PART VI
The Legend of the Holy Grail
The Da Vinci Deception - pp. 238, 249, 257
“‘Sophie, legend tells us the Holy Grail is a chalice - a cup. But the Grail’s description as a chalice is actually an allegory to protect the true nature of the Holy Grail. That is to say, the legend uses the chalice as a metaphor for something far more important...The Grail is literally the ancient symbol for womanhood, and the Holy Grail represents the sacred feminine and the goddess, which, of course, has now been lost, virtually eliminated by the Church. The power of the female, and her ability to produce life was once very sacred, but it posed a threat to the and so the sacred feminine was demonized and called unclean...The Grail is symbolic of the lost goddess. When Christianity came along, the old pagan legends did not die easily. Legends of chilvalric quests for the lost Grail were, in fact stories of forbidden quests to find the lost sacred feminine’... ‘The legend of the Holy Grail is a legend about royal blood. When Grail legends speak about the chalice that held the blood of Christ it speaks, in fact of Mary Magdalene - the female womb that carried Jesus’ royal bloodline...The royal bloodline of Jesus Christ is the source of the most enduring legend of all time - the Holy Grail’... ‘At its heart, the quest for the Holy Grail has always been a quest for the Magdalene - the wronged queen, entombed with proof of her family’s rightful claim to power...Christ’s lineage was in perpetual danger. The early Church feared that if the lineage were permitted to grow, the secret of Jesus and Magdalene would eventually surface and challenge the fundamental Catholic doctrine - that of a divine Messiah who did not consort with women or engage in sexual union.’”
Dan Brown weaves his tangled web of conspiracy around the popular legend of the
Holy Grail which he grandiosely describes as “the most enduring legend of all time.”
(DVC, p. 249) In his complex scenario, the Grail becomes the symbol of the sacred
feminine, the lost goddess, Mary Magdalen as the wife of Christ and mother of His
children, and the royal bloodline of Jesus descendants. The novel reports that the
actual artifacts protected by the Grail guardians are the bones of Mary Magdalen and
four huge chests of documents which certify the continuation of the descendants of
Christ. All of this is an ungainly combination of the conspiracy theories of Brown’s
favorite occult and feminist writers. “To this degree Brown fuses the principle
tenets of Holy Blood , Holy Grail with The Templar Revelation’s emphasis on the
goddess and the mystical feminism of Margaret Starbird.” (Olsen/Miesel, p. 179)
The actual legend of the Holy Grail, while genuinely fascinating, is considerably less
dramatic than The Da Vinci Code’s revision of it. The legend seems to have been
based upon Irish Celtic tales of magical vessels which provided endless bounty. The
English word “grail” is derived from the Latin noun “gradale” which refers to a
deep platter or tray upon which food was served. In the novel, Professor Teabing
performs a bit of etymological sleight of hand as he transforms the Old French words
“San Greal” (Holy Grail) into the words “Sang Real” (Royal Blood). The shift of
this single letter, he contends, is of enormous significance and provides the key to
understanding the Grail legend. Teabing argues that”Sang Real” is “the most ancient
form of the word” (DVC, p. 250). This is simply not true. The term “Greal” first appears in conjunction with the myth of the
Grail in a French romantic poem by
Chretien de Troyes written in the second
half of the 12th century ( c. A.D. 1175). In
this original text, the noun “Greal” (Grail)
is used without the adjective “San” (Holy)
so that there can be no doubt whatsoever as
to the author’s intent. The mistaken
identification of Holy Grail (“San Greal”)
as Royal Blood (“Sang Real”) originated
in England in the 15th Century - in all
probability the result of “the misreading or
whim of an English writer perhaps not
entirely at ease with French.” (Barber, p.
311) But for Dan Brown, this 500 year old
scribal error becomes the single crucial key
to the entire mystery of the Grail.
