Celtic Christianity was Polygamous

[rockfox]

You've probably heard of Celtic Christianity, from time to time it becomes trendy. At the very least you've probably seen artistic fruits of that stream of Christianity...

But what you probably didn't know was this Christian tradition supported polygyny!

h/t to @Frank S for the first two links that got me going on this exploration.

I always hear Europeans cast as being monogamous and monogamy as a key part of Western Civilization. It turns out, neither of these is true.

To start, pre-Catholic law Celtic peoples of the British Isles were polygynous...

The historian, Rodulfus Glaber, was a monk at Cluny in eastern France, who died c. 1046. He approved of the Norman dukes and seems to have accepted the transmission of their office through 'concubines' which he defends by Old Testament precedence and that of the illegitimate birth of Constantine the Great [Rodulfi Glabri Hustorium libri quinque, tr. John France, Oxford Medieval Texts, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1989, pp. lvii, 164-5, 204-5]. This is in general disagreement, however, with the Cannon Law of the church.

In Ireland, Brehon Law allows polygyny (albeit while citing the authority of the Old Testament) and other actions which Canon Law expressly forbid [D.A.Binchy, Introduction in Corpus Iuris Hibernici, p. ix]. Brehon Law was effectively outlawed by the Statutes of Kilkenny in 1367 and the policy of Surrender and Regrant. [we'll later see it continued on until 1600]

Welsh Law usually applied in the Welsh Marches as well as areas ruled by Welsh princes. In a dispute, for example, between Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn and Roger Mortimer, Gruffydd wanted to apply English Law but, in 1281, the royal justices upheld Roger Mortimer's wish that Welsh Law should apply as the lands concerned lay in Wales. In Welsh property Law, illegitimate sons were entitled to an equal share with the legitimate sons, provided they had been acknowledged by the father. This was the provision which differed most from Canon law. The recognition of polygyny in Wales may have been drawing to a close in the 13th century; but there was still recognition of the rights of the male offspring of such relationships.

That covers the Celtic and Frankish peoples. And we know the Viking peoples (North Germanics) were. So that accounts for all largest and most influential people groups of northern Europe and beyond (given the Normans settled as far as Italy in Siciliy and Lombardi).

At this point, that covers a great deal of the Germanic peoples. Yet all I've ever heard was that, save the Vikings, they were monogamous (citing Roman historians).

We see also in this article on Gaelic Society that polygamy was an accepted part of their society and law...

Polygamy

Polygamy was acceptable under the Brehon laws (of course for those who could afford its attendant responsibilities), but the first wife remained the most important. The mark of a man of standing was that he had a “cétmuintir” or chief wife. Her honour price was half his, while in the case of an additional wife or “dormuine” or “bean carrthach” (literally love woman) it was one quarter of the husband’s honour price. The Brehon legislation encompassed rights in ten different types of relationships, extending even to deception and force.

The Brehon laws recognised that variations could arise in the affections of men and women towards each other and they legislated for these rather than simply condemning them as illegal. Those who could afford more than one wife were legally entitled to do so, which of course was not in line with the Christian Church’s ideas on the matter. The acceptance of polygamy meant that the number of descendants of chieftains could rapidly reach major proportions over time. The Norman system of primogeniture was alien to the system, as it would rule out offspring from multiple wives from succession to chieftainship, in a manner in which Irish custom did not

So chief woman and love woman. "Love woman" is a good summation of the deep roots of the word concubine in various ancient languages. Interesting how that same association has come about in radically different cultures. You can tell from this language alone that the first wife was often married for status/power reasons. Although it could also be a reflection of what naturally happens to some extent when you add a much younger woman.

Lack of Illegitimacy Concept

In his book “Sex and Marriage in Ancient Ireland”, Patrick C.Power points out that the Brehon laws humanely legislated for all children, irrespective of the circumstances of their conception and their rights were recognised. The laws were not framed for the notion of a single lawful marriage, only the issue of which could be deemed legitimate. Basically, the notion of “illegitimacy” was foreign to the Brehon laws and children were not narrowly branded as under Norman law. Moreover, given the acceptability of polygamy, the lack of illegitimacy was a logical outcome. In fact, the paternity of a child was recognised on the sole basis of a mother’s claim. One example in the sixteenth century is that of the origin of Matthew “the Baron” O’Neill of Dungannon, who grew up as a boy named Kelly in Dundalk until his mother claimed that his father was “the O’Neill”. This was accepted by O’Neill and Matthew eventually succeeded to the chieftainship.

