ShadowTheRaven
New member
An excerpt from an article on the Antlered God Cernunnos at El Santuario Del Alba (The Sanctuary of Alba). Something I've found and wanted to share, so we may discuss it.
Translated from Spanish to English. Original link: https://santuariodelalba.wordpress.com/2018/09/10/el-dios-cernunnos-de-los-celtas/
"When Christianization was a fact, the Antlered God began to be linked to the devil. The oldest ancestral gods, became the demons of the new religion, Christianity. Due to its horns, (and the sporadic appearance in some paintings of a large, erect phallus) Cernunnos has often been understood as a symbol of Satan. In addition, Cernunnos would be Herne’s predecessor of the Saxon folklore, who led a kind of wild cavalcade, and who could have helped create a more detailed imagery of demons and the Devil.
The powerful image of the Horned One continued to be a favorite of the people, despite the efforts of the Christian church to eliminate it. This rivalry probably made his worship to be considered blasphemous and an affront to the church itself. Attributes of the deer, the ram, the goat or the bull were constant in the descriptions of the devil performed by the unfortunate poor souls accused of witchcraft.
The anthropologist Margaret Murray points out that medieval witches, and the later ones, worshiped Cernunnos, the Horned God, an ancient deity with strong roots in Europe, and who has little to do with the idea of evil posed by Christianity. It is interesting to note that Margaret Murray admits that Satan, the image of the medieval Satan, is a late representation of Cernunnos used by witches in a broader sense, less Manichean if you will, but that somehow led them to pay the highest price under the iron boots of the Inquisition.
And the image of the Deer God, Lord of Wild Nature, was diluted in the rivers and lakes of those forests he used to protect and his wide cult disappeared along with the druids of yesteryear by the intransigence of Rome, this time, Christian."
Translated from Spanish to English. Original link: https://santuariodelalba.wordpress.com/2018/09/10/el-dios-cernunnos-de-los-celtas/
"When Christianization was a fact, the Antlered God began to be linked to the devil. The oldest ancestral gods, became the demons of the new religion, Christianity. Due to its horns, (and the sporadic appearance in some paintings of a large, erect phallus) Cernunnos has often been understood as a symbol of Satan. In addition, Cernunnos would be Herne’s predecessor of the Saxon folklore, who led a kind of wild cavalcade, and who could have helped create a more detailed imagery of demons and the Devil.
The powerful image of the Horned One continued to be a favorite of the people, despite the efforts of the Christian church to eliminate it. This rivalry probably made his worship to be considered blasphemous and an affront to the church itself. Attributes of the deer, the ram, the goat or the bull were constant in the descriptions of the devil performed by the unfortunate poor souls accused of witchcraft.
The anthropologist Margaret Murray points out that medieval witches, and the later ones, worshiped Cernunnos, the Horned God, an ancient deity with strong roots in Europe, and who has little to do with the idea of evil posed by Christianity. It is interesting to note that Margaret Murray admits that Satan, the image of the medieval Satan, is a late representation of Cernunnos used by witches in a broader sense, less Manichean if you will, but that somehow led them to pay the highest price under the iron boots of the Inquisition.
And the image of the Deer God, Lord of Wild Nature, was diluted in the rivers and lakes of those forests he used to protect and his wide cult disappeared along with the druids of yesteryear by the intransigence of Rome, this time, Christian."
