The Exodus is a myth

Ancient Israel as a kingdom with a defined territory renowned throughout the ancient world is nothing more than a myth believed by only a minority of those called Hebrew in the first century CE (the Pharisees and their followers), before the catastrophic events of the Great Jewish Revolt of 66-73 CE, the Kitos War of 115-117, and the Bar Kokhba War of 132-135 CE.

Contrary to the account of the Torah, the Canaanite-speaking Hebrews were not invaders from outside, neither from Egypt nor from Mesopotamia, but rather arose as a people in situ from among the city-states which dotted the region.  They were not “wandering Arameans who went down into Egypt and became slaves”, though they almost certainly were at least semi-nomadic.

The earliest mention of an entity referred to as Israel is on the Merneptah Stele of 1207 BCE describing that Pharaoh’s victory over a number of enemies in the Levant, including Gezer, Yanoam (Tell el-Na’am), and Ashkelon.  Written “Isiriar”, the hieroglyphs on the stele indicate a semi-nomadic Canaanite tribe in the hills of Canaan among Canaanite cities.  All the material remains of early “Israelite” settlement in the hills is of Canaanite origin, the only significant difference being a total absence of pig bones.

By contrast, the Torah describes how the children of Israel, aka Jacob, grandchildren of the “wandering Aramean” who travelled west from “Ur of the Chaldees” went down into Egypt and became slaves, then escaped after their god sent ten plagues that devastated their oppressors, only to be chased by the army of the unnamed Pharoah which was drowned in the Red Sea.  This is the pivotal event of the Torah, the only scriptures accepted as such by all Hebrews, Samaritan and Jew, at the turn of the era.

As inspiring as the story is, it never happened.  It couldn’t have happened, except maybe in an alternate universe.  Aside from the utter dearth of physical evidence of such a stupendous migration (2 million+ people) despite over a century of search, there is simply no room in the verified, recorded, objective, empirical history for it to have occurred.

After more than a hundred years of searching, archaeologists abandoned the fruitless and futile task of seeking physical remains of the Exodus and the 40 years wandering in the Sinai.  Even with all that effort, none had been found.  When infrared photography from satellite proved North Africa was once a lush, well-watered rainforest and that the Arabian peninsula was once a verdant landscape crisscrossed by dozens of rivers, the hopeful tried that. 

Despite the fact that scientists were able to chart the course of Arabian rivers that had not existed for tens of millennia and that these techniques had been able to identify Neolithic campsites used once by a small band of hunters, nothing was found.  In truth, the Sinai could not possibly support two million plus persons for even a short time, much less forty years, even with divine intervention from multiple deities.

Now we can explore why the historical record doesn’t have any room for The Exodus.

Two of the oldest, and once most widely-respected (as they still are by fundamentalist and evangelical Christians, especially in America, and by Orthodox Jews) timelines of Biblical chronology are the rabbinic timeline produced in the 2nd century CE called the Seder Olam Rabbah and the chronology published in the 17th century by the (Anglican) Church of Ireland’s Most Rev. James Ussher called Annals of the Old and New Testaments.

The Most Rev. James Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh in the Church of Ireland, was a very learned man who used his wide and deep knowledge of scripture and ancient history from authors contemporary to their time (or near so) to create a timeline of the events of the Christian Holy Bible and a little ways beyond.  This timeline, published separately in 1650 and 1654 and as a whole in 1658, is called the Annals of the Old and New Testaments.

In case you’re wondering, by the way, Ussher dated Creation to the eve of 23 October 4004 BCE in the Julian calendar (or 21 September 4004 BCE in the Gregorian calendar) which is where that date comes from.  The rabbinic chronology, sanctified by its inclusion in the Talmud, gives the year 3761 BCE.  Ussher’s chronology runs to the end of the Great Jewish Revolt of 66-73 CE, a bit of a misnomer since the Samaritans joined in. 

The rabbis give the same dates for that penultimate event, which is probably a good thing for them since the war was very well documented.  Unfortunately for the rabbis, they didn’t always choose to date events according to empirical fact; their dates don’t enter our version of space-time reality until the conquest of the Levant by Pompey the Great in 63 BCE.  They even misdate the Hasmonean Revolt three decades late.

For all the believers in the fantasies of the other well-known Church of Ireland divine, John Nelson Darby, at the end of his work Ussher quite correctly states the predictions of the Olivet discourse were fulfilled by the events of that war, which pretty much trashes the idea that the “restoration of Israel” is a sign of the “End Times” since Darby’s Restorationism is built around the idea that the Olivet discourse has yet to be fulfilled.

While his overall dates of known events correspond to our reality, Ussher sucks at math as bad as the rabbis.  Ussher gives the date of 1706 BCE for the children of Israel going down into Egypt, while the rabbis give the date of 1522 BCE.  Ussher gives the date of 1491 BCE for the Exodus, while the rabbis give the date of 1312 BCE. 

In Ussher’s case the difference is 215 years while for the rabbis the difference is 210 years.  The Bible gives three different figures for the lengths of stay in Egypt: 400 years in Genesis 15:13, about 160 years in Genesis 15:16 and I Chronicles 6:1-3, and the third depends on whether one is looking at Exodus 12:40 in the Septuagint version, which gives 215 years, or in the Masoretic version, which gives 430 years.  Information elsewhere (Exodus 6:16-20; 1 Chronicles 6:1; 1 Chronicles 23:6-13) allows for a sojourn of no more than 350 years.

Interesting that Ussher chose the Septuagint’s figure for his chronology since the Bible he used on a daily basis as Archbishop of the branch of the Church of England known as the Church of Ireland based its translation of the Old Testament almost solely on the Masoretic version.  If they realized this, many American Christian fundamentalists with their Ussher-incorporating Schofield Reference Bibles might experience cognitive dissonance, at least until they could bring to bear the same contortionist reasoning with which they justify so many of their fallacies.

In the 20th century, Biblical archaeologist and theologian Edwin Thiele suggested a date of 1450 BCE, in the midst of the reign of Pharoah Thutmose III.  When this was proven archaeologically impossible by the second half of the 20th century, later Biblical archaeologist William Albright proposed a period of 1250-1200 BCE, but this idea too met its inevitable disavowment.

So, from the earliest proposed date to the latest, we get a space of years in which The Exodus could have occurred from 1491 BCE to 1200 BCE. 

There actually were people from Canaan who went down to Lower Egypt, beginning around 1800 BCE, but not as mendicants who became slaves and they were certainly not monotheists or even close to it.  Called Hyksos by the Egyptians, they arrived as welcome immigrants with much needed skills, soldiers, sailors, craftsman, and artisans.  From their gods and names in surviving inscriptions, it is clear they were Canaanite.

The Hyksos referred to their chief deity as Baal, and they also brought along Anath, Resheph, and Astarte, among others.  Eventually, they identified Baal with Seth, and began to worship him as such.  In Egyptian religion by that time, Seth had become the brother and archenemy of Horus, the same way that in the Levant the god Yaw was brother and archenemy to Hadad (both of whom bore the title Baal, incidentally) and that in Lower Mesopotamia the god Sin was brother and archenemy to the god Marduk.

