The Celtic druids / By Godfrey Higgins.

  • Godfrey Higgins
Date:
1827
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Celtic druids / By Godfrey Higgins. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    529/536 page 313
    rounding him, some of which grew more luxuriantly than others; and that, having invented an arbitrary mark for such a number, he should give it the name of the tree which stood for it; and thus, having formed a numerical alphabet, these numerals at length became letters, as I have shewn in the preceding pages, still bearing their original names.” * Chap. VI. Sect. xxx.—Respecting the feasibility of the migration of the fleeing Canaanites, I am tempted to submit a few additional observations. I beg my reader to look at the map and consider that the climate of the country through which they had to pass, even to Corunna, was so mild, that they would scarcely suffer from lodging on the ground in the open air, even in winter. The inhabitants were, most certainly, their countrymen, or persons in the strictest friendship and alliance with them, in the war against the shepherd tribe, which, under Joshua, had driven them from their country and reduced it to slavery. There is no equally ancient fact in history better established (independently of all religious considerations) than that of the invasion of Palestine by the Arabian tribe under Joshua. The ships to accompany the migrators, would never have to go out of sight of land till they got to Corunna; so that very poor, ill-built boats would be suffi- cient for their purpose. Some of them might migrate in a large body from Palestine, as the Israelites migrated into it: others might go off by degrees to avoid the iconoclastic persecutions of the Israelites, who had become their masters, and who evidently wished to get quit of the natives. If the old Grecian histories may be credited, nothing was more common than for the whole of the natives of a conquered country to migrate. Upon considering all the circumstances, I think most people will agree with me, that there is no extensive migration on record which would have been more easy than this, as far as Corunna. The route which they would follow a great part of the way was the beaten track which the Carthaginians followed in their intercourse with Spain,— the road which Hannibal used when he invaded Italy. The columns which Procopius says were set up, might either have been a religious memorial, or they might have been Pharoses, like that at Corunna,f to guide them in their passing and repassing of the Strait of Gibraltar; as there must no doubt have been a great intercourse between those stopping at Tangiers, and those proceeding into Spain. There is nothing against the evidence of Procopius, except that, if he were a Christian, he might invent the story to support his religion. But there is every reason to believe that he was not a Christian. And this was the opinion of Mr. Gibbon, who under these circumstances is a very strong authority indeed. But he must have seen that the style of the story is evidently pagan. The allusion to Hercules, &c., would never come from a Christian. If this be admitted, it is the evidence of an unwilling witness, and is unimpeachable. It is not wonderful that the Canaanites should have desired to get to the British isles, as they would have been well acquainted with them from their countrymen, the Pelasgi, who must have constantly visited them long before this time. The philosophical probability is, that the passage of Procopius is genuine, and the story true. The identity of the Gods of the Canaanites, and of those of the British isles, gives strong additional weight to the evidence of Procopius. The worship of the Bull in Taurus might be brought by the first Celtse, and the Gods Moloch, Baal, &c., by the fleeing Canaanites. It is probable that, from a very early period to the destruction of Carthage, a constant communication was kept up between Britain and the East, by the pillar of Hercules, as it is called by Orosius, at Corunna, and thence along the coast of Spain and Africa. 2 r
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