The founders of this Jewish Avalon Nazarene Yeshiva (Seminary) were the giants of the primitive “Jesus Movement” in 1^st century CE. These were Yahshua’s closest associates; His maternal uncle, the Prince of David Joseph of Arimathea, the who was the brother of Mary’s father, “Heli”, the Hasmonean and Davidian Prince Alexander III Helios, of the Lucan genealogy of Jesus’ ancestries. They included Yahshua’s three closest friends, the Bethany family of Lazarus whom Yahshua resurrected from the dead, and his two sisters, Mary Magdalene and Martha.

The word spread quickly from the British Isles to the spiritual followers of the Jewish Messiah Yeshua was also recognized by the Arch Druids as their Messiah Yesu. The conversions first began within the House of the Royal Dynasty of the Silures. We appeal to the documentation left to us by George F. Jowett in his book, “The Drama of the Disciples”, for the following historical threads of the Josephan Mission to Britain within five to six years after the death of Yahshua HaMaschiach (Jesus the Messiah) in the year of 30 CE.

Yahshua the Messiah as the Prince of Peace

We find this documentation in the 1922 Cambridge printed book titled, “St. Joseph at Arimathea at Glastonbury” written by the Vicor of Glastonbury, Reverend Smithett Lewis, that as early as 48 CE, Conor Macnessa, the King of Ulster sent all of his druidic priests to the Isle of Avalon on a special mission to write down all the Jewish Nazarene Torah law provisions that were brought over to the “isles of the west” from Judea and put these legal writings and teachings into Celtic law that was called “The Celestial Judgments”. (Lionel Smithett Lewis, St. Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury, cited by Jowett pg. 80) We have to seriously consider that the educators of the priests of Druidism from Ulster Ireland were Joseph of Arimathea, Lazarus, Mary of Magdala and her sister, Martha.

The Atlantic Cornwall Coastline – the Celtic Land of Mythical Mysteries whose Minds were More Akin to Eastern Mysticism rather then Western Pragmatism – Photo by Robert Mock

Within just over a hundred years later, in 156 CE, King Lucius (Light) of Britain, the first recognized Cymric Culdee Nazarene king proclaimed in the decree quoted in the Augustinicio Mission (597 CE) that the British Culdee Nazarene Ecclesia would become the national religion of Britain. Their royal city of Winchester had crowned its ancient kings for over 1,500 years. Winchester the royal capital was founded about the year of 500 BCE.

Just across the waters in Ireland just a century prior, Tamar Tephi, the eldest daughter of the last Jewish king, King Zedekiah of the Kingdom of Judah, arrived in Ireland. There at Tara, the selected site of her royal palace, the Jewish Queen of Ireland of royal Davidian bloodlines became the ancestral mother of the High Kings of Ancient Ireland.

The Transmission of Jewish Messianism to the Cymric Druids of Britannia

As the apostolic band of Jewish Nazarenes, along with Joseph of Arimathea, began to settle into their new home and surroundings, they began the careful construction of their individual dwellings. They constructed their new homes with the same building materials as the native Cymric inhabitants and in the same style; circular huts, and contemporary with their native environment in the British Welch countryside. The homes were built of mud and wattle (small sticks) and constructed into round or circular oratory style dwelling places that surrounded their central place of worship. It was believed from tradition that their first dwellings surrounded the very site when Yahshua bat Miriam (Jesus the son of Mary) lived and worshipped when he accompanied his maternal uncle, Joseph of Arimathea, on their many journeys to far off lands.

The Druids, from Nature to the Divine – Photo taken at Trerice, Cornwall, England by Robert Mock

What was interesting were the perceptions of the Druidic priesthood, who along with the Arch Druids perceived of this young Jewish rabbinic student who lived his life, as a hasidic, or ultra-orthodox Jew, like that of Rabbi Hillel, the Nasi of the Great Sanhedrin in Jerusalem between the years of 30 BCE to 10 CE. Yahshua’s (Jesus’) entire life was lived in full adherence to the laws of Torah. He devoted his life to the God of Israel, who He called “Abba” (“Father”). He modeled the Torah precepts into his life physically, spiritually, and morally above the letter of the Torah law. Later, He commanded His disciples to follow Him, and do likewise.

“The Archdruid” - An oil painting of Archdruid Hwfa Môn by Christopher Williams – National Museum of Wales

Another belief of the Druidic high priests was their perception while following their star maps like the Magi of the East; that the ancient knowledge of the planets, and spheres in the heavens were given for the understanding of the Divine. Were they not descendants of the “children of Seth”? Were they not the recipients of the knowledge of the planets and the constellations, that was given to the “sons of Seth” that foretold of YHVH God’s Great Plan of Salvation and Redemption? Were they not recipients of the promise proclaimed, along with Daniel the prophet, the chief leader of the Magi in Babylon that the promised Messiah was coming to God’s chosen people?

They were puzzled with this young Davidian, whose birth was enshrouded with prophetic oracles, yet had now come to dwell in this quiet paradise in mediation and prayer. Did He know that this hallowed island was one of their “sacred places”. He spoke as one who had great authority and perceived the great principles of Torah with the clarity of enlightenment as the “Elect One” promised as the Messiah.

They did not know this young Jewish Messiah as Jesus, a Greek name that would be given at a later date. They did know that even before His birth, rabbinic ministry, death, and resurrection, the name of Yesu was familiar with the Arch Druids, and the druidic leadership, to be the promised one that they were expecting. This familiar name to the lips of the Cymric Britons came from the ancient traditions imbedded within their Celtic Triads, whose origins went back almost eighteen hundred years, as noted by Procopius in his book, “De Gothici”, that read:

The Celtic Triad - “The Lord our God is One,

Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be

Ye lift up,ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in,

Who is the King of Glory? The Lord Yesu;

He is the King of Glory.”

(cf, Procopius, De Gothici, Book 3, cited by Jowett pg 78

In the Celtic documentation of their religious “Triads” they brought to the lexicon of international meanings of words, a new stream of revelation upon the identity of Yahshua. This historical evidence went back as early as 1800 BCE (Early Bronze Age) by Hu Gadaru Hysicion who lived in the era of the Patriarch Abraham and the Sumerian Empire. We also know from the Inter-testament Book of Jasher that may have been a copy of a Book of Jasher, written possibly by Joshua the son of Nun, the Hebrew leader who replaced Moses the Lawgiver before the Israelites entered the Promised Land that the name of Yahshua

The Beauty and Comprehension of the Sacred and Sublime – Photo taken at Trerice, Cornwall, England by Robert Mock

In the lexicons of Hebrew, we find that the Hebrew name, Yehoshua, or the variant of the Hebrew name, Yehowshuwa, actually means “God is Salvation.” The Hebrew name of Yeshuwa (Yeshuah or Yeshua) is the contraction of Yehowshuwa that meant, “He is saved.” This name was later anglicized into the Greek word, Iesoun (Jesus), a name that is virtually devoid of meaning without understanding its Hebrew root foundation.

The name, Yesu, though, is a name that surrounds itself with all its Oriental connotations moving even further east to and beyond the regions of the ancient Magi. It was in the article by Dr. Manoj Kurian, titled, the “Reflections on the Epiphany – Yesu Darśana, (Jesus witnessed or visualized as the Vision of the Divine)” that brings a remarkable closeness to the Hebrew Oneness of the Divine where Yahshua became the Divine Revelation (Torah or the Word) witnessed in the Flesh or the “Divine Manifestation of the Eternal One of Israel”. Knowing that Dr. Kurian is an Oriental Orthodox Indian Christian also speaks to his identity to the primitive Indian Orthodox Nazarene traditions of the Apostle Thomas, who revealed to the Orientals, the name of Jesus, as Yeshua or Yahshua in Judea, but as Yesu to followers in the regions further east.

