12. Chapter Xi. Or, On The Origin And Progress Of Idolatry — Chapter Ix.
CHAPTER XI. OR, ON THE ORIGIN
AND PROGRESS OF IDOLATRY —
CHAPTER IX.
B ritish idolatry — the most ancient inhabitants of the island unknown; and whence Britain is so called — the origins of peoples and nations obscure — the cause of that obscurity — how great the ignorance in tracing them — the ignorance and malice of the Greeks and Latins — the ancients overwhelmed Jewish antiquities with lies — hence a shaky credit attaches to the rest — particular causes of the ignorance of British origins — the island's situation — the ambition and cunning of the learned in concealing past matters — the islands of Europe occupied by the posterity of Japheth,
Genesis 10:5 — from the first settlement to Caesar's arrival on this island, all is wrapped in darkness — the testimony of Caesar — the interior of the island unknown to the Gauls — he holds the interior inhabitants to be αὐτόχθονες [natives of the soil] — Tacitus, a medley of very many peoples; both mistaken — the attempts of Camden and Boxhorn to prove that the Britons and Gauls used the same tongue, and were the same people —
Gomer, the eldest son of Japheth — from him the Cimbri — the Britons call themselves Komeroi or Cymry — what "Gomer" or "Cimbri" signifies —
the British Cimbri — another etymology of the name Cymro — Camber, son of Brutus — hence "Cambria" — whence "Britannia" is derived — the derivations of various authors rejected — πρυτανεία [prytany] — Brytona, a Cretan nymph — Britannia in Gaul — "Bridanium" — "Prid Cain" — most think it so called from Brutus the Trojan — this opinion attacked by Camden — Camden's conjecture — "Brith," "Tania" — learned men who accept it — arguments against it — Bochart's conjecture the most probable
— this island known to the Tyrians — אנך-ברת "barat anac," called "the field of tin" — a defence of the conjecture against Hornius — British idolatry — the priests of the British rites, very well known — Origen writes that the Druids worshipped one God — that being the Sun — Tacitus, the same as the Gauls — the custom of pouring out prayers with hands spread toward heaven — Andraste, and Andate, Astarte, the Moon — Boadicea's vow to her — the Gauls in Caesar; received from the Greeks of Massilia — unknown to the Britons — the most ancient Gauls lacked images — their gods, Teutates, Hesus, and Taranis — Teutates from Diw Taith, guide of the way — the Sun, its ... — Hesus, and "Haud" — Taranis, hence "Taran," thunder, among the Welsh; "Thunder," "Donder," "Thursday" — the images of these gods — the Druids their priests — the spread of their superstition into Gaul and Germany — its rise in Britain — whence the Druids are named — Druis, king of the Celts — succeeded by Bardus —
"Drw," a magician — "Dru" and "Trou," true, faithful — the true etymology, ἀπὸ τοῦ δρυός [from the oak] — "Drw" in British, an oak — the groves of oaks the seat of the superstition — the same men called Saronidae for the same reason — who the Bards were — their office — their memory among the Cambro-Britons, and name — Strabo noted — the peculiar dress of the Druids: white vestments in their rites — their academies and studies
— the concourse of young men to their teaching — its methods, privileges, and authority — the manner of teaching in their schools; the length of study; the advancement of students — the philosophy they taught — magic
— the manner of their medicine — their peculiar theology — its chief doctrine: the immortality of souls; the end of the world — they taught also rhetoric, geography, astronomy, natural philosophy, ethics — the order among the Druids themselves — their authority in the commonwealth — under pretext of religion they meddled in all affairs — the excommunication of offenders — their rites: ἀνθρωποθυσία [human sacrifice]; two kinds of human victims — the custom of ἀνθρωποθυσία, from Diodorus, Caesar,
Strabo, Dio, and others — the vain attempt of the Romans to abolish the superstition — Britain freed by the gospel — the beginnings of the Christian religion in this island — Joseph of Arimathea — Claudia — Pudens; concerning King Lucius — the correspondence between him and Eleutherius — Bede, the author of the history — an error in dating —
Henry of Erfurt — Ado — the success of Eleutherius's letter, according to Geoffrey and Leland — whether Lucius undertook the apostolate —
Camden yields to common prejudice — the falsity of the history shown — a summary of British history under the Romans — conquered by Claudius — reduced to a province; well-nigh destroyed by Suetonius Paulinus; pacified by Agricola — the royal name and authority abolished throughout the province — in the time of the Emperor Commodus, no king in Britain — not Lucius — Baronius's defence of the history examined — no Lucius holding a kingdom, either within or beyond Hadrian's Wall — who this Lucius was
— the letter of Eleutherius a forgery.
I. That idolatrous superstition was carried into these British isles after the Flood, along with the first inhabitants, is as certain as it is uncertain who
those first inhabitants were, or whence the islands themselves came to be called Britain or British. For the earliest origins of almost all peoples and nations have been so obscured by the intervals of time, the vicissitudes of human affairs, the barbarism of the most ancient ages, and — in what followed nearest upon the first ages — the want of writers, together with the boldness of idle fabulists, that the most excellent minds generally toil in vain to dig them out. There are, accordingly, very many things which learned men frankly confess themselves wholly ignorant of; and I fear that some of the things they suppose themselves to know well are in truth known with greater loss to themselves and to the truth than those things which they perceive themselves entirely not to know — since the acceptance of falsehoods as truths drives us further from the truth than mere ignorance of it. In most matters, beyond what we learn from the Greeks and Romans, bare conjectures alone prevail. But with what good faith, religious scruple, and skill in ancient matters the most celebrated writers among them have conducted themselves in relating the origins of peoples, we have sufficiently learned from those things of which we have certain knowledge from elsewhere. No one is ignorant with what monstrous fables — concocted from vain traditions, or spun like spiders' webs out of their own brains — they strive, as if with one voice, to overwhelm the origins of the Jews with lies. I am not easily persuaded, therefore, to place confidence, in matters uncertain and where my mind hangs doubtful at every turn, in those whom I have found, in all matters of which I have certain knowledge, to have lied splendidly — nay, monstrously. There is no reason, therefore, to wonder that the origins of the British peoples lie hidden in darkness, since the same murky night presses upon the beginnings of almost every nation,
excepting only those which sacred Scripture has placed beyond the dice of controversy.
This, however, is peculiar to the Britons, along with a few others: that to the common calamity a twofold inconvenience has been added, both of them all too apt to increase the darkness of the most ancient times. For being islanders, and shut off from intercourse with the rest of the world, they had neither the means of communicating the memory of their own name to others, nor of acquiring for themselves the traditions or knowledge of others. Then, if it be lawful to believe so great a wickedness, after the use of letters became known, those among them who were reckoned the most sharp-sighted and wise — being held in perpetual admiration, and so that nothing might be known by anyone without their assistance (which Cicero, in his oration For Murena, shows the ancient jurists to have had in mind) — were unwilling to commit anything of antiquity to writing. Since, therefore, most, if not all, of what is necessary for accurately investigating the origins of these nations has been utterly blotted out by oblivion, it will suffice me to press upon such traces as remain, whether true or most probable.
