Was Quetzalcoatl Saint Brendan?
I think that not just in the case of Quetzalcoatl, but as far as all of the ancient “gods” are concerned, it is fair to wonder if many of these deities were not gods at all, but rather, men—men who possessed extraordinary knowledge and, in some cases, advanced technology.
Some years ago, I read the book Lost Cities of North & Central America by David Hatcher Childress. In the book, Childress presents several ideas for the identity of the Mesoamerican deity Quetzalcoatl. One of those theories is that the Quetzalcoatl “myth” is a hazy memory of a charismatic Christian missionary who sailed from Ireland to the New World between 500 CE and 800 CE.
The Irish were accomplished sailors and it is an intriguing thought that perhaps their leather boats landed in present-day Mexico. If indeed missionaries sailed in these boats, they would have definitely attempted to spread Christianity to the Mesoamerican people. This could explain similarities in many stories from the Bible and Mesoamerican legends.
Before going any further, I need to point out I am not endorsing this idea, but I think it is an interesting theory. Of course, it is extremely controversial, now more than ever in today's hypersensitive climate.
At any rate, in Lost Cities of North & Central America, Childress shared an article by Dominick Daly titled “The Mexican Messiah.” In the article, Daly lays out his theory of pre-Columbian contact in the New World by Irish missionaries. The article appeared in volume 11 of the The American Antiquarian (1889). I have reprinted the article in its entirety below:
There are few more puzzling characters to be found in the pages of history than Quetzatcoatl, the wandering stranger whom the early Mexicans adopted as the Air-God of their mythology. That he was a real personage; that he was a white man from this side of the Atlantic, who lived and taught in Mexico centuries before Columbus; that what he taught was Christianity and Christian manners and morals—all these are plausible inferences from facts and circumstances so peculiar as to render other conclusion well-nigh impossible.
When, in 1519, Cortez and his 600 companions landed in Mexico they were astonished at their coming being hailed as the realization of an ancient native tradition, which ran in this wise: Many centuries previously a white man had come to Mexico from across the sea (the Atlantic) in a boat with wings (sails) like those of the Spanish vessels. He stayed many years in the country and taught the people a system of religion, instructed them in principles of government, and imparted to them a knowledge of many industrial arts. He won their esteem and veneration by his piety, his many virtues, his great wisdom and his knowledge of divine things. His stay was a kind of golden age for Mexico. The seasons were uniformly favorable and the earth gave forth its produce almost spontaneously and in miraculous abundance and variety. In those days a single head of maize was a load for a man, the cotton trees produced quantities of cotton already tinted in many brilliant hues; flowers filled the air with delicious perfumes; birds of magnificent plumage incessantly poured forth the most exquisite melody. Under the auspices of this good white man, or god, peace, plenty and happiness prevailed throughout the land. The Mexicans knew him as Quetzatcoatl, or the green serpent, the word green in this language being a term for a rare and precious thing. Through some malign influence—brought about by the enmity of a rival deity—Quetzatcoatl was induced or obliged to quit the country. On his way to the coast he stayed for a time at the city of Cholula, where subsequently a great pyramidal mound sur- mounted by a temple was erected in his honor. On the shores of the Gulf of Mexico he took leave of his followers, soothing their sorrow at his departure with the assurance that he would not forget them, and that he himself or someone sent by him would return at some future time to visit them. He had made for himself a vessel of serpents' skins, and in this strange contrivance he sailed away in a northeasterly direction for his own country, the holy island of Hapallan, lying beyond the great ocean.
Such in outline was the strange tradition which Cortez found prevalent in Mexico on his arrival there, and powerfully influencing every inhabitant of the country from the great Montezuma, who ruled as king paramount in the city of Mexico, to the humblest serf who tilled the fields of his lord. Equally to their surprise and advantage the Spaniards found that their advent was hailed as the fulfilment of the promise of Quetzatcoatl to return. The natives saw that they were white men and bearded like him, they had come in sailing vessels such as the one he had used across the sea; they had clearly come from the mysterious Hapallan; they were undoubtedly Quetzatcoatl and his brethren come, in fulfilment of ancient prophecy, to restore and permanently re-establish in Mexico the reign of peace and happiness of which the country had had a brief experience many centuries before.
The Spaniards made no scruple of encouraging and confirming a belief so highly favorable to their designs and it is conceded by their writers that this belief to a large extent accounts for the comparative ease and marvelous rapidity with which a mere handful of men made themselves masters of a great and civilized empire and subjugated a warlike population of millions. To the last the unfortunate emperor Montezuma, in spite of much evidence of the ungodlike character of the Spaniards held to the belief that the king of Spain was Quetzatcoatl and Cortez his lieutenant and emissary under a sort of divine commission.