Here we are reminded of the Magi, who came to visit the Messiah Child (Christ Child) to bring a new revelation as to His divine identity. In the Aramaic and Arabic translations of the Gospel of Matthew, the Magi were called the “Mgoshi”. They were known as the ancient ‘worshippers of fire” or the maguš in the Old Persian traditions or the mâgî in the early or proto-Kurdish traditions in Northern Iraq and Iran. They were also known to be from the Zurvanism faith of the Zoroastrianism religion that became the religion of the Sassanid Persian Imperial Era, during the years of 226-650 CE. At the closing of this era came the rise of the Islamic Jihad by the followers of the Prophet Muhammad that led to the fall of the Sassanid Empire. Little known was that the eldest daughter, Shahr Banu (Shahr-banuyeh, the “Bride of the Land”), of the last Sassanid Emperor Yazdgerd III, became the esteemed mother of Islam. Princess Shahr Banu transferred the tenants of her Zoroastrian faith through her husband, Hussayn ibn ˤAlī, the 4^th Imam of Shit’ite Islam, who was the son of ˤAlī ibn Abī Tālib, the 1^st Imam of Shi’ite Islam? “Shahr” and “Hussayn” became the parents of ˤAlī ibn Hussayn, the 4^th Imam of Shi’ite Islam, who were the progenitor forefathers of the future Messiah of Shi-ite Islam, the 12^th Imam and the Messiah Mahdi (Muhammad ibn Hasan). Muhammad was reputed to have disappeared (occulted) in the Iraqi city of Sammara at the age of five years, who as a “Persian Magi” led his father’s funeral prayer. Known as Muhammad al-Mahdi, he is expected by the Shi’a Muslims to be the future Messiah al-Mahdi for whom the present President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is spreading world chaos in order to hasten his coming, but whose arrival will only precede the coming of the final Islamic Messiah Isa ibn Miriam (Jesus son of Mary). What we will suggest is that the tenants of Zoroastrianism are from the ancient Hebrew – Israelite-Jewish faith.

The White Water Lilies in the Glastonbury Pond by the Druidic Tor near where Yahshua and His later Apostolic Refugees to Britannia Lived on the Isle of Avalon – Photo by Robert Mock

It is well known that suddenly in the 5^th century BCE there arose a religion in ancient Persia that was so profound, elevated and complete that it came without any trace of its historical religious development. As BibleSearchers asked in August 2006 in the article, titled, “The Influence of the Persian Ram upon the Modern Islamic Shi’ite Nation of Iran” it was documented the following:

BibleSearchers - “Ahura Mazda (“Divine Wisdom”) was the transcendental God of Zoroastrianism (Mazdaism) that was the national religion of Persia until the 7^th century. According to the philosophies of Zarathustra (Zoroaster, the founder of Zoroastrianism, he believed that Ahura Mazda was the Omniscient Creator of the Universe, the Supreme Lord of everything. The supreme appellations that were given to the deity of the Zoroastrians include: The Supreme Universal Lord, the All-pervading, the Source and the Fountain of life, the Brilliant, the Majestic, the Greatest, the Best, the most Beautiful, the Strongest, the most Intellectual, the Highest through Holiness, the Holiest among the heavenly, who created the world, the Changeless, the Mighty, the Just, the Merciful and the most Beneficial.

The question that needs to be asked, where did the Persians receive such an elevated belief in a Supreme Being? Some biblical scholars suggest that the Persians in their state religion Zoroastrianism gave such belief in a Supreme God to the Jewish exiles the Persians inherited from the Babylonian Empire that they had just conquered during the First Persian Empire. Yet this concept suggests that such an elevated idea of a God head was in existence prior to the Sassanid or Second Persian Empire.

It also fails to ask the question, did not the Persians receive such an elevated view of God from the Jewish people? Was the Zoroastrian image of God unique to the Persian faith or borrowed from the Jewish people? Consider the fact that the Jewish sages taught that the “love” of the first emperor of Persia, Cyrus the Great was a Jewish maiden that became his queen, Esther. It was also their son, Darius I, the second emperor of Persia who was taught the ways of Torah because he was a Jew raised by his Jewish mother, Queen Esther.

Was not the elevated view of the God of the Hebrews much older, more primitive and purer than the view of the God of the Zoroastrians? We see this similarity to the majesty of the God of Israel seen through the eyes of King David in his Psalms? We also see the elevated and majestic view of the God of Israel as the prophets of Israel and Judah reached their mystical thoughts to the outer reaches of heaven itself? This God of the Hebrews was known even earlier in the elevated image of “The Great I am” during the early dynasties of Egypt whom Moses met at Horeb in Arabia not far from Medinah (Medina) itself.”

The Imprint of the Maker of the Universe as may have been Seen by His Son the Messiah Yahshua – Photo taken at Rosecarne, Cornwall, England by Robert Mock

What is more interesting is that from these same regions, the Mgoshi (Magi) Tribe who were responsible for the religious and funerary practices for the inhabitants of ancient land of the Medes, were also the spiritual leaders from Media from whence came the Achaemenid rulers of the Persian Empire who destroyed the ancient Empire of Babylon in the year of 539 BCE. Later in this series, in the articles, “The Exile of the Ten Tribes of Israel”, that there is a high likelihood that Guti, the Mandi Persian general was of the Israelite Tribe of Gad. We will also learn in the article titled, “The Israeli-Scythian Migration to Europe” that the family roots of Cyrus the Great were also Lost Israelites that were part of the Sachi, Ghomerian, Mundi, and Kimbri tribes, named by their Assyrian and Persian overlords and deported by their Assyrian overlords to the land of the Medes found today in Northern Iraq, Iran, and eastern Afghanistan.

Strange as it may be, the Prophet Daniel, who was also the Prime Minister of Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon, was recognized as a member of the Order of the Magi, but he was not a member of the Babylonian Order of the Magi. It was the Babylonian Order who failed in the interpretation of the dream of King Nebuchadnezzar’s Great Statute with the head of gold, the thorax of silver, the hips of bronze, and the two feet mixed with iron and clay. It was the Prophet Daniel who was forced to bring the divine revelation of the dream to King Nebuchadnezzar in order to save the Babylonian Magi and his life also.

We note that from the 1^st century CE and afterwards the Syriac form of the word for Magi, the Magusai, was applied to the magicians and soothsayers from Babylon whose reputation was identified within the wisdom occult traditions as magicians. It was they who fled to Pergamus and later to Rome, upon lay the traditions of the Letter to the Jewish Nazarene Ecclesia in Pergamus in the Book of Revelation that identified this city as the “Seat of Satan” and from whence also comes the 3^rd Black Seal of Revelation. This came after their base of power in Babylon and their evil empire was destroyed by the Persians. It was the Prophet Daniel who was redeemed along with his people, the Jews, and was elevated to become the head of the Order of the Persian magi. It was the Persian Magi who were “credited with profound and extraordinary religious knowledge”. Can we see the “handwriting on the wall” by the God of Israel, who saved his own people, the Jews, by His appointed “battle axe of the nations”, the Lost Israelites? Is it so improbable that the descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel gave birth to the Persian ruler and the Median Mandi chieftain general, who destroyed ancient Babylon were also close tribal cousins of the ancient Children of Israel? May we also suggest that it was the Persian magi of Israeli fame, who carried the wisdom of the Maker of the Universe and later in their search of the heavens foretelling of the coming of the Jewish Messiah traversed the deserts from the ancient land of Parthia, once ruled by rulers of the House of Israel and brought presents and the confirmation of the true identity of the babe Messiah to the Davidian family of Joseph and Mary?

The Druid – Israelite Connection

The Vestment of the Arch Druid and its Similarities with the High Priest of Israel

It was Adam Rutherford, in his 1934 book, published in London called “Anglo-Saxon Israel, or Israel-Britain”, where he documented succinctly the fact that the first colonization of Britain came from people who wrote and spoke Hebrew. Scattered across the landscape of this ancient isle, Hebrew inscriptions have been found, both in England and Ireland. Rutherford, citing the studies by Jacob Tomlin, titled, “A comparative Vocabulary of Forty-Eight Languages, comprising One Hundred and Forty-Six Common English Words, with the Cognates in other Languages showing their Affinities with the English and Hebrew” demonstrated that early Cymric literature written in Britain was largely a modified version of ancient Hebrew. Even in our modern times, a traveling Jew, arriving in England and Ireland can communicate with a certain ease to native Brits who still speak the ancient Cymric language. As cited in the fascinating articles online written by the Pastors of the Bethel Church of God, Bryce G. Clark and David L. Carter, on the website called, “The Origins of our Western Heritage Category”, we quote:

Origins of our Western Heritage Category – “The Welsh language, even today, closely resembles Hebrew. According to Rutherford, it is difficult to adduce a single article or form of construction in Hebrew grammar, but that the same can be found in Welsh. Many whole sentences of the two languages have exactly the same words. Rutherford notes that Dr. Davies, the author of a Welsh grammar book, says almost every page of the Welsh translation of the Bible is replete with Hebraisms in the time, sense, and spirit of the original. The Welsh is so close to Hebrew that the same syntax might serve both (Rutherford, 40). Historians place the arrival of the Hebrews in Ireland prior to the Exodus (ibid, 32-33, fn, cited on Origins of our Western Heritage Category, article, The Westward Movement).

