emporary with Gregory of Tours. Failing all such record, we must read
the signs for ourselves, and they point in the direction I have described.
They make us a younger sister, not very much younger, of the Church of
Gaul--a Church founded from Ephesus--Oriental in its origin, not Western.
I may, perhaps, have time to indicate in my concluding lecture some points
which shew the non-Western connection of the British Church.

The probability is that from Tertullian's time onwards the faith spread
and grew here quietly. The Christian Church certainly took to itself an
outward form. Bishops were appointed in central places. By the year
314--that is, in one century of growth--it appears that we had in Britain
a Christian Church as fully equipped as any corresponding area of the
Continent at that time was. What is the evidence for this?

At the Council of Arles, A. D. 314, three British bishops were present.
Two of them are described as of the province of Britain; the third is not
so described. All are included among the bishops of the Galliae, that is,
of the province of the Roman Empire so called. Three may not sound a
large number, but as a question of proportion it is in fact large[28].
Thirty-two or thirty-three bishops, in all, signed the decrees of the
Council. Of these, seven were from Italy and the islands, ten from Africa,
eleven from what we call France, three from Britain, and two from
elsewhere. The large number of bishops from Africa will surprise no one
who knows the prominence of the African Church in the early times, the
large number of its bishoprics, the area which it covered. It was the
birthplace and home of Latin Christianity, while the Roman Church was
still practically a Greek Church. In Africa, not in Italy, the Latin
version of the Scriptures was first made.

The principal French bishoprics represented at Arles were Marseilles,
Vienne, Lyons, Bordeaux, Treves, Rheims, and Rouen. In such company it is
quite sufficient for us to find York and London, and a see which is
understood to be Caerleon; the three bishops thus representing the whole
of the island except Caledonia, and occupying what may well have been
regarded as the three metropolitical sees, north, south, and west. This
coincided fairly well with the re-arrangement of the Roman province of
Britain shortly before this time. I venture to suggest that the dates I
gave just now, of the foundation of bishoprics in Belgic Gaul, appear to
shew some