Are not the opposers of my truths, then, as yet satisfied? or will they still persist in saying that it was the Pope that sent over our Tuath-de-danaan crosses?[574] in the ship Argho! some thousands of years before ever Pope was born. I wonder was it His Holiness that transported emissaries also to that ancient city in America, lately discovered in ruins, near Palenque; amongst the sculptures of which we discover a cross! And the priority of which to the times of Christianity is borne witness to by the gentleman who has published the “Description” of those ruins,[575] though glaringly ignorant as to what was commemorated thereby.
“Upon one point, however,” he says, “it is deemed essentially necessary to lay a stress, which is the representation of a Greek cross, in the largest plate illustrative of the present work, from whence the casual observer might be prompted to infer that the Palencian city flourished at a period subsequent to the Christian era; whereas it is perfectly well known to all those conversant with the mythology of the ancients, that the figure of a cross constituted the leading symbol of their religious worship: for instance, the augural staff or wand of the Romans was an exact resemblance of a cross, being borne as the ensign of authority by the community of the augurs of Rome, where they were held in such high veneration that, although guilty of flagrant crimes, they could not be deposed from their offices; and with the Egyptians the staff of Bootes or Osiris is similar to the crosier of Catholic bishops, which terminated at the top with a cross.”
But if the Pope had so great a taste for beautifying our valleys with those costly specimens of art, whereof some are at least eighteen feet in height, composed of a single stone, and chiselled into devices of the most elaborate mysteries, is it not marvellous that he has not, in the plenitude of his piety, thought proper to adorn the neighbourhood of the Holy See with any similar trophies? And why has he not preserved in the archives of the Vatican any record of the bequest, as he has taken care to do in the case of the four palls?
But, transcendently and lastly, why did he deem it necessary to depict centaurs upon those crosses, with snakes, serpents, dogs and other animals, such as this following one exhibits, which is that at Kells, and which has been alluded to, by promise, some pages backwards.[576]
I have now done with the appropriation of those columns; and shall just whisper into my adversaries’ ears—if they have but recovered from the downcrash of their fabric—that so far from laying claim to the honour of their erection, the Pope has actually excommunicated all such as revered them! and has otherwise disowned all participation therein, by the fulminating of bulls and of anathemas![577]
Yet did the zealots of party, after the history of those crosses was forgotten, associate them individually with some favourite saint! “This notion,” says Mosheim, referring to such diversions, “rendered it necessary to multiply prodigiously their number, and to create daily new ones. The clergy set their invention at work, and peopled at discretion the invisible world with imaginary protectors; they invented the names and histories of saints that never existed; many chose their own patrons, either phantoms of their own creation or distracted fanatics whom they sainted.”
Here, however, the historian is as inaccurate as he is severe: for not only did the majority of those saints, if not all of them, exist, but the greater part also of those exploits ascribed to them have actually occurred! The imposition consisted in making them the heroes of events and legends belonging to former actors.[578]
I shall now give you, from the Book of Ballymote, my proof for the assertion before advanced as to the Goban Saer, whom they would fain appropriate, having been a member of the Tuath-de-danaans, viz.: “Ro gabsat sartain in Eirin Tuatha Dadann is deb ro badar na prem ealadhnaigh: Luchtand saer credne ceard: Dian ceachd liargh etan dan a hingeinsidhe: buime na filedh Goibneadh Gobha lug Mac Eithe Occai; ro badar na huile dana Daghadae in Righ: oghma brathair in Righ, is e ar arainic litri no Scot.” That is, The Tuath-de-danaans then ruled in Eirin. They were first in all sciences. Credne Ceard was of this people; and his daughter Dean Ceachd, who presided over physic: she nursed the poet Gohne Gobha, the Free-mason (lug is the same as Saer), son of Occai Esthne. Daghdae the king was skilled in all sciences: his brother Ogmus taught the Scythians the use of letters.