There was another reason also why Christianity could not hope to make considerable progress until the heads of society had been converted. Strong tribal sentiment, expressed in the devotion of the tribesmen to the king of the tribe, of the clansmen to the chief of the clan, was the most powerful social bond; and while, if a chief accepted the new faith, his clan would generally follow his example, it was not likely that if he rejected it many of his followers would dissociate themselves from his action. Thus on every account the process of establishing the Christian worship and priesthood in Ireland must begin from above and not from below.
We know little of the religious beliefs and cults in Ireland which the Christian faith aspired to displace. If there was any one divinity who was revered and worshipped throughout the land it was probably the sun. There seem to have been no temples, but there were altars in the open air, and idols were worshipped, especially in the form of pillar-stones. Various gods and goddesses play a part in the tales of Irish mythology, but it is not known whether any of these beings was honoured by a cult. There was no priesthood, and it seems certain that there was no organised religion which could be described as national.
HEATHEN CULTS
Heathenism of such a kind could oppose no formidable resistance to the weapons of such a force as the organised religion which had swept the Roman Empire. Heathenism is naturally tolerant; and, when there is no powerful sacerdotal order jealous of its privileges and monopoly, a new superstition is readily entertained. It must be admitted as probable that the morality which the Christian faith enjoins, and the hopes which it offers, would hardly have appealed to heathen peoples or taken possession of their minds if it had not engaged their imaginations by mysteries and rites. It was, above all, these mysterious rites—baptism, without which the body and soul were condemned to everlasting torment, and the mystical ceremony which is known as the Eucharist—that stamped the religion as genuine in the eyes of barbarians. And it is to be observed that Christianity, while it demanded that its converts should abandon heathen observances and heathen cults, did not require them to surrender their belief in the existence of the beings whom they were forbidden to worship. They were only required to regard those beings in a new light, as maleficent demons. For the Christians themselves, even the highest authorities in the Church, were as superstitious as the heathen. The belief in the sidhe, or fairies, which was universal in Ireland, was not affected by Christianity, and survives at the present day. Thus the spreading of the new religion was facilitated by the circumstance that it made no attempt to root out the heathen superstitions as intellectual absurdities, but only aimed at transcending and transforming them, so that fear of deities should be turned into hatred of demons.
DRUIDISM AND SORCERY
The chief pretenders to the possession of wizardry and powers of divination in Ireland were the Druids,[66] who correspond, but not in all respects, to the Druids of Gaul. They joined to their supernatural lore innocent secular learning, skill in poetry, and knowledge of the laws and history of their country. They gave the kings advice and educated their children. The high value which was attached to their counsels rested naturally on their prophetic powers. They practised divination in various forms, with inscribed rods of yew, for instance, or by means of magic wheels.[67] They could raise the winds, cover the plains with darkness, create envelopes of vapour,[68] which rendered those who moved therein invisible. Though learned in things divine, they did not form a sacerdotal class; and in their religious functions they might be compared rather to augurs than to priests. It was their habit to shave their heads in front from ear to ear and to wear white garments. It was inevitable that these men should be unfriendly to the introduction of new beliefs which threatened their own position, since it condemned the practice of divination and those kindred arts on which their eminent power was based. But their opposition could not be effective, because they had no organisation.
The fact, then, that the Christian Church, by its recognition of demons as an actual power with which it had to cope, stood in this respect on the same intellectual plane as the heathen, was an advantage in the task of diffusing the religion. The belief in demons as a foe with which the Church had to deal was expressed officially in the institution of a clerical order called exorcists, whose duty it was, by means of formulae, to exorcise devils at baptism.[69] Patrick had exorcists in his train, and it was not unimportant that the Christian, going forth to persuade the heathen, had such equipments of superstition. He was able to meet the heathen sorcerer on common ground because he believed in the sorceries which he condemned.[70] He was as fully convinced as the pagan that the powers of magicians were real, but he knew that those powers were strictly limited, whereas the power of his own God was limitless. Patrick could never have said to an Irish wizard, as children of enlightenment would now say, “Your magic is imposture; your spells cannot really raise spirits or control the forces of nature; you cannot foretell what is to come.” He would have said, “Yes, you can do such miracles by the aid of evil powers, but those powers are subject to a good power whose religion I preach, and are impotent except through his permission.” This point of mental agreement between the Christian priest and the heathen whom he regarded as benighted, their common belief in the efficacy of sorcery, though they put different interpretations on its conditions,[71] was probably not an insignificant aid in the propagation of the Christian religion. It may be said, more generally, that if Christianity had offered to men only its new theological doctrine with the hope of immortal life and its new ethical ideals, if it had come simple and unadorned, without an armoury of mysteries, miracles, and rites, if it had risen to the height of rejecting magic not because it was wicked but because it was absurd, it could never have won half the world.
PROPHECY OF THE DRUIDS