Chapter I: Part 1

Transcriber Note

Obvious typos, missing accent marks and punctuation errors corrected. Inconsistencies in hyphenation, spelling, translation and dates left as in the original. Two of the three items noted in the Corrigenda changed. The third item, (p. 48, line 24, omit “is.”), was not changed because there was no such word on that line. A maltese cross character, ✠, is used in the Appendices. If the font in use on the device does not support this character, it may not display correctly. Italic text is represented by underscores surrounding the _italic text_. Small capitals have been converted to ALL CAPS. Footnotes have been moved to the end of their respective chapters. Superscript characters are preceded by a ^ character.

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THE CELTIC CHRISTIANITY
OF CORNWALL

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THE
CELTIC CHRISTIANITY
OF CORNWALL

DIVERS SKETCHES AND STUDIES

BY
THOMAS TAYLOR, M.A., F.S.A.

VICAR OF ST. JUST-IN-PENWITH
AUTHOR OF “THE LIFE OF DR. TAYLOR OF ASHBURNE”

LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK
BOMBAY, CALCUTTA AND MADRAS
1916

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TO

M. JOSEPH LOTH
PROFESSEUR AU COLLÈGE DE FRANCE

IN GRATEFUL RECOGNITION OF A FRIENDSHIP
FROM WHICH I HAVE REAPED THE
FRUITS OF DISCIPLESHIP

Sed quanquam utilitates multae et magnae
consecutae sunt, non sunt tamen ab earum spe
causae diligendi profectae.

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PREFACE

In one of the most brilliant of modern books its author[1] calls attention to the common fallacy which assumes that “if you can find a principle which gives an adequate explanation of three different facts it is more likely to correspond with the truth than three different principles which give adequate explanations of the same facts severally.”

This fallacy underlies much that is being urged in favour of a common origin for religious doctrines and methods of worship. A single source of religious belief or of religious phenomena is preferred to several sources as being more tidy and more in keeping with what we have learnt to expect in other departments of research. It may be illogical, but still it is recommended as a safe guide to the truth.

Indeed, it is difficult for a modern student to conceive how any real advance can be made in scientific pursuits unless the principle, which prefers one explanation of phenomena to many, is favoured.

Before the days of Kepler and of Newton it may have been possible, it may be possible still, to imagine more than one explanation of the fall of a heavy body to the ground and of the action of one inert mass upon another. The law of gravity, as elaborated by Newton, represents what, so far as we know, has invariably happened and what we believe will invariably happen in space between two or more bodies, namely, that they will, as heretofore, each attract all the other bodies directly as their mass and inversely as the square of their distance. This law is not merely preferred before all other laws; it is the very foundation of the whole of what is called Physical Astronomy. It is a law to which there are, within its own province, no known exceptions.

We accept this law not because we prefer one explanation to many, but because it meets not only the requirements of cases which might conceivably be explained in other ways but also the requirements of cases for which no other explanation has been suggested or conceived. Among laws, which are not received as self-evident, the law of gravity is unique. This will be clear to anyone who contrasts the secure position which it occupies with the perilous position occupied by laws which have been formulated within recent years.

Men do not prefer Newton’s explanation to other explanations: the evidence in its favour is so overwhelming that they feel compelled to accept it.

It is far otherwise with other laws like evolution. These fascinate or repel from the very first. Preference undoubtedly enters into the complex intellectual process which leads us first to accept and then to defend this or that explanation of an array of facts. And this preference, admittedly illogical, may arise from our limited knowledge of the facts or from regard for some particular protagonist of one of many conflicting theories; but, other things being equal, it seizes hold of that explanation which claims to cover the most ground and to reconcile the largest number of facts. It only becomes mischievous when it claims infallibility.

It is perhaps too readily assumed that in the domain of religious phenomena there is a law by which these phenomena are bounded and conditioned. Assuming such a law to exist, the attempts to formulate it will be directed in a greater or less degree by preference. For religious phenomena, by which is here meant the outward manifestations of religions, cannot be examined and classified, without a comprehensive knowledge of the religions themselves. And if, as a French writer has contended, “the man who would write the history of a religion must believe it no longer but must have believed it once,” it follows that few persons, even in this versatile age, can claim to be proficient in more than three or four religions. From which it also follows that lack of knowledge must be supplied by fertility of imagination or by the exercise of preference on the part of him who employs the comparative method in order to discover the law.

And yet, it is only by eliminating this personal element and by confining our attention to material which is neither inaccurate nor defective that we can hope to arrive at the truth. It must be confessed that the rough and ready generalisations with which we are so familiar in this connection and the lack of care which is taken in gathering and sifting the materials upon which they are based, almost lead us to despair of useful results. The attempt to evolve a law from insufficient data is like an attempt to measure volume in terms of two dimensions or like an attempt to classify animals without an intimate knowledge of them. A salamander has four legs and a tail: so has a sheep. A zoology based on these criteria alone would not carry us very far. The biologist might kindly step in with his law of evolution and say some soothing words respecting their common origin, but we should leave off where we began and know no more of those animals than we did at the start, namely, that they each have four legs and a tail.[2]