The Mexicans had preserved a minute and apparently an accurate description of the personal appearance and habits of Quetzatcoatl. He was a white man, advanced in years and tall in stature. His forehead was broad; he had a large beard and black hair. He is described as dressing in a long garment, over which there was a mantle marked with crosses. He was chaste and austere, temperate and abstemious, fasting frequently and sometimes inflicting severe penances on himself, even to the drawing of blood. This is a description which was preserved for centuries in the traditions of a people who had no intercourse with or knowledge of Europe, who had never seen a white man, and who themselves dark skinned with were but few scanty hairs on the skin to represent a beard.
It is therefore difficult to suppose that this curiously accurate portraiture of Quetzatcoatl as an early European ecclesiastic was a mere invention in all its parts—a mere fable which happened to hit on every particular and characteristic of such an individual. Nor is it easier to understand why the early Mexicans should have been at pains to invent a messiah so different from themselves, and with such peculiar attributes. Yet in spite of destructive wars, revolutions and invasions—in spite of the breaking up and dispersal of tribes and nations once settled in the vast region now passing under the name of Mexico—the tradition of Quetzatcoatl and the account of his personal peculiarities survived among the people to the days of the Spanish invasion. Everything therefore tends to show that Quetzatcoatl was an European who by some strange adventure was thrown amongst the Mexican people and left with them recollections of his beneficent influence which time and change did not obliterate. But time and change must have done much in the course of centuries to confuse the teachings of Quetzatcoatl. These would naturally be more susceptible of mutation than the few striking items of his personal appearance which (if only on account of their singularity) must have deeply impressed the Mexicans, generation after generation. Notwithstanding such mutation enough remained of the teachings of Quetzalcoatl to impress the Spaniards of the sixteenth century with the belief that he must have been an early Christian missionary as well as a native of Europe. They found that many of the religious beliefs of the Mexicans bore an unaccountable resemblance to those of Christians. The Spanish ecclesiastics, in particular, were astounded at what they saw and knew not what to make of it. Some of them supposed that St. Thomas, "the apostle of India," had been in the country and imparted a knowledge of Christianity to the people; others with pious horror and in mental bewilderment declared that the Evil One himself had set up a travesty of the religion of Christ for the more effectual damning of the souls of the pagan Mexicans.
The religion of the Mexicans as the Spaniards found it was in truth an amazing and most unnatural combination of what appeared to be Christian beliefs and Christian virtues and morality with the bloody rites and idolatrous practices of pagan barbarians. The mystery was soon explained to the Spaniards by the Mexicans themselves. The milder part of the Mexican religion was that which Quetzatcoatl had taught them. He had taught it to the Toltecs, a people who had ruled in Mexico some centuries before the arrival of the Spaniards. The Aztecs were in possession of power when the Spaniards came and it was they who had introduced that part of the Mexican religion which was in such strong contrast to the religion established by Quetzalcoatl. It appeared further that the Toltec rule in the land had ceased about the middle of the eleventh century. They were a people remarkably advanced in civilization and mental and moral development. Somewhere between the latter part of the fourth century and the middle of the seventh century they were sup- posed to have come into Mexico from the Northeast—possibly from the Ohio valley, where vast remains of a strange character have been found. They were versed in the arts and sciences, and their astronomical knowledge was in many respects in advance of that of Europe. They established laws and regular government in Mexico during their stay in the country, but about the year 1050 A. D. they disappeared south by a voluntary migration, the cause of which remains a mystery. They are supposed to have been, subsequently, the builders of the great cities the marvelous re- mains of which are found in the wilds of Central America. In the migration of the Toltecs some remained behind from choice or necessity, but no attempt appears to have been made at re- establishing a Toltec empire and government in Mexico.
After the lapse of a century or more from the era of the great Toltec migration the first bands of Aztecs began to appear. They were wanderers from the Northwest, the Pacific slopes of North America, and were a fierce and warlike people, possessing little capacity for the mental and moral refinement and high civilization of their Toltec predecessors. It was not until the middle of the fourteenth century that the Aztecs acquired sufficient settled habits to enable them to found states and cities, and by that time they seem to have adopted so much of what had been left of Toltec civilization and Toltec religion as they were capable of absorbing, without, however, abandoning their own ruder ideas and propensities. Hence the incongruous mixture of civilization and barbarism, mildness and ferocity, gentleness and cruelty, refinement and brutality, presented by Mexican civilization and religion to the astonished contemplation of the Spaniards when they entered the city two centuries later. "Aztec civilization was made up" (as Prescott, the author of the History of Mexico, says), "of incongruities apparently irreconcilable. It blended into one the marked peculiarities of different nations, not only of the same phase of civilization, but as far removed from each other as the extremes of barbarism and refinement."