With the slow disintegration of the Middle Kingdom, they found their way into the bureaucracy, even into the viziership.  By the 17th century BCE, they formed the most powerful petty kingdom in Lower Egypt, and arose to its Pharoahs after their numbers were swelled by their cousins bringing the chariot and the compound bow (then advanced military tech).  While the Pharaohs of the Canaanite Hyksos dynasty ruled from the city of Avaris from about 1650 BCE, native rulers continued in Upper Egypt at Thebes.

When their time was up, the Hyksos did not “escape” from Egypt; rather they were attacked and driven out by the forces of Thebes about 1530 BCE.  Their capital of Avaris was reduced to rubble.  After they fled across the Sinai, they took shelter in the fortified city of Sharuhen in the Negev, which fell after a three year siege.  Jericho was also destroyed about the same time.  Pharoah  Ahmose I already controlled the line of forts from the Delta up the seacoast to Gaza known as the Way of Horus; its terminus at Gaza became the administration center for Egypt’s Levantine territories.

In 1457 BCE, Pharoah Thutmose III conquered Djahy, roughly the same territory as Galilee, whose main city was the metropolis of Hazor.  To have a more central location from which to administer the new territories, he built a city at the junction of the Jezreel and Jordan Valleys later the site of Scythopolis and Beth Shean.

Egyptian territory eventually extended to the Orontes River, then to Anatolia and the Euphrates River and northwest Mesopotamia.  Under Pharoah Amenhotep IV/Akenaten (1351-1334 BCE), who was more preoccupied with the domestic affairs of Egypt (such as promoting worship of his monotheistic god Aten), Egypt lost their northern territories of Amurru and Kadesh to the growing Hittite Empire out of Anatolia.

After much back-and-forth conquest over the next several decades, the border between Egypt and Hatti (the land which the Hittites had taken over as their base) was set at Qatna. 

Between 1206 and 1130 BCE, the entire network of civilizations around the Aegean Sea, the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, and Southwest Asia collapsed.  The sites of most city-states from the period show wholesale destruction, burning, and looting.  Mycenaean Greece, the Hittite Empire, the New Kingdom of Egypt, Cyprus, Mesopotamia, Amurru, Alalakh, Ugarit, and the Assuwa confederation in western Anatolia (of which Wilusa/Ilion/Troy was the seat) disappeared.  The Late Bronze Age ended with a bang, or rather several bangs, not a whimper.

Surviving inscriptions and papyri mention the Sea Peoples, but they alone cannot account for the massive chaos and devastation.  Trade networks were disrupted, city-states vanished to be replaced by isolated villages, more hospitable places were abandoned for those more secure.

The New Kingdom of Egypt ruled the Levant (which it called Retenu) up to Qatna with no real opposition until the Battle of Djahy against the Sea Peoples in 1178 BCE.  Following the battle, Pharoah Ramesses III resettled his antagonists in the five towns later known as Philistia in the southwest of Palestine, their metropolis of Gath being the most inland.

The local population of Djahy took advantage of the situation in 1150 BCE to rise up and burn the Egyptian city at Beth Shean to the ground, immediately building a new, and Canaanite, city on top of it.  The Philistines rewarded their initiative by destroying it fifty years later.  In the meantime, in 1130 BCE, they destroyed the last major city still loyal to Egypt, Megiddo, at the time the leading city of Djahy, the previous center’s population (Hazor) having risen up and destroyed the upper city of its pro-Egyptian elite around the year 1230 BCE but leaving the lower city intact.

The dawn of the Early Iron Age saw the end of Egyptian power and influence in the Levant as well as the collapse of civilization, but it also allowed the rise of the Phoenician city-states of the Mediterranean Sea’s eastern coast.  The Phoenicians, and their Punic offspring based in the African city of Carthage, came to dominate the sea’s entire basin.  In the Levant, their cities ran from Arvad in the north to Joppa (Jaffa) in the south, not far from the Philistine city of Ekron, and included Byblos, Tyre, Sidon, Beirut, Tripoli, Dor, and Haifa.

The destruction of the Egyptian-allied city at Megiddo marked the end of Egyptian power in the Levant for the next several centuries, except for the three years following its reconquest by the Pharoah Shehsonq I of the 22nd Dynasty, 925-922 BCE.  Palestina, as it was then known to the Greeks, didn’t come under the sway of Egypt again until its conquest by Ptolemy I in 301 BCE.

Egypt ruled southern and central Palestine from 1530 BCE when they chased the Hyksos back into Palestine and northern Palestine and Lebanon from 1457 when they conquered Djahy, eventually conquering the entire Levant and part of Anatolia.  The New Kingdom ruled all these areas, except for the territory the Hittites took from them down to Qatna with the defection of Amurru, until the Late Bronze Age Collapse, with the last bit of its hold there vanishing in 1130 BCE.  Clearly, there was no room for the Israelites to escape from Egypt into the Land of Canaan because they would have just been “escaping” into more of Egypt.

In the midst of the collapse, other semi-nomadic Canaanite peoples, some previously mentioned in Egyptian records such as Edom and Moab, began to settle down and found territorial kingdoms for themselves and their posterity.  Moab established its kingdom in 1250 BCE, Edom in 1180 BCE, Aram in 1115 BCE, and Ammon in 1000 BCE.  The first two were definitely mentioned in Egyptian records, the latter being identified with the Shasu mentioned elsewhere though the Shasu are also identified with Aram.

The “Isiriar” (probably Israel) mentioned as tribal allies of the southern Palestine city-states of Gezer, Yenoam, and Ashkelon in 1207 BCE do not reappear until their king, Omri, founds the kingdom known, to outsiders at least, as Samerina in the early 9th century BCE, taking in what was once Djahy as well as the central area known in the first century as Samaria.

I submit once again that the Exodus is a myth, because there is no room for it in the historical record.  It is at best a reimagining of actual historical events involving the Hyksos.

Egypt's Foreshadow, Once and Again

I remember listening to Egypt’s then president Hosni Mubarak’s speech with Farzi (short for Farzaneh) on 10 February 2011 on Al Jazeera Live via internet.  She and I were together via Skype, she in Paris and I in Chattanooga, and, fortunately for both of us non-Arabic speakers, there was a near simultaneous translation. 

It was the 16^th day of the occupation of Tahrir Square in Cairo.  The speech was defiant and confident, and Mubarak sounded strong.  Although he was willing to negotiate his leaving, there was no way he was just going to walk away.

“He’ll be gone in a week,” I remarked after the speech was finished.

“No way!” Farzi exclaimed.  “Didn’t you hear him, how confident he sounded?”

“Yeah,” I answered, “but he’ll still be gone in a week, maybe two, a month at most.”  I felt pretty sure of myself due to the very recent example of Ben Ali’s resignation of his 23-year presidency of Tunisia on 14 January after 28 days of “people power” protests that began with the self-immolation of vendor Mohamed Bouazizi in the south of the country.

“Well, you may be right,” she conceded, “but I’m worried about what’s going to happen after he leaves.  I’m afraid the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) will take over the country and turn it into another Islamic Republic of Iran.”

Farzi, who is French Iranian, had been thirteen when Iran’s 1979 revolution overthrew the decrepit, corrupt government of the Shah, which initially had been spearheaded by secularists, liberal democrats, progressive students, and workers as well as bazaaris (owners of small businesses retailing in the country’s bazaars).  Precocious for her age, Farzi had warned her father, a secularist and anti-Shah business leader, not to trust Khomeini and stay away from his people and followers.  I had been fifteen at the time, a high school sophomore, on the long distance team at Ooltewah High, and an avid watcher of the evening news.

