There are many mysteries in history. Some do not give rest for hundreds or even thousands of years. One such mystery is the Holy Grail. According to biblical tradition, the Grail is the cup used by Christ at the Last Supper. Later, Joseph of Arimathea, the uncle of Christ, managed to get it from Pontius Pilate and transported it to Britain, where the Grail became the talisman of the first Christians.
Buried or lost somewhere near Glastonbury, the first center of Christianity in Britain, the chalice became the object of a search that continued for many centuries. The knights of King Arthur somehow managed to find the Grail - by that time, the cup was considered not only a Christian shrine, but also a kind of magic vessel, the contents of which give the owner eternal youth and unearthly wisdom. Soon the Grail disappeared as mysteriously as it was found - since then it has been searched for.
How reliable is the story of the Grail's existence and its transfer to Britain? The gospels reflect a proven fact: Joseph and Nicodemus buried Christ.
The assumption that Joseph is the uncle of Christ (the Bible does not say anything about this) looks plausible, if only because Pilate ordered that the body be given to him: since Christ was considered a criminal, only the relatives of the deceased could make a demand for personal burial.
St. Matthew says that Joseph was a wealthy man, and this is most likely the case: if Joseph could afford to install a tombstone on the grave of Christ, then he was really rich.
He earned money from tin mining, and the route of Joseph's legendary journey with the Grail to Britain exactly coincides with the classical scheme for moving ships with tin, which shortly before the birth of Christ described the Greek author Diodorus of Siculus: “Tin is transported to the island of Iktis (St. in Mounts Bay, North Cornwell). From here merchants transport … tin to Gaul ….
Craft traditions are very strong in northern France, western Ireland, north London and the Cornwall tin mining region, all of which bear witness to Joseph's involvement in the business. He was especially zealous in his business in Cornwell.
At the beginning of the XX century. the words of one of the tin smiths were recorded: "… we carefully preserve traditions. … the legend is alive that Joseph brought his ships to Cornwell - once he brought the infant Christ and the Virgin Mary here; they went ashore on the island of St. Michel."
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The visit of the young Christ to Britain, accompanied by his uncle, is historically possible, which is confirmed by local legends. There is no data on the life of Jesus from 12 to 30 years old, but it is believed that at that time he was abroad.
At the Camel Estuary in Cornwell along the road to Glastonbury is the so-called. "Wall of Jesus". In the village of Priddy (12 km north of Glastonbury), a legend has survived, somehow connected with the story of a strange energy emanating from a cavity under the church that Christ was still a boy here.
And the locals have a saying: "This is as true as the fact that our Savior was in Priddy." In Galilee, the version that Jesus was a carpenter is supported by a compelling story: he went to Britain on a merchant ship as a ship's carpenter.
So there is a lot of historical and archaeological evidence of the old connections between Judea and Britain - this is supported by the fact that Christianity spread in Britain almost immediately after the death of Christ.
And Joseph himself seems to be a very significant figure: it is unlikely that he would have turned out to be a kind of connecting center of this legend, if it had not been sufficiently genuine.
But who was Joseph? Just a rich merchant? Or was he really Christ's uncle and was traveling with a young nephew? If so, did he return to Britain after his crucifixion? And did you bring the Grail with you?
Here we are treading on shaky ground, and the main danger is the fact that the Catholic Church in Britain does not canonize Joseph as a saint. The biography of St. Dunsten, written around 1000, and the book Antiquity by William of Malmesbury (1125), speak of the religious traditions of Glastonbury during the early Christian period, but none of them even mentions Joseph - a very serious omission, especially considering that it was allegedly Joseph who founded the first church there.
But in a later edition, after the legends about the knights of the Round Table and their discovery of the Holy Grail became popular in France, the text contains references to Joseph: it seems that it was at that time that the legend of Joseph's connection with Christ and the Holy Grail.
The story of the Grail entered English folklore in the 15th century, when a book by Thomas Malory about King Arthur and his knights was published. The author worked with French sources.
The exact source of Mallory is unknown, but it is possible that he used ancient manuscripts, in particular, the work of the Burgundian Robert de Boron. This book is the key to unraveling the mystery of the Grail. Here the legend is retold in such a way that there is not the slightest doubt: there is a hidden occult meaning in the romantic Christian saga.
The Grail was a pre-Christian Celtic symbol, and it managed to survive because the cup was disguised as a Christian shrine. As the author hints, the true guardian of the Grail was not Joseph at all, but the all-powerful pagan god Bran - according to the ancient Celtic myth, Bran possessed a magical cauldron, drinking from which raised the dead.
