Page:Studies on the legend of the Holy Grail.djvu/142

116 legend as Paulin Paris (Romania, vol. i.) had supposed; would he in that case have brought the Grail to England, and left Joseph's fate in uncertainty? The bringing the Grail to England is simply the logical consequence of his conception of the three Grail-keepers (the third of British blood), symbolising the Trinity, and of the relation of the Arthurian group to this central conception; where the third Grail-keeper and the third of the three wondrous tables were, there the Grail must also be. What then led Borron to connect the sacramental vessel with the Joseph legend? In answering this question the later miraculous properties of the Grail must be forgotten, and it must be remembered that with Borron it is only a vessel of "grace;" this is shown in the history of (Moys) the false disciple, which obviously follows in its details the account of the Last Supper, and of the detection of Judas by means of the dish into which Jesus dips a sop, bidding the betrayer take and eat. Borron's first table being an exact copy of the Last Supper one, his holy vessel has the property of that used by Christ. In so far Borron was led to his conception by the story as told in the canonical books; what help did he get from the Apocrypha? His mention of the Veronica legend and certain details in his presentment of Vespasian's vengeance on the Jews (e.g., his selling thirty for a penny) show him to have known the Vindicta Salvatoris, in which Joseph of Arimathea appears telling of his former captivity from which Christ Himself had delivered him. Thus Borron knew of Joseph's living when Vespasian came to Jerusalem. From the Gesta Pilati he had full information respecting the imprisonment of Joseph; he combined the accounts of these two apocryphal works, substituting a simple visit of Christ to Joseph for the deliverance as told in the Gesta Pilati, and making Vespasian the deliverer, whereto he may have been urged by Suetonius' account of the freeing of Josephus by Vespasian (Vesp. ch. v.). But why should Joseph become the Grail-keeper? Because the fortunes of the vessel used by the Saviour symbolise those of the Saviour's body; as that was present at the Last Supper, was brought to Pilate, handed over to Joseph, was buried, and after three days arose, so with the Grail. Compare, too, Christ's words to Joseph (892, etc.) in which the symbolical connection of the laying