The chief deity of the whole of the Aztecs was Huitzilopochtli, god of war, whose hideous images had accompanied them in all their wanderings. The idol of this deity shown to the Spaniards in the great temple at Mexico "had," (as Cortez himself describes it) "a broad face, wide mouth and terrible eyes. He was covered with gold, pearls and precious stones; and was girt about with golden serpents…On his neck a fitting ornament, with the faces of men wrought in silver, and their hearts in gold. Close by were braziers with incense, and on the brazier three real hearts of men who had that day been sacrificed. The smell of the place was like that of a slaughter- house. To supply victims for these sacrifices, the emperors made war on the neighboring and subsidiary states or in case of revolt on any city of the dominions and levied a certain number of men, women and children by way of indemnity." Daily sacrifices of human victims were made on all the altars of this monster in the chief cities of Mexico. One of the lowest estimates of the multitude of victims thus slaughtered in the City of Mexico alone in the year before the arrival of the Spaniards places the number at 20,000. Sacrifices on a corresponding scale were carried out in the provincial cities. The victim was secured to the altar stone, the breast cut open, and the palpitating heart cut out by the priest. On solemn occasions the heart, or other portions of the body, were chopped up fine, mixed into a horrible paste with maize and blood, and in the form of a cake eaten by the faithful. In contrast with dreadful rites such as these, were graceful and elegant ceremonies in which youths and maidens, gaily dressed and decorated with flowers and foliage, took a leading part. The first fruits of the season were carried in joyous processions to the temples, with music, singing and dancing, and laid upon the altars of the gods.
All that was savage and barbarous in the religious rites of the Mexicans was attributed by the Mexicans themselves to the Aztecs; all that was gentle and humanizing to the Toltecs, and probably with substantial justice in each instance. To a Toltec origin was assigned those doctrines and practices which struck the Spaniards as remnants of an early knowledge of Christianity. The Aztecs only came into the inheritance of those doctrines and practices at second hand—that is from the remnants of the Toltec people. The new-comers were probably little disposed to submit wholly to the influence of alien religious ideas essentially different from their own gloomy and sanguinary notions of divine things. Some they adopted, while still retaining their own national observances, and hence the extraordinary mixture of brutality and gentleness presented to the wondering contemplation of the Spaniards by the Mexican cult as they found it in the early part of the sixteenth century. The better, that is the Toltec side of this mixed belief included amongst its chief features a recognition of a supreme God, vested with all the attributes of the Jehovah of the Jews. He was the creator and the ruler of the universe, and the fountain of all good. Subordinate to him were a number of minor deities. and opposed to him a father of all evil. There was a paradise for the abode of the just after death, and a place of darkness and torment for the wicked. There was an intermediate place which was not perhaps so much a purgatory as a second-class heaven. There had been a common mother of all men, always pictorially represented as in company with a serpent. Her name was Cicacoatl, or "the serpent woman," and it was held that "by her sin came into the world." She had twin children, and in an Aztec picture preserved in the Vatican at Rome those children are represented as quarreling. The Mexicans believed in a universal deluge, from which only one family (that of Coxcox) escaped. Nevertheless, and inconsistently enough with this, they spoke of a race of wicked giants, who had survived the flood and built a pyramid in order to reach the clouds; but the gods frustrated their design by raining fire upon it. Tradition associated the great pyramid at Cholula with this event. This was the pyramid which had been erected to Quetzalcoatl, and which had a temple on the summit dedicated to the worship of him as the god of air. The Mexicans regarded Cholula as the one holy city—the Jerusalem or Mecca of their country—from having been the place of abode of Quetzalcoatl. The pyramid in a dilapidated condition still remains, and is surmounted by a chapel for Christian worship. It is scarcely necessary to suggest that the traditions of Cicacoatl, Coxcox, the giants and the pyramid at Cholula, are extremely like a confused acquaintance with biblical narratives.
The foregoing are merely specimens of the more remarkable features of Mexican belief, and they are so special and peculiar in character as to leave no reasonable alternative to the supposition that the Mexicans must have had imparted to them at one time a knowledge of the bible. This has induced in some quarters the opinions that the Mexicans are descendants of the lost tribes of Israel; but whatever may be the arguments for or against this theory, the still more abundant knowledge of a Christian-like character possessed by the ancient Mexicans is strongly suggestive of Christian teaching, which would sufficiently account for familiarity with narratives contained in the Old Testament.
Whether due to such teaching or to accidental coincidence, it is certain that the Mexicans held many points of belief in common with Christians. They believed in the Trinity, the Incarnation, and apparently the Redemption. One of the first things which struck the Spaniards on their arrival in Mexico was the spectacle of large stone crosses on the coast and in the interior of the country. These were objects of veneration and worship. One cross of marble near one of the places the Spaniards named Vera Cruz was surmounted by a golden crown, and in answer to the curious inquiries of the Spanish ecclesiastics the natives said that "one more glorious than the sun had died upon a cross." In other places the Spaniards were informed that the cross was a symbol of the god of rain. At any rate it was an object of divine association and consequent adoration. In the magnificent pictorial reproduction of Mexican antiquities published by Lord Kingsborough there is a remarkable sketch of a monument rep- resenting a group of ancient Mexicans in attitudes of adoration around a cross of the Latin form. The leading figure is that of a king or priest holding in his outstretched hands a young infant, which he appears to be presenting to the cross.