This lack of the concept of illegitimacy was later to come into conflict with Norman ideas, notably in the case of the Caomhánach lineage. Of course the Normans were happy to use the idea of illegitimacy when it suited them and ignore it when it did not. William the Conqueror was not a “legitimate” son under Norman law and neither were some of the leading initial Norman invaders of Ireland.

This never dawned on me, but illegitamcy / bastards are a necessary result of monogamy. It also denigrates the father and his power as some of his sons can be made to have lower social standing. Not to mention whatever social ills result from this artificial designation. Really, it shows a level of matriarchy inherent in monogamy: legitimacy is confered from the mother and her status.

One of the more illuminating hints in that article is this..

Polygamy was permitted under the Brehon laws and persisted right up to the 1600s.

It only ended at that time because monogamous England finally conquered all of the Island.

While Christianization in Ireland started in the 400's it wasn't complete until about 800. But that is still 800 years of Christian polygamy.

And these weren't backwater Christians either. Some say the Irish Christians saved Western Civilization. They preserved the Roman/Greek learning during Europe's darkest days, had access to many early writings of the church fathers, and were instrumental in spreading Christianity in the British Isles and Europe.

In other words, polygamy wasn't contrary to Western Civilization, it was a polygamous society that had an instrumental role in saving it!

Now of course I wondered, where the Christians polygynous or was it just pagan holdouts? Enter this...

Up until the Norman Invasion, there is a wealth of information in the saints lives to substantiate the theory that among the wealthy aristocrats in early Christian Ireland, polygyny (a form of marriage in which a man has two or more wives at the same time) was an accepted practice. It would appear that the church reform of the eleventh century succeeded in dismantling the ecclesiastical framework that supported polygyny [em added] , but did not succeed in swaying cultural attitudes over to the ecclesiastical doctrine that supported one monogamous, Christian marriage for life.

Gaelic-Irish marital customs did receive a large amount of criticism during the eleventh and twelfth centuries for basing these marriage customs not on church doctrine, but an older, Irish customary law.

But by 'church doctrine' they mean Catholic doctrine.

In other words...the people were polygynous, the secular leaders were polygynous, and the church leaders supported polygyny. It took outside pressure from the RCC to end it. One of the major moves in this was the Synod of Cashel in 1172. But the polygamous Brehon law would nevertheless be held to by the people and reign all the way up until the time the English took full control of the Island.

I would be remiss if I did not note that they also had an unbiblical divorce practice. Now, while their Christian polygamous practice was in common with the earlier pagan practice, it is not clear that this was simply an example of pagan influence. Christianity came to Britain in the 1st century and to Wales, Scotland and Irland by the end of the 5th. This all took place before the RCC made polygny sin and at the same time we have documentation of Christian polygamy in other parts of world. So for all I know the missionaries to those peoples simply taught the truth on biblical marriage.

However, my main point here is that European Christians practiced polygamy, with the support of their not uninfluential church theologians, for several hundred years. This probably constitutes the largest 'stream' of Christianity which embraced polygamy.

This history shed's new light on various claims that:

• Europeans were historically monogamous
• Polygamy was not an accepted practice of any church / theologian
• Western Civilization was monogamous
• Monogamy is more fit for building civilization (to the contrary, it played a part in the power of the clans and the preservation of Western Civ)
• Christians were never polygamous

The polygamous practice of Celtic Christianity disproves all these claims.

I have heard it said that the prohibition of polygamy by the RCC had a lot to do with breaking the power of influential families. The history of Irish polygamy makes a great proof of that. Polygamy was a prominent feature of the clans which ruled Ireland. The afformentioned Synod seems more about establishing church power (against the people, the clans, and Christian lay workers) than morals and theology. And the monasteries in Ireland were very powerful, owning much land and even engaging in war with one another. The monasteries had serfs that constituted a big part of their income, much like any other feudal lord.

For all the talk about Celtic Christianity, I didn't previously know that Celtic Christians were polygamous. Even the online histories of polygamy in Christianity don't mention this.

It also looks that, contrary to the monogamy rhetoric, monogamy didn't build Western Civilization. Instead it was various polygynous European peoples who built it; only later to be co-opted and taken over by the monogamous RCC and its feudal power base.

