by Minnie Apolis
While the well-known book by Dan Brown and its
predecessor Holy Blood, Holy Grail, would have us believe that Jesus
the Christ married Mary Magdalene and left a sacred bloodline later
symbolized by the Holy Grail, it may be that the line of descent is
less direct than those authors believed.
For there is yet another tradition, or body of
traditions, around Glastonbury, that would also explain the pun
between San Graal (Holy Grail) and Sang Real (Royal Blood). The Grail
may be real, too, and at one time located in the British Isles, a
simple wooden cup, worn down by the ages and long use.
For the royal family was not just Jesus, his mother
Mary, father Joseph, and possibly wife Mary Magdalene. Joseph of
Arimathea was, British tradition has it, the uncle of Jesus, and he
was related to Mary Magdalene as well. In fact, some believe that
Jesus and Mary Magdalene were cousins who grew up together from
childhood on.
The identity of King Arthur is lost in antiquity. Many
papers and books have been written listing the merits of one
candidate or other as the “real” King Arthur. Was he the hero of
the Battle of Badon (probably fought about the year 512 AD), a site
that still has not been located? But it is seldom if ever mentioned
that Glastonbury has a tradition of the pedigree of King Arthur, one
that ties in with the royal family of a minor Roman province called
Judea.
A historian named John of Glastonbury provided history
with the supposed genealogy of King Arthur. In a book titled “The
Traditions of Glastonbury”, the pedigree is recited once again, as
follows.
'The following pedigree is taken from John's manuscript,
giving Arthur's descent from Joseph through Arthur's mother:
“Helaius, Nepos Joseph, Genuit Josus, Josu Genuit Aminadab,
Aminadab Genuit Filium, qui Genuit Ygernam, de qua Rex Pendragon,
Genuit Nobilem et Famosum Regum Arthurum, per Quod Patet, Quod Rex
Arthurus de Stirpe Joseph descendit.” [The Latin 'Nepos' means
grandson, per White & Riddle's Latin dictionary 1880 AD.]'
Translated, it says that Joseph of Arimathea begot
Josus, who begot Aminadab, who begot [son], who begot Igernam, who
begot King Pendragon, who begot the famous King Arthur. While we
cannot locate any official birth certificates for any of these
people, I think you have to give a bit of leeway in that regard. We
have no birth certificates, either, for lots of historical persons
that we do know lived and died.
Further down in this source book, one is astonished to
read that not only is King Arthur descended from Joseph of Arimathea,
but so is Galahad and all the other knights of the Round Table.
And of course you cannot have a King Arthur without the
Holy Grail somewhere nearby, and indeed it is convenient, maybe a bit
too convenient, that the Grail cup is identified with the simple
wooden bowl at Nanteos. But we will state the traditions of the cup
and its record as a healing device further along in this article.
In one of the earliest pieces of literature about the
Grail, it was stated that the Grail was given into the care of Alain,
son of Brons and cousin of Josephus.
First we have to stand aside for a moment and clarify
that two different vessels are often spoken of as if they were the
same object. One is the Chalice, the cup used at the Last Supper. The
other is the Grail, the vessel that was used to catch the blood of
our Savior as he hung dying on the Cross, and which has a tradition
of being a mysterious source of life, healing and prosperity.
So now, the tradition states that Joseph of Arimathea
brought the Chalice with him when he came to the British Isles after
the death of Jesus. So then what did he do with it? One story says
that he first buried it in the earth of, where else? in Chalice Hill.
Now we should state in support of this tradition that this belief
that Joseph brought it to Britain and placed it in Chalice Hill has
been in place for over a thousand years. It was old when Lord
Tennyson immortalized it in verse.
So then we have another question: What did this Chalice
look like? It was probably a simple wooden drinking cup, like
millions of other such cups in the Middle East of that era. It was
probably made of olive wood, a very nice, smooth wood preferred for
cups, other vessels and utensils.
Britons believed that the Chalice was stored at the
House of Nanteos in Wales. How did it get to Wales? Remember back
when King Henry the Eighth broke from Catholicism? He then
decommissioned the Catholic monasteries, abbeys and Priories.
Included in the destruction was the venerable Glastonbury convent.
The last Abbott of Glastonbury entrusted the cup to some
monks to carry to safety. They carried it with them over the border
into Wales, and stayed for a time at a Cistercian Abbey there. But
Henry's men came threateningly close, entering Wales, and the monks
picked up and fled yet again, their priceless cup hidden in their
effects.
After running another fifteen miles or so, they came to
rest at Nanteos Manor, aka the House of Nanteos. The lord of the
manor invited the monks to stay and make it their home.
From this time on, the cup – the Chalice from the Last
Supper – became rather famous for being a healing device.
Miraculous cures were claimed by those who drank from its shallow
depths. The cup was shrinking because people would actually bite off
a tiny piece of wood to eat, in the belief that it would ensure the
efficacy of the vessel's healing properties. So eventually a glass
bowl was cast around the reduced wooden bowl of the Chalice, making
it a thing of beauty although small.
Records were kept of pledges given for the return of
this cup when it was actually lent out to people too sick to travel
to Nanteos; borrowers left watches, jewelry, a pound note, all of
which were claimed back when the priceless cup was returned. Ailments
supposedly cured by the Chalice included epilepsy, fevers, arthritis,
rheumatism, etc.
This continued even into the twentieth century. A case
dated from 1939 in which two children afflicted with epilepsy drank
from the cup and were cured within weeks. A clergyman wrote up the
case for the records. Father James Wharton, a clergyman who was
assigned to Upton-upon-Severn in Worcestershire, drank from the
Chalice in 1957 and was cured of a crippling arthritis that prevented
him from bending his knees.
The Chalice, or what is left of it, bears little
resemblance to the silver or gold cups of legend and poetry. The
small wooden bowl is blackened and cracked, and rather resembles a
dark coconut shell. Its original dimensions were believed to be about
five inches in diameter and three inches deep.
That such a modest vessel has occupied the imaginations
of millions of Britons, Christians, history buffs, Arthur nuts, and
assorted other fans is rather remarkable. The Chalice (Britons
believe) is the Nanteos Cup; the true king was the legendary King
Arthur, and the Grail is the Holy Blood that lived on from Joseph of
Arimathea to King Arthur and his knights, and from them, down to
untold descendants. We will close with the lines written by Lord
Tennyson:
The cup, the
cup, itself, from which our Lord
Drank at the
last sad supper with His own.
This, from the
blessed land of Aromat-
After the day
of darkness, when the dead
Went wandering
oer Moriah --- the good saint,
Arimathean
Joseph, journeying brought
To Glastonbury,
where the winter thorn
Blossoms at
Christmas, mindful of our Lord.
And there
awhile it bode; and if a man
Could touch or
see it, he was heal'd at once,
By faith, of
all his ills. But then the times
Grew to such
evil that the holy cup
Was caught away
to Heaven, and disappear'd.
. . .
To whom the
monk: From our old books I know
That Joseph
came of old to Glastonbury,
And there the
heathen Prince, Arviragus,
Gave him an
isle of marsh whereon to build;
And there he
built with wattles from the marsh
A little lonely
church in days of yore,
For so they
say, these books of ours, but seem
Mute of this
miracle, far as I have read.
But who first saw the holy thing today?
