in this matter? By what right do they make these incursions? How do they seize other men's goods with the indignation of the husbandmen ? How do they destroy some things, and carry off others? Adding to the injury of their actions the insolence of glorying in them.

We, O Emperor, if you approve or permit these things, will bear them; not without grief indeed; but yet we will show that we have learned to obey. But if, on the other hand, you give them no legitimacy, and yet they come and invade our remaining goods, or our four walls: Know, that the owners of the countries will defend themselves (Nathaniel Lardner, volume VIII: Testimonies of ancient Heathens).

As we have already said in the introduction, the hopes that Libanius placed in Theodosius were cruelly disappointed, for this emperor, one of the bloodiest Christian Talibani or Parabolani in history, will make Christianity the only legal religion, excluding all others, and he will legalize the anti-pagan persecutions.

1) Frequent color among the Orthodox clergymen in the East.

2) Without resistance.

3) Allusion of Libanius to the Bishop of Antioch named Flavian?

4) Same reasoning in fact that Pope Gregory I in his instructions to the Abbot Mellitus as to the conversion of the Angles. See above in our chapter about Christianity in Great Britain.

5) Cf. Quran sura 2 verse 256: " No compulsion in religion, etc.." On the exact meaning of this expression see our booklet dealing with Islam.

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THE CASE HIEROCLES OF ALEXANDRIA, A DISCIPLE OF PLUTARCH

OF ATHENS CIRCA 400.

The Eastern Christians did not only attack property, they also attacked people. It was some McCarthyism before the word is invented. Such was the case, for example, of Hierocles, a Greek philosopher, of the Neoplatonic School, born in Alexandria, where he taught at the beginning with great success.

Banished for a time from his native city, he was obliged to appear at Constantinople perhaps, on account of his attachment to the former religion, before a court which sentenced him seriously; he undergoes with courage (like saint Hypatia) the ill-treatment that he Christians inflicted on him, and then returned to teach in Alexandria (about 415-450).

These various writings testify to a great moral stature and very sincere religious sentiments. Below the single God, creator of all things, Hierocles distinguishes three classes of gods: heavenly gods (angels), demons and the soul /minds of human beings.

Contrary to the habit of his teachers, he speaks of the will, wisdom and power of God in the usual way. Hierocles agrees with the Neoplatonists to deny the pre-existence of matter [at what stage, at the very beginning of the beginnings or at the beginning of each cycle afterwards) and the beginning of the world in time. He wants God to be the pro-creator of all things and that his action, as well as his essence, should be eternal compared with the created beings.

Spirits have been directly produced by him, and are the object of his Providence; the material nature has been generated, and then it is preserved, by God, but without regard to individuals, whose destiny is regulated, not as that of the spirits, by Providence, but by chance and necessity.

Hierocles, like Plato, believes in the pre-existence of human souls [the whole question is in what form, personal souls or vast psychic reservoir ?]; But he refuses to follow Porphyry and Iamblichus when they represent souls / minds as going to animate the bodies of animals, or on the contrary, becoming demons. The different classes of beings are separated by impassable barriers. He affirms energetically human freedom; he sees no difficulty in reconciling it with Providence. Providence is for him the paternal empire that God practices over the whole universe; the particular judgments that God gives for individuals constitute the destiny of the latter.

As to evil, the Deity is innocent of it; it is exclusively the work of the human being. God limits himself to linking certain consequences to actions which are freely chosen by men. In practical philosophy, Hierocles distinguishes the moral virtue which subjects the sensible part of the soul, the menman, to reason and the theoretical virtue which raises him to truth. The one leads to the other, the first makes man a good being, the second makes him a god. With Plato, Plotinus and Stoicism, he recommends to rise above all external goods. The true worship we ought to grant to the deity consists in knowing and imitating him. Finally, above practical virtue, and even theoretical virtue, he designs an existence, a still more perfect activity, which brings us closer to the Divinity. To be worthy of it and to reach it, it is necessary to submit oneself to certain rules of life, analogous to those that Pythagoras had prescribed. It is there that we see above all finally reappear mysticism, which is the common characteristic of all the Neoplatonist philosophers.

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THE HERESIES.

The struggle against heresies was not born with the Inquisition. Before the institution of the latter, the search for heretics was entrusted to the ordinary (usually the bishop) and punishment to the secular judge.

The anti-heresy struggle is not only the domain of the papacy; on the contrary, because of its social dimensions, the states themselves take care of it. They collaborate with the papacy. The first forms of suppression appeared at the beginning of the eleventh century: at Christmas 1022, King Robert the Pious had burned ten scholars of the cathedral in Orleans. It was the first stake in the history of the struggle against heresy in the West.

But around the year 1000, there were nevertheless few heretics, they were scattered here and there and were considered visionaries or mad people. Better, even, between 1050 and 1100, this accusation seems to have disappeared. It was then the time of the so-called Gregorian reform: the Church rallied all its energies in the struggle for its freedom against the sovereigns and for the reformation of the manners of its clergy, so it needed the germs of evangelism and spiritualism of the "heresies."

If the Church had experienced a period of relative calm after the ninth century, heresies underwent a new development in the twelfth century, most often following the pilgrim routes. Local studies have shown that heresies are often spread in this way: pilgrims discuss with each other and with the villagers during their stages, thus propagating questions and answers outside the regulatory power of the parish.

It was therefore in the Po Valley and in central Italy that appeared the first movements of the Middle Ages officially described as heretics.

-Let us begin with the Patarines in Milan, whose leaders were Ariald, and Landolph Cotta. Their motto (the voluntary poverty) reveals many things: we find in it the slogan of a social revolt in germ. All the itinerant preachers who multiply from this period reproach their listeners for having moved away from the commandments of the gospel and call them for rediscovering the way of life recommended by the early apostles.

-At the same time appears another movement on the other side of the Alps: the movement of the Poor of Lyons. The initiator is Peter Waldo (1140-1206), hence the name Waldensians given to this movement. Although their movement apparently had nothing revolutionary at first, its adepts nevertheless pretended to preach freely in the streets their call for a return to Gospel. Valdo himself affirmed that his vocation did not come from the Church but from the Lord. The gospel called out him the layman directly, without any need for an intermediary. The ecclesiastical hierarchy could not tolerate such an assertion. Its authority and its monopoly in religious and dogmatic matters were at stake. A cleric of the 1170s charged with the Waldensian file thus assessed the danger: "They follow the naked Christ. If we let them do it, we will be kicked out."

Hence the condemnation from the Bishop of Lyons. Waldo and his disciples were expelled from Lyons.

In practice, the struggle against heresies had hitherto taken several forms which, contrary to a widespread idea, were rarely violent at the outset. The most common were catechesis and preaching (speeches made especially during the Masses). But at that time, much more dangerous for the eldest daughter of the Church than the poor of Milan or Lyons, who preached only a return to the gospel, and were raised only against the corruption of the manners of the clergy, and who were, above all, schismatics, is developed in the south of Europe a true doctrinal heresy concerning ideas: the Catharism. What changed everything.

It was a dualist or Gnostic revival movement that thrived in some areas of Southern Europe, particularly northern Italy and southern France, between the 12th and 14th centuries. They called themselves "Good Men" or "Good Christians" but the Catholic Church did not recognize their belief as truly Christian. Specialists think their movement was coming from Persia or the Byzantine Empire. Cathar beliefs varied between communities, because Catharism was initially taught by ascetics who had set few guidelines, but the Catholic Church condemned its practices including the Consolamentum ritual. The Pope therefore sends two legates, in 1198, to "spread the word of God," and gives them all the powers and a method of judgment. On his side Dominic of Guzman (St

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Dominic) founds a monastic order to fight them by the preaching and the example of a mendicant life. From the beginning of his pontificate, Pope Innocent III attempted therefore to end Catharism by sending missionaries and by persuading the local authorities to act against them. But in 1208 Innocent's papal legate Pierre de Castelnau was murdered while returning to Rome after excommunicating Count Raymond VI of Toulouse. Pope then abandoned the peaceful option (to send Catholic missionaries and jurists). He declared Pierre de Castelnau a martyr and launched a Crusade against the “Albigensians” which will be politically decisive for the unity of the French nation, by linking to the lands of its north the essential parts of the lands of the south of the country. The reverse movement will be the independence of Algeria in 1962 (the whole history of France during the time of her greatness fits besides between these two dates and these two men: 1209 Simon de Montfort - 1962 Charles de Gaulle).

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THE BEGINNINGS OF THE SUPPRESSION.

The Church has never ordered the burning of witches or heretics. It simply handed them over to the secular power, who knew well what to do with them. It had laws for that indeed! !

Such ignominies (these wars of religion, these "St Bartholomew’s days " or these anti-witchcraft , even anti-Reformist before the word is invented, persecutions) must be denounced less diplomatically than Saint Libanius * did in his time. Just like the hypocrisy that accompanied and still accompanies them.

Medieval Inquisition was made possible by the conjunction of several ideas: the notion of heresy or religious error, on the one hand, and the notion of the religious duty of the State, on the other. This conjunction is already visible in the edict of Thessalonica of 380.

In the Middle Ages, heresy is not only a matter of doctrine: it is seen as a global crime against God, and the humanity (what then amounts to the same thing). Being a break in the social cohesion, the struggle against heresy is a matter of public order. The princes were therefore interested in its repression on several counts, and the civil authority, in order to preserve public order, began to fight against heresies and to sanction heretics in a potentially autonomous manner: the decretal Ad abolendam (1184) of Pope Lucius III makes the repression of heresy a constituent element of the power of the Emperor, in this case Frederick Barbarossa.

This non-separation between spiritual and temporal field is quite general in Europe in the thirteenth century and the involvement of the secular authorities conflicts with the authority of the Church: royal or imperial courts decide on doctrinal problems. This conflict of jurisdiction is settled by the Verona Agreement (1148): heretics are to be judged by the Church before being handed over to the secular arm. Conversely, the Church obliges the "secular" authorities (whose legitimacy is based on a model of Christian society) to seek heretics under penalty of excommunication or deposition.

From the beginning, the Inquisition was therefore based on the principle of collaboration and sharing of tasks between the Church and the secular authorities, each one intervening in its own field and following its own responsibility.

But these provisions soon no longer suffice: the power of the bishops remains limited to their territory, while the area of influence of the heresies is moving, and often covers several dioceses. In this case, the bishop can only repress the part that is in his jurisdiction, what is not very effective. In addition, the bishops are confronted with local pressures: heresy also develops in the nobility or among the bourgeois in the towns, and a bishop may have a close relative heretical.

The Cathar doctrine being much more widespread and growing than the usual little heresies, the system of bishoprics is no longer sufficient. Some Catholic priests even change sides to join the "Good Men."

From the thirteenth century, the accusation of "heresy" will justify consequently an all-out repression and the systematic screening of all "deviances".

Before the publication of Excommunicamus, the founding act of the medieval Inquisition, the struggle against heresy therefore was deployed through several stages.

In particular, we can remind of a legislation draft against heresy as early as the Second Lateran Council presided over by Pope Innocent II in 1139, then following the promulgation of the bull Ad Abolendam by Pope Lucius III in 1184, the creation of an "Episcopal Inquisition," led in a decentralized way by the bishops, which will be followed by a "legatine Inquisition “ entrusted to the Cistercians by Pope Innocent III in 1198.

In the papal bull Vergentes in senium (March 25, 1199), Innocent III equates even "aberration in faith" with a crime of lese majesty, a Roman concept opportunely rediscovered at that time by the secular authorities.

Finally, there will be the choice of the inquisitorial procedure at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. This Council also refers to the possibility of a specialized staff, but remaining within the diocesan

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framework. Various devices are then tried, according to local requirements, in an effort to overcome the limitations of ordinary jurisdiction.

Before the thirteenth century, canon law indeed admitted only the adversarial procedure: the judge investigated the complaints; the burden of proof was on him. The inquisitorial procedure was then used only for the purposes of ecclesiastical discipline: repression of simony, contestations of abbey elections, etc.

The struggle against the heretics will therefore draw from several traditions to define itself: in parallel with the resurgence of Roman law, Germanic traditions are also used. Thus, being based on the very harsh punishments of the Carolingian law against the sacrilege, Frederick II chose in 1224, in the statute granted to the city of Catania, to apply the fire punishment to the heretics in Lombardy. This is the first systematic decision of this kind. In 1252, Pope Innocent IV even justified the torture that his predecessors had refused.

At the beginning of the thirteenth century, therefore, the bishops had an important legislation to combat heresy, but not yet a specialized institution. This will be done with the Constitution Excommunicamus of Pope Gregory IX.

* Saint Libanius who in his oration number 30 for the temples in reality appears as a great defender of open secularism.

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OFFICIAL BIRTH OF THE FIRST INQUISITION.

The first official Inquisition was created by this constitution and entrusted mainly but not exclusively to the Dominican monks such Bernard Gui, Nicholas Eymerich, Torquemada.

A classical court could not spontaneously raise a case; it had to be referred beforehand by an applicant (who, in criminal matters, could be a public institution established for that purpose). On the contrary, an Inquisition tribunal could examine automatically (in the literal sense: because of its mission, its office) any question in its field of expertise, without having to be referred. This power has been given to enable a prompt and effective examination of all what could be suspected of heresy.

The inquisitorial procedure thus confers on the judge the initiative of the prosecution. In this new form of procedure, the judge may automatically initiate an investigation on the basis of the fama publica (the "notoriety"). Either he finds specific accusers through a whether general or individual inquiry, or he takes charge of producing himself the evidence. One of the peculiarities of inquisitorial investigation is the secret: the accused and his relatives do not know any of the charges and the defense is therefore done in a blind way.

This first Inquisition, created at the beginning of the thirteenth century to prevent the spread of certain heresies, especially that of the Cathars and Waldensians, lasted until the 14th century.

After the creation of the Inquisition, the definition of heresy (for which it will gradually become the only competent court) will constantly be broadened. In 1310, for example Marguerite Porete, a woman of letters, a mystic and Christian of the Beguine movement , was still burned for heresy with her book The Mirror of Simple Souls.

By opportunism, more and more different elements are included in the heresy field: the apostasy of converted Jews and Muslims, or even sorcery. But schismatics are also called heretics on the occasion of the struggle against Frederick II or, in the 14th century, of the Great Western Schism - or those who refuse to pay tithes or even homosexuals.

These growing prerogatives of the Inquisition and the constant reduction of the tutelage which should be exerted on it, explain the omnipotence of the institution in the thirteenth century: the inquisitors get used to work alone and without accounting.

The operation of the Inquisition falls within the sphere of both law and religion.

In canon law, trials and judgments are the responsibility of an ecclesiastical tribunal, working under the authority of the ordinary of the place, usually the bishop. Rome intervenes only in second line, both as an appeal authority, and as a guarantor of the good functioning of the whole.

When this local organization proves insufficient or inadequate to defend the needs of the faith, the pope may decide to appoint an inquisitor. It is a representative to whom the Pope delegates his authority, in order to judge all the questions relating to the faith in a given region. It is a "special" court, what means that when that court exists, it alone has jurisdiction to judge the orthodoxy of a case which is brought before it.

The inquisitor is therefore essentially the representative of the pope, and inherits his authority.They were generally chosen among the Franciscans or the Dominicans (Bernard Gui, Nicholas Eymerich Torquemada).The regular inquisitors lived outside the conventual life, and to fulfill their mission they were relieved of their vows of obedience (to their usual superiors).

The organization that the inquisitor puts in place to fulfill his mission is the Inquisition, in the administrative sense of the word. This inquisitorial court most often had a fixed head office (in which, in particular, archives were kept, but not necessarily: some inquisitors were itinerant). Inquisitors were helped by a large staff: court clerks, prison guards, etc.

Procedure.

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Specification first. Inquisition concerns only Christians who have become heretics and not non-Christians in Christian lands. In 1199, Pope Innocent III will remind of the importance of protecting the Jews and of the impossibility of converting forcibly a non-Christian.

The general inquiry was proclaimed in an entire region. When the Inquisition proceeded by geographical area, the opening of an inquiry by the Inquisition into a given heretical sector generally took the form of a general preaching, in which the inquisitor exposed the doctrine of the Church and refuted the theses of heresy. He then published a decree of grace and an edict of faith, summoning all the inhabitants before the inquisitor.

For a period fixed by the decree of grace (15 to 30 days), those who presented themselves in time and spontaneously confessed their faults were imposed a religious penance (usually a pilgrimage), but escaped the sanctions from the civil power. Conversely, the edict of faith gave an obligation to denounce heretical practices.

These first spontaneous confessions, which were to be complete, made it also possible by their testimony to identify heretics who had not presented themselves. The period granted by the grace decree also made it possible to carry out local investigations and, if necessary, to collect anonymous testimonies.

The faithful suspected of heresy who had not appeared during this period of grace was the subject of an individual summons. The individual summons was most often made through the parish priest. Those who refused to appear were excommunicated.

A suspect had to swear (on the four Gospels) to reveal all that he knew about heresy. If the suspect acknowledged his errors immediately and freely, he was punished as before, but the sentences were light.

The oath was a formidable weapon in the hands of the inquisitor. Many sects proscribed the oath, and the violation or refusal of the oath was therefore a serious indication of heresy. On the other hand, the punishment for perjury was life imprisonment, a very deterrent sentence.

The most serious penalties concerned only those who refused to acknowledge their error, even after having sworn to tell the truth, and in spite of testimonies allowing to seriously doubt their sincerity. For these, the inquisitorial procedure was really started.

Protections were given to the accused, as to the witnesses. Thus the identity of the prosecution witnesses was kept secret, a common practice at the time. In the same logic, the confronting witnesses and cross-examination were unknown. On the other hand, in the Inquisition courts, the accused were allowed to provide a list of those who could be angry with them, and they were then refused as witnesses.

The courts of the day did not accept testimonies from doubtful origin: thieves, prostitutes, persons of ill repute, but also heretics and excommunicated persons. Soon the Inquisition courts distanced themselves from this rule, with respect to the testimonies of heretics; for obvious practical reasons: the heretical activities were generally hidden, the corresponding testimonies could only come from the heretics themselves. This practice will be formalized in 1261 by Pope Alexander IV.

The accused is usually entitled to a defense, but this right was most often theoretical in the case of the Inquisition, for lack of a volunteer. The lawyers of heretics risked being themselves accused of overindulgence with the pursued heresy. Generally, and for the same reason, the accused brought before a court of Inquisition did not benefit from the presence of defense witnesses.

In difficult cases, the court was to hear the opinion of a college of boni viri, a council (in latin consilium) composed of thirty to a hundred men of morals, faith and judgment, confirmed. This council is imposed and confirmed by the Pope's instructions starting from 1254. His role will increase in the Inquisition, and will be extended to other jurisdictions to finally be the origin of the modern jury.

After they have sworn to speak in conscience, all the proceedings were given to them, but anonymously, the name of the accused person having been suppressed in them. They delivered two opinions to the inquisitor, as to the nature of the fault found, and as the nature of the punishment.

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The inquisitor remains sovereign and responsible for his sentence, but the opinion of this council was most often followed, and when it was not, it was to lessen the proposed penalties.

In certain circumstances, particularly in the event of a fault during the proceedings, the accused may appeal to the pope. In practice, this possibility is rarely offered. Bernard Gui states that the inquisitor disregards any exemption privilege and appeal. In Valencia in 1494, this right to appeal is denied to convicts for heresy. In the sixteenth century, the appeal to the pope and to the parliament became general and makes it possible to block the procedure until the complaint was analyzed.

The sentences of the Inquisition were pronounced in an official ceremony, in the presence of the civil and religious authorities. This ceremony was therefore an act of public faith, what is the exact meaning of the Portuguese word "auto da fe".

A day or two before the pronouncement, the accused was again read with the charges kept against them (translated into the vernacular language), and were summoned to hear the Inquisitor's verdict with the authorities of the place and the rest of the population .

The ceremony was opened early in the morning with a sermon by the inquisitor, hence his other name " general sermon." The civil authorities then took an oath of loyalty to the Church and committed to give assistance to it in the struggle against heresy.

The reading of the verdicts followed, beginning with the "acts of clemency": remissions of sentences or commutations. The penances of every kind (gifts, pilgrimages, mortifications, etc.) followed.

Strictly speaking, the most severe punishment pronounced by the Church was excommunication. A court of Inquisition, by itself, decides only on the orthodoxy of the case submitted to it. Such a judgment is an institutional duty and raises no moral problem. The drama of the Inquisition is not to examine the orthodoxy of a cause; it begins when the Church accepts that the consequence of its judgment is linked to a penal sanction of the temporal power.

Death sentences were only pronounced if the lay or secular law had provided for this type of punishment for the crime in question.

The condemned were then handed over to the secular arm by a solemn formula: Cum ecclesia ultra non habeat quod faciat pro demeritis contra ipsum, idcirco, eundum reliquimus brachio et judicio saeculari ("Since the Church no longer has to fulfill its role against these persons, for this reason we leave them to the secular arm and its justice "). This division of roles is recorded in the agreement of Verona (1148) between the Pope and the Emperor: heretics must be judged by the Church before they are handed over to the secular arm, in order to undergo from it their due punishment (“debita animadversione puniendus”).

With that, the ceremony ended. The inquisitor had finished his part, and the Church had pronounced on heresy. Everyone could then go home with a found again good conscience - except, of course, the culprits of crimes against humanity, to whom the "secular arm" was going to inflict punishment. Contrary to religious penances, these sentences were indeed defined by temporal power. They punished the crimes committed against the faith and the Church, both officially protected by the State.

The inquisitorial tribunal itself did not inflict penalties strictly speaking, but "penances." The least serious were called "arbitrary penances.” It was a public flogging during the Mass, visits to churches, pilgrimages, support of a poor, the wearing of a cross on one’s clothes, and so on.

Penance was often reduced afterwards. The archives of the Inquisition show many examples of penance eased or removed for various reasons, sometimes on a simple request. One example is the case of a son getting the release of his father by merely calling for the clemency of the inquisitor, others are released to assist their sick relatives "until their cure or death."

But the Inquisition also condemns to economic and social punishments and the confiscation of the goods makes it able to continue its works. The Spanish Inquisition also sentences to ostracism through the wearing of the sanbenito (yellow tunic marked with a red cross and bearing the name of the condemned) or by the exhibition the latter with the name of the condemned in the churches. The

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prohibition of practicing certain professions, such as trade, brokerage, butchery, etc., also led to financial ruin and misery those who were struck by it.

On the other hand, the heretics who had not presented themselves within the grace period, or those who had fallen back into heresy, incurred life imprisonment. The prison had two possible modes: the "wide walls," comparable to a house arrest, and the "narrow walls," lonely seclusion. The narrow walls could be increased into carcer strictissimus, the condemned man thrown in jail (usually called an in pace) being tied by chains and deprived of all contact.

The relapsed, or obstinate, who refused to confess his crime against humanity (which must have been proved besides) was abandoned to secular authority, and the punishment of his crime was often incarceration or stake.

Tries of objectivity as regards the number of victims (revisionism).

According to the clergyman Henri-Dominique Lacordaire, "the Inquisition is a real progress compared to all that had taken place in the past. In place of a court without the right of pardon, subject to the inexorable letter of the law, there was a flexible tribunal from which pardon could be demanded by repentance, and which referred to the secular arm only a minuscule minority of accused. Inquisition saved thousands of men who had perished in the ordinary courts " (Life of St Dominic).

The number of victims delivered to civil justice and sentenced to stake is difficult to assess. Collective memory is marked by the mass executions of Montsegur (200 people), Verona (200 people there too) or Mont-Aime (13 May 1239, 183 accused are burned at Bergeres-les-Vertus on the occasion of a roundup carried out by the Cathar Robert the Bugger) as well as by the repetition of the stakes at certain periods of the Spanish Inquisition.

Between 1308 and 1323, Bernard Gui was said to have pronounced 42 stake sentences on 930 convictions, or 4.5%.

The estimations are extremely variable, from 400 victims for the first ten years to several million over several centuries and in many countries according to the estimation of the French Jules Michelet in 1862.

But the Vatican has published a study on the abuses committed by the medieval Inquisition and come to a conclusion that in fact the much feared judges were not as brutal as believed. In fact, the 800-page report’s editor, Professor Agostino Borromeo, claims in it for example that in Spain only 1.8% of those investigated were killed.

To be honest let us acknowledge therefore that there were three different inquisitions. Besides this first inquisition, the medieval inquisition, there was ...

-The Spanish Inquisition, subordinate to the Spanish crown, founded in 1478. In 1478 indeed Isabella the Catholic gets from Pope Sixtus IV the bull creating the Spanish Inquisition. It is set up and begins to function in 1480, the inquisitors being appointed by the sovereigns.

The inquisitorial power is a power leaving the common law, liable to be used unfairly, and because of this usually refused to the traditional jurisdictions. The inquisitor cumulated the powers of an examining magistrate, of a prosecutor, and had the right to seize upon of a case. The accused could nevertheless refuse a judge, or appeal to Rome. In case of an appeal to Rome, all the documents were sent under seal, and the case was examined and judged at Rome on the basis of the collected documents. The Pope, however, had very little influence on the Spanish Inquisition and facing the intransigence of a Torquemada, he could only protest.

The very functioning of the Inquisition (promulgation of an edict obliging to denunciation, logging and keeping records on all denunciations, procedure subject to secrecy) makes it a formidable tool of suppression that the religious and royal power will use. Depending on the time, the Inquisition will serve or oppose political power.

In 1415 John Hus is burned for heresy. In 1522, Charles V created a post of General Inquisitor in the Netherlands by appointing Francis Vander Hulst, to extend his imperial power through this institution and to fight more effectively against the heretics. This Dutch Inquisition, mainly in the middle of the sixteenth century, fought down particularly violently what was considered by the Catholic Church a

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heresy. The victims of this religious suppression were regarded as martyrs of the Reformation, and the repression itself fueled the rejection of the Spanish regime in the Dutch population, which was got after nearly a century of discord (1566-1648). The independence of Holland was thus built on the basis of a struggle for religious freedom, against Catholic Spain and its Inquisition.

The reference to the Inquisition allows the English to value, by contrast, the freedom and liberation brought by Protestantism, and to morally justify the struggle against both external (war against Spain) and internal (religious persecution in Ireland) Catholicism . The Inquisition, through its sentences, provides labor force for the galleys, but gives the way to the contingencies of politics (indulgence towards the heretics in England in 1604 during the construction of the peace). It also serves as a political police by controlling foreigners and gradually becomes a reactionary force whose power will last until 1808.

- For the record lastly, the Roman Inquisition (Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition), founded in 1542, was replaced by the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office in 1908.

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THE MARRANOS.

PHASE 1 THE CONVIVENCIA.

