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_—ἕν ἀνδρῶν ἕν θεῶν γένος.” 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. 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.