Pliny thought that the name "Druid" was a Greek appellation derived from the Druidic cult of the oak ([Greek: _drus_]).[1002] The word, however, is purely Celtic, and its meaning probably implies that, like the
sorcerer and medicine-man everywhere, the Druid was regarded as "the knowing one." It is composed of two parts--_dru_-, regarded by M. D'Arbois as an intensive, and _vids_, from _vid_, "to know," or
"see."[1003] Hence the Druid was "the very knowing or wise one." It is possible, however, that _dru_- is connected with the root which gives the word "oak" in Celtic speech--Gaulish _deruo_, Irish _dair_, Welsh _derw_--and that the oak, occupying a place in the cult, was thus
brought into relation with the name of the priesthood. The Gaulish form of the name was probably _druis_, the Old Irish was _drai_. The modern forms in Irish and Scots Gaelic, _drui_ and _draoi_ mean "sorcerer." M. D'Arbois and others, accepting C sar's dictum that "the system (of� Druidism) is thought to have been devised in Britain, and brought thence into Gaul," maintain that the Druids were priests of the Goidels in Britain, who imposed themselves upon the Gaulish conquerors of the Goidels, and that Druidism then passed over into Gaul about 200 B.C.[1004] But it is hardly likely that, even if the Druids were accepted as priests by conquering Gauls in Britain, they should have affected the Gauls of Gaul who were outside the reflex influence of the conquered Goidels, and should have there obtained that power which they possessed. Goidels and Gauls were allied by race and language and
religion, and it would be strange if they did not both possess a similar priesthood. Moreover, the Goidels had been a continental people, and Druidism was presumably flourishing among them then. Why did it not influence kindred Celtic tribes without Druids, _ex hypothesi_, at that time? Further, if we accept Professor Meyer's theory that no Goidel set foot in Britain until the second century A.D., the Gauls could not have received the Druidic priesthood from the Goidels.
C sar merely says, "it is thought (_existimatur_) that Druidism came to� Gaul from Britain."[1005] It was a pious opinion, perhaps his own, or one based on the fact that those who wished to perfect themselves in Druidic art went to Britain. This may have been because Britain had been less open to foreign influences than Gaul, and its Druids, unaffected by these, were thought to be more powerful than those of Gaul. Pliny, on the other hand, seems to think that Druidism passed over into Britain from Gaul.[1006]
Other writers--Sir John Rh[^y]s, Sir G.L. Gomme, and M. Reinach--support on different grounds the theory that the Druids were a pre-Celtic
priesthood, accepted by the Celtic conquerors. Sir John Rh[^y]s thinks that the Druidism of the aborigines of Gaul and Britain made terms with the Celtic conquerors. It was accepted by the Goidels, but not by the Brythons. Hence in Britain there were Brythons without Druids,
aborigines under the sway of Druidism, and Goidels who combined Aryan polytheism with Druidism. Druidism was also the religion of the
aborigines from the Baltic to Gibraltar, and was accepted by the
Gauls.[1007] But if so, it is difficult to see why the Brythons, akin to them, did not accept it. Our knowledge of Brythonic religion is too scanty for us to prove that the Druids had or had not sway over them, but the presumption is that they had. Nor is there any historical evidence to show that the Druids were originally a non-Celtic priesthood. Everywhere they appear as the supreme and dominant
hardly have obtained such power over the conquerors. The relation of the Celts to the Druids is quite different from that of conquerors, who occasionally resort to the medicine-men of the conquered folk because they have stronger magic or greater influence with the autochthonous gods. The Celts did not resort to the Druids occasionally; _ex
