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From Ritual to Romance

J >> Jessie L. Weston >> From Ritual to Romance




Surely the effect of this cumulative body of evidence is to justify us
in the belief that Fish and Fisher, being, as they undoubtedly are,
Life symbols of immemorial antiquity, are, by virtue of their origin,
entirely in their place in a sequence of incidents which there is
solid ground for believing derive ultimately from a Cult of this
nature. That Borron's Fish-meal, that the title of Fisher King, are
not accidents of literary invention but genuine and integral parts of
the common body of tradition which has furnished the incidents and
mise-en-scène of the Grail drama. Can it be denied that, while from
the standpoint of a Christian interpretation the character of the
Fisher King is simply incomprehensible, from the standpoint of Folk-tale
inadequately explained, from that of a Ritual survival it assumes a
profound meaning and significance? He is not merely a deeply symbolic
figure, but the essential centre of the whole cult, a being
semi-divine, semi-human, standing between his people and land, and
the unseen forces which control their destiny. If the Grail story be
based upon a Life ritual the character of the Fisher King is of the
very essence of the tale, and his title, so far from being
meaningless, expresses, for those who are at pains to seek, the
intention and object of the perplexing whole. The Fisher King is,
as I suggested above, the very heart and centre of the whole mystery,
and I contend that with an adequate interpretation of this enigmatic
character the soundness of the theory providing such an interpretation
may be held to be definitely proved.



CHAPTER X

The Secret of the Grail (1)

The Mysteries

Students of the Grail literature cannot fail to have been impressed by
a certain atmosphere of awe and mystery which surrounds that enigmatic
Vessel. There is a secret connected with it, the revelation of which
will entail dire misfortune on the betrayer. If spoken of at all it
must be with scrupulous accuracy. It is so secret a thing that no
woman, be she wife or maid, may venture to speak of it. A priest, or
a man of holy life might indeed tell the marvel of the Grail, but none
can hearken to the recital without shuddering, trembling, and changing
colour for very fear.

"C'est del Graal dont nus ne doit
Le secret dire ne conter;
Car tel chose poroit monter
Li contes ains qu'il fust tos dis
Que teus hom en seroit maris
Qui ne l'aroit mie fourfait.
..............................
Car, se Maistre Blihis ne ment
Nus ne doit dire le secré."[1]

"Mais la mervelle qu'il trova
Dont maintes fois s'espoenta
Ne doit nus hom conter ne dire
Cil ki le dist en a grant ire
Car c'est li signes del Graal (other texts secrés)
S'en puet avoir et paine et mal (Li fet grant pechié et grant mal)
Cil qui s'entremet del conter
Fors ensi com it doit aler."[2]

The above refers to Gawain's adventure at the Black Chapel, en route
for the Grail Castle.

The following is the answer given to Perceval by the maiden of the
White Mule, after he has been overtaken by a storm in the forest.
She tells him the mysterious light he beheld proceeded from the Grail,
but on his enquiry as to what the Grail may be, refuses to give him
any information.

"Li dist 'Sire, ce ne puet estre
Que je plus vos en doie dire
Si vous .c. fois esties me sire
N'en oseroie plus conter,
Ne de mon labor plus parler (other texts, ma bouche)
Car ce est chose trop secrée
Si ne doit estre racontée
Par dame ne par damoisele,
Par mescine ne par puciele,
Ne par nul home qui soit nés
Si prouvoires n'est ordenés,
U home qui maine sainte vie,
............................
Cil poroit deI Graal parler,
Et la mervelle raconter,
Que nus hom nel poroit oïr
Que il ne l'estuece fremir
Trambler et remuer color,
Et empalir de la paour.'"[3]

From this evidence there is no doubt that to the romance writers the
Grail was something secret, mysterious and awful, the exact knowledge
of which was reserved to a select few, and which was only to be spoken
of with bated breath, and a careful regard to strict accuracy.

But how does this agree with the evidence set forth in our preceding
chapters? There we have been led rather to emphasize the close
parallels existing between the characters and incidents of the Grail
story, and a certain well-marked group of popular beliefs and
observances, now very generally recognized as fragments of a once
widespread Nature Cult. These beliefs and observances, while dating
from remotest antiquity, have, in their modern survivals, of
recent years, attracted the attention of scholars by their persistent
and pervasive character, and their enduring vitality.

