In some cases,
certainly, the object aimed at was the attainment of a conscious,
ecstatic, union with the god, and the definite assurance of a future
life. In other words there was the public worship, and there were
the Mysteries.
Of late years there has been a growing tendency among scholars to seek
in the Mysteries the clue which shall enable us to read aright the
baffling riddle of the Grail, and there can be little doubt that, in
so doing, we are on the right path. At the same time I am convinced
that to seek that clue in those Mysteries which are at once the most
famous, and the most familiar to the classical scholar, i.e., the
Eleusinian, is a fatal mistake. There are, as we shall see, certain
essential, and radical, differences between the Greek and the
Christian religious conceptions which, affecting as they do the root
conceptions of the two groups, render it quite impossible that any form
of the Eleusinian Mystery cult could have given such results as we
find in the Grail legend.[4]
Cumont in his Les Religions Orientales dans le Paganisme Romain,
speaking of the influence of the Mysteries upon Christianity, remarks
acutely, "Or, lorsqu'on parle de mysteres on doit songer a I'Asie
hellenisee, bien plus qu'a la Grece propre, malgre tout le prestige
qui entourait Eleusis, car d'abord les premieres communautes
Chretiennes se font fondees, formees, developpees, au milieu de
populations Orientales, Semites, Phrygiens, Egyptiens.
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