In studying religions those points of resemblance which are most obvious are sometimes the most misleading. And for this reason. The essence of a religion—what may be called its soul—is not always revealed in its methods of worship. This is said to be especially true of Buddhism, at least by those writers who, like Mr. Feilding, strive to commend it to the Western world. Certainly it is no disparagement of a true religion that it should have, in the department of worship, many points in common with a false one. Every religion requires some machinery if it is to do its work. And it is more true to say of religions that they agree in machinery but differ in what they teach than to say that they agree in what they teach but differ in machinery. It would be most untrue, nevertheless, to assert that these common elements have always been acquired in the same way or have meant the same thing or have been used with the same object. Before any deductions whatever can be legitimately drawn the religious phenomena must be submitted to the most rigorous scrutiny. Dates, places, distances count for more, whether the phenomena be prehistoric or historic, than almost anything save accurate definition. This will be clear if we take an imaginary case. Let us consider the eagle as an object of worship. In the year 4000 A.D. a popular archæologist of liberal views notes the immense number of brass eagles which are unearthed from beneath the sites of ancient churches, and inasmuch as no mention is made in history and no rubric is to be found in any of the old service books of the function assigned to the image of the king of birds, he comes to the conclusion that the Christians of the Victorian era were, in spite of much quarrelling concerning the point of the compass towards which the priest should stand at the altar and the use of lights and incense, united at least on one point—the worship of the eagle. He reflects that reverence for the eagle was as dear to the hearts of Roman soldiers as it was abhorrent to the Jews. He recalls the incident at Cæsarea. He does not forget that long after the Roman Empire had ceased to be an important factor in European politics the Jews were regarded with unreasoning hatred. Putting two and two together he comes to the conclusion that Christians, in order to emphasise their contempt for Jewish susceptibilities, admitted into their religious system the cult of the eagle and that this cult attained its high-water mark in the nineteenth century. If it be objected that such a notion is altogether preposterous and absurd, that it is, in fact, an insult to average intelligence to attempt to influence human judgment by a fiction so transparent, it ought to be sufficient to recall the erudite expositions of rock basins, stone circles and dolmens which, elaborated by men of the highest eminence, were welcomed as brilliant discoveries by a generation by no means remote. It is a common enough practice, but it serves no useful purpose to hold up the wisdom of one age to the scorn of another. There are two cautions which are needed in all ages; the first, that eminence in one department of human learning does not, of itself, constitute a qualification to pass authoritative judgments in other departments; the second, that as all knowledge, when unhindered, is progressive the present generation may indeed hope to have got somewhat nearer the truth than its predecessors, but in virtue of the same principle it is still far from its final stage.

Archæology which at the beginning of the nineteenth century could hardly claim to be regarded as a science, had by the end of that century attained to the highest rank as a science. It has not outlived the record of past mistakes and some years may yet have to elapse before its achievements are fully recognised.

It is impossible to discuss the Christianity of Cornwall in its earlier stages without devoting some space to its Celtic inhabitants. This is all the more necessary because in the county there are many monuments, both pagan and Christian, and in some quarters there has been a disposition to confound them. Only by referring the pagan monuments to their true place in pre-history is it possible to avoid this confusion.

For such knowledge as he possesses of archæology the writer is largely indebted to M. Joseph Déchelette’s _Manuel d’Archéologie_. There is no work in English which, based on sound principles, attempts, as this does, to cover the whole ground. Like the _Principles of Geology_ the _Manuel_ stands alone.

When the losses in human life, due to the Great War, come to be reckoned up and those losses come to be analysed, there will be few names to take precedence of that of M. Déchelette. The _Revue Celtique_, after expressing its profound regret for his death, says that after honouring France by solid and learned works, notably by his _Manuel d’Archéologie_—a unique monument of erudition—at the age of fifty-three, though not compelled to serve in the army, he chose to take part in the campaign and to die like a hero. An order of the day of the French army supplies particulars of his death. He was a captain in the 29th Regiment of infantry and was shot down while leading his company. With his men he had won 800 metres of ground. As he lay dying he asked his colonel whether they had kept the conquered ground, and being answered in the affirmative, he replied that he was happy that his death was of service to France. The writer finely adds, _Belle vie, et fin plus belle encore_.

In a small book like the present, there will necessarily be many points which deserve some fuller explanation than was possible, while here and there some points will seem to be unduly magnified. The chapter on St. Michael’s Mount might, at first sight, seem to add little to the main subject, but in this case it was not so much the hope of gain as the fear of loss which had to be considered. Should the reader meet with phrases and expressions which appear to him inconsistent with a serious treatment of the subject the writer can only crave his indulgence and assure him that they were not altogether unprovoked.

Chapter III was in substance contributed to the _Truro Diocesan Magazine_; Chapter IV was read at a conference of the Kirrier Rural Deanery; Chapters V and VI were printed concurrently in the _Revue Celtique_ and the _Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall_. For permission to reprint them their author tenders his thanks to those journals.

Besides the _Manuel d’Archéologie_ there are two other works to which he is much indebted, Dom Gougaud’s _Chrétientés Celtiques_ and Miss Clay’s _Hermits and Anchorites of England_. No better introduction to Celtic Christianity could be desired than Dom Gougaud’s book. Miss Clay has treated her subject with a particularity which is as rare as it is valuable, and although her book furnished little material for the present work, it was of great value in supplying the cartography of an unfamiliar region.

