Culdees & The Book Of Kells
The Culdees (an order of priests based in the British isles) who date from around 37AD are alleged to be Essenes who escaped from threats to their way of life in the middle east, carrying with them sacred knowledge which they passed on to their members. Some people believe that the Culdees were the disciples of Jesus Christ himself and that they fled to the British Isles along with Joseph of Arimathaea in order to escape persecution. (*1)They claimed their teachings had come from and been handed down by St John, and were meant to be the last remaining descendants of the Druids, who had been converted to Christianinty before the Roman Catholic church got any footing in Britain. Like the Druids they believed in reincarnation and an evolving soul, they also practiced meditation and were Gnostic teachers and healers. Their favourite symbol was the Dove, which Saint Columba himself was known as (Columba went under various names one being Colmcille which in Irish/Latin is ‘Dove of the church’), and is meant to represent the femenine symbol of the holy spirit. Like the Druid’s before them and the Knight’s Templar/Cistercian Monks who followed them, the Culdees dressed in white robes. Some believe that the Culdee’s were descendants of the builder’s of Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem, and that they were on some form of mission to integrate the teachings of the Essenes with that of the Druids.
Various translations exist for the word Culdee, among them ‘Companion of God’, ‘Children of God’ or ‘Strangers from Afar’. Whatever the origin of the word and it’s meaning are, ‘Culdee’ was usually used to describe a Monk or a Hermit in Scotland. They were separate from the Monk’s of Columba who preached Christianity throughout Scotland and Northern England from the late 6th century. The Culdees are sometimes referred to as the ‘Hidden Church’ in Scotland as they seem, for a time at least to have been overlooked when Rome decreed that all other forms of Religion, worship etc should be stamped out or forced to adopt Roman belief’s and practices.
The Culdees began to have more and more influence on the local communities until around the time of the Scotish Reformation in the 16th century, when their influence faded and other groups took up their role as bearers of sacred knowledge. The Knight’s Hospitaller’s being one of these groups who built their headquarters on top of a major Culdee settlement, were also followers of the teachings of John the Baptist. Again this shows how religious or spiritual sect’s replicate each other and build their shrines etc on top of pre- exisiting holy sites.
http://sacredconnections.co.uk/index.php/iona-sacred-isle/ Iona sacred isle of the west – by Barry Dunford.
The Knight’s Templar also took on much of the philosophy’s of the Culdees, in fact there seems to be a common spiritual link between the Druids, Culdees and Knights Hospitaller/Templar, that of Gnosticism.
(1*) – https://hannahmichaels.wordpress.com/2013/08/09/prophecies-of-columba-and-book-of-kells-from-ireland/
“The magnifficent Book of Kells was in all probability begun here (Iona – my note) before it’s removal to Ireland for safety during the perilous 9th century” E.Mairi MacArthur-Columba’s Island-Iona From Past To Present, p19.
According to JAHTRUTH.net Columba “once established on Iona, where he became custodian of the Lia Fail Stone, Columba set about making his famous Book of Kells in order to give people what he considered to be the true Gospel and so did not include in it things that he knew had already been corrupted by the church in order to justify the church’s own existence in direct contradiction of Christ’s commands to the faithful. He therefore limited the Book of Kells to the Four Gospels”.
http://jahtruth.net/lecture.htm
Egyptian Links & The Book Of Kells – Continued
Is there a link between the Celtic people of Scotland and Ireland and the Egyptians, specifically the sect of Hermetic Desert Fathers known to have roamed the sands of Egypt?
Writing in the ‘Egyptian Connection’, William Dalrymple states “Certainly the early Monks of Britain and Ireland regarded Saint Anthony of Egypt as their ideal and their prototype. One of the earliest known insular Gospel books, the Cuthbert Gospels, is bound and sewn in a specifically coptic manner (Coptic = Largest Christian church in Egypt, according to tradition the church was established by Saint Mark around AD42) which Michelle Brown believes indicates ‘an actual learning/teaching process’ linking Egypt and Northumbria. The same process is hinted at in the Book of Kells, which contains an image of the Virgin suckling the Christ child clearly taken from a Coptic original. The Virgo Lactans (Images showing Mary cradling the baby Jesus – my notes) was a specifically Coptic piece of iconography borrowed from the Pharaonic female of Isis suckling the infant Horus”.(See images below)
Image 1, Is of Horus suckling at his mother Isis
Image 2, Typical image of Jesus suckling from Mary
Image 3, Jesus suckling from his mother from the Book of Kells
“The Irish wheel cross(See image below) the symbol of Celtic Christianity, has recently been shown to have been a Coptic invention, depicted on a Coptic burial pall of the 5th century, three centuries before the design first appears in Scotland or Ireland”. – The Egyptian Connection – William Dalrymple.