Further acquaintance with the people and their religious ideas disclosed to the Spaniards additional evidence of Christian-like beliefs. They believed in original sin and practiced infant baptism. At the naming of the infant the lips and bosom of the child were sprinkled with water and the Lord was implored to "permit the holy drops to wash away the sin that was given to it before the foundation of the world, so that the child might be born anew."
Confession to the priests, absolution and penance, were also features of the Mexican religion. The secrets of the confessional were esteemed inviolable. Absolution not only effaced moral guilt but was held to free the penitent from responsibility for breaches of the secular law. Long after the Spaniards had established their rule in the country it was a common thing for native culprits, especially in the remoter districts, to demand acquittal on the plea that they had confessed their crimes to the priest.
The Mexican prayers and invocations were strongly Christian in character. The priestly exhortation, after confession, was— "Feed the hungry and clothe the naked according to your circumstances, for all men are of one flesh." Another form of exhortation was—"Live in peace with all men; bear injuries with humility; leave vengeance to God, who sees everything." Among the invocations to the deity was the following—"Wilt thou blot us out, O Lord, forever? Is this punishment intended not for our reformation but for our destruction?" Again, "Impart to us, out of Thy great mercy, Thy gifts, which we are not worthy to receive through our own merits." A still more striking similarity to scriptural morality and expression is contained in the admonition—"He who looks too curiously on a woman commits adultery with his eyes."
The Mexicans believed in the doctrine of transubstantiation in its. strictest form, and even in its Roman Catholic peculiarity of communion under one kind. Communion and administration of the eucharist took place at stated intervals. The priest broke off morsels from a sanctified cake of maize and administered it to the communicant as he lay prostrate on the ground. Both priest and communicant regarded the material as the very body of God himself. The religious consumption of a horrible mixture of maize and human blood, and sometimes flesh, has already been alluded to as associated with the worship of the Aztec war god, Huitzilopochtli, and is suggestive of an Aztec perversion of the Christian, and apparently Toltec, idea of transubstantiation. On some occasions a model of the god was formed out of a paste of maize flour tempered by the blood of young children sacrificed for the purpose, the figure being subsequently consumed by the worshipers.
The Mexican priesthood had much in common, and little in conflict, with the priesthood of the papacy. Celibacy was esteemed a merit and was observed by certain orders, though not by all; but all were governed by rules of a monastic character, very similar and quite as severe as those in force in the earlier ages of the Christian church. Thrice during the day and once at night the priests lodging in the great temples were cabled to prayer. They also mortified the flesh by fasting and abstinence, by severe penances, flagellations, and piercing the flesh with sharp thorns. They undertook the entire education of the young and devoted themselves to works of charity. The great cities and rural districts were divided into parishes, each presided over by a priest. These priests were of a different order and had different functions from the priests who lived and served in the temples, and seem to have been in all important respects similar to the regular parochial clergy of Christian countries. The inference to be drawn by students of early Mexican his- tory from these apparent remnants of Christian teaching is very much a matter of personal capacity and individual idiosyncrasy. Probably the majority will conclude that the Mexicans must have had Christian enlightenment from some source at a time long antecedent to the Spanish invasion. That such enlightenment should have become obscure and confused in the lapse of centuries, through the operation of revolutions, and by contact with Aztec idolatry, would not be surprising; the only wonder would be that so much that was still Christian-like should remain at the beginning of the 16th century. Was it then remains of Christianity which the Spaniards found? There is no reason to doubt the concurrent testimony of their writers and historians, lay and clerical, as to what they did find. There could be no adequate motive for a general conspiracy amongst them to manufacture evidence and invent fables for the purpose of making it appear that the people whom they were about to plunder, enslave and slaughter were a sort of Christians. On the contrary, their expressions of surprise and horror at finding Chris- tian doctrines and Christian practices, intermingled with the grossest idolatry and most barbarous and bloody rites, are too natural and genuine to be mistaken. They—the direct observers and with the best opportunities for judging—had no doubt that what they saw was a debased form of Christianity. The points of resemblance with real Christianity were too numerous and too peculiar to permit the supposition that the similarity was accidental and unreal. With them the only difficulty was to account for the possession of Christian knowledge by a people so remote and outlandish—or rather to trace the identity of Quetzatcoatl, the undoubted teacher of the Mexicans. Their choice lay between the devil and St. Thomas. However respectable the claims of the former, it is clear enough that the St. Thomas was not Quetzatcoatl and had never been in Mexico. He was dragged in at all because the Spaniards long clung to the idea that America was a part of India, and St. Thomas was styled "the Apostle of India," on the authority of an ancient and pious but very doubtful tradition. The weakness of the case for St. Thomas secured a preference for the claims of the devil, and the consensus of Spanish opinion favored the idea that Quetzacock was indeed the devil himself, who, aroused by the losses which Christ had inflicted upon him in the old world, had sought compensation in the new, and had beguiled the Mexicans into the acceptance of a blasphemous mockery of the religion of Christ infinitely more wicked and damnatory than the worst form of paganism.
