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St Brigid - what is the truth?

During the early Roman Empire Christianity was suppressed, and yet it was commonly accepted that citizens of Rome and their subjects could worship whichever gods as they wish; so why, we may well ask, was Christianity singled out for such severe treatment? The answer may not please many people, but the simple fact is that the followers of Christ were a pretty uncompromising collection of people who claimed that there was only one God and all the rest were false. No great problem there, but they took it to a little bit of an extreme by smashing up the temples of other religions and burning them to the ground! The emperor Nero, in fact, blamed them for the great Fire of Rome and whilst there is no evidence that they did in fact cause it, perhaps inadvertently, it is not absolutely certain that they were guiltless.

The reason why the Roman empire turned to Christianity hinges on one person; the Roman emperor, Constantine the great. Constantine was quite impressed by the behaviour of Christians and their bravery when facing certain death so when, just before the Battle of the Mulvian Bridge he claimed to have seen a flaming cross in the sky, he instructed his soldiers to paint the Greek symbols for the first two letters of the name of Christ, the Chi Rho, on their shields and after he had defeated his rival Maxentius he claimed that Christ had helped to in his struggle and declared that he was a great god of war. The conversion of the Roman Empire, and subsequently a great deal of the rest of the world to Christianity began from that date.

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Paganism however was not to be defeated without a fight! Many of the old gods had been worship for centuries and this worship was woven into everyday life. The early Christians decided that rather than fight the old beliefs head-on they would instead incorporate them into their own religion; and so the old winter solstice celebrations became Christmas, the rebirth of nature became Easter (named after the Saxon pagan goddess Eostre), and Isis was transformed into the personae of Mary, the mother of Jesus.

When Christianity came to the Celtic peoples one of the most popular goddesses was Bridgid, a goddess of fire, justice, the home, healing, and prophecy amongst others. The worship of Bridge was deeply ingrained in Celtic culture and she had her own special day which was midway between the winter and summer solstices, and known as Imbolc. On this day candles were burned and young maidens created corn dollies and laid them in a specially made bed; Young men were invited to take part in the festivities to ensure successful procreation in the future. How should this well rooted goddess be destroyed? The answer was, she couldn't, she could only be changed into a Christian saint.

A great deal of mythology has been written about St Brigid, much of it self-contradictory but the most likely story is that a monastery was built in Kildare in Ireland near to a sacred oak; the name Kildare is in fact derived from"Cill Dara" , which translates into "church of the oak". Legend has it that a person named Bridgid, who was so generous with her father's belongings that he sent her away to a nunnery, was the original St Brigid who was the founder of this monastery but it is interesting to note that her day is on the same day as that of the pagan goddess of the same name, and again candles are burned (the other name for St Brigid's day is Candlemas) and corn dollies are created by young girls. A coincidence perhaps? Or perhaps not.