RUNES FROM THE RUNIC CROSS AT RUTHWELL.
The three principal arguments against a pre-Christian alphabet appears to be: (1) The absence of any MS. of such writing. (2) The use of the Roman character in all MSS. extant. (3) The universal opinion, scarcely yet exploded, that the Irish Celts were barbarians. In reply to the first objection, we may observe that St. Patrick is said to have destroyed all the remnants of pagan writing.[[160]] Cæsar mentions that the druids of Gaul used Greek characters. It appears impossible that the Irish druids, who were at least their equals in culture, should have been destitute of any kind of written character. The ancient form of Welsh letters were somewhat similar to the runes of which we give a specimen, and this alphabet was called the "alphabet of the bards," in contradistinction to which is placed the "alphabet of the monks," or Roman alphabet. The alphabet of the Irish bard may have been the Beith-luis-nion, represented by the Ogham character, of which more hereafter.
The difficulty arising from the fact of St. Patrick's having given abgitorium, or alphabets, to his converts, appears to us purely chimerical. Latin was from the first the language of the Church, and being such, whether the Irish converts had or had not a form of writing, one of the earliest duties of a Christian missionary was to teach those preparing for the priesthood the language in which they were to administer the sacraments. The alphabet given by the saint was simply the common Roman letter then in use. The Celtic characteristic veneration for antiquity and religion, has still preserved it; and strange to say, the Irish of the nineteenth century alone use the letters which were common to the entire Roman Empire in the fifth. The early influence of ecclesiastical authority, and the circumstance that the priests of the Catholic Church were at once the instructors in and the preservers of letters, will account for the immediate disuse of whatever alphabet the druids may have had. The third objection is a mere argumentum ad ignorantiam.