Another theory as to the identity of Quetzatcoatl may here be noticed. Lord Kingsborough makes the startling suggestion that Quetzalcoatl was no other than Christ himself, and in support of this maintains that the phonetic rendering, in the Mexican language, of the two words "Jesus Christ" would be as nearly as possible "Quetzal Coatl." He does not mean to say that Christ was ever in Mexico, but his suggestion is that the Mexicans, having obtained an early knowledge of Christianity, and become acquainted with the name and character of its Divine Founder, imagined in subsequent ages that Christ had actually been in Mexico, and so built up the tradition of Quetzalcoatl. But this theory does not get rid—on the contrary makes essential—the presence of a missionary in Mexico through whom the people were instructed in the truths of Christianity, and from whom they obtained a knowledge of Christ. It is of course possible that in the lapse of ages the Mexicans might have transferred to this missionary the name of the great founder of his religion, but that there was no confusion of personalities is obvious, for in age and in many personal peculiarities Quetzalcoatl is represented as very different from the earthly figure of Christ. It may further be noted that the terms "Quetzalcoatl" has a clear and appropriate significance ("Green Serpent") in the Mexican language, and this is somewhat inconsistent with the supposition that they are a close phonetic rendering of the words "Jesus Christ." In fact Lord Kingsborough's ingenious and not wholly improbable theory in no degree helps to the identity of the early Christian missionary called Quetzatcoatl.
But whoever Quetzalcoatl may have been, and whatever might be the right designation of the religion which he taught, it is clear beyond question that he was the medium through which the Mexicans obtained their curious Christian like knowledge. To him there is no rival. The Aztecs claimed the honor of being the importers of the terrible Huitzilopochtli and all the un- holy rites connected with his worship. They, and all other Mexicans, agreed in assigning the milder features of Mexican worship to the teachings of Quetzatcoatl. To him also they attributed the foundation of the monastic institutions and clerical systems, and the introduction of baptism, confession, communion, and all the beliefs, ceremonies and practices, having a greater or less resemblance to those of the Christian religion.
It is, therefore, hard to understand what it was that Quetzalcoatl taught if it was not Christianity, and equally hard to conceive what he could have been if he were not a Christian missionary. His personality and attributes are altogether, and without a single exception or the slightest qualification, those of an early Christian missionary. A white man, with all the peculiarities of an European, teaches to a remote and isolated pagan people something, the remnants of which in after centuries bears an extraordinary resemblance to Christianity. Could that "something," coming from such a source, be other than Christianity? The teacher himself is depicted as a perfect and exalted type of a Christian missionary, though the Mexicans could have had no model to guide them in their delineation of such a character. The " Lives of the Saints," the "Annals of the Faith," any records of the lives and labors of pious and de- voted Christian missionaries, supply no more perfect nor more Christian-like character than that oi Quetzatcoatl. Long, earnestly and successfully he preached the worship of the great unseen but all present God, and taught the Mexicans to trust in an omnipotent and benevolent Father in heaven. He preached peace and good will amongst men, and he "stopped his ears when war was spoken of." He encouraged and taught the cultivation of the earth, and the arts and sciences of peace and civilization. He conferred upon the Mexicans, through the great influence he seems to have obtained over them, so many material benefits that in after ages they exaggerated the period of his rule into a veritable golden age, and impiously exalted himself into a deity of the most benevolent attributes. The impression he made was indeed so profound that the memory of his virtues and good works survived and were exaggerated through centuries of change and trouble, and made him acceptable as a god even to the rude intruding barbarians, who only learnt of him remotely and at second hand, ages after the completion of his mission. Chaste, frugal, earnest, self denying, laborious, he stands depicted in Mexican tradition as the highest specimen of an apostolic saint or early Christian missionary. Can he then be an imaginary person? Could the early Mexican pagans have evolved such a character from their own fancy, or created it out of pagan materials? The thing seems incredible. It would indeed be a curious thing if the Mexicans—never having seen a white man, and wholly ignorant of European ideas and beliefs—had invented a fable of a white man sojourning amongst them; it would be still more curious if, in addition to this, they had invented another fable of that white man instructing them in European religion and morals. The white man without the teaching might be a possible but still a doubtful story; the teaching without the white man would be difficult to believe; but the white man and the teaching together make up a complete and consistent whole almost precluding the possibility of invention.