“A growing body of evidence suggest that contact between the Meditteranean and early Christian Britain was surprisingly frequent. Egyptian pottery has been found during excavations at Tintagel Castle in Cornwall. The Irish Litany of Saints remebers ‘the seven monks of Egypt (who lived) in Disirt Uilag’ on the west coast of Ireland. Travel guides in early Christian Britain gave accounts of the Egyptian monasteries”.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2008/10/23/the-egyptian-connection/
http://www.africaresource.com/rasta/sesostris-the-great-the-egyptian-hercules/on-the-links-between-ireland-and-egypt-by-sinead/
“The formation of monasticism took place in two stages: first came the solitaries, some but by no means all, of whom were hermits or ‘desert men’: came the formation of coenobia or monastic communities, at first simply groups of disciples gathered round some well-known and revered teacher…. The monastic life of Egypt became famous throughout the whole Christian church, and for a long time Egypt was regarded as the ‘Holy Land’ in preference to Palestine, because there could be seen the multitude of saintly ascetes (people who renounce worldly pleasures and material objects-my note), and Christians came as pilgrims from all parts to see and hear them. In due course monasticism spread abroad and was copied in other lands. As the movement passed westward along the Mediteranean various settlements were founded in some of the islands, the most secluded places available where there were no deserts. There were no deserts in Ireland, but it was the fashion to call the place where a monastery stood a desert, and so we find the term ‘Disert’ or ‘Desert’ in many Irish place names”
We have already seen that Iona is home to a place called Cladh An Disirt. So it seems as though the early Christians revered the ways of the Egyptians and were heavily influenced by there practices. Iona is also home to a number of Hermit cells where Monks will almost certainly have lived, prayed and meditated in seclusion, again possibly influenced by the Egyptians and the Desert Fathers. The article goes on to say;
“The illuminations of the splendid Book of Kells (7th century) are Eastern in character. A Roman origin is impossible, because not a single Italian mss (a hand written document-my note) can be provided older than the 9th century having a close resemblance to those of this country. The illuminations resemble Assyrian or Egyptian work. Much of the Celtic ornamentation is similar to that found in early Syriac, Egyptian and Ethiopic MSS by a resemblance in the delineation of birds and animals to Egyptian fresco painting, in the manner of drawing the wings, in the conventional representation of Eagles, Lions, Calves, also in the the swathed mummy-like figures of Christ. The theory of such an origin is facilitated by the early commercial intercourse which is known to have existed and to which reference has been made, between this country (U.K- my note) and the east, and by the frequent expeditions recorded to have been made by early Christian pilgrims of the Celtic church to the Holy Land, and by the immigration of foreign ecclesiatics.”
“The Rev. John Stirton further says: “No church is known to have existed in Ireland before the Norman Conquest (12th century – my note) that can be called a basilica, none of them being divided up into aisles either by stone or wooden pillars, or possessing an apse, and no circular church has yet been found; there is nothing, in short, that would lead us to believe that Ireland obtained her architecture direct from Rome. Everything, on the contrary, tends to confirm the belief of an intimate connection with the further East. In Greece and Ireland and the Hebrides of Scotland the smallness of the churches is remarkable. They never were in fact basilicas for the assembly of large congregations of worshippers, but oratories, where the priest could celebrate the divine mysteries for the benefit of the laity. The circular domical dwellings – which are older than the churches, and which are, in the western islands, constructed of loose stones, in horizontal layer, approaching one another till they meet at the apex, like the old so called treasuries of the Greeks, or the domes of the Jains in India – are also traceable to the East. Similar Christian architectural remains have been found in Cornwall, and in the remote Highlands and Islands of Scotland….The earliest type of monumental cross in Scotland (brought by the Gaels) is an Egyptian or Coptic wheel cross. It appears on several stones at Kirkmadrine in Wigtonshire, along with the Alpha and Omega (the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet – my note) … The Crux Ansata (the Egyptian Ankh – my note) the emblem of life in Egyptian hieroglyphpics, is found on a stone at Nigg in Ross-shire, and on another at Ardboe, in Ireland which are still unexplained….The Crescent, the Serpent,and the Elephant must all be Eastern in origin, and these are commonly met with on the Celtic symbol-bearing stones”.
