Activities:
Plays: Bridget, Pagan Goddess or Christian Saint?
Bridget: Pagan Goddess or Christian Saint?
Group Size: congregation
Ages: YRUU-adult
When or where to use activity: for a worship service in place of a sermon, particularly around late January, early February or any time....
Materials needed: For the altar, some artifacts which are described in the text
Description:
Bridget: Pagan Goddess or Christian Saint? A Playlet in One Act, by Theadora Davitt-Cornyn, Jo Gerrard and Yasmine Gruen
Moderator: In the distant long ago, when religion was never thought of as a separate entity, but was simply the way people lived their lives, goddess religions were a natural evolution of living close to the earth, in tune with nature's rhythms, in harmony with the natural environment, in awe of nature's wrath, and in gratitude for her favors. Fertility and survival seemed to be the two most urgent preoccupations, so the goddess would be invoked and appealed to for these purposes. Women often played a major role in these ancient religions - sadly, now, in contrast to the misogyny found in later faiths.
Christianity was another evolution along the way, incorporating what we in modern times call pagan religions - sometimes brutally stamping them out as heresies (as was done in the New World), at other times merely absorbing them in painless take-overs such as occurred in Ireland shortly after the arrival of Patrick in 432 CE, as indigenous beliefs were incorporated into Christian theology. The case of Bridget is one of these examples.
(Pope) Gregory (the Great)'s instructions indicate that Christian missionaries were ideally to change beliefs with as little dislocation of popular practice as possible. This policy of adaptation proved to be wise from the point of view of the church because, for the most part, people hold on to cultic practices-- that is, to what they feel obliged to do by virtue of their relations to transcendent powers. Cultic practice is inevitably more lasting than belief, the latter being a culture's speculative or mythological articulation of its relation to the divine. If the missionaries could uproot what they considered to be the essential beliefs of paganism, they were willing to overlook the accidentals of the modes of worship until the practices could be Christianized over time. As long as this kind of policy governed missionary activities, the old worship left many traces in medieval Christianity.
Webster's 1962 Unabridged Dictionary defines pagan as: civilian, country-dweller; follower of a polytheistic religion; one who has little or no religion; or who is marked by a frank delight in and uninhibited seeking after sensual pleasures and material goods. It also defines pagan (this is my personal favorite!) as one who prefers a well-ordered dinner to a dissertation on the immortality of the soul.
How many of you might have realized that in its early beginnings, Christianity was considered a cult by its contemporaries?
From Paganism and Christianity 100-425 CE: "The appearance of cults far from their original home is a prominent feature of life (for) the first four centuries of the Common Era. But of brand new religions, there are only a very limited number - chief among them is Christianity."
And from Backgrounds of Early Christianity: Christianity in the Ancient World : What about pagan views of Christianity in the olden days? The well-known Roman historian Pliny found Christianity to be only a "perverse and extravagant superstition."
pause
Moderator continues
Today we bring you a story of transition - how one well-loved pagan goddess was transformed into a well-respected Christian saint, and subsequently was yet to become removed from that hallowed classification. This sort of thing happened often in the early days of the church, as the decision was made by early leaders to adapt and adopt much of whatever the local pagan practices were into the Christian way. It was considered a less disruptive method, and was more likely to have a more successful outcome than forcing the natives to lose their former allegiances, and to conform.
Curiously, in Ireland, vestiges can still be found of pagan influence: holy wells - which are simply deep pools of fresh water in roundish openings surrounded by the wild grasses of uncultivated fields - (not anything at all like what we visualize when we think of wishing wells) and clafouties - which are shreds of cloth torn from a hem to make an offering tied onto a branch of a shrub near a holy well - and other rituals often not spoken of openly, such as in October 1994, when I returned to Ireland for a family wedding after all the tourists had gone home. A cousin's daughter was being married. My cousin's wife and I had been having a lively discussion about Unitarianism, which she referred to as a cult.
Now, in their big farmhouse kitchen window, this woman always had a very large, conspicuous, Roman Catholic statue of the Infant of Prague, a stylized figure of a youthful Jesus clad in an ermine-trimmed red robe, with an elaborate golden crown upon his childish head. On this visit the statue was quite noticeable by its absence. When I inquired where it was, the mother ran from the room with her hand clapped over her mouth and one of the daughters explained: "Oh, it's out in the garden under a shrub, for good weather on the wedding day tomorrow." Now, that's an ancient pagan belief, but the mother was too embarrassed to let on, as the modern Roman Catholic church in Ireland would frown on any display of such heathenish behavior!
Since we have no one else today who can speak for the pre-Christian inhabitants of Ireland in the days of Druids, Firbolgs, and Formorians, perhaps we can ask our guests to introduce themselves.