To Professor J. Loth and to Mr. H. Jenner, F.S.A., his obligations are of a more personal character and therefore more difficult to express. To both of them, in all matters which concern Celtic language and literature, he stands in the relation of pupil to master. As such he acknowledges gratefully their friendly and patient guidance and ever ready help.

It should be needless to add that in so doing he has no wish to shelter himself behind great names. For all blundering and backsliding he and he alone is responsible, inasmuch as throughout the perilous adventure he has cheerfully bestridden his own beast.

-----

Footnote 1:

R. A. Knox, _Some Loose Stones_, p. 89.

Footnote 2:

A friend of mine performed the surprising feat of evolving an entire
system—god, religion, worshippers and all—out of much less than four
legs and a tail. His only material consisted of a word, half-obsolete,
of uncertain derivation and meaning. The jaw-bone in the hands of
Samson was as nothing compared with the magic of this word in the mind
of the valiant expositor of prehistoric religions. While reading the
paper in which he proclaimed his discovery to a learned society, one
could not fail to note the profound impression which it made upon the
hearers or to admire the transparent sincerity of the reader.

It will not surprise those who read this book to learn that its author
spent some portion of the wakeful night which followed the reading of
the paper in the composition of a simple liturgy to crown his friend’s
achievement.

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. COINCIDENCE AND RESEMBLANCE 1

Often misleading. The Eucharist. Christian
Passover a development of the Jewish and its
origin to be sought in primitive Israel. Ancillary
Christian Festivals. Direct and Collateral
descent. St. Patrick’s fire.

II. THE CELTS 18

Prehistoric Remains in Cornwall. Ligurians,
Iberians, and Celts. No trace of Phœnicians.
Celtic worship. The Druids. Fetich worship.
Cornish crosses.

III. CORNWALL AND BRITTANY 37

Dumnonian Exodus. Breton nobles in the Conqueror’s
army. _Tristan and Iseult._ Henry the Eighth’s
subsidy roll. Mystery and Morality Plays.

IV. THE CELTIC CHRISTIANITY OF CORNWALL 50

Language. Isolation of Cornwall. Monasticism.
Church Dedications. Easter and Tonsure
controversies.

V. THE MONASTERY-BISHOPRICS OF CORNWALL 58

Celtic Monasticism _sui generis_. Episcopacy.
Gildas, Kenstec, and Plegmund. Athelstan. Bodmin
Gospels. Lyfing. Leofric. See of Exeter.

VI. EVOLUTION OF THE DIOCESAN BISHOPRIC 70

Episcopal manors in Domesday Book—their sources
and their value. Three important holdings—Pawton,
St. Germans, and Gerrans. Independent of each
other. All of them sees of Celtic bishops. Kerrier
and Penwith.

VII. CORNISH SAINTS 90

Not topological or eponymous. St. Ia, St. Dennis,
St. Allen, St. Paul, and St. Buryan. Lives of the
Saints. Religion of the Cornish.

VIII. ANCIENT RELIGIOUS HOUSES 104

Celtic or English? _Monasticon_ and Domesday Book
examined. Conversion of Celtic monasteries to
Norman establishments. St. Kew. Summary of
results.

IX. CORNISH HERMITS 122

St. Guron. The Three Brothers. St. Neot. Ogrin.
Andrew Paugan. SS. Philip and Robert. Roger
Godman. Cecilia and Lucy Moys. The Hermit of St.
Teath. Margaret of Bodmin. Roche Rock.

X. ST. MICHAEL’S MOUNT 141

Ictis. Dinsul. Mons Tumba. Cult of St. Michael.
Pre-Norman origin of the monastery. Examination of
Charters and Domesday extracts. Identification of
St. Michael’s lands. The Meneage. William of
Worcester.

APPENDICES

A. EXTRACT FROM _VITA SAMSONIS_ 169

B. EDWARD THE CONFESSOR’S CHARTER 172

C. THE COUNT OF MORTAIN’S CHARTER 173

D. ERECTION OF ST. MICHAEL’S PRIORY BY ABBOT BERNARD 175

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CORRIGENDA

p. xv, last line but one, for “Each” read “All.”
p. 48, line 22, for “but which, as” read “when.”
p. 48, line 24, omit “is.”

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THE CELTIC CHRISTIANITY
OF CORNWALL

I

COINCIDENCE AND RESEMBLANCE

The tyranny of observed coincidence and resemblance over the human mind is very remarkable, especially when coincidence and resemblance are associated with traditional sayings and superstitions.

Thirteen persons sit round a dinner table. When dinner is over the discovery is made that they were thirteen in number and the diners reflect that, according to the ancient fiction, one of them at least will die within the year. During the year one of them dies, as an insurance agent would have told them was extremely probable. A succession of such coincidences does not lead them to study the insurance tables, or to calculate the expectation of life; it only helps to confirm the superstition.

The sight of one magpie by the road-side alarms: the sight of two encourages. At the end of the day the single magpie is recalled when reckoning up the day’s disappointments.

The devout Christian believer is not more prone to superstition than others. A man lay dying of consumption at St. Just. He was a crack rifle shot, an unbeliever and inclined to suicide. He insisted upon having his rifle by him as he lay in bed and, for the sake of peace, his wife allowed it. A single magpie came and perched daily on the hedge outside his bedroom window. One day seizing his weapon and steadying it on his knee as he lay there, he shot the magpie. The death of the solitary bird brought peace and all thought of suicide was banished and forgotten. The above are examples of superstition in the sense in which the word is here used.