Three points in relation to Quetzatcoatl seem well established: (1) He was a white man from across the Atlantic; (2) he taught religion to the Mexicans; (3) the religion he taught retained to after ages many strong and striking resemblances to Christianity. The conclusion seems unavoidable—that Quetzatcoatl was a Christian missionary from Europe who taught Christianity to the Mexicans or Toltecs.
Accepting this as established, the possibility of fixing the European identity of Quetzatcoatl presents itself as a curious but obviously difficult question. To begin with, the era of Quetzalcoatl is not known with any precision. It has a possible range of some six and a half centuries—from before the be- ginning of the fourth century to the middle of the tenth century —that is from about A. D. 400 to A. D. 1050, which is the longest time assigned to Toltec domination in Mexico. The era of Quetzatcoatl may, however, be safely confined to narrower limits. The Toltecs must have been well established in the country before Quetzatcoatl appeared amongst them, and he must have left some considerable time before their migration from Mexico. The references to Quetzalcoatl’s visits to the Toltec cities prove the former, and the time which would have been required to arrange for and complete the great pyramid built at Cholula in his honor, and after his departure, proves the latter. From a century to two centuries may be allowed at each end of the period between A. D. 400 and A. D. 1050, and it may be assumed with some degree of probability that Quetzalcoatl’s visit to Mexico took place sometime between (say) A. D. 500 and A. D. 900.
If attention is directed to the condition of Europe during that time it will be found that the period from about A. D. 500 to A. D. 800 was one of great missionary activity. Before the former date the church was doing little more than feeling its way and asserting itself against the pagan supremacy in the basin of the Mediterranean and elsewhere. After the latter date the incursions and devastations of the northern barbarians paralyzed European missionary efforts. But from the beginning of the fifth century to the beginning of the eighth there was no limit to missionary enterprise, and if even a Christian missionary had appeared in Mexico all probability favors the theory that he must have gone there during those centuries. The era of Quetzalcoatl may therefore be narrowed to those three hundred years, and the task of tracing his identity thus simplified to some slight extent. It may now be asked: Is it reasonable to expect that there are, or ever were, any European records of the period from A.D. 500 to A.D. 800 referring to any missionary who might have been Quetzatcoatl? It is a long time since Quetzatcoatl, whoever he was, sailed from the shores of Europe to carry the truths of Christianity into the unknown regions beyond the Atlantic, but the literary records of his assumed period are numerous and minute and might possibly have embraced some notice of his undertaking. It seems unlikely that his enterprise would have escaped attention altogether, especially from the ecclesiastical chroniclers, who were not given to ignoring the good works of their fellow religionists. Moreover, the mission of Quetzatcoatl was not one which could have been launched quietly or obscurely, nor was there any reason why it should be. The contemplated voyage must have been a matter of public knowledge and comment in some locality; it could not have been attempted without preparations on some scale of magnitude; and such preparations for such a purpose must have attracted at least local attention and excited local interest. It is thus reasonable to suppose that the importance and singularity of a project to cross the Atlantic for missionary purposes would have insured some record being made of the enterprise. A fortiori if the venturesome missionary ever succeeded in returning—if he ever came back to tell of his wonderful adventures—the fact would have been chronicled by his religious confreres and made the most of, then and for the benefit of future ages. It comes therefore to this—accepting Quetzatcoatl as a Christian missionary from Europe we have right and reason to expect that his singular and pious expedition would have been put upon record somewhere.
The next step in the inquiry is to search for the most likely part of Europe to have been the scene of the going forth and possible return of this missionary. The island of Hapallan, says the Mexican tradition, was the home from whence he came and whither he sought to return. The name of the country afforded us assistance, and it might not be safe to attach importance to its insular designation. But in looking for a country in Western Europe—possibly an island—which, from A. D. 500 to A. D. 800, might have sent out a missionary on a wild trans- Atlantic expedition, one is soon struck with the possibility of Ireland being such a country. To the question, "Could Ireland have been the Hapallan, or Holy Island, of the Mexican tradition?" an affirmative answer may readily be given, especially by anyone who knows even a little of the ecclesiastical history of the country from A. D. 500 to A. D. 800. In that period no country was more forward in missionary enterprise. The Irish ecclesiastics shrunk from no adventures of land or sea, however desperate and dangerous, when the eternal salvation of heathen peoples was in question. On land they penetrated to all parts of the continent, preaching the gospel of Christ and founding churches and religious establishments. On sea they made voyages for like purposes to the remotest known lands of the northern and western seas. They went as missionaries to all parts of the coast of Northern Britain, and visited the Hebrides, the Orkneys, and the Shetland and Faro Islands. Even remote Iceland received their pious attention, and Christianity was established by them in that island long before it was taken possession of by the Norwegians in the eighth century.