Was the Glastonbury Tor destined to be the Place where the Divine Torah was Manifested in the Flesh to the Druids? – Photo by Robert Mock

What then do we make of the ancient Celtic traditions that Hu the Mighty (Hu Gadaru Hysicion (Isaacson) led a band of Cymric followers to the land of Britain in the legendary year of 1800 BCE? Bring the date three hundred years later to about 1550 BCE, can we discover that Hu Gadaru Hysicion may have been an Israelite tribal leaders who did lead a group of fleeing Israelites escape from the ancient Land of Goshen. If so, they fled during the Egyptian holocaust of divine plagues and before Moses led the rest of the Israelites through the Red Sea to their destined confrontation with their God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at Sinai. It was here at Sinai, that the Children of Israel were given the Torah, the establishment of a national government, and then to their wanderings in the wilderness until they eventually entered their homeland in the Promised Land of Canaan.

The Sublime Beauty of Taking a Spiritual Merkabah Journey to the Throne of the Divine on the Sacred Space on the Top of the Glastonbury Tor – Photo by Robert Mock

Were the early Cymric tribes with their Druidic religion a remnant of the pre-Sinai ancient Israelites, who knew of the God of Israel from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but were clueless of the revelations of God as the Torah from the mount called Sinai? Were not the Jewish people destined to be the “remnant” of the greater Hebrew national movement who destinies were tied to the Torah revelation at Sinai? Were possibly the Welsh Cymric peoples also a “remnant” of the ancient Lost Tribes of the Israelites, who were sent into exile by the Assyrians? Where they also clueless about the precepts of the Torah, not because their ancestors did not know, but because they “lost the knowledge” because of their rebellion? Was not their salvation destiny foretold would come from a Jewish Messiah whose divine mandate was to find the “Lost Tribes of the House of Israel?”

The Druidic religion that thrived upon the Isle of Britain appeared to disappear as they were absorbed into the primitive “Jesus Movement” and the faith of the Jewish Nazarene Ecclesia in Jerusalem. The British Druidic form of spirituality in its simplicity was more pure in their faith than the corrupted Druidic religions on the continent in Gaul, where in Germany and France they became a mixture of other pagan religions.

The primitive mind of the Brit was in the worship of the Lord of hosts, who was the Creator of the Greater of the Great Lights, the Sun and the Moon. They used these two solar bodies, not as forms of worship but with the realization that through nature we learn about the God of Creation. Viewing the universe in the heavens was a source of spiritual inspiration from the Divine. There in the crisp days and nights, the sun and the moon were their reflection and inspiration. To view the starry heavens was to them the voice of the Almighty One. Like their ancestral forefathers whom they had lost contact, they knew not even their ancestral identity, even though each one of them knew their ancestral genealogies for nine generations. They used the movements of the heavenly bodies to fix the order of their festivals and set the dates for their agricultural yearly calendar. It was Strabo who in his observation saw that the worship of the Supreme Being was exalted amongst the British nation. (Isabel Hill Elder, “Celt, Druid, and Culdee” pg. 61)

The Chalice Well that Supplies Pure Water for the Jewish Nazarenes at the Jewish Nazarene Yeshiva – Photo by Robert Mock

These ancient Welsh, or Cymric people, have now been identified by at least one author as descendants of the Tribe of Simeon that arrived with the bands of Cimmerians, from Anatolia or the land of Turkey. One group of Cimmerians, called the Skolotic Cimmerians, arrived from the regions of Ukrainia. One of these bands of people called the Neuri, of Scythian stock, spent over a year and a half traveling until they reached Arsareth.

Historians have now noted that the first month of their calendar year began in March, and their day of worship as a rest day was the Saturday Sabbath. Even the scholars of the ancient Finns, Laplanders, and Estonians agree that their languages are in close affinity with the ancient Hebrew language. As late as the 1700s, the inhabitants of those lands believed that they were remnants of tribes that were taken as hostages and sent into exile by the invasion of the Assyrian ruler Shalmaneser. (Cited in The Westward Movement by the Bethel Church of God)

The Druidic Universities and Seminaries the Trained the Royal Priests, Physicians, and Esteemed Astronomers

What little is known, remembered or cared for, by our modern self-serving society, is the persistent belief that Druidism was a cultic, and ritualistic religion, that was centered around the secret and mystical religious sacrifices to the gods of nature upon the high alters in oak groves. There was no natural imagery that could define the Druid to the modern eye, than the “Oak Tree” and the “Mistletoe”. It was felt that the oak, whose name in Cymric was Drus, was where the name of Druid originated. It appears that a more likely source of this ancient Name was in the Cymric word, “Druthin” meaning “A Servant of Truth”.

The Arch Druid and the Outdoor Worship in the Woods

Yet, the converse was no doubt more likely the truth. Let us look at the Druidic way of life in ancient Britannia, as written by Isabel Hill Elder, in her most fascinating book called, “Celt, Druid, and Culdee”, whose foreward was written by Lord Brabazon of Tara. According to Elder, Druidism was not a religion but the whole religious way of life, “the centre and source from which radiated the whole system of organized civil and ecclesiastical knowledge and practice of the country. Yet, the author Isabel Elders continues:

Isabel Hill Elder – “The truth about the Druids, to be found amongst fragments of literature and in folk-memory, is that they were men of culture, well-educated, equitable and impartial in the administration of justice. These ancient leaders of thought and instruction in our islands had lofty beliefs as to the character of the one God, Creator, and Preserver, and of man’s high origin and destiny. There is reason to believe that this doctrine included the need of atonement for sin and the resurrection of the body.” (Isabel Hill Elder, “Celt, Druid and Culdee”, pg. 51)

A Sacred Israelite Druid High Space where Yahshua went to Reveal the Mysteries of the Divine to the Lost Tribes of Israel – Photo by Robert Mock

It was the Druidic religious way of life that gave ancient Britain certain qualities not seen in any other place upon this earth. Their reverence for the Divine One was supreme, their abstinence from evil was meritorious and their ability to behave valiantly gained the admiration, envy and fear of every nation upon this planet, including Rome. Justice and patriotism were on the same page of their lives, because their lofty codes of moral behavior created and influenced in a profound way their national character. This character was inscribed in the motto of the Druids, “The Truth against the World”. Yet, the scholars bemoan that the history of the Druids was to too scarce and obscure due to the paucity of literary manuscripts that proved the “wisdom of the teachers and the docility of the people.” (Isabel Hill Elder, “Celt, Druid, and Culdee” pg. 52)

Most fail to comprehend that the history of the Druids in ancient Britannia truly does exist in large and extensive libraries, but hidden within a language, like Hebrew, was a “dead language” for almost 1700 years. In the British Museum alone are the Myvyriah MSS that contain 47 volumes of poetry with 4,700 separate poetic frames within 1,600 pages and also included 2,000 epigrammatic stanzas that were hidden within a language not easily deciphered or behind an ancient language, hidden and “dead”, and known only to a few scholars. Also the Myvyriah MSS collection contained an additional 53 volumes of prose written in 15,300 pages, plus private collections in London and private libraries within the provinces of the former British Empire. (Isabel Hill Elder, “Celt, Druid, and Culdee” pg. 52-53)

The Modern Adaptation of an Ancient Timepiece – Photo by Robert Mock

It was Julius Caesar who wrote during his Gallic Wars about the Druids when he invaded Britain in the years of 53 and 54 BCE. As written:

Julius Caesar – “They hold aloof from war and do not pay war taxes; they are excused from military service and exempt from all liabilities. Tempted by these great advantages, many young men assemble of their own motion to receive their training, many are sent by parents and relatives. Report says that in the schools of the Druids they learn by heart a great number of verses, and therefore some persons remain twenty years under training. (Toland’s History of the Druids, pg. 50, cited by Isabel Hill Elder, “Celt, Druid, and Culdee”, pg 69)

Julius Caesar

They do not think it proper to commit these utterances to writing, although in almost all other matters, and in their public and private accounts they make use of Greek characters. I believe that they have adopted the practice for two reasons – that they do not wish the rule to become common property, nor those who learn the rule to rely on writing, and so neglect the cultivation of the memory; and, in fact, it does usually happen that the assistance of writing tends to relax the diligence of the student and the action of memory…They also lecture on the stars in their motion, the magnitude of the earth, and its divisions, on natural history, on the power and government of God; and instruct the youth on these subjects.” (Julius Caesar, De Bell Gall. VII, 15, 16.)