II. That the inhabitants of these islands derived their origin from the posterity of Japheth, all agree, relying on the words of the Holy Spirit,
Genesis 10:5: "By these," that is, the sons of Japheth, "were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands, every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations." From these words down to the time of Caesar — how vast a void of ages! — one might apply the poet's line: "Wherever I look, there is nothing but sea and sky, the one swollen with waves, the other menacing with clouds." What traces of truth remain must be dug out by conjecture. For although it is most certain — contrary to the opinion of the most learned Camden — that these islands were known to the ancient
Greeks and Tyrians, yet no one has been found who committed anything about them to the memory of the ages. "What men originally inhabited
Britain, whether natives or immigrants, is little known, as is usual among barbarians" — Agricola, chapter 11. In what obscurity all matters concerning Britain lay wrapped, even for that wisest of men, most abundantly furnished with all the world's stores of learning, who spent several years in neighbouring Gaul, Caesar himself attests, book IV of the Gallic War, chapter 20: "He thought it would be of great use to him if he should but visit the island, examine the character of its people, and learn its places, harbours, and approaches — matters almost wholly unknown to the Gauls. For no one goes thither rashly except traders, and even to them nothing is known beyond the coastline and those regions which lie opposite
Gaul." He, in book V, chapter 12, sets down the interior inhabitants as aborigines, or αὐτόχθονες [natives of the soil]. "The interior part of Britain is inhabited by those who are said, by tradition, to have been born on the island itself" — as though, that is, the earth had sprouted men like mushrooms or vegetables. Tacitus is fuller, in the Life of Agricola, chapter
11: "But what men originally inhabited Britain, whether natives or immigrants, is little known, as is usual among barbarians. Their physical characteristics vary, and from this arguments are drawn. For the reddish hair of the inhabitants of Caledonia and their large limbs argue a German origin.
The swarthy faces of the Silures, and their generally curly hair, and Spain lying opposite, give ground to believe that the ancient Iberians crossed over and occupied those settlements. Those nearest to Gaul resemble the Gauls
— whether from the enduring force of common origin, or because, the lands running out in opposite directions, the climate has given the same character to bodies of similar situation: yet on the whole, taking a general
view, it is credible that the Gauls occupied the neighbouring soil." It is absurd of him to suggest that these islands were inhabited by a mixed medley of neighbouring peoples; nearer the truth is his supposition that the inhabitants crossed over from Gaul. Indeed, it is long since most of the learned came round to the opinion of Camden, who asserts that the Gauls and Britons sprang from the same stock, and that the latter crossed over hither from Gaul. He maintains that the language of both peoples was the same — although Caesar and Tacitus scarcely agree — from the various words which ancient writers attest were in use among the Gauls, and which the Welsh, the genuine remnant of the ancient Britons, still retain. The same web Boxhorn has very recently attempted to weave further, with the help of Davies's Lexicon, in his Origines Gallicae.
III. We have said that the inhabitants of the European islands derived their origin from the sons and posterity of Japheth. His eldest son, however, was called Gomer. Most think that the Cimbri sprang from him. And indeed the Welsh, who alone are the genuine posterity of the ancient Britons, call themselves Kymry — that is, Gomeri — their nation Cymru, and their tongue Cymraeg. Hence Camden contends that the ancient Britons were
Cimbri, and crossed over hither from neighbouring Gaul, since the Gauls, the Cimbri, and the Celts are one and the same. Add to this that "Gomer" signifies "finishing," from גמר, "to finish" — as though there had been something ominous in the naming, foretelling that they would occupy the ends of the earth. These things are indeed altogether probable, and I shall embrace them until someone teaches better. Nor should it be passed over in silence that most of the Britons, said to be called Kymry or Cambri, are supposed to take the name "Cambri" from Cambria — a name imposed on that part of the island which fell by lot to Camber, son of Brutus. All these
matters, however, we leave where we found them, content to have reported them, having nothing more certain at hand.
IV. So much for the inhabitants themselves. The name "Britannia" is most ancient. Many derivations of it have been devised by various authors — most of them false, if not all; some of them ridiculous. Elyot, a noble and learned man, in the dictionary which Cooper enlarged and published, supposes that Britain was named from the Greek word πρυτανεία
[presidency]. The πρυτανίς at Athens was the president of the marketplace; and πρυτανεία was that Prytanic dignity — the term was also sometimes used to mean public markets. Since, therefore, the Greeks perceived this island to abound in goods suited for trade, they called it πρυτανεία, whence
"Britannia" was born. But this conjecture errs in several ways: first, it renders these islands not merely known but thoroughly familiar to the most ancient Greeks — whereas Herodotus attests that he did not know whence the tin came, which they had from no other source than these islands. Then, although I would by no means say with Camden that these regions were utterly unknown to the Greeks before Caesar's arrival, yet I have no doubt that they were called "British" long before anyone would dare to imagine the Athenians had put in here, since their θαλασσοκρατία [maritime supremacy] was of recent date. Bale derives the British name from Brytona, a Cretan nymph, who, to escape the violence of Minos attempting to ravish her, threw herself headlong into the waters. Lying Greece will supply anyone who asks with six hundred fables of this sort. Bede derives it from Britannia in Gaul, which was formerly called Armorica, and took its name from Britons who crossed over thither from here. But the delirium of Goropius Becanus exceeds the folly of all who would have "Britannia" derived, as it were, from "Bri-danium" — that is, as he himself interprets it,
"free Denmark" — although the British name was celebrated throughout the whole world before that of Denmark, or of the Danes, was known or had even come into being. Humphrey Lhuyd derives the name from "Prid" and "Cain," two little British words signifying "fair form." No one, so far as I know, supports this conjecture, although it is not quite so absurd as some others which have found defenders.
V. All these being rejected, two etymologies of this name remain, which, still supported by the votes of learned men, hold their ground. The first rests upon the story of the arrival on this island of Brutus, of Trojan blood; for it was once believed that the island was called Britannia, and its inhabitants
Britons, from him. It is an old opinion, one that has found mention in some of the public records of the kings of this island. But this whole history has been assailed by Camden and Elyot, and, being dislodged from its place, is judged by most modern scholars to be worth no consideration at all. I shall go over wholly to their opinion, until I have some certain grounds for another account of the name. The second etymology is Camden's own, who asserts that the name flowed from the British word "Brith." "Brith," as he says, signifies "painted," and is indeed rendered by Davies in his dictionary as "particoloured" or "spotted." To this word the Greek termination "-tania" was added, producing "Britannia." Certainly, memory has recorded, by most authorities, that the Britons were accustomed to paint themselves, and that they were hence called "Picts" by the Romans. Caesar himself, book V of the Gallic War, chapter 14, relates: "All the Britons dye themselves with woad, which produces a blue colour, and this makes their appearance the more terrible in battle." Very many, then, have gone over to this opinion of Camden. George Hornius, a most learned man, in his preface to Boxhorn's
Origines Gallicae, boldly declares, as though the matter were beyond
controversy, that the inhabitants were called Britons because they were painted over their whole bodies, since in their own tongue — that is, the Cimbric — "Prith" (he meant to say "Brith") signifies "painted." But if it be lawful to dissent from that greatest promoter of British antiquities, I confess
I cannot subscribe to this conjecture — both for other reasons, and because, in setting it forth, that otherwise great and profoundly learned man contradicted himself. For by whom, pray, were the inhabitants of these islands called "Britten," from "Brith," or "the painted"? By themselves?
But Camden had earlier shown — most truly — that they never called, or ever had called, themselves anything but "Cymry," and their tongue
"Cymraeg," and from this the same learned man proves that they sprang from the ancient Cimbri. By the Greeks themselves, then? But he declares that these islands were utterly unknown to the Greeks before the time of Caesar — at least in the days of Polybius of Megalopolis — and maintains that none of the Greeks knew what manner of men possessed these shores, whether painted or elegantly clothed. He would have it, then, that the Greeks, on seeing the inhabitants of this island had dyed their bodies blue, learned from them how "painted" was said in their tongue, and added to that word the termination "-tania," whence "Britannia" flowed — though they did not yet know what manner of men, fair or dark, had settled there.