hypothesi_ they accepted them completely, were dominated by them in every department of life, while their own priests, if they had any, accepted this order of things without a murmur. All this is incredible. The picture drawn by C sar, Strabo, and others of the Druids and their� position among the Celts as judges, choosers of tribal chiefs and kings, teachers, as well as ministers of religion, suggests rather that they were a native Celtic priesthood, long established among the people. Sir G.L. Gomme supports the theory that the Druids were a pre-Celtic priesthood, because, in his opinion, much of their belief in magic as well as their use of human sacrifice and the redemption of one life by another, is opposed to "Aryan sentiment." Equally opposed to this are their functions of settling controversies, judging, settling the succession to property, and arranging boundaries. These views are supported by a comparison of the position of the Druids relatively to the Celts with that of non-Aryan persons in India who render occasional priestly services to Hindu village communities.[1008] Whether this comparison of occasional Hindu custom with Celtic usage two thousand years ago is just, may be questioned. As already seen, it was no mere occasional service which the Druids rendered to the Celts, and it is this which makes it difficult to credit this theory. Had the Celtic house-father been priest and judge in his own clan, would he so readily have surrendered his rights to a foreign and conquered priesthood? On the other hand, kings and chiefs among the Celts probably retained some priestly functions, derived from the time when the offices of the
priest-king had not been differentiated. C sar's evidence certainly does� not support the idea that "it is only among the rudest of the so-called Celtic tribes that we find this superimposing of an apparently official priesthood." According to him, the power of the Druids was universal in Gaul, and had their position really corresponded to that of the pariah priests of India, occasional priests of Hindu villages, the determined hostility of the Roman power to them because they wielded such an enormous influence over Celtic thought and life, is inexplainable. If, further, Aryan sentiment was so opposed to Druidic customs, why did Aryan Celts so readily accept the Druids? In this case the receiver is as bad as the thief. Sir G.L. Gomme clings to the belief that the Aryans were people of a comparatively high civilisation, who had discarded, if they ever possessed, a savage "past." But old beliefs and customs still survive through growing civilisation, and if the views of Professor Sergi and others are correct, the Aryans were even less civilised than the peoples whom they conquered.[1009] Shape-shifting, magic, human sacrifice, priestly domination, were as much Aryan as non-Aryan, and if the Celts had a comparatively pure religion, why did they so soon allow it to be defiled by the puerile superstitions of the Druids?
M. Reinach, as we have seen, thinks that the Celts had no images, because these were prohibited by their priests. This prohibition was pre-Celtic in Gaul, since there are no Neolithic images, though there are great megalithic structures, suggesting the existence of a great religious aristocracy. This aristocracy imposed itself on the
Celts.[1010] We have seen that there is no reason for believing that the Celts had no images, hence this argument is valueless. M. Reinach then argues that the Celts accepted Druidism _en bloc_, as the Romans
accepted Oriental cults and the Greeks the native Pelasgic cults. But neither Romans nor Greeks abandoned their own faith. Were the Celts a people without priests and without religion? We know that they must have accepted many local cults, but that they adopted the whole aboriginal faith and its priests _en bloc_ is not credible. M. Reinach also holds that when the Celts appear in history Druidism was in its decline; the Celt, or at least the military caste among the Celts, was reasserting itself. But the Druids do not appear as a declining body in the pages of C sar, and their power was still supreme, to judge by the hostility of� the Roman Government to them. If the military caste rebelled against them, this does not prove that they were a foreign body. Such a strife is seen wherever priest and soldier form separate castes, each desiring to rule, as in Egypt.