 

[Patricia C]

Interesting thank you for the info.

 

[Nikud]

The migration of various Celtic tribes in order to flee wars – they were attacked in Gaul by Julius Caesar in the 1st century BCE and by the Germanic tribes - and find new prospects meant that eventually the territory occupied by them ranged from Galicia (the Iberian peninsula) to Romania. Many Celtic tribes spread eastwards, for example, traversing Macedonia in 280 BCE and crossing the Hellespont in 278 BCE into Asia Minor. The Galatians, as they were then called, colonised areas of central Asia Minor which brought them into direct conflict with both the Hellenistic kingdoms and Rome.

It's entirely possible that some of the Galatians assembly were polygamous Celtic families.

 

[PeteR]

This opens some very big windows that need research...

In my mind, two major pieces that connect: St Patrick was a Sabbath keeping, feast observing, clean eating believer in Yeshua. Seriously, he was not Catholic and his messianic legacy has been wildly besmirched. The point, he was teaching Torah law to a people who interestingly, were already keeping many 'Hebrew' practices.

Second, and this is speculative until I can put NY hands on two books to properly cite, but Steven M Collins and Rabbi Yair Davidy, both through independent research, have put forward evidences supporting their thesis that large elements of the 'list tribes of northern Israel' migrated into the area as well as northern Germany, etc. What this may mean is that the Celtic practices of polygyny and their legal defense for it nay track straight back into Torah observance even before the message of redemption throught Yeshua came to the regions....

Very, very interesting.

 

[Keith Martin]

This history shed's new light on various claims that:

• Europeans were historically monogamous
• Polygamy was not an accepted practice of any church / theologian
• Western Civilization was monogamous
• Monogamy is more fit for building civilization (to the contrary, it played a part in the power of the clans and the preservation of Western Civ)
• Christians were never polygamous

The polygamous practice of Celtic Christianity disproves all these claims.

Thank you so much, @rockfox, for sharing this information. It is predominantly enlightening. I will only quibble with one of your conclusions, and that is that Western Civilization was monogamous. Of course, Western Civilization has never been entirely monogamous, but not for lack of trying, because it was designed by its designers (the Greek philosophers) to very purposefully albeit incrementally implement monogamy-only. You may also be mistaking the legacy of paganism, because the RCC (and, by extension, even in a substantive way the mainstream Protestant Christian denominations) can be more thoroughly traced back to the pagans than to the early Christians. The Germanic tribes were actually one of the last groups in Europe to be 'civilized' (the creation of their nation-state one of the most recent in Europe) and thus it may not entirely be a coincidence that Martin Luther -- a supporter of polygyny -- was German. Therefore, any group of people broken off from the Germanic tribe would also fail the test of being as predominantly influenced by Western Civilization as have been those that flowed more directly from Athens and Rome.

I've said this many times in many threads: Western Civilization has produced many advances, but it is also consistently and directly associated with institutions that have not only oppressed, enslaved and tyrannized human beings but that have made every effort to create distance between those human creatures and their Creator.

What you've provided, though, is in the main just further documentation of how dedicated the forces of centralization have been to stomping out anything that might get in the way of their goal of being in charge of everything and everybody.

Bravo!

 

[steve]

This never dawned on me, but illegitamcy / bastards are a necessary result of monogamy

That right there is a heavy revelation.

 

[rockfox]

It's entirely possible that some of the Galatians assembly were polygamous Celtic families.

That is a good point which buttresses an observation I've made...polygamy isn't 'an issue' in the NT, but it should have been (i.e. that dog's not barking).

If you look at Africa today you see that polygamy is 'an issue' that gets discussed in theology and practical evangelism because it's practice by the natives conflicts with the monogamy of the church. But in ancient times the Jews were polygynous, the Galations were polygynous. It wouldn't surprise me to hear other groups were as well. And yet polygamy doesn't get discussed in the NT. Paul when talking about marriage not only doesn't require a man to put away extra wives as missionaries to Africa do, he doesn't even bring it up.

This isn't consistent with a church that preached hard monogamy. It is consistent with a church which recognized it wasn't sinful. So when the Gospel went to a polygamous people they continued on as they had before (i.e. Celtic Christians). Likewise when it went to a monogamous people they also continued on with their own cultural practice while recognizing it wasn't sinful to have multiple wives (i.e. the GrecoRoman Augustine).