But the shepherd’s proverb:

“A rainbow in the morning is the shepherd’s warning:
A rainbow at night is the shepherd’s delight.”

and the fisherman’s

“When the wind is in the south
It blows your bait into the fish’s mouth.”

are based upon sound observation and contain no taint of superstition; they could doubtless be referred to recognised scientific principles.

Again, the study of biology has led men to look, not in vain, for resemblances between the gills of a fish and the lungs of a mammal, between the hands of a man and the forefeet of a quadruped. Postulating the theory of evolution a common origin is discovered in either case.

The prehensile and tentacular movements of certain plants call to mind the like movements of certain fishes. Whether by means of the same theory, with the aid of the accredited results of research, they can be held to have had a common origin; whether, for example, they can be referred to some such quality or instinct as that which characterises the _Proteus animalcule_ is perhaps an open question. It seems, however, quite clear that these blind, involuntary movements on the part of fishes are not derived from the similar movements of plants or vice versâ, but that, if a common origin is to be found, it must be sought in some very early stage before animal and vegetable became differentiated. The evolution hypothesis, whether it be regarded as proved or unproved, is in any case invaluable because it stimulates thought, observation, and research. By means of it knowledge becomes coherent, articulate, scientific.

The application of this principle to religion is becoming more and more the vogue, and, provided that its adherents are content to work on the same lines as the students of physical science, there is no reason why useful results should not be obtained. There is, however, a tendency to transmute this working hypothesis into a superstition which, in point of sanity, is only comparable to that of the number thirteen and that of the single magpie—the superstition, in short, which notes coincidences and resemblances and ignores their opposites.

It is by no means clear that resemblance of rite and ceremonial and coincidence in point of time of calendared festivals furnish the proper material from which to formulate the law and to determine the source of religious observance. For example, however we may judge of the Salvation Army, it is obvious that a very different principle underlies and animates Mr. Booth’s following from that which inspires the soldiers of King George. Military organisation merely suggested a useful and convenient form of discipline. In this case resemblance is utterly misleading, and the archæologist of the distant future, who should argue that the venerated coat of the General, supposing it to have been preserved, points to some mad but futile attempt to repeat the religious conquests of Mahomet, would be quite as wide of the truth as he who should seek the General’s prototype in the militant ecclesiastic of the Middle Ages.

A further danger attends the student of religions. This arises from prepossession rather than from hypothesis and leads him to mistake deduction for induction. He finds, we will suppose, what he takes to be a latchkey. It is an instrument considerably the worse for wear and of a somewhat unusual pattern. He is quite certain it is a key. There is no room for doubt. He determines to find a lock which it will fit. Starting with the key he examines locks prehistoric, mediæval and modern, but all in vain, for the simple reason that the implement in his hands is not a key at all but the head of a fish spear.

It is not the critical method of induction but the uncritical method of deduction which is to be reprobated. When, for example, we discover by observation, the practical universality of sacrifice as a distinguishing mark of religion, we may explain the fact in a dozen different ways, but in every case we are compelled to recognise the belief in a God of some sort, and when we find that generally, at some stage of religious development, sacrifice is offered by way of propitiation, we are led to the conclusion that safety and salvation were held to be only possible by atonement. We have before us a multitude of locks and one key fits them all, and we are therefore led to conclude that _au fond_ offence and sacrifice are related as poison to antidote. When, however, we descend to particulars, resemblances and coincidences are found to be as misleading as the salvationist’s tunic. Their evidential value, to use a threadbare but useful phrase, is infinitesimally small and sometimes a negative quantity.

Relying upon resemblance, a person might be led to conclude that it was the spring turnip which suggested the shape of the watch and the duck’s egg the morphology of toilet soaps.

Utility and convenience have entered largely into the ritual systems of all religions. The same accessories are required for the worship of Baal as for the worship of Jehovah. To identify Baal with Jehovah is to beg the question and to fall a victim to the tyranny of coincidence and resemblance.

When attempts are made to discover a common origin for the Christian Eucharist, the Aztec communion described by Prescott, and the ceremonial eating and drinking practised by the worshippers of Mithras, it is often assumed that the closer the ritual resemblance between them the stronger the argument in favour of a common origin. It does not seem to have occurred to the maintainers of this hypothesis that public worship, of whatsoever kind it may be, finds expression in a symbolism of its own, just as thought expresses itself in speech and in written language. The fact that Christianity expressed itself in symbol and sacrament does prove that from the very first it claimed to be a religion and not a mere philosophy or school of thought, but it does not prove identity of origin or of intention with the pagan religions which employed the same or similar symbolism. It was inevitable that the Christian Passover should have been singled out in order to illustrate the prepossession that in origin it is essentially pagan. In this case, however, it is not resemblance but coincidence (in point of time) which is supposed to afford the ground of proof. One writer, at least, who rightly connects it with the Jewish Passover, in order to exhibit its sacrificial character,[3] does not hesitate to refer its origin to the worship of Attis or Tammuz, the earth-god, on the ground that the time of its occurrence roughly coincides with the solemnities of Attis. No better illustration of the tyranny of observed coincidence could be found than in his ingenious but futile attempt to apply the principle to Cornwall. His object is to identify the May-day festivities, which he conceives to be a survival of Beltane solemnities, with those of the Christian Passover. Unfortunately for him the latter festival occurs too early; it can never occur later than the twenty-fifth of April. But he has read of Little Easter, which occurs a week later, and attributing to the Cornish a preference for a réchauffé of the Easter banquet to the banquet itself—a preference for which no reasons are vouchsafed—he concludes that Little Easter is the Cornish equivalent of the Beltane Feast. It might have occurred to the maintainer of this opinion to test it by means of the same calculations which forbade the synchronising of Easter itself with the pagan solemnity. Had he done so he would have found that Little Easter (Paskbian) or Low Sunday occurs in May only once in sixty or seventy years, and on May-day less than once in a century.[4] A coincidence which occurs once in a century does not convince the writer and will hardly convince the reader of the identity of the Celtic feast of Beltane with the Christian Passover, or even with the Low Sunday celebration at Lostwithiel described by Richard Carew, the historian.[5]

