The Religion of the Celts Although there are records of the names of deities and archaeological remains, including altars, little is known about the specific religious beliefs of the Celts. Their burial practices included burying food, weapons, and ornaments with their dead, suggesting a belief in life after death. Caesar said that the Druids, the first Celtic priests, taught the doctrine of the transmigration of souls as well as astronomy and the nature and power of the gods. Transmigration is a philosophy of reincarnation incorporating the specific belief that after death, the soul of a living being is then transferred (or transmigrates) into another living form and is thus reborn. The Irish believed in an afterlife, which they sometimes described as underground. and sometimes located on islands in the Western Sea. It was believed that this Other World was a country where there was no illness, no old age, no death, where happiness lasted forever, and where a hundred years were like a day. According to classical authors, the Celtic religion was based on three professional classes: Druids, bards and vates. Druids were the Celtic version of modern priests, but were also philosophers, scientists, lords, teachers, judges, and advisors to kings. The Druids linked the Celtic peoples to their many gods, the lunar calendar, and the sacred natural order. In Commentarii de Bello Gallico, Caesar gives the most complete account of the Druids. According to him, the druids constituted a class "like that of the priests" and were the guardians of ancient unwritten customary law. They had the power to execute judgments; the most feared being exclusion from society. The Druid caste was not hereditary, although the...... middle of paper ......worse ended with the abdication of the emperor Romulus Augustus in 476, Christianity survived there, with the bishop of Rome as the dominant religious figure.BibliographyCunliffe, Barry, (1997) The Ancient Celts. Oxford, Oxford University PressCésar, Julius. By Bello Gallico. Book V, §XIVMacKillop, James (1998) A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Paul-Marie Duval. 1993. The Gods of Gaul. Editions Payot, Paris. Patrick K. Ford (ed/trans). 1977. The Mabinogi and other medieval Welsh tales. University of California Press, Berkeley. Augustinus Hibernicus. "De Mirabilibus Sacrae Scripturae". King of Mysteries: Early Irish Religious Writings edited by John Carey. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2000 MacMullen, Ramsay, 1984. Paganism in the Roman Empire —— 1997. Christianity and Paganism from the Fourth to the Eighth Centuries