Examination of the French scholar on the beliefs concerning the afterlife in the Druidic-Gaelic tradition and on how, with the advent of Christianity, they resulted in the literature of "navigations" and in the canonization of Purgatory.
di Jean Markale
adapted from:Β Le christianity celtique et ses survivances populaires
Editions Imago, Paris, 1986
and. it .:Β Celtic ChristianityΒ and its popular survivals
Arkeios, Rome, 2014, chapter 3
The strength of Christianity, and one of the reasons for its overwhelming victory over the other spiritualistic religions of the time, was the promise of eternal life in a new incarnation, which would have preserved the individual self by sublimating it, as shown by the example of Christ, resurrected and animating a body identical to the previous one, but sublimated, glorious. This was a fundamental difference compared to other religions, in which eternal life was promised, but under conditions that were somewhat obscure. Christianity, the doctrine of the resurrection, presents as many divergences with Pythagoreanism, whose theology is abstract and the dogma completely intellectual, as there are with the Greek religion, in which the afterlife is summed up in a shady living room where evanescent figures wander .
The "genius" of Christianity consisted in being concrete, in saying to believers: after the end of the world you will come back to life in the same form you had, whether you will be saved or you will be damned. They are far from the ectoplasms of the Elysian Fields, or the intangible spiritual entities of the mystery religions, not to mention the infinite daze of nonexistence in a collective Nirvana in which any notion of ego. The peoples of Europe care about their egos, and this is not the least of the speculations that irreconcilably separate them from the peoples of the East, particularly Buddhists.
Now, according to what is known on the subject, as a religious and metaphysical system (since there would be further aspects) even Druidism promised an identical life postmortem, in another body in which theego. The testimonies are formal: "Souls do not perish, but after death they pass from one body to another"(Caesar, De Bello Gallico, VI, 13); "Druids, and others like them, profess that souls are imperishableΒ»(Strabo, IV, 4); "Souls are immortal and there is another life with the deadΒ»(Pomponius Mela, III, 2); "The shadows do not reach the silent living room of the Erebus and the pale realms of Dis Pater, as the same spirit rules a body in another world"(Lucano, Stack, III, 399-400).
For a long time the text of Caesar gave rise to confusion because it was not read in its context: it was in fact believed - and some still think - that the Celts professed the dogma of metempsychosis, that is to say the transmigration of souls from a body to the other, similarly to the Indians and the Pythagoreans (with whom the druids are often placed in relation). It is an absolute contradiction, and no text, whether Greek, Latin, Irish or Welsh, concerning the religious beliefs of the ancient Celts, and no mythological epic can confirm such a claim. If in the Celtic epic there are reincarnations, this happens in individual cases, to symbolically mark the permanence of a divine entity: in fact all the cases of reincarnation observed in the mythological epic are as many hypostases of divinities, successive incarnations of divinities that have come to convey a message to human beings or to help them in their spiritual quest. But it is in no way a question of a system of migrations of souls analogous to the samsara Indo-Buddhist.
Moreover, the text of Caesar is particularly clear: the spirit takes on another body in the Other World, not in this one. Lucan too is precise on this subject, and it must be observed that life postmortem, according to the Druidic teaching, it is perfectly concrete and has nothing to do with the Greek conception (the Erebus) or the Roman conception (the kingdom of Dis) with evanescent forms. The Celtic Other World is concrete. He is alone elsewhere. Christianity has never said anything different. And it is an essential point on which the two religions found themselves in complete harmony.
In their earthly life the Celtic monks tried to reach this Other World, in the same way as the pagan heroes whose fabulous adventures are told in the mythological texts. Whether in the solitude of the monasteries, with prayer, meditation, maceration and fasting, or taking the path of the famous "pilgrimages for the love of God", the Celtic monk always leaves for the Search for the Grail. This in Ireland has given an extraordinary literature in which Christian and pagan elements are mixed in the most perfect harmony, that is the literature of the imrama, that is to say of "navigations". These tales of sea voyages are not always fictional works: at the moment of departure it is possible to discern a certain historical reality, in which saints and hermits left on pilgrimage on the sea and sometimes settled on more or less deserted islands. But behind the Christian themes the marvelous Celtic rises again, offering examples of remarkable continuity between the two traditions.
