Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions

68 Irish Druids.
people than either Celt or German.
Prof. Rhys, one of the
highest living authorities, was justified in thinking that
Druidism was " probably to be traced to the race or races
wdiich preceded the Celts in their
possession of the British
Isles." The Iberians, with dark eyes and hair, belonged
to these Isles, as well as in north-west and south-west Gaul.
In Brittany, as in Wales, to this day, the Iberian and Celt
may be seen side by side.
A discussion has arisen in French scientific journals, as
to the apparently different views of Druidism in writings
attributed to Pythagoras and to Caesar. Hermand pointed
out their contradiction. Lamariouze remarked — " One
says there were in all Celtic lands neither temples nor
statues ; the other, on the contrary, would declare he had
found the worship of Roman divinities, and consequently
temples, statues, images." Pythagoras was told by a Druid
that he believed " in one Divinity alone, who is everywhere,
since He is in all."
Lamariouze failed to see any decided difference in the
two authorities, saving the
modification occasioned by the
Roman domination. He saw in one of the constituents
and principles of the Gaulish religion the proscription of
temples and idols, recalling the well-known fact of the
destruction of the temple of Delphi by the same people.
He points out that Caesar spoke of a likeness to Roman
idols, not the idols themselves, especially in the relation of
so many of Mercury.
Of the Gaulish Druids, Lamariouze said— '' Besides these
purely spiritual beliefs, they permitted a material worship
for the people. They permitted the adoration of God in
that which the ancients named the Elements."
Some hold that the Druids were either strangers from
afar, or an esoteric body of the learned, who permitted
the vulccar to indulge their heathenish practices, while they