Throughout the years in the Celtic educational centers of higher learning, the Druids did use a written language for all the various disciplines in their universities. Like the Jews in Roman Palestine and in the land of ancient Babylon and Persia, they did not put to the pen the Oral Torah first given by Moses, the Druids also did not write down any of their spiritual writings and religious texts or rituals. These were not disclosed in part until after the Druids had been absorbed into the Early Celtic Nazarene Culdee Ecclesia in Britain.

Though the British and the Cymric Druids were called barbarians, there was not a nation upon this earth that was more educationally oriented, including Rome, than the Cymric Britains under the leadership of the Order of the Druids. At the time of the Roman invasions, there were forty Druidic centers of higher learning at the capitals of the forty tribes on the island. Each of the forty universities were presided by a Chief Druid. On the Island of Britannia, there were three Archdruids, whose seats were at York in the north, in London in the southeast, and at Caerleon-on-Usk in the west. These tribal boundaries are preserved today in the counties in Great Britain.

The Pontius Pilate Stone (26-37 CE)

Caesarea, Israel - New Testament Period – Discovered 1961
Limestone, inscribed 82.0 cm H, 65.0 cm W
Building Dedication 4 Lines of Writing (Latin)
Israel Museum (Jerusalem) - AE 1963 no. 104

In the days of Rav Yahshua HaNotzri (Rabbi Jesus the Nazarene), there were estimated to be over 60,000 students from Britain and Gaul that were in residence at these forty universities at one time. This fact was noted by Julius Caesar. It was also a fact that many of the Roman aristocracy sent their sons to be educated in Britain, for so acclaimed were their academic institutions.

It may be only a footnote in history or a piece of non-biblical trivia, but according to J.O. Kinnanman, D.D. in Archeology, he noted that the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate who Yahshua (Jesus) stood in his judgment hall in Jerusalem was a Spaniard by birth and not a Roman. His dream and ambition was to become a Roman lawyer and the future governor in the Roman province of Judea. He had a problem for the schools in Espanola could educate him only so far so Pilate went to study in the Druidic universities in Britain. There Pontius Pilate earned his degree in jurisprudence. Soon afterwards, Pontius Pilate was sent to the most lucrative governmental post as the Roman procurator in the entire Roman Empire, the Province of Judea. This was where graft and bribery were the standards of negotiations with the powerful High Priestly family of Hanan, whose patriarch was the High Priest Ananias the Elder.

The Castle of Uther Pendragon, the Father of King Arthur

It is of interest that Pilate was not trained by the Greco-Roman Hellenistic institutions of higher learning. Was it any wonder that Pilate speaking to Yahshua, at his trial in Jerusalem, both who were intimate with the Druidic educational system and their penchant for debating, with the question, “What is truth!” posed this same question to Yahshua HaMaschiach (Jesus the Messiah) as they both were walking out of the Roman Praetorium in Jerusalem. (Isabel Hill Elder, “Celt, Druid, and Culdee”, pg. 54-55)

For upwards to twenty years it took to master the complete cycle of Druidic learning. According to Strabo, Suetonius, and V. Caligula, the cycle of Druidic learning were within the areas of natural philosophy, astronomy, mathematics, geometry, medicine, jurisprudence, poetry, and oratory. The most strenuous educational programs were in natural philosophy and astronomy which traditions claim were taught with “severe exactitude”. (Strabo, I, IV, p. 197. Caesars Comm. Lib. V. Sueotonius, V. Calegula, E. Campio, “Account of Ireland, p. 18, cited by Isabel Hill Elder, “Celt, Druid, and Culdee” pg. 54-55).

Within the royal courts in Britain, not only the Supreme Ruler, called the Pendragon, but all the local kings had their own Druid and Bard that was attached to the royal house. Recognized as “teachers of wisdom” the Druids had charge of the educational system and curriculum for the children of the royal family. The royal school was a traveling educational center, for wherever the Druid traveled his students followed, many of the times teaching them outside in nature in open air spaces. Also within the royal courts were the Chief Poets, or Bards, who also was accompanied by poetic assistants who were still perfecting their skills to the highest standards of their profession.

The Druidic Royal Priesthood

Within the Druidic seminaries, the theological students underwent rigorous training for the priesthood and only after three separate examinations in three successive years by the scholars in the Druidic college within his own tribe was the young priest able to stand for ordination. Even then, the head of the clan always possessed the power of veto for any priestly ordination. (Stanihurst, “De Rebus in Hibernia, pg. 37, cited by Isabel Hill Elder, “Celt, Druid, and Culdee”, pg 57) There were three levels of professional degrees for the Druidic priesthood. These degrees were given to the candidates after three, six, and nine years of professional training. The highest degree after nine years in the seminary of the priests was the professional degree called the Pencerdd or Athro, meaning the “Doctor of Learning”. The professional ceremony of the priestly induction into the highest educational level of the Druidic priesthood was given directly by the tribal king or when he could not be present at the royal court, except in his absence by his deputy every three years. (The Book of Lecain, folio 168. Toland, History of Druids, p. 223, cited by Isabel Hill Elder, “Celt, Druid, and Culdee”, pg. 57)

Group of Arch-Druid and Druids

As testified by the ancients, the knowledge of the stars in the heavens was given to the sons of Seth, so the Druids, as suspected to be of ancestral descendants of Seth were great and esteemed astronomers by the classic writers such as Cicero, Julius Caesar, Pliny, Tacitus, Diodorus, Siculus and Strabo. The number of Druid priests was always highly regulated according to number that was in proportion to the population of their tribes. None of the priest candidates were able to achieve the elevated status of candidacy for the priesthood unless during the prior Congress that convened in May that they were able to give proof that their genealogical ancestral descent came from nine successive generations of free forefathers.

These genealogies were treated with the most guarded protection for the identity of one’s forefathers was the difference between acceptance or complete tribal exclusion and excommunication. This extreme selectivity effectively closed the priesthood, according to Isabel Hill Elder, “to all but the Blaenonon or aristocracy, making the Druidic priests literally a “Royal Priesthood.” (Isabel Hill Elder, “Celt, Druid, and Culdee”, pg. 57)

The “medical priesthood” of the druids was centered upon the divine laws, and divine intervention. Of all the practitioners in ancient medicine, the British Druidic physician was the least cultic of all medical professionals in their world. They prayed to the God of their forefathers to grant blessings upon their gift of healing with the knowledge that there was no medical care and treatment whose success was effective except by the intervention of the Divine Physician.

The Chalice Springs now Attracting the Mystical Longings for Sacred Spaces – Photo by Robert Mock

Preventative Medicine was the most prominent role of the physician as opposed to curative or interventional medicine like surgery. The recipe for life and health was a cheerful disposition, an elevated frame of mind, good physical care and hygiene, temperance in every part of their life. It was coupled with rigorous exercise to keep their bodies in the peak of conditioning. The powerful physical endurance of the British warrior was a testimony of the disciplines of life instilled upon their living habits by the tribal physicians. Public health was stringently followed and enforced and the laws of hygiene were supported and encouraged by the Druidic priests.

The Druidic Astronomers and Architects

Stonehedge The Druidic astronomer’s knowledge was revered by the local Cymric population and lauded by the classical writers of antiquity that included; Cicero, Julius Caesar, Pliny, Tacitus, Diodorus Siculus and Strabo. Yet, one of the most vivid images of a British Druid Astronomer, came by the description given to us by Strabo when the British Druid astronomer, Abaris (Hebrew Rabbi) arrived in the Greek Lyceum as a Greek geographer and spoke:

The Megalithic Monument of Stonehenge built or at least Used by the Druids as part of their Temple Services

Strabo on “Abaris the Hebrew-Druid Geographer” – “He came not clad in skins like a Scythian, but with a bow in his hand, a quiver hanging on his shoulders, a plaid wrapped about his body, a gilded belt encircling his loins, and trousers reaching down from the waist to the soles of his feet. He was easy in his address; agreeable in his conversation active in his dispatch and secret in his management of great affairs; quick in judging of present accuracies, and ready to take his part in any sudden emergency; provident withal in guarding against futurity; diligent in the quest of wisdom; fond of friendship; trusting very little to fortune, yet having the entire confidence of others, and trusted with everything for his prudence. He spoke Greek with a fluency that you would have thought that he had been bred up in the Lyceum; and conversed all his life with the academy of Athens.” (Hecat. Ab. Diod. Sicul, Lib III. Avienus, “The Britannia. Smith, “History of the Druids”, pp. 69, 70. Cartes, “History England, Vol. I, pg. 52, cited by Elder pg. 58-59)

It was Abaris was credited at Athens and unknown nations beyond with his use of a “magnetic needle” which Greek speculations transformed into the “Arrow of Apollo” that transported him to wherever he wished. It was Ammianus Marcellus, who in 350 CE, wrote, “The Druids are men of penetrating and subtle spirit, and acquire the highest renown by their speculations, which were at once subtle and profound.” Pomponius Mela implied that the “Druids were conversant with the most sublime speculations in geometry and in measuring the magnitude of the earth.”

