Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ in the heart of every one who thinks of me, Christ in every eye who sees me, Christ in every ear who hears me. I bind myself to-day to a strong virtue an invocation of the I believe in a Three-ness with confession of an One-ness in Domini est salus, Domini est salus, Christi est salus. What is it that gives this hymn its peculiar power and charm? Is it not the cultivated Hebrew model on which the construction of the hymn is based, and the late Hebrew note which rings mysteriously and repeatedly through all the gradations of this strange prayer-poem ? The old angel invocations brought from Persia are translated into Christian phraseology, or, rather, turned into the material for a purely Christian hymn; and the whole is in strange accord with such influence and impress as might well be handed down from the teaching of the high-born "men of the race of Israel" mentioned in the old Welsh writings, and left (perhaps by St. Joseph) in the oldest liturgies of Glastonbury. East and West seem both to be united in this hymn, and through the long line of St. Patrick's Christian 1 Version by Whitley Stokes in his "Goidelica," and quoted by Dr. Magnus Maclean in the "Literature of the Celts." P ancestry and through the traditions of Glastonbury, where St. Patrick is said to have spent a good portion of his life, we may perhaps trace living notes of that music which made the harp of Erin to sound in unison with that of the descendants of King David. From the distinctly Hebrew invocation of "Creator of the Universe" at the beginning of the hymn-through the "ranks of Cherubim," "angels" and "archangels," "patriarchs," and "prophets" of the second part, down to the final measure of "Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ below me, Christ above me, Christ at my right, Christ at my left." the Hebrew form or modelling, and sometimes the very words of the "Cry," recall the voices of the later Hebrew poets and prayer writers as they invoked the protection of the great Creator and His holy angels.1 A much less romantic but more direct connection between St. Patrick and St. Joseph is that afforded by the old tradition that it was St. Patrick who drove the I Compare with the old Hebrew invocations. "O Lord our God, King of the Universe! Let me not be affrighted by thoughts, Bad dreams, or evil imaginations. Protect us and remove from us foes, pestilence, sword. hunger, and troubles. Remove Satan from before and behind us. In the shadow of Thy wings shall Thou hide us. St. Michael on my right hand; St. Gabriel on my left hand; St. Uriel behind me ; The majesty of God above me." venomous reptiles out of Ireland, for it is worthy of note that there is another legend regarding this which gives the first place to St. Joseph of Arimathæa. According to Ussher (vols. v., vi., and xvii.), it is stated to have been through the wisdom and advice of St. Joseph of Arimathæa (learnt from the teaching of King Solomon) that Ireland was freed from venomous reptiles (vol. vi. p. 300). If St. Patrick was the Saint who accomplished the work, the source of his knowledge is directly attributed to St. Joseph. So through all the whole course of the British Church, the history of which, I venture to think, was very much as I have described: first, difficult; secondly (under kingly protection and encouragement), exceedingly prosperous; thirdly, decadent or largely nominal, and, finally, oppressed or militant, we seem to find repeated traces of a quite special Hebrew influence, almost regal in its claims and associations; lofty, refined, and poetic in its bearing on thought and on literature, and bravely aristocratic in its consciousness of high lineage and of moral strength.2 And if we seem to find traces of this in the Christian names and scanty records of the earlier centuries, there can be no mistake about its insistence in the work of the later writers-the history romancers or legend reciters of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. All the extensive literature of the "Grail-Quest," 'On the authority of Valdes. 2 What is the source of the curious minor chanting of the "hwyl" in the impassioned religious sermons of the Welsh? The only thing it really resembles (and resembles very closely) is the minor chanting of the Hebrew Rabbis in the public reading of the Psalms. Any one who has heard both cannot fail to be struck by the striking likeness between these methods of quaint prose-poem singing. which dates from about 1200 onwards, is grouped around the tradition of St. Joseph and his son Josephes who came to Glastonbury, bringing the Holy Cup of the Last Supper with them, and full of the idea that these were the ancestors of those great knights who formed the flower of Arthur's court. In the "Grand St. Grail," one of the earliest of these histories, we are told that after the death of St. Joseph and Josephes the keeping of the Holy Grail was confided to Alain, the son of Brons and cousin to Josephes. At Alain's death his brother Josue becomes Grail keeper, and after him six kings, the last of whom is Pelles. The daughter of King Pelles has a son named Galahad, who becomes the special hero of the Holy Grail. His father is said to have been Lancelot, and this makes him ninth or tenth in descent from the time of St. Joseph. Galahad is one of the knights of King Arthur's Round Table, and it is worthy of note that the ten generations described as intervening between the times of St. Joseph (60-90 A.D.) and King Arthur (500) are seriously consistent with such measure of history as may well underlie the romance. In the most readily accessible books of the "Sangréal" (apart from the "Morte D'Arthur"), "The High History of the Holy Grail," which was probably compiled about 1220 from the book of Josephes in the Abbey Library at Glastonbury (see Appendix M), and has been translated by Dr. Sebastian Evans (extracts from which are given in the Appendix M), it is impossible not to recognise the important and essential part played by this Hebrew lineage or descent. Every book bears witness to this, and the very names of many of the knights or their associates seem to imply their Jewish origin. Eli-nant of Escavalon, Joseph, Josephes, Lot, Joseus, Josuias (p. 249), Galahad (?), Alain (?), Petrus, Brons or Hebron, Bruns Brundalis, Urien, Jonas (ii. 39), Pelles and Pelleas and Ban may be taken either as examples of Hebrew names or as indicating some special Hebrew association. I However apocryphal many of the legends may be regarding them, their names are, I believe, the names of historical persons, and the stories of their lives are in rough harmony with that imperfect militant Christianity which was not only the ideal of the medieval compilers, but may well have been the actual achievement of these distant descendants of the Judæan Maccabees. In the "Morte D'Arthur," which contains almost entire the "Quest of the Sangréal" ("Quête del St. Graal)," and in the "High History of the Holy Grail," we find curious and startling digressions regarding King David, King Solomon, and Judas Maccabeus. These are mixed with the legends of the Arthurian Knights, and no direct explanation is offered or has been offered for their presence. But if, as many of the old writers affirm, King Pelles, Sir Perceval, Lancelot, and Galahad might be considered as descendants of these Hebrew kings, their chief ancestors being St. Joseph of Arimathæa himself and the Brons or Hebron who married the sister of St. Joseph (Sir Percyville, Robert de Borron, Grand St. Graal, High History and others), not only do these interpolations become less unintelligible, but the fusion of cultivated Hebrew with Celtic stock may to some extent account for that wonderful achievement in moral ideal and Christian chivalry which characterises the story of King Arthur's court and the quest of the Holy Grail. Mr. Alfred Nutt, who has made a special study of the Grail legends, considers them to be essentially British in origin, and suggests that they were carried from See Apocrypha, 1 Esdras v. 12, 37; ix. 34. |