From the Spanish convivir, "living together" is a concept which has been much used by twentieth-century historians to evoke a period in the medieval history of the Iberian Peninsula (and in particular of Al-Andalus) which implied that coexistence between Muslims, Jews and Christians would have taken place in a state of relative denominational peace or religious tolerance, characterized, moreover, by numerous cultural exchanges.

But if the coexistence of religions was well the norm in the medieval Iberian Peninsula, the concept of Convivencia, in its academic sense, as for it, was highly controversial. Indeed, more recent studies highlight the strong variability of regimes and situations over time, a great dynamism of populations and regular mass conversions. Societies are organized by the juxtaposition of religious communities that are often rival, autonomous and inegalitarian. Frictions, tensions and suspicions are numerous, exacerbated by conversions, by the fear of religious hybridization and interbreeding. David Nirenberg (Communities of violence Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages. Princeton 1996) even paints a portrait of medieval Aragon where neither a persecuting mentality nor peaceful coexistence exists.

The Convivencia between Christians, Jews and Muslims is rather an uncomfortable necessity which goes hand in hand with the absence of declared juridical principles, an absence whose consequences were harmful.

David Nirenberg on the other hand, believes that violence was a central and systemic aspect of majority-minority coexistence in medieval Spain and that coexistence was partly based on such violence.

For Francisco Márquez Villanueva there was convivencia only because coexistence between Christians, Moors and Jews was always a necessity imposed by the facts without ever being framed by any real declared legal principles. The management of these principles proved to be impossible within the parameters of medieval thought; they could only be formulated with the period of the Enlightenment and the Revolution.

PHASE 2 THE CREATION OF THE SPANISH INQUISITION 1478.

The annexation of Muslim strongholds by Christian armies gave rise to negotiations between Christian princes and Muslims on the conditions of their surrender, essentially on the status of the Muslim populations. Very favorable to the latter, they are described as "magnánimas concesiones " by historical documents. For Christians, they seem to be above all a means of pacifying the conquered places, but their implementation radically and profoundly distorts the initial model. In the kingdom of Castile, the model initially put in place is very advantageous for Muslims, especially in areas where they are an overwhelming majority. After defeating the Mudejar uprising and subjugating the kingdom of Granada (1266), Alfonso X challenged the clauses signed in the territories of Lower Andalusia and Murcia, making the Mudejar situation more difficult. In addition, he subjected these territories to an intense religious propaganda in order to convert them and displaced populations to reverse the balance of power between Christians and Muslims.

In most of the territories that came under the domination of the Christian kings, Muslims continue to live, as do large Jewish communities. At first, the Christian kings adapted the Muslim pattern of juxtaposed communities, favoring Christians. Muslims are then subjected to the Mudejar status very similar to that of dhimmi. They organized themselves in aljamas (districts), very close to the Christian municipalities, and were administered autonomously by "suna and xara " (sunna and shariah) The Muslims were mainly farmers, both as tenants and owners, but also distinguished themselves in handicrafts (pottery, leather, silk, soaps, etc.), construction and the processing of building materials. They have a monopoly in the manufacture of paper in Xàtiva, and play a leading role in transport.

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Each of the communities has its own laws, constraints and taxes. Segregation between them is the standard, both at the initiative of the Church and of Muslim or Jewish communities in order to "safeguard" the faith of each one. Conversions to Christianity are numerous and rapid in the cities, what is not without causing tensions between communities, and disputes, particularly over the inheritance of the convert's property. There are few restrictions on movement, including for pilgrimages, but it is difficult to emigrate.

Admitted into Christian society, Jewish converts tried to integrate and blend in it to make themselves forgotten. When their fortunes, once again restored, made them able to do so, they tried to buy an identity, that is to say, to ally themselves with Christians who were well regarded in society, but without resources, which was very common among the lower nobility. The latter did not hesitate to join forces to restore their coat of arms.

It is therefore thus that Marranism will be discovered.

An ancient Jew, very rich, converted, had recently been living among the Christians. He had a beautiful daughter promised to a young Spanish nobleman.

One evening, however, when the latter had secretly gone to her room, the mother knocked on the door. In panic, the girl hid her lover in the huge fireplace. As almost everywhere in houses, the chimneys were one on top of the other, and the sound rose easily.

Unfortunately, it was the eve of Pesach, and this young man was the aural witness of a scene that left him speechless. Amazed, he went at once to report everything to his confessor. The discovery of the persistence of the Jewish religion among the converts provoked an intense emotion in the Church.

It was necessary to remove this gangrene from their souls as soon as possible, and to do this, it was necessary to discover the culprits, make them confess and punish them in an exemplary manner publicly, in order to provoke fear and even dread in those who would have wanted to imitate them.

Bishops from all over the country persuaded the rulers to establish the Inquisition. The Inquisition was a religious court that sought, arrested, "questioned" (euphemistically speaking, tortured), sentenced and carried out the sentences itself. This institution was totally independent of the royal power.

In order to monitor the "new Christians" or converts of Jewish origin and to deter relapses, the Catholic Monarchs obtained from Pope Sixtus IV in 1478 the authorization to appoint "inquisitors" whose jurisdiction, initially limited to the kingdom of Castile, was later extended to the territories of the Crown of Aragon.

Since inquisitorial jurisdiction was limited to "converts," Jews and Moors kept the right to practice their religion after 1478. This situation was changed in the following quarter of a century by the policy of religious unification practiced by the Catholic Monarchs. As early as 1492, Jews had to choose between baptism and exile.

PHASE 3 THE ALHAMBRA DECREE OF 1492.

The Treaty of Granada concluded in 1491 between the Catholic sovereigns and the Emir Boabdil, gave some guarantees to the Jews, notably concerning freedom of worship. They were nevertheless called into question by the Alhambra decree signed on 31 March 1492 by the Catholic Monarchs at the Alhambra of Granada, three months after the city was taken from the Muslims.

Motivated by the desire to totally Christianize medieval Spain as a prelude to its unification, it would lead, four months later, to the expulsion of the Jews from the country.

This decree is also interested in the situation of Jews who converted to Christianity, whom it places under a kind of surveillance.

The Inquisition led by Torquemada and the rulers could not bear the idea that many Jewish converts still frequented their family or friends of their former community and still practiced the rites of Judaism, despite the absolute prohibition of any contact between Jews and Jewish converts.The Inquisition was also concerned with the situation of Jews who had converted to Christianity, which it placed under a kind of surveillance.

Consequently, the Catholic Monarchs forbade all Jews from staying on Spanish lands from the end of July onwards, on pain of death and confiscation of their immediate property without due process. It is

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also forbidden for any non-Jew to give them assistance or shelter them, on pain of immediate divestment of his property and titles.

Taking advantage of the despair of the Jews, Torquemada then opened a door for them by offering them the possibility of converting to Catholicism. But a majority of them refused this conversion, all the more so since they had seen how the new Christians were easily sentenced to be burned at the stake. A few, especially among the more established, accepted the conversion, notably the high Rabbi Abraham Senior, who converted with his family under the patronage of a cardinal to take the name of Coronel and continue to accede the highest offices.

Scholars have difficulty agreeing on the exact number of Jews who left and those who preferred to convert. Estimates range from 50,000 to 300,000 exiles. According to Esther Benbassa, the figure of 100,000 to 150,000 seems the most plausible.

Conversos or converts were divided into three groups:

- Those who decided to change their lives completely and who, forgetting their origins, became good and sincere Christians.

- Those who, fearing that their new faith would be questioned or, to avoid reprisals, became zealous and became the greatest and most dangerous anti-Jews.

- Finally, the others, the most numerous, who, believing that the crisis was only temporary, secretly wanted to remain faithful to the religion of their ancestors and to continue to practice Judaism secretly.

These conversos were called the Marranos, or rather, as it is now said, the crypto-Jews (those who practice Judaism in secret).

The word Marrano is very pejorative. In Castilian patois it means "pig," or rather "fithy." It was given by the Spaniards to new converts, on the one hand, as a sign of contempt, and, on the other hand, because some of these new converts, to show that they were integrated well, put pieces of pork to dry at their windows.

When they converted, they were forced to change their identity.

- Those who lacked imagination in these moments of terror, took what the religious who converted them suggested to them, for example the name of the saint of the day, but above all the name of the King. How many became Martinez, Sanchez, Fernandez or Perez.

-Finally, the last ones, those who wanted to be zealous and chose surnames such as "Santa Maria," "Dos Santos," "Iglésias," Santa Cruz, Delacruz, etc. As soon as they were converted, these new Christians were separated from their former co-religionists.

For a period of two years, they were cared for by the Dominicans trained for this purpose. Piled up in isolated places, called, in Barcelona, the square of the "Renegades," or in other cities simply "street of conversion" (as in Perpignan for example), they were taught their new religion.

Forced to follow all the daily services, to listen to lessons, speeches and sermons, to go to confession regularly, the basis of the teaching consisted in inculcating in them the fear of lies by threatening them with the torments of hell, little by little these new converts, became faithful like the others or at least the majority of them seemed to be so.

The conversos who had become marranos had to act in the greatest secrecy. They met at night, in cellars beneath their homes. They had to beware of everything and everyone. They waited until the sons were 16 years old to reveal their secret and initiate them.

Deprived of all religious books, cut off from all practices, all that remained for them to be faithful to the religion of their ancestors was a deeper study of the Old Testament, possibly the recitation of the Shema, and fasts.

Fasts therefore ended in becoming the most common practice because it was the least dangerous, as well as respect for the dead, even if the burial had been Catholic, they fasted for the eight days, they fasted for the month, etc.

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The mothers initiated their daughters just before their marriage. Three mitzvot were especially important, the taking Hallah from the dough, the lighting of a candle for Sabbath, which they put in the bottom of a jar that was closed, and the respect for the maximum of that former rest day.

The parish priests therefore had a very long list, drawn up by the parish priest of Los Palacios, of very precise questions about habits or details of daily life which could show that there was still practice of Judaism. These questions were regularly asked during confessions.

Some examples of questions:

Did they cook on Friday for Saturday?

Did the mother of the family throw some dough into the fire while kneading? (Hallah).

Did they soak the meat before cooking it?

Did they change underwear on Saturday or Sunday?

Did they eat unleavened bread at Passover time?

Did they choke the poultry or did they cut their throats with a special knife?

Did the father bless his son by putting his hand on his head or making the sign of the cross on his forehead?

Did they wash their faces when they returned from Mass? .

The life of the marranos was made of dread, fear, suspicion.

July 15, 1834: Abolition of the Inquisition in Spain.

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CONCLUSION.

" Man is neither angel nor beast, and the misfortune is that he who would act the angel acts the beast " (Pascal).

The Inquisition was the tragic illustration OF THE REFUSAL OF THE PLURALITY OR REAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN THE SOCIETY AND MORE ACCURATELY TODAY OF THE NON-SEPARATION OF THE CHURCH (OF THE SYNAGOGUE OF THE MOSQUE OF THE PAGODA) FROM THE STATE.

The Inquisition was therefore a special jurisdiction (in other words, a court), established by the Roman Catholic Church and governed by canon law, the purpose of which was to fight heresy, by imposing on those who did not respect the dogma punishments ranging from simple spiritual punishments (prayers, penances) to fines when the heresy was not established, and from the confiscation of all property to the death penalty for the apostates who had (again) become heretics. It will be therefore a substitute for the ordeal by introducing the notions of court, defendant and official records of the trial.

The criminal procedure used by the Inquisition courts was essentially that of the time, with little real specificity. The procedures that today appear scandalous were generally normal for the time: in view of what is practiced in modern law, the procedural guarantees and the provisions which now ensure the protection of the accused were extremely rudimentary, whatever it be the jurisdiction.

This procedure stems from the rediscovery of Roman law. The procedure was codified by general documents (see the decretals cited in the Latin sources), and by instructions of implementation promulgated by the inquisitors for the proceedings in their jurisdiction. The proceeding was entirely written, an attorney transcribed all the debates. The whole procedure was carried out under the control of the local bishop, who received copies of all documents. The proceedings were normally written in Latin, the official language of the Church, but the questionings were, of course, made in the vernacular language.

The procedure used by the Inquisition was based on three new principles: ignorance by the accused of the names of the prosecution witnesses, elimination of certain incompetence to testify and use of the question therefore of what we now call the torture (in this field gentry enjoyed no special privilege). This torture was very codified. Only three tortures were recommended: water, rope and fire.

The use of torture in particular and the number of victims of the Inquisition in general, remains difficult to quantify, as most of the statistical data for the period before 1560 have disappeared. Confessions got under torture being not admissible, this part of the proceedings was not generally the subject of a written record, and the records of the trials are usually silent or at best allusive on the subject. In the official records of questioning, we find short sentences of the type, confessionem esse veram, non factam vi tormentorum ("The confession is spontaneous, not made under the force of the pain"). The explicit notations postquam depositus fuit de tormento ("after his return from torture") are extremely rare.

The frequency of the use of torture was called into question by some contemporary historians who point out that the practice of torture (or "question" from Latin quæstio) was also used in secular courts at the time.

Laurent Albaret considers that in the twelfth century "The practice of torture ( ... ) is moderate and the inquisitorial staff sincerely unconvinced of its results." As for him Bartolome Bennassar estimates that between 7 and 10 per cent of the prisoners of the Spanish Inquisition have suffered these tortures and states that "the use of torture has never been the rule for the Inquisition and may even appear, at certain times, as the exception ." He considers as a proof that torture was applied with moderation the fact that many resisted it.

The use of torture raised a moral problem to the inquisitors, who, as clerics, had no right to shed blood. After an initial legal vagueness, this practice was officially authorized for the Inquisition in 1252 by the bull Ad extirpenda, subject to not leading to mutilation or death, and excluding children, pregnant women and old people from its scope. Moreover, it has often been demanded by the pope that it can be administered only with the consent of the bishop of the place. In this bull, the accused enjoys two protections: the question can only be given once, and confessions must be repeated freely in order to be admissible.

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But this prohibition of submitting several times to question seems to have been regularly circumvented. The question was, for example, considered to be composed of several stages, the end of a stage not involving the suspension of the whole procedure. Another argument was that the discovery of new charges once again justified the use of the question specifically against this charge. One of the worst examples of this, but far from being an isolated case, was undoubtedly that of Diego Rodriguez Lucero, an inquisitor of Cordoba from 1499 to 1507, when he was finally relieved of his duties.

The death of the accused did not adjourn the proceedings: if the deceased was guilty of heresy, this error should be recognized by a judgment and the effigy of those sentenced to stake who had escaped execution , either because they had died before the conviction, or because they had managed to escape, was burned .

Jurisdiction essentially religious, the inquisition is concerned above all, not with the salvation of bodies, but with the salvation of souls, and this will be the drama of this tragedy. The Inquisition seeks to get the repentance of the accused so that God may forgive them. A whole procedure is therefore put in place to get their testimony, then their confession.

In order to help the clerics to carry out the interrogations, Inquisitor's handbooks are drafted, the most famous of which are the handbook of the inquisitor Bernard Gui, that of Nicholas Eymerich, and that of Torquemada (the solid ideological formation of the Dominicans earned them very quickly to provide the Church many formidable inquisitors).

These handbooks show the procedure to be followed, the questions to be asked, the moral pressures and the bodily pressures that can be inflicted. Among the bodily pressures, we can quote the imprisonment which, according to Bernard Gui, "opens the mind," as well as the deprivation of food and the torture.

The history of the Inquisition is an illustration of the drama that threatens mankind whenever an organic connection is established between the State and the Church (or the Mosque or the Synagogue or the pagoda) and prefigures Nazism and Stalinism.

The Inquisition, through the violence of its system of control of the freedom of thought, particularly through its great public burnings, has permanently marked the collective imagination.

The mixing up between faith and reason, articles of faith and quest for a scientific foundation raised even a methodological problem.

This incursion of the Inquisition into the field of scientific debate with this trial of Galileo was at the origin of the reaction of Descartes and of his mechanistic philosophy.

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CHRISTIANITY IN NORTHERN EUROPE.

CONVERSION OF SAXONS TO CHRISTIANITY BY CHARLEMAGNE.

At the end of the 7th century Willibrord of Utrecht and many other missionaries try to Christianize the region but in 772 the Saxons attack Thuringia.

Charlemagne uses force and terror to subdue them and leads his first expedition in Saxony in 772, destroying particularly its main sanctuary, the Irminsul, symbol of the Saxon resistance and place of meeting where they brought offerings after each victory. But this destruction of the famous sanctuary, like in Mona Anglesey in 61, had only the effect of inciting the Saxons to avenge themselves.

Starting from 776, after the Italian interlude, began a fierce war against the Saxons, who, commanded by Widukind, a Westphalian chief, opposed him a vigorous resistance.

After various campaigns marked by the devastation of different parts of Saxony and the provisional submission of some leaders, but also by a serious setback of the French in 782 at Mount Suntel near the Weser River (this defeat will lead to a reprisal operation which will end by the beheading* in Verden of 4,500 Saxons refusing to abjure their gods). Widukind ends up submitting in 785 and converts with several of his men, during a ceremony of collective baptism. Charlemagne himself was his godfather.

Charlemagne then imposes the Capitulatio de Partibus Saxoniae (the first Saxon capitulary), an emergency legislation which provides for the death penalty * for many offenses, particularly for any demonstration of paganism (cremation of the deceased, refusal of baptism for newborns). A policy of deportation of the Saxons and of colonization by Frenchmen is set up at the same time.

In the years 792 to 795, refusing the capitulary, the Saxons rise again. But Widukind once again fled to Denmark, where he placed himself under the protection of the king Godfred, thus disappearing from the political scene: there was nothing to suggest that his conversion had not been sincere.

This emergency legislation will end in 797 ( third Saxon capitulary), but the final submission will not be complete until 804.

Episcopal sees, entrusted to more diplomatic bishops, will be founded in eight cities at Bremen, Halberstadt, Hildesheim, Verden, Paderborn, Minden, Osnabruck, and Munster; the lands will be distributed to the clergy; lastly, monks, serfs, artisans, come from the lands located in the west of the empire, will replace the populations driven out of the territory.

Until then, Christianity had spread itself relatively peaceably among the Germans. See the case of St Boniface of Mainz in Friesland. In Saxony, however, Charlemagne will use force * hence the Saxons' determination to defend their gods, which had become symbols of their liberties.

* Sahih Muslim Hadith 4681. Narrated by Abdullah ibn Qays. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: the gates of Paradise are under the shadows of the swords.

Sahih Al-Bukhari Hadith 4.73. Narrated by Abdullah bin Abi Aufa. Allah's Apostle said, "Know that Paradise is under the shades of swords."

Sahih Al-Bukhari Hadith 4.210. Narrated by Salim Abu An Nadr. If you should face the enemy, then be patient and let it be known to you that Paradise is under the shades of swords."

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DENMARK.

The great French specialist of the question, Regis Boyer, thinks that the conversion to Christianity of the other countries in Northern Europe was relatively or globally nonviolent even if contrary legends are many in this field.

When chroniclers depict it, later, under tragic and violent exteriors, they will do so only by imitation of the lives of saints which were a must in the West at the time. The Icelander Snorri Sturluson, in his Heimskringla (written about 1225), notably in his texts devoted to the two great kings, renowned converters of Norway, Olaf Tryggvason and Olaf Haraldsson - who will become St Olaf – will fall in all the fashion cliches in this field, but nothing corroborates his statements. In any case on the strictly religious level

Let us note lastly that there too, and as in Ireland, for example, "official" Christianization (of the northern kingdoms) took place essentially from the top and not from the bottom. The "official" conversion, for it is evident that the Vikings did not wait until the tenth century or the year 1000 to come into contact with the Christian world, because let us not forget that they were great merchants. The Scandinavian people of that period had already a fairly precise idea of Christianity, its customs, and its way of life. Their clients as well as their victims, both in west and south, were Christians, so that when the time comes, the passing will be done without excessive special difficulties.

As we have had already the opportunity to see it, circa 696 St Willibrord, future bishop of Utrecht, apostle of the Netherlands and patron of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, is sent to Friesland, a territory recently got by the Merovingians, to work on the Christianization of the population and reaches the territory of the Danes. There he succeeded only in converting thirty children, whom he was obliged to bring back with him to spare them a death feared by his own.

St Ebbo or Ebo, born about 775; will have more chances later at the court of the King of Jutland Harald Klak, who will be baptized in Mainz. But Harald Klak was then expelled from Denmark.

A new opportunity will arise when the Emperor Louis the Pious was invited by a Swedish King, Björn, to send him missionaries. A monk from Corbie Abbey, Ansgar, whose disciple Rimbert left us a Vita, will arrive therefore in Sweden in 829.

One of the greatest achievements of his mission seems to have been the conversion of Herigar, the lord Birka, who even made a church built for him. Ansgar’s efforts to convert Scandinavia to Christianity earned him beside the title of Archbishop of Hamburg in 831.

In 845 the city of Hamburg was devastated by an incursion by the Danish king Horik and Ansgar took part in the negotiations which restored peace, but in the same year the bishop whom Ebo had appointed in Birka to replace him, had to leave Sweden for Germany because of a growing opposition to Christianity in the country.

These setbacks, however, seem to have shown the necessity of the mission of Ansgar, and in 845 still, the bishopric of Bremen will be attached to the archbishopric of Hamburg. These new means will make Ansgar to win some other successes in Denmark.

Gorm the Old, grandson of Ragnar Lodbrok, was the last pagan king of Denmark. His wife Thyra was a Christian and their son Harald Bluetooth (Harald I of Denmark) will get baptized.

When he comes to power with his father Gorm the Elder around 948 Harald I founds two bishoprics, in Ribe (Schleswig) and Aarhus (Jutland).

In 965, the year of the King's baptism by the priest Poppo, the Danish bishoprics were freed, by imperial privilege, from the obligation to pay a tax and from the right of interference by the imperial bailiffs. The aim is to exclude any infringement of the sovereignty of the King of Denmark. The Danish king keeps the competence to invest bishops on his territory, but the Danish bishops are suffragants of the Archbishop of Bremen and therefore members of the Imperial Church. The Archbishop of Bremen will be consequently the only link between Denmark and the Empire.

In 988 the bishopric of Odense in Fionia will be added.

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NORWAY.

Olaf Tryggvason, born around 963/964 in southern Norway and died in September 1000, was king of Norway from 995 to 1000. He was the posthumous son of Tryggve Olafsson , King of Viken (Vingulmark and Ranrike), and the great-grandson of Harald fair hair, the first king of Norway.

Olaf grew up abroad: a slave in Estonia, a warrior in Russia, the young man became a dreaded Viking in the Baltic Sea then in the British Isles where he participates in the attack of London in 994.

In 995, rumors began to surface in Norway about a prince in Ireland of Norwegian blood. This caught the ear of Jarl Haakon Sigurdsson, who therefore sent one of his men to Ireland, Thorer Klakka, posing as a merchant, to see if he was the son of Tryggve Olafson. Thorer befriends Olaf and told him of the situation in Norway that Haakon Jarl had become unpopular. The jarl had also been weakened by his fighting with the Danish king, due to his rejection of the Christianity of the latter.

Olaf seized this opportunity, and set sail for Norway. When he arrived many men had already started a revolt against Haakon, who was forced to hide in a pigsty, together with one of his slaves Kark.

When Olaf met the rebels, they accepted him as their king (since his father was Tryggve Olafson king of Viken) , and together they started to search for Haakon. They eventually came to the farm where the jarl Haakon and Kark were hiding, but could not find them. Olaf held a meeting just outside the swine sty and promised a great reward for the man who killed the Jarl. The two men in the hole heard this speech, and Haakon became distrustful of Kark, fearing he would kill him to claim the reward. He could not leave the sty, nor could he keep awake forever, and when he fell asleep Kark took out a knife and cut Haakon's head off. The next day the slave went to meet Olaf and presented with the head of Haakon. Olaf refuses to reward him, and instead beheaded him.

After his confirmation as King of Norway, Olaf traveled to the parts of Norway that had been under the rule of the King of Denmark; they too swore allegiance to him. He then demanded that they all be baptized, and most reluctantly they agreed but without opposing it in a bloody way.

In 997, Olaf founds his capital, Nidaros (later Trondheim), at the site of the first Thing (parliament) held by the rebels to the authority of Haakon. The site is ideal, located at the mouth of the River Nid which snakes to the fjord, forming a peninsula easy to defend against aggressions.

Olaf will continue to support the spread of Christianity in his kingdom throughout his reign. He convinces Leif Ericson, the son of Eric the Red, the discoverer of Greenland, come to see him, to be baptized and to take a priest on his return, in order to support the conversion of the rest of his family. There will be a Viking bishopric in Greenland (Gardar) until the 14th century.

Olaf also allowed the spread of Christianity in Orkney Islands [Scotland], which then depended on Norway.

ICELAND.

The case of Iceland falls within the "Christian miracle" but we are going here to try to speak of it rationally. The foreign policy of the Icelandic Free State consisted mainly of keeping good relations with Norway. The accession to the throne of King Olaf I increased tenfold the efforts to Christianize the island. Olaf sent back to his country an Icelander named Stefnir Thorgilsson to convert his countrymen. The latter violently destroyed sacred representations and sanctuaries, which made him so unpopular that he was declared an outlaw. After the failure of Thorgilsson, Olaf sent for a priest named Thangbrand. Thangbrand was an experienced missionary, for he already had to his credit the conversion to Christianity of Norway and Faroe Islands. His mission, which lasted from 997 to 999, was only a mitigated success. Icelandic Christians used the king's threat to intensify their campaign of conversion. The new religion quickly divided the country into two: civil war broke out. This situation lasted until the meeting of the Icelandic parliament, the Althing during the following summer. Clashes between members of the two religious communities were to be feared, but mediators decided to deal with the question by arbitration. The Althing sage, a godi named Thorgeir Thorkelsson, was agreed by both parties because he was considered a moderate and reasonable man. He accepted the responsibility of deciding whether Iceland should become a Christian, provided both parties commit to respect any decision. When this was accepted, he spent a day and a night in reflection (or into a trance because Thorkelsson was a godi) in a hide 1). The next day he announced that Iceland would

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become Christian, but that the eating of horse meat would be allowed as well as pagan rituals but privately.

Open-minded, adaptable and curious as all Vikings were, Thorkelsson could not fail to see that modernity was in the Christian countries situated to the south of their lands and not in their archaically structured populations. Thorkelsson's decision, which was of the noibo Libanius type, was respected at the beginning and the baptisms began, but once the Church was firmly established in Iceland, pagan worship, even private, and consumption of horse meat, were prohibited.

These Vikings thus committed suicide by opening up to the Christian civilization which encircled them on all sides.

