Montesquieu had said before Gibbon that the monks wrote not in the interest of their subject, but for the glory of their Order an observation perfectly just, and for want of attention to which the history of Christen dom has so long remained in obscurity. In the present work I have dealt with the mythology of the Cloisters, by means of which a great cloud of fancy has been made to envelop Church origins in our world, from Asia and Egypt to the British Isles. As brie?y as I may, I will explain how I was led to the conclusions, strange and perhaps startling as they will at first appear, which are set forth in the following pages.