DRUIDISM AND FREEMASONRY
by Albert Mackey
MR. PRESTON, in commencing his history of Masonry in England, asserts that
there are convincing proofs that the science of Masonry was not unknown to the
early Britons even before the time of the invasion of the Romans. Hence he
suggests the probability that the Druids retained among them many usages similar
to those of Masons; but he candidly admits that this is a mere conjecture.
(1)
Hutchinson thinks it probable that many of the rites and institutions of the
Druids were retained in forming the ceremonies of the Masonic society.
(2)
Paine, who knew, by the way, as little of Masonry as he did of the religion
of the Druids, dogmatically asserts that "Masonry is the remains of the religion
of the ancient Druids, who, like the Magi of Persia and the priests of
Heliopolis in Egypt, were priests of the sun."
(3)
The learned Faber, a much more competent authority than Paine, expresses the
opinion that the Druidical Bards "are probably the real founders of English
Freemasonry." (4)
Godfrey Higgins, whose inventive genius, fertile imagination, and excessive
credulity render his great work, the Anacalypsis, altogether unreliable, says
that he has "no doubt that the Masons were Druids, Culidei, or Chaldea, and
Casideans." (5)
Dr. Oliver, it is true, denies that the Masons of the present day were
derived from the Druids. He thinks that the latter were a branch of what he
calls the Spurious Freemasonry, which was a secession from the Pure Freemasonry
of the Patriarchs. But he finds many analogies in the rites and symbols of the
two institutions which indicate their common origin from a primitive system,
namely, the ancient Mysteries of the Pagans.
The theory of those who find a connection either in analogy or by succession
between the Druids and the Freemasons accounts for this connection by supposing
that the Druids derived their system either from Pythagoras or from the ancient
Mysteries through the Phoenicians, who visited Britain at an early period for
commercial purposes.
But before we can profitably discuss the relations of Druidism to
Freemasonry, or be prepared to determine whether there were any relations
whatever between the two, it will be necessary to give a brief sketch of the
history and character of the former. This is a topic which, irrespective of any
Masonic reference, is not devoid of interest.
Of all the institutions of antiquity, there is none with which we are less
acquainted than that of the Druidism of Britain and Gaul. The investigations of
recent archaeologists have tended to cast much doubt on the speculations of the
antiquaries of the 17th and 18th centuries. Stokely, for instance, one of the
most learned of those who have sought to establish out of the stone monuments of
England a connected history of Druidism, has been said by Ferguson, in his work
on Rude Stone Monuments, to have been indebted more to a prolific imagination
than to authentic facts for the theory which he has sought to establish.
The scepticism of Ferguson is, however, not less objectionable in a critical
inquiry than the credulity of Stokely. There is evidently a middle way between
them.
Ferguson can not deny the existence of Druids in Gaul and Britain, since the
fact is stated by Caesar. He supposes that there were two distinct races in the
island; the original inhabitants, who were of Turanian origin, and, being more
uncivilized, were driven by the other race, who were Celts, into the fastnesses
of the Welsh hills long before the Roman invasion. Among the former he thinks
that the religion of Druidism, consisting of tree and serpent worship, may have
been practiced. And he accounts for the error of the classical writers in
describing the priests of the latter race as Druids by attributing it to the
confounding of the two races by the "uncritical Romans."
(6)
Very recently a bold and very sceptical theory has been advanced by Dr. Ignaz
Goldziher, in his work on Mythology Among the Hebrews,
(7) which aims at a total annihilation of
Druidism as a system of secret initiation among the ancient Britons (whose
Druidism was only a national religion), and attributes its invention to the
modern Welsh, who created it for the purpose of elevating and strengthening
their own nationality in their rivalry with the English. He says:
"The Cymri of Wales, becoming alive to the opposition in nationality between
themselves and the English, felt the need of finding a justification of this
opposition in the oldest prehistoric times. It was then first suggested to them
that they were descendants of the ancient, renowned Celtic nation; and to keep
alive this Celtic national pride they introduced an institution of New Druids, a
sort of secret society like the Freemasons. The New Druids, like the old ones,
taught a sort of national religion, which, however, the people having long
become Christian and preserved no independent national traditions, they had
mostly to invent themselves. Thus arose the so-called Celtic mythology of the
god Hu and the goddess Ceridolu (Ceridwen), etc. - mere poetical fictions which
never lived in popular belief."
