THE CULDEES.
54
The Druidism
disclosed.
Paganism
of our ancestors
of tlie Empire, at the period
when
must have been iiowerfully influenced by the
It would also
Christianity dawned on Britain.
funerum causa were as much cherished by the Christians as they had
been by the Pagans, and at least as reasonable a supposition to account for the name by
which the clerics of the early British Cliurch were distinguished, as any other that has been
appear that colleges
suggested,
the probability of the
is
Cultores Deorum," the worshippers of the Gods, gradually
Cultores Dei," ivorshippers of the true God}
learned men have believed that there was some connection between the Culdees
merging into
Many
"
"
and the Pioman masonic
colleges,
of Phoenician or Eastern con-
or the esoteric teaching
indeed, has mainly arisen from the profound speculations of Krause,
have been too hastily adopted by many German writers of distinction,
whose conclusions
whence they have in turn penetrated to this country.^
This
frateruities.2
belief,
In his laboured "Inquiry into the origin of
author of the
"
"
finds
all
languages, nations, and
room
religions,"
the
allusions to
for
Freemasonry.
many
Anacalypsis
aU Freemasons in
According to his view, the Essenes, the Druids, and the Culdees were
Mr Higgins says, " I request my reader to think upon
progressive stages of development.
the Culidei or Culdees in the crypt of the Cathedral of York, and at Eipon, and in Scotland
industrious
and Ireland— that these Culdees or Chaldeans were masons, mathematici, builders of the
Temple of Solomon; and that the country where Mr Ellis found access to the temple in
that the religion of Abraham's descendants was
that of Eas; that Masonry in that country is called Eaj or Mystery; that we have also
found the Colida and most other of these matters on the Jumna, a thousand miles distant in
South India
*
was
and Uria
called Colida
;
—
North India, and when he has considered all these matters, as it is clear that one must
have borrowed from the other, let him determine the question, Did York and Scotland borrow
" ^
from the Jumna and Carnatic, or the Jumna and Carnatic from them ?
—
The most remarkable, however,
of all theories connecting the Culdees with the Freemasons
was advanced by the Honourable Algernon Herbert in 1844, and has been characterised by
Dr Peeves " as a strange combination of originality and learning, joined to wild theory and
According to this writer, under the shell of orthodoxy, Culdeism
sweeping assertion."^
contained an heterodox kernel, which consisted of secret rites and the practice of
human
sacrifice.
"
Taking the question," he
"
says,
as against
to be
the Culdees
whether or not they
See also Etudes sur
of Britain, p. 386; Reviie Archeologique, vol. xiii.,
Funeraires Remains (Gaston Boissier) ihid., vol. xxiii., pp. 81-87; Krause, Kunsturkunden, book
quelques Colleges
and ante, pp. 47 and 49 {note 3).
i., part ii., p. 358 ;
1
=
3
Coote,
N.S., p. 295.
The Romans
Kenning, Cyclop;edia,
p. 142.
Krause, Kunsturkunden, book
p. 427.
The first-named
i.,
part
ii., p.
358.
writer relies on the so-called
;
book
"York
ii.,
part
i.,
p.
Constitutious
"
468
;
Stieglitz,
of a.d. 926.
Geschichte der Baiikunst,
See nest chapter (No. 51).
of the Madras Civil Service, in the capacity of a Master Mason,
Referring to the statement that this member
himself into the sacred part, or adytum, of one of the Indian temples (Anacalypsis, 1836,
had actually passed
*
vol.
i.,
p. 767).
In another work Mr Higgins says: "The Culdees were the last remains of the
^Anacalypsis, vol. i., p. 769.
converted to Christianity before the Roman Church got any footing in Britain.
They were
Dniids, who had been
for their easily embracing Christianity ; for
Pythagoreans, Druidical monks, probably Essenes, and this accounts
"
tlie Essenes were as nearly Christians as possible
(The Celtic Druids, the Priests of the Nations who Emigrated from
India, 1829, p. 205).
^
British Magazine, vol. .xxvi.
(On the
Peculiarities of Culdeism, pp. 1-13).