I
n Chretien de Troyes unfinished medieval
epic, the Grail is a large jeweled serving
dish containing a single Communion Wafer
which is presented at the royal banquet of a
maimed King. The King cannot be healed
until a hero knight named Percival releases the magical powers of the Grail by posing
the correct questions about its origin. In the decades which followed the tale was retold
many times, amended and expanded over and over again. The jeweled bowl became
a golden chalice. The chalice became the cup with which Christ celebrated the Last
Supper. The chalice, we are then told, was also present on Calvary to catch the sacred
blood which poured from the Savior’s side. Joseph of Arimathea became the custodian
of the Grail. According to the legend, the Jews walled Joseph up in a prison cell in
Jerusalem for his role in the burial of Jesus. Throughout the years of his entombment,
the Grail provided the food and drink that he needed to survive. He was finally
released from his confinement in A.D. 70 by the Roman emperor Vespasian. Joseph
of Arimathea carried the Grail with him on his journeys across the ancient world. That
pilgrimage ended in England and the quest for the Holy Grail was linked to King
Arthur and his knights of the Round Table. Sir Galahad, the purest and most noble of
Arthur’s knights, was privileged to stand before the Grail and receive communion from
the hand of Christ Himself. The Arthurian version of the Grail legend was preserved
and elaborated in the English speaking world by writers like Thomas Mallory (“Le
Morte D’ Arthur”) and Alfred Lord Tennyson (“The Idylls of the King”). In Germany,
the story followed a different path. The legend was retold by the medieval poet
Wolfram von Eschenbach (c. 1210). His hero was the noble knight Parzifal, and the
Grail became a magical white stone placed on earth by the angels at the time of the
great War in Heaven. The stone was kept within the Grail Fortress and guarded by the
noble k
nights of the Holy Grail. This variation of the tale was immortalized in the
operas of Richard Wagner (“Parsifal” and “Lohingrin”) and led to bizarre occult
ceremonies held by Heinrich Himmler and the elite inner circle of his Nazi SS. Himmler constructed a massive mountaintop castle at Wewelsburg with the
“Führershalle” - the Leader’s Hall - at its heart built around a huge oak roundtable
where the “Reichsführer” and his
elite could gather in Arthurian
splendor. Special SS teams
scoured Europe and the globe in
search of the Holy Grail which
Himmler was convinced would
give him the power to destroy
Christianity once and for all and
replace it with a Teutonic religion
fit for the Master Race. Peter
Levenda, author of Unholy
Alliance - A History of Nazi
Involvement with the Occult,
describes Heinrich Himmler’s
quest for the Holy Grail as “one of
the most outlandish - yet somehow
oddly grand, strangely cosmic -
endeavors of the Third Reich in
general, and of the SS in
particular.” (Levenda, p. 203) These efforts, which most people dismiss as purely
fictional, were immortalized in the first and third movies of Steven Spielberg’s
“Indiana Jones” trilogy.
There is considerable variety in the different versions of the legend of the Holy Grail.
But in all of them, the Grail is a mystical, magical object - a golden platter, a jeweled
chalice, or a sacred stone. In every case, the stories encourage the knightly virtues of
bravery, selflessness, and purity. In most instances, the empowerment of or reward for
such virtues is bestowed through a relic that is somehow linked to the Passion of Jesus
Christ and His presence in the Sacrament of Holy Communion. Grail historian Norma
Lorre Goodrich is correct when she concludes that every major aspect of the legend
“derives from Jesus, His life and His death.” (Goodrich, p. 329)
This pattern can be seen most emphatically in a scene from one of the earliest versions
of the story, “The Quest for the Holy Grail,” written around A.D. 1220. The worthy
knights who have achieved their quest, and have come into presence the Grail - a
beautiful golden serving dish (“the platter in which Jesus partook of the pascal lamb
with His disciples”(Matarasso, p. 276) - take part in a celebration of communion with
Bishop Josephus, the son of Joseph of Arimathea. As the Words of Institution are
pronounced, “He took from the Vessel a
host made in the likeness of bread. As he
raised it aloft, there descended from
above a figure like unto a child, whose
countenance glowed and blazed a bright
as a fire; and he entered the bread which
quite distinctly took on human form
before the eyes of those assembled there.”
