Ques. Who is the earliest writer on this subject?
Ans. Julius Cæsar. His account is considered perfectly reliable, although, to render it more intelligible, he gives to the Celtic gods the names of the Greek and Roman divinities whom they resemble.
Ques. What were the principal characteristics of Druidism?
Ans. The belief in one Supreme Being: in the immortality of the soul, and a future state of rewards and punishments. This last doctrine takes with them, as with the Hindoos, the form of metempsychosis. The religion of the Druids was farther characterized by the use of circular temples, open at the top; the worship of fire as the emblem of the sun, and the celebration of the ancient Tauric festival, (held on the first of May, when the sun enters Taurus.)
Ques. What name did the Druids give to the Supreme Being?
Ans. Esus, or Hesus; although this is sometimes mentioned as the appellation of a subordinate divinity. Superior to the Roman Jupiter, or the Zeus of the Greeks, Esus had no parentage; was subject to no fate; he was free and self-existent, and the creation of the world was his own voluntary act. The Druids taught that excepting this Supreme God, all things had a beginning, but that nothing created would ever have an end. Notwithstanding these enlightened ideas, they reverenced many other divinities. The Assyrian Baal was worshipped among the Celts as Bel or Belen. As he represented the sun, the Romans recognized in him their god Apollo. Diodorus Siculus, a contemporary of Cæsar, makes the following statement on the authority of an ancient Greek writer.
“Apollo,” he says, “is worshipped with solemn rites by the inhabitants of a large island, which lies off the coast of Gaul, in the Northern Ocean. This island is inhabited by the Hyperboreans, so named because they live beyond the region of the north wind. The god has there a remarkable temple, circular in form, and a magnificent forest is consecrated to him.” It is generally supposed that the temple alluded to by Diodorus, was the Druidical circle of Stonehenge, of which we shall speak later.
Ques. Who was Teu´tates?
Ans. This name is thought to be derived from “Tut-tat,” signifying “parent of men.” This god was much honored by the Gauls, who attributed to him the invention of letters and poetry. According to the Triads, (Druidical verses,) he “wrote upon stone the arts and the sciences of the world.” In his more beneficent character, the name Gwyon was often given to this divinity. He resembles, both in name and attributes, Thoth, the Mercury of Egypt and Phœnicia. The ancient Gauls had no idols, nor did they ever attempt any visible representation of their deities. When the Romans established their own worship in the country, they endeavored, according to their usual policy, to conciliate the conquered tribes by adopting their gods, and placing their images in the temples which they built. We read that Zenodorus, a famous sculptor, said by some to have been a native of Gaul, executed a statue of Teu´tates which cost forty million sestertia. He spent six years upon this great work.
Camul, the Celtic Mars, Tarann, the god of thunder, and many other divinities of inferior rank, were worshipped in Gaul and Germany.