Chapter
5
The origin of the
Celts and the Gauls, according to the most celebrated historians, still
constitutes one of the most mysterious enigmas of all history.
Dottin frankly avows
that history knows nothing precise about the date of “the arrival of the
Celts in Gaul” (Les Anciens peuples
de l’Europe, Dottin, p. 209), and holds that they became mixed with the
Ligurians so that a special ethnic name had been created, the term
“Celtoligurians,” to designate the inhabitants of the region extending from
Marseille to the Rhone river and the Alps.
Other historians, such
as Thierry and Pernoud, have opinions more or less analogous. Generally, they all declare that the only
thing historians and archaelogists can say with certainty, is that the Celts,
at some time, occupied all the territory of Central Eruope, from the
mountains of Bohemia (Czechoslovakia) to the Baltic Sea.
As to the exact date
of this occupation, the opinions are strongly divided, and often
contradictory. Some speak of three or
four thousand years ago, others say rightly that history knows nothing of
what took place before the year 500 B.C.
“At the time of
LaTene” (a Celtic culture of about 500 B.C.), writes Pernoud, “the Celts
still have no history, properly said; they did not form an empire,
but a sort of aggregation of peoples who seemed to have been driven enough” (Les Gaulois, Pernoud, pp. 31-32).
According to
Rolleston, no geographer had used the term Celt
before the year 500 B.C. (Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race,
Rolleston).
Consequently, the
world seems to know nothing about the activities of the Gauls before their
arrival in Gaul; we are told, moreover, that the Celts had previously
inhabited the valley of the Danube for some time.
Once more, only the
Bible contains the key to the mystery.
The enigma ceases to be insoluble if one examines it in the light of the
historical information found in the Bible.
The ancients used the
name “Celts,” or “Celtica,” without much discrimination, in that which concerns language and race, to
designate the inhabitants of the countries situated in the northwest
of Europe. This term, in the
history of these peoples, was then geographic rather than ethnic (France,
Witt, p. 16).
There is one of the reasons
why history finds itself in the dark.
What is more, it will never come to understand the truth about the Celts
as long as historians disdain the facts furnished by the Bible.
It wasn’t until after
the Roman occupation that the term “Celt,” or “Gaul,” was reserved for the
inhabitants of Gaul. Thus, if the
name of these peoples changed following the Roman occupation, it goes without
saying that neither their race nor their characteristics were changed by it.
The testimony of
Thierry, associating the Cimbri with the Celts, is remarkable:
“It is the last of
these landmarks which links the Kimmerii of the Black
Sea to the Cimbri of Jutland, to the Belgians of Gaul, to the Bretons of Albion, and we go on . . .
to recognize that in this vast people remained the nucleus of the second of
the Gaulic races, and that its name, so ancient, so renowned, so well-known, was
none other than the very name of this race” (Histoire
des Gaulois, Thierry, p. 70,
Introduction).
Generally, historians
agree in recognition of the traits the two peoples have in common, even though
each seems to express more or less divergent points of view on the
details. Hubert claims that the “Gauls
gave themselves the name Kymris” (“Les Celtes,” Hubert, p. 31),
whereas, according to Flavius Josephus, it was Gomer, son of Japheth, grandson
of Noah, who was the father of the Cimmerians, “that is to say of the Cimbri
and Celtics, from which one concludes that a good part of humanity itself
issued from the Celtic world,” (Les Gaulois, Pernoud, pp. 31-32).
Among the historians
who claim to accept both the truth and the historical chronology of the Bible,
the common mistake lies in their obstinacy, which is sometimes pathetic, to be
always willing to research and trace the origin of people by means of mere
resemblance, or by the similarity of their names with Biblical names!
Guided by this
reasoning, which becomes unbearable if it is not collaborated with other
factors, most scholars suppose that the Cimmerians must have been the
descendants of Gomer, for the two names show a striking resemblance. To draw such premature conclusions on such
incomplete facts is inexcusable.
To a certain degree,
the Cimmerians were included in the descendants of Gomer, as the Scythians
were included in the descendants of the house of Israel (by the
tribe of “Sacae”). It is always
altogether erroneous to make a generalization.
Some descendants of
Gomer joined themselves to the Cimmerians, since the Bible
indicates that Israel lived among the descendants of Gomer! The prophet Hosea had received the divine
order to take to himself a “wife” who was a prostitute, to symbolize
the relationship and adulterous state of Israel toward the Eternal. The prostitute that the prophet married
personified Israel, but was named Gomer, Hosea 1:2-3.
