Metaphor As Guiding Methodology

THE GRAIL QUEST

METAPHOR AS GUIDING METHODOLOGY

a paper

presented to

PRAIRIE GROUP

Pere Marquette Lodge, Grafton, Illinois

14 November 2005

by

The Reverend William Haney

History, it is often said, is a seamless web. But the human mind can only cope with the flow of historical reality by dividing it into arbitrary chronological units – forcing it into compartments of the historian’s own making. In this sense every historical “period” is a kind of falsehood – an affront to the continuity of human development . . . . Thus the historian speaks of “Classical Antiquity,” “The Early Middle Ages,” “The High Middle Ages,” “The Renaissance,” etc. These are all historical lies, to be sure, but they are necessary lies – white lies – without which the past would have little meaning. We cannot get along without “eras,” but we should never forget that they are inventions of our own. We should never lose sight of their limitations.

Medieval Europe: A Short History (pg. 137)

These words by C. Warren Hollister have truth to them, showing compartmental thinking flaws inherent in historical inquiry. Such “historical lies” of placing one “era” as superior to another is sponsored by the bias of the historian and his or her culture. Quite often, however, the protagonists themselves in a specific time in the ever unfolding of human enterprise will see themselves as separate from, and superior to, those endeavors that immediately preceded them – a new age is declared. Such was the case with the Renaissance. The term media tempestas – meaning "Middle Times” or “Middle Ages" – was first used by the Florentines as a pejorative in 1469. The phrase "Middle Ages" was devised to set apart the inspirations and achievements of the quatrocento and to link them with the Roman past, first begun in Florence in 1401. The glories of the Roman past were seen as the Italian peninsula’s future. The Renaissance coincided with the struggle from 1378 to 1417 for the removal of the papacy from Avignon to Rome. Its return to Italian soil was perceived to be the rebirth of a Roman culture and civilization. The papacy symbolized the return of the centralized Roman Empire as the preeminent image of power and authority in Europe. From the viewpoint of the Renaissance, all that had been done since the great age of Rome was deemed barbaric, degenerate and unworthy.

However, the linking of the Roman Catholic Church, if not the papacy itself, to the political power and authority of post-Roman Europe preceded the Renaissance in attitude many centuries earlier. The Church was the only viable connection to the Roman past in Europe. In order to mimic what was perceived to be the greatness of the past, each subsequent and successive regime in Europe relied upon the Church, through its bishops if not the pope, to authenticate its reign. Indeed, the Church was important. Lewis Mumford, in his great book, The City In History, cites the Church and monastic orders as the thread that tied a torn Europe together and wove the fabric for the revival of the city in the Middle Ages; an institution completely lost – except in Italy – with the primacy of northern European tribalism. To embark upon this so-called “in between” period of human history, let this paper be an odyssey into a realm of the past too often discarded as backward and bleak. Granted, the percentage of wealth in the population changed very little from ancient well into Renaissance times; so for the common folk nothing really changed all that much. To venture into the quest for the Holy Grail is to embark upon a journey into a past that has been traditionally called the Dark Ages. This arbitrary “era” is rarely observed on its own merits. As Terwin Copplestone says, “But the age was not quite as dark as has sometimes been held, and there was quite a lot of activity in spite of wars and barbarian inroads” (pg. 186).

When I was given this assignment by our Planning Committee, my first reaction was, of course, disbelief – a sense of theodicy I believe we all share in Prairie Group; “Why me?” This topic was not my choice. Observing the discipline, however, my second reaction was to ask the questions, “How can I possibly wrap my mind around the medieval consciousness? How can I be engaged with the story of the Grail in the same way as those who witnessed if for the first time?” Well, of course, I can’t, but I can try. As I began to delve into this “period” of history, I became astonished at the richness of it and its achievements. I trust in my trying to unfold this odyssey it will not be trying for you, my colleagues.

JUDAS NEVER ALLOWED IT

While they were talking of one thing and another, a boy came from a chamber clutching a white lance by the middle of the shaft . . . . Everyone in the hall saw the white lance with its white head; and a drop of blood issued from the tip of the lance’s head, and right down to the boy’s hand this red drop ran . . . . Just then two other boys appeared, and in their hands they held candlesticks of the finest gold, inlaid with black enamel. The boys who carried the candlesticks were handsome indeed. In each candlestick burned ten candles at the very least. A girl who came in with the boys, fair and comely and beautifully adorned, was holding a grail between her hands. When she entered holding the grail, so brilliant a light appeared that the candles lost their brightness like the stars or the moon when the sun rises. After her came another girl, holding a trencher. The grail, which went ahead, was made of fine, pure gold; and in it were set precious stones of many kinds, the richest and most precious in the earth or the sea: those in the grail surpassed all other jewels, without a doubt . . . .

