The following is taken from the book 'Western Spirituality - Historical Roots, Ecumentical Routes' edited by Matthew Fox, chapter five 'The Finest Music in the World:Exploring Celtic Spiritual Legacies', by Mary Aileen Schmiel pages 168-171.
I make no comments on the text. It stands entirely on its own, and should give insight into my earlier posts, particularly the one on my geas. I will note one final thing, I am not a warrior, or a poet-priest, or a fili or a drui. I am an aorthoir.
A Look at Pagan Ireland and the Coming of the Gospel
Although popular legend has Christianity coming to Ireland with St Patrick in 432, the truth is that the faith had flourished there for more than a century before. In fact, the real reason for Patrick's mission was not to convert heathens but to try to bring the determinedly independent and antiauthoritarian Irish church under Rome's aegis. This was not to be accomplished for abouther four hundred years, however. Patrick and his helpers were if anything converted to the Celtic system rather than the other way around!
No one knows exactly when or how the Christian message first came to the island, but we do know that it assimilated itself peacefully into the existing political structure. There seems to have been contact with the Greek and Judaic world even before the advent of Christianity, and these influences remained throughout the Middle Ages.
Early Irish society was tribal in nature. Its laws and general order bear a distinct resemblence to the Hebrew. The justice system was complex and all-pervasive, concerned with blood-ties, debts, injuries, and the rights of the disadvantaged. Judicial matters were formally presided over by the king or clan-chieftan, but the real mediator was the poet-priest, who sat at the king's right hand. These filidh (seers), also called druids (literally, oak-sages), were the guardians of all knowledge both legal and mystical. Beneath them were the house-poets, or bardai, whose job it was to compose verses of praise or satire, as the occasion warranted. It is easy to see how these poets also served an informal judicial function. In a clan society, the worst possible fate is ostracism, and this would inevitably result from a bard's reproach. There were also several orders kown as 'superfluous poets' in that their only court function was entertainment. In this category were harpers, pipers, jesters, and acrobats, and their persons were also respected and held sacred.
The Celtic peoples relied on oral transmission almost exclusively. In fact, the only place they writing was on burial monuments, for which they used an alphabet based on the Druidic tree-calendar. Laws, history, family trees, and religious knowledge were all memorized and passed on from genreation to generation by the filidh. The reason for this custom is not that they lacked knoweldge of 'civilized' language; their command of the Greek alphabet has been attested to by Greek visitors in the centuries before Christ. But the Celts held the memory in the higest regard and feared to weaken it by cultivating a dependence on artificial tools. This was remarked upon by no less illustrious an observer than Julius Caeser. They had several hundred forms of metre, all of which had to be mastered by the poet-priests. Rhymes and symbolic constructions helped as a mnemonic device in the case of the laws, and in mystical rites they were instrumental in evoking moods by incantation.
In addition to their social, legal, artistic, and religious functions, the filidh were also indispensable in warfare. Before a battle the chief poets of the opposing sides would hold a frenzied verbal contest. If one was clearly victorious, the battle might not have to be fought at all. If not, they would have succeeded in arousing their armies to the state of furor, which so terrified their enemies.
The Celtic mind acknowledged no real dichotomy between reality and fantasy, between this world and the world 'beyond.' The doors of perception stood perpetually ajar, and all people were open to visionary states. The special function of the filidh was to live on the threshold of the two worlds. Physical death was considered merely 'a pause in a long life.' Facing death courageously, fulfilling one's duty, and behaving with respect toward companions and enemies alike were the obligations of a warrior.
The concept of divine power diffused through all nature forms the basis of the ancient religion of the Celts. The scattered tales that survive are concerned with shamanism, sorcery (in the sense of simple earth-magic; the demonic connection was a late Christian invention) and animal shape-shifting by both gods and humans. Unlike the Hebrews, the Celts had no notion of a God who was 'wholly other' nor of the human as something radically different from the rest of the natural world. Consequently there was no linear, discursive history per se, everything was conceptualized metaphorically.
Till Greece and Rome created a new culture, a sense of the importanfce of man, ... nobody wrote history, nobody described anything as we understand description. One called up the image of something by comparing it with something else....One was less interested in man...than in divine revelations, in changes among the heavens and the gods, which can hardly be expressed at all, and only by myth, by symbol, by enigma. One was always losing oneself in the unknown and rushing to the limits of the world. Imagination was all in all.It is because of this metaphorical mindset, so different from the literalism of the Levant at that time, that the 'letter' and 'spirit' of the law never diverged in Celtic tradition. This is an important point to keep in mind in regard to the assimilation of Christianity into the pagan tradition.
The tales of the wandering carpenter who was the son of the Lord of the Universe had appeal for the Irish people on many levels. His method of teaching through symbolic parables resembled their own bardic tradition, and the virtues he extolled were in many ways similar to their own ideals. They took him to their hearts as a human guide and friend. But they also related him to themystical side of their cultural consciousness. His death by tree-hanging parallels sacrifical fertility rites dating back to pre-Celtic times. And in his glorious aspect he was compared with Lugh of the Long (or generous) Hand, the kind and beautiful sun god who also died and roase again. The two worlds, practical and mystical, are thus perfectly joined in Jesus.
The Old Testament, too, become very important to the early Celtic Christians. This was no doubt partly due to their love of a good story. But the idea that law is an integral part of faith is clearly evident also. In St. Paul's 'Letter to the Galatians' he deplores the dedication of those Eastern Celts to the Judaic law and customs such as circumcision.
Another typically Celtic trait is reflected in the same epistle where Paul finds it necessary to rebuke the congregation for their unwillingness to forego their attachment to 'elemental spirits, seasons, solstices,' etc. The Wester Celts were more fortunate and escaped such severe criticisms until many centuries later. The pagan deities, forces, and festivals found their way naturally into the Christian calendar, and the cult of Jesus brought a host of personalities who blended with native ones with whome they had something in common. Great Pan never died in Celtia.