However, we must
repeat that the Cimmerians of Europe, as a whole, are not the descendants of Gomer.
To review, the
Israelites were taken into captivity about the year 718 B.C., and their
conquerors, the Assyrians, called them “Bit Khumri” or the “house of Omri,”
from the name of the king of Israel.
In less than a hundred
years, the Assyrian Empire crumbled; the captive nations revolted, and
immediately afterwards history notes the appearance, around the Black and
Caspian Seas, of nomadic peoples of which the most important tribe was called
“Cymrri” — or “Kimrri.”
This people, the Cimmerians,
as we have already indicated, had the same ancestors as the “Sacae,”
or the Scythians, who appeared later in northwest Europe, in the British
Isles, and who carried the name “Saxons.”
Following the invasion
of the non-Israelite Scythians, the tribe of the Cimmerians was quickly
forced to retire to the northwest of Europe, where it was known under the
name “Kymry” or “Khumri,” the name
which the Assyrians had given previously to the Israelites. In the years that passed these same peoples
adopted the name “Celtae” or “Galli”; the latter was given them
later by the Romans.
Thus, in an unexpected
and very curious manner, the prophecy came to pass that Israel,
during the last times, would be found “to the north” and “to
the west” of Palestine!
If our efforts in this
work tend rather to determining the origin of the French, to neglect the
racial affinity between them and their neighbors would be to lose sight of the object
we have followed, since most of the inhabitants of northwest Europe are
of the Celtic Race, and thus are part of the tribes of Israel,
“in dispersion.”
Indeed, the Belgians,
the people of Holland, the Swiss, and the Scandinavians belong
to the same race as the French, the English, the Americans,
and the Canadians, since, as a whole, these people are descendants of
the Celts. They all have a common
ancestor: Jacob, whose name was
changed to Israel!
As for the Belgians and
the Swiss, inhabitants of countries which in part speak the French language,
history has had no difficulty establishing their direct parentage with the Celts
(Histoire des Gaulois, Thierry, p. 36).
This same parentage extends to the people of the British Isles,
as Thierry affirms:
“There was among the
ancients an opinion, or better said, a fact accepted as nearly incontestable,
that the inhabitants of the British Archipelago and Gaul were peoples
originating from the same race” (Histoire des Gaulois, Thierry, p.
8).
Hipparque attests, in
turn, that the inhabitants of the British Isles and Eire (known today as
Ireland) were Celtic.
As we are about to
see, the Celts formed a league.
For centuries, before the Roman conquest, this league was so powerful
that even Alexander the Great (about 330 B.C.), carried away by his ambition to
conquer the world, did not dare challenge it.
Instead of entering into a war with it, he chose the method of conferring
with their ambassadors, in order to sign a treaty of peace between the two
powers (Legends of the Celtic
Race, p. 23).
As it always is, by
the time of the Roman conquest (58-51 B.C.), the power of the Celts had greatly
diminished because of internal corruption, rather social than political.
The Celts could only bow before and
yield to the attacks of Caesar. They
had lost their power.
This internal
corruption is moreover recognized by historians. At the apex of their glory, the fifth century B.C., the Celts,
according to Hellenicus of Lebos, still practiced “justice and integrity.” A century later, the customs were already
confounded with those of the Greeks.
And, at the time of Plato, “their great attributes were nothing but
drinking and fighting” (Legends of
the Celtic Race, p. 17). Caton
himself says the Gauls had but two passions:
fighting and talking! (The Origins, Brentano, p. 53).
The Celtic League
extended to Britain, since Caesar found in Britain the same religion as in
Gaul and “also a general resemblance in the mores and social conditions,” (Histoire
des Gaulois, Thierry, p. 81).
Tacitus, a Roman historian, had no doubt about this similarity; he even
declares that it is evident even in the idioms of the language.
We can thus conclude
that history has sufficient proofs, both to establish the racial
affinity between the peoples who lived in Gaul and the British
Isles, and to recognize the direct parentage of these peoples, and their
common families which were established previously — before the
migration of the Celts.
In his work on the
history of France, Thierry concludes the subject by stating that the British
Isles were populated by the Gaulic family, and that there, as in Gaul,
this family found itself split in two branches, the one indigenous,
that is to say, established from time immemorial, the other transplanted
from Gaul to Britain, during historic times (Histoire des Gaulois,
Thierry, Conclusion).
As we just seen, most
of these “natives” spoken of by Thierry were descended from Israelite
colonies which arrived previously to settle permanently. The migration of these colonies had taken
pace in the time of Solomon, who had allied himself with the
Phoenicians.