1) In Ireland it was a process commonly used by druids to have visions and to predict the future according to Keating (History of Ireland XLVI 46). “As to the druids, the use they made of the hides of the bulls offered in sacrifice was to keep them for the purpose of making conjuration, or laying geasa on the demons. Many are the ways in which they laid geasa on them: to keep looking at their own images in water, gaze on the clouds of heaven, or keep listening to the noise of the wind or the chattering of birds. But when all these expedients failed them, what they did was, to make round wattles of the quicken tree, and to spread thereon the offered in sacrifice, putting the side which had been next the flesh uppermost, and thus relying on their powers to summon the demons to get information from them, as the conjurer does nowadays in the circus; whence the old saw has since been current which says that one has gone on his wattles of knowledge when he has done his utmost to obtain information.”

To go on his wattles of knowledge….

See also the Togail Bruidne Da Derga (Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel). " The men of Eriu then assembled at the bull feast : a bull was killed, one man ate his fill and drank its broth and slept, an incantation of truth was then chanted over him. Whoever this man saw in his sleep became king. If the man lied about what he saw in his dream, he would die.”

SWEDEN.

Olof III Skotkonung (980-1022), son of Eric the Victorious and Sigrid the Haughty, was about twenty years old when he succeeds his father in 995. He gives then refuge to his brother-in-law, jarl of Lade, Eric Haakonsson who had to leave Norway to King Olaf Tryggvason. Shortly after his mother's remarriage with King Sweyn Forkbeard, he will seal the reconciliation of Sweden with Denmark. In 1000, allied to Sweyn and Eric, Olof wins over Olaf Tryggvason at the Battle of Svolder. The Norwegian will find death there and his kingdom will be divided between the victors.

It is also believed that it was from the reign of Olof (or perhaps of his father Eric) that the Swedish rule over the Gotaland, a region more sensitive to the advance of Christianity than that of Uppsala. According to legend, Olof was baptized in the spring of Husaby (in the province of Vastergotland) in 1008 by the English bishop Sigfrid.

Olof will nevertheless conclude with his subjects or vassals a pact providing for the establishment at Skara in Vastergotland of a bishopric founded in 1013 by Unwam archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen in favor of a named Thurgaut but the keeping of pagan worship in Uppsala.

In 1015, Olaf Haraldsson, a royal blood Viking that Olof had already had to fight, will ascend the throne of Norway and will be the future Saint Olaf. He would have been baptized in 1014 in Rouen by Archbishop Robert the Dane, brother of Duke Richard II of Normandy. He was the great legislator of the Church in Norway and, like his relative Olaf Tryggvason, tried to remove the traces of the ancient spirituality of the Vikings by building churches instead of ancient places of worship. He will bring bishops and priests from England for that purpose.

* The existence of the temple of attested by Adam of Bremen in his work written in the eleventh century entitled Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum.

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The details of Adam of Bremen are precise. The temple is "adorned with gold" and the people there worship three specific gods who sit on a triple throne. Thor, whom Adam refers to as "the mightiest," sits on the central throne, while Wodan (Odin) and Fricco (Freyr) are seated on the thrones to the sides of him. Adam adds that, moreover, "They also worship gods who were once men and whom they reckon to have become immortal because of their heroic acts." Traditional Interpretatio Christiana of the gods of paganism (euhemerism inspired by the case of Jesus?)

We must nevertheless be wary of all these descriptions made by good Christians, or perhaps by very bad Christians, but centuries later, like of the plague. What we certainly know about the spirituality of northerners at the time is rather vague.

In reality we are cruelly lacking in genuine sources because here also the medieval golden rule of the imitatio played full. The forgiving descriptions which are proposed to us in the Eddas, notably in that known as prose Edda - due also to Snorri Sturluson - or in certain sagas of the type known as legendary, contain so many reminiscences of the classical or biblical sources that the observer feels forced to have some doubt about it.

All that we can know comes down to some basic facts: the former Nordic spirituality had no dogmas, as far as we know, no prayer, it had no caste of duly initiated and constitutional priests, we don’t know temples in it either, in spite of the shocking forged affirmations [ Regis Boyer says] , like those of Adam of Bremen. It will be hardly on the level of rites and ethics, or of morals, that Christianity will encounter some resistance. But it is necessary to repeat here that it was without great significance. And in truth, there is here a true enigma: weakness of paganism? Too much naive toleration ?

CONCLUSION ON THE NORDIC COUNTRIES.

The example of the sovereigns under whose reign was effected the passing to Christianity is clear, and remarkably similar: Harald Gormsson the Dane, Olafr Tryggvason the Norwegian, Olof Skottkonungr the Swede, immediately understood that they had an interest in replacing the old order of things, which dates back to time immemorial, with the new tendencies in force in Europe. It seems clear-and this is evident in the case of Olaf Haraldsson-that religion has been used as a means or a pretext for the modernization of the states. Which were endowed with a pyramidal and well-hierarchized monarchical system, in the Frankish-or Roman way -by strengthening in passing the idea of king "by divine right."

Obviously, this change will not happen without damage: the Viking phenomenon, for example, will lose its raison d'etre and it can be said that the transition to Christianity will mark its end. A certain farmer aristocracy, which plunged its roots in time immemorial, will vainly rebel, like in Norway: the new religion either will bring its ruin or will rally it to its cause.

In a few decades, the Northern Church will have a central administration, first in Bremen and Hamburg for the whole of the North, then at Lund, in Denmark, then at Trondheim in Norway, lastly at Uppsala in Sweden. The observer is really surprised at the number of churches, convents, and religious schools. At the popular level, there is an unfailing adoption of the Christian religion, visible at the flood of saints who will be born in the North: let us think of Eric and later, of Bridget in Sweden, Canute in Denmark, Olaf or Magnus in Norway, and even in Iceland, of two holy bishops, Thorlak Thorhallsson and Jon Ögmundarson. The North will have been a good Christian ," unquestionably, from the moment when it is decided - or induced - to perform this way of regularization.

FINLAND.

Finland was totally ignored by the ancients, although they seem to have known the Fenni or Finns. It was first inhabited by the Lapps; The Finns or Tchudes came to occupy it at an uncertain time and sent back the Lapps to the North. In the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries, the people who inhabited it formed so many small independent states.

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The former Finnish religion began to retreat following the crusade led in 1156 by the Swedish King Eric Jedvardsson, called the saint. The English St Henry, Bishop of Uppsala, who settled in Finland, was martyred there (in 1158). His successor Rudolf was also put to death (in 1178), because the small Christian colony in Finland had to struggle not only against the pagans who, despite their divisions, were still in a position to bring the war into the Maelare, where they destroyed Sigtuna 1187), but also against the Russians of Novgorod who, with the help of their Karelian allies, ravaged the Tavastland (Hame, central Finland) in 1186, 1191, 1198, and annihilated a Swedish flotilla on the lake Ladoga (in 1164).

In 1227 the prince of Novgorod Yaroslav II led a campaign of massive Christianization in Karelia.

Around 1237, the Catholics in the Tavastland , seeing they were badly protected by Sweden, took back their independence and their worships in the sacred groves which had been the sanctuaries of their ancestors. Christendom, just lifted and increased by the energetic * Bishop Thomas (from 1220 to about 1245), were again wrecked, while the missionaries from Novgorod made progress among the Karelians who, as early as 1227, had almost all been baptized. Finland would have been conquered, at least in part, by the Russians without the Mongol invasion (The Golden Horde), which made them tributary of the Kipchak Khanate (1237).

The son of the Prince of Novgorod Yaroslav II, Alexander "Nevsky" nevertheless continued his efforts to promote the Orthodox Christianity: he repels Swedes on the Neva in 1240 (hence his nickname), and the Teutonic Knights on Lake Peipus in 1242 .

The Swedes took advantage of the Russian difficulties : their leader, Birger Jarl, made a crusade in Finland (1249-1250), again subjugated the Hame (the Tavstland or central Finland) , founded in it the town of Tavastehus to contain the Tavastians and probably also to resist the Novgorodians who continued to repel the raids of the Swedes or made themselves some of them in Tavastland (1256, 1292) and also in 1278 among the Karelians who were become their adversaries. The prince of Novgorod Dmitry I conquered Karelia and attached it to his Orthodox principality.

1293. Third Swedish crusade in Finland.Birger Magnusson, king of Sweden, sends his Marshal Torgils Knutsson to lead a crusade in Karelia. The time has come for Catholic Swedes and Orthodox Russians to compete on the border of their respective zones of influence.

In order to consolidate the Swedish domination beyond the Kymi and into the Ladoga Basin, Torgils Knutsson, founded the fortresses of Viborg and Kexholm in 1293; In addition, to control the waterways leading to Novgorod, Landskrona on the present site of St. Petersburg; but the Russians destroyed the second in 1295, the third in 1301, and burned Turku in 1348.

Under the mediation of the Hanseatic city of Visby, whose trade was hindered by these perpetual struggles , peace was concluded on 12 August 1323. This treaty, which established freedom of navigation on the Neva, attributed to Sweden three bailiwicks of Karelia, and left to Novgorod the rest of this country, as well as part of Savolaks.

The feudal system began to develop around the end of the fourteenth century. The payment of tithes in agriculture, hunting, or fishing, products according to the country, was settled from 1329, and the church regime wisely organized by Bishop Hemming of Turku (1338-1366), beatified in 1499.

The Kalevala is the national epic composed by Elias Lonnrot. Lonnrot, who, as a physician, went from farm to farm in the Karelian space, was able to gather innumerable popular songs, rebuses with mythological connotations, and proverbs from popular tradition; that he has merged into a coherent, but imbued with a great beauty, narrative.

Although Lonnrot personally had a rather detached view of the myths and beliefs presented in his Kalevala; he has nevertheless inserted the "paganism" of the former Finns in a Christian thread; making the text begin with the creation myth (as Genesis is the first text of the Bible), and the birth of Väinämöinen, ending it with the song of the son of Marjatta (Mary) banishing Väinämöinen; which marks the end of shamanism and the beginning of the Christian era.

A first version, published in 1835, was followed in 1849 by a considerably increased edition, which includes about 23,000 lines. The main characters are the bard Väinämöinen, the blacksmith Ilmarinen and the seducer Lemminkäinen. They fight Louhi, the mistress of the country of Pohjola, for the possession of the Sampo, a magic mill. This Sampo is to offer happiness and wealth to the Far North, so that our three heroes (Ilmarinen, Lemminkäinen and Väinämöinen) decide to seize it, while Louhi

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pursues their vessel, which sinks at sea. At the end of the epic , we see Väinämöinen liberating the moon and the sun, hidden by Louhi in a mountain, while the son of Marjatta takes power in Karelia. The twilight of the heroes of the Kalevala, therefore, corresponds to the victory of Christianity, of which priests later will do everything in their power to stifle popular poetry. Communities and villages had their own guardian deities, called haltija, who received worship actualized with sacred plants, stones or trees. Everyone in the community had a role to play in the rituals. These haltija were spirits capable of taking several forms, among others human and animal. They could be male or female. Their role was to protect or guarantee wealth and fertility.

Petroglyphs show us that moose was a very important animal. It appears besides more often than bear; Even if it is assumed that the bear was so sacred that its representations were forbidden. Its name was taboo, so much that a whole repertoire of euphemisms was developed to talk about it. The current Finnish word for "bear" is for example karhu, which means "rough fur." It is assumed that the word "original" for designating the bear was otso, a word which is more or less found in most Finno-Ugric languages.

In Karelia, it was believed that a bird brought the soul of the newborn, even that the same bird took back that of the dying. This bird was called sielulintu, "soul bird."Some people wore a jewel with its effigy in order to be protected by it during their sleep. The jewel was hung on the cross of his possessor's grave if he died. In Karelia people prayed the dead as well as the saints, what is not without remembering us the point No. 25 of the small list appended to the fifth canon of the Council of Leptines in 743, under the Latin title of indiculus superstitionum et paganiarum (the idea that every deceased is saint)........

*Violent anti-Christian clashes in Tavastia, mentioned in a letter by Pope Gregorius IX in 1237, have been attributed to his methods of Christianization.

THE BALTIC COUNTRIES.

It is fashionable in Neo-Pagan circles, forgetting the case of Sami or Lapps, to point out that Lithuania did not become a Christian until 1387. This is perfectly true. A nation with mythical as well as historical origins, immense territory capable of arousing the lust of its neighbors, the mysterious and rich Lithuania remained, in the Middle Ages, a pagan enclave in a Europe having entered the process of Christianization. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania is immense; it extends from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, and includes the principalities of Smolensk and Kiev. It is sparsely populated, but it is said that its resources are inexhaustible, in furs especially, and in amber.

The name of Lithuania appears for the first time in connection with the death of St. Bruno of Querfurt in the archives of the monastery of Quedlinburg in 1009. It refers to (tragic) events having taken place on the Polish-Lithuanian border.

This pagan Lithuania is therefore an obstacle at the same time a challenge. First called for help by the Prince of Masovia, the Teutonic knights took possession of the country of the Borussians - East Prussia - before attacking, on their own initiative, the Lithuanian province of Samogitia. In order to establish a land connection with the Livonian Order, founded in 1203 by Albert of Bremen, bishop of Riga.

Samogitia is the western part of Lithuania. Samogitia was historically speaking a territorial entity whose western boundary bordered Prussia and the Baltic Sea, to the north the Courland, to the south the Niemen River. The eastern border , on the other hand, was never very clear ...

Samogitia played a crucial role in this part of the world for two centuries, stopping the expansion of the Teutonic Order; Because on several occasions its armies defeated the German Knights, especially during the battles of Siauliai (1236) of Skuodas (1259) and Durbe (1260).

The rich and beautiful province of Samogitia became soon the stake of a long war between Germans and Lithuanians; the first ones supported by their will to conquer, under the pretext of converting the inhabitants, the lands of the "last savages in Europe." But the Lithuanians feel a deep hatred towards

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these so-called crusaders with unlimited cruelty. For them, to receive the baptism of such conquerors is not conceivable. The Lithuanian chiefs, Grand Duke Mindaugas the first one, nevertheless understand well that in the Europe of the thirteenth century, keeping the faith of their ancestors is impossible. You must choose one of the two Christian religions, the Orthodox or the Roman Catholic. Now, the weakness of the Russian principalities, subjected to the Mongol or Tatar Muslims, does not imply their adhesion. Rome appears to be much more powerful. Moreover, the conversion of the Grand Duchy to Catholicism would deprive the Teutonic Knights of any religious pretext for the conquest of the country.

Abjuring its traditional faith is nevertheless difficult for the Lithuanian people, as this implies a break with their past. This is why, if Mindaugas and his relatives are converted, in a personal capacity and by political maneuver, their subjects refuse to give up their ancestral spirituality. In 1283, they prefer to get rid of Mindaugas by murdering him, but that solves nothing.

After a period of wavering, Gediminas becomes Grand Duke and starts a policy of alliance with Poland. He gives his daughter Aldona in marriage to Casimir III and opened his country to the Roman priests, which earned him, like his predecessor, many enmities. He died in 1341, during the defense of the castle of Veliuona against the Teutonic Knights.

The idea of a national conversion nevertheless gains ground. In order to escape from a situation which has become indefensible- Germans are constantly receiving reinforcements- it is necessary to become closer Catholic Poland in order to oppose the Teutonic knights. Poland, on the other hand, is very much in favor of a rapprochement with the Grand Duchy, to convert it, of course, but also in order to try and get hold of the territories of Volhynia, Podolia and Ukraine situated in the east of Lithuania. It is much smaller than Lithuania, but it is a kingdom. In an alliance with a Grand Duchy, it will have the preeminence. In addition, Poland claims to bring to “savage” and unpolished Lithuanians, not only the Catholic belief, but also a gloss of worthiness and a refined culture, expressed in arts, architecture and manners. Everyone therefore sees this alliance for the advantages it will bring to him, without stopping at the inconveniences. There will always be time to discover them.

The cousin of Jogaila (Jagiellon), Vytautas, is not for this union. He wants to pursue his own policy in order to protect, not the independence, but the personality of Lithuania, against an invading Poland, which seeks to expand at the expense of its new ally.

In 1382, he waged war against his cousin, supporting his father. He was defeated and imprisoned, but managed to escape and take refuge to the Teutonic Knights, among whom he was consequently baptized in 1384 in the Catholic rite under the name of Wigand. Later, however, he moved away from Christianity and returned to paganism. After participating in several incursions against Ladislaus, he nevertheless reconciled with him, and participated in the signing of the Union of Krewo between Poland and Lithuania in 1385. Grand Duke Jogaila (Jagiellon) marries Hedwig of Anjou (Jadwiga), queen of Poland, becomes so the king of this country, and is converted at the same time as his people - cujus regio, ejus religio. By this alliance Poland obtains what the Teutonic knights have tried to get vainly for more than a century. Lithuania enters the bosom of the Roman Catholic Church.

Vytautas is again baptized in 1386, in the Catholic rite, under the name of Alexander (Aleksandras) this time.

He also escaped the Teutonic Knights at the beginning of 1390 and became governor of Lithuania in 1392. He followed his own policy and got the support of Pope Boniface IX to organize a crusade. After having been defeated by the Muslims of the Golden Horde at the Battle of Vorskla in 1399, he further improved his relations with Poland, what will produce the Vilnius and Radom Union in 1401. He received in exchange the title of Grand Duke. He conquered Smolensk in 1404, and entered the war against the principality of Moscow from 1406 to 1408, which ended with the treaty of Ugra. He supported an uprising against the Teutonic Order in 1410.

In 1413 Jogaila and Vytautas, accompanied by several priests, will begin to baptize the population, and in 1415 a delegation of 60 nobles from Samogitia went to the Council of Constance to announce the conversion of their country. The diocese of Samogitia or Medininkai will be founded in 1417, and its see established in Varniai. Vytautas grants land to it and gives it money for the building of a cathedral as well as several churches (in Ariogala, Kaltinenai, Kelme, Kraziai, Luoke, Raseiniai, Veliuona and Vidukle).

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BACK TO THE SAMOGITIAN CASE.

The war between the Teutonic Knights and Lithuania had reached a turning point when Grand Duke Jagiellon, the new king of Poland, baptized the country in 1387. The transition to Roman Christianity enabled Lithuania to escape the attacks of the Teutonic Order, justified by the persistence of paganism.

However, the Christianization of Lithuania did not amount to forced baptism; the Polish Church responsible for the evangelization of the country preferred to establish a gradual assimilation of the Christian system by the sympathizers; instead of brutally eliminating pagan traditions, it preferred to Christianize them, which had also been the case sometimes in the countryside of Western Europe.

The enterprise was a success; a report by the papal envoys praised the effectiveness of Christianization and suggested that the Teutonics should stop attacking the newly Christian Lithuania.

This was not to the liking of Marienburg, for which Jagiellon could only trick them into talking about conversion, and they therefore accused Krakow of softness towards the pagans. They even refuse to listen to the emperor and the pope, who now forbid any crusade against Lithuania. But how can the Teutonic Order still have a reason to exist if the adversary has become definitively Christian? Marienburg will play its last card for this, the persistence of paganism in the province of Samogitia.

The region called Samogitia (Žemaitija in Lithuanian) corresponds to the western part of present-day Lithuania. The inhabitants of this province relatively independent of Vilnius are very attached to paganism. Momentarily occupied by the Knights, this region was not baptized in 1387, because missionaries were not able to enter it. Samogitia is therefore a region where, until the beginning of the 15th century, the last pagans of Europe still freely exercised their religion.

The Christianization of this last pagan province of Europe will see two different methods confronting each other. That of the Teutonic Knights and that of Lithuania or Poland.

Beyond the political rivalries between the old religious and military order and the Grand Duchy newly converted to Roman Christianity, two radically different visions of the methods to be followed will oppose each other.

The Teutonic method referred to by Lithuanian arguments can be defined as an unequal cohabitation, where indigenous farmers were allowed to live according to their customs, while the converted nobles joined the cultural and religious world of the knights and settlers in the cities. Such cohabitation made cultural exchanges possible that are worthy of study, but blocked the access of the Baltic people to a culture that would have made a certain social ascension possible for them. On the other hand, Lithuanian demands left no room for religious cohabitation, in the sense that all pagans had to be baptized. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania had been used to the cohabitation of several different religions since the beginning of the fourteenth century, and this was still the case well after 1387; but in the case of Samogitia, the aim was indeed to convert the inhabitants to the Catholic religion.

Lithuania and Poland, like the Teutonic Order, tried first , by means of letters and embassies to the European courts, to value their role in the process of Christianization and to demonize their competitors.

The fate of Samogitia was finally discussed at the Council of Constance (1414-1418), where the Teutonic, Polish and Lithuanian delegations competed against each other on the fringes of the discussions on the Great Western Schism and the Hussite affair.

In order to counter the voice of the Order, the traditional bearer of the Christian religion among the Baltic pagans, Lithuanian and Polish diplomats will develop a whole theory of Christianization that will challenge the methods of the Knights.

Samogitia was no less important for Jagiellon and especially for his cousin Vytautas, the new Grand Duke of Lithuania, son of a pagan prince who was highly respected by the Samogitians, who was also baptized as an adult.

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However, in 1398, Vytautas was forced to give up Samogitia to the Order and he was even accused of supporting the revolt which broke out in 1401 against the Teutonic Knights in the country.

To which the Grand Duke replied that the Samogitians were interested in Christianity but refused to obtain it from the Teutonics.

Vytautas and Jagiellon were defeated and in 1404 they recognized in Racianz the Teutonic sovereignty over Samogitia and the Grand Duke even helped the Order to settle there.

The latter imposes a policy similar to the one he practiced in Prussia and Livonia a hundred years earlier; attempts are made to win the friendship of the local rulers - war compensations are given to the nobles - but the majority of the population is asked only for political obedience, without disturbing their spiritual life by intensive mission. The nobles have to hand over hostages who are taken to Prussia and receive baptism. Sacred woods are burned, mostly in the presence of Vytautas, who imposes a certain respect on the Samogitians; but the religious people who accompany the Knights are assigned solely to their service. For pragmatic reasons - they know that they are hated by the inhabitants - the Knights respect canon law, which forbids forced conversion, which would have been necessary if they wanted to evangelize the Samogitians at all costs. Therefore, the Teutonic Knights will coexist with the pagans, even if they are separated from them by the walls of their fortresses.

Jagiellon and Vytautas will again be accused of complicity with the Samogitians in their uprising of 1409. The Lithuanian will counterattack by writing a letter to the princes of Europe to dismantle the repeated accusations by the Order that he and Jagiellon are nothing more than pagans converted reticently and little concerned to spread Christianity in this part of the world.

Vytautas will use the case of Prussia and Livonia for this purpose." The knights count for little the fact that for 24 years we have made the Catholic faith grow, but in the land of the Prussians, which they have possessed for more than two hundred years, why don't they say what they have done?"

This reference to the Prussians indeed arouses the problem of the cohabitation of religions in the region. After the conquest of Prussia by the Order and the indigenous nobility integrated into the feudal system, the farmers population kept their traditional way of life. The policy of the Order seems to have had little influence on the religious life of the natives; some pagan customs persisted with the Prussian language.

In a sense, therefore, it can be considered that in the State of the Teutonic Order a certain religious cohabitation was the rule: Christianity and Western culture in the cities and castles, and the traditional Baltic culture, still largely pagan, in the countryside. Apart from military activities, where the indigenous Baltics rubbed shoulders with the Knights, the two worlds did not mix; as long as Prussian or Livonian subjects agreed to pay taxes and bear arms, their religious customs seemed to be tolerated, for lack of priests capable of preaching to them or simply out of political calculation. For many contemporary observers, this policy was condemnable, they reproached the Knights for being interested only in the lands of the pagans and neglecting their religious instruction, in short, for using evangelization as a pretext for usurping their possessions.

These diplomatic maneuvers led to a new war. In the summer of 1410, Jagiellon and Vytautas crushed the forces of the Order between the villages of Tannenberg and Grunwald. The Teutonic war machine is annihilated and the grandmaster is killed along with the main dignitaries. The Order was to sign the peace of Torun (1411), where it was decided that Samogitia would return to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, but only until the death of Vytautas and Jagiellon. After that, Marienburg will have to recover its former possession.

No one was satisfied with this arrangement and the talks sponsored between 1412 and 1414 by King Sigismund of Luxemburg, King of Hungary, failed to prevent a resumption of hostilities.

Meanwhile, Samogitia was baptized by Jagiellon and Vytautas, who took advantage of the fact that the region had returned to them to proclaim Christianity in 1413. Previously, two missionary attempts supported by Vilnius had gone through Samogitia, without success; Vytautas had even had to curb the zeal of the missionaries to avoid a rebellion. Faced with their Grand Duke and the King of Poland, the Samogitians now accepted more easily. According to the Polish chronicler Jan Dlugosz, the symbols of pagan worship are felled, prayers are read and the Samogitians are exhorted to allow themselves to

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be won over to the religion of their rulers. A few more churches were prepared for construction, and then the princes left. This first stage is symbolic.

It will take a few years before a bishopric is established and an ecclesiastical structure is created to baptize the population more widely. The aim of the operation was therefore above all to show that the Samogitians could be converted by their dukes and thus to anticipate the criticisms of the Teutonic Order, which would not have failed to accuse Poland and Lithuania of bad faith if nothing had been done to evangelize the pagan province.

As arms were unable to settle the conflict, it was decided in October 1414 to take the matter to the council meeting held in Constance to settle the problem of the Great Western Schism. The Teutonic delegation arrived in Constance in December and the public agent of the Order delivered a speech denouncing Poland's alliance with a falsely converted Lithuania. His arguments did not convince the Pope "of the Council," John XXIII, who was rather benevolent towards Jagiellon and Vytautas. At the beginning of 1415, the Polish delegates joined the council; among them was Paul Vladimir, rector of the University of Cracow and doctor of law. Defending the justice of the Polish-Lithuanian cause, he delivers two speeches in the summer of 1416 in which he shows that pagans can legitimately have states and that it is therefore forbidden to confiscate them.

The Polish delegation's effort was supported by a Samogitian embassy, sent by Jagellon and Vytautas. A delegation of about sixty nobles arrived in Constance on 28 November 1415, led by two Lithuanian boyars and the secretary of Vytautas. It is probable that the sending of this embassy was suggested by the Polish delegation, which intended to exemplify Vladimir's ideas by having the main people concerned speak, whose presence seems to have moved the members of the council. On February 13, 1416, the speech Propositio Samagitarum was read, exposing the difficult relations between the Samogitian pagans and the Teutonic Knights. The main ideas concur with those of Paul Vladimir, so much so that some historians consider him to be the true author of the speech. The text directs the debate on the concrete case of the Samogitians, presented according to Polish-Lithuanian interests; the pagan rebels of before 1413 are transformed under the author's pen into peaceful candidates for baptism, who could not become Christians because of the fault of the Teutonic Knights. The latter are not fooled; in a speech produced in response to the Samogitian complaint, the spokesman of the Order suggests that this text was written on the injunction of Vytautas.