 

[rockfox]

Thank you so much, @rockfox, for sharing this information. It is predominantly enlightening. I will only quibble with one of your conclusions, and that is that Western Civilization was monogamous. Of course, Western Civilization has never been entirely monogamous, but not for lack of trying, because it was designed by its designers (the Greek philosophers) to very purposefully albeit incrementally implement monogamy-only. You may also be mistaking the legacy of paganism, because the RCC (and, by extension, even in a substantive way the mainstream Protestant Christian denominations) can be more thoroughly traced back to the pagans than to the early Christians. The Germanic tribes were actually one of the last groups in Europe to be 'civilized' (the creation of their nation-state one of the most recent in Europe) and thus it may not entirely be a coincidence that Martin Luther -- a supporter of polygyny -- was German. Therefore, any group of people broken off from the Germanic tribe would also fail the test of being as predominantly influenced by Western Civilization as have been those that flowed more directly from Athens and Rome.

I've said this many times in many threads: Western Civilization has produced many advances, but it is also consistently and directly associated with institutions that have not only oppressed, enslaved and tyrannized human beings but that have made every effort to create distance between those human creatures and their Creator.

What you've provided, though, is in the main just further documentation of how dedicated the forces of centralization have been to stomping out anything that might get in the way of their goal of being in charge of everything and everybody.

Bravo!

Good comment. The problem is Western Civilization isn't an objective thing; its a conception. So it doesn't have a hard and fast definition. What I'm discovering is WesternCiv was by and large not hard-monogamous until the RCC merged the Jewish conception of sex with the Greek conception of single marriage and Celtic Christianity shows us hard monogamy only really held sway where the church had power. And on the large timescale of things, that's pretty late. A similar thing happened in Ethiopia, where the Christians practiced polygamy for the first 1000 years until the Orthodox church asserted its top down authority.

The Greco-Roman legacy is a major part of WesternCiv, but it's not part and parcel to it; being but one of many influences.

And were the Germanic tribes really 'not civilized'? I think that's more Roman propoganda. The Germanic tribes had legislative assemblies (the Thing) going back to prehistory. Agriculture amoung the Germanic and Celtic peoples was quite advanced. The Celts minted money. I guess if ones conception of WesternCiv is the modern nation-state, then that might be true; but that only goes back a few hundred years. But one could point to many examples of nation-state type entities in history.

You are right about the pagan roots of the RCC. That is true in many many ways, and undeniably so when it comes to monogamy.

I have a suspicion that the type to use the WesternCiv argument against polygamy is likely to arbitrarily define monogamy into the conception of WesternCiv. But given the history of the Celts, and Luther's opinion on polygamy, I'd have to say such a definition would necessarily also be Catholic. And WestCiv isn't limited to Catholics.

Western Civilization has never been entirely monogamous, but not for lack of trying, because it was designed by its designers (the Greek philosophers) to very purposefully albeit incrementally implement monogamy-only.

Source?

 

[Keith Martin]

Good comment. The problem is Western Civilization isn't an objective thing; its a conception. So it doesn't have a hard and fast definition. What I'm discovering is WesternCiv was by and large not hard-monogamous until the RCC merged the Jewish conception of sex with the Greek conception of single marriage and Celtic Christianity shows us hard monogamy only really held sway where the church had power. And on the large timescale of things, that's pretty late. A similar thing happened in Ethiopia, where the Christians practiced polygamy for the first 1000 years until the Orthodox church asserted its top down authority.

The Greco-Roman legacy is a major part of WesternCiv, but it's not part and parcel to it; being but one of many influences.

Certainly you are correct that the Greek philosophers weren't the only influences, but there is no significant influence/major mover of what is now referred to as Western Civilization one can trace back further than the implementation of the Greek city/state. The Romans only borrowed their philosophies and their gods (simply changing their names) and didn't even bother to enforce Latin on the populations they subjugated in the wake of overthrowing the Greeks in southern Europe, western Asia and northern Europe. That's why the New Testament was written in Greek. Paganism also traces back to the Greeks. Constantine married the two when he installed himself as the Holy Roman Emperor, making him head of both church and state. In doing so, he infused the dominant form of Christianity at the time (the Roman Church) with so much paganism that it moved forward as 2/3 pagan and 1/3 Christian. I would assert that the Protestant Churches only shifted that mix to about 60/40. The majority of what is preached in mainstream Christian churches is paganism rather than what one can find in the original manuscripts of Scripture.