It is impossible, without destroying the character of this enquiry, to consider the Christian Passover in all its bearings upon the subject before us, but a few remarks are needed in order to place it in a right relation to the more ancient solemnity from which incidentally it sprang.

The Jewish Passover was kept at the time of the first full moon which followed the vernal equinox. The primitive Christians of Asia Minor, claiming for precedent the practice of St. John the Divine, commemorated our Saviour’s Passion on the same day as the Passover and His Resurrection on the third day after. Thus it frequently happened that the very event which had led to the observance of the first day of the week as the Christian Sabbath had its yearly commemoration on some day which was not the Christian Sabbath. On the other hand, the Christians at Rome, following as they believed the practice of St. Paul, kept not only the weekly but also the yearly feast of the Resurrection on the first day of the week and the anniversary of the Passion on the third day before, in other words they kept their Paschal feast as we do now on the first day of the week which occurred next after the first full moon following the Spring equinox. The origin and signification of the feast were the same for both Eastern and Western Christians. It was the Christian Passover (_Pascha_) and was known by that name. The ancient Cornish word for it was Pask. In North Staffordshire forty years ago it was the custom, and it is probably still the custom, for bands of men and maidens to solicit Pace (Pasch) eggs. The use of the term Easter, of Saxon origin, is merely a proof of the stubborn independence of the English character which refused to receive not only the names of the days of the week but also of the Christian seasons from the Latin. The coincidence in point of time of the Paschal feast with a pagan feast, if such coincidence can be discovered, was purely accidental; and the same can be said of Ascension, Pentecost and all other movable feasts which are ancillary to or supplementary of it. In this connection it is noteworthy that throughout the bitter controversy, dating from an amicable discussion held in the year 162 when Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, paid a visit to Anicetus, bishop of Rome until the sixth century, it never occurred to either party to suggest a pagan origin for the feast or to connect the time of its celebration with nature or nature worship.[6] As the commemoration of a notable historical event—the Resurrection of Jesus Christ—it was observed by East and West, just as the Jewish Passover was observed as the anniversary of the “self-same day that the Lord did bring the children of Israel out of Egypt by their armies,” and of that hurried meal of which a lamb of the first year and unleavened bread were the more important constituent elements. In the Bible and in the Primitive Church the two feasts are so closely linked together that, in order to demonstrate identity of origin for the Christian Passover and the feast of Tammuz the earth-god, it will be necessary to show that the Jewish Passover derived its _raison d’être_ from the same source as the worship of Tammuz. That any such source has been found or that any connection has been found, or will be found, is not to be taken for granted. The connection between the Jewish and the Christian Pascha is not open to dispute. Had the Christian Church repudiated the Pascha and kept a festival of the Resurrection entirely distinct from it, something might have been urged in favour of a pagan origin. It is the indissolubility of their union which forbids any such interpretation.

The writer has no desire to be regarded as an obscurantist and, for this reason if for no other, he offers to the students of folklore in general and to all deductive philosophers obsessed with the unique evidential value of coincidence and resemblance in particular, the following facts, for the authenticity of which he is prepared to vouch whenever he is required so to do. He believes that when their import is fully grasped they will carry, to the minds of the said philosophers to whom the discovery, never previously announced, is humbly but confidently dedicated, the conviction that not in Asia, the accredited home of mystery, not in Africa the cradle of theologies old and new, not in America the foster mother of science Christian and otherwise, but in Australia will be found the true origin of the Easter festival and its ceremonial. He regrets that his command of scientific language is unequal to the task which a discovery of such absorbing interest and far-reaching possibility demands. He therefore craves the indulgence of the learned for expressing himself in terms which he hopes will be intelligible to learned and unlearned alike.