Nor would the Greeks have lacked, in their own tongue, words to express "painted" and "a painted people," if the origin of the word is to be sought from them. Since, therefore, it is certain that the Britons never called themselves "Britten" or "painted," from "Brith," but constantly "Cymry"; and that this island was called "Britannia" long before the Greeks knew what or what manner of men possessed it; and since the composition of the name seems absurd, in which the Greek termination far outweighs the
Cimbric foundation — to say nothing of the fact that it does not seem altogether true to me that all Britons were, or were called, painted (for although Caesar attests that all dyed themselves blue, he does not for that reason say they were "painted," and it is well known that there was a particular people, dwelling in Caledonia, which was specifically called
"Picti") — I cannot deny that all the hope I had for some time entertained, of gathering something certain about the origin of the British name from this great man's conjecture, has been cut off.
VI. To disentangle the truth, that most learned man in every field, Samuel Bochart, applies a new conjecture, Geographia Sacra, part II, chapter 39.
For having shown that these islands, surrounded by ocean, were known to the Greeks, and were called Cassiterides from the lead and tin with which they abound, he teaches that this island was likewise known to the Tyrians, and was, for the same reason, called ברת אנך, "barat anac," or "the land" or "field of tin"; and from this it may seem that, among the Greeks and Latins, the name "Britannia" arose. The matter is too long for me, occupied otherwise, to dwell upon. I shall briefly say what I think: whether because
— all other explanations having been long and attentively weighed — they either wholly displease, or please me less, or because this great man's conjecture recommends itself by its very novelty; or because my mind senses some light of truth shining out of it amid the deepest darkness — I confess that it appeals to me above all the others. I know that this derivation of the British name has been censured and rejected by that most learned
George Hornius, in his Introduction to Ancient Geography, and in his preface to Boxhorn's Origines Gallicanae. On what ground? On this: that the Phoenicians did not obtain θαλαττοκρατία [sea-power], and sail these seas, until very late — after other peoples, in seventh or eighth place,
among whom were some Greeks. And so, by the same stroke, he both rejects the etymology of "Britannia," and strives to overthrow the foundation of many other things which Bochart seems to me, by heroic effort and with wonderful success, to have dug out of darkness. I have no wish to put my sickle to another man's harvest; I shall only say that it seems strange to me that anyone, relying on the good faith and authority of the Greeks, could bring himself to believe that the Phoenicians — who had planted colonies in Greece itself many centuries before the Greeks ever set foot from home — had, in comparison with the Greeks, only late come to survey the maritime regions of the world.
VII. But whatever, in the end, the true origin of this island's name may be, and whoever its most ancient inhabitants were, this is most certain: that the Britons were most thoroughly stained with idolatrous superstition. From the remotest antiquity, however, the priests of the British rites were better known — whose discipline spread far and wide into other nations — than the very deities whom the Britons worshipped through their ministration.
These were the Druids, of whom we shall treat hereafter. That they "taught the worship of one God," Origen affirms, in his commentary on Ezekiel, chapter 4. If this be true, that one God was the sun himself, not the most holy Creator of heaven and earth, from the knowledge of whom the savage superstition of the Druids stood at the farthest remove. To him the moon was added, worshipped by the women. Hence Dio, History, book LXII: Ἡ
Βουνδουΐκα τὴν χεῖρα ἐς τὸν οὐρανὸν ἀνατείνασα εἶπε, χάριν τε σοὶ ἔχω, ὦ Ἀνδράστη, καὶ προσεπικαλοῦμαί σε γυνὴ γυναῖκα. [Boudica, raising her hand to heaven, said: I give thanks to thee, O Andraste, and I, a woman, call upon thee, a woman.] The moon, moreover, was commonly the queen of heaven, and among the Britons the giver of victory. And because they
worshipped the heavenly bodies, Tacitus, in the Life of Agricola, relates that they poured out their prayers with hands raised to heaven — as does Dio concerning Boadicea. That the superstition of the Druids arose in Britain,
Caesar affirms, book VI of the Gallic War, chapter 13: "The system is thought to have been devised in Britain, and thence transferred into Gaul; and now those who wish to study the matter more thoroughly generally travel thither for the sake of learning it." Tacitus too, to prove that the Gauls occupied the neighbouring land, adds: "You may detect their rites by the persuasion of their superstitions." That the Gauls, however, worshipped
Mercury, Apollo, Mars, Jupiter, and Minerva, Caesar relates. We have shown elsewhere that they received both the names and the worship of these from the Greeks of Marseilles. From them, too, they learned the use of images and statues — a thing unknown to the ancient Gauls, as Lucan attests:
"And the mournful images of the gods lack all art, and stand shapeless on hewn trunks.
Their very rudeness, and the squalor of the already rotting wood, strike men with awe." — book III, line 412.
This superstition, then, never invaded Britain. The most ancient deities of the Gauls, held in common with the Britons, were those which the same
Lucan mentions, book I, line 444:
"And those with whose dread blood merciless Teutates is appeased, and Hesus, bristling with savage altars, and Taranis, whose altar is no gentler than that of Scythian Diana."
Some think Teutates derives from "Diw Taith" — British words signifying "guide of the way." We have shown above that almost all the
peoples scattered from Babylon worshipped the sun as the guide of their journeys and wanderings. That Moloch, the idol of the Ammonites, was the sun, all the learned agree; we shall relate his rites in the exposition of Jewish idolatry. Nothing anywhere in the superstition of the nations comes near or resembles this, except what Caesar has recorded of the Gauls — who received all their religious worship from the Britons — in the Gallic
War, book VI, chapter 16: "They have images of immense size, whose limbs, woven of wicker-work, they fill with living men; these being set alight, the men, surrounded by the flame, are put to death." Teutates, then, was the sun. Who Hesus was is uncertain — and, to see the uncertainty of conjectures, Gosselin, in Bochart, derives the name from a Hebrew word signifying "strong"; Camden, from "Haud," a British word denoting a dog.
VIII. Taranis is derived from "Tarande," that is, "thunder"; so it is called by the Welsh, as by the English "thonder," by the Flemish "donder" — whence "dondersdag" and "thundersday," or "Thursday." They understood by it some deity presiding over the air; unless perhaps we should think it named from "Tarian," which is a shield or buckler. But I would rather derive it from "Taran," since it was their custom to appease him with the most savage victims.
IX. That they worshipped any θεοὺς ἀνθρωποφυεῖς [gods of human origin], 1 there exists no testimony or record. Yet, in the process of time, they set up, according to Gildas, various images to these idols. "In Britain there are these very diabolical portents, almost surpassing the Egyptian in number, some of whose deformed features we still behold, stiffly staring with grim faces, within or outside the deserted walls, in their accustomed manner." No more is recorded of the idols of the Britons, though without doubt the chaos of superstition among them was very great. But the
superstition of these islands was better known through its ministers than through its gods; of these, therefore, we must treat.
X. The Druids, or Druidae, presided over the British rites. By this name they were celebrated throughout the whole Celtic, or Cimbric, nation everywhere. Παρά τε Κελτοῖς καὶ Γαλάταις τοὺς καλουμένους Δρυΐδας.
[Among the Celts and the Galatians, those called Druids.] Diogenes Laertius, in the proem of his work. That Britain gave origin to this order of men and their superstition, we have already shown from Caesar.
