Chapter
10
The
Oak and the Gods of the Druids
The
oak, for diverse reasons, for instance its fertility and longevity, seems to
have played an important part in the religion of the Druids. In the opinion of numerous historians, it
even could be said to form an essential
part of the religion of the Gauls.
Could
there exist a similarity of customs between ancient Israel and the Celtic
peoples concerning the oak?
Remember
that Israel was punished for turning away from the commandments of
the Eternal and for having followed the paganism of other nations. Consequently, the customs and traditions
which the Israelites introduced into Europe, as Celtic immigrants, would not
be part of their original religion,
contained in the Pentateuch.
At the
moment the Israelites were taken into captivity, their religion, as we have
already indicated, had become a mixture
of abominable beliefs,
while some vestige of the original beliefs showed up under the outward appearance of paganism.
Let’s
see then if ancient Israel also practiced cults under the oak, as did the Gauls! As strange as it may seem, the response is
affirmative; the Bible gives us ample witness.
It was
thus that Joshua took a large stone and set it up under the oak “which was in the place consecrated
to the Eternal,” Joshua 24:26.
It was under the oak of Ophra (Judges 6:11, 19-20), that Gideon
received the message of the angel in order to deliver Israel; following that,
he offered a sacrifice under the same oak.
It
seems that it was the custom, among the Israelites, to sometimes bury the dead under a particular oak, Genesis 35:4, 8; I Chronicles
10:12.
Then
again, oaks often marked the emplacement of alters. In this respect,
one of the most severe divine accusations against this pagan worship was pronounced against Israel by the mouth of the
prophet Ezekiel:
“Then
shall ye know that I am the Lord, when their slain men shall be among their
idols round about their alters, upon every high
hill, in all the tops of the mountains, and under every green tree, and under every thick oak, the place where
they did offer sweet savor to all their idols,” Ezekiel 6:13.
But
just who were these pagan gods who required
their worship under certain trees?
In his
famous work known as “The Pharsalia,” Lucan, the Latin poet born at Corduba in
39 A.D., mentions three great gods
who, among the Gauls, made up a triad,
or a trinity, forming a unity. The collective symbolism of these three gods
was often represented by three pillars of equal height, set up on a common
base.
The Gauls
called them: Teutates (the principal
god of the “commoners”), Tauranus
(the celestial bull), and Esus (the
god of war to which they offered human sacrifices).
Remember
that the Israelites, after turning to paganism, also turned to the cult of bulls and calves. It
is thus that Jeroboam placed calves at Bethel, and that the people offered
sacrifice on the altar (I Kings 12:28-33). This abominable cult was in practice at the time the Israelites
were taken into captivity by the Assyrians.
The bull and the calf, among the Israelites who had become pagan, were commonly associated
with the celestial elements, as was the case with the Gauls.
As for
“Esus,” the god of life, etymologists assure us that this name is derived from
an Assyrian root, signifying “to be”;
note the similarity of the meaning with YHVH,
in Hebrew, which is synonymous with
the term: “I AM.”
At
first, in spite of the usage of symbols, the Druidic religion was not made up of graven images of its gods to be
worshipped! This strange and remarkable
fact contrasts clearly with the customs of the surrounding nations.
“In
other words . . . [there is] not one
trace of idolatry, or of cultural evolution in the Celtic religion, thus, their
art was radically different from that
of ancient Greco-Latin art. Not a single statue of a god existed in
Gaul before the Roman Epoch, remarked Camille Jullian” (Les Gaulois,
Pernoud, p. 78).
This
astounding assertion, made by one of the greatest French historians, is without
a doubt very significant. What is more,
it is collaborated by other famous and esteemed historians, notably by
Courcelles-Seneuil, who writes:
“A
sort of rite seems to have precluded it [the
representation of their divinities], for it was not because of a lack of
craftsmanship that this abstention can be attributed” (Les Dieux Gaulois,
Courcelles, p. 61).
Once
again, if the historians would only study the Bible, they would find that the
religion of no other people (except
that of Israel) prohibited adoration
of idols!
Who
was then the “principal god” of the Gauls, who required them to worship under oaks and with altars built of raised pillars, this three-part god to
which they offered human sacrifices?
The
world knows his identity. It was the common god of the Chaldeans, the
Egyptians, the Phoenicians, and the Greeks (Les Dieux Gaulois,
Courcelles, p. 253). The paganized Israelites worshipped it also
under more or less varied names, the most well-known of which are Bel or Baal.
Every
student of the Bible knows the abominable role that Baal played in Israel. The
Eternal God punished the Israelites because they turned to Baal; they offered him incense, made statues of molten
metals, built him altars, and sacrificed their children before him.
“They
thought to cause My people to forget My
name . . . as their fathers have forgotten
my name for Baal” declares the Eternal, Jeremiah 23:27.
This Baal, according to historians, was also
the founder of Druidism (Celtic
Researches, Davies, p. 190). In
other words Baalism was the religion of the Druids. Baal was considered the source of all the
gifts of nature; he passed off as the god of feasts of the earth, to whom people offered their firstfruits. He symbolized wisdom and fertility, in
association with Ashtaroth.
One
has only to compare the abominations committed by the Gauls with those of the Israelites
to establish the common denominator between the religion of the two peoples.
By the mouths of all of His prophets (Jeremiah 7:9, 19:5, etc.),
the Eternal condemns without ceasing these abominations.
It is
thus incontestable that the religion of
the Druids is identical with that of the Israelites who turned from the
Eternal. The two peoples practiced the
same pagan religion, the same rites, the same cult!
This truth
is one of the most evident proofs established that the Celtic peoples are none other than the scattered tribes of Israel!