(Matarasso, p. 275) The service
continues, and the knights behold “the
figure of a man appear from out of the
Holy Vessel, unclothed, and bleeding from
his hands and feet and side.” (Matarasso,
p. 276) This man, the Lord Jesus,
distributes the Sacrament to the assembled
knights and “it seemed that the host
placed on his tongue was made of bread.
But when they had all received the holy
food, which they found so honeyed and
delectable, it seemed as though the
essence of all sweetness was housed
within their bodies.” (Matarasso, p. 276).
The progression from the small child to
the man who bears the wounds of the
cross signifies the incarnation and the passion of our Lord. The fact that Christ enters and proceeds from the consecrated Host
within the Grail indicates His gracious presence in the Sacrament. Grail Historian P.
M. Maratasso correctly summarizes the significance of the timeless legend in this way:
“The Grail itself is the symbol of God’s
grace. At once, the dish of the Last
Supper, the vessel which received the
effusion of Christ’s blood when His side
was pierced, and in the text both
chalice and ciborium, its secrets are the
mystery of the Eucharist unveiled.”
(Maratasso, p.15)
This unmistakably clear Christian
symbolism notwithstanding, the legend
of the Holy Grail has proven to be
fertile ground for occult speculators of
every stripe and description. For
feminist mystic Margaret Starbird, the
Grail became the key in her quest to
rediscover the lost goddess:
“It was clear that the ‘Grail Heresy’ -
that Jesus had been married and that
Mary Magdalene had brought a child
of his to Gaul- existed and had existed
in Europe for a long time...Everywhere
I was finding confirmation of the basic tenet of the heresy of the Holy Grail - that Mary
Magdalene was the Beloved of Christ. I sometime felt as if my hair had caught fire...I
now realize that I am charged not only with restoring the Bride to Christianity - the
Goddess in the Gospels - but also with restoring the partnership paradigm...This Grail
spirituality has been neglected...the doctrine of the sacred partnership of humanity and
divinity in each human individual.” (Starbird, pp. 77-78,153)
Alan Butler, author of The Goddess, The Grail, And The Lodge, is a bit more colorful
in making the same point as he asserts “that the Holy Grail represents every vagina on
earth.” (Butler, p. 334) Princeton scholar Roger Sherman Loomis, in his intriguing
study The Grail - From Celtic Myth to Christian Symbol, dismisses all such
speculation as “preposterous.” (Loomis, p. 197). The Da Vinci Code’s outlandish manipulation of the Grail legend transcends these
and the abundance of other occult fantasies on this topic. In Brown’s hyper-active
imagination, the Grail is transformed into a metaphor for every one of his numerous
grievances against historic Christianity. According to this all encompassing scenario,
the Grail represents the denial of the deity of Christ and the marriage of Jesus to Mary
Magdalen. At the same time it is a symbol for the religion of the goddess and the
principle of the divine feminine. In addition to all of this, Brown also subscribes to
the view that the Grail symbolizes the ongoing royal bloodline of Jesus Christ which
has a host of far reaching implications all its own. In Bloodline of the Holy Grail -
The Hidden Lineage of Jesus Revealed, popular occult writer Laurence Gardner
details and applies the bloodline argument in this way:
“In the original Grail legends there were constant references to the Grail family, the Grail dynasty and the custodians (or guardians) of the Grail. Quite apart from legend, the Knights Templars of Jerusalem were indeed the guardians of the Sangreal...- the Blood Royal, carried in the uterine chalice of Mary Magdalene...As detailed in medieval literature, the Grail was identified with a family and a dynasty. It was the desposynic Vine of Judah, perpetuated in the West through the blood of Jesus...It descended to the Merovingian kings of France and the Stuart kings of Scots...In descent from Jesus’ brother James/Joseph of Arimathea, the Grail family founded the princely house of Camulod and the Princely House of Wales. Notable in these lines were King Lucius, Coel Hen, Empress Helena, Ceredig Gwledig and King Arthur. The divine legacy of the Sangreal was perpetuated in the sovereign and most noble houses of Britain and Europe and is still extent today.” (Gardner, pp. 201-202)
These, The Da Vinci Code ominously informs us, are the dark secrets which
Christianity generally and the Roman Catholic Church specifically have conspired for
centuries to conceal and deny. The evil minions of Rome will stop at nothing , we are
told, to prevent the disclosure of the ancient truths which would bring about the
collapse of Christianity. Brown contends that the Church has been guilty of
countless murders over the years
to suppress the secrets of the Holy
Grail. Professor Teabing sums up
the Church’s pattern of brutal
repression in this way: “My dear,
the Church has two thousand years
of experience pressuring those who
threaten to unveil its lies. Since the
days of Constantine, the Church
has successfully hidden the truth
about Mary Magdalene and Jesus.