Yet, so far as we have hitherto dealt with them, these practices were,
and are, popular in character, openly performed, and devoid of the
special element of mystery which is so characteristic a feature of the
Grail.

Nor, in these public Folk-ceremonies, these Spring festivals, Dances,
and Plays, is there anything which, on the face of it, appears to
bring them into touch with the central mystery of the Christian
Faith. Yet the men who wrote these romances saw no incongruity in
identifying the mysterious Food-providing Vessel of the
Bleheris-Gawain version with the Chalice of the Eucharist, and in
ascribing the power of bestowing Spiritual Life to that which certain
modern scholars have identified as a Wunsch-Ding, a Folk-tale Vessel
of Plenty.

If there be a mystery of the Grail surely the mystery lies here, in
the possibility of identifying two objects which, apparently, lie at
the very opposite poles of intellectual conception. What brought them
together? Where shall we seek a connecting link? By what road did
the romancers reach so strangely unexpected a goal?

It is, of course, very generally recognized that in the case of most
of the pre-Christian religions, upon the nature and character of whose
rites we possess reliable information, such rites possessed a two-fold
character--exoteric; in celebrations openly and publicly performed,
in which all adherents of that particular cult could join freely,
the object of such public rites being to obtain some external and
material benefit, whether for the individual worshipper, or for
the community as a whole--esoteric; rites open only to a favoured few,
the initiates, the object of which appears, as a rule, to have been
individual rather than social, and non-material. 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 mystères on doit songer à I'Asie
hellénisée, bien plus qu'à la Grèce propre, malgré tout le prestige
qui entourait Eleusis, car d'abord les premières communautés
Chrétiennes se font fondées, formées, développées, au milieu de
populations Orientales, Sémites, Phrygiens, Egyptiens."[5]

This is perfectly true, but it was not only the influence of milieu,
not only the fact that the 'hellenized' faiths were, as Cumont points
out, more advanced, richer in ideas and sentiments, more pregnant,
more poignant, than the more strictly 'classic' faiths, but they
possessed, in common with Christianity, certain distinctive features
lacking in these latter.

If we were asked to define the special characteristic of the central
Christian rite, should we not state it as being a Sacred meal of
Communion in which the worshipper, not merely symbolically, but
actually, partakes of, and becomes one with, his God, receiving
thereby the assurance of eternal life? (The Body of Our Lord Jesus
Christ preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life.)

But it is precisely this conception which is lacking in the Greek
Mysteries, and that inevitably, as Rohde points out: "The Eleusinian
Mysteries in common with all Greek religion, differentiated clearly
between gods and men, eins ist der Menschen, ein andres der
Götter-Geschlecht--en andron, en theon genos." The attainment of
union with the god, by way of ecstasy, as in other Mystery cults, is
foreign to the Eleusinian idea. As Cumont puts it "The Greco-Roman
deities rejoice in the perpetual calm and youth of Olympus, the
Eastern deities die to live again."[6] In other words Greek religion
lacks the Sacramental idea.
[*** Note: Weston used Greek alphabetic characters above ***]

Thus even if we set aside the absence of a parallel between the ritual
of the Greek Mysteries and the mise-en-scène of the Grail stories,
Eleusis would be unable to offer us those essential elements which
would have rendered possible a translation of the incidents of those
stories into terms of high Christian symbolism. Yet we cannot refrain
from the conclusion that there was something in the legend that not
merely rendered possible, but actually invited, such a translation.

If we thus dismiss, as fruitless for our investigation, the most
famous representative of the Hellenic Mysteries proper, how does the
question stand with regard to those faiths to which Cumont is referring,
the hellenized cults of Asia Minor?

Here the evidence, not merely of the existence of Mysteries, but
of their widespread popularity, and permeating influence, is
overwhelming; the difficulty is not so much to prove our case, as
to select and co-ordinate the evidence germane to our enquiry.

