Dedications to Melkart and Astarte have been
found at Corbridge near Newcastle. The Mithraic remains are
practically confined to garrison centres, London, York, Chester,
Caerleon-on-Usk, and along Hadrian's Dyke.[13] From the highly
interesting map attached to the Study, giving the sites of ascertained
Mithraic remains, there seems to have been such a centre in
Pembrokeshire.
Now in view of all this evidence is it not at least possible that
the higher form of the Attis cult, that in which it was known and
practised by early Gnostic Christians, may have been known in Great
Britain? Scholars have been struck by the curiously unorthodox tone
of the Grail romances, their apparent insistence on a succession
quite other than the accredited Apostolic tradition, and yet, according
to the writers, directly received from Christ Himself. The late
M. Paulin Paris believed that the source of this peculiar feature was
to be found in the struggle for independence of the early British
Church; but, after all, the differences of that Church with Rome
affected only minor points of discipline: the date of Easter, the
fashion of tonsure of the clergy, nothing which touched vital
doctrines of the Faith. Certainly the British Church never claimed
the possession of a revelation a part.
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