Back in the less distant past, Mubarak resigned the day after his defiant speech, 11 February, which was also the 32^nd anniversary of the abdication of the Shah in 1979, celebrated as Revolution Day by the Islamic Republic. 

I was reminded of the time my fraternity brother and then best friend Chris Mahoney and I were watching ABC’s General Hospital one afternoon and there was this scene of Rick Webber and former paramour Ginny Blake arguing vehemently about the welfare of the offspring of their affair, Rick Jr.  This was during the early 1980’s when GH’s popularity was at its astronomical height and UTC student center’s TV lounge was standing room only at 3 pm.  I said they were going to get married, he said they hated each other too much, so we bet $5 on it.  I collected the very next day.

When Farzi and I connected on Skype the day after Mubarak’s speech, I was, of course, very gracious and mature about being proven right and being proven right so far ahead of schedule.  As soon as our video call connected, I stuck out my tongue and chanted, “Nyah! Nyah! Nyah! Nyah! Nyah!”.  I guess you could call it a Rick Castle moment.  Farzi laughed, but then got serious and said to me the same thing she said to her father about Iran in 1979, “Watch and see”.

The Muslim Brotherhood, the biggest and most organized of the opposition groups, formed the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP)  just ten days after Mubarak resigned.  A little later, it formed the Democratic Alliance for Egypt with fourteen other parties of various shades of the political spectrum of the country, including Salafists (Islamist hardliners), secular democrats, leftists, centrists, and Nasserite nationalists. 

Before the parliamentary elections, however, the Brotherhood drove most of the others away by insisting members of the other parties run under the FJP label.  By the time of the elections to the lower house, the People’s Assembly, which took place in stages from November 2011 to January 2012, the caolition was all but completely defunct.  Elections to the body’s upper house, the Shura Council, took place from the end of January through February.

At the end of the series of votes to the People’s Assembly, the FJP got 47.2% of the vote while the Salafist Al-Nour Party got 24.3%, leaving the new parliament overwhelmingly dominated by Islamists.  Elections to the Shura Council were similarly lopsided, 45.04% and 28.63% for the two afore-mentioned parties. 

Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court later declared the elections invalid and parliament dissolved in June 2012, but the new president, Mohammed Morsi of the Brotherhood’s FJP (elected with 51.73% of the run-off vote; he got 24.78% in the first round), countermanded the court’s decree.  Ruling in September 2012, the Supreme Administrative Court reiterated the earlier court’s judgment, but Morsi refused to adhere to the legal ruling of either court.

In the meantime, the overwhelmingly Islamist legislature had elected an overwhelmingly Islamist constituent assembly to write a new constitution (which ultimately turned out to be overwhelmingly Islamist) in March 2012. 

Okay, maybe Farzi wasn’t so wrong after all.

The constituent assembly was ruled unconstitutional the next month by the Supreme Constitutional Court.  A more balanced and representative assembly was formed in June 2012, but Islamist elements in parliament once again elected some of their own MP’s to the assembly.  The liberal democrats, secular nationalists, leftists, Nasserites, and other non-Islamists declared a boycott even as legal challenges began.

In November 2012, Morsi assumed powers roughly equivalent to those enjoyed by Mubarak under the 30-year state of emergency.  He did so partly to avert any judiciary authority declaring the constituent assembly invalid. 

By this time the Islamists were virtually the only members left, and due to resignations and withdrawals, the assembly lacked a quorum of members necessary for a vote to send the constitution for a referendum.  Despite this, Morsi ordered the assembly to vote and send the draft of 234 articles for a referendum, which took place in December 2012.  The invalidly adopted draft constitution was approved by 64% of a voter turnout of 33%, meaning that just 21% of the electorate expressed its approval of the Islamist drafted and adopted document.

So what you had was a body of questionable validity elected by an invalid legislature mandating a new constitution for all Egyptians which just 21% of the citizens approved.

A series of large demonstrations against the virtually all-Islamist government and its invalid constitution broke out at the anniversary of Mubarak’s resignation, and, while these eventually died down, rose up again in June 2013 at Morsi’s first anniversary in office. 

In time, there were millions of people (17 million according to Radio Sawa) out in the streets demanding Morsi’s resignation, both for his and his party’s attempts to Islamicize the country and their incompetence at governing the country and managing its economy, brought about in large part by their refusal to compromise and cooperate.  When the military moved in and removed Morsi on 3 July, they did so with the backing of those millions in the streets. 

After Morsi’s removal, the top leaders of Egypt’s two major religions, Imam Ahmed al-Tayib, Grand Sheikh of Al Ahzar (both the Mosque and the University), and Pope Theodoros II, Coptic Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria, publicly gave their blessings to the army’s actions.

Many (including Wikipedia) have called the actions of the military in Egypt a coup d’etat, but if that’s what it was, then so too was what occurred in the Philippines in February 1986, when far fewer people in a country with a much larger population (even then) came out in support of a rebellion by a small group of military officers and their soldiers that eventually deposed the long-term dictator Ferdinand Marcos.  To Coryistas (supporters of Cory Aquino, wife of slain Marcos opponent Ninoy Aquino), it was the People Power Revolution; to Loyalistas (supporters of ousted president Marcos), it was an illegal coup d’etat.

Incidentally, the Al Ahzar Mosque in Cairo was founded in 972 under the Fatimid Caliphate that then ruled Egypt, North Africa, Sicily, Palestine, and Hejaz (western Arabia, where the cities of Mecca and Medina lie), and in 975 welcomed its first instructors to what became the Al Ahzar University, making it the oldest continuing university on the planet. 

The Fatimids were Shia Muslims (of the Ismaili branch of Shia, as opposed to the Alawi Shia in Syria or the Jafari Shia in Iran and Iraq) originally based in Tunisia.  They were conquered in 1171 by the Kurdish leader Salah al-Din Yusuf  ibn Ayyub, or Saladin, on behalf of the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad, who ruled it in their name.  From there Saladin, one of the greatest generals in history, conquered the Crusader States of the Levant in 1187.

The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, on the other hand, dates back to the first century and has been a separate entity since the Melkites (those wishing to remain in communion with Constantinople) left in 536.  The Patriarchate had been out of communion with Rome and Constantinople since the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon in 451.

One of the major backers of the Muslim Brotherhood and its FJP in Egypt, and of Brotherhood affiliates in other countries around North Africa (the Maghreb) and Southwest Asia (the Mashriq), has been the crypto-Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) of the Republic of Turkey, whose most prominent figure is the country’s Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

In fact, the AKP has supported the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates throughout the region, including the Muslim Brotherhood of Syria, which is a key part of the rebel opposition; the Ennahda (Renaissance) Movement of Tunisia, currently the leading party in parliament (41% of seats); the Justice and Construction Party of Libya; the Movement of Society for Peace in Algeria (formerly known as Hamas), part of the current ruling coalition in parliament; the Coalition for Reform (aka Al-Islah) in Yemen, the leading opposition party; and the Justice and Development Party (PJD) of Morocco, the country’s explicitly Islamist ruling party that models itself on the supposedly secular but socially conservative AKP.

The AKP also advocates for Hamas in Palestine, which began as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt.  The Turkish party has been a strong influence among the faction in Hamas which desires to move it away from armed conflict and enter elections, which it did in 2006, winning a majority of the seats in the Legislative Council (resulting in punitive sanctions against Palestine by the U.N., U.S., U.K., and Russia as well as the State of Israel).