A letter addressed by the Order's agent to the Grand Master also mentions the gifts distributed by the Lithuanian envoys.

The Samogitian embassy is therefore part of a diplomatic operation orchestrated by Vilnius and Krakow. From the preamble of the speech, it is announced that it was the Lithuanian example that convinced the Samogitians of the importance of baptism.

A list of crimes attributed to the Teutonics follows, killing by fire, rape, deportation and looting are the lot of the Samogitians. Three nominative examples are mentioned in order to illustrate these abuses.

On the diplomatic level, the mission of the Samogitians in Constance will be a success; the arguments of the Propositio Samagitarum seem to have hit the target, since the council agrees to support Lithuanian and Polish efforts to evangelize the last pagan province in Europe.

It should be remarked, however, that this is only a disagreement on the method, since none of the involved parties envisage for a single moment that the Samogitians could remain themselves.

However, in the speech given in Constance, one finds the idea that Christianity is inconceivable without justice and freedom, and that it is not possible for a people to be truly converted if they lose their rights. This political program seems, moreover, to have been partly respected; there has been no transfer of power in favor of newcomers, as it was the case in the provinces conquered by the Teutonic Order. Although politically motivated, the baptism of Samogitia was not imposed brutally; in Lithuanian Samogitia, as in Teutonic Prussia, evangelization will be a slow and complex process; and paganism remained alive, in Prussia as in Lithuania, long after the Constance discussion.

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EDITOR’S NOTE. The Lapps or Sami in the north of Scandinavia, as for them did not become predominantly Christian until the end of the eighteenth century.

The Sami people are the indigenous people of an area that covers northern Sweden, Norway, Finland, and a small part of Russia (Kola Peninsula). These peoples are most often called Lapps, but their members prefer the name of Sami , which they use to designate themselves. The term "Lapp" is considered by them to be offensive.

What seems certain is that the Lapps once occupied the whole of Finland today and it is only gradually that the Finnish/Suomalaiset speaking a language of the same Finno-Ugric family but different, have pushed them beyond the Arctic Circle.

The spirituality of the Sami shared a number of elements with the other religions of the polar regions, such as bear worship, sacrifices, shamanism ...

The noaidi (shaman) exerted a strong influence on the "sijdda" (winter village), as counselor, doctor and religious. As with other circumpolar populations, the shaman was an intermediary between the world of men and the supernatural world. Through various ecstatic trances, he communicated with the spiritual world inhabited by God-or-demons and various creatures, that he interrogated, in order to get information, or the satisfaction of a request.

One of the most interesting Sami traditions is the kind of songs called joik. The joiks are traditionally sung unaccompanied, mostly slowly and from the bottom of the throat, showing anger or pain. The Christian missionaries and priests called them immediately of course "Devil’s songs. Nowadays, joiks are frequently accompanied by instruments.

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CHRISTIANITY IN EASTERN EUROPE.

In 843, in virtue of the Treaty of Verdun, the Frankish empire was divided into three distinct states. The eastern part, which later became the Holy Roman Empire, considers itself the heir to the empire of Charlemagne and to his attempts to expand the Empire and the Catholic Church in Central Europe.

In the first half of the ninth century, therefore, from the bishoprics of Salzburg, Ratisbon and Passau, Frankish missionaries entered Bohemia, Moravia and the region which stretches from Slovakia to Carinthia. The Moravian and Czech aristocrats adopted the lifestyle and religion of the Frankish aristocrats. Rastislav (or Rostislav) who then took power in Great Moravia (in 846) is undoubtedly Christian, and has taken an oath of loyalty to King Louis II the German. He quickly extended his influence to Bohemia and then came into conflict with his suzerain.

Around 860, the entourage of Rastislav decided to ask for the support of the pope to strengthen both his State and Christendom. In 862 he made the same request, but to the Byzantine authorities: an embassy was sent to the two, spiritual and temporal, leaders, of Eastern Christianity: Patriarch Photius and Emperor Michael III.

Michel III then delegated to Moravia a mission led by two brothers, Cyril or Constantine the Philosopher (born about 827-828 in Thessalonica) and his brother Methodius, bishop of Sirmium (born about 815-820 in Thessalonica). Their native region, around Thessalonica, also being largely populated by Slavs, and their mother, Mary, perhaps of Slavic origin, they spoke their language.

It is then, according to their hagiographers, that the two brothers invented the Cyrillic alphabet (Glagolitic?) and the Slavonic liturgy in a few weeks or months (862-63). But this was in fact only the finalization of work undertaken many years earlier (yet another Christian lie!)

The missionary work of St. Cyril and St. Methodius dates from a time when, in spite of the growing tension between the East and the West, Christendom feels still to form one body.

Constantine and Methodius who speak the Slavic dialect of Macedonia have therefore no particular difficulty in Christianizing these peoples to whom they teach a liturgy in their language.

The Byzantine mission quickly extends its action to Pannonia, thus causing the opposition of the archbishop of Bavaria who considers that his rights are flouted. But from 867, the situation changes in Constantinople, where Michael III is assassinated and the patriarch Photius dismissed from his functions.

Constantine and Methodius then went to the Pope, bringing back to Rome the supposed relics of Clement I, which were received with great pomp by Adrian II.

Methodius, and several of their disciples, like Clement of Ohrid, were then ordained priests, and the Pope accepts the use of the Old Slavic as a liturgical language, which was a very thorny point in the West, where only Hebrew, Greek and Latin were recognized as legitimate religious languages.

Adrian II also consecrates Constantine as a bishop. But shortly after, in 869, the latter died in Rome, after having become a monk under the name of Cyril. Adrian II then appoints Methodius archbishop of Sirmium in Pannonia, missionary bishop for the Slavs, in order to organize a church province in the regions located in the east of Salzburg.

In 870, Methodius was imprisoned in Swabia at the instigation of the German bishops who challenged his jurisdiction and did not admit his liturgy; he was only released in 873 on the intervention of Pope John VIII.

Called to Rome in 879-880, he was consecrated bishop of the Kingdom of Great Moravia. In 881 he made a final trip to Constantinople where Photius was reestablished as a patriarch and then returned to Moravia where he died in 885.

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The work of Cyril and Methodius will have important non-religious effects in the long term. With Cyril and Methodius, the Slavs endowed themselves with their first alphabet and their first religious texts: Gospel, book of psalms, epistles, services The Slavic dialect in which the first texts were written with Cyril's alphabet will be that of the region of Thessalonica. At that time, the Slavic language has still a unity sufficient so that a dialect of the Mediterranean coast is understood by Slavs in Central Europe.

The work of Cyril and Methodius will remain until 894 during the reign of Svatopluk, nephew of Rastislav, who constituted an empire of Great Moravia including, in addition to Moravia, Slovakia, Bohemia, Silesia, the Krakow region and Lake Balaton in Pannonia. But then the companions of the two brothers would have to leave the region, and the original Christianity they had implanted there would fall under the influence of the Germanic clergy. The German bishop Wiching would restore Latin as the language of the Church.

After the Magyar conquest, Great Moravia was replaced by Bohemia, where monasteries remain faithful to the tradition of Methodius, and by a double cult in Latin or Old Slovene language. In White Croatia, it is around the monastery of Tyniec near Krakow that the Old-Slovene rite spreads. Despite his marriage with the princess of Bohemia Doubravka, the newly converted king of Poland, Mieszko I opts for the Latin ritual. Two metropolitan primates coexist, one in Gniezno in Latin ritual and the other in Sandomierz, probably in an Old-Slovene rite which disappeared when the Great Schism was formalized (1054)

Gradually appears thus in Europe a border, not political, but quite real, which separates Latin Christianity from Greek Christianity.

This dispersal of the disciples of the two brothers, speeded up by the fall of the kingdom of Moravia under the blows of the Magyars, will wreck apparently the work of Methodius but in fact will spread the liturgy and the new alphabet in the Slav countries, first in Bulgaria, then among the Serbs and the Russians of Kiev.

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UKRAINE AND RUSSIA.

The Greek colonies in the Euxine, both in Crimea and on the shores of the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea, remained for nearly a millennium the principal centers of Christianity in Eastern Europe. Among the places that enjoyed a certain reputation were the Inkerman Cave Monastery, a Byzantine monastery where the relics of St. Clement, the fourth Bishop of Rome, were preserved until they were brought back to Rome by the brothers Cyril and Methodius.

Warning to the reader. The Primary Chronicle, often referred to below, is a text written long after the events (in 1111) by a monk called Nestor.

It would be wrong to seek in the work a precise and exhaustive list of events. It is obvious that the author's aim was not to relate facts, but essentially to inculcate to his readers important lessons on the basis of his idea of the specificity and sanctity of their national identity. Thus the idea of a territory of Slavic origin on the middle Danube was certainly suggested by reading texts on the mission of Saints Cyril and Methodius and wanted to connect the Rus' to the territory where the Slavs had been Christianized.

It is not surprising that the reliability of the information given by the PVL is greater in the years close to their writing. This is especially the case from the years 1060 to 1116. For the previous years, are accumulated in it inaccuracies and mistakes. The first attack on Constantinople is dated 866 instead of 860 and the arrival of the Varangians would have taken place in 862 whereas the date of 856 is more probable. For this period, many facts are not historical, while others seem very real, among other things, because they can be compared to lists of tributes; this is also the case of the literal transposition of treaties between the princes of Kiev and the Byzantine emperor. The chronicle seems trustworthy in the information it contains about the legends and myths surrounding the conscience of the leaders of the principality, of their own identity.

The only really historical and objective source we have about the beginning of the Christianization in the Kievan Russia in the ninth century is the encyclical letter of Patriarch Photius probably dating from 867, referring to the siege of Constantinople by the Rus’ in 860. Photius informs the patriarchs of the East, and their suffragans, that the Bulgarians were baptized in 863, that they were soon followed by the Rus’, and that he had considered prudent, as in the case of the Bulgarians, to send them a bishop from Constantinople. However, it may be that the group to which the patriarch was referring was a Rus’ community having little or no connection with the Kievan Rus’ and lived near the Black Sea or the Sea of Azov. According to Dimitri Obolensky, it is possible that early conversions took place shortly after the first Rus’ raid against Constantinople in 860, that a first bishop was sent in 867, followed by an archbishop in 874. However, this first Church would have practically disappeared when the pro-Christian rulers of Kiev were replaced by a group of Varangian Scandinavians led by a certain Oleg, Prince of Novgorod. A small Christian community, however, would have survived and gradually expanded to the final conversion under Vladimir.

If the Byzantine treaty of 911 presupposes that the Kiev Rus’ were still pagan, that of 944, as reported in the primary Chronicle, refers to a church in Kiev, and relates that some of the Rus’ took their oath according to the Christian faith in the church of St. Elias, while the ruling prince and other non-Christians invoked Perun 1) and Veles 2). No Greek source mentions a second baptism of the Kievan Rus’ in the years 990, what implies ex silentio that the country was already Christian. In 945 or 957, according to sources, Princess Olga of Kiev went to Constantinople with a priest named Gregory. The De Ceremonis preserves the description of the imposing reception which was granted to her. Legend has it that Emperor Constantine VII would have fallen in love with her but the princess found the way to avoid marriage by asking the emperor to be his godfather at baptism. Once baptized, she then claimed that it was forbidden in Christianity that a godfather married his goddaughter. Legend legend.... The alliance with Constantinople seems hardly to have been very strong, however, for in 959 it is Otto I that Olga addresses to get the sending of a bishop and priests. Otto, who was preoccupied with the prospect of an alliance between the Kievan Rus’ and the Byzantine Church, would have hastened then to make a monk named Libutius appointed as bishop, but he died in February 961 before even he arrived in his diocese. Another monk, Adalbert from Trier was then chosen and

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became the first bishop of Kiev. He was, however, expelled by the pagans shortly afterwards (quotation needed).

Olga's son, Sviatoslav, continued to worship Perun and the other gods of the Slav pantheon and remained pagan his entire life. According to the Primary Chronicle, he would have feared that his men would mock him if he became a Christian.

His successor, Yaropolk I (972-980) seems to have had a more conciliatory attitude towards his Christian subjects and even exchanged ambassadors with the Pope. The Chronicon of Ademar de Chabannes and the Life of St. Romuald by Pietro Damiani describe the mission of St. Bruno of Querfurt in the Rus’ country where he succeeded in converting one of the local kings (one of the three brothers who ruled the country).

During the first decade of the reign of Vladimir, a reaction to the spread of Christianity was organized; The gods were again honored and the statue of Perun was erected on a hill near the royal palace, where also stood altars for the gods Hors, Dazbog, Stribog, Simargl, and Mokosh. The same phenomenon also occurred in the neighboring countries where Jarl Haakon in Norway and (perhaps) Sweyn Forkbeard in Denmark encouraged such a revival. Vladimir, however, attempted to go further than his neighbors, and according to the Primary Chronicle human sacrifices would have even taken place in Kiev ????

On returning from a raid in 983, Vladimir would have wanted to offer such a sacrifice to thank the gods for his successes. The lot designated the son of a Varangian, who had returned from Greece, and professed the religion of the Greeks. The latter refused to sacrifice his son etc.etc...for the continuation see Nestor’s Chronicle. (Vladimir inquires about the religions of his neighbors to choose one and it will be that of Constantinople that will seduce him): “It is impossible to find on earth more beauty and magnificence .")

Perhaps more likely. In 987 the generals Bardas Skleros and Bardas Phokas rebel against the Byzantine emperor Basil II (960-1025). Uniting their forces for the circumstances, the rebellious generals march on Constantinople. On September 14, 987, Bardas Phkcas proclaim himself emperor. Anxious to avoid the siege of his capital, Basil II asks the Rus' help even if they were then considered enemies. Vladimir accepts in exchange a matrimonial alliance. Once the wedding arrangements had been made, Vladimir sent 6,000 men to assist the Emperor in quelling the revolt.

In the Primary Chronicle, a narrative of Vladimir's conquest of the city of Korsun (Cherson in Crimea, an important administrative and commercial center) in 988. is previous the depiction of Vladimir's baptism.

This campaign aimed perhaps to get a guarantee that Basil II would keep his promises and that he might well marry the sister of the emperor, Anna Porphyrogenete; The latter had been promised to him on condition that Vladimir agrees to be baptized before the marriage. The baptism which would have taken at Cherson in Crimea was marked by the miraculous healing of an eye sickness that made Vladimir almost blind. He then took the Christian name of Basil in homage to his brother-in-law. The ceremony of baptism was immediately followed by that of the wedding.

After his triumphal return in Kiev, Vladimir exhorted the population to meet on the banks of the Dnieper to be baptized. This mass baptism was to become the symbol of the Christianization of the Kievan Rus’.

Vladimir began by baptizing his twelve sons and many boyars. He then destroyed the wooden statues he had himself erected a few years earlier. They were broken or shattered after being dragged behind horses and whipped; that of Perun was thrown into the Dnieper.

After which Vladimir sent a message to the inhabitants of Kiev, "rich and poor, beggars and slaves" inviting them to come to the banks of the river the next day, otherwise they would be considered "enemies."

A large number of people therefore went to the spot, bringing their children with them, and went down into the water, while priests from Cherson, who had come with Princess Olga, were praying.

To commemorate the event, Vladimir built the first stone church of the Kievan Rus’, called the "church of the tithes," where he and his wife had to repose after their death. Another church, dedicated to St. Basil, was built on the hill where the statues stood before.

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The baptism of the Kievans was followed by similar ceremonies in other centers of the country. The Chronicle of Bishop Ioakim Korsunianin reports that Vladimir's uncle, Dobrynya, forced the inhabitants of Novgorod to convert "by fire," and that the local mayor, Putyata, persuaded his fellow countrymen to accept the Christian faith " by the sword. " The Bishop

built the first wooden church in Novgorod, the cathedral of the Holy Wisdom "with 13 tops" on the site of a pagan cemetery.

The northeastern part of the country, whose center was Rostov, was nevertheless particularly hostile to the new religion, and even Novgorod experienced violent outbreaks until 1071 in which Bishop Fedor faced a real threat to his person; Prince Gleb Sviatoslavich broke up the crowd by chopping a “sorcerer” (a pagan priest?) in half with an axe. The first book of non-religious literature, the Tales of Igor’s campaign (12th century), reveals that a certain pagan vision of the world persisted for a long time in Kievan Rus’.

Might it not become us, brothers to begin in the diction of yore the stern tale of the campaign of Igor, son of Svyatoslav? Let us, however, begin this song in keeping with the happenings of these times and not with the contriving of Boyan. For he, vatic Boyan if he wished to make a laud for one, ranged in thought [like the nightingale] over the tree; like the gray wolf across land; like the smoky eagle up to the clouds. For as he recalled, said he,the feuds of initial times,"He set ten falcons upon a flock of swans….

O Boyan, nightingale of the times of old! If you were to trill [your praise of] these troops, while hopping, nightingale, over the tree of thought; [if you were] flying in mind up to the clouds;[if] weaving paeans around these times, [you were] roving the Troyan Trail,across fields onto hills;then the song to be sung of Igor that grandson of Oleg [ would be]:"No storm has swept falcons across wide fields;flocks of daws flee towards the Great Don";or you might intone thus, vatic Boyan, grandson of Veles 2):

1) The panth-eon of the Eastern Slavs was populated by gods representing the forces of the universe: Perun, their main god, appeared in thunder and lightning, Svarog with the sky, Dajbog with the sun, Striborg with the wind, Etc.

2) Veles, guardian of herds and fields. His feast became locally the Shrove Tuesday carnival.

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WITCH HUNTS OR

TWILIGHT OF THOUGHT.

Witch hunt is the prosecution, persecution and conviction of people accused of witchcraft. It is found therefore in all times, as the biblical example shows it, and in all civilizations until it is gradually reconsideration by scientific culture.

This type of suppression of nonconformist or "deviant" behaviors will develop mainly and exponentially in the fifteenth century and will end in 1692 in Salem with respect to America, 1782 * in Europe. It is fed on a dominated by fear and pushed to informing, culture, leading to executions mainly based on hearsay, inhuman tortures and without direct evidence. It will make, over centuries, a considerable number of victims, which remains very difficult to estimate since there are few written traces of mere murders.

Witch hunts such as those in Europe or the United States (Salem, 1692) arose from the coming together, or more precisely, from the succession or superposition of two different beliefs.

-The first chronologically speaking is the belief in the existence in nature of forces neither good nor bad, which can be handled or implemented or controlled, as the case may be. This belief has given, on the one hand, naturalistic paganism and then science.

-The second is the Manichaean belief not in the forces of nature neither good nor bad, but in one spirit or some spirits of evil, bent on fighting the spirit or the spirits of good. This Manichaeism has produced the mass religions known today as Judaism Christianity or Islam (God and Devil, Angels and Demons).

In this sense the sorcerer is by no means a heretic; on the contrary, he believes in a very orthodox way in the existence of the devil and his demons; the only problem is that instead of fighting them, he adores them worships and solicits them (for only evil ends, therefore finally, even though they can seem attractive at first). This "magical" or "primitive" mentality of mass religions explains the papal bull published by Pope Gregory IX in 1233 (Vox in Rama) and condemning a German heresy described as "Luciferian" (perhaps simply some Cathars besides).

In 1231 indeed Gregory IX implements in Germany, his constitution Excommunicamus instituting the medieval Inquisition and confers on a man named Conrad of Marburg the title of Inquisitor. The pope dispenses him from following the obligations of the canonical procedure and allowed him to proceed at best against the heretics, but by respecting the papal decrees. Conrad having been left free to choose his collaborators, he asks the Dominicans through the Priors of Ratisbon, Friesach and Strasbourg, and traces the "Waldensians" and "Cathars," as they were then called, without any real distinction between the heresies , as well as the group known as “Luciferian."

Conrad's two assistants are fanatical ignoramuses, unfit for this task, and Conrad takes the statements of the suspects for cash. On the strength of these accusations, he effects a series of arrests for heresy, without seeking to verify their accuracy. The defendants can either confess their fault (and have their head shaved as penitence), or profess their innocence, at the risk of being judged a not repented heretic, and given up to the secular arm to end up at the stake. The number of his victims is not known with precision. In Western Germany, his activity as an inquisitor caused a general panic 1). He acts with such fanaticism and so illegally that he raises the population against him.

On his request, in 1233, the pope will issue the first bull in the history of the witches, the Vox in Rama, describing the witches' Sabbath and their so-called devil worship. The bull describes in detail the initiation rites of the "sect."

“The potential initiate is first approached by a mysterious toad as large as a dog. Shortly afterwards an emaciated pale man appears, whom the initiate kisses. Members of the sect then meet for a meal. When the meal had ended, the sect would arise and a statue of a black cat would come to life, walking backwards with its tail erect. First the new initiate and then the master of the sect would kiss the cat on the buttocks.

After the ritual was completed, the candles in the room are extinguished and the sect then engages in orgies which were sometimes homosexual in nature. Once the candles are relit, a man from a dark

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corner of the room “comes forth, shining like the sun. His lower part is shaggy like a cat 2). After a brief dialogue between the cat and the sect members, the meeting ends.”

In his bull Gregory also claims that the sect commits various crimes against the Eucharist: They receive the body of the Lord every year at Easter from the hand of the priest and, carrying it in their mouths home, they throw it into the latrine.”

In conclusion, of course, Gregory condemns the practice and calls upon the religious and secular authorities in the diocese to take action against the cult's participants.

Conrad's conclusions were contested shortly after his arrival at Mainz by another legate of the pope named Bernard who wrote to Rome that Conrad had forced innocent people to confess by threatening them with the stake but the harm was done. In the 1260s, Pope Alexander IV ordered the inquisitors to take an interest in spells and divinations as well as in the heretics whom they were already pursuing. These decisions make therefore witchcraft an important crime against the faith. The ideological basis of the proscription of witchcraft came then into being, and it was remembered everywhere in Europe what the Old Testament advocated in this field. Exodus 22: 18-20: " Do not allow a sorceress to live. Anyone who has sexual relations with an animal is to be put to death. Whoever sacrifices to any god other than the Lord must be destroyed etc.” The crime par excellence today is racism, but at the time it was that of being a sorcerer or a witch.

The very notion of "white" or "black" magic is then anachronistic in Europe, magic itself being seen only as a tool helping to accomplish good as well as evil. However, some distinction is made between certain practices that are collectively considered harmful and unhealthy, and other practices whose beneficial qualities are largely recognized, such as remedies.

Magic and science are closer to one another than we could think at first. They postulate, indeed, both a natural order on which they try to act. It is their means of action which differ profoundly. Magic seems at first sight to be closer to science than to religion for two reasons: on the one hand, it postulates a unity of the laws of nature and claims to act upon it through the knowledge of these laws, what relates it with an applied science or a technique; on the other hand, it is done by nonconformist individuals, regarded as genial or as evil.

In the Middle Ages, there were two kinds of people engaged in the practice of magic: literary magicians like Merlin, called nigromancers or invocators of demons, and sorcerers or witches.

Unlike the literary magician, generally educated and in possession of grimoires and / or other magical books, witches and sorcerers come from popular circles, usually do not know how to read or write, are orally instructed by a close relation and serve as healers and enchanters in their communities.

If the pagan populations marginalized or sometimes stoned a "spellcaster," they admitted the trances and states of possession. See on this subject in the 12th and 17th centuries still (for Wales) the testimonies of Giraldus Cambrensis and of a Welsh poet named Henry Vaughan (in a letter written to the Druidomaniac John Aubrey).

Giraldus Cambrensis. Chapter XVI (concerning the soothsayers of this nation, and persons as if they were possessed).

“There are certain persons in Cambria, whom you will find nowhere else, called awenyddion, or people inspired; when consulted upon any doubtful event, they roar out violently, are rendered beside themselves, and become, as it were, possessed by a spirit. They do not deliver the answer to what is required in a connected manner; but the person who skillfully observes them will find, after many preambles, and many nugatory and incoherent, though ornamented speeches, the desired explanation conveyed in some turn of a word. They are then roused from their ecstasy, as from a deep sleep, and, as it were, by violence compelled to return to their proper senses. After having answered the questions, they do not recover till violently shaken by other people; nor can they remember the replies they have given. If consulted a second or third time upon the same point, they will make use of expressions totally different; perhaps they speak by the means of spirits.”

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Henry Vaughan. “The ancient bards … communicated nothing of their knowledge, but by way of tradition: which I suppose to be the reason that we have no account left nor any sort of remains, or other monuments of their learning of way of living. As to the later bards, you shall have a most curious account of them. This vein of poetry they called awen, which in their language signifies rapture, or a poetic furor & (in truth) as many of them as I have conversed with are (as I may say) gifted or inspired with it.

I was told by a very sober, knowing person (now dead) that in his time, there was a lad fatherless & motherless, so very poor that he was forced to beg; but…suddenly awaked in a great fear but possessed with such a vein, or gift of poetry, that he left the sheep & went about the country, making songs upon all occasions, and came to be thus the most famous bard in all the country in his time.”

In such cases, Christianity considers that this is an attack of the demon against a person who is the victim of it. Jesus set the example by liberating the possessed, by "driving out the demon." The Church still uses exorcist priests. On the other hand, in the relatively rare cases in which it was the individual himself who had sought this state of trance, it could be, of course, accused of having then turned into the dark side of the force, therefore of witchcraft.

But let us return to our sheep justly. In a cultural background, still very marked by paganism nature can therefore seem populated by supernatural forces and a man can, therefore by various processes (invocations, rituals), put them temporarily at his service to do good or evil. In the latter case, the supposed wizard is perceived as any criminal, therefore prosecuted and condemned as such. More often it is not a trial in court, but merely a collective vengeance, a pogrom, a stoning. In the pagan Europe of the past, as during the Christian Middle Ages, it is sometimes enough that a person falls ill, that a barn burns, or hat a cow dies for no apparent cause, so that the village community designates a culprit that his behavior or marginality made suspect - often a shepherd (who lives apart), or the miller or sometimes a priest. He is assaulted, subjected to an "ordeal," summarily killed by beating, drowning, or hanging - rarely by the stake.

Placed before such outbursts of "popular justice," the authorities have always the reflex to control them. Depending on the balance of power (existence or not of a powerful central state ...), either they have cut “one’s loss” (it is the case to say it) or they repressed witch hunt.

But this notion of witchcraft and witch is not to be mixed up with heresy, despite their commonalities. Christianity at first generally considered that belief in sorcery was only a pagan superstition, for in its doctrine no human being has the power to command the demons. Hence the prohibition of violence directly against the very person of sorcerers or witches, the pagans should rather be converted.

The canon of bishop or Canon episcopi, so called after his incipit (Ut episcopi etc ...) is one of the last known texts before the Church changes its mind and the priests unleash their witch hunts throughout European Christianity. This canon is mentioned with variants in chapter 364 of the second book of the collection attributed to Bishop Reginon of Prum died in 915, entitled De Ecclesiasticis Disciplinis et Religione Christiana (Jacques-Paul Migne; Patrologia Latina).