Around 800 the legends of the pilgrimages of the saints across the sea were well known in Irish monastic circles, and the most famous was that of San Brendano di Clonfert, set out in search of Paradise, and who perhaps, crossing the Atlantic, discovered America. The legend of Brendano is at the origin of the story of the Life Brendani and Navigatio Brendan, then translated into Anglo-Norman in the twelfth century and spread throughout Europe. The starting point is obviously historical, although it is questionable whether it is Brendano Abbot of Clonfert or Brendano Abbot of Birr, and whether it takes place in the sixth century. There Navigation tells that Brendano one day received a visit from the monk Barinto, who had just returned from a pilgrimage to a certain Mernoc, who had gathered a bizarre community on the Island of Delights. Barinto and Mernoc had then rowed together to the west until they reached the called island "Country of the Promise of the Saints", full of extraordinary fruit and flowers, which they had tasted. But they hadn't been allowed to go beyond half of the island. Brendano just has to reunite some of his brothers and leave with them on a coracle (curragh, Irish boat covered in skins) in search of the "Land of the Promise of the Saints", that is, of Paradise.
This gives them the opportunity to land on more or less mysterious islands and to know supernatural adventures there, especially in "Bird Paradise", and on an island that is actually a whale. They also visit Judas Iscariot who, seated on a rock, takes advantage of a short break from the torments of Hell. They escape the eruption of a volcano (Iceland?), And reach the "Land of the Promise of the Saints". They are not allowed to enter it, but, after receiving the blessing of an angel who guided them there, they return to the Isle of Earthly Delights before returning to Ireland.
With all the evidence la Navigatio Brendan it is the Christianization of a pagan tale whose plot is recognizable inImmram Curaig Maile Duin (The Navigation of Maelduin), a profane work, but written in the Christian era, and in theImmram Bran mac Faibal (The Navigation of Bran, son of Febal), a very short story, but which has its roots in the most remote pagan mythological past. In these two texts Paradise is the Island of fairies, a heavenly universe ruled by women, where all year round they grow out and fruits. It is the land of Eternal Youth, theInsula Pomorum of Merlini life, the island of Avalon (aval = apple) of the Arthurian legends, what the Irish call Emain Ablach: in it there is no suffering, no old age, no death. It cannot be denied that the "Land of the Promise of the Saints" is the island of Avalon. Nor can we ignore the identity of the adventures of pagan or Christian heroes on the mysterious islands encountered during their navigation.
The image of the Celtic Paradise and that of the Christian Paradise are the same in Ireland and in Brittany, even in cases where Paradise is located underground, in the mysterious universe of sidh, or megalithic mounds. It is believed that i live there Tuatha De Danaan, the peoples of the goddess Dana, already lords of Ireland before the arrival of the Gaels. Their universe, however, has nothing comparable to the gloomy districts of the Erebus: the landscapes are bathed by the same sun, you can breathe the same air, you breed the same flocks, you live the same life as that universe above the surface. of the earth. To be honest, the Other World of the Celts is not above, but below; it is elsewhere, to the side. And it is often possible to enter it, as the inhabitants of the Other World can come to the human world. The frontier is sometimes difficult to specify.
All this shows that among the Celts of the Druidic period, death did not have that frightening character that is attributed to it in some civilizations and in certain pessimistic religions. As Lucano says, "death is the midpoint of a long life"(Stack, I, 457). In those conditions, how to be scared, how to be afraid of what is on the other side? Among the pagan Celts there was a great serenity, and this serenity remained even when they received the Christian message: after all, by dying and resurrecting Jesus had done nothing but prove the truth of the Druidic dogma. This was probably one of the fundamental reasons that led the Irish to accept Christianity so easily, to the point of becoming its most ardent propagators.
However, over the centuries the primitive Celtic mentality, founded on a sort of quiet amoralism and on a rejection of sin according to the Judeo-Mediterranean meaning (i.e. that of an absolute sin), found itself faced with a serious problem. Christian doctrine promises Heaven for those who have deserved it, but threatens Hell to those who have not been able to choose their way. Regardless of whether you are Pelagians or Augustinians, Hell seems like a reality that risks being terrifying: for a Celt to be definitively condemned to hellish sufferings for eternity is something intolerable. What to do then?
We do not know what the first Celts converted thought, but it is known that those of the early Middle Ages found a loophole. Not being able to eliminate Hell, which remained the supreme punishment reserved for those who had deliberately and voluntarily chosen the path of Evil, they imagined an intermediate place where sinners through ineptitude or negligence could redeem themselves and thus deserve admission to Paradise. This intermediate place is Purgatory. It is currently unanimously recognized that it was the Irish who invented Purgatory and imposed it on the Christian world as a whole.