We should not be surprised that
now, once again, they have found a
way to keep the world in the dark.
The Church may no longer employ
crusaders to slaughter non-believers, but their influence is no
less pervasive. No less
insidious...History repeats itself.
The Church has a precedent of
murder when it comes to silencing
the Sangreal.”(DVC, p. 409) For
this reason, The Da Vinci Code insists, the guardians of the Grail legend, the
Knights Templar and geniuses like Leonardo
da Vinci, Botticelli, and Sir Isaac Newton,
risked their very lives to protect and preserve
the truths which the legend conveyed.
All of this nonsense is nothing more than a house of cards built upon suspicion, innuendo, and allegation. When The Da Vinci Code’s theory is subjected to honest historical scrutiny, it quickly disintegrates, revealing its total lack of substance or basis in fact. Medieval historian Richard Barber is the author of The Holy Grail - Imagination and Belief - a work considered by many to be the most comprehensive and authoritative modern assessment of the Grail legend. Barber offers a devastating critique of the conspiracy approach to the history of the Holy Grail. He uses Holy Blood, Holy Grail - The Secret History of Christ - The Shocking History of the Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln as the prime example of such “pseudo-history.” As previously noted, Holy Blood, Holy Grail is one of the foundational sources for The Da Vinci Code, specifically endorsed by Dan Brown as the book which “finally brought the idea of Christ’s bloodline into the mainstream.” (DVC, p. 253). This is Dr. Barber’s analysis:
“The Templar-Grail myth was not seriously
revived until the last two decades of the 20th
Century. It is at the heart of the most
notorious of all the Grail pseudo-histories
Holy Blood, Holy Grail which is a classic
example of the conspiracy theory of history. For ‘conspirators’ history is not bunk, as Henry Ford famously
described it, but its orthodox form is a vast deception, practiced by
those in power to cover up the truth...It would take a book as long as the
original to refute and dissect Holy Blood, Holy Grail point by point; it
is essentially a text which proceeds by innuendo not by refutable
scholarly debate... Essentially, the whole argument is an ingeniously
constructed serious of suppositions combined with forced readings of
such tangible facts as are offered....And it is not sufficient to confine
oneself exclusively to facts. This is carte blanche to create an imaginary
network of previously invisible links...Once again, the Grail’s chief
function seems to be as a lodestar for imaginative creation, in this case
disguised as history but in truth imaginative indeed.” (Barber, pp. 310-311)
In the world of conspiracy buffs, those who are in on the secret are the only ones who
know the truth, and anyone who disagrees with them is either ignorant or a part of the
evil conspiracy. It is a world filled with delusions and paranoia. It is the world of
The Da Vinci Code.
There is a tragic irony in the modern transformation of the legend of the Holy Grail. That which was once a profoundly Christian symbol has mutated into just one more emblem of our contemporary obsession with self. That which was once the means of expressing Christian truth and encouraging Christian piety has become instead one more weapon in the arsenal of those who would attack and destroy historic Christianity. Dr. Barber notes the substance of this change:
“The Grail looms large as a non-specific symbol of the quest for interior truth, stripped of its Christian overtones, and, given the New Age fondness for a return to a more primitive religious state on the grounds that it leads us closer to the natural world and therefore brings us into harmony with our environment...For this is in many ways, a new faith based on belief in the overriding importance of the self...The Western idealization of the individual is taken to its extreme, and the Grail, once a symbol of universal redemption, is the means only to individual self-fulfillment...Ironically, a symbol with a very precise Christian origin and context has become a means of escaping from established religion and into a world where everything has a voice.” (Barber, pp. 319-320)