And were the Germanic tribes really 'not civilized'? I think that's more Roman propoganda. The Germanic tribes had legislative assemblies (the Thing) going back to prehistory. Agriculture amoung the Germanic and Celtic peoples was quite advanced. The Celts minted money. I guess if ones conception of WesternCiv is the modern nation-state, then that might be true; but that only goes back a few hundred years. But one could point to many examples of nation-state type entities in history.

I personally would not assert that the Germanic tribes were not civilized. To me a distinct distinction exists between 'civilization' and 'Western Civilization.' Western Civ won the day long ago, so they get to define the terms that dominate, and in doing so they have labeled large swaths of humanity as uncivilized or barbaric or backward or savage -- and they accomplished much of this at the threat of the sword or torture (think Crusades and Inquisitions, to start). For example, the Five Tribes of what is now New York State had a collective agreement that our Founding Fathers borrowed from in coming up with our country's constitution. One would hope they weren't savages, if that was the case, and yet that's how they later were labeled -- by torch-bearers of Western Civ.

Source?

Sources: here is a woefully incomplete list:

Ancient Society, by Lewis Henry Morgan
Myth, Religion and Mother Right, by J.J. Bachofen
Pagan Christianity, by Frank Viola
numerous articles from various authors in Bible Students Notebook
The Great Omission and Due Benevolence, by Clyde Pilkington, Jr.; and . . .
. . . if you can filter for his biases related to his relationship with Karl Marx, The Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State, by Friedrich Engels

As @andrew stated at last year's summer retreat's men's meeting, polygamy is one of the gateway drugs that points us toward all manner of ways in which organized Christianity has misled us. Researching the roots of paganism is another.

@rockfox, you're correct that monogamy-only cannot be blamed on Scripture or its early adherents. Only once it began to be translated and purposefully distorted can we find historical figures who started polluting the Biblical messages about marriage, sex and relationships.

 

[Keith Martin]

This never dawned on me, but illegitamcy / bastards are a necessary result of monogamy.

That right there is a heavy revelation.

Amen, @steve, because it is unnatural for all men to limit themselves to one wife. Those who push monogamy-only have always also been in the business of creating distinctions that elevate some as worthy and diminish others as unworthy.

 

[rockfox]

there is no significant influence/major mover of what is now referred to as Western Civilization one can trace back further than the implementation of the Greek city/state

While GrecoRoman thought is certainly outsized in it's influences, we even style our government buildings after their architecture, it is not everything. The legal systems of the US and commonwealth nations trace back not to Roman law but to English common law, which comes from the Germanics (with some Roman influence via the Franks). The Germanic peoples legislature goes back to prehistory. Linguistic evidence suggests it predates the Greeks. Our science and education traced back to the Greeks. But less so our war fighting. And our religion only to the extent they corrupted Hebraic Christianity. And if you read the ancient Mesopotamian laws it's hard not to see their influences in law.

Ancient Society, by Lewis Henry Morgan
Myth, Religion and Mother Right, by J.J. Bachofen
Pagan Christianity, by Frank Viola
numerous articles from various authors in Bible Students Notebook
The Great Omission and Due Benevolence, by Clyde Pilkington, Jr.; and . . .
. . . if you can filter for his biases related to his relationship with Karl Marx, The Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State, by Friedrich Engels

I meant for just the part about "designed by its designers (the Greek philosophers) to very purposefully albeit incrementally implement monogamy-only". Where does history document this grand scheme to make us all monogamous over the next 1500 years? That list of references looks rather broader than that.

 

[Keith Martin]

While GrecoRoman thought is certainly outsized in it's influences, we even style our government buildings after their architecture, it is not everything. The legal systems of the US and commonwealth nations trace back not to Roman law but to English common law, which comes from the Germanics (with some Roman influence via the Franks). The Germanic peoples legislature goes back to prehistory. Linguistic evidence suggests it predates the Greeks. Our science and education traced back to the Greeks. But less so our war fighting. And our religion only to the extent they corrupted Hebraic Christianity. And if you read the ancient Mesopotamian laws it's hard not to see their influences in law.

