CHAPTER X

The Secret of the Grail (1)

The Mysteries

The Grail regarded as an object of awe.  Danger of speaking of Grail or revealing Its secrets.  Passages in illustration.  Why, if survival of Nature cults, popular, and openly performed?  A two-fold element in these cults, Exoteric, Esoteric.  The Mysteries.  Their influence on Christianity to be sought in the Hellenized rather than the Hellenic cults.  Cumont.  Rohde.  Radical difference between Greek and Oriental conceptions.  Lack of evidence as regards Mysteries on the whole.  Best attested form that connected with Nature cults.  Attis-Adonis.  Popularity of the Phrygian cult in Rome.  Evidence as to Attis Mysteries.  Utilized by Neo-Platonists as vehicle for teaching.  Close connection with Mithraism.  The Taurobolium.  Details of Attis Mysteries.  Parallels with the Grail romances.

CHAPTER XI

The Secret of the Grail (2)

The Naassene Document

Relations between early Christianity, and pre-Christian cults.  Early Heresies.  Hippolytus, and The Refutation of all Heresies.  Character of the work.  The Naassene Document.  Mr Mead’s analysis of text.  A synthesis of Mysteries.  Identification of Life Principle with the Logos.  Connection between Drama and Mysteries of Attis.  Importance of the Phrygian Mysteries.  Naassene claim to be sole Christians.  Significance of evidence.  Vegetation cults as vehicle of high spiritual teaching.  Exoteric and Esoteric parallels with the Grail tradition.  Process of evolution sketched.  Bleheris.  Perlesvaus.  Borron and the Mystery tradition.  Christian Legendary, and Folk-tale, secondary, not primary, features.

CHAPTER XII

Mithra and Attis

Problem of close connection of cults.  Their apparent divergence.  Nature of deities examined.  Attis.  Mithra.  The Messianic Feast.  Dieterich, Eine Mithrasliturgie.  Difference between the two initiations.  Link between Phrygian, Mithraic, and Christian, Mysteries to be found in their higher, esoteric, teaching.  Women not admitted to Mithraic initiation.  Possible survival in Grail text.  Joint diffusion through the Roman Empire.  Cumont’s evidence.  Traces of cult in British Isles.  Possible explanation of unorthodox character of Grail legend.  Evidence of survival of cult in fifth century.  The Elucidation a possible record of historic facts.  Reason for connecting Grail with Arthurian tradition.

CHAPTER XIII

The Perilous Chapel