RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Droste-Visohering' Druid.
less received from the king in reparation of his honor the declaration that the king had never entertained the thought that he had taken a part in machinations of political and revolutionary character. Moreover, the requirements previously made about mixed marriages were allowed to drop, the -placet was waived, and in 1841 there was founded in the Prussian Kultusministerium a special Roman Catholic department which lasted down to 1871. Droste-Vischering spent the rest of his days in Munster far from public life. In n» respect was he an important man, but he possessed great energy and perseverance. Since he aided his Church in winning a great triumph he was praised by Gorres as an Athanasius, but his blustering manner reminds one rather of Epiphanius.
Carl Mirbt.
Bibliography: For the life consult: J. von Gorres, Athanasius, Regensburg, 1837 (a Catholic eulogy; cf. J. G. Schlemmer, Gorres in seinem Athanasius als Vertheidiger des Erzbischofs von Droste zu Vischering, Nuremberg, 1838); C. A. Hase, Die beidcn Erzbischofe, Leipsic, 1839; P. C. Marheineke, Der Erzbischof C. A. von Droste zu Vischering als Friedenstifler, Berlin, 1843; F. A. Muth, in Deutschlands Episcopat in Lebensbildern, Wurzburh, 1873. On the Cologne controversy, of fundamental importance for the relations of the Prussian state to the Catholic Church, consult: G. F. H. Rheinwald, Allgemeines Repertorium fur die theologische Literatur, vols. xxii.-xxxvii., 1838-42 (lists of contemporary literature); C. C. J. von Bunsen, Aus seinen Briefen, Leipsic, 1868, Eng. transl., London, 1869; E. Friedberg, Grenzen zwischen Staat und Kirche, Tubingen, 1872; idem, Grundlagen der preussischen Kirchenpolitik unter Friedrich Wilhelm IV., Leipsic, 1882; H. Schmid, Geschichte der katholischen Kirche Deutschlands, Munich, 1874; H. von Sybel, Klericale Politik im 19. Jahrhundert, Bonn, 1874; C. Mirbt, Die preussische Gesandtschaft am Hofe des Papstes, Leipsic, 1899; H. Briick, Geschichte der katholischen Kirche im 19. Jahrhundert, vol. ii., Munster, 1903.
DROZ, dro, FRANCOIS XAVIER JOSEPH:
French moralist and historian; b. at Besangon Oct. 31, 1773; d. at Paris Nov. 5, 1850. In 1792 he went to Paris to study law, but on the declaration of war joined the volunteer battalion of Doubs, and served in the army of the Rhine for the next three years. Obliged by ill health to abandon his military career, he obtained the chair of eloquence in the Ecole Centrale in his native town. In 1803 he removed to Paris, where for a time he held a position in the pension office; but after 1814 he devoted himself exclusively to his favorite pursuit of literature. In 1824 he became a member of the French Academy, and in 1838 president of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences. At first an epicurean and a sensualist, be became more religious as he grew older. His last work was Pensees sur le Christianisme (Paris, 1844), to which he added Aveux d'un philosophe Chretien in 1848. Other works were: De la -philosophic morale (Paris, 1823); QSuvres morales (2 vols., 1826); and Hisloire du regne de Louis XVI. (3 vols., 1839-42). Bibliography: J. P. Damiron, Essai sur Vhistoire de la philosophic en France au dix-neuvieme siccle, ii. 79 sqq., Paris, 1834; Lichtenberger, ESR, iv. 104-105.
DRUID: A member of an order in Celtic Gaul and Britain, or of a class in Ireland, which in pre- Roman and pre-Christian times had charge of religious rites. The subject is most obscure. The early disappearance of the druids in Gaul and
Britain before the advance of Roman civilization, and in Ireland before Christianity, so obliterated traces of them that all information is ultimately derived from the classical writers and from early Irish hagiological works. The name Name and has been falsely connected with the Sources of Greek drys, " an oak," to which the Knowledge, worship in the oak groves gave factitious verisimilitude; it is really derived from a Celtic root which bears the idea of magical dealing. The sources of information are on the classical side: Caesar, De hello Gallico, vi. 13-20; Tacitus, Annates, xiv. 30, and Historia, iv. 54; Pliny, Hist, nat., xxx. 4, 13, xxxi. 1; Cicero, De divinatione ; Ammianus Marcellinus, Hist., XV. ix. 8, and scattered notices in Suetonius (Claudius, xxv.), Diogenes Laertius, and Diodorus Siculus; from the Irish side the Tripartite Life of Patrick, Adamnan's life of Columba, and a large number of scattered notices mainly, legendary.
Caesar's account, which is much the fullest of all which can claim historical value, states that above the mass of the people in Gaul (who were slaves) were two classes, the nobles and the druids. The latter officiated at public and private sacrifices, expounded religious duties and observances, trained the youth, decided public questions concerning succession, inheritance, crimes, boundaries, and the like. To their decisions submission was required under penalty of interdiction from participation in sacred rites, the severest punishment conceivable to the people. A yearly Caesar's meeting of chief druids was held, at Account, which an archdruid was selected by vote. The members of the order were exempt from taxation and from military duty. Because of this they had many students, some of whom remained with them for twenty years, during which they learned a " great number of verses," which were transmitted orally, since sacred things were not committed to writing. They taught the transmigration of souls, the end of the world by fire and water, discussed natural science, astronomy, and the nature of the gods. They officiated at human and other sacrifices and at all religious rites. The human sacrifices were offered sometimes in holocausts, the victims being prisoners of war, criminals, or even voluntary sufferers, and they were burned after being enclosed in huge wicker images. Caesar equates the chief deity with Mercury as the god of culture, and other deities with Apollo, Mars, Jupiter, and Minerva. He guesses at a British origin for the institution.
Pliny, assigning a Gallic origin, tells of the ceremony of the cutting of the mistletoe (associated by the druids with immortality) and narrates a curious story of the " serpents' egg," an accretion formed by a mass of writhing ser- Other Clas- pents and cast out of their midst, and sical and then caught by a druid before it Irish touched the ground and used for Accounts, magical purposes. Tacitus asserts that they deduced auguries from human entrails, and that the groves, particularly of the Isle of Anglesey, were the sites of bloody sacrifices. Ammianus Marcellinus makes three classes
Druid Druses