Other writers argue that we do not find Druids existing in the Danube region, in Cisalpine territory, nor in Transalpine Gaul, "outside the limits of the region occupied by the Celt ."[1011] This could only have� weight if any of the classical writers had composed a formal treatise on the Druids, showing exactly the regions where they existed. They merely describe Druidism as a general Celtic institution, or as they knew it in Gaul or Britain, and few of them have any personal knowledge of it. There is no reason to believe that Druids did not exist wherever there were Celts. The Druids and Semnotheoi of the Celts and Galat referred� to _c._ 200 B.C. were apparently priests of other Celts than those of Gaul, and Celtic groups of Cisalpine Gaul had priests, though these are not formally styled Druids.[1012] The argument _ex silentio_ is here of little value, since the references to the Druids are so brief, and it tells equally against their non-Celtic origin, since we do not hear of Druids in Aquitania, a non-Celtic region.[1013]
The theory of the non-Celtic origin of the Druids assumes that the Celts had no priests, or that these were effaced by the Druids. The Celts had priests called _gutuatri_ attached to certain temples, their name
perhaps meaning "the speakers," those who spoke to the gods.[1014] The functions of the Druids were much more general, according to this theory, hence M. D'Arbois supposes that, before their intrusion, the Celts had no other priests than the _gutuatri_.[1015] But the
probability is that they were a Druidic class, ministers of local sanctuaries, and related to the Druids as the Levites were to the priests of Israel, since the Druids were a composite priesthood with a variety of functions. If the priests and servants of Belenos, described by Ausonius and called by him _oedituus Beleni_, were _gutuatri_, then the latter must have been connected with the Druids, since he says they were of Druidic stock.[1016] Lucan's "priest of the grove" may have been a _gutuatros_, and the priests (_sacerdotes_) and other ministers
(_antistites_) of the Boii may have been Druids properly so called and _gutuatri_.[1017] Another class of temple servants may have existed. Names beginning with the name of a god and ending in _gnatos_,
"accustomed to," "beloved of," occur in inscriptions, and may denote persons consecrated from their youth to the service of a grove or temple. On the other hand, the names may mean no more than that those bearing them were devoted to the cult of one particular god.
Our supposition that the _gutuatri_ were a class of Druids is supported by classical evidence, which tends to show that the Druids were a great inclusive priesthood with different classes possessing different
functions--priestly, prophetic, magical, medical, legal, and poetical. C sar attributes these to the Druids as a whole, but in other writers�
they are in part at least in the hands of different classes. Diodorus refers to the Celtic philosophers and theologians (Druids), diviners, and bards, as do also Strabo and Timagenes, Strabo giving the Greek form of the native name for the diviners, [Greek: ouateis], the Celtic form being probably _v tis_ (Irish, _f ith_).[1018] These may have been also� � poets, since _v tis_ means both singer and poet; but in all three�
writers the bards are a fairly distinct class, who sing the deeds of famous men (so Timagenes). Druid and diviner were also closely
connected, since the Druids studied nature and moral philosophy, and the diviners were also students of nature, according to Strabo and
Timagenes. No sacrifice was complete without a Druid, say Diodorus and Strabo, but both speak of the diviners as concerned with sacrifice. Druids also prophesied as well as diviners, according to Cicero and Tacitus.[1019] Finally, Lucan mentions only Druids and bards.[1020] Diviners were thus probably a Druidic sub-class, standing midway between the Druids proper and the bards, and partaking of some of the functions of both. Pliny speaks of "Druids and this race of prophets and
doctors,"[1021] and this suggests that some were priests, some diviners, while some practised an empiric medical science.
On the whole this agrees with what is met with in Ireland, where the Druids, though appearing in the texts mainly as magicians, were also priests and teachers. Side by side with them were the _Filid_, "learned poets,"[1022] composing according to strict rules of art, and higher than the third class, the Bards. The _Filid_, who may also have been known as _F thi_, "prophets,"[1023] were also diviners according to� strict rules of augury, while some of these auguries implied a
sacrifice. The Druids were also diviners and prophets. When the Druids were overthrown at the coming of Christianity, the _Filid_ remained as a learned class, probably because they had abandoned all pagan practices, while the Bards were reduced to a comparatively low status. M. D'Arbois supposes that there was rivalry between the Druids and the _Filid_, who made common cause with the Christian missionaries, but this is not supported by evidence. The three classes in Gaul--Druids, _Vates_, and Bards--thus correspond to the three classes in Ireland--Druids, _F thi_� or _Filid_, and Bards.[1024]
We may thus conclude that the Druids were a purely Celtic priesthood, belonging both to the Goidelic and Gaulish branches of the Celts. The idea that they were not Celtic is sometimes connected with the
supposition that Druidism was something superadded to Celtic religion from without, or that Celtic polytheism was not part of the creed of the Druids, but sanctioned by them, while they had a definite theological system with only a few gods.[1025] These are the ideas of writers who see in the Druids an occult and esoteric priesthood. The Druids had grown up _pari passu_ with the growth of the native religion and magic. Where they had become more civilised, as in the south of Gaul, they may have given up many magical practices, but as a class they were addicted to magic, and must have taken part in local cults as well as in those of the greater gods. That they were a philosophic priesthood advocating a pure religion among polytheists is a baseless theory. Druidism was not a formal system outside Celtic religion. It covered the whole ground of Celtic religion; in other words, it was that religion itself.