"Regino, de ecclesiasticis disciplinis, 365. Ut episcopi episcoporumque ministri omnibus viribus elaborare studeant ut perniciosam et a diabolo inventam sortilegam et maleficam artem penitus ex paroechiis suis eradant, et si aliquem virum aut feminam hujuscemodi sceleris sectatorem invenerint, turpiter dehonestatum de paroechiis suis ejiciant [....].

Illud etiam non omittendum, quod quaedam sceleratae mulieres retro post Satanam conversae, daemonum illusionibus et phantasmatibus seductae, credunt se et profitentur nocturnis horis cum Diana paganorum dea et innumera multitudine mulierum equitare super quasdam bestias, et multa terrarum spatia intempestae noctis silentio pertransire, ejusque jussionibus velut dominae obedire, et certis noctibus ad ejus servitium evocari. Sed utinam hae solae in perfidia sua perissent, et non multos secum in infidelitatis interitum pertraxissent. Nam innumera multitudo, hac falsa opinione decepta, haec vera esse credit, et credendo a recta fide deviat; et in errorem paganorum revolvitur, cum aliquid divinitatis aut numinis extra unum Deum esse arbitratur. Quapropter sacerdotes per ecclesias sibi commissas populo cum omni instantia praedicare debent ut noverint haec omnimodis falsa esse, et non a divino sed a maligno spiritu talia phantasmata mentibus infidelium irrogari ."

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Translation attempt.

"To the end that bishops and their ministers work to labor with all strength to entirely uproot from their parishes the pernicious and devil-invented sorcery and malefic arts, if they find any man or woman sectarian of this wickedness, they eject them dishonorably disgraced from their parishes [….] This also is not to be omitted, that certain wicked women, turned back towards Satan, seduced by demonic illusions and phantasms, believe of themselves and profess to ride upon certain beasts in the nighttime hours, with Diana 1), the Goddess of the Pagans (or with Herodias) and an innumerable multitude of women, and to traverse great spaces of earth in the silence of the dead of night, and to be subject to her laws as of a Lady, and on fixed nights be called to her service. But would that they alone perished in their falsehood, and did not, through faithlessness, hand over many to ruin with themselves! For an innumerable multitude, deceived by this false opinion, believe this to be true, and so believing, avoid the straight faith, and are again caught in the errors of the Pagans, by judging there to be anything of divinity or divine will beyond the one God. Therefore, priests throughout their churches are required to pronounce this crime to the people, with all insistence, so this will be known to be lies in every way; and not from a divine, but from a malignant spirit are such phantasms imposed on the minds…. ”.

This opinion is therefore clear, and anticipates that of the great physicians of the soul that were Johann Weyer even Nicolas Malebranche from whom we borrow this conclusion (the search after truth second book).

Last chapter. Of Witches in imagination, and of Wolf-men. The conclusion of the first two books.

“The strangest effect of the force of imagination is the immoderate fear of the apparition of spirits, witchcraft, spells, and charms, lycanthropes or wolf men, and generally of whatever is supposed to depend on the power of the Devil.

There is nothing more terrible, or that frightens the mind more, and makes deeper impressions in the brain, than the Idea of an invisible power, intent upon doing us mischief, and to which we can make no resistance : whatever discourses raise that idea, are attended to with dread, and curiosity : now men affecting all that's extraordinary, take a whimsical delight in relating surprising and prodigious stories, of the power and malice of witches, both to the fearing others and themselves. And so we need not wonder that sorcerers and witches are so common in some countries, where the belief of the witches sabbath is deeply rooted in the mind : where all the most extravagant relations of witchcraft art listened to as authentic histories and where madmen and visionists, whose imagination has been distempered through the recital of these stories and the corruption of their hearts [….].

Which being so, let us try to rid ourselves by degrees of the delusions of our sense, of the vision and chimeras of our imagination, and of the impression made by other men's imaginations on our mind. Let us carefully reject all the confused ideas we have contracted through the dependence we are regarding our body ; and let us only admit the clear and evident Idea's which the Mind receives through its necessary union with the Divine Logos, or with Eternal Wisdom and Truth as we shall explain in the following Book, which treats of the understanding or pure mind.”

But as often the Church its mind (very mad is the man who trusts it, the holy spirit has always been more capricious than common sense), and thus returned to the edict of Thessalonica of 380: the so-called sorcerers, even without proved victims were at odds with the authorities in the countries where religious obscurantism reigned.This practice may still exist besides in some countries in Africa and Middle East applying the Sharia which forbids witchcraft, black magic or the recourse to Jinn, all practices called polytheistic or kuffar.

The true epidemic of which hunting which affected certain regions of Germany in the Renaissance hardly affected the Catholic states of Spain and Italy. In these countries Inquisition was busy pursuing heresy, that is mistakes in the matter of religious doctrine, but was not interested in the witchcraft that belonged either to the civil courts or to evangelization through preaching. It has been said that the nearer you were to Rome, the fewer stakes.

At the beginning of the fourteenth century, the number of trials for witchcraft is still low in Europe. A number of these trials affect important members of the clergy and are often part of political strategies,

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such as that of the Templar knights, or the posthumous trial sued against Pope Boniface VIII. Around 1326, Pope John XXII wrote the bull Super Illius Specula, which defined witchcraft as a heresy. Sorcery and heresy, hitherto perceived as two very distant mental universes, therefore will be equated for the next three centuries.

In the second half of the fourteenth century, trials were less frequent, but this trend was reversed from 1376 to 1435. From the second half of the fourteenth century to the first half of the fifteenth century, England and France evolved similarly, keeping a low number of trials, while in Germany, Italy and more particularly in Switzerland, the pace of trials increases significantly. Richard Kieckhefer explains this change of situation by the introduction of the inquisition procedure in the Empire at this period. At the beginning of the fifteenth century also appeared the belief of Pope Alexander V and a growing number of members of the clergy and lay judges in a conspiracy against Christendom by assemblies and sects of witches and sorcerers.

From 1436 to 1499, the number of trials for witchcraft in Europe is now on average three times higher than in the previous period. The times are then disturbed in Europe. While absolutism gains in power and influence, freezing society, previously unified Catholicism is shaken by the Reformation. It is in this context of fear, insecurity and affirmation of temporal and ecclesiastical power that secular justice pursues witchcraft.

The ideology of the witch hunt that is set up is built in 3 stages. First of all, the aspect of the crime against faith, which is based on a culture denouncing paganism, impiety and heresy displayed by magicians and sorcerers, centered around the bible and a haunting of the original sin assigned to the entire female sex. Women accused of witchcraft are often midwives or healers, custodians of an ancestral pharmacopeia and knowledge. Incantations in known or unknown language are often combined with caring and the Church forces the faithful to replace these gestures and incantations with prayers to the healing saints and signs of the cross. Midwives are accused of abortions.

We witness thus a feminization and a democratization of the accused. Henceforth, witches derive their evil and destructive energy from the Devil himself. Hence the search for the "Devil’s sign" (sigillum diaboli spotted on the naked and shaved body by a needle because it is to be insensitive and not hemorrhagic) and for associated signs including glossolalia, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, and other "devil's marks" like the use of magic potions or spells.

The first witch hunts took place in the second quarter of the 15th century. The majority of the accused are therefore women, largely poor, aged over 50 and most often isolated. This feminization of sorcery is still implicit in the bull of Innocent VIII of 1484, Summis desiderantes affectibus, in which he sends the signal of the witch hunt and organizes the struggle against sorcery, thus widening the mission of the Inquisition to "infernal practitioners." On the contrary, it is quite explicit in the two famous demonological works which followed the creation of this papal bull. First, the Malleus Maleficarum (1486), by Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger, two Dominicans. It is an inquiry ordered by the Inquisition that describes the witches, their practices, and the methods to recognize them. The Malleus Maleficarum, or Hammer of Witches Hammer, was a real success: it had about thirty Latin editions between 1486 and 1669. The manual written by the two Dominicans was used as a reference by the secular justice which sentenced the sorcerers. The second work, De lamiis et phitonicis mulieribus or Of Witches and Diviner Women (1489),by the Doctor of Canon Law and judge in the Constance Court, Ulrich Molitor, is less well known than the first, and considers the Sabbaths not as reality but as evil illusions. He nevertheless aligned himself with the Malleus to reiterate the necessity of executing the witches for their heresy and apostasy.

It is in this background that trials for witchcraft will be used as political stratagems – like the entourage of King Philip the Fair did in the early fourteenth century-. Sorcerers and witches seem to have been especially victims, among others, of the "overchristianization" of the temporal power that characterizes the autumn of the Middle Ages and the first part of modern times.

As for the prohibition of witchcraft, there are in principle two kinds of legislation. First, there is that of the secular authorities (like the king), which could order the penalties (such as execution) that they considered suiting the crime of witchcraft. As a rule, this type of legal conviction focuses primarily on the damage caused by the use of witchcraft by the accused.

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This is not the case with the second kind of proscription, that of the Church, which is concerned with the offense to God that are the ceremonies, rites and beliefs which accompany witchcraft at least as much as with the material prejudices caused . Thus the Church could excommunicate or require the accused to do penance.

However, it is simplistic to divide so the condemnation of sorcery, for quite often the two aspects are inseparable. The government is not secular, many sovereigns were influenced by churchmen, and ecclesiastical legislation was part of the secular code.

One of the most striking elements in the evolution of the proscription of witchcraft is the variation in the sanctions it generates. At the beginning of the 15th century, a person accused of witchcraft in Lucerne risked mostly excommunication and / or banishment. By the end of the last decade of the same century, the same accusation in the same town is likely to lead to a stake sentence.

This transformation is often attributed to the rise of the evil witch concept, which arouses fears. Following the beginning of the witch hunt in the early 14th century, after the issuance of the bull Summit desiderantes affectibus of Innocent VIII of 1484 (preceded in 1326 by the bull of John XXII Super ilius specula) and the publication of a growing number of works demonizing the imaginary world of the Sabbath, began a movement of systematic arrests throughout Europe.

This phenomenon can be observed mainly in Germany, Switzerland and France, but also in Spain and Italy. This first wave lasted until about 1520. Then a new wave appeared from 1560 to 1650. The tribunals of the Catholic regions but especially of the Reformist regions sent the witches to the stake. The number of trials is estimated at 100,000 and the number of executions at about 50,000. Brian Levack estimates the number of executions at 60,000. Anne L. Barstow revises these numbers and raises them to 200,000 trials and 100,000 executions (taking account of lost files).

According to Laura Stokes, the application and severity of this witch hunt is not uniform, as she demonstrates it by taking the cities of Basel Lucerne and Nuremberg as an example. One can observe a large variety of different cases not only between the cities but also with themselves through time. In Nuremberg, for example, despite the publication by Heinrich Kramer of an abbreviated version of the Malleus Maleficarum, called the Nurnberger Hexenhammer, and although the city is more and more deeply concerned about the reformation of morals or the punishment of moral transgressions, it hardly believes the accusations of witchcraft, considering them rather as popular superstitions and ignorance. In Basel also, this notion is ultimately rejected after a peak of severity in the mid-fifteenth century.

The change of the methods and punishments applied to the accused of witchcraft coincides with the implementation of the Roman law in the German-speaking countries. It is a process that culminates in the second quarter of the fifteenth century, at the same time as the beginning of the witch hunt. The beginning of the phenomenon of witch-hunting is therefore a part of a much broader movement aiming at the moral discipline of society, which brings together attempts to suppress a much larger number of behaviors such as sodomy.

The methods are those used at all times when the accused is found guilty even before the trial begins. The key moment of the interrogation is the appearance of witnesses who are often close to the witch. The moment before she did not know who had filed against her and suddenly the accused collapses when she realized what people joined their force against her.

The main reasons for denouncing are fear, mythomania, lure of profit or desire to satisfy personal hatreds.

Rich people are not protected, their possessions being a temptation to their accusers. Convictions could sometimes be extended to their children, especially if they were girls. Jews, homosexuals, the marginalized and "wandering people," the poor wretch and the vagabonds, or still the "travelers" are also among the victims. Animals were even burned for witchcraft, as well as sometimes they could be prosecuted for bodily harm. The priests themselves were not sheltered.

The craze of sorcery trials is also due to the fact that the remuneration of the inquisitors, but also informers, is paid according to the number of accused. The prisons are filled, the number of accused exceeds the ridiculous (more than twelve thousand participants in a Sabbath, according to Pierre de

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Lancre, judge in Bordeaux in 1609). Two children ten and twelve years old accused their mother "for bread."

The book by Friedrich Spee, Cautio Criminalis, written at the time of the most violent persecution in Germanic land, describes perfectly the inescapable mechanism that causes the accused can only die; if they do not confess, they are accused of diabolical taciturnity and are condemned, if they confess under torture, they are also burned.

The persecution of witches culminates in the 16th and 17th centuries and coincides with the Renaissance, the beginning of the modern era which is characterized by the humanism and the beginnings of printing. The great humanist thinkers did not protest against this movement, with the exception of Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, who was attacked for complicity.

The most cultivated, like Adrienne d'Heur in 1646 when asked if she believes in sorcerers, know that if they answer no, they will be accused of not believing in the devil and therefore of opposing the dogma of the Church and that if they answer yes, they will be asked from where they hold this suspicious certainty: would they personally know sorcerers? Adrienne d'Heur feels the trap and will reply that she believes in sorcerers because the Bible speaks about them.

The movement slowed down and stops at Salem in 1696, for several reasons. Psychiatry appeared at the foot of stakes, the doctors wondered about possession, visions, hallucinations. Johann Weyer (de praestigiis daemonum 1567) and Paul Zacchias are among the skeptics. In addition, the rise of medicine and the stabilization of society which cause that fear and illness increase , make the need for a supernatural scapegoat obsolete. The very presence of witches is questioned, and soon becomes a mere superstition.

The belief in sects of men or women endowed with supernatural powers whose aim was to propagate evil and devastation thus decreases over the years.

In 1602, the German Pastor Anton Praetorius of the Reformed Church of John Calvin published the book Thorough Report about Witchcraft and Witches (Von Zauberey und Zauberern Gründlicher Bericht) against the persecution of witches and torture. The Jesuit Friedrich Spee von Langenfeld, who accompanied many so-called witches to the stake, published an anonymous book to defend them (cautio criminalis), and throughout his life he fought to defend them and invited lawyers and all those who contributed to this hunt to attend one of these torture session in which he said he had seen his hair whitened facing so much distress and suffering that he could not relieve. This movement of normalization of minds and morals is part of the progression of Renaissance thought.

The Catholic Church in full reformation, and other Christian movements, increasingly call into question these archaic beliefs, in line with the development of the critical mind which condemns this practice. If the popular masses still believe in witchcraft, the elites want no longer to hear about it and impose its exclusion from the judicial field. Witchcraft is increasingly seen as a symptom of backwardness in a period of progress, order and reason. At the end of the 17th century in France, people who pretend to be sorcerers are condemned for fraud or poisoning, not for their supposed relations with the devil.

Nicolas Malebranche, in his famous work Concerning the Search after Truth, proposed a rationalist analysis of sorcery in the seventeenth century. Although he admits that very few cases of witchcraft are possible, he thinks that the vast majority of cases are pure products of a "contagious" imagination.

He uses for that , three arguments of different types..........

- Theological: Satan was defeated by God, and relegated to the abyss of the world, from which he can do nothing on men. Sorcerers cannot use powers that he cannot give them.

-Rational: those who testify (in good faith) to have been on the Sabbath, do so only because they mix up the wakefulness with dreams they had when they slept. By telling them, they have that others dream of that during the night, who will also confuse in turn the wakefulness with sleep, and so on. Moreover, such an extraordinary story captivates the ears and gives a certain prestige to whom tells it, and boasts it.

-Pragmatic: even assuming that there are some cases of true witchcraft, tracking them so mercilessly makes only multiply the reports. Not only by petty denunciations, nor only through the Herostratus complex, which means that, being not endowed with anything that could give us glory, we sought it in malefaction and destruction, but also because those their imagination transports away, and who don’t

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distinguish the wakefulness from sleep, find confirmation of the possibility of sorcery in its institutional recognition.

Thus Malebranche draws the conclusion that it is better not to judge so-called sorcerers in parliaments (courts of the time).

The dates vary according to the regions, but the witch hunt will mainly end in the 1680s (1692 in the United States, at Salem).

* The last woman executed for sorcery is in fact Anna Goldin in Glaris, Switzerland , in 1782. In Bournel in France a woman accused of sorcery was burned by peasants in 1826 and another witch thrown into a kiln in 1856 in Camalès. In 1886 in Luneau, the couple composed of Georgette and Sylvain Thomas burned alive the mother of this one, considering her possessed and responsible for their misfortune.

1) The texts of the inquisitors are already a full catalog of human perversions and male sexual fantasies.

2) We may think when we read such reports of alleged sexual relationships with the devil in certain homes or in nature that disguised men in reality abused the naivety of some women by pretending to be the devil with or without accomplices.

The witches are also given unbridled sexuality. According to the Hammer of witches Malleus Maleficarum, they have their vagina "insatiable." The sabbaths are the opportunity to imagine real sexual orgies. It is also necessary, perhaps, to bring these sabbaths together with ancient festivals, such as Beltene, which were feasts of fertility. There may have been, in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, resurgences of these festivals.

3) Diana not being specially known to be a sidesaddle rider, it is perhaps the Celtic goddess Epona. Or Arduinna. Prum is indeed a city located in the eastern part of the Ardennes.

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THE CASES AIKENHEAD AND LA BARRE.

Thomas Aikenhead (March 28, 1676, January 8, 1697). A Scottish student of Edinburgh, was the last person to be hung for blasphemy in Great Britain. In France, it was the knight François-J. Lefebvre de La Barre some ninety years later as we will see it.

Thomas Aikenhead was accused in December 1696 under the following count of the indictment (in short)…

The defendant maintained on several occasions in various conversations, that theology was a rhapsody of ill-invented nonsense, patched up partly of the moral doctrines of philosophers, and partly of poetical fictions and extravagant chimeras: he ridiculed the holy scriptures, calling the Old Testament Ezra's fables, in profane allusion to Esop's Fables; he railed on Christ, saying, he had learned magic in Egypt, which enabled him to perform those pranks which were called miracles later. He called the New Testament the history of the imposter Christ; he said Moses was the better artist and the better politician; and he preferred Muhammad to Christ: moreover that the Holy Scriptures were stuffed with such madness, nonsense, and contradictions, that he admired the stupidity of the world in being so long deluded by them: That he rejected the mystery of the Trinity as unworthy of refutation; and scoffed at the incarnation of Christ. He has also assured that Christianity would have completely disappeared in 1800.

Aikenhead was also accused of having declared one day: “"I wish I were in that place Ezra calls hell so I could warm myself .” This statement from him was made while passing in front of the church of Tron Kirk, whereas he was returning from a night of drinking session with classmates.

The prosecutor was James Stewart (the grandfather of the future Jacobite great economist James Denham-Steuart) who called for capital punishment in order to be used as an example for those who would be tempted to express similar opinions in the future. Aikenhead recanted during the audience and beseeched the leniency of the court but in vain, and he was sentenced to death by hanging. On the morning of January 8, 1697, Thomas wrote to his friends: “"it is a principle innate and co-natural to every man to have an insatiable inclination to the truth, and to seek for it as for hid treasure….” On the scaffold he also reiterated his conviction that the moral laws had a human and not divine origin.

Thomas Babington Macaulay said on the day of Aikenhead's death that "on that day the preachers who were the poor boy's murderers crowded round him at the gallows, certainly insulted heaven with prayers more blasphemous than anything he had uttered."

François-J. Lefebvre de La Barre (September 12, 1746, July 1, 1766).

The knight François-Jean Lefebvre de La Barre, born on September 12, 1746, in the castle of Ferolles-en-Brie, executed in Abbeville on July 1, 1766, is as well as the Scot Thomas Aikenhead in 1697, a victim of the religious intolerance in the Age of Enlightenment in a case where the philosophers of Enlightenments will throw themselves in the name of the religious tolerance.

The affair begins following the degradation, discovered on August 9, 1765, of the statue of Christ erected on the new bridge of Abbeville. This statue had been slashed at several places by “a cutting instrument” which, as the usher of the king wrote it, thus caused on the right leg “three cuts more than one inch long, each one, and four lines deep” and “two cuts beside the stomach.” The emotion in the Picardy city is enormous, because, according to the Catholic church, through this gesture, it is God, and not only his symbol, who is struck. Thus, sign of the seriousness of this blasphemy, the bishop of Amiens himself, his grace Louis-François-Gabriel d’ Orleans de La Motte leads, barefoot, the ceremony of “reparation” in order to pay for this sacrilege, in the presence of all the dignitaries of the area.

Who made this blasphemy? The rumors go strong, but, for lack of evidence, it is necessary to resort to a very thorough investigation in order to punish such a blasphemy. The priests incited even denouncement at the time of the Sunday masses. Finally, the investigation is led by Duval de Soicour, lieutenant of police in Abbeville, who gets involved with doggedness, not hesitating to provide false charges and false witnesses, and by the lieutenant of the local court Belleval, who is a personal enemy of the knight de La Barre, since his aunt, the abbess of Willancourt, rejected his advances.

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Intimidated, the questioned people accuse the knight de La Barre and two “accomplices,” Gaillard d’Etallonde and Moisnel, to have sung two libertine songs disrespectful with regard to religion and not to have removed their hats when a Corpus Christi procession went by. Worse, the three men through a challenge, refuse to kneel at the time of the passage of this same procession. After denunciation, a search carried out to the residence of La Barre led to the discovery of three prohibited books (of which the philosophical Dictionary of Voltaire and erotic books) which completes to discredit him in spite of a strong alibi. By misfortune for de La Barre, the bishop of Amiens and the local public figures (encouraged by influential excessively pious people attached to tradition) wished to make this case a true example.

Thinking of being found innocent thanks to the acquaintances of his family, the knight de La Barre does not prepare his escape and he is confined on October 1, 1765, in the abbey of Longvillers, in spite of the remarkable plea of the journalist and lawyer Linguet as well as the defense of the friends of the abbess of Willancourt before the Parliament in Paris, the sentence to the galleys got in the lower court (in the court of the concerned élection) is commuted to a death sentence. The king of France himself is asked, but little convinced by the arguments of the defenders of the knight, he refuses his pardon to him in spite of the intervention of the bishop of Amiens.

The knight de La Barre is therefore sentenced , to undergo ordinary and extraordinary torture so that he denounces his accomplices, to have his fist and his tongue cut, to be beheaded and burned with the specimen of the philosophical Dictionary nailed on his chest. This sentence for blasphemy is carried out on July 1, 1766, in Abbeville by five executioners especially sent from Paris (of whom the executioner Sanson who will cut his head). “I did not believe that it was possible to make a gentleman die for such a little thing” would have been his last words.

Thereafter, it was established that the degradation of the crucifix at the origin of the case of the knight de La Barre would have been caused by the accident of a cart loaded with wood. The knight de La Barre was in his room during the night of the degradation of the crucifix. This judgment was in any event deprived from legal bases even in the France of the time; the Declaration of July 30, 1666, on the blasphemy, not envisaging the death penalty.

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APPENDIX 1.

THE JEWS AND THEIR LIES BY MARTIN LUTHER 1543.

“0 how they love that book Esther, which so nicely agrees with their bloodthirsty, revengeful and murderous desire and hope ! The sun never did shine on a more bloodthirsty and revengeful people as they who imagine to be the people of God who desire to and think they must murder and crush the heathen.

And the foremost undertaking which they expect of their Messiah is that He should slay and murder the whole world with their sword.

…….Now what shall we Christians do with this rejected and condemned people? Since they live among us, we dare not tolerate their conduct, now that we are aware of their lying and reviling and blaspheming. If we do, we become sharers in their lies, cursing and blasphemy. Thus we cannot extinguish the unquenchable fire of divine wrath, of which the prophets speak, nor can we convert the Jews. With prayer and the fear of God we must practice a sharp mercy to see whether we might save at least a few from the flames. We dare not avenge ourselves. Vengeance a thousand times worse than we could wish them already has them by the throat. I shall give you my sincere advice.

-First to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians, and do not condone or knowingly tolerate such public lying, cursing, and blaspheming of his son and of his Christians. For whatever we tolerated in the past unknowingly and I myself was unaware of it will be pardoned by God. But if we, now that we are informed, were to protect and shield such a house for the Jews, existing right before our very nose, in which they lie about, blaspheme, curse, vilify, and defame Christ and us (as was heard above), it would be the same as if we were doing all this and even worse ourselves.

-Second, I also advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. For they pursue in them the same aims as in their synagogues. Instead they might be lodged in a barn, like the gypsies. This will bring home to them that they are not masters in our country, as they boast, but that they are living in exile as they incessantly wail and lament about us before God.

-Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them…..

Editor’s note. Diocletian did not do worse in Udna (current Tunisia) in 303 (see the acts of the martyrdom of St. Gallonius discovered by Paolo Chiesa and edited by him in 1996. With this difference that the proconsul Anullinus seems to have been more hesitant than the very Christian Luther, see our chapter on this).

-Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb. …

-Fifth, I advise that safe conduct on the highways be abolished for the Jews. For they have no business in the countryside, since they are not lords, officials, tradesmen, or the like. Let they stay at home…

-Sixth, I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them and put aside for safekeeping. The reason for such a measure is that, as said above, they have no other means of earning a livelihood than usury, and by it they have stolen and robbed from us all they possess. Such money should now be used in no other way than the following: Whenever a Jew is sincerely converted, he should be handed one hundred, two hundred, or three hundred florins, as personal circumstances may suggest…..

-Seventh, I commend putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into the hands of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow, as was imposed on the children of Adam (Gen 3[:19]}. For it is not fitting that they should let us accursed Goyim toil in the sweat of our faces while they, the holy people, idle away their time behind the stove, feasting and farting, and on top of all, boasting blasphemously of their lordship over the Christians by means of our sweat. No, one should toss out these lazy rogues by the seat of their pants.

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Editor’s note. Hitler will remember it in 1933 and 1938, and with his program of extermination through labor (arbeit macht frei).

……. that their synagogues be burned down, and that all who are able toss in them sulfur and pitch; it would be good if someone could also throw in some hellfire. That would demonstrate to God our serious resolve and …

I wish and I ask that our rulers who have Jewish subjects exercise a sharp mercy towards these wretched people, as suggested above, to see whether this might not help (though it is doubtful). They must act like a good physician who, when gangrene has set in, proceeds without mercy to cut, saw, and burn flesh, veins, bone, and marrow. Such a procedure must also be followed in this instance. Burn down their synagogues, forbid all that I enumerated earlier, force them to work, and deal harshly with them, as Moses did in the wilderness, slaying three thousand of them.…. I have done my duty. Now let everyone see to his. I am exonerated. My essay, I hope, will furnish a Christian (who in any case has no desire to become a Jew) with enough material not only to defend himself against the blind, venomous Jews, but also to become the foe of the Jews' malice, lying, and cursing, and to understand not only that their belief is false but that they are possessed . May Christ, our dear Lord, convert them mercifully and preserve us steadfastly and immovably in the knowledge of him, which is eternal life. Amen.”