In the low-lying land which borders Halifax Bay in the colony of Queensland there is to be found an edible root called the bulgaroo which, at the time of the European Spring equinox, after the heavy rains which begin in the month of February, betrays its presence by sending forth shoots of a bright and tender green colour. For some occult reason this root is preferred by the aboriginal inhabitants to the choicest delicacies which the white man, notwithstanding his cultivated taste in the matter of food and drink, can supply. Accordingly every year the black man, if employed, seeks his master’s permission for a month’s sojourn in the land of the bulgaroo. It is well known to all who have lived in Queensland that the black man is a keen observer of the heavenly bodies and is much distressed by the sight of an eclipse of the sun or moon, from which it may be inferred that he rejoices when the sun and moon are not obscured. Whether, strictly speaking, he can be described as a sun worshipper has not been determined, but it is believed that the disclosure of these particulars will help incidentally to solve this as well as the larger problem under discussion. The coincidence of the Spring equinox with the resurrection of the said bulgaroo from its dark retreat under the earth, and of both events with the assembling of the aboriginal tribes and of their partaking together of what may not unfitly be described as the root of ages (for in all probability we have here a vegetable food known to the black man’s ancestors long before they emerged from a pre-human archetype); above all, the addition to the bulgaroo banquet of human flesh whenever it may be safely had, and the marked preference for those portions of the human body which, like the heart, are essential to life, and therefore, as they suppose, are the better fitted to stimulate and increase the eater’s physical courage and efficiency; to which must also be added the attendant dance and song of corroboree and the more secret and mysterious bora meeting whereat, after due proof has been given, both oral and experimental of the candidate’s fortitude, he is admitted to the full privileges of manhood by a solemn rite of initiation: all these ceremonial acts, whose significance it is impossible to misinterpret and to exaggerate, strengthened and not weakened (as might be supposed by a superficial observer) by the fact that at the antipodes Spring synchronises with European Autumn, establish a strong presumption that the continent of Australia affords the veritable solution of the great problem of the origin of Christian ceremonial observance. Nor is this surprising when we remember that according to an eminent German archæologist, Dr. Buttel-Reepen,[7] the Australian aborigines are the direct descendants of the propithecanthropi, i.e. pre-ape-men or common progenitors of apes and men, “since their foot had not yet undergone the definite change from a grasping organ to a supporting apparatus.” Nay more, when we reflect that from the great concourse of pre-men one huge horde poured away in the direction of Africa, some of its members pursuing their wanderings through generations, until they eventually reached Europe across a bridge of land that then united the two continents; being accompanied in their migration by the pre-glacial fauna, the _Elephas antiquus_, _Rhinoceros merckii_ and other great beasts whose fossilised remains bear witness of this emigration, we are driven to conclude that throughout incalculable periods of time, from the Tertiary era at least, when, according to Dr. Woodward, man was already emerging from his pre-ape condition, down through the ages, palæolithic, neolithic, bronze, and iron, across continents which have been overwhelmed or refashioned, this simple meal of bulgaroo has persistently held its ground and won its triumphs in the social and afterwards in the religious life, pagan and Christian, of man as he has progressed steadily but surely from generation to generation.

Absurd as the foregoing presentment of a few, plain verifiable facts will appear to the reader, it is neither more absurd nor more wildly fantastic than much that passes for penetration with those who allow themselves to become the slaves of resemblance and coincidence. So far as the bulgaroo feast is concerned, it would be possible to write in the same grandiloquent manner and with an equal amount of wisdom of a beanfeast at Blackpool.

To resume. The deductive philosopher having identified the Christian Passover, which in England is commonly known as Easter and which always occurs in March or April, with the Celtic feast of Beltane which always occurs in May, it would be strange if he did not discover a pagan archetype for Christmas.

In this case both coincidence and resemblance point to the birthday of Mithras the Persian sun-god whose worship was introduced at Rome in the time of the Emperors. Is it unfair to remark that here conviction is rendered doubly certain by reason of the fact that the date of the earliest Christian observance of the Christmas festival is somewhat obscure? We know that it originated at a very early period and that the Alexandrians and the Churches of Palestine kept it, until the year 428, at Epiphany[8] and not on the 25th of December. Clement of Alexandria, who died about A.D. 220, refers to calculations of the year and day of the Lord’s nativity not to encourage but to caution. It is noteworthy, however, that he gives no hint of the danger which might arise from the possibility of its being confounded with pagan celebrations of like nature. It is well known that a festival of the sun was held at the time of the winter solstice (_dies natalis invicti solis_), but it is equally well known that the early fathers never ceased to warn the people against confounding Christian festivals with pagan.[9]

Having satisfied himself that the keeping of Christmas originated in sun worship at the winter solstice, our philosopher would hardly do himself justice did he not discover a similar explanation of the commemoration of the birthday of St. John the Baptist at Midsummer. The ordinary uninstructed Christian would probably argue, and to better purpose, that if you keep the Saviour’s birthday on the 25th of December you ought to keep the Baptist’s birthday on the 24th of June, because the latter was six months older than the former.[10]

It is possible that pagan rites may have become associated with the Christian festival, but in Cornwall the Midsummer fires do not appear to have been so associated. Whatever their origin may be, there is no evidence that they have at any time entered into the Christian system.

The position for which, in the interests of truth, it seems vital to contend may be illustrated by citing a familiar episode from the life of St. Patrick—the episode of the Paschal fire. There is indisputable evidence that, from the days of the Emperor Constantine (A.D. 274-337) at least, Easter was distinguished by the Christian Church from other festivals by the lighting of fires or tapers to signify the rising of Christ from the dead to give light to the world. When St. Patrick arrived at the hill of Slane, in sight of Tara, on the eve of the Christian Passover, he set about preparing for that great solemnity. He lighted the sacred fire. But it so happened that the then pagan Irish were, at that moment, equally intent upon keeping a festival of their own, and that their festival also involved the observance of a similar ceremony. They, too, had a fire to light, and the act of lighting by anyone except King Leoghaire himself, or by one of his ministers at a signal given by him, was punishable with death. St. Patrick in ignorance of the prohibition lighted his fire first, and the fire was seen by the King and his subjects at Tara. He would doubtless have acted as he did had he known of the edict; but it was, as events soon showed, this particular transgression, insignificant enough in itself, which at once brought about the collision between him and Leoghaire.