“There are still many Celtic monuments in the north of Africa, over many hundreds of miles, and these contend for the existence of an original Celtic people in Egypt, or, in modern language, that the Irish were once in Egypt”.
http://aleteia.org/2016/11/30/irish-worker-discovers-ancient-manuscript-that-links-irish-church-to-egypt/
In 2006 an Irish worker discovered an ancient manuscript, intact even after 1000 years laying in a bog in Fadden More, Ireland. The inside of the leather cover is lined with papyrus, a material that is made from the reeds that grow in Egypt and elsewhere in the Mediterranean.
It is worth noting here that according to some legends the Egyptian Pharaoh Akenhaten who reigned during the 18th Dynasty and died around 1336 – 1334 BC and his Queen Nefertiti had a child called Princess Meritaten, also known as Princess Scota. According to the legend Princess Meritaten fled Egypt during the Exodus with her husband Goidel Glas (sometimes known as Gaythelos and the son of an Scythian Prince who was allegedly one of the 72 builders/designers of the Tower of Babel) and arrived on the shores of Scotland, until they were forced to leave and ended up in Ireland. Goidel Glas is credited by some to be the inventor of the Gaelic language. Whilst in Ireland they formed the Scotti which the Irish people were once known as. After some time they then returned to Scotland to defeat the Picts and gave Scotland it’s name. Pricess Scota, again according to legend, lies at rest in a region of Ireland known a Glenscota.
Author and researcher Laird Scranton has provided strong evidence in his work linking the Ancient Egyptians with the Dogon tribe of Mali in Africa. In his latest work ‘The Mystery of Skara Brae Neolithic Scotland and the Origins of Ancient Egypt’ he goes even further and suggest that the links between the Egyptians and the Dogon may extend even further to the early inhabitants of Skara Brae. In his work on the the Orkney Islands of the coast of Scotland he claims that two distinct Neolithic peoples inhabited Orkney and the nearby megalithic site of Skara Brae and that they spoke two different languages, one called ‘Norn’, which is closely related to Norwegian and the second called Faroese. Faroese is a name taken from the same root as the nearby Faroe Islands and has an unknown origin, but the word ‘Faroe’ has obvious connotations with Egypt and it’s rulers of long ago the Pharaohs. Even the design of the buildings created on Orkney all those years ago and those made by the Dogon today tentatively suggests a common link between the two groups of people, with Laird suggesting that the megalithic structures and houses of Skara Brae and the modern buildings still occupied by the Dogon today are representative in some way to the human anatomy and cosmologically to their own creation myths.
Laird shows that there are links between the Ancient Egyptians and Dogon languages as well as with the Faroese language. The language used by the inhabitants of Orkney can be related to those spoken in Ancient we are able to demonstrate between Faroese words and cosmological words of the Dogon and Egyptians are in keeping with the parallels we have cited between other Egypt and the Dogon people. P35 “The many parallels aspects of Skara Brae and the Orkney Island region. They suggest that the Faroese language was associated with a creation tradition that was fundamentally similar to the system of cosmology we have been pursuing in our stories. They imply in yet another way that the people who founded Skara Brae may have been closely connected to the Ancient Egyptians of 3200BC”.
Laird even hints at these Faroe Island’s once being a home for “ancestor teachers” (a common theme among many ancient cultures in describing how man developed language, agriculture, husbandry etc) who built the megalithic stone works and homes on Orkney and used it as a teaching ground for the inhabitants of that time and initiated them into their teachings, almost like a modern day college or place of study/worship. P102 “To all outward appearances, Orkney Island served as a kind of predynastic (Before the Pharaohs ruled in Egypt – my note) instructional centre, and it’s apparent focus was primarily on agriculture”…….”we might interpret Skara Brae to have been a kind of model for early Egyptian farming culture”.