Concerning the etymology of the word, the learned do not agree. Most uncertain are the things reported of Dryis, and of his successor Bardus, kings of the Celts, and other matters which Bale has collected. Montanus says that "Dry" signifies a magician, and that the Druids were so called by the Greeks because they were magicians. Vossius thinks the name flowed from "Dru," or "Trou," a German word signifying "truthful" and "faithful," as the English "true." The more common, and doubtless truer, derivation of the word is that first given by Pliny, book XVI, the last chapter: "The Druids," he says, "hold nothing more sacred than the mistletoe, and the tree on which it grows (provided it be an oak). They choose groves of oak trees for their own sake, nor do they perform any rites without that foliage — so that they may even seem, by this Greek interpretation, to be called Druids for that reason." Δρῦς [drys] is "oak"; and "Druids," ἀπὸ τῆς δρυός [from the oak]. Add that "dru" in British sounds the same. That the Druids performed their rites in groves of oaks and oak-forests, all acknowledge.
"Groves cut down, sacred to savage superstitions", says Tacitus, Annals, book XIV, chapter 30. For the same reason they were also called Saronidae.
Θεολόγους Σαρωνίδας ὀνομάζουσι 2 [They call their theologians Saronidae]
— says Diodorus, book V, chapter 31 — that is, from the oaks. Whence Callimachus, Hymn to Zeus:
"Certainly many an oak above did the moist Iao raise up."
On which passage the scholiast notes, Σαρωνίδας δρῦς [Saronidae are oaks], and adds the reasoning behind the word. That the sign of Jupiter among the Celts was the tallest oak, Maximus of Tyre also attests.
XI. Whether the Bards were of the Druids, appointed to a particular task, or a different class of men altogether, is uncertain. Lucan celebrates their office, book I, line 447:
"You too, O Bards, who send forth the brave souls of men slain in war, with your praises, into a long age; secure yourselves, you poured forth countless songs."
And Marcellinus: "The Bards sang the illustrious deeds of brave men, composed in heroic verse, to the sweet strains of the lyre." And before him
Diodorus, as above: Εἰσὶ δέ … παρ' αὐτοῖς καὶ ποιηταὶ μελῶν, οὓς Βάρδους ὀνομάζουσιν. [Among them there are also poets of songs, whom they call Bards.] Similarly, also Posidonius, in Athenaeus, book VI: Τὰ δὲ ἀκούσματα αὐτῶν εἰσὶν οἱ καλούμενοι Βάρδοι, ποιηταὶ δὲ οὗτοι τυγχάνουσι, μετ' ᾠδῆς ἐπαίνους λέγοντες. [Those to whom they listen are called Bards; these are poets, who utter praises with song.] There are still, among the Cambro-Britons, some occupied with weaving verses and genealogies, whom they call bards.
XII. Strabo, book IV, distributes the priests among the Celts into three classes: Bards, Vates, and Druids. He would have spoken more correctly had he said there were two classes, Bards and Druids — for he assigns to the Vates what properly belonged to the Druids. Οὐάτες δέ … ἱεροποιοὶ καὶ
φυσιολόγοι. [The Vates perform sacrifices, and speculate — or teach — concerning the nature of things/natural philosophers.] For we have shown from Caesar that the Druids presided over all the rites.
XIII. The Druids used a peculiar dress, by which they might draw to themselves the veneration of the common people. John Theophilus relates that he found this represented on six stone images. "Each," he says, "was seven feet tall, bare-footed, with head uncovered, wearing a Greek cloak and hood, with a pointed beard reaching to the groin, and forked around the nostril passages; in their hands a book and a Diogenic staff; with severe brow and gloomy expression, fixing their gaze upon the ground with head bent sideways." In their rites they wore white vestments, as Pliny attests, book XVI, the last chapter: "The priest, clad in a white robe, climbs the tree; cuts it with a golden sickle; it is caught in a white cloak." They established their academies of study in the groves —
"You dwell in deep forests, in remote groves."
— Lucan, book I, line 453.
XIV. There they held schools crowded with studious youth. "To them", says Caesar, in the passage cited above, chapter 13, "a great number of young men flock together for the sake of instruction." Mela too, book III, chapter 2: "They teach much to the noblest of the nation, secretly and for as long as twenty years." That so many years were spent in study before they were advanced to their doctorate, Caesar attests: "Some remain twenty years in training." The allurements of study, the privileges of students, and the very great authority of those who had advanced. "The Druids", says
Caesar, "are accustomed to be exempt from war, and do not pay taxes along with the rest; they are free from military service, and exempt from all public burdens. Drawn by such great rewards, many come of their own accord to
be trained, and are sent by their kinsmen and parents." Their authority we shall presently see. He also relates their method of instruction: "They are said to learn by heart a great number of verses, and they do not think it right to commit these sacred matters to writing, although in almost all other matters, in their public and private accounts, they use Greek letters. This they seem to me to have established for two reasons: because they do not wish their teaching to be spread among the common people, nor those who learn, trusting to writing, to devote less effort to memory — which generally happens to most people, that, relying on the aid of writing, they relax their diligence in learning thoroughly, and their memory" — Caesar, as above, chapter 14. They cultivated a varied philosophy, and one of almost every kind. Pliny ascribes magic to them, book XXX, chapter 1:
"But why should I mention these things, in an art that has even crossed the ocean and reached the very void of nature? Britain to this day celebrates it in amazement, with such great ceremonies that it might seem to have taught it to the Persians."
XV. They were also physicians, as the same Pliny attests, book XXX, chapter 1: "The reign of Tiberius Caesar abolished the Druids, and this class of seers and physicians." That they practised a medicine mixed with magic, the same author teaches, book XVI, chapter 44.
XVI. In theology they taught many peculiar things, some of them excellent. That they were wise in a singular way, and set apart from others,
Lucan notes, book I, line 450:
"And you, O Druids, having laid aside your weapons, took up again your barbaric rites and the sinister custom of your sacred things: to you alone is it given to know the gods and the powers of heaven,
or to you alone not to know them."
The chief doctrine of their theology was that souls do not perish, nor does the world. Ἀφθάρτους δὲ λέγουσι τὰς ψυχὰς καὶ τὸν κόσμον. [They say that souls and the world are indestructible.] — says Strabo. And Caesar, as above, chapter 14: "Above all, they wish to inculcate this: that souls do not perish, but pass after death from one body to another, and they think that by this belief men are most greatly spurred on to valour, the fear of death being disregarded." These words of Caesar Lucan render splendidly, book I, line
454:
"Through your teaching, the shades do not seek the silent abodes of Erebus, and the pale realms of deep Dis; the same spirit rules the limbs in another world; if what you sing is truly known, death is but the middle of a long life.
Happy indeed, in their error, are the peoples over whom the Bear looks down, whom that greatest of terrors, the fear of death, does not oppress; hence their minds are prone to rush upon the sword, and their souls capable of death, and it is thought cowardly to spare a life that will return."
That the world would at length be destroyed by fire and water, they also taught. Ἐπικρατήσειν δέ ποτε καὶ πῦρ καὶ ὕδωρ [Fire and water shall someday prevail], as Strabo has it — though it is doubtful whether their meaning has been rightly understood, since perhaps, from ancient tradition, they taught that the world, once destroyed by water, would again be consumed by fire.
XVII. They also gave attention to eloquence and rhetoric. "Thus says Mela, book III, chapter 2, "They have, moreover, their own eloquence, and the Druids as masters of their wisdom." And well known to all is the symbolic image of the Ogmian Hercules.
XVIII. They mixed geography and astronomy with their theology likewise. The same Mela: "These profess to know the size and shape of the earth and of the world, and the motions of the heavens and of the stars."
