In spite of legendary accretions we can still discern the true outlines and significance of his life.
He will eliminate foreign accretions, that the gospel of Christ may stand forth in its native purity, and that Christ Himself may in all things have the pre-eminence.
The legend continued to gather accretions, and a miraculous origin came to be assigned to the image.
But it is equally plain that the Ophite nucleus has from time to time received very numerous and often curiously perverted accretions from Babylonian Judaism, Oriental Christianity and Parsism, exhibiting a striking example of religious syncretism.
So late as the 10th and even the 11th centuries we find the law of the Burgundians invoked as personal law in Cluny charters, but doubtless these passages refer to accretions of local customs rather than to actual paragraphs of the ancient code.