St. Patrick manifestly was not consciously observing a practice of pagan origin. Whatever thoughts, memories or associations his fire kindled within him they were definitely Christian. We are not told what meaning the King’s fire had for _him_. The casual onlooker would probably have seen little to choose between the one fire and the other: he might conceivably have regarded them as expressive of one and the same intention. Had a modern philosopher been present he would almost inevitably have discerned a common origin and therefore a more or less near relationship. Yet both would have been wrong; the first, because the motives and intentions of Patrick and Leoghaire were _not_ the same; the second, because until a common origin has been shown any inference derived from similarity of ceremonial is apt to be misleading however reasonable it may seem.

An inference is misleading when it carries with it consequences which are irrelevant to the main facts upon which it is founded.

You cannot say that because the Christians used fire in their worship at Easter and the pagans also used fire in their worship, therefore the Christians adopted the practice from the pagans; still less can you say that Easter originated in a pagan festival. All you can say is that fire, as an accessory of worship, was used by both, just as prayer was also so used by both. The paraphernalia (using the term in a neutral sense) of two religions may be precisely alike, while the religions themselves may be as wide as the poles asunder. And the complaint one has to make against much that is brought forward as evidence of a common origin for customs, both religious and secular, is that it is not evidence at all, and that though it be repeated or multiplied a thousandfold, it follows the familiar rule of mathematics and amounts to nothing. Even when legitimate inferences have been drawn from groups of observed facts, it is by no means uncommon to find them so manipulated by writers as to convey wrong and erroneous impressions. Having regard to the laws of the physical growth and development of organic matter and to other considerations of a more technical character it may be considered a legitimate inference that men and apes are descended from a common ancestor, but it is a misrepresentation of the inference to say that it implies that men are descended from apes. For although it may be a source of comfort to all English-speaking people to believe that their ancestors “either came in with William the Conqueror or went out in the _Mayflower_,” it is clearly impossible for them to believe that they can all trace their descent either from George the Third on the one hand, or from George Washington on the other. A genealogical enthusiast may perhaps be pardoned for seeking to embrace as many of the elect as possible in his family tree, because even in his moments of deepest depression he can point to Adam as the common ancestor. The student of religions in like manner may be pardoned for desiring to express in tabular form the successive stages through which doctrines and rites have passed; have been developed, arrested, modified, governed and conditioned. But neither the genealogist nor the religious philosopher can be pardoned for mistaking a collateral for a direct ancestor.

The Christian Church has, with generous and ready welcome, received into her bosom all that could produce credentials of kinship, holding nothing as common or unclean, however unworthy its associations and however perverted its use in the past. Painting, music, poetry, drama, philosophy, architecture, ritual, organisation, each has found a place and received a fresh consecration as the result of its admission to the embrace of the true mother of them all. Only one barrier has she interposed—the barrier of heresy. She has always insisted that the postulant’s real intentions should be clearly known. By sacrament, creed, and confession she has exercised every precaution to secure peace within her sacred walls. She has sacrificed popularity, endured persecution, incurred hatred in order that all her children should share the same affections, should speak the same things and think the same thoughts. This has ever been and is still her great offence, her unpardonable sin, in the eyes of those outside her communion, viz. that she has been so uncompromisingly true to herself. For this reason it might have been thought superfluous, or at any rate a more or less academic matter, to discuss the origin of her symbolism and its affinities. The human mind, however, almost inevitably, refuses to admit the appropriateness of a newly imported symbol unless its past associations are free from suspicion. Not only so, the student of religions obsessed with the superlative value of resemblance and coincidence, is apt to suppose that if he can show that the paraphernalia of Christian worship approximately resembles that of some pagan religion he has proved identity of intention and belief.

By way of reply it would be possible to argue, with greater force and to better purpose, that historically it can be shown that Christian worship would be, at this time, fuller, richer, more ornate, more attractive and possibly not less true to its supreme purpose if larger use had been made of the common sources of religious ceremonial. The history of heresy is, however, a sufficient refutation of the main contention. An examination of some particular forms which the pagan theory has assumed in relation to Cornwall will be given later on.

-----

Footnote 3:

R. A. Courtney, _The Hill and the Circle_, p. 15.

Footnote 4:

Between the years 1854 and 1930, inclusive, Little Easter occurs
once—on the 2nd of May, 1886.

Footnote 5:

Quoted in the _Parochial History of Cornwall_, iii., 175.

Footnote 6:

The Celtic controversy respecting the incidence of the Christian
Passover was concerned solely with astronomical calculations and has,
of course, no bearing upon the matter here under discussion.

Footnote 7:

Buttel-Reepen, _Man and His Forerunners_, pp. 72-3.

Footnote 8:

The Armenians still keep the Nativity on the 6th of January.