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APPENDIX 2.

REMINDER ABOUT CHRISTIAN ANTI-SEMITISM.

As we have been reproached of attributing Christian anti-Semitism to the only unfortunate Luther (all we wanted to say is that Luther was not a saint); In order to show that we do not reduce the so-called phenomenon of Christian anti-Semitism to the only person of this famous German of the 16th century, we will give below another example.

1st homily against the Jews by St John Chrysostom.

See how thereafter the order was changed about: they became dogs... ... But what is the source of this hardness? It comes from gluttony and drunkenness. Who say so? Moses himself. "Israel ate and was filled and the darling grew fat and frisky." When brute animals feed from a full manger, they grow plump and become more obstinate and hard to hold in check; they endure neither the yoke, the reins, nor the hand of the charioteer. Just so the Jewish people were driven by their drunkenness and plumpness to the ultimate evil; they kicked about, they failed to accept the yoke of Christ, nor did they pull the plow of his teaching. Another prophet hinted at this when he said: "Israel is as obstinate as a stubborn heifer." And still another called the Jews "an untamed calf." Although such beasts are unfit for work, they are fit for killing. And this is what happened to the Jews: while they were making themselves unfit for work, they grew fit for slaughter. This is why Christ said: "But as for these my enemies, who did not want me to be king over them, bring them here and slay them."

These homilies of the Taliban or Parabolanus Christian called Chrysostom are characteristic and precise. It contains all the tactics that Christian preachers will use for centuries, a mixture of reasoning and racist contempt for other religions, which has remained the hallmark of Judeo-Christian preaching.

Chronicle of the conflic with the Jews.

In synagogues, the relationship between Jews and believers in Jesus was probably different from one region to another; depending on the nature of the Christians in question (for example, whether they were Samaritans or "non-Jews" mixed with Judeo-Christians); on the way they expressed their theology (for example, if they used a word like "God" to say Jesus, which could be understood as a refusal of monotheism); and on their temperament (for example, if they were arrogant in their way of debating - see John 9:34). In some Christian communities, therefore, a strong antipathy developed against the leaders of Jewish synagogues, as seen in a series of passages from Matthew (6: 2-5, 23: 6); The synagogues were accused of persecuting Christians (Matthew 10:17, 23:34) and excluding them (John 9:22, 12: 42, 16: 2). A text like that of John 9:28 clearly distinguishes the disciples of Jesus from those of Moses; and in some passages of the New Testament, "the Jews" (and their Law) are treated as foreigners (Matthew 28:15 John 10:34, 15: 25). At least according to Father Raymond E. Brown.

A factor that certainly played a role in the separation was the meeting in one place, of a large number of Christians from paganism and of Christian Jews. Synagogues made up largely of Jews who did not believe in Jesus were to feel the greatest discomfort when came in them pagans who claimed their belonging to Israel because of their belief in Jesus alone. At other times, in other places, whole synagogues had to be composed of Christians, when those who became Christians did not constitute their own place of worship. Synagogues that were not Christian could not feel obliged, or capable of taking measures, in relation to those which were attended by Christians. It can be deduced from this that Christian synagogues may have long continued not consider themselves not categorically rejected by Judaism.

The intensity of the proselytizing preaching of the Gospel may have been another factor of division. If Jews who had become believers in Jesus continued to evangelize Jews who had not become believers, this could lead to conflict in a synagogue and lead to rejection. An additional cause of friction must have been the manner in which Christians expressed themselves about Jesus, that is to say their Christological language: for example, Johannine Christians were rather aggressive in their arguments (5:18 ;10: 33).

It was probably in the sixties that the authorities of Judaism began to let the emperors know that the Christian sect “was not Jewish."

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What is certain in any case is that the separation was recorded by the new Jewish authorities resulting from the destruction of Jerusalem under Titus in 70 (the Synod of Jamnia).

The Pharisees having laid the foundations of a new kind of Judaism, the synagogues remained under the protection of the Roman authorities; but on condition that there are no politics in them and that they pay to Rome the money previously collected in the community for the maintenance of the Temple located in Jerusalem.

The official break between Christianity and this unified Judaism of after 70 will only intervene in 135. After the complete destruction of Jerusalem under Emperor Hadrian in 132 and the flight of all Christian Jews to the East where, under the name of Ebionites, they were gradually rejected (accused of heresy) towards Islam. While the Jews tried to separate themselves from the Judeo-Christians; the great movement which, following Stephen, the true founder of the Church (the one who the first opposed to the restricted Jewish doctrine the principle of Catholicity) brought the incipient Christianity; compelled him, on its part, to drive Judaism away from it. To conquer the world, to become the universal belief, Christianity had to give up Jewish particularism, to reject the too narrow chains of the old law, in order to be able to spread the new one.

The struggles, as we know, were long and fierce between these two tendencies of nascent Christianity, that Peter and James, on the one hand, and Stephen or Paul on the other, symbolize.

Stephen's action was but a long fight against Judaizers; and the day when the Paul of Marcion, his heir, declared that to come to Jesus there was no need to go through the synagogue, nor to accept the sign of the ancient covenant, the circumcision; on that day all the bonds which connected the Christian Church with her mother were broken.

The Jewish movement , which had become a movement of Hellenistic Jews and Pagans, became from then on exclusively Greco-Roman, and Christianity won all nations. During the reign of the three Flavian emperors, other Christian centers where important communities were established, such as Ephesus, Antioch and Rome, began to supplant Jerusalem. It is also probably at this time that the number of Christians come from gentility exceeded that of the Judeo-Christians. For Antioch, it was probably about 70. The Christian Church was thus politically victorious, but as far as the doctrine was concerned, it took much longer to get out of her congenital inferiority.

A few years indeed sufficed the Christian theologians of the "True Israel" like Justin to understand the vanity of their work and how much their reasoning; based most often on a fanciful exegesis, misinterpretations or falsifications of the Septuagint (the Alexandrian translation of the Bible); were irrelevant, even towards the Jews.

During the first seven centuries of the Christian era, anti-Judaism had almost exclusively religious or national causes (political patriotism) and it was almost entirely led by the clergy. For the anti-Jewish theorists of the "True Israel” like Justin or Chrysostom ,the persistence of this community, spread over the globe, explains the misfortunes and happiness of the foreign peoples among whom it has settled. Chastened or tolerated, driven out or welcomed, the Jews explain by the very fact of these various policies, the glory of the states or their decline. To tell Israel is to tell Spain, Germany, or France. Before the birth of Jesus, the Jewish people was the chosen people. Since it has ignored its Savior, since he was deicide, he has become the fallen people by definition. After having made the salvation of the world, he causes its degradation. For the Abbot Auguste Rohling, for example, the Jews have definitely become incapable of serving anything good. Their doctrines are incompatible with the principles of Christian government, and they seek to ruin these governments in order to profit from them.

And such is indeed what the Christian theorists of the "True Israel" see in them, but their anti-Judaism is purely theological. It is that of the Founding Fathers, that of Chrysostom, St. Augustine, and St. Jerome.

In France, the eldest daughter of the Church, King Dagobert gave to the Jews the choice between death, exile, or baptism. The Bishop of Clermont, Avitus, compelled the Jews to renounce or abjure their religion, or to leave the city, and many other bishops did the same. The intervention of the pope himself was necessary to moderate their zeal.

In Toulouse, the syndic of the Jews in the city was symbolically subjected to a series of punches. The Christians insulted the Jews during their feasts and Sabbaths, profaned their cemeteries as at Carpentras, and plundered their houses at the exit of the representations of the Passion.

Conversions were not uncommon at the time, of course, and these converted Jews played a very important role. They showed themselves towards their coreligionists most violent, most unjust, and most disloyal of their opponents. This, moreover, is the general characteristic of the monolatrous

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converts, and the example of Janissaries, bear witness to the fact that this rule suffers very little exceptions.

It was this class of Christians who often showed the most hatred towards them.

Those who composed it were themselves excited by their former co-religionists, who, vigorously detesting their apostates, did not fail to persecute them in turn; so much so that many laws had to be passed to prevent the Jews from stoning or insulting them.

In 1239 Nicholas Donin of La Rochelle, a Jew converted to Christianity, laid before Pope Gregory IX a charge against the Talmud. The trial was long, but Donin's skill (usually the informers were responsible for supporting their own accusations) ended up splitting the rabbis. The Talmud was condemned and burned a few months later (public burnings indeed generally followed the denunciations of the Talmud by the new converts).

“About 1475, for instance, Peter Schwartz and Hans Bayol, both converted Jews, instigated the inhabitants of Ratisbon to sack the Ghetto; in Spain, Paul de Santa-Maria instigated Henry III of Castile to take measures against the Jews. This Paul de Santa-Maria, previously known under the name of Solomon Levi of Burgos, was not an ordinary personality. A very pious, very learned rabbi, he abjured at the age of forty, after the massacres of 1391, and was baptized along with his brother and four of his sons. He studied theology at Paris, was ordained priest, became bishop of Cartagena and afterwards chancellor of Castile. He published a Search of the scriptures or dialogue between the infidel Saul and the convert Paul and issued an edition of Nicolas de Lyra's Postils, supplemented by his Additiones and some glosses. He did not stop at that in his activity. He is generally found the instigator in all the persecutions which befell the Jews of his time, and he hunted the synagogue with a ferocious hatred; and yet in his works he confined himself to theological polemics” (Bernard Lazare). In short, for the Israelites, the church was designated by the Hebrew name of the pig, and for the Christians the synagogue was symbolized by a sow.

Editor's note. It is better to consider that the symbolism of the pig, or more precisely of the wild boar, was of a very high standard in the ancient West (priestly and royal). This solution has the merit of putting everybody in agreement and insulting nobody!

If the Christian Church sometimes intervened in favor of the Jews when they were too much exposed to the hatred of the crowd; it also sustained this hatred, and provided it with fuel in fighting Judaism, though not for the same reasons.

On the one hand, the Christian Church wanted to keep the Jews as a living testimony of her triumph, but on the other hand, as by their mere presence they incited to Judaize (the example of the conversion to the Judaism of the King of the Khazars proves it: Judaism became the official religion of his kingdom, situated between the Caspian and the Black Sea, probably from the year 740 of our era) she could only fight their community. Hence the institution of the ghettos by Christianity, although in many places the edicts ordering the Jews to remain confined in particular quarters merely sanctioned a state of affairs already existing; and due to the fact that the Jews themselves wanted to live apart “ to preserve intact their beliefs and their race” (sic).

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APPENDIX 3.

AIDED CHONCHOBUIR. THE DEATH OF CONCHOBAR.

As we have had the opportunity to see with the story of the grail or the apocrypha, Christian intellectuals have never been stingy with cheating or manipulations of texts to accredit their anti-Semitism. Here is another example. Christians, for example, claimed that the great Irish king Conchobar flew into a rage when he heard that Jesus had been crucified and even died because of that.

VERSION A.

However, the fight was kept up after the king from one hour of the day to the same hour on the next day, after which the men of Ulster were routed. In the meantime, his physician was brought to Conchobar, even Fingen. 'Tis he who would know from the smoke that arose from a house how many were ill in the house, and every disease that was in it. ‘Well,’ said Fingen, ‘if the stone is taken out of thy head, thou wilt be dead forthwith. If it is not taken out, however, I would heal thee, but it will be a blemish for thee.’ ‘It is easier for us,’ said the men of Ulster, ‘to bear the blemish than his death.’

His head was then healed; and it was stitched with thread of gold, for the color of Conchobar's hair was the same as the color of gold. And the physician said to Conchobar that he should be on his guard lest anger should come on him, and that he should not mount a horse, that he should not have connection with a woman, that he should not eat food greedily, and that he should not run.In that doubtful state, then, he was as long as he lived, even seven years; and he was not capable of action, but remained in his seat only, until he heard that Christ had been crucified by the Jews.

At that time a great trembling came over the elements, because the heavens and the earth shook with the enormity of the deed that was then done, even Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, to be crucified without guilt. ‘What is this?’ said Conchobar to his druid. ‘What great evil is being done on this day?’ ‘That is true, indeed,’ said the druid who then tells the story of the Crucifixion.

‘Awful is that deed,’ said Conchobar. ‘

That man, now,’ said the druid, ‘was born in the same night in which thou was born, even on the eighth before the calends of January, though the year was not the same.’

It was then that Conchobar believed. And he was one of the two men that had believed in God in Ireland before the coming of the Faith, Morann being the other man.

‘Well, now,’ said Conchobar, ‘it is a pity’ [...] ‘without avenging the Creator.’

This rhetoric Conchobar made when Bachrach, a druid of Leinster, told him that Christ was crucified, when Conchobar asked: ‘What wonderful signs are these?’ etc.

Or, again, it may have been Altus, the consul who had come to the Gaels from Octavian to seek the tribute, who told Conchobar that Christ was crucified. End. Amen.

VERSION C.

The men of Ulster were holding a great gathering in the plain of Murthemne. Then towards the gathering came Bochrach, a poet and druid of the men of Leinster, having come out of Leinster after learning poetry. Of him Conchobar asked tidings of Alba( Scotland) and Leth Moga (Southern Ireland).

‘There is great tidings indeed,’ said he, ‘which have happened in the eastern world, even the crucifying of the King of Heaven and Earth by the Jews; and He it is whom seers and druids have prophesied. To save and to rescue the men of the world from the sin of Adam He came from holy heaven; and He assumed flesh from the Virgin Mary without the presence of man; and to save the human race He went upon the tree of the cross by command of the Jews. About Easter He went from us and arose on the third day,’ viz., Altus had also told this. 'Tis he who used to come with messages and with treasures and precious things from Tiberius Caesar Augustus, even the king of the Romans, and the king of the world, to Conchobar son of Ness, to Emain Macha. For at that time stewards of the king of the world were equally over the center of the world and in the islands of the setting and rising sun, so that every famous story that happened was equally known in the whole world.

In that way the manner in which the crucifixion of Christ happened became known to Conchobar. For Altus told him that it was Christ who had made Heaven and Earth, and that He had assumed flesh

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from the Virgin Mary for the sake of redeeming the human race. Altus himself, however, was a believer. 'Tis therefore he told the story of Christ well, and Conchobar believed in Christ.

Or 'tis thus it happened.

On the day that Christ was crucified, Conchobar was at a gathering, and the nobles of the men of Ireland around him. Now when darkness came upon the sun, and the moon turned into the color of blood, Conchobar asked of Cathbad what ailed the elements. ‘Your own foster brother,’ said he [Irish comhalta], ‘He who was born on the same night as you, is now undergoing martyrdom and has been put on the cross, and that is what this portends.’ At that Conchobar arises and takes his weapons upon him, and he said: ‘He is indeed my foster brother and coeval, and 'tis He that was born in the same night with me,’ and then he made an onslaught from thence until he reached the sea, and he went into it up to his teeth. 'Tis during the onslaught then that Conchobar sang this lay: ‘'Twas a pity that the Jews, etc.”

And thereupon Conchobar said: ‘The men of the world would know what I can do in fighting against the Jews for the sake of the crucifixion of Christ, if I were near Him.’ Then he rose and made the onslaught until Mesgegra's brains jumped out of his head, so that Conchobar died forthwith. Hence the Gaels say that Conchobar was the first pagan who went to Heaven in Ireland, for the blood that sprang out of his head was a baptism to him. And then Conchobar's soul was taken to hell; until Christ encountered her as He brought the captive host out of hell, so that Christ took the soul of Conchobar with Him to Heaven. End.

Hmm, hmm !

What can a druid of today say of this amazing manipulation of texts performed by Irish Christianity? The addition made by the Christian copyist monk is based on the notion of limbo. See what we have stated above.But it is important to restore the truth about our good king Conchobar.

Conchobar Mac Nessa (that is to say “great hound”) is the prototype of Celtic-type royalty: redistributing wealth, and working for the prosperity of its people. The historical Conchobar would have ruled from the year 30 before our era to + 35.

A son of the druid Catubatuos (Cathbad) and Queen Ness, he becomes king of Ulster thanks to a subterfuge of his mother. Her servant is indeed so fast that she can teach her all that happens in the country, by traveling all over Ireland in a single day. On a journey to the Other World, Conchobar conceives Cuchulainn with his sister who serves him as a charioteer. His capital is Emain Macha. He has three apartment buildings, the "Red Branch" (Croeb Ruad) where warriors meet, the "Speckled House" where the weapons of the heroes are stored, and the "Bloody House" (Croeb Derg), the cemetery of the vanquished (see the excavations of Gournay-sur -Aronde in France).

In the narrative entitled “the intoxication of the Ulaid," during the feast of Samon-ios, Conchobar is invited both by Cuchulainn and Fintan who quarrel. The king decides to share his night. Leaving Fintan’s house at midnight to go to Cuchulainn’s house, the guests completely drunken flung down hills, fell trees, empty rivers, and eventually got lost in the night. It is the narrative entitled the intoxication of the Ulaid.

Fighting against the kingdom of Connaught, and while he parades before the women of this country, he will be wounded in his head by a sling bullet. The bullet that reaches him is made of the brains of a named Mesgegra. He is cared for by druid Fingen. Hence the narrative we have just seen. If Fingen withdraws the bullet, he dies, if he cures him, he remains disabled. Conchobar will live thus seven years with these various prohibitions: race, riding, anger, abuse of food and sex. But one day Mesgegra's brain moves in his head and he dies. There is no trace of Christianity in all this!

In any case, the narratives of the Nazarene's passion and crucifixion, even in the four canonical Gospels, are more than doubtful.

For example, the arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem is traditionally linked with the Passover feast, but the wavering of palm leaves and the "hosanna" cries are not part of the Jewish ritual of the feast of Passover. They are rather part of Sukkot (feast of the booths or tabernacles).

There remains the mystery of the Acts of the trial of Jesus before Pilate, since in principle none of the first Christians were able to attend it (they had all courageously fled, St. Peter the first). What the four gospels tell us about it is rather well done and has enough to make somebody explode with indignation.

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Gospel according to John. Written at the end of the first century of our era or at the beginning of the second.

A first writing in the nineties, and additions (Chapter XXI and perhaps, some think, the prologue) around 100-110. Therefore well after some of the apocrypha rejected by the established Christianity.

Chapter XVIII.

Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant, cutting off his right ear. The servant’s name was Malchus. Jesus commanded Peter, “Put your sword away! Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?” Then the detachment of soldiers with its commander and the Jewish officials arrested Jesus. They bound him and brought him first to Annas, who was the father-in-law of Caiaphas. The high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching.

“I have spoken openly to the world,” Jesus replied. “I always taught in synagogues or at the temple, where all the Jews come together. I said nothing in secret. 21 Why question me? Ask those who heard me. Surely they know what I said.”

When Jesus said this, one of the officials nearby slapped him in the face. “Is this the way you answer the high priest?” he demanded.

“If I said something wrong,” Jesus replied, “testify as to what is wrong. But if I spoke the truth, why did you strike me?” Then they took Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor. By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness they did not enter the palace, because they wanted to be able to eat the Passover.

Gospel according to Matthew. End of the first century (eighties ??).

Chapter XXVII.

Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” “You have said so,” Jesus replied.

When he was accused by the chief priests and the elders, he gave no answer.

Then Pilate asked him, “Don’t you hear the testimony they are bringing against you?”

But Jesus made no reply, not even to a single charge—to the great amazement of the governor.

Now it was the governor’s custom at the festival to release a prisoner chosen by the crowd. At that time they had a well-known prisoner whose name was Jesus Barabbas.

So when the crowd had gathered, Pilate asked them, “Which one do you want me to release to you: Jesus Barabbas, or Jesus who is called the Messiah?”

For he knew it was out of self-interest that they had handed Jesus over to him.

While Pilate was sitting on the judge’s seat, his wife sent him this message: “Don’t have anything to do with that innocent man, for I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of him.”

But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus executed.

“Which of the two do you want me to release to you?” asked the governor.“Barabbas,” they answered.

“What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called the Messiah?” Pilate asked. They all answered, “Crucify him!”

“Why? What crime has he committed?” asked Pilate. But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify him!”

When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” he said. “It is your responsibility!”

All the people answered, “His blood is on us and on our children!”

Then he released Barabbas to them. But he had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.

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APPENDIX 4.

THE DIFFICULTIES OF THE INCULTURATION OF CHRISTIANITY

IN INDIA.

(One billion inhabitants.)

Reading notes concerning this book which, although written in 1876, contains some chapters that have not aged at all.

Our faithful (readers) being never to be women or men OF ONE BOOK, we will allow ourselves to advise the reading of the good pieces of this one. According to some texts, it was even necessary to have read twelve books to be admitted into the Fenians whose motto was: Glaine ár gcroí, neart ár ngéag,beart de réir ár mbriathar: pureness of our hearts, strength of our limbs, and deed to match our words.

So what does this book say? Well, this, at least if we understand it.

“I happened one day to be in a village near Trichinopoly, a large city on the east coast of India, where a newly arrived

missionary was seeking proselytes. A Brahmin theologian presented himself, as is the practice under such circumstances, and proposed to him a public discussion on such religious matters as he might choose.

The priest, who perfectly understood the Tamoul, consented ; had he refused he would have sunk in public opinion, and any Hindoo, in the district to whom he might wish to speak of religion, would infallibly have answered, "Why are you afraid to measure yourself with our Brahmin ? "

The meeting was fixed for the following Sunday. The Hindoos are very fond of these encounters, of these wordy wars ; men, women, and children assemble, listen with interest, become excited by the contest, and what would scarcely be believed, pursue the vanquished with pitiless hooting, and with the most perfect impartiality, be it the Brahmin or the missionary.

We shall be less surprised at this when it is known that there is not a Hindoo, whatever his rank or caste, who does not know the principles of the Holy Scripture, that is, of the Vedas, and who does not perfectly know how to read and write.

There is a Hindoo proverb which says : — He is not a man who does not know how to fix his thought upon an olle ' (a

palm leaf, prepared for writing).

Sunday came, the whole village assembled under the refreshing shade of a vast banyan which made a natural room full of freshness. I stood very close by the two antagonists, and the sparring began.

As soon as the first words were exchanged, I understood what would inevitably happen. The brahmin, a fine, subtle mind, immediately seized the discussion to direct it, and here is the curious dialogue which ensued between them:

THE BRAHMIN.

Who are you ? Where do you come from ? What do you want ?

THE MISSIONARY.

I am a priest and I come from beyond the seas to teach you the true God.

THE BRAHMIN.

For having taken the trouble to come so far, you must bring us excellent things. But why do you say the true God? Do you know more than one? For me, there is only one, for all worlds and for all peoples.

THE MISSIONARY.

Me too I know only one, and it is in the name of this one that I speak and that I come to fight the false gods engendered by superstition.

THE BRAHMIN.

Since you come to preach among us, in your opinion, is not the One God whom we adore the true one?

THE MISSIONARY.

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You said it.

THE BRAHMIN.

But then what is your God? Manu defines ours in this way. "He who exists by himself from all eternity, of whom the mind conceives of, but cannot perceive, which is without visible parts, escapes the organs of the senses, infinite and all mighty, creator of all that exists; and whose mysterious unity is composed of three persons, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. " And besides, it is not our God, I am mistaken by calling him so; for God does not belong to a man, to a caste, to a country, it is the God of all creatures. Now do you will dare to say that it is superstition that makes me speak thus?

THE MISSIONARY.

No, and if you believe in the one and single God, master of this universe, we are close to getting along. However the idea of God you have is not entirely mine.

You speak incessantly of the unity of God only to divide it infinitely. According to your holy books, your God does not act; he delegates his power to left right and center, to the deva at first; the latter, in turn, appoint proxies. These are the characters called Marichi, Atri, Angira, Pulastya, Pulaha, Kratu, Vasishta, Bhrgu and Narada. I repeat, your theology seems to recognize the unity of God only to reverse it afterwards.

THE BRAHMIN.

I want to believe that you are of good faith but you fall into gross mistakes. Since when can the fictions of poets be used a basis of a religious belief? And because crowd honors holy men who have lived before us on earth, do you think that it equates them with God? ? [ Editor’s note. Of course we may say the same things in that case, of the multitude of Celtic-druidic gods]. The follower of Brahma recognizes only him, adores only him; the beings he has created and the missions he has been pleased to give to his prophets have no importance , since everything, in our opinion, is an embodiment of his power.

Your arguments turn against you: have you not in your religion angels, prophets, and saints? Why go down into the details of our sacred books, which are most often allegories that you cannot understand?

Why try to overthrow our traditions, as old as the hills, without having studied and dealt with them in depth? You see that I do not imitate your example and that I do not attack your beliefs, although I do not share them [this text is, of course, to be paralleled with the philosopher's answer made to Lucian of Samosata in his famous " Introductory lecture about Heracles "].

THE MISSIONARY.

It is through its morality that you will recognize its goodness.

THE BRAHMIN.

And what does your morality say that our does not teach us also? Have you read the talks of Arjuna and Krishna and the sublime teachings of the divine son of the virgin Devanaguy?

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Editor’s note. This is the central part of the great Indian epic poem called Mahabharata and probably dating from the second century before our era. It is a dialogue between the God-or-demon Krishna / Vishnu and Prince Arjuna, the latter hesitating to start a great fratricidal battle. The legend of Krishna, which is found in the Hindu Vedas, dates back to at least 1400 before our era. The story of Jesus's life besides is very similar to the story of Krishna, including in its details, as the famous mythologists Robert Taylor and Gerald Massey (among others) pointed out. We wonder well in these circumstances why the Christians have not ceased to ridicule this history, or to denigrate it: jealousy, racism?

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Do you think that we cannot distinguish good from evil, and that it is necessary that you cross the seas to come and speak to us of things we know as well as you do? Does our religion make not a law for us to succor one another? Do we reject weakness and misery? Our roads are full of serais, where the traveler, or the disabled person, receives an asylum, and what is necessary for their needs. Do not we venerate our parents and our ancestors even, better than you? We bear eternal mourning for them, and every year we celebrate their birth on earth and their death, which is a birth in the other life.

At these words an approving murmur circulated in the crowd, the Brahmin began to win over the priest.

THE MISSIONARY, with vehemence.

Well ! All of you who listen to me, since you claim to have morality as pure as that of the Gospel, that I come to bring to you, why do you not practice it? Why do you spend the days that the Lord has given you to satisfy the most shameful passions, to indulge into the most shameless debauchery?