When I visited Paris in spring 2011 (I left the day after the April 27 tornadoes), Farzi and I watched a video on Youtube of a man in New Jersey whose family had lost their boat, both cars, basement, and part of the first floor of their two-story home to heavy flooding.  Smiling broadly, he proclaimed, “At least none of us are hurt and the second floor is all okay”.  Farzi shook her head in wonder, saying, “You Americans, no matter how bad things are you always find something good about the situation.”

Most of those groups mentioned above reached the position they are now in during and in the aftermath of the Arab Spring risings, the very outcome which Farzi greatly feared and about which I was concerned.  Being an Iranian and having lived since adolescence under the Islamic Republic before emigrating to Paris, Farzi was naturally inclined toward pessimism, though objective enough to at least hope she was wrong.  In the short run, at least, it has appeared her fears were well founded.  Recent events in Egypt, however, may signal a change of direction.

I remember when Morsi and his FJP fellows first flew to the fore with politicians and pundits pompously positing perhaps the style of Islamism practiced but not espoused by the AKP was what the peoples in the region newly freed from autocracies really needed…as opposed to the actual freedom that they marched, demonstrated, were abused, and died for.  Having seen them pursuing invariably the same object, Egyptians rose up to throw off their government in order to provide new guards for their future security.  They were not the only ones paying attention; those living under the authoritarian rule in democratic garb of Prime Minister Erdogan fear that the direction in which the Freedom and Justice Party was taking Egypt is the same in which the Justice and Development Party wishes to take Turkey.

Mubarak, Ben Ali, Nobateh Seyyed Ali!

Martin v. Zimmerman

aka The State of Florida v. Trayvon Martin

In U.S. common law in most jurisdictions, a citizen may make an arrest provided he or she sees the crime committed, and to use force to hold the suspect until police arrive.  If the citizen making the arrest is mistaken, there are no protections for that citizen and he or she can even be prosecuted for false imprisonment or even kidnapping, both felonies.

Trayvon Martin was not committing a felony nor had any felony been committed in that area that evening at the time of his murder.  George Zimmerman, already in violation of Neighborhood Watch procedure by being armed, was explicitly instructed by the police not to engage Martin and did anyway.  Since no felony had been committed, Zimmerman had no authority under citizen’s arrest to stop, much less detain, Martin and was therefore committing felony unlawful imprisonment, kidnapping in this case since he was armed.  

Trayvon Martin's death occurred not only during but as a direct result of said felony.  George Zimmerman is therefore guilty of felony murder.  At least in the realm of objective reality.

Under U.S. law, no one can be tried twice for the same crime, and a verdict of innocence, unlike a verdict of guilty, cannot be appealed.  Zimmerman could still be tried for civil rights violations, however, like the officers in the Rodney King case.  One thing that really bothers me about this trial is the fact that it had only six jurors as opposed to the usual twelve, and the fact that they were all middle-class white women (it would bother me if they were all men or all black or or all working class or all wealthy Perelandran hermaphrodite atheists).

By the way it handled the case, it seems upholding Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law is much more important to that state than providing justice for one of its murdered citizens and his family, unless the defendant happens to be black and female (Marissa Alexander) firing a warning shot to scare off her abusive husband (she is sentenced to 20 years).

A Poem by Tecumseh

So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. 

Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. 

Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. 

Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people. 

Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.

Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. 

Show respect to all people and grovel to none.

When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. 

If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. 

Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision.

When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. 

Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.

Edward Snowden, Alleged Espionage, and Certified Acts of War

To paraphrase the opening lines of a hugely popular TV show on USA Network, “My name is Chuck Hamilton and I used to be a spy.”  Like the fictional Michael Westen on “Burn Notice”, I once worked for the Central Security Service (CSS), which is an actual organization.  However, work at the CSS of RT (real time, i.e. real life) was not as glamorous as the CSS of TV. 

We weren’t super cool bad ass secret agents and we didn’t run around undercover in cloak with dagger meeting informants, insurgents, and smugglers along with blowing things up and carrying out assassinations.  We were geeks, nerds, and weirdo who frequently referred to ourselves as the “chairborne rangers”.  In RT, the people at CSS are uniformed service personnel who conduct interception and analysis of foreign military, naval, and (sometimes) diplomatic communications (COMINT) and other electronic intelligence (ELINT).

Speaking of the TV show, Jeffrey Donovan, the show’s star, guested on an episode of the 1990’s excellent “Homicide: Life on the Street”, as did his co-star, Bruce Campbell.  That’s completely irrelevant, but I think it’s kind o’ cool.  The fact that the later stars of “Law and Order: Criminal Intent” Vincent D’Onofrio and Kathryn Erbe guested on back-to-back episodes of the show isn’t even in the same hemisphere.

The CSS is the official designation for the SIGINT (signals intelligence) commands of the five branches of military and naval service collectively.  It’s the military component of the National Security Agency (NSA) and has the same boss, the Director of NSA, or “Daddy DIRNSA” as he (so far all directors have been men) is known in the field.  His title as head of CSS is Chief of CSS, abbreviated CHCSS, but I never saw or heard that used since practically and operationally it’s all one organization.  Daddy DIRNSA is also Commander of U.S. Cyber Command (CDRUSCYBERCOM), by the way, the different titles being rather redundant since the three different commands govern more or less that same personnel and material assets.

When I was with CSS, I was in the Navy working more directly for the Naval Security Group (NAVSECGRU), the Navy’s SIGINT component.  NAVSECGRU no longer exists, its personnel, assets, and functions now making up the Information Operations Directorate (IOD) of the Navy’s Network Warfare Command (NETWARCOM).  NETWARCOM makes up most of the Tenth Fleet, also known as Fleet Cyber Command…it’s all under one roof, which is more efficient.  Its field operations units that used to be known as NSG Activities (NSGA) and NSG Detachments (NSGD) are now called Naval Information Operations Commands (NIOC).

The names and places within the organizational chart are not the only things that have changed since my time with them in the late 1980’s.

In the second half of our A-school training, after our SCI (sensitive compartmented information) background checks were complete, we got “read into” the security part of the jobs we were going to be doing.  Besides the codewords for different levels of classification (which we all already knew from a book I’d read and passed around; after a few days, our instructor started lectures with, “Y’all probably know this already, but it’s on the syllabus…”), we learned what we, and our superiors, could and could not do in the line of work.

The single-most important thing drilled into our heads over and over and over again, about which we were questioned on every quiz and test in some form or another, even after we had finished the security part of our training, was whether or not it was ever permitted, under any circumstances, for us as communication operators to spy on Amcits (American citizens), and if so when was it permitted.

The only answers accepted were “No” and “Never”, or “Not under any circumstances”. 

Had any of us working in the field at the time been tasked to carry out an operation against the American people such as PRISM, we would have felt as if we were being made to swim in the river of excrement in Dante’s Inferno.

I know, I know.  It was the height of the Cold War.  Those were “more innocent times”.  Things were more black and white.  We didn’t have to worry about things like random acts of terror by stateless actors.  Just global thermonuclear war that could have been started by a little thing like 99 red balloons being released into the air in the wrong place and the extinction of all life on the planet’s surface (except for rats and cockroaches) for at least several million years.