Regarding the question as a whole it is undoubtedly true that, as
Anrich remarks, "the extent of the literature devoted to the Mysteries
stands in no relation whatever (gar keinem Verhältniss) to the
importance in reality attached to them."[7] Later in the same
connection, after quoting Clement of Alexandria's dictum "Geheime
Dinge wie die Gottheit, werden der Rede anvertraut, nicht der
Schrift," he adds, "Schriftliche Fixierung ist schon beinahe
Entweihung."[8] A just remark which it would be well if certain
critics who make a virtue of refusing to accept as evidence anything
short of a direct and positive literary statement would bear in mind.
There are certain lines of research in which, as Bishop Butler
long since emphasized, probability must be our guide.

Fortunately, however, so far as our present research is concerned,
we have more than probability to rely upon; not only did these Nature
Cults with which we are dealing express themselves in Mystery terms,
but as regards these special Mysteries we possess clear and definite
information, and we know, moreover, that in the Western world they
were, of all the Mystery faiths, the most widely spread, and the most
influential.

As Sir J. G. Frazer has before now pointed out, there are parallel
and over-lapping forms of this cult, the name of the god, and certain
details of the ritual, may differ in different countries, but whether
he hails from Babylon, Phrygia, or Phoenicia, whether he be called
Tammuz, Attis, or Adonis, the main lines of the story are fixed, and
invariable. Always he is young and beautiful, always the beloved of a
great goddess; always he is the victim of a tragic and untimely death,
a death which entails bitter loss and misfortune upon a mourning
world, and which, for the salvation of that world, is followed by a
resurrection. Death and Resurrection, mourning and rejoicing, present
themselves in sharp antithesis in each and all of the forms.

We know the god best as Adonis, for it was under that name that,
though not originally Greek, he became known to the Greek world, was
adopted by them with ardour, carried by them to Alexandria, where his
feast assumed the character of a State solemnity; under that name his
story has been enshrined in Art, and as Adonis he is loved and
lamented to this day. The Adonis ritual may be held to be the classic
form of the cult.

But in Rome, the centre of Western civilization, it was otherwise:
there it was the Phrygian god who was in possession; the dominating
position held by the cult of Attis and the Magna Mater, and the
profound influence exercised by that cult over better known, but
subsequently introduced, forms of worship, have not, so far, been
sufficiently realized.

The first of the Oriental cults to gain a footing in the Imperial
city, the worship of the Magna Mater of Pessinonte was, for a time,
rigidly confined within the limits of her sanctuary. The orgiastic
ritual of the priests of Kybele made at first little appeal to the more
disciplined temperament of the Roman population. By degrees, however,
it won its way, and by the reign of Claudius had become so popular
that the emperor instituted public feasts in honour of Kybele and
Attis, feasts which were celebrated at the Spring solstice, March
15th-27th.[9]

As the public feast increased in popularity, so did the Mystery feast,
of which the initiated alone were privileged to partake, acquire a
symbolic significance: the foods partaken of became "un aliment de
vie spirituelle, et doivent soutenir dans les épreuves de la vie
l'initié." Philosophers boldly utilized the framework of the Attis
cult as the vehicle for imparting their own doctrines, "Lorsque le
Nèoplatonisme triomphera la fable Phrygienne deviendra le moule
traditionnel dans lequel des exégètes subtils verseront hardiment
leurs spéculations philosophiques sur les forces créatrices
fécondantes, principes de toutes les formes matérielles, et sur la
délivrance de l'âme divine plongée dans la corruption de ce monde
terrestre."[10]

Certain of the Gnostic sects, both pre- and post-Christian, appear
to have been enthusiastic participants in the Attis mysteries;[11]
Hepding, in his Attis study, goes so far as to refer to Bishop
Aberkios, to whose enigmatic epitaph our attention was directed in
the last chapter, as "der Attis-Preister."[12]

Another element aided in the diffusion of the ritual. Of all the
Oriental cults which journeyed Westward under the aegis of Rome none
was so deeply rooted or so widely spread as the originally Persian
cult of Mithra--the popular religion of the Roman legionary. But
between the cults of Mithra and of Attis there was a close and
intimate alliance. In parts of Asia Minor the Persian god had early
taken over features of the Phrygian deity. "Aussitôt que nous pouvons
constater la présence du culte Persique en Italie nous le trouvons
étroitement uni à celui de la Grande Mére de Pessinonte."[13]
The union between Mithra and the goddess Anâhita was held to be the
equivalent of that subsisting between the two great Phrygian deities
Attis-Kybele. The most ancient Mithreum known, that at Ostia, was
attached to the Metroon, the temple of Kybele. At Saalburg the ruins
of the two temples are but a few steps apart. "L'on a tout lieu de
croire que le culte du dieu Iranien et celui de la déesse Phrygienne
vécurent en communion intime sur toute l'étendue de l'Empire."[14]