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Why do you leave your children from their most tender age to engage in theft, lie and impurity? Do you think that in this way you train men according to the law of God?

What have you done with your wives? Some instruments of pleasure, some beings made stupid , incapable of devotion and affection, some slaves you buy and pen like your flocks.

O you who repel the light that the Lord sends you, I tell you, you will bear the punishment of your faults, and when the last day comes, when your good deeds and your crimes will be weighed in the eternal scale; God will turn away from you and reject you among the cursed.

The missionary continued for a long time on this subject; a feverish exaltation had seized him; he had lost sight of his subject and was no longer discussing. He preached, as in a Catholic (or Orthodox, or Reformist, or even a mosque, why limit himself? Editor’s note) church.

And the meaning of his words was lost in the crowd.

So, when the Brahmin spoke again, I realized that the priest was going to have to give way.

THE BRAHMIN.

You have just revealed yourself by your unjust attacks, and the purpose of your coming among us is not such as you had announced to us at first. A servant of the Lord ought not to set the example of anger; the holy word must flow as sweet as honey, and spread on those who listen to it a perfume as sweet as that of the flower of the beloved lotus of Vishnu.

Have you been involved in those debaucheries of which you speak and that you reproach us, have you entered the interior of our dwellings? Do you know what is happening there, in the shadow of the images of the saints Marichis, protectors of homes? You compare our wives to a flock of slaves; read the rule dictated with regard for them by Holy Scripture and Manu, and you will return to a more just opinion, because it will be enlightened.

You know neither our laws nor our manners, and you come in order to anathematize us! It is not here that your word can be useful; go and preach to yours, in Bombay, Madras and Calcutta, they need it more than we do. You will see them break their word, deceive Hindu to become rich, and to satisfy their passions buy our young virgins with the gold they steal from us.

If you wish to help India out, go and tell them that these are not the examples they ought to set for us, and that we augur badly a religion which can neither restrain nor chastise men so corrupted.

As he spoke these words, the Brahmin rose in the midst of the applause of his audience, which took him home with the greatest respect, up to his dwelling.

LOUIS JACOLLIOT. The Bible in India. 1869.

Editor's note.

It goes without saying, and beyond the parallel established, quite skillfully besides, by Louis Jacolliot, between this presentation of the (idealized) Hinduism and the hard-line creationist Christianity; that the author of this essay focused on Judeo-Islamic-Christianity, Peter DeLaCrau, in no way approves the excesses and even the bases of traditional Hinduism (recovered deliriously by the pseudo-triads of the Welsh druidomaniac known as lolo Morgannwg in the eighteenth century). These harmful ideas weigh like a lead lid for too many centuries on Indian society! Reincarnation, no one has ever seen it, and there is no irrefutable evidence of it!

As for the unavoidable racism of the notion of caste, it goes without saying that an authentic non-racialist cannot agree with it! Hindu philosophy is therefore unacceptable in its broad outlines, but many and many of its secondary lineaments show nevertheless a surprising philosophical profundity. Some atheistic spiritualism would have said the Frenchman Pierre Lance, in the days of my misspent youth.

How to say also the naive colorful beauty of the Tamil temples (see, for example, that of Le Colosse at Saint-Andre de la Reunion in France); as well as the living poetry of the annual ceremonies (what theatricality!) spangling (that's the word!) the life of this so endearing La Reunion community?

This book having not, nevertheless, as its subject, Hinduism, but Judeo-Islamic-Christianity, we shall not say more about it for the moment. Go with one of our next essays.

In the meantime, I dedicate this excerpt from the genius Louis Jacolliot as a reinstatement to all the Hindus of the French island of La Reunion, whose religion has been so often previously despised by the racism of the Creoles having tried to kill it in the bud.

It is clear that the Christian Churches have never SINCERELY given up finding all truth in the compilation of various texts that they call Bible. Even if, driven into a corner, they admit now that only the outlines of the moral message are important (supposing there is one, in this place where you really experience what you put in, where you find only what you bring in it, that this library is).For they always

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justify, not trifles, but important points of their doctrine (sacraments, last things of man) , by some details, from this book, which has done so much harm to Humanity for 2000 years and more with regard to the part designated by the name of Old Testament or Torah.

APPENDIX 5.

MODERN GNOSTICISM

(imaginary interview with John Lash).

The modern Gnostic John Lash, co-founder and lead author of Metahistory. Org, a specialist in the apocryphal Gospels of Nag Hammadi, today equates the Hebrew Jehovah Yahweh (YHWH), later Allah according to Islam, with an archon, that is to say, an inorganic life form, but endowed with intelligence.

According to him, the Book religions are only a worship paid to an alien entity: Yahweh (YHWH). The so-called revealed religions act like viruses, some kinds of spiritual parasites.

Certainly, he is not the first author, researcher or philosopher to discern this characteristic of the religions known as “Book religions” (and of many others) which, under cover of love for the neighbor, of mercy, advocate absolute submission and very hard repressive rule. The word "Islam" besides means "submission." But Lash was one of the first to highlight the fact that Gnostic knowledge contained clear warnings about this type of "spirituality."

For this author, the predators and this "matrix" use the consciousness that inhabit these universes (for example ours) as food. The Gnostics therefore warn us. They warn us of the dangers represented by the worship of a God who is only an image made by the Archons. A supposedly inverse image of man, where man is nothing and God is everything, man is limited, Yahweh himself is infinite, and so on. From the outset, the potential of Man is denied by Judaism and Christianity or Islam. Man must expiate his faults. This negation of Man and this bond of dependency between the believer and the clergy is something that seems to revolt the Gnostics, who see in Man himself the resources to escape the hold of the Archons.

QUESTION. In their interpretations of Gnostic texts, classic scholars emphasize the crucial role played by a character they call Christ. This character would have warned us of the role played by the Archons. Is it the same Jesus that is found in the New Testament? Why is the message delivered by Jesus contained in the New Testament so different from that contained in the Nag Hammadi Codices? Are we talking about the same character? If it is not the same character, is the "Christ" of the Gnostic writings a power capable of investing certain people (as prophets)?

REPLY BY JOHN LASH. The word "Christ" never appears in the codices (plural of codex) of Nag Hammadi, nor the name of Jesus. Instead, it contains a recursive code: XC or XRC (translated by the letters CHS or CHRS) in Coptic language, as well as the IC or HC codes translated by IS. For example, in the "Tripartite Tractate," the text refers to the letters HC in Coptic language. The translator modified this in H (COY) C, "Isous," which was translated by the name of Jesus. You can see how far researchers and translators have been, to manipulate the codes, in order to fit them with their prejudices. Most Gnostic texts use terms such as "the Savior," the "Lord," without specifying at all whether it is Jesus or Christ.

Researchers whose careers and training are associated with Christianity and who consider the NHC as written by early Christians, systematically decode XRC in Christ, or Chrest and IC in Jesus. There is in reality no clear and solid basis for such a convention in translation. I am convinced that these codes do not refer to the "historical Jesus" of the New Testament. These codes are used precisely to prevent the use of such identification.

The expression "living Christ" extrapolated from NHC refers to an inner guide, a psychic entity, not a historical person. For the Gnostics, "living Christ" is a spiritual force that cannot die; therefore it cannot be a real human person. Jesus in the New Testament asserts things that could never be said by a

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Gnostic initiate. His words and deeds have no consistency for a teacher who has received an enlightenment from the Mysteries. The Gnostic "Christos" is not the Jesus son of Abraham, of the line of David, of the Old Testament. The Christos of the Gnostics is an aeon, a divine force that takes no human form. The Gnostics do not accept the notion of incarnation about him. According to them, no human being can have the privilege of incarnating an aeon, a deity.

QUESTION: What do you think of the manuscripts of the Dead Sea or the Essenes?

REPLY BY JOHN LASH. The Essenes were an extremist sect. The zaddikim, which could be translated as "hardliners" . A violent, apocalyptic sect, which was devoted to celestial beings called kenoshim, appearing to them in shining chariots (merkaba). Some texts of the manuscripts (especially 4Q404 in the songs of the Sabbath sacrifice) describe the appearance and movement of these UFOs ...

[Editorial commentary. In shorter terms, John Lash is convinced that the Qumran sect was an apocalyptic cult of Ufologists].

The followers of the Dead Sea manuscripts were tricked by the Archons, whom they perceived as heavenly angels. They believed that the leader of the Archons, Jehovah, was their Creator God. The ancient Gnostics perceived these beliefs as a religious delirium caused by the ideological virus represented by Archons. The Archons indeed influence the way we perceive the world.

The primary Power of the world in which we live proves to be the deity who lies in our planet, called Sophia (wisdom) by the Gnostics. If you are on the same wavelength as Sophia, you no longer see the world as a place filled with fear and predators of all kinds, but as a world of all beauty, goodness and magic.

There are as many evidences in nature (and indeed much more) showing the existence of symbiosis and cooperation than there are showing the existence of predation and fear. The way the Earth works is a miracle of symbiosis, it is also a magical event. Consequently, it s not question that this running is caused by the influence or manipulation of Archons like Jehovah or Allah.

QUESTION. How did the Gnostics see the appearance of Man?

REPLY BY JOHN LASH. The Gnostic teachings on this subject are similar to those advocated by the indigenous peoples who claim that "the first man" came from heavens. This idea has received the name of panspermia in modern science: the insemination of human species on Earth from an extraterrestrial source.

Editor's note. Still according to John Lash, the Gnostics were the heirs to a long tradition of shamanism originating from the indigenous peoples of Europe, Asia, and which can be traced back to the Paleolithic times]

In gnosis, that is the path of increased perception (to use Castaneda's words), we can see a method of very developed shamanism. Paranormal perception techniques were taught and handed over within the Mystery Schools created or directed by the “gnostikoi,” by those who knew the divine and supernatural subjects. It is now certain that the ancient shamanic cults like those of the Mysteries used psychoactive plants, to reach a temporary death of the ego, as well as a change of the perception parameters. I am convinced that the Gnostics were truly competent in the use of hallucinogenic plants, including fungi. However, I did not find any direct evidence in the documents of Nag Hammadi.

QUESTION. Some authors (such as Paul Von Ward) denounce YHWY or Yahweh as an Advanced Being, an alien entity that wished to dominate our world, armed with intentions that do not look good or pure. Do you believe that YHWH is an Archon or a representative of the Archons?

REPLY BY JOHN LASH. The texts of Nag Hammadi are very clear on the fact that Jehovah-Yaldabaoth is the supreme commander of the race of Archons. The Gnostic texts clearly emphasize

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the fact that Jehovah is the Lord of Archons, a predator. Jehovah, whom the Gnostics called Yaldabaoth, is an entity that has become completely mentally insane but endowed with "superhuman" or near-divinity powers. The Gnostics actually believed that Jehovah infects mankind with the belief through which he maintains that he is the creating god, when in fact he can create nothing at all.

All religions divert the human potential, but the three Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, are potentially fatal. They lead to a terminal and dead-end deviation of our species

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Counter-lay No. 2.

We are by definition favorable to every radical criticism of Abrahamic monolatry, and in this we agree with the great modern Gnostic thinker John Lash.

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are alienations, but alienations in the philosophical sense of the word (see John Toland and the Baron d'Holbach), not in the alien sense. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, are denials of what should make the greatness of man, and in this sense the Abrahamic ideology is indeed nonhuman (not human but not alien).

Or rather, let us say that the archon Yahweh (YHWH), later equated with Allah, is in no case an entity having a real and objective existence external to the human being; but since the incredible extension of Abrahamic ideology throughout the world, it has ended in getting so much weight in the minds that the appreciation of John Lash ... has almost become true because of that.

Our world was not created 15 billion years ago by the favorite archon of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (later equated with Allah); but the society in which we live is indeed his work (for hundreds of years) in this sense John Lash is right. The result of the intrusion of this archon into our society was a psychic and mental infection which took the form of a religious madness. The only way to go out of this trap is to be able to discern what is genuinely human in our minds, what is inhuman, stupid, mechanical, blind, and acting through mere imitation. In short, we must become aware of our human potential so as to see how it is distorted and subverted. Imagine, for example, that you have never heard the 5th symphony of Beethoven played as it really ought to be; but that you've always listened to a shortened version, with completely distorted notes. You will be able to realize that this music is "massacred" only if you have already heard the original and not truncated version. In the same way, we must become aware of our genuine spirit, of our genuine human potential, so that we can see how we are parasitized.

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APPENDIX 6.

INTEREST OF THE HOLY BIBLE ACCORDING TO ROBERT G. INGERSOLL.

Reading notes concerning this book which, although written in 1894, is as youthful as ever.

Our (faithful) readers never being to be women or men OF ONE BOOK, we will allow ourselves here to advise the reading of this one. (According to certain texts, it was even necessary to have read twelve books in order to be admitted into the Fenians, whose motto, according to Cailte/Caletios, was thus expressed: truth on our lips, strength in our arms, and speaking well .)

So what does this book say? Eh well, what is following.

The educated Christians admit that the writers of the Bible were not inspired as to any science. They now say that God, or Jehovah, did not inspire the writers of his book for the purpose of instructing the world about astronomy, geology, or any science. They now admit that the inspired men who wrote the Old Testament knew nothing about any science, and that they wrote about the earth and stars, the sun and moon, in accordance with the general ignorance of the time. It required many centuries to force the theologians to this admission. Reluctantly, full of malice and hatred, the priests retired from the field, leaving the victory with science. They took another position: They declared that the authors, or rather the writers, of the Bible were inspired in spiritual and moral things; that Jehovah wanted to make known to his children his will and his infinite love for his children; that Jehovah, seeing his people wicked, ignorant and depraved, wished to make them merciful and just, wise and spiritual, and that the Bible is inspired in its laws, in the religion it teaches and in its ideas of government.

But in order to prove that a book is inspired by God or the Demiurge you must first prove the existence of God or the Demiurge. You must also prove that this God or Demiurge thinks, acts, has objects, ends and aims. This is somewhat difficult. God is a guess. If the existence of God is admitted, how are we to prove that he inspired the writers of the books of the Bible?

How can one man establish the inspiration of another? How can an inspired man prove that he is inspired? How can he know himself that he is inspired? There is no way to prove the fact of inspiration. What is inspiration? Did God use men as instruments? Did he cause them to write his thoughts? Did he take possession of their minds and destroy their wills?

Were these writers only partly controlled, so that their mistakes, their ignorance and their prejudices were mingled with the wisdom of God? How are we to separate the mistakes of man from the thoughts of God? Can we do this without being inspired ourselves? If the original writers were inspired, then the translators should have been, and so should be the men who tell us what the Bible means. How is it possible for a human being to know that he is inspired by an infinite being?

Editor’s note. What follows can be applied, of course, mutatis mutandis, to Quran (see mu’tazilism).

But of one thing we may be certain: An inspired book should certainly excel all the books produced by uninspired men. It should, above all, be true, filled with wisdom, blossoming in beauty—perfect.

So the question now is this. Is the Bible closer to the truth in its ideas of justice, mercy, morality or religion than in its conception of the sciences? Is it moral? It supports slavery - it allows polygamy. Would a demon have done worse?

Is it merciful? In war, it raises the black flag; it orders the destruction, the massacre, of all - old men, disabled persons and defenseless persons - women and infants.

Are its laws inspired? Hundreds of offenses were punished with death. Planting pegs on the Lord's Day, killing his father on Monday, were in its eyes crimes that also deserved the death penalty. There is no bloodier code in all world literature. The law of vengeance - of Talion - was the law of Jehovah. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, limb for limb.

It is savagery, not philosophy!

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Is it fair and reasonable? The Bible is opposed to religious tolerance - to religious freedom. He who thought differently from the majority was stoned. Research was a crime. The husbands were ordered to denounce or help kill their unbelieving wives.

It is the enemy of Art. "You must not set up for yourselves carved image." It is the death of Art.

Palestine never produced a painter or a sculptor. Is the Bible civilized? It upholds lying, larceny, robbery, murder, the selling of diseased meat to strangers, and even the sacrifice of human beings to Jehovah.

Is it philosophical? It teaches that the sins of a people can be transferred to an animal—to a scapegoat. It makes maternity an offense for which a sin offering had to be made.

It was wicked to give birth to a boy, and twice as wicked to give birth to a girl.

Would a civilized God daub his altars with the blood of oxen, lambs and doves? Would he make all his priests butchers? Would he delight in the smell of burning flesh?

Some Christian lawyers—some eminent and stupid judges—have said and still say that the Ten Commandments are the foundation of all law.

Nothing could be more absurd. Long before these commandments were given there were codes of laws in India and Egypt—laws against murder, perjury, larceny, adultery and fraud. Such laws are as old as human society; as old as the love of life; as old as industry; as the idea of prosperity; as old as human love.

All of the Ten Commandments that are good were old; all that were new are foolish. If Jehovah had been civilized he would have left out the commandment about keeping the Sabbath, and in its place would have said: "Thou shalt not enslave thy fellow men." He would have left out the one about graven images, and in its stead would have said: "Thou shalt not wage wars of extermination, and thou shalt not unsheathe the sword except in self-defense." If Jehovah, had been civilized, how much grander the Ten Commandments would have been.

All that we call progress—the enfranchisement of man, of labor, the substitution of imprisonment for death, of fine for imprisonment, the destruction of polygamy, the establishing of free speech, of the rights of conscience; in short, all that has tended to the development and civilization of man; all the results of investigation, observation, experience and free thought; all that man has accomplished for the benefit of man since the close of the Dark Ages—has been done in spite of the Old Testament.

Let me further illustrate the morality, the mercy, the philosophy and goodness of the Old Testament:

THE STORY OF ACHAN.

Joshua took the City of Jericho. Before the fall of the city, he declared that all the spoil taken should be given to the Lord.

In spite of this order Achan secreted a garment, some silver and gold. Afterwards Joshua tried to take the city of Ai. He failed and many of his soldiers were slain. Joshua sought for the cause of his defeat and he found that Achan had secreted a garment, two hundred shekels of silver and a wedge of gold. To this Achan confessed. And thereupon Joshua took Achan, his sons and his daughters, his oxen and his sheep—stoned them all to death and burned their bodies.

There is nothing to show that the sons and daughters had committed any crime. Certainly, the oxen and sheep should not have been stoned to death for the crime of their owner. This was the justice, the mercy, of Jehovah! After Joshua had committed this crime, with the help of Jehovah he captured the city of Ai.

THE FOUR GOSPELS.

The question is, were the authors of these four gospels inspired?

If they were inspired, then the four gospels must be true. If they are true, they must agree. But the four gospels do not agree.

Matthew, Mark and Luke knew nothing of the atonement, nothing of salvation by faith. They knew only the gospel of good deeds—of charity. They teach that if we forgive others God will forgive us. With this the gospel of John does not agree.

In that gospel we are taught that we must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ; that we must be born again; that we must drink the blood and eat the flesh of Christ. In this gospel we find the doctrine of the atonement and that Jesus died for us and suffered in our place.

This gospel is utterly at variance with, the other three. If the other three are true, the gospel of John is false. If the gospel of John was written by an inspired man, the writers of the other three were uninspired. From this there is no possible escape. The four cannot be true. It is evident that there are many interpolations in the four gospels.

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For instance, in the 28th chapter of Matthew is an account to the effect that the soldiers at the tomb of Christ were bribed to say that the disciples of Jesus stole away his body while they, the soldiers, slept. This is clearly an interpolation. It is a break in the narrative.

The 10th verse should be followed by the 16th. The 10th verse is as follows: "Then Jesus said unto them, 'Be not afraid; go tell my brethren that they go unto Galilee and there shall they see me.'"

The 16th verse: "Then the eleven disciples went away unto Galilee into a mountain, where Jesus had appointed them."

The story about the soldiers contained in the 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th verses is an interpolation—an afterthought—long after. The 15th verse demonstrates this: "So they took the money and did as they were taught. And this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day."

Certainly, this account was not in the original gospel, and certainly the 15th verse was not written by a Jew. No Jew could have written this: "And this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day."

Mark, John and Luke never heard that the soldiers had been bribed by the priests; or, if they had, did not think it worth while recording. So the accounts of the Ascension of Jesus Christ in Mark and Luke are interpolations. Matthew says nothing about the Ascension.

Certainly, there never was a greater miracle, and yet Matthew, who was present—who saw the Lord rise, ascend and disappear—did not think it worth mentioning.

On the other hand, the last words of Christ, according to Matthew, contradict the Ascension: "Lo I am with you always, even unto the end of the world."

John, who was present, if Christ really ascended, does not say one word on the subject. As to the Ascension, the gospels do not agree. Mark gives the last conversation that Christ had with his disciples, as follows: "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believes and is baptized shall be saved; but he that does not believe shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover. So, then, after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven and sat on the right hand of God."

Is it possible that this description was written by one who witnessed this miracle?

This miracle is described by Luke as follows: "And it came to pass while he blessed them he was parted from them and carried up into heaven." (Brevity is the soul of wit).

In the Acts we are told that: "When he had spoken, while they beheld, he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight."

Neither Luke, nor Matthew, nor John, nor the writer of the Acts, heard one word of the conversation attributed to Christ by Mark. The fact is that the Ascension of Christ was not claimed by his disciples.

At first Christ was a man—nothing more. Mary was his mother, Joseph his father. The genealogy of his father, Joseph, was given to show that he was of the blood of David.

Then the claim was made that he was the son of God, and that his mother was a virgin, and that she remained a virgin until her death. Then the claim was made that Christ rose from the dead and ascended bodily to heaven.

It required many years for these absurdities to take possession of the minds of men.

If Jesus rose from the dead, why did he not appear to his enemies? Why did he not call on Caiaphas, the high priest? Why did he not make another triumphal entry into Jerusalem? If he really ascended, why did he not do so in public, in the presence of his persecutors? Why should this, the greatest of miracles, be done in secret, in a corner? It was a miracle that could have been seen by a vast multitude—a miracle that could not be simulated—one that would have convinced hundreds of thousands.

So there are many other interpolations in the gospels and epistles.

Does anybody now believe that at the birth of Jesus there was a celestial greeting; that a star led the Wise Men of the East; that Herod slew the babes of Bethlehem of two years old and under?

The gospels are filled with accounts of miracles. Were they ever performed?

Matthew gives the particulars of about twenty-two miracles, Mark of about nineteen, Luke of about eighteen and John of about seven.

According to the gospels, Jesus healed diseases, cast out devils, rebuked the sea, cured the blind, fed multitudes with five loaves and two fishes, walked on the sea, cursed a fig tree, turned water into wine

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and raised the dead. Matthew is the only one that tells about the Star and the Wise Men—the only one that tells about the murder of babes. John is the only one who says anything about the resurrection of Lazarus, and Luke is the only one giving an account of the raising from the dead the widow of Nain's son.

The Jews, among whom they were said to have been performed, did not believe them. The diseased, the palsied, the leprous, the blind who were cured, did not become followers of Christ. Those that were raised from the dead were never heard of again.

At that time it was believed that palsy, epilepsy, deafness, insanity and many other diseases were caused by devils; that devils took possession of and lived in the bodies of men and women. Jesus believed this, taught this belief to others, and pretended to cure diseases by casting devils out of the sick and insane. If Jesus said and did what the writers of the three gospels say he said and did, then Jesus was mistaken. If he was mistaken, certainly he was not God.

Is it a fact that the Devil tried to bribe Jesus? Is it a fact that the Devil carried Jesus to the top of the temple and tried to induce him to leap to the ground? How can these miracles be established?

The principal witnesses have written nothing, Jesus has written nothing, and the Devil has remained silent.

How can we know that the Devil tried to bribe Jesus? Who wrote the account? How did the writer get his information? We do not know.

Somebody, some twenty hundred years ago, said that the Devil tried to bribe God; that the Devil carried God to the top of the temple and tried to induce him to leap to the earth and that God was intellectually too keen for the Devil. This is all the evidence we have.

Is there anything in the literature of the world more perfectly idiotic?

Can we believe that Christ raised the dead?

A widow living in Nain is following the body of her son to the tomb. Jesus halts the funeral procession and raises the young man from the dead and gives him back to the arms of his mother. This young man disappears. He is never heard of again. No one takes the slightest interest in the man who returned from the realm of death. Luke is the only one who tells the story. Maybe Matthew, Mark and John never heard of it, or did not believe it and so failed to record it.

John says that Lazarus was raised from the dead; Matthew, Mark and Luke say nothing about it.

It was more wonderful than the raising of the widow's son. He had not been laid in the tomb for days. He was only on his way to the grave, but Lazarus was actually dead. He had begun to decay.

Lazarus did not excite the least interest. No one asked him about the other world. No one inquired of him about their dead friends.

We have no confidence in the miracles performed by Joseph Smith, and yet the evidence is far greater, far better.

If a man should go about now pretending to raise the dead, pretending to cast out devils, we would regard him as insane. What, then, can we say of Christ?

We must take the ground that these ignorant and impossible things were invented by zealous disciples, who sought to deify their leader. Can we now believe that at Cana water was changed into wine? John tells of this miracle, and says that the other disciples were present, yet Matthew, Mark and Luke say nothing about it.

'Take the miracle of the man cured by the pool of Bethesda. John says that an angel troubled the waters of the pool of Bethesda, and that whoever got into the pool first after the waters were troubled was healed. Does anybody now believe that an angel went into the pool and troubled the waters? Does anybody now think that the poor wretch who got in first was healed? Yet the author of the gospel according to John believed and asserted these absurdities. If he was mistaken about that he may have been about all the miracles he records.

John is the only one who tells about this pool of Bethesda. Possibly the other disciples did not believe the story.

How can we account for these pretended miracles?

In the days of the disciples, nearly everything that happened was regarded as miraculous. God or the Demiurge was the immediate governor of the world. If the people were good, God sent seed time and harvest; but if they were bad he sent flood and hail, frost and famine.

Of the order of events—of the unbroken and the unbreakable chain of causes and effects—the people had no knowledge and no thought.

But a miracle is the badge and brand of fraud. No miracle ever was performed. No intelligent, honest man ever pretended to perform a miracle, and never will.

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If Jesus had worked the miracles attributed to him; if he had cured the palsied and insane; if he had given hearing to the deaf, vision to the blind; if he had cleansed the leper with a word, and with a touch had given life and feeling to the withered limb; if he had given pulse and motion, warmth and thought, to cold and breathless clay; if he had conquered death and rescued from the grave its pallid prey; in his presence all heads would have been uncovered—all knees upon the ground.

Is it not strange that at the trial of Christ no one was found to say a word in his favor? No man stood forth and said: "I was a leper, and this man cured me with a touch." No woman said: "I am the widow of Nain and this is my son whom this man raised from the dead." No man said: "I was blind, and this man gave me sight."

THE PHILOSOPHY OF CHRIST

Millions assert that the philosophy of Jesus is perfect—that he was the wisest that ever littered speech. Let us see: Resist not evil. If smitten on one cheek turn the other.