And Caesar himself, as above, chapter 14: "They discuss and hand down to the young much concerning the stars and their motion, concerning the size of the world and of the earth, concerning the nature of things." To these they added ethics, as Diogenes attests, proem, section 6: Καί φασι τοὺς
Δρυΐδας αἰνιγματωδῶς ἀποφθεγγομένους φιλοσοφῆσαι, σέβειν θεούς, καὶ μηδὲν κακὸν δρᾶν, καὶ ἀνδρείαν ἀσκεῖν. [They say the Druids philosophised in riddling utterances: to worship the gods, to do nothing evil, and to practise courage.] XIX. Though very numerous, they maintained among themselves such an order that one presided over all the rest as a kind of pope. Caesar says, as above, chapter 13: "When he dies, if any of the rest is outstanding in dignity, he succeeds; but if there are several equals, the succession is decided by the vote of the Druids; sometimes they even contend for the chief place by arms" — a thing we know to have happened at Rome, too, among Christians.
XX. With what favour and authority they prevailed among the peoples, the same author teaches us: "They are concerned with matters divine; they see to public and private sacrifices; they interpret religious observances.
They settle almost all public and private disputes; and if any crime has been committed, if a murder has taken place, if there is a dispute about an
inheritance or about boundaries, the same men decide, and fix the penalties." Thus, meddling in others' affairs, they thrust themselves, under pretext of religion, into every public and private matter — themselves meanwhile exempt from every duty owed to the commonwealth, tending their own dominion within another's. Since, however, they did not ordinarily hold the office of magistrate, and so had neither the fasces or axes, nor the power of life and death, which are absolutely necessary for compelling obedience, one may justly ask how they compelled the peoples to keep within the bounds of duty, and to be obedient to them in all things.
To this inconvenience, then, a remedy was found in the invention of a political-religious excommunication; and thus a certain Caesaro-papal authority was completed. "If anyone, whether private person or public official, does not abide by their decree, they forbid him the sacrifices. This is, among them, the most severe penalty. Those upon whom this ban has been laid are reckoned among the number of the impious and the criminal; all avoid them, shunning their approach and their conversation, lest they suffer some harm from the contagion; nor is justice granted them when they seek it, nor is any honour shared with them." There is no one, or next to no one, who does not perceive that this whole mystery of iniquity was long ago carried over into Christianity.
XXI. There remain their rites, and the worship of the gods. These were various, and almost all monstrous. When Caesar, after his first entry into this island, had returned — or rather, had been put to flight — "the Britons, offering various sacrifices, indulged themselves in the slaughter of cattle; they sacrificed there forty thousand oxen, and a hundred thousand sheep, and birds of various kinds not easily numbered; besides thirty thousand wild beasts of every sort gathered together." These are the words of Geoffrey,
book I, chapter 24 — that is, of a man of the most reckless boldness and impudence in inventing whatever he pleases. The chief thing recorded by trustworthy authors concerning the sacrifices of the Druids is ἀνθρωποθυσία [human sacrifice]. There were, however, two kinds of human victims among them: the first private, when someone, that is, devoted either himself or another for the safety of a third party. Caesar asserts, as above, chapter 16 — "Those afflicted with more serious diseases, and those engaged in battles and dangers, either sacrifice men as victims, or vow that they will sacrifice themselves, and employ the Druids as ministers for these sacrifices; because they believe that, unless a man's life is given in exchange for a man's life, the power of the immortal gods cannot otherwise be appeased." This, as is clear from Strabo and others, was the form of that immolation: the victim being brought to the altar, the priest sprinkled its forehead with wine, or, where this was lacking, some other liquid; then, seizing the topmost hairs with his left hand, he poured libations upon the fire, offering prayers or vows to the gods at the same time; presently the victim itself was struck with a sword — as Cluverius observes. The other kind was public, and not unlike, as we have observed above, the manner in which Moloch was worshipped in the East. Thus Caesar, as above, "And publicly they have established sacrifices. Others have images of immense size, whose limbs, woven of wicker, they fill with living men; these being set alight, the men, surrounded by the flame, are put to death." This he says of the Gauls, who received the Druids themselves, and this whole superstition, from the Britons. Similarly Strabo, book IV:
Ἄνθρωπον γὰρ κατεσπεισμένον παίσαντες εἰς νῶτον μαχαίρᾳ, ἐμαντεύοντο ἐκ τοῦ σφαδασμοῦ, ἔθυον δὲ οὐκ ἄνευ Δρυϊδῶν, καὶ ἄλλα δὲ ἀνθρωποθυσιῶν εἴδη λέγεται· καὶ γὰρ κατετόξευόν τινας, καὶ ἀνεσταύρουν
ἐν τοῖς ἱεροῖς, καὶ κατασκευάζοντες κολοσσὸν χόρτου, καὶ ξύλον ἐμβαλόντες εἰς τοῦτον, βοσκήματα καὶ παντοῖα θηρία καὶ ἀνθρώπους ὡλοκαύτουν. [For, having struck a man, consecrated beforehand, in the back with a sword, they divined from his convulsions; nor did they sacrifice without the Druids; and other kinds of human sacrifice are also spoken of — for they shot some with arrows, and impaled others on stakes in their sacred places; and, constructing a colossal figure of hay, and casting wood into it, they burnt whole herds and every kind of wild beast, and men.]
Of the public victims, by which men were sacrificed, besides that recorded by Caesar, he reports here three other kinds: either they were struck down by the sacrificial sword, or pierced with arrows, or even driven onto crosses; to which he adds that custom of burning men shut up within colossal images. Yet another kind of death, employed in these sacrifices,
Diodorus records, book V, chapter 32: Τοὺς κακούργους … κατὰ πενταετηρίδα φυλάξαντες ἀνασκολοπίζουσι τοῖς θεοῖς, καὶ μετ' ἄλλων πολλῶν ἀπαρχῶν καθαγίζουσι πυρὰς παμμεγέθεις κατασκευάζοντες.
[Having kept criminals for five years, they impale them for the gods, and, together with many other first-fruits, burn them, building enormous pyres.]
By fire, therefore, by the sword, by arrows, by the cross, and by sharpened stakes, as it pleased them, they put men to death as sacrifices. Nor was this crime perpetrated only upon the guilty: "They even go so far as to punish the innocent", says Caesar, as above. With what monstrous savagery, moreover, the Britons conducted themselves at their public sacrifices, Dio attests, book LXII of his History:
Τοῖς τε ἁλισκομένοις ἀνθρώποις ὑπ' αὐτῶν οὐδὲν τῶν δεινοτάτων ἐστὶν ὅ τι οὐκ ἐγίνετο. Καὶ ὃ δὴ δεινότατον καὶ θηριωδέστατον ἔπραξαν· τὰς γὰρ γυναῖκας τὰς εὐγενεστάτας, καὶ εὐπρεπεστάτας, γυμνὰς ἐκρέμασαν, καὶ
τοὺς τε μαστοὺς αὐτῶν περιέτεμον, καὶ τοῖς στόμασι σφῶν προσέρραπτον, ὅπως ὡς καὶ ἐσθίουσαι αὐτοὺς ὁρῶντο. Καὶ μετὰ τοῦτο πασσάλοις ὀξέσι διὰ παντὸς τοῦ σώματος κατὰ μῆκος ἀνέπειραν· καὶ ταῦτα πάντα θύοντές τε ἅμα, καὶ ἐστιώμενοι, καὶ ὑβρίζοντες, ἔν τε τοῖς ἄλλοις σφῶν ἱεροῖς, καὶ ἐν τῷ τῆς Ἀνδάτης μάλιστα ἄλσει ἐποίουν. [Upon those taken captive, every kind of the most grievous atrocity was inflicted. And this was the cruellest and most savage act of all: they hung up the noblest and most honourable women, naked, and, having cut off their breasts, sewed them to their own mouths, so that they might seem to be eating them. They then transfixed the women, through the whole length of the body, with sharpened stakes; and they did all this while performing their sacred rites at the same time, feasting, and behaving insolently, both in their other temples, and especially in the grove of Andate.] And such were we Britons — slaves of Satan of this kind.
