Page:Folklore1919.djvu/530

164 subject, and minute criticism of the texts. Her volume, on the one hand, shows the influence of the Golden Bough turned to new uses and, on the other, is the outcome of her study of certain works dealing with mediaeval mysticism, of which she specially mentions the Naassene Document, which has been translated with much penetrating comment by Mr. G. R. S. Mead in his Thrice Greatest Hermes.

Miss Weston’s book undoubtedly supplies new points for consideration and fresh lines of investigation, but whether any single explanation can unite into one whole the entire body of symbolic meanings which attached themselves to the central idea of the Grail, we still see reason to doubt. As the Quest for the Grail united in a single great adventure the separate legends belonging to various Champions, who had originally no place in the Arthurian legend, so the Holy Cup itself, with all its mysterious surroundings and mystic symbols, fails to be explained on any single theory. It is not only the symbol of fecundity of the agricultural theory, or the inexhaustible cauldron of Celtic tradition, nor is it simply the sacred vessel of the worshipper of Mithra or the Christian Eucharistic cup. It is all of these "and something more" as the thoughts and traditions of many periods have read their own meanings into it. To Plato it is the Cup in which the Creator mixed the elements of the World-Soul. In Pistis Sophia the Purified Soul "bringeth a cup full of intuition and wisdom and also prudence, and giveth it to the soul, and casteth the soul into a body which will not be able to fall asleep or forget, because of the Cup of Prudence which hath been given unto it, but will be ever pure in heart and seeking after the Mysteries of Light, until it hath found them, by order of the Virgin of Light, in order that the soul may inherit the Light forever." It is not only in the rites of Mithra that the Cup has been the symbol and the means of union with the divine. How large a part the Cup played in Mithraic worship we do not know; it does not appear on Mithraic monuments so frequently as the bull, the serpent or the torch-bearers. This, however, does not argue that it was of less importance. It occurs quite often enough to show that it was a most sacred