The questions involved in this difference of opinion are as yet not
critically decided, and I shall therefore content myself with giving the views
of the history and religion of the Druids as they have been generally received
and believed, without confusing the subject with the contending speculations
which have been fostered by the credulity or the imagination of one side and
impugned by the scepticism of the other.
The Druids, which word signifies magicians,
(8) were the priests of the religion of the ancient Britons, among
whom they exercised almost unlimited influence and authority. They presided over
and directed the education of the youths; they decided without appeal all
judicial controversies; they were exempted from all taxes and legal impositions;
and whoever refused to submit to their decisions on any question was subjected
to excommunication, by which he was forbidden access to the altars or the
performance of religious rites, and was debarred from all intercourse with his
relatives, his friends, or his countrymen. Hence no superstition was ever more
terrible than that of the priest-ridden Britons.
The Druids were under the chief authority of an Archdruid, which office was
for life, but originally elective. They were divided into three orders, the
highest being the Druids, below which were the Pro heis and the Pates or Bards.
They held an annual assembly, at which litigated questions were decided and new
laws were made or old ones abrogated. They held also four quarterly meetings, on
the days of the equinoxes and the solstices.
They permitted none of their doctrines or ceremonies to be committed to
common writing, but used a cipher for their concealment. This, Caesar says,
consisted of the letters of the Greek alphabet; a statement by no means
probable, since it would infer a knowledge by them of the Greek language, of
which we have no evidence.
The opinion of Toland is more plausible - that the characters used were those
of the Irish Ogum alphabet. Sir James Ware, who wrote in Latin, about the middle
of the 17th century, a work on the Antiquities of Ireland, says that "the
ancient Irish, besides the vulgar characters, used also various occult or
artificial forms of writing, called Ogum, in which they wrote their secrets;"
and he adds that he himself was in possession of an ancient book or parchment
filled with these characters. (9)
Their places of worship were, according to the contemporaneous authority of
Caesar and Tacitus, in sacred groves. Stokely and other antiquaries of his
school suppose that the megalithic monuments found in Britain, such as at
Stonehenge and Avebury, were Druidical temples, but Ferguson denies this, and
asserts that "there is no passage in any classical author which connects the
Druids either directly or indirectly with any stone temples or stones of any
sort." (10) The question remains
unadjudicated, but the position taken by Ferguson seems to be supported by
better archaeological evidence.
Their worship, like that of the ancient Mysteries, was accompanied by a
secret initiation. Their doctrines were communicated only to the initiated, who
were strictly forbidden to expose them to the profane.
What were the precise forms of this initiation it is impossible to say. The
Druids themselves, wedded to their oral system of instruction, have left no
records. But Dr. Oliver, depending on inferences that he has drawn from the
Welsh triads, from the poem of the ancient bard Taleisin, and some other
Cambrian authorities, aided by the inventive genius of his own imagination, has
afforded us a very minute, if not altogether accurate, detail of these
initiatory ceremonies. The account is entirely too long for reproduction, but a
condensed view of it will not be uninteresting.
(11)
Previous to admission to the first degree, or that of the Vates, the
candidate was submitted to a careful preparation, which in especial cases
extended to the long period of twenty years.
The ceremony of initiation began by placing the candidate in the pastos,
chest or coffin, in which he remained enclosed for three days, to represent
death, and was liberated or restored to life on the third day.
(12)
The sanctuary being now prepared for the business of initiation, the Druids
are duly arranged, being appropriately clothed and crowned with ivy. The
candidate, representing a blind man, is then introduced while a hymn to the Sun
is being chanted. He is placed under the care of an officer whose duty it is to
receive him in the land of rest, and he is directed to kindle the fire under the
cauldron of Ceridwen, the Druidical goddess. A pageant is then formed, and the
candidate makes a circumambulation of nine times around the sanctuary, in
circles from east to west by the south. The procession is first slow and amid a
death-like silence; at length the pace is increased into a rapid and furious
motion, accompanied with the tumultuous clang of musical instruments and the
screams of harsh and dissonant voices reciting in verse the praises of those
heroes who were brave in war, courteous in peace, and patrons of religion.
