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| | CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Druidism |
 | | Some of the Greek authors, struck by the analogy of this doctrine with that of Pythagoras, believed that the druids had borrowed it from the Greek philosopher or one of his disciples. |
 | | Nor has it been proved that the druids had gods of their own or had introduced any new divinity or rites into Gaul, with the exception perhaps of the Dispater, who, according to Caesar, was regarded by the druids as the head of the nation, and who may have owed his origin to their belief. |
 | | He maintains that great druidic communities flourished in Gaul, Britain, and Ireland many centuries before the Christian Era, and that these were the models and the beginnings of the abbeys of the Western monks. |
| www.newadvent.org /cathen/05162a.htm (1447 words) |
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