The Fortress Walls of Tintagel Castle – Photo by Robert Mock

There upon the plains of western Britain, the magnificent ruins of Stonehenge called the “Greenwich Observatory” was used as a solar clock in the ancient days and is today recognized as an astronomical stone circle. Even the unit of measurement at Stonehenge was the Royal Cubit, the same as used in the Great Pyramid at Giza. (Isabel Hill Elder, “Celt, Druid, and Culdee” pg. 59)

To the Druidic astronomer, the heliograph and the beacon light were used for signaling, the calculations of the times and seasons, astronomical observations used for the ancient Cymry agrarian and merchant trading communities. It was the Druid, who according to Diodorus Siculus who viewed the heavens by using a telescope and the later generations spoke about the legendary “magic” of the Druids that could bring the “moon down to the earth”. “Holy Wells” that today dot the ancient Welsh and British landscape were reputed to be telescope sighting wells by the Druids and gave the Brits the folk saying the “Truth lies at the bottom of a well”. (Isabel Hill Elder, “Celt, Druid, and Culdee” pg. 57)

Tintagel Castle at Cornwall, England – Photo by Robert Mock

The Druidic architect, trained in the universities of the Druids in Britain, was in high demand on the European continent. According to one of England’s most noted historian, James Ferguson wrote in his “History of Architecture”:

James Ferguson – “The true glory of the Celt in Europe is his artistic eminence, and it is not too much to assert that without his intervention we should not have possessed in modern times a church worthy of admiration, or a picture, or a statue we could look at without shame, and, had the Celt not had their arts nipped in the bud by circumstances over which they had no control, we might have seen something that would have shamed even Greece and wholly eclipsed the arts of Rome…The Celts never lived sufficiently long apart from other races to develop a distinct form of nationality, or to create either a literature or a policy by which they could be certainly recognized; they mixed freely with other people among whom they had adopted their manners and customs.” (Isabel Hill Elder, “Celt, Druid, and Culdee” pg. 60)

This again so typified the ancient Israelite that their distinction as a separate race or culture was never realized. They even lost contact with each other as separate tribes. Their “separateness” or “covenanted” relationship with the Almighty One of Israel was never fully realized even though they left their name in the legacy of the nation of Britain, a name that signified a “covenanted people”. Why did this happen?

Wandering through the Past into the Present, the Trials of the Lost Tribes of Israel – Photo by Robert Mock

Back in the days of the Temple of Solomon, it all came about when the Tribe of Dan sought to go its own way, build their sacred spaces and rejected worshipping in the temple at Jerusalem commanded by the God of Israel. They created their own liturgy and priesthood. They rejected remaining in oneness with their cousins, the Jews and Benjamites at the Temple in Jerusalem. They rejected the divine oracles that Judah was to be their lawgiver and judge.

Even today, the tribes are still wandering and lost, two thousand years later, because Israel (Ephraim) has not accepted that Judah is their lawgiver. This divine legacy of Judah was historically preserved when Judah kept her covenant even though the temple was destroyed. The sacred writings were preserved by the rabbanim that included; the Written Torah, the Prophetic Oracles, and the Writings plus the Oral Torah, in the Mishnah, the Talmud, and the Midrash.

Aerial view of Avebury, Wiltshire, England.

The village of Avebury lies partly within a late Neolithic (New Stone Age) structure that consists of a circular bank of chalk 1,400 feet (425 metres) in diameter and 20 feet (6 metres) high.

The rabbanim of Judah codified and preserved the Oral Torah as a legacy for all ages that the God of Israel was not an absent God, even though He remained a “Hidden God, the Ein Sof”. Through the covenanted lives of a “remnant” of the Jews, they testified that the God of Israel always remained an active “Force”, influence, or Divine Spirit (“Ruach HaKodesh”) within the midst of the last visible segment of National Israel.

Together, with Judah, Israel was a symbiotic whole. Separately, they always kept traces of their Israelite identity, but remained “hidden” within the cultural milieu of the nations. Even the prophets proclaimed that this truly “covenanted” relationship between Judah and Israel (Ephraim) would not be restored by their own accord but that this restoration would be put back into their lives by the Almighty One Himself.

The Druidic Temples and Architecture

Joseph of Arimathea and his 12 companions were now traveling by skiff weaving in and out of watery canals around mounded eminences or islands. It no doubt must have been a surreal experience. Soon their Silurian guide pointed ahead. There it was, the place of their future habitation; the Isle of Avalon. The sight that so transfixed them rose a great mound, called the Great Tor. This was their first introduction to the Druidic Gorsedd, or the “High Place of Worship”. Ahead was a mound of dirt that was hand formed. Its dimensions were greater than the Great Pyramid in Egypt.

The Merlin Caves along the Atlantic Coast at Tintagel Castle – Photo by Robert Mock

There were terraces that mound around the Gorsedd, like a maze, that to this modern era can still be seen and traced. These sites were not for worship. There upon these eminences, the Druids placed their astronomical observatories where they studied the wonders of the Creator’s heavens. In this knowledge, both the Greeks and the Romans marveled for the Druids were recognized as the greatest teachers and observers of the astronomical sciences. Yet, it was not only upon the high eminences of the Gorsedds, such as the Tor of Glastonbury, but also in the simple formation of stone alignments akin to the Hebrews of old, that made them wonder; who were these people?

The Royal Fortress of Tintigal of King Arthur Fame on the Cornwall Coast – Photo by Robert Mock

What can be described today as Druidic architecture are more akin to the ancient megalithic ruins of antiquity; stark, simple yet profound. The megalithic ruins in the land of Britain are especially noted because they are unhewn stones with no pictures or inscriptions upon them. This type of architecture is so atypical of all other ancient architecture in which imperial civilizations built and upon those ruins are images, pictorial graphs, or inscriptions eulogizing the author of these ruins.

In a world of statues to gods and goddesses that are scattered around the idolatrous worlds of the Sumerian, Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek, and Romans, here upon this isle were found no idols or images that could be identified to any of these civilizations prior to the Roman world. Until the Roman emperors touched and defaced this land, no other imperial forces left its signature.

Most noted of these ruins, these monoliths were placed in circles and they like the rest of the stone altar sites, all of the stones were unhewn and not one of them were carved, shaped or inscribed. The piles or mounds were called si’uns or cairns. In the northern regions of England, upon the hilltops or mounds, laws or lows were placed in visual sight of other cairns. This word, “Si’un” has been passed down from great antiquity.

To anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of the Hebrews would recognize that this word, “Si’un” would capture the mind with its similarities with the Hebrew word, “Zion” or “Sion”. The latter means “Fortress” in Hebrew whereas the former, “Mount of Stone”, in Cymric the language.

Artistic Renditions of Potential Layout of the Druidic Circle such as Avebury, Britain

It was C. J. Solinus, the 1^st century Roman geographer, who followed the early Claudian invasion of 43 CE, gave a description of the hot springs at Bath, north of Glastonbury. These ancient hot water baths built over hot springs did not originate with the Romans, but were used for centuries by the Cymric people. Yet, it was the Druidic Circles that gained the attention most of the Roman invaders. Systematically they sought to destroy these arenas of worship, but to their dismay the more altars and cairn circles they destroyed, the more furious the British Cymric population became. In the ancient Cymric language, the temple or sanctuary was called a “caer” or a sacred fenced enclosure. These sacred spaces to the Welch population evoked a certain reverence in their behavior that was universal to their nation. This primitive tribal form of worship was almost identical to the days after the death of Moses Rabenu, when his protégé, Joshua, under the command of God erected a circle of stones at Gilgal (circle) immediately after the children of Israel arrived in the Promise Land.