While I was at NSGA at Clark Air Base (NAVSECGRUACTREPPHIL), we got one of the first female air crew members in the fleet.  This was when the DOD (Department of Defense) was first starting to sneak women into combat billets, like the Army MP battalion commander who led her troops in Panama in 1989.  Air crew, and direct support (DIRSUP, meaning aboard ship), with NSG was considered a combat billet for two reasons. 

First, even in international airspace or in international waters, there is the possibility of being attacked and killed, wounded, or captured.  As happened when the Israeli Defense Forces attacked the USS Liberty in international waters on the Mediterranean Sea on 8 June 1967, when North Korea captured the USS Pueblo in the international waters on the Sea of Japan on 23 January 1968, and when the PRC caused a mid-air collision in international air space over the South China Sea that brought down a Navy EP-3 plane to Hainan Island on 1 April 2001.

Second, collecting intelligence can be considered an act of war in certain situations, like doing so from the target’s territory, which is why it’s strictly forbidden for NSA/CSS to collect signals intelligence from its HC (host country).

Incidentally, that female shipmate was never harassed or treated as anything less than equal by those with whom she worked.  After all, she passed air crew training and survived SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape) school, where during her week she was chosen as one of those to be water-boarded.  Yes, we really do that to ourselves.  And despite what some of those in Washington frothing at the mouth over visions of terror suspects in their underwear begging for their lives say, water-boarding is torture, no question.

In collecting such a huge amount of personal information on Amcits (American citizens) inside its own borders as it has been for the past six years under the PRISM program, successor to the “Terrorist Surveillance Program” which did so on a less wide basis, the USG (US government) has committed what amounts to an egregious act of war against its own people.

Like the ECHELON program, information from PRISM is shared with the SIGINT agencies of the UKUSA alliance (US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Netherlands), so for Americans (and citizens of those countries) it is not only their own government which has committed an act of war against them, but five others as well.  And even if that were not the case, how many people want their information in the hands of a J. Edgar Hoover?

When I was taking American Government my senior year at Tyner High School, I memorized the preamble to the Declaration of Independence for extra credit and to impress a certain Palestinian-American female classmate.  Getting her attention was also the reason I campaigned in our mock presidential elections at school for Ronald Reagan…she was for Jimmy Carter.

I already knew the preamble to our nation’s constitution from that favorite series of Saturday morning PSA’s from my younger days known as Schoolhouse Rock.  “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Funny, but I don’t see anything there about the sanctification of “national security” above all other concerns which trumps the necessity of showing probable cause and getting a search warrant based on that probable cause.  Nor can I find any exceptions either in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights to the prohibitions against indefinite detention without charge or trial or a means to challenge that detention.  In fact, the Founding Fathers took the writ of habaeus corpus so seriously that they enshrined it in the main body of the Constitution.

Here’s a short parable, and if it sounds strangely familiar, just know that it’s not about any one single incident. 

One weekend during football season, there’s this huge party at a frat house to which belong a number of star athletes, legacies, sons of the rich and powerful.  A new female freshman shows up at the party, becomes tipsy, gets slipped a roofie, then while unconscious is raped by several of the house members.  In the morning, she wakes fully dressed, with no idea of what has really happened, though she might be a little sore.

Feeling guilty for not having intervened, one of the fraternity members goes to security, which does a half-hearted investigation because of the “sensitivity” of the crime’s location.  Next the whistleblower then goes to the administration, only to get stonewalled.  He talks to the local police in the college town only to get referred back to campus security.  Then he tries the local press, but the editors there, fearing a backlash, sit on the story.  Finally, the whistleblower goes to a national publication, which breaks the story.  As a result, the whistleblower is expelled from the university and arrested on charges of interfering with a police investigation.

Let’s take a moment to look at what Edward Snowden has been charged with:  espionage and aiding the enemy.  Snowden informed the unknowing targets of PRISM surveillance that their personal information was being collected and stored without any warrant justified in the way our constitution details.  The targets have been every citizen of the U.S., and it was us he was informing.  What the charges say, as well as the act of war they are meant to conceal or at least distract from, is that to the USG, “We the People of the United States” are the enemy.

You may ask, ‘What about the claims that “over fifty incidents” have been prevented because of this massive dragnet of personal information?’  Keep in mind that these are the same people, functionally speaking, who brought us the intelligence failures of 9/11, the alleged WMD’s of Saddam Hussein, and the recent bombing of the Boston Marathon.  Take what they say not with a grain of salt but make like Philip J. Fry (of “Futurama”) and do so with a whole bowlful.

St. Colmcille (Columba), Irish dynasties, and Insular (Celtic) Christianity

St. Colmcille of Iona, Columba to the English and non-Gaelic-speaking Scots, was for centuries the most revered of all the many, many saints of the Celtic world.  But without understanding the context in which he lived, there can be no understanding of why that was.  A scion of the most powerful dynasty in the Pretanic (British) Isles of his time, the Ui Neill, he rejected all that to become one of the foremost theologians and missionaries of the Early Middle Ages.

Dynasties in western and northern Ireland

To tell about the Ui Neill dynasties we first need to go back a couple of centuries to Conn of the Hundred Battles, who w as High King of Ireland (Ard Ri na Eireann) in the 2^nd century.  His son was Art mac Cuinn, also High King, and his son was Cormac mac Airt, High King during the time of Finn mac Cuill, according to legend anyway.

First, let’s detail the various levels of kings in Ireland. 

At the lowest and most local level, there was the ri benn (or king of peaks) who ruled over a tribe (“tuath” in Irish).  Under Irish law, these were the only kings who exercised any formal power.  Roughly equivalent to what today might be called clan chiefs, every king of an upper grade was also supposedly a ri benn.  For example, the dynasts who later became chiefs of the MacConroys were styled Ri Thira Da Locha, or king of the Land of Two Lakes (Loch Corrib and Loch Lurgan, aka Galway Bay).  Prior to the adoption of a patronym, the tribe had been known as the Delbhna Tir Da Locha, or Delbhna of the Land of Two Lakes.

Over this level sat the ri buiden, or king of bands, who had at least titular authority over several other ri benn.  For the MacConroys, their overkings were the O’Flahertys of Connemara as kings of Iar Connachta, whose tribe was formerly known as the Ui Bruin Seola.

Above the ri buiden were the ri coicid, or king of the province.  At the time the Brehon Laws were so formulated, there were five provinces on the island, and the word coicid literally means “fifth”.  The provinces were Connacht, Ulster, Meath, Leinster, and Munster.  The ri coicid above the O’Flahertys was the King of Connacht, a position alternating between the Ui Bruin Ai and the Ui Fiachrach.

Atop the whole thing reigned the Ard Ri Eireann, or High King of Ireland, whose seat was at Tara in the heart of Meath.  An ard ri was usually (but not always) also a ri coicid, a ri buiden, and a ri benn.  For example, Brian Boru, High King of Ireland in the early 11^th century, was also King (ri coicid) of Munster, King (ri buiden) of Thomond, and King (ri benn) of the Dal gCais, his tuath.

Prior to the descendants of Conn (the Connachta) conquering the province, it had been known as Ol nEchmacht, after the Fir (men of) Ol nEchmachta who ruled it.  It was Conn’s great-great-great-great-grandson Eochaid Mugmedon, who lived in the 4^th century, who spawned the several dynasties that ruled the provinces of Connacht, Meath, and Ulster throughout Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.  These were dynasties were known by the names of his (Eochaid’s) four sons and were the Ui Bruin, Ui Fiachrae, Ui Aillil, and Ui Neill.