A medieval text introduces us St. Patrick's Purgatory: a knight named Owen, most likely a Breton, arrives in Ireland to attempt the test of St. Patrick's Well. After communicating and after praying, he descends into the depths and witnesses scenes from hell. It is clearly a literature with the purpose of moral edification, but the indications provided by this story are precious for the knowledge of Irish and Celtic beliefs concerning Purgatory. Moreover, St. Patrick's Purgatory is clearly located in Donegal: the Lough Derg, in fact, it is a lake on which there are numerous traditions, in one of which we speak of an underground monastery that stands on an island in the middle of the lake, while another narrates that Patrizio would have found a well there, would have penetrated into it and would have witnessed the tortures inflicted on the souls in Purgatory. Another legend states that in this underground monastery, clear reminder of the sidh heathen, there is always a monk who witnesses the apparition of the Virgin every Saturday. In any case, starting from the twelfth century the island becomes a very popular pilgrimage site, and despite the numerous prohibitions by the religious authorities, there are excesses completely consistent with ancient Celtic monasticism. A true pilgrim had to spend no less than three days and two nights on Station Island, eating only black bread and drinking only black tea, or lake water with added pepper.
Irish hagiographic literature is filled with visions of Purgatory. Who is the saint who has not had his vision of the Other World? It is a bit like the journey that almost all pagan heroes have at one time or another made on the other side of appearances, entering a fortress of the Other World. The Anglo-Saxon Bede tells (III, 19) that the Irish monk Fursa, who settled in Great Britain, was ecstatic one night. His soul left his body and was welcomed by the angels of Heaven. At the crowing of the cock the soul returned to his body, but three days later it left him again. That time Fursa perceived the world below him as a dark valley sandwiched between two walls of fire, which brings to mind the episode of the Arthurian novels relating to the Valley of no Return of the Morgana fairy. Shortly before Fursa was engulfed in flames, and had to fight with demons. He owed salvation only to the intervention of the angels, and his soul returned to his body.Β The same happens in the Irish tale of Phys Adamnan (the Vision of Adaman). This holy man also doubles himself. His soul of him sees Heaven and Hell, and makes the journey under the guidance of the angels.
as to Vision of Tondale, an Irish tale written in Latin well known throughout the Middle Ages, it represents a synthesis between the primitive Celtic mentality and the new vision of the world introduced by the Cistercians in the twelfth century. This is not a monk or a saint, but a knight, a great sinner and enemy of the Church (otherwise known as a "heretic"). One day, in a state of ecstasy, his soul leaves his body and cannot return, and is also attacked by a horde of demons that torment her. Appealing to God, for the first time in his life, Tondale sees his guardian angel coming who casts out demons, but forces him to undergo trials in Purgatory and also in Hell, of whose sulphurous regions he receives a detailed description, with the torments inflicted on sinners.
In fact in the Vision of Tondale there is nothing left of all that constituted the serenity of the early Christian Celtic texts. Roman Catholicism and the shadow of St. Augustine weigh on this vision. But the fantastic remains distinctly Celtic, and in the end there is forgiveness because Tondale, in a crucial moment in his life, chooses God against the devil. Free will is safeguarded. The scenery and setting are Irish, imbued with local color and certainly dating back to very specific traditions. The eschatology resembles that of visionary Irish literature from the early days of Christianity. But we feel the influence of all the apocryphal texts which at the time were spreading in the continental Church and which each one was adjusting in his own way. The human sweetness and the spirituality of the ancient literature of the indigenous tradition have disappeared, in favor of the crude symbolism of the medieval horrors that are believed to belong to Hell and Purgatory. Instead of being a place of waiting, Purgatory is a real Hell: the only difference is that it is not eternal. With the Vision of Tondale there is a turning point in the spiritual life of the Celts, who are preparing to become pessimists and "masochists" like the continentals.
The same process is observed in Armorican Britain during the seventeenth century. By eliminating the serene and peaceful conception of the Other World, the Breton mentality will be completely impregnated with Satanism and terror. A work like The legend of Death in Lower Brittany, by Anatole le Braz, a late seventeenth-century corpus of Armorican folk beliefs about death and the afterlife, testifies to this profound change that occurred in minds following a Counter-Reformation that had destroyed primitive Celtic serenity.
However, through the folk tales of Harmonican Brittany, some traits marked by ancient beliefs are revealed once again. If the Chariot of the Ankou has taken on a sinister aspect, the "voters", that is to say those who are serving Purgatory on earth, are always helped by a human being who takes pity on them and reduces their punishment by performing an act of charity. .Β The great communication between the living and the dead always exists, and basically there is nothing definitive in the condemnations inflicted on a sinner. Celtic optimism constantly resurfaces, even in the darkest tales. And the trust in the human being is intact. More than ever, the Other World of Celtic Christianity is an "elsewhere" which is immediately "to the side".
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