The Ancient Stone Circle at Gilgal in the Days of Joshua

It was the natural world that was the temple of the Lord of hosts, not artificial and adorned buildings. While many uninformed in the centuries that followed, the primitive minds of the Cymric Brits were not inclined to worship artifices of nature, nor the heavenly bodies above, but alone of all the nations of the world, except for their cousins the Jews and other of those “lost tribes of the house of Israel, they looked to the heavens and worshipped the “Creator of the Great Lights”, the sun and the moon.

They knew that nature was the creation of the God of creation and from the world of nature they could understand the God of nature. The wondrous mysteries of the natural world were nothing other than the voice of the Father of All. As so, in order to worship the God of their forefathers, they watched the movements of the planets in the heavens and the stars in the constellations and by them, they created order for their tribal lives, fixed their religious festivals and the agricultural harvests that sustained their lives. It was the Apostle Paul, who wrote:

1 Corinthians 15:46 – “However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual.”

In the strictest of terms, the Druidic Circles were not known as temples, for in their spiritual conceptions of the Divine, there were only two habitations of the Deity; the soul of man as the invisible temple and the universe, as the visible temple of the Lord. Since the rejection by the Northern Tribes of Israel to worship with their own cousins collectively as one national body in the temple of Solomon, that was commanded by the God of Israel as His own habitation, they drifted away from the conceptual concept that God’s Zion was on Mount Moriah and dwelt in the Temple of Solomon upon that mount.

It was also the apostasy of Israel that caused her to drift away into the worship of the Golden Calf and the gods of Baal. They lost their bearing that the purpose for collective worship was for the preservation of their national identity as Israel. By refusing to worship in the Temple of Solomon, they also refused to accept the divinely ordained authority of establishing the halakhah, or how to live the life of Torah observance. With the rejection of the authority of the priests of the temple, later the Pharisees and even later the Jewish rabbanim, the purity of keeping their lives in Torah observance faded away.

Map of the Jericho Region showing several Landmarks as the True Site of Joshua’s Circle at Gilgal.

Even so, today we can see with amazement how much was preserved in the life of the Druids of the primitive pre-Sinaic life of the children of Israel coming out of Egypt, the post-Sinaic life with Joshua at Gilgal, and the post-United monarchial life in the Northern Kingdom of Israel and Judah. What we also perceive is how so many traditions of the Druids as part of the ancient 10-tribal Israelites were preserved over the years much akin to their brethren and cousins, the Jews.

The architectural remains of the ancient Druid Israelites can today be seen in the numerous Rock Circles, Dolmes or Caers. These Rock Circles have left experts confounded as to their construction and their purpose to allow those ancient tribes to follow the planets and constellation in the heavens. It has been suggested that the ancient Druid were worshippers of these heavenly bodies but Elder suggests otherwise. As she writes:

Isabel Hill Elder – “The primitive religion of Britain associates in so many minds with the worship of the heavenly bodies was the worship of the ‘Lord of hosts’, the Creator of the Great Lights, the sun and the moon, not the worship of the heavenly bodies themselves. The Universe was the Bible of the ancients; the only revelation of the Deity vouchsafed them. The wonders of nature were to them as the voice of the All-Father, and by the movement of the heavenly bodies they ordered their lives, fixed religious festivals and all agricultural proceedings.” (Isabel Hill Elder, “Celt, Druid, and Culdee”, pg. 61)

The Way to Christianity (Early Jewish Nazarenes faith) for the early inhabitants of Britain was traced by Nature herself, and from Nature to Nature’s God. St. Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians, writes, ‘Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.’”

The Ancient Stone Circle at Gilgal , Israel

Dotted across the English landscape today are dolmes and rock circles called “caers”. These were sacred fenced open aired enclosures that were used for sacred worship. It was not the Druids but their enemies that that has defined to the modern mind of who these ancient people were. The Roman enemies of the ancient Druids only sought to create the image of a “barbarian”, which was only initially used to denote a “foreigner” to people of Rome.

The Druidic Temple, Priest and the Arch Druid as the High Priest

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Jebel El Lawz as the Mount called Sinai

According to the spiritual understanding of a temple to the Druid, there were only two habitations of the Supreme Deity; the human soul as the invisible and the universe as the visible. A “temple” was simply known by its most primitive meaning; a place that was separate, cut off, dedicated for a sacred use. This same image harkens back to the days of the children of Israel when Joshua gathered them together within a rock enclosed circle at Gilgal.

Joshua 4:19-20 – “And the people came up out of Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and encamped in Gilgal, in the east border of Jericho. And those twelve stones, which they took out of Jordan, did Joshua pitch in Gilgal”

Even at the mount called Sinai, the perimeters of the sacred space around the mountain was enclosed by stones to define the sacred land from the profane. Yet, Joshua, before he would allow the children of Israel to advance into their Promised Land they had to meet in sacred convocation, repeat the “blessings” and the “curses” of the Lord of hosts, and define their sacred responsibility as custodian for this sacred land. Concerning these sacred places in the land of the British Druids, let us read the words of those who spent their lives studying them.

The ancient stone monuments in Britannia were an inspiration as far back as 860 CE. It was in this era when Nennius, the British historian, as the Abbot of Bangor-on-Dee wrote that a large percentage of his writings were derived from more ancient manuscripts and ancient monuments in his day. These ancient manuscripts along with the records found in the Book of Annals were written in his vernacular tongue that was similar to the ancient Saxon Chronicle.”

The relationship between the Druids of Britain and Ireland and their ancient forefathers, the Hebrew and later the Jews have been noted by esteemed researchers over the centuries. In the Temple of Herod in Jerusalem, it was the Jewish historian Josephus who wrote;

Flavius Josephus - “The loaves on the table, twelve in number, symbolized the circle of the Zodiac.”

So also the stone circles of the ancient Druidic temples were also carefully designed around the constellations of the Zodiac in which the monolithic avenues, some up to seven miles long, were arranged in the symbolic path of the sun traveling through the Zodiac. Maes Howe interior Like the Hebrews of old, the Druidic festivals were three in number. The temples that were composed of monoliths were constructed, like in the construction of the Temple of Solomon, in a manner in which no metal was used for any purpose in its construction. Within the temple at Orkney, like the Hebrew-Jewish temples of Solomon and Zerubabbel, was a large central hallway, with side-rooms for sleeping, a stone door that opened and shut and a niche for the guards or security.

The Temple like interior of the Maes Howe Chamber within the Cairn as Seen in 1861

Also like the temple at Jerusalem where the surrounding land was a sacred place for the burial of the noted ones awaiting resurrection with the first moment of renewed consciousness could look upon the temple of the Lord, so at the great circle and Temple at Avebury (“Ambresbiri, the Holy Anointed Ones”), where the Druids called “The Great Sanctuary of the Dominion”, also became the last resting place of princes, statesmen, priests, warriors of renown, poet and bards and noted musicians. (Isabel Hill Elder, “Celt, Druid, and Culdee”, pg. 63)

The religious services of the Druids, as also in Jerusalem, had to be conducted when the sun was circling the earth above the horizon. Services in the midst of the night were forbidden by law. During the services, the Chief Druid called the Arch Druid would approach the central stone, Maen Llog that was known as the “Stone of the Covenant”. Today this stone, called a Cromlech, was in ancient Ireland called “Bethel” or the House of God. (Vallency, Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicus, pg 211. Lysons, Our British Ancestors, pg. 196, cited by Isabel Hill Elder, “Celt, Druid, and Culdee”, pg 63)

Upon this sacred altar, only sacred water was only allowed to be poured. This water was collected in a rain cistern and retained for its sanctified use, or was brought in from the River Dee, called Drydwy which meant “Divine water” were the waters permitted for the sacrifices of the Druids. (Isabel Hill Elder, “Celt, Druid, and Culdee”, pg 63) Here we see again an allusion to the ancient sacredness of the River Jordan in Israel. It was the “faerie Queen” of which the British Poet William Robert Spencer wrote that said:

Maes Howe photo William Robert Spencer (1769-1834) - “…Dee which Britons long ygone did call divine, that doth by Chester tend.” (King’s Vale Royal, p. 2. Annales, Cambriae, CLXIX., cited by Isabel Hill Elder, “Celt, Druid, and Culdee”, pg.64)