Prima facie, then, Ireland has not only a good claim, but really the best claim to be the Hapallan of the Mexicans. It is the most western part of Europe; it is insular, and in the earlier centuries of the Christian era was known as the "Holy Island"; between A.D. 500 and 800 it was the most active centre of missionary enterprise in Europe, and its missionaries were conspicuous above all others for their daring maritime adventures. It is natural therefore to suspect that Ireland may have been the home of Quetzatcoatl, and, if that were so, to expect that early Irish records would certainly contain some references to him and his extraordinary voyage. Upon this the inquiry suggests itself: Do the early Irish chronicles, which are voluminous and minute, contain anything relating to a missionary voyage across the Atlantic at all corresponding to that which Quetzatcoatl must have taken from some part of Western Europe?
To one who, step by step, had arrived at this stage of the present inquiry, it was not a little startling to come across an obscure and almost forgotten record which is, in all its main features, in most striking conformity with the Mexican legend of Quetzatcoatl. This is the curious account of the trans-Atlantic voyage of a certain Irish ecclesiastic named St. Brendan in the middle of the sixth century—about A. D. 550. The narrative appears to have attracted little or no attention in modern times, but it was widely diffused during the Middle Ages. In the Bibliotheque at Paris there are said to be no less than eleven MSS. of the original Latin narrative, the dates of which range from the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries. It is also stated that versions of it, in old French and Romance, exists in most of the public libraries of France; and in many other parts of Europe there are copies of it in Irish, Dutch, German, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. It is reproduced in Irsher's "Antiquities," and is to be found in the Cottonian collection of MSS. This curious account of St. Brendan's voyage may be altogether a romance, as it has long been held to be, but the remark- able thing about it is the singularity of its general concurrence with the Mexican tradition of Quetzatcoatl. St Brendan—called "The Navigator," from his many voyages was an Irish bishop who in his time founded a great monastery at Cloufert, on the shores of Kerry, and was the head of a con- fraternity or order of 3,000 monks. The story of his trans-Atlantic voyage is as follows: From the eminence now called after him, Brendan Mountain, the saint had long gazed upon the Atlantic at his feet and speculated on the perilous condition of the souls of the unconverted peoples who possibly inhabited unknown countries on the other side. At length, in the cause of Christianity and for the glory of God, he resolved upon a missionary expedition across the ocean, although he was then well advanced in years. With this purpose he caused a stout bark to be constructed and provisioned for a long voyage, a portion of his supplies consisting of live swine. Taking with him some trusty companions he sailed from Tralee Bay, at the foot of Brendan Mountain, in a southwesterly direction. The voyage lasted many weeks, during several of which the vessel was carried along by a strong current without need of help from oars or sail. In the land which he ultimately reached the saint spent seven years in instructing the people in the truths of Christianity. He then left them, promising to return at some future time. He arrived safely in Ireland, and, in after years (mindful of the promise he had made to his trans-Atlantic converts) he embarked on a second voyage. This, however, was frustrated by contrary winds and currents, and he returned to Ireland, where he died in 575 at the ripe age of 94 and "in the adorn of sanctity."
It would be idle to expect a plain matter of fact account of St. Brendan's voyage from the chroniclers of the sixth century. The narrative is, in fact, interwoven with several supernatural occurrences. But eliminating these there remains enough of apparently real incident worthy of serious attention. The whole story, as already suggested, may be a mere pious fable promulgated and accepted in a non-critical and ignorant and credulous age. If substantially true the fact could not be verified in such an age; if a pure invention its falsity cannot now be demonstrated. All that can be said about it is that it is in wonderful agreement with what is known or may be inferred from the Mexican legend. The story of St. Brendan's voyage was writ- ten long before Mexico was heard of, and if forged it could not have been with a view to offering a plausible explanation of a singular Mexican tradition. And yet the explanation which it offers of that tradition is so complete and apropos on all material points as almost to preclude the idea of accidental coincidence. In respect to epoch, personal characteristics, race, religion, direction of coming and going—the Mexican Quetzalcoatl might well have been the Irish saint. Both were white men, both were advanced in years, both crossed the Atlantic from the direction of Europe, both preached Christianity and Christian practices, both returned across the Atlantic to an insular home or Holy Island, both promised to come back and failed in doing so. These are at least remarkable coincidences, if accidental.
The date of St. Brendan's voyage—the middle of the sixth century—is conveniently within the limits which probability would assign to the period of Quetzalcoatl’s sojourn in Mexico, namely from about the fifth to the eighth centuries. The possibility of making a voyage in such an age from the West- ern shores of Europe to Mexico is proved by the fact that the voyage was made by others at about the same time. The probability of St. Brendan designing such a voyage is sup- ported alike by the renown of the saint as a "navigator," and by the known maritime enterprises and enthusiastic missionary spirit of the Irish of his time; the supposition that he succeeded in his design is countenanced by the ample preparations he is said to have made for the voyage.
