occasionally; _ex
hypothesi_ they accepted them completely, were dominated by them in
every department of life, while their own priests, if they had any,
accepted this order of things without a murmur. All this is incredible.
The picture drawn by Caesar, Strabo, and others of the Druids and their
position among the Celts as judges, choosers of tribal chiefs and kings,
teachers, as well as ministers of religion, suggests rather that they
were a native Celtic priesthood, long established among the people.

Sir G.L. Gomme supports the theory that the Druids were a pre-Celtic
priesthood, because, in his opinion, much of their belief in magic as
well as their use of human sacrifice and the redemption of one life by
another, is opposed to "Aryan sentiment." Equally opposed to this are
their functions of settling controversies, judging, settling the
succession to property, and arranging boundaries. These views are
supported by a comparison of the position of the Druids relatively to
the Celts with that of non-Aryan persons in India who render occasional
priestly services to Hindu village communities.[1008] Whether this
comparison of occasional Hindu custom with Celtic usage two thousand
years ago is just, may be questioned. As already seen, it was no mere
occasional service which the Druids rendered to the Celts, and it is
this which makes it difficult to credit this theory. Had the Celtic
house-father been priest and judge in his own clan, would he so readily
have surrendered his rights to a foreign and conquered priesthood? On
the other hand, kings and chiefs among the Celts probably retained some
priestly functions, derived from the time when the offices of the
priest-king had not been differentiated. Caesar's evidence certainly does
not support the idea that "it is only among the rudest of the so-called
Celtic tribes that we find this superimposing of an apparently official
priesthood." According to him, the power of the Druids was universal in
Gaul, and had their position really corresponded to that of the pariah
priests of India, occasional priests of Hindu villages, the determined
hostility of the Roman power to them because they wielded such an
enormous influence over Celtic thought and life, is inexplainable. If,
further, Aryan sentiment was so opposed to Druidic customs, why did
Aryan Celts so readily accept the Druids? In this case the receiver is
as bad as the thief. Sir G.L. Gomme clings to the belief that the Ary