(13)
This sacred ceremony was followed by the administration of an oath of
secrecy, violation of which could be expiated only by death. Then succeeded a
series of ceremonies in which, by means of masks, the candidate was made to
assume the character of various animals, such as the dog, the deer, the mare,
the cock, etc. (14)
This, according to Oliver, concluded the first part of the ceremony of
initiation. The second part began with striking the candidate a violent blow on
the head with an oar, and a pitchy darkness immediately ensued, which was soon
changed into a blaze of light which illuminated the whole area of the shrine.
This sudden transition from darkness to light was intended to shadow forth
the same transition which Noah experienced on emerging from the gloom of the ark
to the brightness of the renovated world. (15)
Thus it is contended that the Druids were Arkite worshippers - a concession
by Oliver to the theories of Faber and Bryant.
The light was then withdrawn and the candidate was again involved in chaotic
darkness. The most dismal howlings, shrieks, and lamentations salute his
astonished ear. Thus the figurative death of Noah, typified by his confinement
in the ark, was commemorated with every external mark of sorrow. Alarmed at the
discordant noises, the candidate naturally sought to escape, but this was
rendered impossible, for wherever he turned he was opposed by dogs who pursued
him. At length the gigantic goddess Ceridwen seized him and bore him by main
force to the mythological sea which represented the flood of waters over which
Noah floated.
Here he is supposed to have remained for a year in the character of Arawn, or
Noah. (16) The same appalling
sounds continued, until at length, having emerged from the stream, the darkness
was removed and the candidate found himself surrounded by the most brilliant
coruscations of light. This change produced in the attendants corresponding
emotions, which were expressed by shouts and loud paeans that testified their
rejoicings at the resuscitation of their god.
(17)
The aspirant was then presented to the Archdruid, who explained to him the
design of the mysteries and imparted some portion of the secret knowledge of
Druidism, and recommended to him the practice of fortitude, which was considered
as one of the leading traits of perfection. With the performance of these
painful ceremonies, the first degree of initiation into the Druidical Mysteries
was concluded.
In the second degree, where the trials appear, from Oliver's description, to
have been of a less severe character, the candidate underwent lustration, or a
typical ablution, which was followed by his enlightenment. He was now instructed
in the morality of the order; taught that souls are immortal and must live in a
future state; solemnly enjoined to the performance of divine worship and the
practice of virtue; and was invested with some of the badges of Druidism. Among
these was the crystal, the unequivocal test of his initiation. This crystal, or
talisman against danger, was manufactured exclusively by the Druids, and its
colour varied in the three degrees. In the first it was green, in the second
blue, and in the third white. The one presented to the aspirant was a
combination of these colours. (18)
Beyond the second degree very few advanced. The third was conferred only on
persons of rank and consequence, and in it the aspirant passed through still
more arduous ceremonies of purification.
The candidate was committed to secluded solitude for a period of nine months,
which time was devoted to reflection and to the study of the sciences, so that
he might be prepared more fully to understand the sacred truths in which he was
about to be instructed. He was again submitted to a symbolic death and
regeneration, by ceremonies different from those of the first degree. He was
then supposed to represent a new-born infant, and, being placed in a coracle or
boat, was committed to the mercy of the waters. The candidate, says Oliver, was
actually set adrift in the open sea, and was obliged to depend on his own
address and presence of mind to reach the opposite shore in safety.
(19)
This was done at night, and this nocturnal expedition, which sometimes cost
the candidate his life, was the closing act of his initiation. Should he refuse
to undertake it, he was contemptuously rejected and pronounced unworthy of a
participation in the honours to which he aspired and for which he was forever
afterward ineligible. But if he courageously entered on the voyage and landed
safely, he was triumphantly received by the Archdruid and his companions. He was
recognized as a Druid, and became eligible for any ecclesiastical, civil or
military dignity. "The whole circle of human science was open to his
investigation; the knowledge of divine things was communicated without reserve;
he was now enabled to perform the mysterious rites of worship, and had his
understanding enriched with an elaborate system of morality."
(20)
But little is known of the religion of the Druids, on which these ceremonies
are supposed to be founded, and concerning that little the opinions of the
learned greatly differ. "Among those institutions," says Toland, "which are
thought to be irrecoverably lost, one is that of the Druids; of which the
learned have hitherto known nothing but by some fragments concerning them out of
the Greek and Roman authors." (21)
Hence the views relating to their true worship have been almost as various as
the writers who have discussed them.