There is a disagreement between the Mexican tradition and the Irish narrative in respect to the stay of the white man in Mexico. Quetzatcoatl is said to have remained twenty years in the country, but only seven years—seven Eastern—are assigned to the absence of St. Brendan from his monastery. Either period would probably suffice for laying the foundations of the Christianity the remnants of which the Spaniards found in the beginning of the sixteenth century. On this point the Irish record is more likely to be correct. The Mexican tradition was already very ancient when the Spaniards became acquainted with it—as ancient as the sway of the vanished Toltecs. For centuries it had been handed down from generation to generation, and not always through generations of the same people. It is therefore conceivable that it may have undergone variations in some minor particulars, and that a stay of seven years became exaggerated into one of twenty years. The discrepancy is not a serious one, and is in no sense a touch-stone of the soundness of the theory that Quetzatcoatl and St. Brendan may have been one and the same person.
A curious feature in the Mexican tradition is its apparently needless insistency upon the point that Quetzatcoatl sailed away from Mexico in a vessel made of serpents' skins. There seems no special reason for attributing this extraordinary mode of navigation to him. If the design were to enhance his supernatural attributes some more strikingly miraculous mode of exit could easily have been invented. The first impulse accordingly is to reject this part of the tradition as hopelessly inexplicable—as possibly allegorical in some obscure way, or as originating in a misnomer, or in the mistranslation of an ancient term. But further consideration suggests the possibility of their being more truth in the "serpents skins" than appears at first sight. In the absence of large quadrupeds in their country the ancient Mexicans made use of serpents' skins as a substitute for hides. The great drums on the top of their temple-crowned pyramids were, Cortez states, made of the skins of a large species of serpent, and when beaten for alarum could be heard for miles around. It may therefore be that Quetzalcoatl in preparing for his return voyage across the Atlantic made use of the skins of serpents or crocodiles to cover the hull of his vessel and render it water-tight. The Mexicans were not boat-builders and were unacquainted with the use of tar or pitch, employing only canoes dug out of the solid timber. When Cortez was building the brigandines with which he attacked the City of Mexico from the lake, he had to manufacture the tar he required from such available trees as he could find. Quetzatcoatl may have used serpents' skins for a similar purpose, and such use would imply that the vessel in which he sailed away was not a mere canoe, but a built-up boat. If he was really St. Brendan nothing is more likely than that he would seek for a substitute for tar or pitch in skins of some sort. Coming from the west coast of Ireland, he would be familiar with the native currahs, couracles, or hide-covered boats then in common use (and not yet wholly discarded) for coasting purposes, and sometimes for voyages to the coasts of Britain and continent of Europe. Some of these were of large size and capable of carrying a small mast, the body being a stout framework of ash ribs covered with hides of oxen, sometimes of threefold thickness. It may have been a vessel of this kind which Quetzatcoatl constructed for his return voyage, or it may be that he employed the serpents' skins for protecting the seams of his built-up boat in lieu of tar or pitch. In any case the tradition makes him out a navigator and boat-builder of some experience, and if he were really St. Brendan he would have had a knowledge of the Irish mode of constructing and navigating sea-going crafts and would probably have employed serpent's skins, the best Mexican substitute for ox-hides, at either of the ways suggested.
It would be presumptuous to claim that the identity of Quetzalcoatl and St. Brendan has been completely established in this essay, but it may reasonably be submitted that there is no violent inconsistency involved in the theory herein advanced, and an examination of the evidence upon which it is based discloses many remarkable coincidences in favor of the opinion that the Mexican Messiah may have been the Irish saint. Beyond that it would not be safe to go, and it is not probable that future discoveries will enable the identity of Quetzatcoatl to be more clearly traced. It is a part of the Mexican tradition that Quetzalcoatl, before leaving Mexico, concealed a collection of silver and shell objects, and other precious things, by burial. The discovery of such a treasure would no doubt show that he was a Christian missionary, and would probably settle the question of his nationality and identity. But the deposit may have been discovered and destroyed or dispersed long ago, and if not there is little probability now that it will ever see the light of day. It would be equally hopeless to expect that Mexican records may yet be discovered containing references to Quetzatcoatl. A thousand years may have elapsed from the time of that personage to the days of Cortez, and since then nearly another four hundred years have contributed to the further destruction of Mexican monuments and records. In the earlier days of the Spanish Conquest, all the memorials of the subjugated races were ruthlessly and systematically destroyed, and so effectually that but comparatively few scraps and fragments remain of native historical materials which formerly existed in great abundance. Even these remnants are for the most part useless, for in a single generation or two of Spanish fanaticism and Spanish egotism destroyed all use and knowledge of the native Mexican languages and literature. It may, therefore, be concluded that we know all we are ever likely to know of the history and personality of the Mexican Messiah, and what we do know is this—that he was a Christian missionary from Europe, and is more likely to have been St. Brendan than any other European of whom we have knowledge.
Dominick Daly “The Mexican Messiah.” The American Antiquarian vol 11 1889 pp 14–30
