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The Quest for
The Holy Grail is at the very heart of
Arthurian legends and
myths. It provides us with
some of the enthralling images and poetry of western culture.
The Grail Quest
has taken a new and interesting lease of life through the enormous
success of the novel and film The Da Vinci Code by Dan
Brown.
The characters in the story investigate
the 'sang real' or royal bloodline from Jesus and
Mary Magdalene, and their supposed son. This royal bloodline is revealed
to all who watch the film or read the book to be Jesus and Mary's living
descendents. The true meaning of the grail is thus shown to be not a
chalice bearing the Blood of Christ, but a bloodline - which the
Roman Catholic Church has spent two
thousand years covering up.
The Grail itself in The Holy Blood
and the Holy Grail (1982) by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh
and Henry Lincoln, is redefined in an manner that was explosive
to the general public raised within a world of broadly Christian
interpretation of the history and theology and of the Grail.
Analysing a wide range of documents and
legends, from medieval to contemporary, they
construct the hypothesis that Mary
Magdalene was the wife of Jesus, who gave birth to Jesus' son.
The new Holy Family travelled to Gaul, in southern
France, to found the original royal
house of the Merovingian kings.
It is this holy bloodline or
sang real that has continued to
the present day through this secret royal house; and is now connected to the
House of Albany of Scotland.
Though this is
a piece of genuinely interesting and original research, the conclusions
of the book would not have revealed anything new to Freemasons.
The importance of this interpretation for
Freemasons, is brought out in many subsequent books. One
such book, The Hyram Key (1996) by Christopher Knight
and Robert Lomas, provides a classic Masonic interpretation of
history going back to the Pharaohs.
The problem with this interpretation is
that it assumes that the words sang real correctly describe the
Holy Grail as a royal bloodline. However, the Holy Grail first appears as simply
'a grail' in the works
of Chrétien de Troyes, where
it does not denote a royal bloodline, but a chalice. The word is probably derived from the Old French
word graal meaning a "broad and capacious dish or
salver". This could be understood to be evidence of the true meaning of
the phrase.
But, as the words are so close, especially
when spoken, that there is no reason why the idea of the Holy Blood and
Holy Grail or Chalice could not have been connected by Chrétien de Troyes.
Medieval Christian writers believed that Jesus is the King of
Kings; so the idea of his Blood as being Royal Blood
is quite reasonable. Moreover, in the New Testament Jesus is presented
as the King of the Jews, in the literal sense, as the descendant
of the Royal Tribe of King David.
The traditional
Catholic Christian theological belief is that Jesus, being the King of
Kings, gives his Life to his people, and shares his Life with his people
by his Body and Blood. Therefore, through his giving and sharing of his
Life to and with us, Jesus makes us like him. The King makes his people
Kings.
Read more about the spiritual and
theological understanding of the Holy Grail.
The Holy Grail
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