Celtic cross in Knock, Ireland
Spiritual Sunday
My mother, who heads the Sewanee Women’s Club (at 90!), alerted me to a recent presentation on “Celtic Spirituality” by Rev. Stephen Eichler. The talk has me thinking how one of my favorite narrative poems, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, negotiates between two conflicting strains of Christianity.
Since the two strains remain very much alive, both Eichler’s talk and the poem are still relevant.
The Arthurian tale was composed in the late 14th century, only a few decades after the Black Plague. I’ve always interpreted it as challenging traditional Christian views about mortality and see it as deeply suspicious of nature. Sir Gawain, as a good Christian knight, thinks that he shouldn’t care about his life because he has the promise of life eternal. A magical green man shows up in his life, however, and proves that he is more attached to the natural world—and to his natural desires—than he is willing to acknowledge.
If the poem was written in reaction to a body-denying strain of Christianity, the question arises as to how that strain arose. I think that, following the Black Plague, people felt betrayed by life and were very wary. After all, in the years 1348-50, roughly a third (!) of Europe’s population died. Many coped by cultivating contempt for life while focusing exclusively on heaven.
The human spirit rebels against an overly austere and life-denying vision, however. My theory used to be that Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which is lighthearted and comic, looks back to Celtic nature religions for an alternative. Rev. Eichler has convinced me that there was another alternative more readily available.
In his talk Rev. Eichler explained that Celtic Christianity flourished in ancient Britain in the later years of the Roman occupation but was driven into the fringes, into Wales and Cornwall, by the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. There it spread, however, and it was doing quite well when Pope Gregory sent missionaries to Great Britain in 597. Although there were tensions between the Roman and Celtic churches, Eichler notes that “the unique faith and perspective of the Celts continued to exist among the common folk and has survived to this day.”
Some of the distinctive features of Celtic spirituality mentioned by Eichler speak directly to themes in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. For instance,
–Celtic Christianity sees the Trinity as “a real, living presence” composed of a loving father, a nurturing mother, and a caring brother. In other words, it is not a “paternal Godhead, removed and remote from a sinful and corrupt humanity.”
In the poem, an earth mother figure—Morgan Le Fay—and a brother figure—the Green Knight—worry that Christian Camelot has become too removed from the world (they see this as a form of “pride”). They therefore seek to guide the court, through Gawain, to a healthier relationship with nature.
–Pre-Christian Celts had no difficulty believing in Jesus’s incarnation in the world because, as Eichler explains, “they already had a strong sense of the divine presence in the material world.” In other words, they did not see, as Sir Gawain does, a split between the spiritual world and the material world.
In certain ways, the Green Knight can be seen as a nature religion’s version of Christ. Although his head is chopped off, he is confident about his return, knowing that new life follows the winter season of death. This Green Knight, however, doesn’t appear to be pagan as he celebrates mass in his castle and admires Gawain’s knightly qualities. It makes more sense to see him as a Celtic Christian.
–According to Eichler, the Celtic Christians didn’t believe in original sin. Rather, sin arises from humans violating or turning their backs on God’s creation. In terms of the poem, Gawain may think he is being virtuous by not caring for his life, but in Celtic Christian terms he is committing a sin by spurning the gift that God has given humanity. The Green Knight is there to change his mind, which Gawain does when he has his head on the chopping block and the Knight spares his life.
Unfortunately, it’s not clear in the poem’s ambiguous ending whether Gawain has altogether learned the lesson. Audiences had a chance to arrive at Celtic enlightenment, however, and perhaps Arthur and the Camelot knights do by donning green ribbons.
–Just as Celtic Christianity doesn’t believe in original sin, so it doesn’t regard the material world as infused with sin. Rather, creation is sacred. The poem acknowledges this by giving us gorgeous descriptions of nature, and throughout the poem celebrates the five senses, especially in the banqueting scenes in the Green Knight’s castle.
While the poem doesn’t go so far as to say that sexuality is also a sacred gift from God (I don’t know what Celtic Christians believe), it has fun laughing at Gawain for the elaborate ways that he evades the advances of the beautiful lady of the castle. She certainly makes sex very appealing.
Audiences listening to the poem in the 1380s wouldn’t necessarily have sorted all of this out. But they could well have felt, through their enjoyment and their laughter, that it offered them a healthier vision of life and death than they sometimes got from the pulpit. Literature rushed in where religion feared to tread.
Today’s environmental battles sometimes see “Dominionist” Christians squaring off with Green Christians—those who stress God giving humankind “dominion” over the earth (think Sarah Palin and Bill O’Reilly) vs. those who believe that God appointed humans as stewards (Pope Francis). The first emphasize Genesis 1:26:
Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.
The second emphasize Genesis 2:15:
The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight seems to be solidly in the second camp, and it is certainly where I stand.
Previous Posts on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
The Green Knight’s Lessons on Death and Dying
An Afghan Vet’s Green Knight Encounter
Sir Gawain and the ISIS Beheadings
The Meaning of Soldiers and Sex
Sir Gawain and a Friend’s Cancer
Living a Balanced Life, Gawain Style
On Accepting Death and Living Life
Gawain’s Castle of Life and Death
A Camelot Knight with One Year to Live