Caesar, who derived his knowledge of the Druids, imperfect as it was, from
the contemporary priests of Gaul, says that they worshipped as their chief god
Mercury, whom they considered as the inventor of all the arts, and after him
Apollo, Mars, Jupiter, and Minerva. (22)
But the Romans had a habit of applying to all the gods or idols of foreign
nations the names and qualities of the deities of their own mythology. Hence his
statement will scarcely amount to more than that the Druids worshipped a variety
of gods.
Yet Davies, who, notwithstanding his national prejudices and prepossessions,
is, from his learning, an authority not to be contemned, concurs in the view of
Caesar so far as to say that "it is an historical fact, that the mythology and
the rites of the Druids were the same, in substance, with those of the Greeks
and Romans and of other nations which came under their observation."
(23)
Dionysius the Geographer, another writer of the Augustan age, says that the
rites of Bacchus were celebrated in Britain,
(24) and Strabo, on the authority of Artemidorus, who wrote a
century before Christ, asserts that in an island close to Britain (probably the
isle of Mona, where the Druids held their principal seat) Ceres and Proserpine
were venerated with rites similar to those of Samothracia.
(25)
Bryant, who traced all the ancient religions, principally on the basis of
etymology, to traditions of the deluge and the worship of the patriarch Noah,
conceived, of course, that Druidism was but a part of this universal cult.
(26)
Faber, who followed in the footsteps of his learned predecessor, adoled the
same hypothesis, and held the doctrine that the Druids were addicted to what he
denominated Arkite worship, or the worship of Noah, and that all their religious
rites referred to the deluge, death and immortality being typified by the
confinement of the patriarch in the ark and his subsequent emergence from it
into a new and renovated world, the symbol of the future life.
(27)
It will be evident from the description already given of the Druidical
initiations as portrayed by Dr. Oliver, that he concurred to a great extent in
the views of Bryant and Faber.
Stukely, one of the most learned of English antiquarians, believed that the
Druids were addicted to tree and serpent worship, and he adduces as evidence of
the truth of this theory the megalithic monuments of Stonehenge and Avebury, in
the arrangement of whose stones he thought that he had traced a serpentine form.
On the contrary, Mr. Ferguson (28)
scoffs, in language not always temperate, at the views of Stokely, and not only
denies the serpentine form of the stone remains in England, as described by that
antiquary, but repudiates the hypothesis that the Druids ever erected or had any
connection with stone temples or monuments in any part of the world. But as
Ferguson adduces nothing but negative arguments in proof of his assertion, and
as he even casts some doubt upon the existence of Druids at all in Britain, his
views are by no means satisfactory. He has sought to demolish a palace, but he
has not attempted to build even a hovel in its place. Repudiating all other
theories, he has offered none of his own.
If the Druids did not erect the stone monuments of Britain, who did? Until
the contrary is conclusively proved, we have but little hesitation in
attributing them to the Druids. But we need not enter into this discussion,
which pertains more properly to the province of archaeology than of Freemasonry.
Some writers have held that the Druids were Sun-worshippers, and that the
adoration of the solar orb constituted the national religion of the ancient
Britons. Hence these theorists are inclined to believe that Stonehenge and
Avebury were really observatories, where the worshippers of the Sun might behold
his rising, his diurnal course, and his setting.
Mr. Davies, in his Celtic Researches and in his Mythology and Rites of the
British Druids, maintains that there was among them a mutilated tradition of the
Noachic deluge, (29) as there was
among all heathen nations. The legend was similar to that of the flood of
Deucalion, and was derived from Samothrace and the East, having been brought by
a colony from one nation to another and preserved without interruption.
(30) Hu, the supreme god of the Druids,
he therefore supposes to have been identical with Noah, and he bestows upon him
the various attributes that were distributed among the different gods of the
more prolific mythology of the Greeks and Romans, all of which, with Bryant and
Faber, he considers were allusive to Sun-worship and to the catastrophe of the
deluge.
He therefore asserts that the Helio-Arkite god of the Britons, the great Hu,
was a Pantheon (a collection of deities), who under his several titles and
attributes comprehended the group of superior gods whom the Greeks and other
refined nations separated and arranged in distinct personages.
(31)
In propounding his theory that the Druids were of Eastern origin, and that
they had brought from that source their religion and their rites, Mr. Davies has
been sustained by the opinions of more recent scholars, though they have traced
the birthplace to a more distant region than the island of Samothracia.