XXII. On account of these unspeakable sacrifices, the Romans attempted to abolish the whole superstition of the Druids. Strabo, concerning the Gauls, book IV, chapter 4: Τούτων δ' ἔπαυσαν αὐτοὺς Ῥωμαῖοι, καὶ τῶν κατὰ τὰς θυσίας καὶ μαντείας ὑπεναντίως τοῖς παρ' ἡμῖν νομίμοις. [The Romans put a stop to these things among them, and to their sacrifices and divinations, which were contrary to our customs.] And Suetonius, in his
Claudius, chapter 25: "He utterly abolished among the Gauls the religion of the Druids, one of dire savagery, which under Augustus had only been forbidden to Roman citizens." That is, he wished to do so in Gaul, but in vain; the seat and origin of the superstition, Britain, remained untouched.
Only on the island of Mona were the Druids slain, and the groves cut down, by Suetonius Paulinus. Tacitus relates the event, Annals, XIV, chapter 30:
"On the shore stood the opposing battle-line, dense with arms and men,
with women running between them ... and round about, the Druids, raising their hands to heaven and pouring out dreadful curses, struck the soldiers with the strangeness of the sight, so that, as though their limbs were fixed, they offered their motionless bodies to wounds. Then, roused by the exhortations of their general, and spurring one another on lest they should fear a womanish and fanatical horde, they advanced their standards, cut down all who opposed them, and wrapped them in their own fire. A garrison was afterwards placed over the conquered; and the groves, sacred to their savage superstitions, were cut down: for they held it lawful to drench their altars with the blood of captives, and to consult the gods through the entrails of men."
XXIII. This impious superstition, however, was at length, by the mercy of God, gradually removed by the heavenly truth of the Christian religion. And although this island was "utterly cut off from the whole world," and lay most remote from the fount and sanctuary of those waters which flowed forth to heal the nations, yet, by God's gracious provision, the messengers and heralds of divine grace were brought hither almost from the very cradle of the gospel itself. Peter — Simeon Metaphrastes and the Menology; Paul
— Theodoret, and Sophronius; Simon Zelotes — Dorotheus; Aristobulus, whom Paul mentions in the Epistle to the Romans — Nicephorus; Joseph of Arimathea — almost all, especially the more recent of our own countrymen,
Bale, Parker, Foxe, Camden, and others — assert to have preached the gospel here; and, concerning Joseph, scarcely anyone doubts. Hence the most ancient Christian writers, Tertullian and Origen, record that Britain received the Christian faith — the latter, in his commentary on Ezekiel, chapter 4; the former, in his book Against the Jews, chapter 7. Martial too
celebrates Claudia Rufina, a British woman, most noble and most learned, book XI, epigram 54:
"Though Claudia Rufina is sprung from the blue-painted Britons, why has she the heart of the Latin people?
What beauty of form!
The mothers of Italy might believe her a Roman, the women of Athens their own."
That she was that Claudia whom Paul mentions, 2 Timothy 4:21, learned men judge, and the dates agree. Add that he links her with Pudens, whom the same Martial also celebrates, book VII, epigram 10:
"You compel me, Pudens, with my own pen and hand, to correct my little books.
O, how greatly you approve of me and love me, wishing to have my trifles in the original hand."
XXIV. Many too have written that King Lucius — to whom is attributed a letter to Pope Eleutherius, together with Eleutherius's reply — was, of all kings, the first to embrace the Christian faith; just as no fewer have related that Philip the Arab was the first Christian emperor. But to deal freely, and as befits one to whom nothing is dearer than truth, I confess frankly that it has long been the case that the credit of that epistolary correspondence — if not of the whole history of this Lucius — and of many other things commonly appended to history, has been quite suspect to me.
XXV. The history, so far as I know, was first committed to memory by Bede, Ecclesiastical History, book I, chapter 4. He says that Lucius wrote to Eleutherius in the year of the Lord 156. Nauclerus follows him; but Baronius, in his Annals, shows that Eleutherius did not preside over the Roman church before the year of Christ 178. There is, then, an error in the
dating. Henry of Erfurt reports that this happened in the year 196, in the nineteenth year of the Emperor Verus (who by no means reigned so many years). Ado, in his Chronicle, arranges the time more correctly, and writes that Eleutherius lived and governed the Roman church under the Emperor
Commodus — which is true, for the end of Eleutherius's third year falls at the beginning of Commodus's reign. Let this, then, be the time at which that epistolary exchange between King Lucius and Eleutherius took place, if it ever took place at all. Geoffrey of Monmouth relates the success of the undertaking at greater length: "Without delay, the peoples of the nations, flocking together from every side, follow the king's example, and, cleansed in the same font, are restored to the heavenly kingdom. The blessed teachers therefore (namely Fugatius and Damian, sent from Rome by Eleutherius), having destroyed paganism throughout almost the whole island, dedicated the temples, which had been founded in honour of many gods, to the one
God and his saints, and filled them with various orders of clergy. There were then in Britain twenty-eight flamens, and three archflamens. The rest of the judges in the island were subject to their authority. These, according to the apostle's command, they rescued from idolatry, and where there had been flamens they placed bishops, and where there had been archflamens, archbishops. The sees of the archflamens had been in three of the noblest cities, namely London, York, and the City of the Legions — which, ancient walls and buildings attest, was situated above the river Usk, in Glamorgan.
To these three, then, once the superstition had been swept away, twentyeight bishops were made subject." So he — a man who knew nothing at all of shame. How childishly he invented all this will at once appear. British superstition never had more flamens or archflamens than Geoffrey of Monmouth had. For the rest, I would not deny that he has rightly disclosed
the origin of that distinction among the ministers of the Christian rites, the Roman church itself confessing as much, Decretals, part I, distinction 21:
"Among priests, a certain distinction has been preserved, so that some are called simply priests, others archpriests, others chorepiscopi, others bishops, others archbishops or metropolitans, others primates, others patriarchs, others supreme pontiffs; this distinction was chiefly introduced from the gentiles, who called some of their flamens simply flamens, others archflamens, others protoflamens." So says the author of the distinction, nakedly and openly. More modestly, and within the bounds of restraint, the more learned Leland writes: "It remains that I relate the event that removed so great a superstition from the midst. It was provided by Roman edict that neither the practice nor the reputation of the Druids' religion should any longer be shown in the provinces. Yet the barbarous nations clung tenaciously to their ancestral rites, handed down and received from the Druids themselves so many ages before — until Christ the Saviour, best and greatest, having dispersed the darkness of error and gross ignorance, poured forth, through his guiding Spirit, a light visible to the whole world. Then that great Lucius, the immortal glory of the Britons, spurning the discipline of the Druids, willed that the evangelical teaching should be shared by all his people. Elvanus and Medwinus, therefore, noble British orators, were sent by Lucius to Eleutherius at Rome; and Fugatius, together with Damian, was sent back hither from Rome, and firmly established, God graciously willing it, a religion that would never perish." Certain Bavarian writers add
— as Bale attests, Scriptores Britannici, century I, chapter 29 — that this Lucius afterwards undertook an apostolate, and converted their own nation to the faith, and count it a glory to them to have been converted by so great a king; but our own countrymen protest against this, affirming that Lucius
never set foot outside his own kingdom, but died at Gloucester, in the twelfth year of his reign. The most learned Camden (in whose footsteps
Selden treads, in his Analecta Anglo-Britannica) yields to the common prejudice. For having most accurately woven together the history of those times from the most approved historians, and having set plainly before all eyes that the state and condition of British affairs, from the days of Claudius
Caesar, who had reduced the island to the form of a province, left no room for such a king — one who should hold the whole island under his rule, as this Lucius is imagined to have done — he nevertheless thought it prudent to insert this very history into his work, though the very order of events and of times which he himself sets forth cries out that it should be utterly rejected.