In the case of St. Columba, of course, it is the last of these which is most relevant.  The Ui Neill descended from Niall of the Nine Hostages, the middle of the three great raiding high kings of the 5^th century.  It was, in fact, in a raid on Roman Britain that Niall’s raiders captured and enslaved a youth known to history as St. Patrick.

Patron Saint(s) of Ireland

Patrick is often credited as the patron of Ireland, but this was not always the case.  In fact, during medieval times, the three greatest saints in Ireland were considered to be Colmcille (Columba), Brigit (pronounced ‘Breet’), and Ita.  Already a known personage if of lesser prestige than these three, Patrick was elevated by the invaders from Norman England.

Several legends about Patrick are clearly fabrications.  He did not cast out the snakes from Ireland; there never have been any for some reason.  He did not use a shamrock to explain the Trinity to the simple, ignorant Irish; with the number of trinities among their own gods it is more likely they expanded his understanding.  He was also not the evangelist who Christianized Ireland; instead other missionaries were there decades prior to his arrival and he was sent from the Continent in an attempt to get the unruly Irish to behave and conform (things didn’t go as planned), though he may truly have been the first missionary to Ulster.

There were several trinities among the deities of pagan Ireland, all of whom were humanized in the Book of Conquests by monks.  Among these were: the smith gods Creidne-Luchtaine-Giobhniu; the sovereignty goddesses Eriu-Banba-Fodhla; and, most prominently, the war goddesses Badb-Macha-Nemain who are collectively a single goddess known as The Morrigan, or The Great Queen, whose personal name is Anand.

Already in the 4^th century, the southern provinces of Munster and Leinster had small Christian communities, and St. Ciaran of Saighir was bishop of Ossory.  In the early 5^th century, at the same time Germanus of Auxerre and Lupus of Troyes were sent by the Pope to Britain to combat Pelagianism in the Roman provinces on the isle of Britain, a British deacon named Palladius was sent to the Christian communities in the south of Ireland with the same mission.  Patrick was sent to the virgin ground of the north not too long after Palladius embarked on his own mission. 

Ulster throughout history has been somewhat different than the rest of Ireland.  Near the seat of its king at Emain Macha, Patrick established his episcopal seat at Ard Macha, later Armagh, becoming the first Archbishop of All Ireland. 

The intent of the Pope had undoubtedly been for Patrick to organize the church on the island along Continental lines, but there was no real central government and no urban areas.  As it happened, Ireland was the last home of the druids, the learned class among the Celts who carried all their knowledge around in their heads, scientific, technological, poetic (perhaps the most important), and religious.  These druids were organized throughout Ireland into colleges of different skills and knowledge.  So it was quite natural for the new religion to organize itself in Ireland around convents and their schools.

One of the most important gifts of the missionaries to the Irish was writing.  The system of the ogham writing was not really accurate for keeping records or detailing procedures.  All these circumstances combined to make the convents of monks and nuns (sometimes coed, such as that of Brigit in Kildare) becoming the centers of knowledge and learning and therefore greater in importance and prestige than the secular hierarchy of bishops, priests, and deacons.  Abbots, and sometimes abbesses, became more important than the local bishop, whom the former often appointed and sometimes even ordained.

Ui Neill

After the Ui Neill rose to power, they dominated the provinces of Ulster and of Meath until the early modern era and with few exceptions held the high kingship until the English conquest.

In the North (Ulster), there were two main branches, the Cenel nEoghain and the Cenel Connaill, plus a third.  The Cenel nEoghain were the senior and ruled as Kings of Aileach.  The Cenel Connaill ruled Tir Connaill (roughly the modern Co. Donegal).  Sometimes one or the other of these branches also held the high kingship.  A smaller branch, the Cenel nEndai, ruled Airtech in modern Co. Roscommon (then part of Ulster).

In the South (Meath), the main branches of the Ui Neill were the Sil nAedo Slaine of Brega and the Clann Colmain of Uisneach (anciently considered the center of the island).  Other dynasties of the Southern Ui Neill included the Cenel Corpri of North Tethba, the Cenel Maini of South Tethba, the Caille Folamain (Lough Lene), the Cenel Loegairi (on the River Boyne), and the Cenel Fiachach of Fir Cell (aka Moycashel).

Conal Gulban, progenitor of Cenel Connaill, was reputedly the first convert among the Ui Neill, and his great-grandson born Crimthann mac Felimid became Ireland’s greatest saint.  With the Christian name of Colmcille (‘Dove of the Church’) this prince known to history as St. Colmcille studied at the abbey of Clonard in Ossory under St. Finnian before founding abbeys at Derry (his first and his seat), Kells, and Fingal (Swords).

Battle of Cooldrevny (Cul Dreimhe)

All accounts agree that the Battle of Cul Dreimhe (Cooldrevny) in 561 was the event that led to Colmcille’s self-exile to the land of the Picts, but they do not agree on the cause. 

The battle was fought between the southern Ui Neill under Diarmait mac Cerbhaill of Clann Cholmain, high king of Ireland, king of Meath, and king of Uisneach, and the northern Ui Neill under Domhnall Ilchealgach of Cenel nEoghan, king of Aileach. 

Diarmait mac Cerbhaill, Ireland’s last pagan high king, was the last to be inaugurated at a full Royal Feast in which he married the land.  Marrying the land involved ritually mating a horse then slaying it and taking a bath in its blood.  Colmcille’s Christian cousins in Aileach and Tirconnell, meanwhile, continued the practice for centuries, until it was outlawed after the English conquest in the 12^th century.

The more hagiographic sources tell the story that Colmcille secretly copied a Psalter belonging to fellow Clonard alumnus Finnian of Moville, which led to the battle.  Afterwards, a council judged Colmcille in the wrong, according to the legend, in spite of the fact that fellow classmate St. Brendan of Birr had spoken in his favor.  Due to the censure, Colmcille chose self-exile.

The truth has more to do with dynastic rivalry and violation of the laws of hospitality.

Cunan, son of Aed mac Echach of the Ui Briuin, king of Connachta, accidentally killed the son of Diarmait’s steward during a hurley match (nearly as dangerous as Cherokee stickball) at a feast at Tara.  Realizing his peril, Cunan sought refuge at the nearby abbey of Kells, whose abbot was Colmcille.  Diarmait’s warriors dragged Cunan outside the abbey and killed him.  Colmcille sought redress from his cousins, thus leading to the battle at which the slaughter was reportedly enormous.  The northern Ui Neill of Aileach were victorious.

Colmcille’s self-exile

Ironically, Colmcille’s cousins had earlier invited him to become their candidate for the high kingship when it came open, but he declined because he didn’t want to give up his work with the church.  Had he accepted, it would have been he who was high king rather than Diarmait.

What is known for sure is that Colmcille founded the abbey on Iona in 563 in the eastern territory of the Dal Riata (Argyll, Scotland), and traveled the same year to Inverness to meet with the area’s overking (ruiri, equal to ri coicid), Bridei mac Maelchon, born in Strathclyde, whose father may have been Maelgwn Wledig of Gwynedd.  Bridei was king in Inverness over Fortriu, which later became Moray.