It is now very generally believed that the Druids were Buddhists, and that
they came into Britain with the great tide of emigration from Asia which brought
the Aryan race westward into Europe.
If this be true, the religion of India must have greatly degenerated in the
course of its migration. It is admitted that the Druids cultivated the art of
magic and in their rites were accustomed to sacrifice human victims, both of
which practices were repugnant to the philosophic spirit of Buddhism.
The fact is that, notwithstanding the authority of the Welsh Bards and the
scanty passages in Caesar, Tacitus, and a few other
Roman writers, we are entirely at sea in reference to everything connected
with the religious system of Druidism. Almost all on this mysterious subject is
guesswork and conjecture - extravagant theories, the only foundation of which is
in the imaginations of their framers and bold assertions for the truth of which
no competent authority can be given. Much of the confusion of ideas in respect
to the customs and manners of the ancient Britons has arisen from the ignorance
of the old writers in supposing that the inhabitants of Britain, at the time of
the Roman invasion and long before, were a homogeneous race. The truth is that
the island was inhabited by two very distinct races. Those on the coast, derived
from the opposite shores of Gaul, Germany, and Scandinavia, were a people who
had made some progress in civilization. The interior of the island was populated
by the original natives, who were a very uncivilized and even barbarous race,
and it was among these that the Druidical religion prevailed and its mystical
and inhuman rites were practiced.
Mr. Ferguson, in his elaborate work on Tree and Serpent Worship, sustains
this view. He says:
"From whatever point of view the subject is looked at, it seems almost
impossible to avoid the conclusion that there were two races in England - an
older and less civilized people, who in the time of the Romans had already been
driven by the Celts into the fastnesses of the Welsh hills, and who may have
been serpent-worshippers and sacrificers of human victims, and that the
ecumenical Romans confounded the two." (32)
He is, however, in error in supposing that the Romans were ignorant of this
fact, for Caesar distinctly alludes to it. He says in his Gallic War that "the
interior part of Britain was inhabited by those who were natives of the island,"
thus clearly distinguishing the inhabitants of the interior from those who dwelt
on the coast and who, he states, "had passed over from Belgium."
In another place he speaks of them as a rude and barbarous race, who in one
of their embassies to him describe themselves as a savage and unpolished people
wholly unacquainted with Roman customs. In speaking of the ancient Gauls, M.
Thierry, in his history of that people, makes the following remarks, every one
of which may be equally attributed to the ancient Britons. He says:
"When we attentively examine the character of the facts concerning the
religious belief of the Gauls, we are enabled to recognize two systems of ideas,
two bodies of symbols and superstitions altogether distinct - in a word, two
religions. One of these is altogether sensible, derived from the adoration of
the phenomena of nature; and by its forms and by its literal development it
reminds us of the polytheism of the Greeks. The other is founded upon a material
pantheism, mysterious, metaphysical, and sacerdotal, and presents the most
astonishing conformity with the religions of the East. This last has received
the name of Druidism, from the Druids who were its founders and priests."
(33)
To the former religion M. Thierry gives the name of Gaulish polytheism. A
similar distinction must have existed in Britain, though our own writers do not
seem generally to have carefully observed it. In no other way can we attempt,
with any prospect of success, to reconcile the contending traditions in relation
to the religion of the ancient Britons. The Roman writers have attributed a
polytheistic form of religion to the people of the coast, derived apparently
from Greece, the gods having only assumed different names. But this religion was
very far removed in its character from the bloody and mysterious rites of the
Druids, who seem to have brought the forms and objects, but not the spirit of
their sanguinary and mysterious worship from the far East.
The Masonic writers who have sought to trace some connection between Druidism
and Freemasonry have unfortunately too much yielded their judgment to their
imagination. Having adopted a theory, they have, in their investigations,
substituted speculation for demonstration and assumptions for facts. By a sort
of Procrustean process of reasoning, they have fitted all sorts of legends and
traditions to the length required for their preconceived system.
Preston had said that "the Druids retained among them many usages similar to
those of the Masons," and hence he conjectured that there might be an affinity
between the rites of the two institutions, leaving his readers, however, to
determine the question for themselves. Godfrey Higgins - of all writers not
claiming to write fiction, the most imaginative and the most conjectural - goes
a step further and asserts that he has "no doubt that the Masons were Druids,"
and that they may be "traced downward to Scotland and York." Of this he thinks
"the presumption is very strong." (34)
Hutchinson thinks it probable that some of the rites and institutions of the
Druids might be retained in forming the ceremonies of the Masonic society.