Footnote 9:

The subject is fully dealt with by Neander; _Church History_ (Bohn’s
ed.), vol. ii., pp. 419-48.

Footnote 10:

He would be led so to argue by reflecting that in the Church’s
Kalendar Ascension and Pentecost are similarly related to the Paschal
Feast and Annunciation to Christmas.

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II

THE CELTS

It is almost, if not quite, impossible to acquire a right perspective of the position which the Celts occupy in British history without examining the incidence of that position and some of its relationships by the light of the results of modern archæological research.

In Cornwall, as elsewhere, the prehistoric races which inhabited the county before the Celts appeared have left abundant evidence of their presence. That evidence, however, will be hard to discover in the warp and bent of character and in the physical development which doubtless all Englishmen have in some measure inherited from them, and towards which these extremely remote ancestors have to some slight extent contributed. We shall probably never know enough about any of them so as to be in a position to say of any one living in the county as we might say, for example, of an Irishman “that splendid act of daring or that hairbrained escapade must be set down to his Irish breeding.” Yet, inasmuch as no one supposes that an incoming race commonly extirpates the race it supplants there is always the suspicion that the new race may have yielded to the moral influence or to the religious atmosphere of the old. History supplies us with instances of this triumph of spiritual over physical force, Christianity itself being the most striking instance of all.

For this reason it is necessary to go back to those ages which have been distinguished as palæolithic, neolithic, and bronze, in other words to those periods during which unpolished stone, polished stone, and bronze implements were in use,[11] in order to discover, if possible, whether as the tide of industrial progress flowed in, there are indubitable signs of an unbroken tradition of religious thought and practice which became articulate in the historic narrative of Julius Cæsar.

Mr. Clement Reid, F.R.S., has thought that he detected traces of the palæolithic age in the raised beach at Prah Sands,[12] and there is, a priori, no reason to suppose that his discovery will not be confirmed by further investigation. Quite the contrary; it is not unlikely that some of the implements which have been found in the county and which are now commonly regarded as belonging to the later stone age will be found to belong to the earlier. This consideration, however, has only a very indirect bearing upon the present enquiry, for it has not yet been shown that the men of the earlier period had any religious belief at all.

On the other hand, there is a very strong presumption that the races of the later period had, towards the end of it, religious beliefs more or less definite. In this connection there is no need to call attention to the different kinds of stone implements which have been found in Cornwall and which have been identified with this—the neolithic—period. It will be useful, however, to consider, very briefly, the more striking of its monuments, found chiefly in the west and, by reason of their size, styled megalithic. They are distinguished as dolmens sometimes but incorrectly termed cromlechs, cists (stone chests), circles, menhirs or long stones, and alignments of which there are comparatively very few in the county. All belong to the same period; all appear to have been erected by the same race. They are all found in greater numbers and of larger dimensions in Brittany. The general opinion of competent archæologists is that, with the exception perhaps of the menhirs, they are all sepulchral in character and with the exception of some of the cists that they all belong to the neolithic or else to the earlier half of the Bronze Age. The dolmens, of which Chûn Quoit and Lanyon Quoit are good examples, differ only in size and detail from the cists which are abundant in Cornwall, and which have been proved to be depositories for the dead by their contents. The circles probably performed the very useful function of marking and protecting either single graves, as many of the smaller ones are still found to do, or a more or less large collection of graves like a modern churchyard wall. The fact that some of the circles no longer surround human interments, or that some cists are found without circles to protect them, presents no difficulty to those who accept this explanation, but who at the same time admit a variety of use in the disposal of the dead and who have abundant proof of a bygone vandalism which is not unknown in Cornwall to-day. Stonehenge is not only larger and more elaborate, but of later date than most of the larger circles, being the only one in England which is constructed of hewn stone, all the rest being built of undressed stone. Even of this, for which, on that account, there might have been presumed a quasi-religious origin, Sir Arthur Evans, one of the most eminent of living archæologists, can only assert that “it is one of the large series of primitive religious monuments that grew out of purely sepulchral architecture.”

Of alignments it is hardly possible to say more than this, that they are usually associated with circles and may have served as avenues to them. The menhirs, sometimes isolated and independent of other ancient remains and sometimes as, for example, at St. Buryan and Drycarn, sufficiently near to circles to suggest association with them, are even less easy to explain. Some of them are of enormous dimensions, like the Men-er-Hroeck at Locmariaquer in Brittany; some are so small as to be liable to be mistaken for the rubbing stones of cattle. The former must have required vast numbers of men to erect, and it is their weight and size which has invested both the smaller and the greater with an interest and importance which would otherwise have been lacking. It is probable that some of them served as boundary stones, some as guide posts, and others as stones of memorial, like those reared by Jacob at Bethel, Joshua at Jordan, and Samuel at Ebenezer. The isolated menhirs of the largest size, i.e. the true menhirs or great undressed stones, reared by human instrumentality, wherever no traces of burial can be found either underneath or near them, undoubtedly suggest a religious purpose. While there is nothing to connect them with nature worship,[13] as commonly understood, or with solar worship, it is difficult to conceive how they came to be erected unless it was either to commemorate a departed chief[14] or to serve as symbols or objects of religion. Reverence paid to the dead, at certain stages of human development, may and probably does imply a belief in life after death. These monuments are of the late neolithic age.