Jessie Laidlay Weston

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ Philosophers boldly utilized the framework of the Attis cult as the vehicle for imparting their own doctrines, "Lorsque le Neoplatonisme triomphera la fable Phrygienne deviendra le moule traditionnel dans lequel des exegetes subtils verseront hardiment leurs speculations philosophiques sur les forces creatrices fecondantes, principes de toutes les formes materielles, et sur la delivrance de l'ame divine plongee dans la corruption de ce monde terrestre." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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-scene 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 ”

“ 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-scene 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. ”