(35)
The theory of Dr. Oliver connected Druidism and Freemasonry in the following
way. The reader must be aware, from what has already been said, that the Doctor
held that there were two currents of Masonry that came contemporaneously down
the stream of time. These were the Pure Freemasonry of the Patriarchs, that
passed through the Jewish people to King Solomon and thence onward to the
present day, and a schism from this pure system, fabricated by the Pagan nations
and developed in the ancient Mysteries, which impure system he called the
Spurious Freemasonry of antiquity. From this latter system he supposes Druidism
to have been derived.
Therefore, in support of this opinion, he collates in several of his works,
but especially in his History of Initiation, the rites and ceremonies of the
Druids with those of the Eleusinian, Dionysian, and other mysteries of the Pagan
nations, and attempts to show that the design of the initiation was identical in
all of them and the forms very similar.
But, true to his theory that the Spurious Freemasonry was an impure secession
or offshoot from the Pure or Patriarchal system, he denies that modern
Freemasonry has derived anything from Druidism, but admits that similarity in
the design and form of initiation in both which would naturally arise from the
origin of both from a common system in remote antiquity.
We have therefore to consider two theories in reference to the connection of
Druidism and Masonry.
The first is that Freemasonry has derived its system from that of the British
Druids. The second is that, while any such descent or succession of the one
system from the other is disclaimed, yet that there is a very great similarity
in the character of both which points to some common origin.
I shall venture, before concluding this essay, to advance a third theory,
which I think is far more reconcilable than either of the. others with the true
facts of history.
The second of these theories may be dismissed with the remark that it depends
for its support on the truth of the theory that there was any kind of historical
connection between the Mysteries of the Pagans and Freemasonry. But I think it
has been conclusively proved that any similarity of form or design in these
institutions is to be attributed not to any dependence or succession, but simply
to the influences of that law of human thought which makes men always pursue the
same ends by the same methods.
Dr. Oliver has gone so far in the attempt to sustain his theory of two
systems of Masonry existing at the same time as to assert that at the time of
the Roman invasion, and after the establishment of Christianity in the island,
the True and the Spurious Freemasonry - that is, the Masonic system as now
practiced and the impure Masonry of Druidism - "flourished at the same period
and were considered as distinct institutions in Britain."
(36)
Of the truth of this statement, there is not a scintilla of historical
testimony. Even if we were to accept the doctrine of Anderson, that all great
architects in past times were Freemasons, we could hardly dignify the rude
carpenters of the early Britons and Anglo-Saxons with the title of Masonry.
The first of the theories to which I have alluded, which derives Freemasonry,
or at least its rites and ceremonies, from Druidism, will require a more
extended review.
In the first place, we must investigate the methods by which it is supposed
that the Greeks and Pythagoras communicated a knowledge of their mysteries to
the Druids in their secluded homes in uncivilized Britain.
It is supposed that the principal seats of the British Druids were in
Cornwall, in the islands adjacent to its coast, in Wales, and in the island of
Mona; that is to say, on the southwestern shores of the island. It is evident
that in these localities they were accessible to any of the navigators from
Europe or Asia who should have penetrated to that remote distance for the
purpose of commerce. Now, just such a class of navigators was found in the
Phoenicians, an adventurous people who were distinguished for their spirit of
maritime enterprise. The testimony of the Greek and Roman writers is, that in
their distant voyages in search of traffic the Phoenicians had penetrated to the
southwestern shores of Britain, and that they loaded their vessels with tin,
which was found in great abundance in Cornwall and the Scilly islands on its
coast.
The theorists who suppose that the religious rites practiced by the
Phoenicians at home were introduced by them into Britain are required, in proof
of their theory, to show that the Phoenicians were missionaries as well as
merchants; that they remained long enough in Britain, at each voyage, to implant
their own religious rites in the island; that these merchant-sailors, whose
paramount object was evidently the collection of a valuable and profitable
cargo, would divert any portion of the time appropriated to this object to the
propagation among the barbarians, whom they encountered in the way of business,
of the dogmas of their own mystical religion; that if they were so disposed, the
Britons were inclined during these necessarily brief visitations to exchange
their ancient religion, whatever it was, for the worship attempted to be
introduced by the newcomers; and, finally, that the fierce and sanguinary
superstition of the Druids, with its human sacrifices, bore any resemblance to
or could have possibly been derived from the purer and more benign religion of
the Phoenicians.