XXVI. To root out of men's minds an opinion so great, so deeply implanted, so ancient, is not the business of my talents, nor my purpose. But since falsehood, nowhere, has much strength or firmness, if I obtain from my readers this one thing, which is most fair — that they bring nothing here prejudged — I have no doubt that I shall persuade even the φιλάρχαιοι
[lovers of antiquity] that I have grounds for my suspicion — grounds sufficiently just, indeed most weighty, and not mine alone.
XXVII. Britain — twice attempted almost in vain by Julius Caesar, neglected by Augustus and Tiberius, whose ocean shells, cast up on the Gallic shore, Caligula triumphed over, surrounded by his mighty army, worn down by civil wars and factional strife, its inhabitants obeying various kings — was attacked through the praetor Aulus Plautius by Claudius
Caesar, reduced to the form of a province, and handed over to Plautius to govern. Dio and Suetonius relate at length the history of what he did on this island. So great was the glory of this victory in those days that the senate
decreed not only the name "Britannicus," and a most splendid triumph, to Claudius himself, but also an ovation to Plautius, and the ornaments of a triumph to Vespasian, who pursued the remnants of the war. Nor do the poets celebrate less the addition of this province to the empire. So Seneca the Tragedian, in the Octavia, act I: "To whom the whole world obeyed, beyond the ocean, and to whom the Britons, until then unknown to our leaders and free of their own right, gave up their backs." To which he presently adds: "Behold, he who first placed a yoke upon the Britons, and covered unknown straits with such great fleets, and, safe among barbarous peoples and savage seas ..." The first little verse was commonly read: "Lo! he who first reached the shores of the Tanais," etc. "Lo, he who comes to the Britons," Scaliger restored, in his notes on Tibullus, but without doubt one should read: "Lo! he who first laid the yoke upon the shores of the Thames" — since Claudius was the first to cross the Thames, as the most learned Camden observed. Of the same Claudius, Seneca the elder had earlier sung, in his Apocolocyntosis of Claudius Caesar: "He it was who bade the Britons, beyond the shores of the known sea, and the sky-blueshielded Brigantes, bow their necks to Roman chains, and bade the ocean itself tremble at the new laws of the Roman axe." Most elegant, too, are those epigrams which the great Scaliger produced in his Catalecta. It pleases me to append some of them:
"A land never violated by Ausonian triumphs fell prostrate, Caesar, struck by your thunderbolt.
And the Ocean beholds your altars beyond itself: what is the boundary of the world shall not be the boundary of empire.
A people, conquered by none before, never yet beheld in any triumph, lies inviolate beneath your titles.
Long seen as a fable, and hidden in the midst of the sea, it has now given its free neck to the victor.
Britain, free, having endured neither enemy nor king, which lies far off, beyond our world — happy in adversity, and crushed by favourable fortune, will be shared between us and you, O Caesar.
Father Mars, and Quirinus, guardian of our race, and both Caesars, set in the great heaven
— you behold the unknown Britons under Latin law: the sun bends this side of our empire."
The Britons, however, rising up again in tumult, on account of the civil discords among the petty kings who had accepted the Roman yoke (for it is a dream of Geoffrey's, which no one but he would dream, that one king ruled the island in Caesar's day, or afterwards) — this same Claudius put down, through the propraetor P. Ostorius. Tacitus has faithfully recorded that war. Under Nero's reign, the whole nation, stirred by the wrongs and the great spirit of Boadicea, queen of the Iceni, and all the peoples in it, attempted bravely and vigorously — but in vain — to throw off the Roman yoke from their necks and recover their ancestral liberty. The end of the war, under the administration of Suetonius Paulinus, was, for that nation, partly destruction, partly servitude. After Nero's death, while civil war held almost the whole world torn apart under Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and Vespasian, the Silures and the Ordovices, and other peoples, took courage to such a degree that they gave occasion for that most disastrous war in which Julius Agricola, propraetor, father-in-law of the historian Tacitus, brought the whole island under the power of the Romans, and compelled it to live by Roman law — only one petty king being left, with a precarious
authority, in some part of the island, namely Cogidumnus, so that here too they might have a king as an instrument of servitude. In that war Galgacus, the last of the Britons, was defeated. The northern part of the island, being left, as rugged and unfruitful, to the barbarians, Agricola reduced the rest, plainly and fully — as Camden puts it — into a province, and, as Tacitus attests, handed it over to his successor peaceful and secure. The royal name having been abolished, and all that authority of the petty kings whom the people had formerly venerated, Britain became a praesidial, or Caesarean, province. Under Nerva it remained quiet; Spartian reports that Trajan brought some rebellious elements back into order. Hadrian restrained the barbarians, who were attacking the province from the northern parts of the island with wars and brigandage, by building a wall eighty miles long — as the same Spartian relates. Nor was the reign of the Antonines, Pius and the Philosopher, free from wars or tumults in this island; all of these, however, were suppressed by the valour of Lollius Urbicus and Calpurnius Agricola.
Under Commodus, too, the province itself was for a time full of seditions; and barbarous nations, crossing the wall, gave the Romans and Britons a great deal of trouble, and several times inflicted great slaughter upon the inhabitants who dwelt nearest the wall. But upon the arrival of Ulpius
Marcellus — as Dio and Lampridius relate — everything was so pacified that, down to the death of Commodus, nothing seems to have been attempted against the Roman peace. Given this state and condition of British affairs, I confess frankly that, such is my dullness, I cannot see where that Lucius could have been, who held this whole island ἀνυπεύθυνος [unaccountable to any], and, as he is called in the letter of Eleutherius, the vicar of God alone; for it is altogether too likely that he was not in this Britain of ours. It seems quite a different island that he distributes
among archbishops and bishops, by the consent of the British nobility; a different London, a different York, over which he presided — for ours here lay under the dominion of the Romans.
XXVIII. To this Cardinal Baronius adds much more, at the year of Christ 183, where he presents and defends this history of Lucius. First, then, "the Romans never, before this time, possessed the whole of Britain; but it is clear that very many peoples remained unconquered in it, who often gave the Roman armies trouble; and again, it is certain that those peoples in Britain who had been subdued by the Romans very often revolted, and rebelled entirely. For, to pass over more remote times, it is certain, on the authority of Julius Capitolinus, that a British war broke out under Marcus
Aurelius, but was suppressed by Calpurnius Agricola, sent thither by Marcus. Again, after the death of Marcus, it was renewed under the reign of Commodus, to such a degree that the Britons (as Lampridius writes) wished to set up another emperor against him, refusing altogether to obey
Commodus; but the same author affirms that everything was settled by his generals. Dio adds further that the British war, in these times of Commodus, was the greatest of all, but was utterly extinguished by Ulpius Marcellus."