Moderator: (turning to Goddess Bridget) Would you like to start us off?
Goddess: Thank you. I have been called Brighid or Bride, or Brig, and I am a triune goddess from pagan Ireland-triune meaning I have three aspects: Maiden, Mother, and Crone. As Maiden I am inspiration and poetry, as Mother I am a midwife and a healer, and as Crone I am responsible for hearth fires, smithies and crafts. I have brought some of my symbols: here you see the lighted brazier representing my fire aspect, a pitcher and chalice for my association with water and healing, some corn and a Brigit's cross for my fertility and earth aspects, a wolf, snake, swan and vulture -- though I did not bring my sacred cow- and a shining mirror to the other world, one of my talismans.
Additionally, my association with smithcraft makes me a warrior goddess, and as such I wield a spear and arrow. Imbolc, February second, is my sacred day, and on this day the fires were tended with care and fueled with special woods, including a rowan rod that was placed in the heart of the fire. If such a fire pleased me, in the morning the household might find my mark in the shape of a goose or swan's footprint near the hearth, and such a family would find themselves blessed in the coming year, generally with exceptional fertility in lambs, crops and even human children.
Let me read a brief section from The Goddess Obscured:
Saint Brigid shows an incredible likeness to the Celtic Goddess from whom she takes her name, Brigid, the great guardian of fertility and the land. Though by the Middle Ages [I] was primarily associated with poetry, healing, and artisanship, etymology and scraps of mythology establish [me] as having been primarily a matriarchal deity. Like most Celtic goddesses, [I] was intimately connected with topography, particularly with sacred waters and wells. Prayers and sacrifices would have been offered to [me] (and other topographical goddesses), though the druidic liturgy and oral formulas were not set down by the medieval monks who recorded the mythology. Instead, they recast [my] legends and perhaps even some of [my] ritual (such as processions and pilgrimages) in a manner acceptable to the church.
Moderator: (turning to Saint Brigit) Then you also have an association with Imbolc...
Saint: Yes, I do. Folk culture preserved the links between [me] and [my] pagan forerunner. The folk traditions surrounding Imbolc highlight these affinities. Straw and grain from the previous harvest are central to Saint Brigid's Day celebrations. Until modern times, on Imbolc/Saint Brigid's Day, a small quantity of specially preserved seed grain was mingled with the first crop to be sown. The straw or stalks of the grain seed were blessed with holy water, hung up in houses, or set in the thatch of cottages. A sheaf of oats, a cake of bread, or a dish of porridge was placed on the doorstep the night of Saint Brigid's Day as a grain offering to [me], [as I] was believed to be abroad. Other cakes were placed outside the window to provision a hungry traveler.
Additionally, when I was a saint, official Christian -later Catholic- doctrine limited me to the patroness of Ireland in conjunction with Saint Patrick, and the patroness of dairy workers. One of the many legends about my tenure at the convent I founded in Cil-Dara is that my cattle could produce enough milk to fill a lake; one churning could fill several baskets with butter. The Christians did keep my festival very close to Imbolc; they moved it back one day to the first of February, but (shrugs) that may have been because the old festivals were often celebrated starting the night before, as the Goddess has mentioned.
Here, let me read my entry from The Lives of the Saints, which is official Catholic Doctrine as published in the mid-1950s
(gets up to point out significant locations on map of Ireland as speaking)
[I am] known as the second Patron of Ireland and "the Mary of the Gael." Born in County Louth near Dundalk about 450 CE, [I] showed signs of sanctity from [my] youth. According to a legend, [I] asked God to take away [my] beauty in order to escape marriage and pursue [my] religious vocation. And when [I] received the veil from St. Mel, [my] beauty which had given way to deformity returned.
[I] founded the first convent in Ireland at "Cil-Dara" (church of the oak), now County Kildare, over which [I] presided many years. [I] also established communities in other parts of Ireland, and by [my] prayers and miracles exercised a potent influence on the growth of the early Irish Church.
[I] was generous and joyful, vehement and energetic. [My] one desire was to aid the poor and needy and relieve those in distress. One of [my] friends once brought [me] a basket of choice apples and saw [me] distribute them to the crowd of sick people thronging about [me]. The friend could not refrain from exclaiming: "They were for you, not for them." [I] simply said, "What is mine is theirs." [I] died in 523 and was buried in Downpatrick in the same graveyard as Sts. Patrick and Columba.
Moderator: I see. You said when you were a saint?
(Goddess and Saint both nod)
Saint: Yes, that's right. Since I had fulfilled my purpose in helping Saint Patrick to convert Ireland over to Christianity it was determined that I was no longer necessary, and since there was "no proof that I had even existed" I was decanonized in the 1960s in the wake of Vatican II.