Bridei’s people had been known for centuries as “Picts”; in reality the Picts were non-Romanized Britons living above the Firths (of Forth and of Clyde), similar in culture to their cousins southward until those below the Firths and Hadrian’s Wall had marinated in the imperial world for a couple of centuries.  Politically, they were evolving into two confederations which became kingdoms, known to the Romans as the Verturiones (in the west) and Caledones (in the east), and later as Fortriu and Alba. 

The rivalry between rulers in Fortriu, later known as Moireabh (Moray), at Inverness and in Alba at Scone (and later seats) dominated the political landscape in Scotland until the early 13^th century.  In fact, it is the true story which lies behind the saga of Duncan I and Macbeth and Malcolm III, a la Shakespeare (who based his play on the wildly inaccurate Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland published in the late 16^th century).  The rivalry goes back to the time of the Imperium Romanum, when the thirteen tribes of the hardpressed “Picts”, or “Brittunculi”, of the north coalesced into two often competing confederations, the Verturiones and the Caledonii in the 3^rd century.

Both kings (of Fortriu and of Alba) are designated “ruiri” (“overking”) in Irish annals of the time, equal in status to ri coicid.  Evidence indicates that both partially accepted the precedence of the Irish High King, in terms of honor though not in tribute, until the 11^th century, perhaps longer.

In 574, Conall mac Comghaill, king of the Dal Riata in Argyll, died.  Aedan mac Gabrain, already king of Manaw (about the head of the Firth of Forth), was elected to replace him and he chose to be inaugurated by Colmcille. 

The next year Colmcille hosted the Council of Druim Ceatt between Aedan Colman mac Comgellan of the Dal Riata in Ulster (Co. Antrim), and Aedan mac Ainmuir of Aileach, who was also High King.  The three kings formed an alliance against Báetán mac Cairill of the Dál Fiatach, king of Ulster.  Aed also agreed that the Dal Riata in Argyll had no obligation to the High King after Aedan agreed to support him with his fleet.

Colmcille lived until 597 and was buried on Iona, where he was succeeded as abbot by St. Baithen. 

More activities of Iona’s monks

In 634, monks from the abbey on Iona took part in the Battle of Heavenfield between Oswald of Bernicia in alliance with Domnall Brecc of the Dal Riata and Cadwallon of Gwynedd after the latter assassinated the kings of Bernicia and Deira, the former victim having been Oswald’s half-brother.  Cadwallon lost the battle and his life.

The next year, the abbey sent St. Aidan to the Angles of Northhumbria.  He founded the abbey at Lindisfarne.  After the Synod of Whitby ruled in favor of adopting the Roman practices (dating of Easter, tonsure, etc.) from the Continent in 664, St. Colman, a successor, returned to Iona.

In 697, the eighth abbot of Iona, Adomnan, presided over the Council of Birr, a gathering of Irish and Pictish notables led by St. Adamnan, abbot of Iona, which enacted the Cáin Adomnáin (Lex Innocentium, or Law of Innocents), forbidding the killing and making captive of women and children, exempting women and clerics from compulsory military service, and setting forth harsh penalties for rape during wartime, among other provisions. 

Nechtan mac Dargart, then king of Fortriu, expelled the Ionan clergy from his kingdom back to their island in 717, probably over the fact that Fortriu had accepted the decision of Whitby in 710 while they had not.  Since he didn’t rule Alba directly, this may have been when the Columban abbey at Dunkeld was founded, or at least expanded.

The Vikings raided Iona in 806 and massacred 68 monks at Martyrs’ Bay on Iona, and the rest of the monks fled, most to the abbey at Kells, but the monks soon returned.  In 824, St. Blathmac led a group of Columban monks back to Iona.  The next year, there was another raid in which they were all massacred and the abbey burned.  However, the abbey remained inhabited and in use and retained the primacy of all Columban houses, as well as over the Irish church (which included Scotland, Wales, Strathclyde, Cornwall, and the Hebrides), until 878. 

In that year, Colmcille’s relics were divided between Dunkeld and Kells, as was the primacy over the churches of Scotland and Ireland.  The “Coarb of St. Colmcille in Ireland and Scotland” remained the head, or “grand master”, of the Columban order, however.

Kindred of St. Columba in Scotland

Meanwhile, the Kindred of St. Columba in Scotland (the abbots were chosen from descendants of his family) had become more and more laicized.  By 1034, Crinan, head of the Kindred, as the Scottish branch of the Cenel Connaill was known there, was not only abbot of Dun Chaillean but also Mormaer (Earl) of Athfodhla (Atholl), Abthane of Dull, Kirkmichael, and Madderty, and Seneschal of the Isles.

His son, Duncan, became king of Alba (eastern Scotland above the Firths) in 1034, and died in invasion of Moray, formerly known as Fortriu, in 1040.  The Kindred of St. Columba (Muintir Colmcille in Gaelic) returned to the throne in 1058 and ruled until 1286.

The abbey on Iona remained abandoned until the island was captured from the king of Norway in 1164 by Somerled, king of the Isles, who invited the Irish to return.  They did, and in 1204, under his son Ranald, established a Benedictine abbey.

The situation of the Abbots of Dunkeld was not all that unusual for Scotland.  The Macnabs originated as Abbots of Glendochardt, for example, coarbs of St. Fillan, while the Livingstones originated as Abbots of Lismore, coarbs of St. Moluag.  There are countless more examples in Scotland as well as in Ireland.

Culdees

Colmcille himself would likely have been appalled over the course of these events.  It was partly over this that the Culdee (from Celi De, “servants of God”) movement began at the end of the 8^th century.  The Culdees adhered to more rigid discipline and a strict rule.  Often their chapters attached to existing houses and the two lived side-by-side. 

In the mid-9^th century, there were around nine Culdee houses in Ireland and thirteen in Scotland, none of which were attached to any Columban establishment.  Culdees are indeed mentioned at Iona in 1164, in a subordinate position, but by then the monks belonged to the Order of St. Benedict.  In time, each of these houses (which were independent of each other, by the way) gained lay associates who abided by certain of the house’s rules  in much the same way as the later tertiary orders on the Continent.

By the beginning of the 12^th century, most of the Culdee houses had become as secularized as the earlier monastic establishments they sought to reform. 

Intervention from outside

In Ireland in particular, “regular” clergy and their convents with schools had always superceded the secular clergy and hierarchy almost to the point of total eclipse.  When a local boy from across the Irish Sea was elevated to the See of Rome, the Irish secular clergy saw a chance to get the power and authority they thought they should have, and appealed for intervention.

In response, Pope Adrian IV, the first and only English Bishop of Rome, issued a Papal Bull granting Henry II of England lordship over Ireland in 1155.  For a decade and a half, however, Henry showed no interest in getting involved with the quarrelsome Irish.

Richard de Clare, 2^nd Earl of Pembroke, invaded Leinster on behalf of the deposed Diarmait mac Murrough in 1169, whom he restored to the kingship of the province before marrying Aoife, Diarmait’s daughter.  Two years later after Diarmait died, Richard, known to history as Strongbow, succeeded him as king of Leinster.  Knights and lords, almost exclusively from Wales, who had accompanied him gained new lands or married into local dynasties.

With a rising power at his backdoor, Henry’s interest was suddenly peaked.  He gathered a huge army and invaded Ireland in 1172, bringing to heel all the Hiberno-Norman lords as well as most of the Gaelic ones, at least in the south and east.  Connacht in the west submitted only partially and Ulster in the north hardly at all.

