Macalistek — Tcmair Breg : R&hiains and TradUioiis oj Turn. 289 



his famous cryptogram commonly called the Number of the Beast. The word 

 seems to say to us : " Here is a mystery ; what is ' Tophi'? " 



Before we try to solve the enigma, we must first ask ourselves, why 

 should there be a mystery at all? And we have little difficulty in finding 



an answer to this question. 



The struggle between Christianity and Paganism in these islands is a 

 subject that has hardly as yet been systematically studied. It has been 

 too readily assumed, for example, that because there is little or no record of 

 martyrdom in Ireland the triumph of the Cross must, here have been easy 

 and immediate. It should not be forgotten, in criticizing these and similar 

 assumptions, that all the records which we possess are comparatively late ; 

 they have come down to us from the hands of adherents of the religion that 

 ultimately conquered, and from a time when that religion had gained complete 

 ascendancy. To get at the full truth, so far as it is at all possible to do so, 

 we must read betweeu the lines. When we do so, we find that Christianity 

 had in reality a hard struggle to establish itself in the hearts of the inhabi- 

 tants of this country. We shall hear several echoes of the strife as we proceed 

 in our present study ; and it is not irrelevant to observe that we must be 

 prepared for three phenomena — syncretism, spite, and secrecy. 



(a) Syncretism implies that the people while accepting the new teaching 

 do not relinquish the old ; they merely add Christ to their pantheon. The 

 parents who, according to a frequently repeated story, left the right arms of 

 their infants unbaptized, in order that they might be strong to strike the 

 crueller blows on their enemies, were good examples of this religious pheno- 

 menon. Hut the most remarkable illustration of syncretism afforded by the 

 antiquities of these islands is the sculpture on the monumental stones found 

 in the land of the Scottish Picts. It is well known that these monuments 

 fall into three groups. In the first and oldest, we find no crosses, but a rich 

 and very obscure system of pictorial symbolism — animals, crescents, circles, 

 and other signs, some forty in number. The symbols are incised, and their 

 are no other devices on the stones. In the second group we find the same 

 symbols, in relief, accompanied with elaborate cresses. The interlaeings and 

 other ornamental motives associated with Celtic Christian art appear for the 

 first time in Scotland on the stones of the second group, and it is important 

 to observe that the extremely delicate minuteness of this decoration is a 

 proof that the Scottish sculptors here followed the models set them by 

 manuscripts, not the traditions enshrined in other sculptured stones. In tact 

 we see clear evidence in those stones of the inlluence of the foreign missionary. 

 with his illuminated gospels and service-books. In the third group the 

 symbols wholly disappear, hut the crosses and allied patterns survive. The 



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