For not one of these points is there a single testimony of history, and over
every one of them there is cast an air of the greatest improbability. History
tells us only that the Phoenician merchants visited Britain for the purpose of
obtaining tin. On this the Masonic theorists have erected a fanciful edifice of
missionary enterprises successfully ending in the implanting of a new religion.
Experience shows us how little in this way was ever accomplished or even
attempted by the modern navigators who visited the islands of the Pacific and
other unknown countries for the purposes of discovery. Nor can we be ignorant of
how little progress in the change of the religion of any people has ever been
effected by the efforts of professed missionaries who have lived and laboured
for, years among the people whom they sought to convert. They have made, it is
true, especial converts, but in only a very few exceptional instances have they
succeeded in eradicating the old faith of a nation or a tribe and in
establishing their own in its place. It is not to be presumed that the ancient
Phoenician merchants could, with less means and less desires, have been more
successful than our modern missionaries.
For these reasons, I hold that the proposition that Druidism was introduced
from Greece and Asia into Britain by the Phoenicians is one that is wholly
untenable on any principle of historic evidence or of probable conjecture.
It has also been asserted that Pythagoras visited Britain and instructed the
inhabitants especially in the doctrine of metempsychosis, or the transmigration
of souls.
There is, however, not the slightest historical evidence that the sage of
Samos ever penetrated in his travels as far as Britain. Nor is it certain that
the dogma of the transmigration as taught by him is of the same character as
that which was believed by the Druids. Besides, it is contrary to all that we
know of the course pursued by Pythagoras in his visits to foreign countries. He
went to learn the customs of the people and to acquire a knowledge of whatever
science they might possess. Had he visited Britain, which, however, he never
did, it would have been to receive and not to impart instruction.
As to the further explanation offered by these theorists, of a connection
between Druidism and Masonry, that the former acquired a knowledge of the
Eleusinian and other rites in consequence of their communication with the
Greeks, during the celebrated invasion of the Celts, which extended to Delphos,
and during the intercourse of the Gauls with the Grecian colony of Marseilles,
it is sufficient to say that neither of these events occurred until after the
system of Druidism must have been well established among the people of Britain
and of Gaul.
But the great argument against any connection of Druidism and Freemasonry is
not only the dissimilarity of the two systems, but their total repugnance to
each other. The sanguinary superstition of the Druids was developed in their
sacrifice of human victims as a mode of appeasing their offended deities, and
their doctrine of a future life was entirely irreconcilable with the pure belief
in immortality which is taught in Freemasonry and developed in its symbols.
The third theory to which I have referred, and which I advanced in the place
of the two others which I have rejected, traces Druidism neither to the
Phoenicians, nor to Pythagoras, nor to the Greeks. It is that the ancient
inhabitants of Britain were a part of the Celtic division of that great
Cimmerian race who, springing from their Aryan origin in the Caucasian
mountains, first settled for a time in the region of Asia which lies around the
Euxine Sea, and then passed over into the north and west of Europe. One
detachment of them entered Gaul, and another, crossing the German Ocean, made
their home in Britain.
It is not at all improbable that these nomadic tribes carried with them some
memories of the religious faith which they had learned from the original stock
whence they sprung. But there is no fact more patent in ethnology than that of
the tendency of all nomadic races springing from an agricultural one to
degenerate in civilization.
It has been said that the Druids were Buddhists. This might be so, for
Brahmanism and its schism, Buddhism, were the religions of the early Aryan stock
whence the Druids descended. But it is very evident that in the course of their
migrations the faith of their fathers must have become greatly corrupted.
Between Buddhism and Druidism the only connecting link is the dogma of the
transmigration of souls. Between the rites of the two sects there is no
similarity.
I suppose, therefore, that the system of Druidism was the pure invention of
the Britons, just as the Mysteries of Osiris were the fabrication of some
Egyptian priest or body of priests. What assistance the Britons had in the
formation of their mystical system must have been derived from dim recollections
of the dogmas of their fatherland, which, however, from the very dimness of
those recollections, must have been greatly perverted. I do not find any
authentic proof or any reasonable probability that they had obtained any
suggestions in the fabrication or the improvement of their system of religious
rites from the Phoenicians, from the Greeks, or from Pythagoras.
