Celtic World

I have received some very interesting text from a translator of Celtic Saints Lives. His name is Jean-Michel and here is his contact information:

Que sainte Catherine d'Alexandrie et saint Feuillen vous bénissent

en XC,
Jean-Michel
http://www.amdg.be - médiathèque chrétienne

questions/réponses sur la Foi, Bible, etc
http://www.amdg.be/amdg11.html

«La raison pour laquelle il n'y a pas davantage de gens qui entrent dans nos
églises pourrait bien être l'expression de nos visages lorsque nous en sortons!
Les chrétiens devraient être ceux pour qui le bonheur est chose possible,..» -
dans «A vous de jouer», conseils pour la mise en scène de récits de la Bible,
par Paul Burbridge et Murray Watts (anglicans), édition Ligue pour la lecture
de la Bible, isbn 2-85031-085-9.

He does not have alot of time to partake in our forums with his work in translation; however, I wanted to post parts of his email which he gave permission to post here:

I'll dare to say, even if being all but not a specialist, that one of the important things people don't know about Celtic world, it's that it was very big, even bigger than the Roman empire at it's best. And that this all went almost fluent and almost peacefull without a centralised administration & ruler. Big in arts too. With loads of languages with the same background, but "cousin" like Hebrew & Aramaic, or today German & Dutch. Generally peacefull between tribes, all jalous of their independance, but as soon as an external danger was to rise up, they all went as one against it. Iulius Caesar had to spend lots money to pay some tribes to disjoin the unity... corruption is the usual sign of big empires, together with false peace - today it's still the case. Our Celtic fathers had nothing of that, even before they became among the most fervents and deepest Christians ever.

St Jerome, the known "roman" writer that translated the Bible to common latin that was used in his time, was coming from actual Yougoslavia. He travelled lots when he was young. He went, among others, to the former effective capital of Roman empire, that was Trier (Treves, Trevirorum), in actual Germany, in that time in "Gallia Belgica".. Constantine the Great left Trier in 316 (still lots of his time left there) for the newly builded Constantinople, but he never ruled in Rome, and so did most of his predecessors since 1st AC. Rome was for the Senate, Trier then Constantinople for the emperor - and later for West, Arles, before back to Rome when the town & empire got ruled by... barbarians. In Trier, Jerome could understand common people. That where not speaking latin, but local dialect. Trier was, 4 centuries before, still the main town of the Celto-belgian tribe of the Trevirorum, with his renown cavalry. Jerome could speak with local people because they had a common background language, of Celtic origin. Why in Yougoslavia then, the same dialect? Because on 3d century BC, some Celto-belgian tribes went, under a ruler king called "Belgus" in roman chronicles, and they went for invasion of that part of Balkans, some installing there, some others going more eastwards. Jerome found them again. You can too, if you have a Bible! Jerome spoke of them again when he was in Minor Asia. Galatia.. Jerome
discovered, and he speaks of that in his books, that Galatians where speaking the native dialect of .. Trier.. not latin nor greek. 7 centuries later, the undisciplinated Belgians that installed in Asia Minor, occupying a big part of it, where still using their native language and still had their so typically "bad Belgian character" ...
that st Paul had to fustigate in his renowned letter :-))

Pr. Hubert speaks of some of these facts in his book. He added another interesting, to see how far & well fixed our Celtic fathers went installing even in the Middle-East. The bishop-martyr st Ireneaus of Lyon, in french Gaul. Before becoming the second bishop of the christian community of Lyon, after the blood bath of the first community by Roman rulers end of 170's, he lived in Minor Asia. He has made a very big (enormous) theological work, called in latin Adversus Haereses. We only have it fully in latin, and partially in greek. So the common opinion was and is : he is Greek. Not so sure. Pr. Hubert gives out a german linguistical study in old manuscripts : they discovered that some passages of the oldest writings we have from him are indeed in greek, but translated from other language. And they showed that it contains celtic dialect. Now, it's language specialist discussion, I'm totally unable to sustain any thesis over that. If they did and proved it, I can only say : wooow, great!

But I can add something : for me, it seems logical. How would a Greek come preach in the midst of slaves & poors, that didn't understood greek and very few of latin, but lots of local language, that, in center of Gauls, was profundly of Celtic origin?..But if they had, like I think, the same Celtic origin, then all becomes clear : he could speak with the people of there without the need of an interpreter (hermeneutes, in greek). And when writing in greek, his natural celtic background is then, for me at least!, the logical reason of the presence of celtic dialect roughly translated to greek in his text. Same for me when I write to french, my motherlanguage is dutch (flemish, belgian form of it), and it's easy
to discover :-)

Very interesting, Macfive.

If anyone would like to read some history on our Celtic Warrior heritage (from various ages) please visit:

Ancient Celtic Warriors
http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/Skyelander/menu14.html

Enjoy.

Skye

A most enjoyable and informative site, Skye.

Thanks to both of you very interesting reading