A proof of the close union of the two cults is afforded by the mystic
rite of the Taurobolium, which was practised by both, and which, in
the West, at least, seems to have passed from the temples of the
Mithra to those of the Magna Mater. At the same time Cumont remarks
that the actual rite seems to have been practised in Asia from a great
antiquity, before Mithraism had attributed to it a spiritual
significance. It is thus possible that the rite had earlier formed a
part of the Attis initiation, and had been temporarily disused.[15]

We shall see that the union of the Mithra-Attis cults becomes of
distinct importance when we examine, (a) the spiritual significance
of these rituals, and their elements of affinity with Christianity,
(b) their possible diffusion in the British Isles.

But now what do we know of the actual details of the Attis mysteries?
The first and most important point was a Mystic Meal, at which the
food partaken of was served in the sacred vessels, the tympanum, and
the cymbals. The formula of an Attis initiate was "I have eaten from
the tympanum, I have drunk from the cymbals." As I have remarked
above, the food thus partaken of was a Food of Life--"Die
Attis-Diener in der Tat eine magische Speise des Lebens aus ihren
Kult-Geräten zu essen meinten."[16]

Dieterich in his interesting study entitled Eine Mithrasliturgie
refers to this meal as the centre of the whole religious action.

Further, in some mysterious manner, the fate of the initiate was
connected with, and dependent upon, the death and resurrection of the
god. The Christian writer Firmicius Maternus, at one time himself an
initiate, has left an account of the ceremony, without, however,
specifying whether the deity in question was Attis or Adonis--as
Dieterich remarks "Was er erzählt kann sich auf Attis-gemeinden, und
auf Adonis-gemeinden beziehen."

This is what he says: "Nocte quadam simulacrum in lectica supinum
ponitur, et per numeros digestis fletibus plangitur: deinde cum se
ficta lamentatione satiaverint lumen infertur: tunc a sacerdote
omnium qui flebant fauces unguentur, quibus perunctis sacerdos hoc
lento murmure susurrit:

'Have courage, O initiates of the saviour-god,
For there will be salvation for us from our toils--'

on which Dieterich remarks: "Das Heil der Mysten hängt an der Rettung
des Gottes."[17]
[*** Note: The above has an English translation of Weston's Greek ***]

Hepding holds that in some cases there was an actual burial, and
awakening with the god to a new life.[18] In any case it is clear
that the successful issue of the test of initiation was dependent
upon the resurrection and revival of the god.

Now is it not clear that we have here a close parallel with the
Grail romances? In each case we have a common, and mystic, meal,
in which the food partaken of stands in close connection with the holy
vessels. In the Attis feast the initiates actually ate and drank from
these vessels; in the romances the Grail community never actually eat
from the Grail itself, but the food is, in some mysterious and
unexplained manner, supplied by it. In both cases it is a
Lebens-Speise, a Food of Life. This point is especially insisted upon
in the Parzival, where the Grail community never become any older than
they were on the day they first beheld the Talisman.[19] In the Attis
initiation the proof that the candidate has successfully passed the
test is afforded by the revival of the god--in the Grail romances the
proof lies in the healing of the Fisher King.

Thus, while deferring for a moment any insistence on the obvious
points of parallelism with the Sacrament of the Eucharist, and the
possibilities of Spiritual teaching inherent in the ceremonies,
necessary links in our chain of argument, we are, I think, entitled to
hold that, even when we pass beyond the outward mise-en-scène of the
story--the march of incident, the character of the King, his title,
his disability, and relation to his land and folk--to the inner and
deeper significance of the tale, the Nature Cults still remain
reliable guides; it is their inner, their esoteric, ritual which
will enable us to bridge the gulf between what appears at first sight
the wholly irreconcilable elements of Folk-tale and high Spiritual
mystery.



