But if the theory based upon
the evidence of the Naassene document be accepted such a presentation
can be well accounted for. According to Hippolytus the doctrines of
the sect were derived from James, the brother of Our Lord, and Clement
of Alexandria asserts that "The Lord imparted the Gnosis to James
the Just, to John and to Peter, after His Resurrection; these delivered
it to the rest of the Apostles, and they to the Seventy."[14]
Thus the theory proposed in these pages will account not only for the
undeniable parallels existing between the Vegetation cults and the
Grail romances, but also for the Heterodox colouring of the latter,
two elements which at first sight would appear to be wholly
unconnected, and quite incapable of relation to a common source.
Nor in view of the persistent vitality and survival, even to our own
day, of the Exoteric practices can there be anything improbable in
the hypothesis of a late survival of the Esoteric side of the ritual.
Cumont points out that the worship of Mithra was practised in the
fifth century in certain remote cantons of the Alps and the
Vosges--i.e., at the date historically assigned to King Arthur.
Thus it would not be in any way surprising if a tradition of the
survival of these semi-Christian rites at this period also existed.
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