There is much force in the conclusion arrived at by Bishop Browne, that, "with Gaul so close at hand, its people so near of kin, its government so identical with theirs, the Britons would learn Christianity from, and through, Gaul," to whose church ours should occupy the position of a younger sister. At the same time, this fact must be considered--viz. that the earliest bishops mentioned as having attended the Council of Aries are anterior in point of time to the dated bishops in a great majority of the dioceses of Gaul adjacent to this island, so that we should not too readily abandon the possible belief that there was an independent church in Britain, though we know not _when_ or _by whom_ it was founded.
It only remains in this chapter to mention a few of the traces of British Christianity as supplied by monumental or other evidence well attested. We may believe, with Bede, that over St. Alban's tomb at Verulam, "when the peace of the Christian times returned, a church was built of wonderful workmanship, and worthy of that martyr"; and three churches are spoken of at Caerleon, two of which were dedicated to Julius and Aaron, said to have been martyred in the Diocletian persecution; another at Bangor Iscoed, near Chester; besides one at Candida Casa or Whithern, and the Vetusta Ecclesia at Glastonbury, our own church of St. Martin, and the foundations of that lately discovered in Roman Silchester. This is a fair number, even if we pass over for the time any possible claims to Roman origin on the part of Brixworth, Lyminge, Reculver, and St. Mary's Church in Dover Castle, all of which are ascribed to the Saxon period by Mr J. T. Micklethwaite in his interesting paper read at Canterbury in 1896 before the meeting of the Royal Archæological Institute--though we need not allow that his reasoning is in all cases indisputable.
We possess, too, some sepulchral monuments and inscriptions (not at present very extensive, but probably greatly to be multiplied as fresh excavations and explorations are made) at St. Mary le Wigfred, Lincoln, Caerleon, and Barming, and the _Chi-Rho_ monogram (which was first introduced as a Christian symbol by the Emperor Constantine at the beginning of the fourth century) on various rings, stones, and tesselated pavements, also crosses on pavements at Harpole and Harkstow, and various Christian formulas such as "Vivas in Deo," "In pace," etc.