The Druids are first referred to by pseudo-Aristotle and Sotion in the second century B.C., the reference being preserved by Diogenes Laertius: "There are among the Celt and Galat those called Druids and� �
two classes of priests, or, again, the Druids may have been Celtic, and the Semnotheoi Galatic (? Galatian) priests. C sar's account comes next� in time. Later writers gives the Druids a lofty place and speak vaguely of the Druidic philosophy and science. C sar also refers to their�
science, but both he and Strabo speak of their human sacrifices. Suetonius describes their religion as cruel and savage, and Mela, who speaks of their learning, regards their human sacrifices as
savagery.[1027] Pliny says nothing of the Druids as philosophers, but hints at their priestly functions, and connects them with magico-medical rites.[1028] These divergent opinions are difficult to account for. But as the Romans gained closer acquaintance with the Druids, they found less philosophy and more superstition among them. For their cruel rites and hostility to Rome, they sought to suppress them, but this they never would have done had the Druids been esoteric philosophers. It has been thought that Pliny's phrase, "Druids and that race of prophets and doctors," signifies that, through Roman persecution, the Druids were reduced to a kind of medicine-men.[1029] But the phrase rather describes the varied functions of the Druids, as has been seen, nor does it refer to the state to which the repressive edict reduced them, but to that in which it found them. Pliny's information was also limited.
The vague idea that the Druids were philosophers was repeated parrot-like by writer after writer, who regarded barbaric races as Rousseau and his school looked upon the "noble savage." Roman writers, sceptical of a future life, were fascinated by the idea of a barbaric priesthood teaching the doctrine of immortality in the wilds of Gaul. For this teaching the poet Lucan sang their praises. The Druids probably first impressed Greek and Latin observers by their magic, their
organisation, and the fact that, like many barbaric priesthoods, but unlike those of Greece and Rome, they taught certain doctrines. Their knowledge was divinely conveyed to them; "they speak the language of the gods;"[1030] hence it was easy to read anything into this teaching. Thus the Druidic legend rapidly grew. On the other hand, modern writers have perhaps exaggerated the force of the classical evidence. When we read of Druidic associations we need not regard these as higher than the
organised priesthoods of barbarians. Their doctrine of metempsychosis, if it was really taught, involved no ethical content as in
Pythagoreanism. Their astronomy was probably astrological[1031]; their knowledge of nature a series of cosmogonic myths and speculations. If a true Druidic philosophy and science had existed, it is strange that it is always mentioned vaguely and that it exerted no influence upon the thought of the time.
Classical sentiment also found a connection between the Druidic and Pythagorean systems, the Druids being regarded as conforming to the doctrines and rules of the Greek philosopher.[1032] It is not improbable that some Pythagorean doctrines may have reached Gaul, but when we
examine the point at which the two systems were supposed to meet, namely, the doctrine of metempsychosis and immortality, upon which the whole idea of this relationship was founded, there is no real
resemblance. There are Celtic myths regarding the rebirth of gods and heroes, but the eschatological teaching was apparently this, that the soul was clothed with a body in the other-world. There was no doctrine of a series of rebirths on this earth as a punishment for sin. The Druidic teaching of a bodily immortality was mistakenly assumed to be