You and I have no disagreement here. I'm not suggesting an all-or-nothing thing here. Our current culture's influences are tremendously multifaceted. I'm primarily focusing on what is specifically labeled Western Civilization. Think the Deep State. Think the European Union. Think bureaucratized centralized governments run by elites who hypnotize the masses into thinking they have a voice because we supposedly have democracies, rather than centralized bureaucratic states masquerading as democratic republics.

And think this: those Deep States make every effort imaginable to negate the influence of English common law, nationalism, and most especially that of Mosaic and Mesopotamian law. Watch very carefully right now as our Betters purposefully and effectively avoid repairing the legislative breaches that are allowing thousands daily of the world's worst to illegally pour into our country.

No doubt Western Civilization has provided benefits from architecture to air-conditioning, but we pay a might price for that aspect of our current world. I am grateful that they haven't been 100% successful, because if they were we would have a difficult time distinguishing the resulting tyranny from that of Hitler's National Socialist state or from that of Communist China.

 

[Keith Martin]

I meant for just the part about "designed by its designers (the Greek philosophers) to very purposefully albeit incrementally implement monogamy-only". Where does history document this grand scheme to make us all monogamous over the next 1500 years? That list of references looks rather broader than that.

@rockfox, I'm enjoying this interchange.

Here's my problem: when I do research (and I did 3 years worth of researching the anthropology of the intersection among sex, marriage, religion and the state several years ago), I do it for myself. I absorb what I need to know, and then I let that inform how I move forward in life. So, I don't know chapter and verse where I've read about that. All I can assert is that I've read specific material on just that concept in at least 3 sources over the past decade -- and 3 is a conservative estimate.

If it's important to you to get a complete bead on this historical concept, I would suggest that you just pick one of those written avenues and get started on it. I know at least one regular participant here at BF who would suggest the place to start is Pagan Christianity. If I had to pick one myself, it would most certainly be Ancient Society, but that reflects my bias toward the results of my backwards-directed recent-years anthropological research, an effort that led from numerous matrices back to Lewis Henry Morgan, a man previously considered the Father of Anthropology but now banned from modern-day sociology classrooms due to being politically incorrect (because he disproves the silly notion that the world started off being run by women until their breeder-purposed men grew too strong as a result of the heavy labor that they were only good gave them the ability to physically subjugate men -- and if you think such nonsense isn't being taught in American universities, you'd be wrong, because it's almost ubiquitous).

Again, I'll repeat what I've written elsewhere: at last year's summer retreat, during the men's session (held, coincidentally while the women were meeting by themselves), @andrew voiced something others have voiced: that discovering the legitimacy of polygamy according to Biblical principles is just one of a number of 'gateway drugs' into discovering a whole host of deeper scriptural truths that are purposefully withheld from us by mainstream Christianity. The discussion last year centered around Pagan Christianity and how eye-opening it was to so many people (despite it's human flaws), but I would suggest that many of our BF brothers did not first find themselves on the wrong side of the dogma track because of their views on polygamy. Many first began recognizing how corrupt the relationship actually is and has been between church and state, discovering once they looked into it that the vast majority of English-translation Bibles include concepts and obfuscations very purposefully introduced into Scripture by overly-powerful religious institutions. You have yourself focused heavily on such things coming from the Roman Catholic Church, but they are not alone in this. King James and the Anglican Church is a very similar example, and the propaganda proceeds apace with unions between the American Deep State (or whatever one wants to call it) and our mainstream Protestant denominations. Perpetuating the status quo is more important to them than having concern for actual scriptural truths. Keeping the zombies sedated, in their seats and 'contributing' their taxes and tithes is Mission Number One.

And the backbone of the strategy, since the creation of the city/state, has been shifting allegiance from the extended family to the centralized State.

 

[rockfox]

Our current culture's influences are tremendously multifaceted. I'm primarily focusing on what is specifically labeled Western Civilization. Think the Deep State. Think the European Union. Think bureaucratized centralized governments run by elites who hypnotize the masses into thinking they have a voice because we supposedly have democracies, rather than centralized bureaucratic states masquerading as democratic republics.

That is what I think is being termed the Liberal Democratic Order and it is a post-WW2 thing. And its fading fast as nationalism is on the rise everywhere. Modern WesternCiv is usually thought of as post-Westphalia I think; the modern nation-state. But even that is simply the latest incarnation of WesternCiv.

