I have made careful enquiries of liturgical scholars, and
consulted editions of Oriental liturgies, but I can find no evidence
that the knife (the use of which is to divide the Loaf which, in the
Oriental rite, corresponds to the Wafer of the Occidental, in a manner
symbolically corresponding to the Wounds actually inflicted on the
Divine Victim) was ever other than what it is to-day. It seems obvious,
from the method of employment, that an actual Spear could hardly have
been used, it would have been an impossibly unwieldy instrument for
the purpose.
Nor is the 'procession' in which the elements are carried from the
Chapel of the Prothesis to the Sanctuary of a public character
comparable with that of the Grail castle; the actual ceremony of the
Greek Mass takes place, of course, behind a veil. A point of
considerable interest, however, is, what caused this difference in the
Byzantine liturgy? What were the influences which led to the
introduction of a feature unknown to the Western rite? If, as the
result of the evidence set forth in these pages, the ultimate origin
of the Grail story be finally accepted as deriving from a prehistoric
ritual possessing elements of extraordinary persistence and vitality,
then the mise-en-scene of that story is older than the Byzantine
ritual.
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