The Synod of Cashel that same year declared the Roman Church to be the only religion allowed in Ireland and that tithes should begin to be sent to Rome, which resulted in Ireland’s adoption of the feudal system in order to pay them.

Gradually canons regular and orders from the Continent began to replace native Irish houses, everywhere except Ulster, where the final Culdee house at Armagh dissolved  in 1541.

Twelve Apostles of Ireland

No, there are not the assassins under Michael Collins during the Irish War of Independence so nicknamed by the public who were also known as The Squad, these are the originals.

Colmcille was one of twelve saints known as the Twelve Apostles of Ireland, who all studied under St. Finnian of Clonard at his abbey in Meath.  Along with St. Enda of Aran, Finnian is known as co-founder of Irish monasticism.  Both from Ireland, Enda from Ulster and Finnian from Leinster (though is father was from Ulster), they studied at monasteries on the isle of Britain before beginning their ministries in Ireland.

Ireland’s Twelve Apostles were:

1.       Colmcille of Iona

2.      Colmcille of Terryglass

3.      Ciaran (Kieran) of Saighir

4.      Ciaran of Clonmascnoise

5.      Brendan of Birr

6.      Brendan of Clonfert (the Navigator)

7.      Mobhi of Glasnevin

8.      Ruadhain of Lorrha

9.      Senan of Iniscathy

10.   Ninnidh of Inishmacsaint

11.    Laisren of Devenish

12.   Cannice of Aghaboe

In Irish Christianity, there were three kinds of martyrs, designated by colors.  Red Martyrs were the traditional kind.  Green Martyrs were anchorites or hermits who left human society to meditate and commune with the natural world.  White Martyrs, of whom there were many, many, were those who gave up living in Ireland for lifelong missionary work.

St. Columbanus (in Irish, it’s Columban, a different word than Colmcille), a generation later than the elder monk, is often confused with Columba of Iona.  While Colmcille was better known in the Isles, Columbanus was the preeminent of the Irish White Martyrs on the Continent.  He and twelve companions left Bangor Abbey in 585 for Continental Europe, where he founded at least seven houses in Gaul, in the later Austria, and in northern Italy.  He was the pioneer of the Irish missionary wave which brought back Christianity from the brink of extinction on the Continent.  His monastic rule, the Rule of St. Columbanus, was predominant among Celtic monasteries on the Continent and later became so in Ireland and Scotland as well.  Most of the Irish and Irish-spawned convents adopted the less strict Rule of St. Benedict by the late 8^th to 9^th centuries.

Differences between Insular and Continental Christianity

Contrary to many popular myths, the Christianity of the Isles was not hostile to Christianity of the Continent.  In fact, Insular, or Celtic, Christians—in Ireland, Fortriu and Alba (Scotland above the Firths), the Hen Ogledd (Old North, i.e., Strathclyde, Goddodin, Rheged, Argoed, etc.), the tiny kingdoms of Wales, Devon, Cornwall, the principalities of Brittany in the former Armorica, and Galicia in northwestern Iberia—revered Rome and its bishop.

While Augustine may have been the one who first converted mass numbers of Saxons and Jutes from his seat in Kent, his arrogant high-handedness in demanding their submission to himself as representative of the Bishop of Rome caused him to be rejected outright by the bishops of the British churches in the west (Wales, Devon, Cornwall).  It was the Irish and Pictish monks from Iona who converted the Angles of Northumbria and Mercia in the north of what later became England.  Naturally, these churches followed the traditions of those who introduced them to Christianity rather than the “foreign” practices of the south.

In fact, it was the beginning of the coalescence of the disparate realms of the south that brought about the Synod of Whitby in 664 and the perceived necessity of harmonizing the practices of the Christians within its borders. 

The main differences between Insular practice and Continental practice were:

                                          

1.       The method of tonsure (Romans shaved the top of the head while the Celts shaved the front, like the druids)

2.      The way the date of Easter was calculated; the Irish tied their date of Pascha to that of the Jewish Passover

3.      The Irish practice of “going into exile for Christ”—aka White Martyrdom

4.      The unique method of conducting penitentials among the Irish and those they influenced; on the Continent the procedure was public confession and public penance while in the Isles both were done in private

5.      The Insular focus on monasticism, which in the Isles was more fluid than on the Continent.  Besides the predecessor of the druidic colleges, for the almost entirely rural life on the Isles, church life centered on monasteries was a better fit. 

6.      In the Isles, Ireland in particular, abbeys were more often conhospitae (mixed, or coed) and often monks and nuns would marry and raise their children together in service to the new faith.  In later stages this changed, especially after convents became large. wealthy, and politically influential.

7.      Many communities in Ireland still worshipped on the Sabbath (as they all did originally) rather than on Sunday

8.      The manner of holding one’s fingers when signing the cross:  on the Continent, believers used the first two fingers, while in the rest of the Isles they used the first, third, and fourth fingers to symbolize the Holy Trinity

9.      Irish liturgies followed the overall outline of those used in the East

The Synod of Whitby did not decide matters for all the Isles but only for those Christians in the jurisdiction of Northumbria and its client realms such as Mercia.  On the first three major differences, the decision went in favor of Continental practice, but on the fourth, Rome adopted the Irish-origin Insular practice of private confession and penance rather than doing both in public, which was then the Continental practice.

The south of Ireland (Munster and Leinster) had been brought into the mainstream a few decades before Whitby, at the Synod of Magh Lenn in 630.  After the Synod of Whitby, the Angles of Northumbria and Mercia adopted Roman practice and the Irish monks went back to their abbey on Iona. 

Contrary to widespread belief, the decisions at Whitby were not accepted by any of the Insular (Celtic) churches except in Northumbria, though most followed suit within a century: North Ireland (Ulster, Meath, and Connacht) along with the Dal Riata in Argyll in 697, East Devon and Somerset (under the dominion of Wessex) in 705, Fortriu and Alba in 710, Iona in 717, Strathclyde in 721, North Wales in 768, South Wales in 777, and finally Cornwall, the last holdout, in 870.

Insular (Celtic) liturgy

The Insular (Celtic) churches did not have one identifiable liturgy, but were quite varied in practice.  Its influences came both from the Gallican rites in southern Gaul as well as directly from that region’s main influence, the churches of the East, particularly those of Ephesus and Alexandria; the latter was also an influence on the monastic focus of the Irish church, along with the Gaulish St. Martin of Tours.

The Eastern influences can be readily identified in the primary surviving liturgy of the Irish, the Stowe Missal, as well as in the in the Bobbio Missal, the Bangor Antiphonary, the Book of Dimma, the Book of Mulling, the Book of Hymns, and in various fragments.  The Sarum Rite, parent liturgy to the Order of Holy Communion in the Book of Common Prayer, developed directly out of this tradition.  In these sources, one can see that the order of Celtic (Insular) rites conformed more to that of the Eastern Divine Liturgy than the Roman Mass, though those differences are largely superficial.

The surviving rites of the Celts of the Insular churches are structured like those of their Eastern originals, into a Liturgy of Preparation, a Liturgy of the Catachumens, and a Liturgy of the Faithful, much like the liturgies of ancient times.  In these, the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed comes after the dismissal of the catachumens and passing of the peace, as it does in the Divine Liturgy of the East, and, like those churches, lacks the Filioque clause.