And think this: those Deep States make every effort imaginable to negate the influence of English common law, nationalism, and most especially that of Mosaic and Mesopotamian law. Watch very carefully right now as our Betters purposefully and effectively avoid repairing the legislative breaches that are allowing thousands daily of the world's worst to illegally pour into our country.

No doubt Western Civilization has provided benefits from architecture to air-conditioning, but we pay a might price for that aspect of our current world. I am grateful that they haven't been 100% successful, because if they were we would have a difficult time distinguishing the resulting tyranny from that of Hitler's National Socialist state or from that of Communist China.

Do they ever make much effort to do that. Honestly, at this point I'm certain that those in charge are doing their best to destroy WesternCiv and profit from it.

If you look at our country post-1913 or so, with the rise of progressive politics, its really more of a fascist system with aspects of communism. Completely different in almost every way from what we had in the 18th and 19th centuries. Almost like international socialism.

Ya I own a copy of Pagan Christianity; though it's been maybe a decade since I read it. Haven't read Morgan yet.

And the backbone of the strategy, since the creation of the city/state, has been shifting allegiance from the extended family to the centralized State.

Now that is something that goes all the way back to Greece. Sparta was run that way. IIRC Plato advocated that approach in The Republic; though I haven't read it.

with unions between the American Deep State (or whatever one wants to call it) and our mainstream Protestant denominations.

The deep state has been melding in the Protestant denominations for quite some time now. I've detected their hand at work in quite a few denominational splits, in the corporatization of the church and in several shifts in theology.

Let me make an attempt to relate this back to our topic.

The Celts were a tribal people with a local style of government and possibly church governance. Being on the far side of Europe and in an area Rome never conquered, it took quite a while for the RCC to bring them into the fold; which is why they preserved the old ways of marriage for so long. The RCC was an empire via religion in much the same way we today are an empire via commerce and Rome was an empire via martial power. You can see this in the way which they made 'Cannon Law' to override the long established Brehon law of the Celts.

While Christianity is an essential feature of WesternCiv, specific denominations are not in much the same way specific empires are not. This is why it doesn't make sense to claim that WesternCiv is necessarily strictly monogamous. We have and have had a variety of approaches to marriage during our history much like we've had a variety of empires hold sway and variety of denominations be dominant in different nations.

 

[Mojo]

This opens some very big windows that need research...

In my mind, two major pieces that connect: St Patrick was a Sabbath keeping, feast observing, clean eating believer in Yeshua. Seriously, he was not Catholic and his messianic legacy has been wildly besmirched. The point, he was teaching Torah law to a people who interestingly, were already keeping many 'Hebrew' practices.

Second, and this is speculative until I can put NY hands on two books to properly cite, but Steven M Collins and Rabbi Yair Davidy, both through independent research, have put forward evidences supporting their thesis that large elements of the 'list tribes of northern Israel' migrated into the area as well as northern Germany, etc. What this may mean is that the Celtic practices of polygyny and their legal defense for it nay track straight back into Torah observance even before the message of redemption throught Yeshua came to the regions....

Very, very interesting.

I too concur that Patrick was absorbed into the RCC pantheon of fame, but he was not RCC. I believe he was never officially recognized as a saint by the RCC. I will double check that, though.

As far as 'Lost Tribes' many have marveled at the phenotypic variety on the British Isles. This can be seen in faces like Tom Jones, Inglebert Humperdink, and Cary Grant. They are much swarthier than the faces we typically think of as being "British". I personally wonder if this is part of the mystery of a possible ancient Semitic influence.

 

[Mojo]

Excellent research @rockfox. I concur with your conclusions that the RCC and its Greek/Roman origins put the ideas of monogamy only into the marketplace of ideas and made it the monopoly.

 

[The Revolting Man]

You've probably heard of Celtic Christianity, from time to time it becomes trendy. At the very least you've probably seen artistic fruits of that stream of Christianity...

But what you probably didn't know was this Christian tradition supported polygyny!

h/t to @Frank S for the first two links that got me going on this exploration.

I always hear Europeans cast as being monogamous and monogamy as a key part of Western Civilization. It turns out, neither of these is true.

To start, pre-Catholic law Celtic peoples of the British Isles were polygynous...



That covers the Celtic and Frankish peoples. And we know the Viking peoples (North Germanics) were. So that accounts for all largest and most influential people groups of northern Europe and beyond (given the Normans settled as far as Italy in Siciliy and Lombardi).