Temple Cairn at Maes Howe at Orkney, Britain

Picture of Celtic Cross - Free Pictures - FreeFoto.com Even after Druidism had virtually merged in later centuries into the British Culdee Christian Church, the River Dee was still regarded as sacred. Six centuries later, after the Roman Catholic Church had gained domination over the British Culdee Nazarenes, the Christian traditions of the Eucharist celebration were overlaid over the earlier primitive truths when, Dionaoht, Abbot of Bangor delivered and oration, after the Battle of Britain in the year of 613 CE, to the defeated Britons who had retreated and regrouped along the banks of the River Dee, concluded his service by the command to the warriors to kneel down and kiss the ground in memory of the body of Christ, and to take up the water into the palms of their hands from the River Dee and drink it in remembrance to Jesus’ sacred blood. The next day, the British warrior met the invading Saxon warriors under the command of Ethelfrid from Northunbria and defeated them.” (Strabo, IV, 4,5; XV, 1,5. M.F. Cusack, History of Ireland, p. 116, note, cited by Isabel Hill Elder, “Celt, Druid, and Culdee”, pg. 64)

Celtic Cross at LIndisfarne, Northumberland, England

This sacred relationship between the Druids and the ancient Israelites was also found in their ritual linen garments called the surplices and the temple music as performed by the Levite priests. It was the Greek historian and geographer, Strabo that wrote of the Bards of ancient Britain whose responsibility was to cultivate and preserve the arts of music, poetry, and literature, and he called them “hymn makers”. The bards performed the temple music while wearing white linen robes during the services, a ritual carried down through the ages by the Church of England where the choirs in the cathedrals wore white surplices. Yet was this not unlike the ancient Levite choristers who wore white linen robes, a privilege evidently lost during the days of Herod the Great, when the High Priest family of the House of Boethus returned to Jerusalem by the invitation of King Herod in 36 CE, the temple priests were able to wear fine linen garments but the temple choirs and musicians were not able to wear them until the days of King Agrippa. As Josephus wrote:

Flavius Josephus – “Now as many of the Levites as were singers of hymns persuaded the king (Agrippa) to assemble a Sanhedrin and to give them leave to wear linen garments as well as the priests; for, they said, this would be a work worthy of the times of his government, that he might have a memorial of such a novelty as being his doing; nor did they fail of obtaining their desire.” (Josephus, Antiquities, XX, 9)

Archdruid Brinli (1972-75); Brinley Richards. If these similarities are appealing, let us return to the Greek author, Hecataeus, lived around 320 BCE, when he described the ancients, living upon the isles of the west, and when referring to the temple worship at Stonehenge, claimed that they worshipped in a most beautiful temple where their temple choirs and musicians ministered while playing on golden harps in praise to the God of their forefathers. Their priesthood lineage was carried from generation to generation, as did the ancient Israelites whose priesthood came only from the House of Aaron through the family of the High Priest Zadok, the high priest of King David. (Dio Siculus Tom. I, p. 158, Taliesen, Bards, and Druids of Britain, Nash, p. 15, cited by Isabel Hill Elder, “Celt, Druid, and Culdee”, pg. 64-5)

Archdruid Brinli (1972-75); Brinley Richards.

Yet, it was the ritual ceremonial garments of the Druid Arch Druid, who as the high priest wore the most elaborate and majestic garment that was wrought with no metal but gold. The Cymric Cross was woven into the garment down the entire back of his garment. It was enhanced with a golden tiara and a breastplate of gold. (Crania Britannicae, Vol. I, pg. 78, cited by Isabel Hill Elder, “Celt, Druid, and Culdee”, pg. 65) One of these breastplates was found during excavations at Stonehenge and according to Elder, five others were found at other sites in Britain and Ireland. (Ibid.)

Around the neck of the Arch Druid was a large “Chevron Bead” that was shaped like a golden egg and called by the Romans as the “Druid’s Egg”. This “Golden Egg” was the

symbol of the Divine to the Druids. It evoked to them over the ages many legends of its powers as a talisman, not unlike the powers of the ancient breastplate of the Hebrew High Priest whose stones, the Urim and the Thummin, were used to communicate with the Eternal One of Israel. (E. Wilson, Lights and Shadows, pg. 6-7, cited by Isabel Hill Elder, “Celt, Druid, and Culdee”, pg 65)

Though, as with the corruption of the ancient Hebrew temple services by the Tribe of Dan in which all the ten tribes of Israel followed when the United Monarchy of Kings David and Solomon split into the Northern Kingdom of Israel (10 Tribes of Israel) and the Southern Kingdom of Judah (Tribes of Judah and Benjamin plus part of the Tribe of Levi). If the ancient Druids were a truly remnant of these rebellious “lost tribes” the similarities of theology, liturgy, and religious ceremony are still quite remarkable. Through theology, philosophy, governance, tribal and genealogical purity, temple worship, their rituals and priestly garments all evoke that the rebellion was a spiritual rebellion yet they retained remarkable traces of their ancestral legacy, giving us a glimpse into their ancestral past of the ancient Hebrews.

One of the legends that have filtered down through the ages was the stories of the human sacrifices by the Druids. Akin to the blood libel of the Jews, the Druid and Culdee Christian scholar, Isabel Hill Taylor, adamantly refutes the charges of the Druids on human sacrifices.

Isabel Hill Elder – “The stories that are told and believed of human sacrifice by the Druids are pure inventions of the Romans to cover their own cruelty and to excuse it. The Druids sacrificed sheep, oxen, deer and goats; charred remains of these have been found at Avebury, Stonehenge and in the vicinity of St. Paul’s Cathedral. No trace of human sacrifice has been discovered in Britain.” (Isabel Hill Elder, “Celt, Druid, and Culdee”, pg. 65-66)

The Spiritual Literature of Druidism

No doubt the most common error of modern historians is the consideration that Druidism was a religion. Rather than a religion, druidism was a way of life, like the halakhah of the Torah is to the Jewish people. The whole organized life of the druidic people radiated around the social system of civil and ecclesiastical knowledge the Druidic Order in its total encompassing way of life. This all encompassing lifestyle included the church (synagogue) with their clergy (priests), their legislative bodies as the congress (parliament), the courts of law with their judges (magistrates), and the colleges of physicians (priests).

The Druidic Gorsedd Circle of Twelve Stones with the Maen Llog or Logan Stone in the Center symbolic of the “House of God” (Bethel)

The Druidic culture and way of life did not spontaneously erupt from a sea of chaos, nor do we find its evolution developing over the process of centuries from any known imperial culture of antiquity. Even though noted scholars have affirmed it great antiquity in Europe, they also noted that its roots still lay in Asia or the Middle East. It was Dudley Wright (1868-1949) in his book, “Druidism, the Ancient Faith of Britain”, expounded upon this theme when he wrote:

Dudley Wright – “It is established by the most unquestionable authority that the Celts were the original inhabitants of Europe, that the Celtic language was a dialect of the primary language of Asia, and that the Celtae had among them from the remote antiquity an Order of Literati called Druids, to whom the Greeks and Romans ascribed a degree of philosophic celebrity, inferior to none of the sages of the past.” (Dudley Wright, “Druidism, the Ancient Faith of Britain” pg. 14, cited by Isabel Hill Elder, “Celt, Druid, and Culdee”, pg 87)

What was more fascinating was not the encompassing scope of the Druidic influence upon the Cymric lifestyle, but how did they achieve such an elevating concept of the “divine” in a world of pagan nations where people worshipped “sticks and stones” as divine personages, or the stellar bodies in the heavens as the pantheons of divine families. According to Isabel Elder:

The Annual National Eisteddfod of Wales

Isabel Hill Elder – “The spiritual character of Druidic teaching is illustrated in the following Triads:

· The three foundations of Druidism: Peace, Love, Justice.

· The three things God alone can do: endure all being without changing; renew everything without annihilating it.

· There are three Primeval Unities and more than one of each cannot exist: one God, one Truth and One Point of Liberty where all opposites preponderate.

· Three things proceed from the three Primeval Unities; all of Life, all that is Good; and all that is Power.

· The three primary principles of Wisdom; wisdom to the laws of God’ concern for the welfare of mankind; suffering with fortitude all the accidents of life.

· The three primary ornaments of Wisdom; love, truth, courage.

· Three things that make a man equal to an angel: the love of every good; the love of exercising charity; the love of pleasing God.

· There are three men that all ought to look on with affection; he that with affection looks on the face of the earth; he that is delighted with rational works of art; and he that looks loving on little infants.