CHAPTER XI

The Secret of the Grail (2)

The Naassene Document

We have now seen that the Ritual which, as we have postulated, lies,
in a fragmentary and distorted condition, at the root of our existing
Grail romances, possessed elements capable of assimilation with a
religious system which the great bulk of its modern adherents would
unhesitatingly declare to be its very antithesis. That Christianity
might have borrowed from previously existing cults certain outward
signs and symbols, might have accommodated itself to already existing
Fasts and Feasts, may be, perforce has had to be, more or less
grudgingly admitted; that such a rapprochement should have gone
further, that it should even have been inherent in the very nature of
the Faith, that, to some of the deepest thinkers of old, Christianity
should have been held for no new thing but a fulfilment of the
promise enshrined in the Mysteries from the beginning of the world,
will to many be a strange and startling thought. Yet so it was, and I
firmly believe that it is only in the recognition of this one-time
claim of essential kinship between Christianity and the Pagan
Mysteries that we shall find the key to the Secret of the Grail.

And here at the outset I would ask those readers who are inclined to
turn with feelings of contemptuous impatience from what they deem an
unprofitable discussion of idle speculations which have little or
nothing to do with a problem they hold to be one of purely literary
interest, to be solved by literary comparison and criticism, and by no
other method, to withhold their verdict till they have carefully
examined the evidence I am about to bring forward, evidence which has
never so far been examined in this connection, but which if I am not
greatly mistaken provides us with clear and unmistakable proof of the
actual existence of a ritual in all points analogous to that indicated
by the Grail romances.

In the previous chapter we have seen that there is evidence, and
abundant evidence, not merely of the existence of Mysteries connected
with the worship of Adonis-Attis, but of the high importance assigned
to such Mysteries; at the time of the birth of Christianity they were
undoubtedly the most popular and the most influential of the foreign
cults adopted by Imperial Rome. In support of this statement I quoted
certain passages from Cumont's Religions Orientales, in which he
touches on the subject: here are two other quotations which may well
serve as introduction to the evidence we are about to examine.
"Researches on the doctrines and practices common to Christianity and
the Oriental Mysteries almost invariably go back, beyond the limits of
the Roman Empire, to the Hellenized East. It is there we must seek
the key of enigmas still unsolved--The essential fact to remember is
that the Eastern religions had diffused, first anterior to, then
parallel with, Christianity, doctrines which acquired with this latter
a universal authority in the decline of the ancient world. The
preaching of Asiatic priests prepared in their own despite the triumph
of the Church."[1]

But the triumph of the new Faith once assured the organizing,
dominating, influence of Imperial Rome speedily came into play.
Christianity, originally an Eastern, became a Western, religion,
the 'Mystery' elements were frowned upon, kinship with pre-Christian
faiths ignored, or denied; where the resemblances between the cults
proved too striking for either of these methods such resemblances were
boldly attributed to the invention of the Father of Lies himself, a
cunning snare whereby to deceive unwary souls. Christianity was
carefully trimmed, shaped, and forced into an Orthodox mould, and
anything that refused to adapt itself to this drastic process became
by that very refusal anathema to the righteous.

Small wonder that, under such conditions, the early ages of the Church
were marked by a fruitful crop of Heresies, and heresy-hunting became
an intellectual pastime in high favour among the strictly orthodox.
Among the writers of this period whose works have been preserved
Hippolytus, Bishop of Portus in the early years of the third century,
was one of the most industrious. He compiled a voluminous treatise,
entitled Philosophumena, or The Refutation of all Heresies, of which
only one MS. and that of the fourteenth century, has descended to us.
The work was already partially known by quotations, the first Book had
been attributed to Origen, and published in the editio princeps of his
works. The text originally consisted of ten Books, but of these the
first three, and part of the fourth, are missing from the MS. The
Origen text supplies part of the lacuna, but two entire Books, and
part of a third are missing.

Now these special Books, we learn from the Introduction, dealt with
the doctrines and Mysteries of the Egyptians and Chaldaeans, whose
most sacred secrets Hippolytus boasts that he has divulged.
Curiously enough, not only are these Books lacking but in the Epitome
at the beginning of Book X. the summary of their contents is also
missing, a significant detail, which, as has been suggested by
critics, looks like a deliberate attempt on the part of some copyist
to suppress the information contained in the Books in question.
Incidentally this would seem to suggest that the worthy bishop was not
making an empty boast when he claimed to be a revealer of secrets.

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