At this point, that covers a great deal of the Germanic peoples. Yet all I've ever heard was that, save the Vikings, they were monogamous (citing Roman historians).

We see also in this article on Gaelic Society that polygamy was an accepted part of their society and law...



So chief woman and love woman. "Love woman" is a good summation of the deep roots of the word concubine in various ancient languages. Interesting how that same association has come about in radically different cultures. You can tell from this language alone that the first wife was often married for status/power reasons. Although it could also be a reflection of what naturally happens to some extent when you add a much younger woman.



This never dawned on me, but illegitamcy / bastards are a necessary result of monogamy. It also denigrates the father and his power as some of his sons can be made to have lower social standing. Not to mention whatever social ills result from this artificial designation. Really, it shows a level of matriarchy inherent in monogamy: legitimacy is confered from the mother and her status.

One of the more illuminating hints in that article is this..



It only ended at that time because monogamous England finally conquered all of the Island.

While Christianization in Ireland started in the 400's it wasn't complete until about 800. But that is still 800 years of Christian polygamy.

And these weren't backwater Christians either. Some say the Irish Christians saved Western Civilization. They preserved the Roman/Greek learning during Europe's darkest days, had access to many early writings of the church fathers, and were instrumental in spreading Christianity in the British Isles and Europe.

In other words, polygamy wasn't contrary to Western Civilization, it was a polygamous society that had an instrumental role in saving it!

Now of course I wondered, where the Christians polygynous or was it just pagan holdouts? Enter this...



But by 'church doctrine' they mean Catholic doctrine.

In other words...the people were polygynous, the secular leaders were polygynous, and the church leaders supported polygyny. It took outside pressure from the RCC to end it. One of the major moves in this was the Synod of Cashel in 1172. But the polygamous Brehon law would nevertheless be held to by the people and reign all the way up until the time the English took full control of the Island.

I would be remiss if I did not note that they also had an unbiblical divorce practice. Now, while their Christian polygamous practice was in common with the earlier pagan practice, it is not clear that this was simply an example of pagan influence. Christianity came to Britain in the 1st century and to Wales, Scotland and Irland by the end of the 5th. This all took place before the RCC made polygny sin and at the same time we have documentation of Christian polygamy in other parts of world. So for all I know the missionaries to those peoples simply taught the truth on biblical marriage.

However, my main point here is that European Christians practiced polygamy, with the support of their not uninfluential church theologians, for several hundred years. This probably constitutes the largest 'stream' of Christianity which embraced polygamy.

This history shed's new light on various claims that:

• Europeans were historically monogamous
• Polygamy was not an accepted practice of any church / theologian
• Western Civilization was monogamous
• Monogamy is more fit for building civilization (to the contrary, it played a part in the power of the clans and the preservation of Western Civ)
• Christians were never polygamous

The polygamous practice of Celtic Christianity disproves all these claims.

I have heard it said that the prohibition of polygamy by the RCC had a lot to do with breaking the power of influential families. The history of Irish polygamy makes a great proof of that. Polygamy was a prominent feature of the clans which ruled Ireland. The afformentioned Synod seems more about establishing church power (against the people, the clans, and Christian lay workers) than morals and theology. And the monasteries in Ireland were very powerful, owning much land and even engaging in war with one another. The monasteries had serfs that constituted a big part of their income, much like any other feudal lord.

For all the talk about Celtic Christianity, I didn't previously know that Celtic Christians were polygamous. Even the online histories of polygamy in Christianity don't mention this.

It also looks that, contrary to the monogamy rhetoric, monogamy didn't build Western Civilization. Instead it was various polygynous European peoples who built it; only later to be co-opted and taken over by the monogamous RCC and its feudal power base.

Superb.

 

[Mojo]

https://www.biography.com/news/st-patrick-little-known-facts

 

[Verifyveritas76]

Well done. I’m hoping that as you study this more that there will be regular updates?

 

[PeteR]

Following are a couple .pdfs that have a bunch of research concerning the possible Israelite origins of the Celts. If so, it then explains a number of things including a deeply rooted understanding and acceptance of polygyny. And, confirms the literal prophecies that those whom the Father scattered, He will regather. As I have mentioned before... this awakening is related to much deeper matters int eh Word.

Blessings and enjoy reading.