· Three duties of every man’ worship God; be just to all men; die for your country.

Carrying the Hirlas Horn on a bier in the Pontypool procession, 1924.

One of the leading maxims of the Druidism was to examine without prejudice all matters that came under their observation. The Druidical teaching concerning a man’s spiritual nature is composed in the following Triad:

· In every person there is a soul.

· In every soul there is intelligence.

· In every intelligence there is thought.

· In every thought there is either good or evil.

· In every evil there is death.

· In every good there is life.

· In every life there is God.”

(Isabel Hill Elder, Celt, Druid and Culdee, pg. 87-88)

The Cymric Triads are recognized today as some of the most primitive literature known that have remained a living language to our modern era. From this ancient culture, a vast movement was inspired to study, preserve from destruction all the ancient manuscripts and stone monuments that were about to disappear forever. Here were an ancient people that miraculously preserved their own culture, philosophy, theology, religious rituals and heritage, yet knew not from whence they came and why they were here.

Every part of their culture was centered upon the same God of the Patriarchs that the Jewish people descended from. Here we are beginning to witness how amazingly close their cultures paralleled each other and appeared to descend from the same roots; the culture of the ancient Hebrew-Judaic faith.

The Gorsedd of the Bards presenting the Hirlas Horn

In a side note on Lord Lytton’s “King Arthur”, these words were penned by Dudley Wright:

Dudley Wright – “The Triads indeed are of various dates, but some bear the mark of a very remote antiquity, wholly distinct alike from the philosophy of the Romans and the mode of thought prevalent in the earlier ages of the Christian era; in short, anterior to all the recorded conquests of the Cymrian people.

These, like proverbs, appear the wrecks and fragments of some primeval ethics or philosophical religion. Nor are such remarkable alone for the purity of the notion they inculcate relative to the Deity. They have often, upon matters less spiritual, the delicate observation as well as the profound thought of reflective wisdom. Nor were the Druids of Britain inferior to those with whom the sages of the Western and Eastern worlds came into contact. On the contrary, even to the time of Caesar, the Druids of Britain excelled in science and repute those of Gaul, and to their schools the neophytes were sent.” (Dudley Wright, “Druidism, the Ancient Faith of Britain” pg. 14; cited by Elder pg 86-87)

As we begin to recreate the mystical and mythical past of Druidism, we continue to encounter images of the ancient patriarchs and their descendants called the Children of Israel. We envision their Patriarch Noah, at the cusp of a new era, stood before the unhewn stone altar sacrificing a thank offering to the Eternal One, as he exited from the door of the ark. This sacrifice was to the One who had warned him of the coming catastrophe of a world wide flood. We also envision the son of the oracular priest of Nimrod’s kingdom, the Patriarch Abram, who stood before a stone alter at Bethel (“House of God”) and gave a sacrifice of thanks to the God of his forefathers, the Patriarchs Shem and Noah.

In the same manner, Isabel Elder describes the national assembly of the revived Druidic Gorsedd of Wales that is held as the National Eisteddfod, evoking the vast assemblies of the ancient Cymric who gathered on the plains of Britain. She describes these assemblies:

Unsheathing the Grand Sword at the “The Gorsedd of the Bards” at the London National Eisteddfod, 1909; note the small stones.

Isabel Hill Elder – “The circle is formed of twelve unhewn stones; in the centre, is the Maen Llog or Logan Stone, symbolic of the ‘House of God’. Twelve bards, one by each stone, guard the circle today as in times past, and two keepers of the gate are stationed at the entrance on the east side. The magnificent regalia of the Order is borne in the procession before the Archdruid, in which is included the Sword surmounted by its crystal and emblematic dove. Also the Hirlas Horn, symbolic of authority, the drinking vessel of the ancient Druids and used by them for sacred purposes. It is possible that our custom of drinking healths may be traced to this ancient Druidic ritual.

The ceremonial invocation, said to be as old as the Druidic Order, is, in the Welsh language, very impressive. Perhaps it suffers somewhat in the following English translation:

Dyro, Dduw, dy nawdd; “Grant, O God, Thy Protection,

Ac yn nawdd, nerth; And in Protection, Strength,

Ac yn nerth, deall; And in Strength, Understanding,

Ac yn neall, gwybod; And in Understanding, Knowledge,

Ac yng ngwybod, gwybod y cyfiawn; And in Knowledge, the Knowledge of Justice,

Ac yng ngwybod y cyfiawn, ei garu; And in the Knowledge of Justice, the Love of it,

Ac o garu, caru pob hanfod; And in that Love, the Love of all Existences,

Ac ym mhob hanfod, caru duw; And in the Love of all Existences, the Love of God,

Duw a phob daioni. God and all Goodness.

At the moment of prayer all the bards bow the head toward the Maed Llog or centre stone. In the survival of this simple ceremony is preserved a picture of the solemn assemblies of our forefathers and a very inspiring link with the past. (Isabel Hill Elder, “Celt, Druid, and Culdee”, pg 90-91)

“Within the stone of federation there,

On the green turf and under the blue sky,

A noble band – the bards of Britain stood,

Their heads in rev’rence bow’d and bare of foot,

A deathless brotherhood.” (Southey ‘Madoc’)

The Lost Tribes of Israel were preparing for their long process of returning to be united with their ancient tribal brotherhood, the House of Judah. If would be a long journey beginning with the infection of Jewish Messianism by the divine mission of Yahshua HaMaschiach (Jesus the Messiah) to find the “Lost Sheep of the House of Israel”. It would end two thousand years later with the Return of King Messiah the son of David.

Go to Section Four

“The Early Formative and Lost Years of Jesus”

***************

To understand more about the Return of the 10 Tribes of Israel, contact

Kol Ha Tor, the Voice of the Turtledove,

As a Reception from the House of Judah is forming to await the returning House of Israel

Associated Supporters of the Kol HaTor Vision

HaTor today

***************

The Divine Mission to Restore the Lost Sheep (Tribes) of the House of Israel

Part Eleven

Go to Section One –

“Joseph of Arimathea, the Jewish Metal Merchant and Apostle to Britannia”

Go to Section Two –

“The Jewish Nazarene Refugees Flee to the Isle of Avalon”

Go to Section Three –

“The Jewish Nazarene Culdee Yeshiva and the British Cymric Druids”

Go to Section Four –

“The Early Formative and Lost Years of Jesus”

Go to Section Five –

“The Vetusta Ecclesia – The Ancient Synagogue built by the Hand of God’s Messiah”

Go to Section Six –

“The History of the Vetusta Nazarene Synagogue (Ancient Ecclesia)”

Go to Section Seven –

“The Exile of the Ten Tribes of Israel”

Go to Section Eight –

“The Early Israelite Migrations”

Go to Section Nine –

“God’s Battle-Axe – Mystery of the Pashtun Israelites of Afghanistan”

Go to Section Ten –

“The Durrani Pashtun Afghan Bani-Israel Empire and its Legacy –

the Islamic Messiah, the Mahdi and the anti-Messiah, the Dajjal”

Go to Section Eleven –

“The Israelite-Scythian Migration to Europe”

Go to Section Twelve –

“Finding a New Home for the Lost Tribes of Israel”

Go to Section Thirteen –

“Rothschild Sabbatean Zionist State of Israel preparing the Future Home for the Returning Ten Tribes of the House of Israel”

Go to Section Fourteen –

“The Final Days of the Labor Zionist State of Israel as the

Messiah calls the Lost Tribes of Israel to come Home”

Message from BibleSearchers

BibleSearchers scans the world for information that has relevance on the time of the end. It is our prayer that this will allow the believers in the Almighty One of Israel to “watch and be ready”. Our readiness has nothing to do trying to halt the progression of evil on our planet earth. In our readiness, we seek to be prepared for the coming of the Messiah of Israel so that goodness and evil will be manifested in its fullest. Our preparation is a pathway of spiritual readiness for a world of peace. Our defender is the Lord of hosts. The time of the end suggests that the Eternal One of Israel’s intent is to close out this chapter of earth’s history so that the perpetrators of evil, those that seek power, greed and control, will be eliminated from this planet earth. The wars of the heavens are being played out on this planet earth and humans will live through it to testify of the might, power, justice and the love of the God of Israel. In a world of corruption and disinformation, we cannot always know what the historical truth is and who is promoting evil or mis-information. We cannot guarantee our sources but we will always seek to portray trends that can be validated in the Torah and the testimony of the prophets of the Old and the New Testament.

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