If, for the sake of argument, we accept for a time the theory that
Freemasonry and the Mysteries originated from a common source, whence is derived
a connection between the two, we can not fail to see, on an examination of the
doctrines and ceremonies of the Druids, that they bore no relation to those of
the Mysteries of Egypt or of Greece. Hence the link is withdrawn which would
connect Druidism with Freemasonry through the initiations of the East.
But the fact is that there is not in Druidism the slightest resemblance to
Freemasonry except in the unimportant circumstance that both have mystical
ceremonies. The voyages of the candidate in Druidism, after a period of long
solitude and confinement, his pursuit by the angry goddess Ceridwen and her
accompanying dogs, his dangerous passage in a coracle or small boat over the
rough waters, and his final landing and reception by the Archdruid, may have
referred, as Dr. Oliver thought, to the transmigration of the soul through
different bodies, but just as probably symbolized the sufferings and
vicissitudes of human life in the progress to intellectual and moral perfection.
But they bear not the slightest analogy to the mystical death in Freemasonry,
which is the symbol of a resurrection to a future and immortal life.
Hence the bold assertion of Payne, in his frivolous Essay on the Origin of
Freemasonry, that "it is derived from and is the remains of the religion of the
ancient Druids," simply shows that he was a mere sciolist in the subject of what
he presumptuously sought to treat. Equally untenable is the proposition of the
more learned Faber, when he says that "the Druids are probably the real founders
of English Freemasonry."
The conclusion to which I think we must arrive, from what we learn of the two
institutions from historical knowledge of one and personal experience of the
other, is that Freemasonry has no more relation or reference or similitude to
Druidism than the pure system of Christianity has to the barbarous Fetichism of
the tribes of Africa.
FOOTNOTES
(1) "Illustrations of
Masonry," B. IV., sec. i., p. 121, Oliver's ed.
(2) Spirit of Masonry," lect. iii., p. 41.
(3) "Essay on Freemasonry," p. 6.
(4) "Pagan Idolatry."
(5) "Anacalypsis," vol. i., p. 718.
(6) "Tree and Serpent Worship," P. 29.
(7) Ably translated from the German by Mr. Russell
Martineau, of the British Museum, with valuable additions. For the passage
quoted, see p 252.
(8) In Anglo-Saxon dry is a magician; and drycroft,
magic.
(9) "Antiq. Hibern.," cap. 2.
(10) "Rude Stone Monuments," p. 206
(11) "History of Initiation," lect. viii., p. 199
et seq.
(12) Ibid., p. 201. That this ceremony represented
a death and resurrection is altogether conjectural.
(13) Ibid., p. 204.
(14) Ibid., P. 205.
(15) "History of Initiation," p. 208.
(16) This detention of a year in the waters of the
deluge was, I presume, like the fourteen days of interment in the Master Mason's
degree, which period passes in the space of a few minutes - only a symbolic
idea.
(17) "History of Initiation," p. 211
(18) "History of Initiation," p. 212.
(19) Ibid., p. 216.
(20) Oliver, "History of Initiation," P. 217.
(21) "History of the Druids," in miscellaneous
works, vol. i., p. 6.
(22) "De Bello Gallico."
(23) "Mythology and Rites of the British Druids,"
p. 89
(24) "Perieget," v., 565.
(25) Letter IV.
(26) "Analysis of Ancient Mythology." Drummond says
of him: "Mr. Bryant was a man possessed of much learning and talent, but his
etymologies are generally untenable." - "Origines," vol. iii., p. 191.
(27) "Pagan Idolatry."
(28) "Old Stone Monuments."
(29) "British Druids," p. 95.
(30) Ibid., p. 99.
(31) Ibid., p. 126.
(32) "Tree and Serpent Worship," p. 29.
(33) "Histoire des Gaulois," tom. ii., P. 73.
(34) "Anacalypsis," vol. i., p.- 769.
(35) "Spirit of Masonry," lect. iii., P. 41.
(36) "On Freemasonry, Evidences, Doctrines, and
Traditions," No. 1, in Freemason's Quarterly Review, 1840, p. 15.
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