Orkney Island is thought to have been inhabited since around 3700BC, with farming at the site by around 3100BC. Where the inhabitants came from we do not know, but early accounts from Scandinavian chroniclers suggest that one of the two groups of known inhabitants there dressed in white cloaks and were known as ‘The Papae’. Laird goes on to say that “one local language of Orkney defines the word papi to mean father”. “In Dogon society, the term faro is a title that is given to a tribal chief” – Page 34
The Dogon tribe are still to this day often photographed wearing white robes and I can’t help but think of the Druids who were also prominent in the Scottish isles and were also famous for wearing the white robes.
On page 22 of Laird Scranton’s book ‘The Mystery of Skara Brae Neolithic Scotland and the Origins of Ancient Egypt’ there is the following quote: “Author Alistair Moffatt who has written about recent DNA studies in the region of Scotland, describes it as one of the most diverse nations on Earth”. He found traces of West African, Arabian, South East Asian and Siberian ancestry there.
Conclusions & Speculations
Is it then possible that with what we know and suspect about the Orkney Island region that assuming humanity has a lost episode in it’s history (i.e. the destruction of a former advanced civilazation) some people survived the cataclysm and set out to help others sow the seed of what we now know of as modern man? Did these people often labelled by their students (from various countries and cultures around the world) as ancestor teachers, use their prior knowledge from the former civilazation to guide the people into how to use what they had around them for agricultural, architectural and husbandry skills? Did they help to raise mankind back onto it’s feet? If the fabled cataclysm whatever it was did occur it would seem as though some people already civilized and developed survived along with hunter gatherer types. Was it the more advanced survivors that would go onto educate or teach the hunter gatherer types?
The region’s surrounding the island of Iona are teeming with standing stones and stone works similar to the one’s found at the famous Stonehenge site in England. From what we have learnt it seems quite likely (although far from proven without extensive excavation work) that Iona was once home to standing stones to, whether just as markers for would be pilgrims or as a temple or building of some sort and possibly even both. It would seem equally likely that the stone monuments all shared a common purpose and inspiration for their design, i.e. that someone or some group set out to erect these stones in a specific manner in specific locations the length and breadth of the British Isles for some specific but as of yet, unknown reason. Maybe the stone circles were man’s first attempts at temple’s living within the constraints of the epoch, probably doubling up as being measuring device’s for the stars above us.
Based on the material I have put together for this short piece I believe Iona warrants closer inspection as being an important spot in the search for evidence that could prove to be the ‘smoking gun’ that shows man has a turbulent and more complicated past than what is currently believed and propagated by mainstream education, and that it may be home to as yet unexcavated megalithic treasures. Iona is unquestionably a place of deep intrigue and mystery with an equally mysterious past that seems to have influenced or been influenced by the East deep into antiquity.
Timeline
* Denotes approximate date
10800 BC – 9600 BC – Graham Hancock’s Double Comet Impact Theory
10500 BC – Plato’s date for the destruction of Atlantis in Timaeus
10458 BC -Time given in Phoenix Returns for the fall of Atlantis
10500 – 7000 BC – Gobekli Tepe is built, presumably used, buried then abandoned
8000 BC * – Warren Field Calendar was designed and made- Aberdeenshire
4225 BC * – Storegga Landslide – resulting in Tsunami on Scottish coast
3500 BC *- Supposed time of the Egyptians and Pyramid/Sphinx construction
3200 BC *- Orkney Islands megalithic structure construction
3000 BC * – Stonehenge construction
400 BC – Time of the Druids (it may be much further back in time to)
37 AD – Time of the Culdees
563 AD – Columba arrives on Iona
1200 AD – Construction of modern day Abbey on Iona
Acknowledgments
I just want to say a big thank you to Sheelagh Donnelly for her help and inspiration to write this and for the information she shared with me to make it happen, and all the other author’s and researcher’s I have quoted and used to help me complete this piece.
Finally one cannot rule out the possibility that some of this content and perhaps all of it can be challenged and that the sources I have attained through various means may themselves be mistaken due to any number of reason.