Dis Pater: the Gaulish supreme deity (Divine Father)

Synonyms: Donn, In Dagda
Gaul: Divine Father

Dis Pater probably should not be included in this list per se for the Dis Pater is actually to Roman god of the underworld and the dead, equated with but separate from the Greek Pluto. Julius Caesar in his De Bello Gallico VI, 18 (Gallic Wars) calls Dis the transcendant god amongst the Gauls, one of the six in their pantheon, and asserts that all Gauls claimed him as their ultimate ancestor. Thus we know of Dis Pater only through interpretatio romano; yet there probably was a native Gaulish deity associated on whom the likeness with Dis Pater was based and whose name is now lost. Dis Pater is thus used in place of the true name of this original Celtic deity.

The association of the Gaulish Allfather with the Roman Dis Pater is associated with the Celtic emphasis on the continued existence of the soul after death and the continuing cult of the ancestors that survives from the Neolithic through the bronze age to the Iron Age of the Celts (which may well be why ancient burial mounds and other ancient tumuli are regarded as the dwellings of the departed, the sídh mounds of the gods and the enclaves of the Tylwyth Teg. Rachel Bromwich in Pagan Celtic Britain has suggested that Gaulish Cernunnos was one of the deities Caesar likened to Dis Pater as both seem to be deities of wealth, fecundity and the chthonic regions. Indeed, Cernunnos is associated with the world serpent, guardian of earth-bound treasure and Dis Pater's temple in Rome was above a subterranean cave that was given over to the protection of the Roman state treasure.

As an ancestral figure and a guardian of the dead Dis Pater has also been linked with the Irish deity Donn who serves a similar mythological function, though he may be more correctly associated with the father of the Irish gods, the In Dagda. The Berne scholia's ninth century CE commentaries on Lucian's first century CE Pharsalia equates the thunder deity Taranis with Dis Pater. However, if the Dis Pater is also the ancestral deity of the people he may also be equated with Teutates whose name is interpreted as “Father of the Tribe”.

In southern Germany and the Balkans inscriptions invoke Dis Pater along with the native deity Aericura. The associated imagery reveals a goddess posessing all the emblems of a Celtic mother deity; though her consort holds a scroll that may be the ‘Book of Life’, symbolic of the passage from youth to old age. On a stele from Varhély, Rumania Dis Pater is depictad with a three-headed canid; the native equivalent to Cerberus, guardian of the netherworld.

The image above is of an archetype found throughout the Gaulish lands of Europe and probably represents Dis Pater. In this representation he seems similar to the Irish Dagda in that he bears a club as a weapon and cradles a cauldron in his right hand. This cauldron, according to legend, yields an inexhaustible supply of food and can heal all injuries. Interestingly, Dis Pater is also known from a defixione (curse tablet) found at Bregenz, Austria invoking Ogmios and also naming Dis Pater. It should also be noted that Bregenz is derived from the name of the capital (Brigantium Raetiae) of the Brigantii tribe of Central Raetia whose capital. Thus in this one place we have a linkage between Brigantia, Dis Pater and Ogmios which is highly suggestive of the relationship between their Irish cognates Brighid, In Dagda and Ogma (see entry on Ogmios for a full discussion), adding support to the proposition that In Dagda is the cognate of Gaulish Dis Pater.

Navigation