XXIX. It is strange that Baronius, a most learned and cautious man, did not notice that these things are both ἀσύστατα [inconsistent], and, where they contain truth, seek the very throat of the cause which he undertook to defend. They are ἀσύστατα, in that he implies that Lucius reigned among peoples unconquered by the Romans, and who often revolted from Roman rule, and who wished to set up another emperor against Commodus. For these were plainly different things. The peoples said to be unconquered by the Romans were the barbarians beyond the wall, and they alone. Those who most often rebelled against the Romans were the provincial Britons.
Those who wished to set up another emperor were the Roman garrison soldiers — so that it is plainly impossible that one and the same man should have ruled over all these. Moreover, he cuts his own throat with his own sword, when he teaches, on Dio's authority, that the British war was utterly extinguished under Commodus's reign, by Ulpius Marcellus — and so that the whole province had peacefully submitted to Roman power. For, given that state of affairs which we showed above, it was impossible for Lucius to hold a kingdom in the province; nor will anyone ever believe it, who is not ignorant of what a Roman praesidial province is. Then, no writers, whether trustworthy or untrustworthy, have recorded anything of any such defection of the Britons from Roman rule, by which they should have set up for themselves a king holding the whole island under his dominion — such as, even when they were their own masters and free, they never had. We have shown that war was several times stirred up against the Romans, now by one, now by another or by several combined, with their forces joined; but this was always extinguished within a short time. That, amid these tumults, there arose such a king as Lucius is imagined to be, is a thing that not only the most mendacious Geoffrey, but the letter of Eleutherius too, could only be believed by those blinded by excessive prejudice.
Well known is that saying of Tacitus concerning the state of the Britons at this time: "Rarely did two or three states come together to ward off a common danger; and so, while they fight individually, they are all conquered"— Agricola, chapter 12. "But in the province itself there were always some of the people who were untamed," says Baronius, over whom
Lucius could have ruled. But who, pray, were these unconquered peoples?
Wretched barbarians, driven from their own settlements, without king or law, dwelling in the most desolate groves and mountains and corners of the
island — over whom no faithful history teaches that any king held supreme rule; nor would it teach it, were Geoffrey to come back to life. Add that this conjecture contradicts every tradition, whether of actual events or invented ones; for it supposes that rude and unconquered barbarians received the faith before the provincials — a fiction against which every monument of ancient history protests, and every historian who writes that, in Lucius's time, not some wild and rustic folk, but the province itself, embraced the faith. Hence Sabellicus says that "Britain, of all provinces, was the first to receive publicly, by ordinance, the name of Christ" — against which the letter of Eleutherius protests, which represents Lucius as governing the whole British kingdom by the counsel of the nobility. Since, therefore, these grounds are altogether weak, he proceeds, in his answers to objections, to state that he is: "Dio relates that the Britons crossed that wall which had been placed between them and the Roman camps. By which it is plainly signified that Britain, at that time, was so divided that the Romans occupied that part which lay on this side of the wall, while the Britons freely possessed the other, situated beyond the wall — who often, crossing that wall, provoked the Romans to battle. Thus, then, nothing prevents Lucius from having been king of Britain, however much the Romans held part of the island — since he might have been king of that further part, which the Britons freely possessed."
But this is οὐδὲν ὑγιές [nothing sound]: for, first, the most learned man was deceived by Dio's translator; for Dio did not write that the Britons crossed the wall, as the Latin version has it, but that certain nations of the island, most hostile to the Britons properly so called, crossed the wall. Τῶν γάρ … ἐν τῇ νήσῳ ἐθνῶν ὑπερβεβηκότων τὸ τεῖχος. [For, of the nations in the island, having crossed the wall ...] — book LXXII; and writers always
distinguish these peoples from the Britons — although it should not be doubted that many of the Britons, or the most ancient inhabitants of the island, spent their lives beyond the wall. It is in that part of the island, then, which lies outside Hadrian's Wall, that the cardinal would have Lucius reign. But how many of our countrymen, pray, know where that wall was built and run? Whoever believes that what is said of Lucius, and of a British kingdom, applies to some petty barbarian king beyond the wall, believes something no one else does. Nor is it doubted whether some Lucius, somewhere in the world, was converted to the faith of Christ, but whether such a king as this — one who governed a British kingdom under God alone, and whom Eleutherius, bishop of Rome, was to instruct in the administration of the kingdom — publicly embraced the Christian faith. To say nothing of Geoffrey's archflamens and flamens, which this fiction, along with London, York, and the City of the Legions, or Caerleon, casts out beyond Hadrian's Wall. Who, pray, ever heard that Fugatius and Damian, passing by the Roman province, which embraced almost the whole present kingdom of England and Wales, betook themselves to the barbarians beyond the wall? This too utterly overturns that fable: that it is most certain and most well-known that those barbarous nations who held the trans-mural parts of the island did not submit to the yoke of Christ until long afterwards, and after provincial Britain had for some centuries already publicly received the Christian faith — a fact sufficiently established from Gildas alone, in his On the Ruin of Britain.
In the third place, then, but only in passing, and as if scarcely believing it himself, the cardinal adds: "Moreover, this Lucius could also have been some petty king, set up in Britain under Roman dominion, and obedient to the Roman empire." Although he dispatches this answer in a single word, as
though scarcely to be compared with what he had set forth above, it is nevertheless most certain that the whole history lacks not only credibility and probability, but even the colour of truth, unless it is sought from this quarter. Let us see, then, briefly, whether even this can in any way be reconciled with what is said of Lucius, and what the letter of Eleutherius proclaims concerning him. First, then, among the approved historians who have written of British affairs — Dio, Julius Capitolinus, and Lampridius
— there is the deepest silence concerning any such petty king; nor is anything said by them that would suggest that there was, in the whole province, any petty king possessed of royal authority; indeed, they so describe the state and condition of those times as to indicate that there was none. Then, the letter asserts that Lucius wrote to Eleutherius to have the Roman laws sent to him — a thing which, while none of the trans-mural peoples, most hostile to the very name of Rome, would have done, so no one among the provincials had need to send envoys to Rome to bring back laws which they saw expounded and administered throughout the whole province by its highest officials. Indeed, the poet suggests that the Britons were thoroughly versed in Roman law long before this time: "Eloquent
Gaul has taught the Britons to plead cases." Nor did those petty kings, whom the Romans tolerated anywhere as instruments of servitude, have such power over their subjects that it lay within their own discretion which laws they should use; it is even ridiculous that a petty king under Roman dominion, who, as the cardinal puts it, "obeyed the Roman empire", should have sought imperial laws from the bishop of Rome. But what has this to do with the Lucius of Eleutherius — not to mention of Geoffrey — who is set over the whole kingdom of Britain as the vicar of God, subject to him alone, and administering it by the counsel of his subjects? Then, this
supposititious Eleutherius, whose letter savours not at all of the spirit of those most ancient times, condemns and rejects the imperial laws, as unsuited to the civil administration of a kingdom — a thing the true
Eleutherius would neither have done, nor dared to do. For my own part, I would by no means deny that some Lucius, perhaps sprung of royal blood, and of the greatest authority even among the Britons, took up the profession of the Christian religion about that time, and promoted the faith to the best of his ability. But that the fabulists have transformed him into a great king
— and, because it was well known that no one succeeded him in a kingdom, into an ἄτεκνον [childless] one — and that the letter said to be from Eleutherius to him is fictitious, no one, I think, will deny, who turns his mind away from inveterate prejudices toward the knowledge and consideration of the truth.
1. Claude supplied θεοὺς.
2. Claude supplied Θεολόγους.