I was just reading on MSNBC about new experiments performed to test how Christ was crucified. Apparently the actor playing the Christ part couldn’t lift a traditional Latin cross, which at 380lbs was simply too heavy. They hypothesize that convicts carried the T-bar only, and the roman soldiers on site fitted it on the main pole and hammered the poor victim into place. This is supported by graffiti found from 1st century Rome (can you believe that still exists?!) which suggests the T cross. The article finishes with saying that the National Geographic team is now moving on to the mysteries of the Holy Grail. Here’s my take…

According to Wikipedia, the Holy Grail was the item that captured Christ’s blood as he died on the cross. This was confused many times over the years with the Holy Chalice, the item Christ drank from at the Last Supper. But all of this is STILL Christian Mythology. The stories rose to legendary proportions during the 12th and 13th centuries, especially connected with Arthur and his Knights. We all know of those stories, but even then, Arthur is mythical.

There are some literary points where the Grail is mentioned that we need to cover though, so let’s run through them.

  • A two-handled silver chalice was kept in Jerusalem, the pilgrim Arculf saw it, ca 680, as well as the Lance.
  • A 13th century reference to a copy of the Grail kept in Constantinople, captured during the Fourth Crusade and taken back to France. It was recorded to be there in 1610 but disappeared in the French revolution. It should be noted that this was a richly adorned item.
  • Two survive to this day, one in Genoa, an Egyptian glass dish accepted as a prize of war by the Genoans, this was only identified to be the Grail later on. The other, an agate cup in the Cathedral of Valencia, with an Arabic inscription, first mentioned in 1399.

Ok so I diluted all the evidence down to the basic facts but I think I have established a pattern here. We all know the Catholic church reached the zenith of its power during the Middle Ages, the fact that the Genoans took a glass bowl in lieu of massive amounts of gold tells you something about this.

But what this really is is the adulation of Christ. Christ being King in Heaven, the Catholics of that age believed He was Kingly in real life. Massive arguments have occurred over this, how many church councils were called to discuss minutiae like this? This is codswallop (don’t you love that word?) - mythological sentiment only.

Christ was a carpenter, He was not rich, He had the clothes on His back and the power of His convictions, and that’s pretty much it. Treated as a criminal, He was one of the few that were “buried” after crucifixion. So it is likely His friends and family were in similar positions. Any bowl, plate, chalice they owned would not be made of emerald, agate, gold, encrusted with jewels or written with arabic inscriptions. They had simple materials, wood, clay, stone.

And let us not forget that Jerusalem in the 60’s-70’s AD was not a pleasant place to be, the Romans sacked it after a brutal war. It changed hands many times afterwards, how many Crusades came and went? How many Overlords did they endure? Let’s be realistic here, the Wailing Wall is the retaining wall of the Temple, and it only survived because the blocks of stone are so damned massive!

The likelihood is, IMHO, that the “Grail” was lost, destroyed or thrown away as inconsequential. The Church leaders, even as greedy and self-involved, self-important, and narrow-minded, as some were, were not ALL stupid. Some realized that they needed something to inspire faith - thus the stories of the Holy Grail started to circulate. Popes, Bishops, Priests, did nothing to stop them, because they needed something for everyone to focus on, and something to preach about.

I don’t believe it exists. I believe it might have. But there is the crux of the matter isn’t it? Belief. Belief in the Lord, and belief in His suffering, and that that suffering spared the rest of us from Hell on Earth. And if you want something else to compare it to, try this: how many beds exist from the time of the Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne? Probably made of wood, they would have been used a lot, maybe passed down to children, but I doubt any still exist. The early Christians were concerned about preserving the Church, their beliefs, not with enshrining a cup or chalice, and oh yes - escaping the clutches of Romans would wanted to put them on crosses and use them as torches in Rome.