No man has the right to protect himself, his property, his wife and children. Government becomes impossible, and the world is at the mercy of criminals. Is there any absurdity beyond this? To take from goodness, from virtue, from the truth, the right of self-defense. Vice becomes the master of the world, and the good become the victims of the infamous.

Love your enemies.

Is this possible? Did any human being ever love his enemies? Did Jesus love his, when he denounced them as whitened sepulchers, hypocrites and vipers? We cannot love those who hate us. Hatred in the hearts of others does not breed love in ours. Not to resist evil is absurd; to love your enemies is impossible.

[Editor’s note. Semantically speaking, to love your enemies besides is by definition an impossibility. Etymologically speaking the enemy, it is the opposite of the friend, the one whom you do not love. Respecting one's enemies is already a very ambitious goal].

Take no thought for the morrow.

The idea was that God would take care of us as he did of sparrows and lilies. Is there the least sense in that belief?

Can we live without taking thought for the morrow? To plow, to sow, to cultivate, to harvest, is to take thought for the morrow. We plan and work for the future, for our children, for the unborn generations to come. Without this forethought there could be no progress, no civilization.

If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out. If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off. Why? Because it is better that one of our members should perish than that the whole body should be cast into hell.

Is it possible to extract from these extravagant sayings the smallest grain of common sense?

Swear not at all; neither by Heaven, for it is God's throne; nor by the Earth, for it is his footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is his holy city.

Here we find the received ides of the days: Heaven is the throne of God, the earth is his footstool. A footstool that turns over at the rate of a thousand miles an hour, and sweeps through space at the rate of over a thousand miles a minute!

Why was Jerusalem a holy city? Was it because the inhabitants were ignorant, cruel and superstitious?

Think not I am come to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother.

To set father against son, and daughter against father—what a glorious mission!

Is it possible that he who said, "Resist not evil," came to bring a sword? That he who said, "Love your enemies," came to destroy the peace of the world?

He did bring a sword, and the sword was wet for a thousand years with innocent blood. In millions of hearts, he sowed the seeds of hatred and revenge. He divided nations and families, put out the light of reason, and petrified the hearts of men.

And everyone that has forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive a hundredfold, shall inherit everlasting life.

According to Matthew, Jesus, the compassionate, the merciful, uttered these terrible words. Is it possible that Jesus offered the bribe of eternal joy to those who would desert their fathers, their mothers, their wives and children? Are we to win the happiness of heaven by deserting the ones we love?

---------------------- -------------------------- --------------------------------- --------------------------------------- ------------

EDITOR'S NOTE.

Of course, Ingersoll is right. We must nevertheless take into account a very natural human phenomenon, the tendency in the heat of speech to emphasize, exaggerate.

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We can very well hold such remarks and arrive at making them acceptable or compatible with each other, by qualifying them (by making, for example, the distinctions and exceptions that are necessary).

But when you are convinced, like Jesus, that the end of the world is near, you can, of course, only neglect this world for the other.

-------------- ----- -------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------

WHY SHOULD WE PLACE JESUS AT THE TOP AND SUMMIT OF THE HUMAN RACE?

He never said a word in favor of education. He never even hinted at the existence of any science. He never uttered a word in favor of industry, economy or of any effort to better our condition in this world. Jesus cared nothing for painting, for sculpture, for music—nothing for any art. He said nothing about the duties of nation to nation, of king to subject; nothing about the rights of man; nothing about intellectual liberty or the freedom of speech.

Was he kinder, more forgiving, more self-sacrificing than Buddha? Was he wiser, did he meet death with more perfect calmness, than Socrates? Was he more patient, more charitable, than Epictetus? Was he a greater philosopher, a deeper thinker, than Epicurus? In what respect was he the superior of Zoroaster? Was he gentler than Lao-tsze, more universal than Confucius? Were his ideas of human rights and duties superior to those of Zeno? Was his mind subtler than Spinoza's? Was his brain superior to Kepler's ? Was he grander in death—a sublimer martyr than Bruno?

If Christ was in fact God, he knew all the future. Before Him like a panorama moved the history yet to be. He knew how his words would be interpreted. He knew what crimes, what horrors, what infamies, would be committed in his name. He knew that his church would invent and use instruments of torture; that his followers would appeal to whip and fagot, to chain and rack. He saw the horizon of the future lurid with the flames of the public burnings. He knew what creeds would spring like poisonous fungi from every text. He saw the interpolations and falsehoods that hypocrisy would write and tell. He saw all wars that would be waged, and-he knew that above these fields of death, these dungeons, these rackings, these burnings, these executions, for a thousand years would float the dripping banner of the cross.

He knew that hypocrisy would be robed and crowned—that cruelty and credulity would rule the world; knew that popes and kings in his name would enslave the souls and bodies of men; knew that they would persecute and destroy the discoverers, thinkers and inventors; knew that his church would extinguish reason's holy light and leave the world without a star.

He saw his disciples extinguishing the eyes of men, flaying them alive, or cutting out their tongues.

Why did he fail to speak? Why did he not tell his disciples, and through them the world: "You shall not burn, imprison and torture in my name. You shall not persecute your fellow men."

Why did he not plainly say: "I am the Son of God," or, "I am God"? Why did he not explain the Trinity? Why did he not tell the mode of baptism that was pleasing to him? Why did he not write a creed? Why did he not break the chains of slaves? Why did he not say that the Old Testament was or was not the inspired word of God? Why did he not write the New Testament himself? Why did he not say something positive, definite and satisfactory about another world? Why did he not tell us something of the rights of man, of the liberty of hand and brain? He went dumbly to his death.

I will tell you why. He was a man, and so did not know…………….

The men who kept these books were ignorant and superstitious. They were firm believers in the miraculous. They thought that diseases had been cured by the aprons and handkerchiefs of the apostles, by the bones of the dead. They believed in the fable of the Phoenix, and that the hyenas changed their sex every year.

Erasmus, one of the leaders of the Reformation, declared that the Epistle to the Hebrews was not written by Paul, and he denied the inspiration of Second and Third John, but also of Revelation. Luther was of the same opinion. He declared James to be an epistle of straw, and denied the inspiration of Revelation. Zwingli rejected the book of Revelation, and even Calvin denied that Paul was the author of Hebrews.

Jews Christians and Muslims (French journalists too) wonder how I can be wicked enough to attack their Book.

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I will tell them: This book has persecuted, even unto death, the wisest and the best. This book stayed and stopped the onward movement of the human race. This book poisoned the fountains of learning and misdirected the energies of man.

This book is the enemy of freedom, the support of slavery. This book sowed the seeds of hatred in families and nations, fed the flames of war, and impoverished the world. This book is the breastwork of kings and tyrants—the enslaver of women and children. This book has corrupted parliaments and courts. This book has made colleges and universities the teachers of error and the haters of science. This book has filled the world with hateful, cruel, ignorant and warring sects. This book taught men to kill their fellows for soul’s sake.

This book founded the Inquisition (Hisbah in Islamic land ), invented the instruments of torture, built the dungeons in which the good and loving languished, forged the chains that rusted in their flesh, erected the scaffolds whereon they died. This book piled fagots about the feet of the just. This book drove reason from the minds of millions and filled the asylums with the insane.

This book filled the sails of the slave trader and made merchandise of human flesh. This book lighted the fires that burned "witches" and "wizards." This book filled the bodies of men and women with devils. This book polluted the souls of men with the infamous dogma of eternal pain.

This book made credulity the greatest of virtues, and investigation the greatest of crimes. This book placed the ignorant and unclean saint above the philosopher and philanthropist.

I attack this book because it is the enemy of human liberty—the greatest obstruction across the highway of human progress.

Let me ask to its useful idiots one question: How can you be wicked enough to defend this book?

In short, Christian theology, like the Jewish religious ideology from which it springs, is an aporia of thought behaving like a parasite (an archon would say John Lash) harmful to society or culture.

Its answers to the great questions raised by Mankind......

-Why does the world exist?

-Why was it created?

- Will it always exist?

-What is evil?

-What do we become after death?

Etc. Etc.

Are more than disappointing for who thinks a little bit.

In fact, Christian theology has no peculiar subject , the message of Jesus being focused on the announcement of the coming of the Kingdom of God, the end of all times. Original Christianity is an antinomy for all that is cultural, historical, social, temporal and of the world, including philosophy.

Faced with this void of early Christian thought (Christ being not returned and the world continuing, the message of Jesus and of the early Christians has thus proved false), Christian theology has contented itself throughout the centuries to cling to the great ideologies in fashion and to the sociological and political trends of the various moments, by "Christianizing" them, by covering them with a gloss and a pseudo-biblical guarantee. That in order to preserve the power of the clergy and of the ecclesial institution over society.

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AFTERWORD IN THE WAY OF JOHN TOLAND.

Pseudo-druids with fabulous initiatory derivation (the famous and indescribable or hilarious perennial tradition) having multiplied since some time; it appeared us necessary to put at the disposal of each and everyone, these few notes, hastily written, one evening of November, in order to give our readers the desire to know more about true druidism.

This work claims to be honest but in no way neutral. It was given itself for an aim to defend or clear the cluto (fame) of this admirable ancient religion.

Nothing replaces personal meditation, including about obscure or incomprehensible lays strewing these books, and which have been inserted intentionally, in order to force you to reflect, to find your own way. These books are not dogmas to be followed blindly and literally. As you know, we must beware as it was the plague, of the letter. The letter kills, only spirit vivifies.

Nothing replaces either personal experience, and it’s by following the way that we find the way. Therefore rely only on your own strength in this Search for the Grail. What matters is the attitude to be adopted in life and not the details of the dogma. Druidism is less important than druidiaction (John-P. MARTIN).

These few leaves scribbled in a hurry are nevertheless in no way THE BOOKS TO READ ON THIS MATTER, they are only a faint gleam of them.

The only druidic library worthy of the name is not in fact composed of only 12 (or 27) books, but of several hundred books.

The few booklets forming this mini-library are not themselves an increase of knowledge on the subject, and are only some handbooks intended for the schoolchildren of druidism.

These simplified summaries intended for the elementary courses of druidism will be replaced by courses of a somewhat higher level, for those who really want to study it in a more relevant way.

This small library is consequently a first attempt to adapt (intended for young adults) the various reflections about the druidic knowledge and truth, to which the last results of the new secularism, positive and open-minded, worldwide, being established, have led.

Unlike Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, which swarm, concerning the higher Being, with childish anthropomorphism taken literally (fundamentalism known as integrism in the Catholic world); our druidism too, on the other hand, will use only very little of them, and will stick in this field, to the absolute minimum.

But in order to talk about God or the Devil we shall be quite also obliged to use a basic language, and therefore a more or less important amount of this anthropomorphism. Or then it would be necessary to completely give up discussing it.

This first shelf of our future library consecrated to the subject, aims to show precisely the harmonious authenticity of the neo-druidic will and knowledge. To show at which point its current major theses have deep roots because the reflection about Mythologies, it’s our Bible to us. The adaptations of this brief talk required by the differences of culture, age, spiritual maturity, social status, etc. will be to do with the concerned druids (veledae and others?)

Note, however. Important! What these few notes, hastily thrown on paper during a too short life, are not (higgledy-piggledy).

A divine revelation. A (still also divine) law. A (non-religious or secular) law. A (scientific) law. A dogma. An order.

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What I search most to share is a state of mind, nothing more. As our old master had very well said one day : "OUR CIVILIZATION HAS NO CHOICE: IT WILL BE CELTISM OR IT WILL BE DEATH” (Peter Lance).

What these few notes, hastily thrown on paper during a too short life, are.

Some dream. An adventure. A journey. An escape. A revolt cry against the moral and physical ugliness of this society. An attempt to reach the universal by starting from the individual. A challenge. An obstacle fecund to overcome . An incentive to think. A guide for action. A map. A plan. A compass. A pole star or morning star up there in the mountain. A fire overnight in a glade?

What the man who had collected the core of this library, Peter DeLaCrau, is not.

- A god.

- A half god.

- A quarter of God.

- A saint.

- A philosopher (recognized, official, and authorized or licensed, as those who talk a lot in television. Except, of course, by taking the word in its original meaning, which is that of amateur searching wisdom and knowledge.

What he is: a man, and nothing of what is human therefore is unknown to him. Peter DeLaCrau has no superhuman or exceptional power. Nothing of what he said wrote or did could have timeless value. At the best he hopes that his extreme clearness about our society and its dominant ideology (see its official philosophers, its journalists, its mass media and the politically correct of its right-thinking people, at least about what is considered to be the main thing); as well his non-conformism, and his outspokenness, combined with a solid contrariness (which also earned to him for that matter a lot of troubles or affronts); can be useful.

The present small library for beginners “contains the dose of humanity required by the current state of civilization” (Henry Lizeray). However it’s only a gathering of materials waiting for the ad hoc architect or mason.

A whole series of booklets increasing our knowledge of these basic elements will be published soon. This different presentation of the druidic knowledge will preserve nevertheless the unity as well as the harmony which can exist between these various statements of the same philosophical and well-considered paganism : spirituality worthy of our day, spirituality for our days.

Case of translations into foreign languages (Spanish, German, Italian, Polish, etc.)

The misspellings, the grammatical mistakes, the inadequacies of style, as well as in the writing of the proper nouns perhaps and, of course, the Gallicisms due to forty years of life in France, may be corrected. Any other improvement of the text may also be brought if necessary (by adding, deleting, or changing, details); Peter DeLaCrau having always regretted not being able to reach perfection in this field.

But on condition that neither alteration nor betrayal, in a way or another, is brought to the thought of the author of this reasoned compilation. Every illustration without a caption can be changed. New illustrations can be brought.

But illustrations having a caption must be only improved (by the substitution of a good photograph to a bad sketch, for example?)

It goes without saying that the coordinator of this rapid and summary reasoned compilation , Peter DeLaCrau, does not maintain to have invented (or discovered) himself, all what is previous; that he does not claim in any way that it is the result of his personal researches (on the ground or in libraries).

What s previous is indeed essentially resulting from the excellent works or websites referenced in bibliography and whose direct consultation is strongly recommended.

We will never insist enough on our will not be the men of one book (the Book), but from at least twelve, like Ireland’s Fenians, for obvious reasons of open-mindedness, truth being our only religion.

Once again, let us repeat; the coordinator of the writing down of these few notes hastily thrown on paper, by no means claims to have spent his life in the dust of libraries; or in the field, in the mud of

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the rescue archaeology excavations; in order to unearth unpublished pieces of evidence about the past of Ireland (or of Wales or of East Indies or of China).

THEREFORE PETER DELACRAU DOES NOT WANT TO BE CONSIDERED, IN ANY WAY, AS THE AUTHOR OF THE FOREGOING TEXTS.

HE TRIES BY NO MEANS TO ASCRIBE HIMSELF THE CREDIT OF THEM. He is only the editor or the compiler of them. They are, for the most part, documents broadcast on the web, with a few exceptions.

ON THE OTHER HAND, HE DEMANDS ALL THEIR FAULTS AND ALL THEIR INSUFFICIENCIES.

Peter DeLaCrau claims only one thing, the mistakes, errors, or various imperfections, of this book. He alone is to be blamed in this case. But he trusts his contemporaries (human nature being what it is) for vigorously pointing out to him.

Note found by the heirs to Peter DeLaCrau and inserted by them into this place.

By respect for Mankind , in order to save time, and not to make it waste time, I will make easier the work of those who make absolutely a point of being on the right side of the fence while fighting (heroically of course) in order to save the world of my claws (my ideas or my inclinations, my tendencies).

To these courageous and implacable detractors, of whom the profundity of reflection worthy of that of a marquis of Vauvenargues equals only the extent of the general knowledge, worthy of Pico della Mirandola I say…

Now take a sheet of paper, a word processing if you prefer, put by order of importance 20 characteristics which seem to you most serious, most odious, most hateful, in the history of Mankind, since the prehistoric men and Nebuchadnezzar, according to you….AND CONSIDER THAT I AM THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE OF YOU BECAUSE I HAVE THEM ALL!

Scapegoats are always needed! A heretic in the Middle Ages, a witch in Salem in the 17th century, a racist in the 20th century, an alien lizard in the 21st century, I am the man you will like to hate in order to feel a better person (a smart and nice person).

I am, as you will and in the order of importance you want: an atheist, a satanist, a stupid person, with Down’s syndrome, brutish, homosexual, deviant, homophobic, communist, Nazi, sexist, a philatelist, a pathological liar, robber, smug, psychopath, a falsely modest monster of hubris, and what do I still know, it is up to you to see according to the current fashion.

Here, I cannot better do (in helping you to save the world).

[Unlike my despisers who are all good persons, the salt of the earth, i.e., young or modern and dynamic, courageous, positive, kind, intelligent, educated, or at least who know; showing much hindsight in their thoroughgoing meditation on the trends of History; and on the moral or ethical level: generous, altruistic, but poor of course (it is their only vice) because giving all to others; moreover deeply respectful of the will of God and of the Constitution …

As for me I am a stiff old reactionary, sheepish, disconnected from his time, paranoid, schizophrenic, incoherent, capricious, never satisfied, a villain, stupid, having never studied or at least being unaware of everything about the subject in question; accustomed to rash judgments based on prejudices without any reflection; selfish and wealthy; a fiend of the Devil, inherently Nazi-Bolshevist or Stalinist-Hitlerian. Hitlerian Trotskyist they said when I was young. In short a psychopathic murderer as soon as the breakfast… what enables me therefore to think what I want, my critics also besides, and to try to make everybody know it even no-one in particular].

Signed: the coordinator of the works, Peter DeLaCrau known as Hesunertus, a researcher in druidism.

A man to whom nothing human was foreign. An unemployed worker, post office worker, divorcee, homeless person, vagrant, taxpayer, citizen, and a cuckolded elector... In short one of the 9 billion human beings having been in transit aboard this spaceship therefore. Born on planet Earth, January 13, 1952.

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CONTENTS

Warning of the holy Quran Page 004

Preface Page 005

The persecutions problem Page 007

The reasons pertaining the mentality of the early Christians Page 011

Proceedings for crimes under common law Page 017

The “persecuting” emperors Page 019

Reminder on persecutions Page 032

The case of the Christians in Lyons Page 036

Christianity in North Africa Page 040

The first cult of saints Page 042

The theoretical and practical issues raised by the fault of the lapsi Page 046

Christianization of the cities (mainly in the East) Page 050

Beginning of the Middle Age Page 057

The Christianization of the countryside in the west Page 059

Pelagianism and Semi-Pelagianism Page 063

The Christianization of Great Britain Page 070

The myth of the Holy Grail Page 072

Other today fashion swindle Page 077

Revisionism Page 078

The council of Rimini (353) Page 080

The end of Pelagianism Page 081

Heaven helps those who help themselves Page 082

Scotland’s case Page 083

St Ninian (360-432) Page 084

The early Irish saints. Page 085

Palladius or Pledi (431) Page 086

Childhood and youth of Patrick (385-432) Page 088

St. Columba of Iona in Scotland (563-597) Page 089

Merlin and St. Kentigern (550-612) Page 090

St. Augustine of Cantorbery and the evangelization of the Anglo-Saxons (597) Page 092

St. Augustine of Cantorbery and the evangelization of the Welsh Christians Page 098

The synod of Whitby and the end of the Celtic Christendom Page 102

Revisionism still: Ireland’s Christianization Page 108

St. Brigid of Kildare Page 114

St. Patrick’s confession Page 116

The Coroticus’ case Page 118

St. Patrick in Ireland (386, 461?) Page 120

St. Enda (450? 530?) Page 125

The Culdee Third Order Page 130

St. Columba of Iona and the triumph of Christianity in Ireland (560) Page 140

St. Columba of iona and the evangelization of Scotland (563) Page 142

Iona and the Culdees in Scotland Page 148

The evangelization of the countryside in Europe from 6th to 8th centuries Page 156

Sermon No. 13 by St. Caesarius of Arles Page 157

Council of Tours (567) and Auxerre (585?) Page 158

The Correctione Rusticorum in Portugal (573) Page 159

St. Columbanus of Bobbio (543-615) Page 162

The rule of the monks of St. Columbanus of Bobbio Page 165

The monastic movement in Europe Page 169

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St. Eligius (558-669) Page 174

Comments Page 176

Towards a new Western Roman Empire Page 179

The Indiculus superstitionum et paganiarum (743) Page 181

The covenant of the Church and State Page 183

The Admonitio Generalis (789) Page 184

Networking and covering of the territory Page 186

The Status of the Jews under Louis the Pious Page 188

The Irish wave of the 8th and 9th centuries Page 191

Palatine School and Academy Page 192

Scotus Eriugena (810-876) Page 194

The Europe of the year 1000 Page 199

Letter from St. Bernard to the knights templar (1134) Page 201

Life and death of the good (or bad) Christian in the Middle Ages Page 203

Holidays of obligation Page 204

Confession Page 205

Penance and indulgence Page 207

Hell Page 209

The place of dead in the society Page 212

The Romanesque art (10th 12th century) Page 216

Short history of Inquisition (psychology and ethics) Page 219

Ancient roots Page 221

Ammianus Marcellinus and the religious policy by Theodosius Page 228

The Pro Templis of St Libanius Page 224

The case Hierocles of Alexandria (circa 400) Page 227

The heresies Page 228

The beginnings of the suppression Page 230

The official Inquisition Page 232

The Inquisition and the Marranos Page 237

Conclusion Page 241

Christianity in Northern Europe Page 243

Back to the Samogitian Case Page 251

Christianity in Eastern Europe Page 255

Ukraine and Russia Page 257

Witch hunts Page 260

The cases Aikenhead and La Barre Page 268

Appendix 1: the Jews and their lies Page 270

Appendix 2: reminder about Christian anti-Semitism Page 272

Appendix 3: the death of Conchobar Page 275 Appendix 4: the difficulties of the inculturation of Christianity in India Page 278

Appendix 5: modern Gnosticism by John Lash Page 281

Appendix 6: interest of the Holy Bible according to Robert G. Ingersoll Page 284

Afterword in the way of John Toland Page 291

BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

1 Quotations from the ancient authors speaking about Celts or druids.

2. Various preliminary general information about Celts.

3. History of the pact with gods volume 1.

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4. Druidism Bible: history of the pact with gods volume 2.

5. History of the peace with gods volume 3.

6. History of the peace with gods volume 4.

7. History of the peace with gods volume 5.

8. From Fenians to Culdees or “The Great Science which enlightens” volume 1.

9. Irish apocryphal texts.

10. From Fenians to Culdees or “The Great Science which enlightens” volume 2.

11. From Fenians to Culdees or “The Great Science which enlightens” volume 3.

12. The hundred paths of paganism. Science and philosophy volume 1 (druidic mythology).

13. The hundred paths of paganism. Science and philosophy volume 2 (druidic mythology).

14. The hundred ways of paganism. Science and philosophy volume 3 (druidic mythology).

15. The Greater Camminus: elements of druidic theology: volume 1.

16. The Greater Camminus: elements of druidic theology: volume 2.

17. The druidic pleroma: angels jinns or demons volume 1.

18. The druidic pleroma angels jinns or demons volume 2

19. Mystagogy or sacred theater of ancients Celts.

20. Celtic poems.

21. The genius of the Celtic paganism volume 1.

22. The Roland’s complex .

23. At the base of the lantern of the dead.

24. The secrets of the old druid of the Menapian forest.

25. The genius of Celtic paganism volume 2 (liberty reciprocity simplicity).

26. Rhetoric : the treason of intellectuals.

27. Small dictionary of druidic theology volume 1.

28. From the ancient philosophers to the Irish druid.

29. Judaism Christianity and Islam: first part.

30. Judaism Christianity and Islam : second part volume 1.

31. Judaism Christianity and Islam : second part volume 2.

32. Judaism Christianity and Islam : second part volume 3.

33. Third part volume 1: what is Islam? Short historical review of the set QUR.HAD.SIR. and SHAR.FIQ.MAD.

34. Third part volume 2: What is Islam? First approaches to the set QUR.HAD.SIR. and SHAR.FIQ.MAD.

35. Third part volume 3: What is Islam? The true 5 pillars of the set QUR.HAD.SIR. and SHAR.FIQ.MAD.

36. Third part volume 4: What is Islam? Sounding the set QUR.HAD.SIR. and SHAR.FIQ.MAD.

37. Couiro anmenion or small dictionary of druidic theology volume 2.

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Peter DeLaCrau. Born on January 13rd, 1952, in St. Louis (Missouri) from a family of woodsmen or Canadian trappers who had left Prairie du Rocher (or Fort de Chartres in Illinois) in 1765. Peter DeLaCrau is thus born the same year as the Howard Hawks film entitled “the Big Sky”. Consequently father of French origin, mother of Irish origin: half Irish half French. Married to Mary-Helen ROBERTS on March 12th, 1988, in Paris-Aubervilliers (French department of Seine-Saint-Denis). Hence 3 children. John Wolf born May 11th, 1989. Alex born April 10th, 1990. Millicent born August 31st, 1993. Deceased on September 28th, 2012, in La Rochelle (France).

Peter DELACRAU is not a philosopher by profession, except taking this term in its original meaning of amateur searching wisdom and knowledge. And he is neither a god neither a demigod nor the messenger of any god or demigod (and of course not a messiah).

But he has become in a few years one of the most lucid and of the most critical observers of the French neo-druidic or neo-pagan world.

He was also some time assistant-treasurer of a rather traditionalist French druidic group of which he could get archives and texts or publications.

But his constant criticism both domestic and foreign French policy, and his political positions (on the end of his life he had become an admirer of Howard Zinn Paul Krugman Bernie Sanders and Michael Moore); had earned him moreover some vexations on behalf of the French authorities which did everything, including in his professional or private life, in the last years of his life, to silence him.

Peter DeLaCrau has apparently completely missed the return to the home country of his distant ancestors.

It is true unfortunately that France today is no longer the France of Louis XIV or of Lafayette or even of Napoleon (which has really been a great nation in those days).

Peter DeLaCrau having spent most of his life (the last one) in France, of which he became one of the best specialists,

even one of the rare thoroughgoing observers of the contemporary French society quite simply; his three children, John-Wolf, Alex and Millicent (of Cuers: French Riviera) pray his readers to excuse the countless misspellings or grammatical errors that pepper his writings. At the end of his life, Peter DeLaCrau mixed a little both languages (English but also French).

Those were therefore the notes found on the hard disk of the computer of our father, or in his papers.

Our father has of course left us a considerable work, nobody will say otherwise, but some of the words frequently coming from his pen, now and then are not always very clear. After many consultations between us, at any rate, above what we have been able to understand of them.

Signed: the three children of Peter DeLaCrau: John-Wolf, Alex and Millicent. Of Cuers.