Note 73 — ON AN OLD STONE-ROOFED CELL OR ORATORY IN THE ISLAND OF INCHCOLM.[16]

In reference to this observation, it is scarcely necessary to refer to the teachings in Scotland of St. Kentigern of Strathclyde in the first half of the sixth century, of St. Serf of Culross in the latter, and of St. Palladius and St. Ninian in the earlier parts of the fifth century, with the more immediate converts and followers of these ancient missionaries. In his Demonstratio quod Christus sit Deus contra Judæos atque Gentiles, written about the year 387, St. Chrysostom avers that "the British Islands (Βξετανιχαἱ νησοι), situated beyond the Mediterranean Sea, and in the very ocean itself, had felt the power of the Divine Word, churches having been found there, and altars erected." (Opera omnia, vol. i. p. 575, Paris edition of Montfaucon, 1718.) Perhaps St. Chrysostom founded his statement upon a notice in reference to the alleged extension of Christianity to the northern parts of Britain, given a hundred and fifty years previously by Tertullian, when discussing a similar argument. In his dissertation Adversus Judæos, supposed to be written about 210, Tertullian, when treating of the propagation of Christianity, states (chap. vii.), that at that time already places among the Britons, inaccessible to the Romans, were yet subject to Christ—"Britannorum inaccessa Romanis loca, Christo vero subdita." (Oehler's edition of Tertullian, vol. iii. p. 713.) Among the numerous inscriptions and sculptures left here by the Romans while they held this country during the first four centuries of the Christian era, not one has, I believe, been yet found containing a single Christian notice or emblem, or affording by itself any direct evidence of the existence of Christianity among the Roman colonists and soldiers in Britain. But there is indirect lapidary or monumental evidence of its propagation in another manner. In England, as in Germany, France, etc., there exist among the old Roman remains, altars and temples dedicated to Mithras, originally the god of the Sun among the Persians, with sculptures and inscriptions referring to Mithraic worship. They have been found in the cities along the Roman wall in Northumberland; at York, etc. Various references among the old Fathers seem to show that when a knowledge of the Christian religion began to spread to the Western Colonies of Rome, the worship of Mithras was set up in opposition to Christianity, and Christian rites were imitated by the Mithraic priests and followers. Thus, for example, the author whom I have just cited, Tertullian, tells us, in his tract De Præscriptione Hæreticorem, chap. 40, that the worshippers of Mithras practised the remission of sins by water (as in baptism), made a sign upon their foreheads (as if simulating the sign of the cross), celebrated the offering of bread (as if in imitation of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper), etc. (See his Works, vol. iii. p. 38, of Oehler's Leipsic edition of 1854.)