Goddess: Not that it was very surprising that the Vatican would make that decision: after all, when they took over my stories it was only because I was a popular and well-loved Goddess among the people, and many Irish Catholics still venerate (gesturing to the saint) her - us - me - as a Saint. They even re-lighted my sacred flame in Cil-Dara not once but twice. Once in the 1500's, and once again in 1993.
Moderator: (to the Saint) So you don't claim any existence of your own?
Saint: Good heavens, no! [My] associations with the grain plant and the seed must predate the Celts' conversion to Christianity. Customs connecting [me] with tillage and sowing at Imbolc surely reflect the linkage between [me] and the Celtic goddess from whom [I] got [my] name. The etymology of the word Imbolc, the agrarian customs and activities associated with it, and its date in the agricultural year all suggest that a pagan tilling and sowing ceremonial was transformed into the Feast of Saint Brigid, and that the pagan mother goddess, whose symbolic "belly" or "womb" was envisioned as producing the season's crop, was superseded by the Christian saint who, until modern times, was honored at Imbolc/Saint Brigid's Day with baked grain cakes and stalks of grain.
Not only that, but look at the similarities of the stories that are told about the two of us, considering that the Goddess' stories came long before mine.
Goddess: For example, it is said that I was born at sunrise, and that when I was born a tower of flame that reached from the earth to heaven burst from my forehead.
Saint: And, for my part, when I traveled to the nunnery at Telcha Mide to take the veil with a group of virgins I held back from Bishop Mel, at which time a pillar of fire rose from my head to the roof of the church, prompting him to call me forward to be the first to take the veil. Not only that, but he read over me the form of ordaining a bishop - which did get him in trouble, though he claimed it was given to me not by himself but by God. Since I had been ordained as a Bishop, I could appoint other bishops, and all those bishops I appointed were goldsmiths.
Goddess: Which leads back to me - as goddess of smithies and crafts goldsmiths were certainly under my care. And then there is the matter of the sacred flame, as well.
Moderator: How so?
Goddess: Well, my sacred flame at Cil-Dara was tended by nineteen virgin priestesses, who were called Daughters of the Flame - meaning me, of course. Each girl represented one year of the Celtic "Great Year," and for the twentieth year, no one tended the fire and yet it continued to burn. No male was ever allowed near my flame, nor my priestesses. And when Christianity took over...
Saint: ...It was said that I began a convent at Cil-Dara - the first in Ireland - and that the fire was tended by myself and nineteen other girls. And, no male was ever allowed to enter the convent, which led one bishop to supposedly issue an ultimatum - that we would accept a male protector and overseer, but I refused. (grins at Goddess, who grins back) Sounding familiar? Not only that, but when I died, each surviving nun took care of the fire - one each for nineteen days - and on the twentieth day the fire was left alone and miraculously continued to burn, and it was said that I tended it. There's also the matter of the Goddess Brigit's two-faced Nature.
Goddess: (Shrugging) I only think that's significant because of the number of myths that are told about you and how God removed your beauty until you took the veil - either because you had asked Him to or because of some accident that occurred. I rather think that it's a flimsy association, though, since half my face being dark and ugly and the other half being white and beautiful probably had more to do with the traditional association of women with the moon.
Saint: (nodding) Probably.
Goddess: Let us not forget, though, that we are both associated with childbirth. I was said to attend every birth, and there are some legends that associate you with the birth of Christ.
Saint: (frowning) That's one of the stranger myths about me, though, since I supposedly was a contemporary of Saint Patrick - he's supposed to have baptized my father and mother - and I'm also supposed to have founded the convent at Cil-Dara, which happened in the third century CE - and my birthdate according to official Catholic doctrine, I remind you, wasn't until 490!
Moderator: (to the two women) Curious. Well, m'ladies, thank you very much for your insights today.
(turning to congregation)
It has been said that religion is the universal human response to the twin conditions of the awareness of being alive, and having to die. Those are but two stories of human understanding and grappling with these essential elements of human existential pain.
Where we find ourselves today is on the threshold of another advancement, into what could be called a post-Christian era... reuniting us with our original pagan roots, so that we might incorporate them into our understanding of human progress from those times of superstition, due to lack of scientific awareness, to today, all the while while bringing back the valuable essences of primal earth-centered connectedness and interdependence, hopefully in time for religion to have a more positive impact on our planetary and spiritual health.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
First performed as a California Lutheran University "Women in Religion" class assignment, and later at the Conejo Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 1000 Oaks, California on 28 January, 2001. May be reproduced and presented with permission and attribution, of course.