In the book of de Boron, Bran is bred as Bron, Joseph's brother-in-law. This character, which appears in all later Grail books, has no Bible type. It is quite possible that he was invented with the best intentions, which become clear by the end of the story, when Bron, also called the Rich Fisherman, takes over from Joseph as the keeper of the Holy Chalice and turns into a more important figure than Joseph himself.
The Grail remains in the hands of Bron's companions until the search for King Arthur's knights is crowned with success. The analogies between Bron (the Rich Fisherman) and Bran (the Celtic god) were captured by the scientist Roger Sherman Loomis - these analogies are so obvious that we can only talk about one person.
According to various sources, Bron was wounded during the battle with a spear in the leg - this happened just at the moment when Bran attacked Ireland.
Both were generous to their guests, both led their supporters to the west, where life passes in a quiet idyll, not subject to the rapidly running time. Even the nickname “Rich Fisherman” can be explained by the fact that Bran was once a sea god.
The Grail itself is shrouded in mystery. In early Christian documents, it is usually described as a large bowl containing a host for some stranger.
It was believed that the Grail contains the key to many secrets, and the young knight of King Arthur Sir Percival spent a lot of energy to discover the secret of the cup. Only later (but before they began to mention Joseph) a legend arose that it was this cup that Christ used at the Last Supper.
This idea of the magical essence of the Grail has a lot in common with the vessels and goblets of Celtic myths. Bran (again that name!) For some time owned one such vessel, the essence of which boiled down to the following: "a warrior stabbed in battle is poured with liquid from a pot and by morning he will be healthy, but he will be speechless."
According to legend, this bowler hat had the ability to distinguish the cowardly and weak warriors from the brave ones, to give the food that the brave ones want. All of these Celtic stories are exactly what Malory described: when the Grail was brought into King Arthur's chambers, "all the knights received the food and drink that they loved most."
It seems safe to say that the legends of the Holy Grail known today were invented between the 12th and 13th centuries. clergy and wandering minstrels who used Celtic themes for their songs-poems, “framed” in Christian aesthetics.
However, one more question arises: what exactly did the bards want to convey to the listener and why did they resort to allegories - "disguise" for this? In his book The White Goddess, Robert Graves says that it was during the romanticization of the Grail in Wales that the revival of Druidism was observed - this pagan religion first withstood the onslaught of Caesar's armies, and then survived the terror of the first Christian missionaries.
Bran, the magical bowler hat, and the story of an extraordinary infant with secret knowledge - all these attributes were integral to the revival of Druidry.
At the time when the first works of the bards about the Holy Grail began to sound, a serious occult organization arose and developed in Europe, also linking its activities with the Holy Chalice: the Order of the Templars.
In Parsifal, the German version of the Grail romance, written between 1200 and 1220. - it is especially noted that the Grail was guarded by knights like the Templars.
The Knights Templar originated in 1118 or 1119 as a kind of paramilitary police that protected the pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem, recently liberated from the Turks.
The knights took the same oath as the monks - no personal property, chastity, obedience - and thus constituted both a religious and a military order.
This order has always been independent and surrounded by a mysterious halo. Despite the fact that the order was theoretically subordinate to the pope, he never exercised his authority over him.
In connection with the Grail, it is necessary to note another form of heresy that is directly related to it: the cult of an idol named Baphomet, which is usually described as a skull, a human head or three heads.
This cult is deeply rooted precisely in the Celtic religion, the revival of which in Europe was discussed above - it is very likely that the Templars, who supposedly zealously served the pope, secretly supported a different form of religion.
Since the essence of secret cults lies in their mysterious nature, there is no need to talk about the thorough nature of this religion. But we can assume that it represents a straight line leading from time immemorial to the Celtic Druids who were discovered by Julius Caesar and who were never able to suppress during the advent of Christianity.
In other words, the Templars may have defended or promoted a forbidden element of true Catholicism: in the Middle Ages, there was no clear line between "white" magic, witchcraft, pre-Christian cults, and dark Christian heresy.
The interpretation of the above lends itself best to the mystical and hazy symbolism of the Grail ballads. For the Celtic bards, who, masking the hidden meaning of the message, sang their songs in all the royal and aristocratic courts of Europe, the Holy Grail personified the magical power of eternal youth and life.
In their opinion, the ancient gods and their priests knew this secret; stone images of these gods are still hiding on the slopes of the mountains of Western Europe, and the new religion turned out to be powerless against them.
Perhaps this is nothing more than a coincidence, but the line of the summer solstice runs through southern Britain, where Christ first set foot on this land in Mounts Bay and without a doubt proceeded onward to the ancient holy center of Glastonbury.
The Grail itself is truly holy - but it was Holy long before Christ …