The Story of the Grail by Chretien des Troyes

quoted in The Holy Grail by Richard Barber (pp. 17-18)

This excerpt from the story by Chretien des Troyes reveals the lance and the Grail for the first time, the latter in all its richness. The story in its own time captured the imagination of the elite of medieval society. Following Chretien’s death, a number of additions and elaborations by other authors took place, expanding the appeal and attraction of the Grail beyond the original story’s boundaries.

The stories presented the Grail with vagueness of description. Was it a plate from which the Passover meal was eaten, or was it a cup from which the wine was drunk by Jesus and the disciples before the Crucifixion, or was it the cup used in collecting the Holy Blood by Joseph of Arimathea? If it was a cup, was there such naiveté in the 12th- and 13th-centuries to really believe such a priceless cup was in the possession of Jesus or any of his disciples? Nothing is said of it except for its use in Mark (14:23-25), Matthew (26:27-29) and Luke (22:17-18). The Gospel of John says nothing of the cup, or of the meal for that matter. In reality, more than likely the cup for the meal was a clay vessel of mean aesthetic quality, a common utensil of the day. If such a cup did exist it would be nothing more than a shard buried in a trash heap of ancient Jerusalem. But that does not serve as a metaphor of greatness and glory. Obviously the Church’s ritual artifacts at the altar had much to do with the image in Chretien’s mind.

Many aspects of the Gospel stories reveal a compassion for the poor. Mark (14:3-5) and Matthew (23:6-9) have Jesus in the house of Simon the leper when an unidentified woman anoints his head with expensive ointment in an alabaster jar. The disciples reprimand her, charging the ointment could be sold for 300 denarii (Mk) or a large sum (Mt) and the money given to the poor. The writer(s) of John conflates this story, which does not appear in Luke, transforming the group into one single disciple – Judas. The setting is still in Bethany, but in the home of Lazarus, and the woman is identified as Mary who washes the feet of Jesus with the ointment. Judas admonishes Mary just as the gathered disciples did in Mark and Matthew. Singling out Judas seems to be for the purpose of identifying him as the one who kept the “common purse” of the disciples (12: 1-6; 13:29). According to the text, Judas would never allow the purchase of a cup of “fine, pure gold” with “the richest and most precious . . . jewels.”

Even if such an event related in the Synoptic Gospels as sharing the cup were uppermost in the minds of the disciples at that very moment as a symbol or metaphor sponsoring a ritual, the utensils for the meal would be whatever was available and not purchased at great cost, if any. If Judas indeed “kept the common purse” of the motley band of disciples, as depicted only by the community of John, the parenthetical asides in the text identify him as the one “about to betray” Jesus and an uncaring “thief” (NRSV). By virtue of his name, Judas became symbolic of all of the following generations of Jews, particularly beginning in the Middle Ages. These asides in John established a metaphor that early set for Medieval society the relegation of the Jews to be money handlers, and to betray that trust by frequent and violent seizures of their assets and lives because of the supposed “betrayal” that caused the death of Jesus.

Along with the Grail in Chretien’s story is the lance. This aspect of the Passion is cited only in John (19:33-34) and the act is by an unknown soldier. Later legends ascribe the deed to Longinus. This is first revealed in the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus (7:8), probably written in the 3rd-century CE, used in some churches at the end of that century, and very popular in ecclesiastical circles beginning in the 9th-century. One version has Longinus blind. A Jew aids him in piercing the side of Jesus with the spear. Blood runs down the shaft onto the hands of Longinus, and putting his hands to his eyes, he is healed, causing him to realize “the enormity of what he has done” (Barber, pg. 118). By the time of the writing of the first story of the Grail, the lance joined in the mystery of the “holy” relics.

“YOU WORE A GOWN OF GOLD.”

“I WAS ALL IN BLUE . . .”

“AH, YES, I REMEMBER IT WELL.”

lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner

sung by Hermione Gingold and Maurice Chevalier in the film Gigi.

It doesn’t take much intellectual pursuit to see that such a common cup would not survive. Because of what the Gospels tell, each in its own way and for its own needs, we do not know what the disciples understood the meal to mean – whether it was just another Passover meal, or one of a final, fateful farewell. It is certain the cup was lost along with other utensils used in the meal. The Synoptic Gospel writers placed the event at the center of the emerging ritual from agape meal of the “house church” to the Eucharist of the early church. The event was more important to these Gospel communities than the items involved. It was much later that the artifacts, as relics of adoration, began to assume any importance. With that importance came legends that attempted to keep failing memories alive.

Such adoration of relics began during the period of martyrdom from the random persecutions by the Romans from time to time in the late 1st- through early 4th-centuries. Personal belongings, parts of the remains of the body, the ashes of those martyred became significant as emblems of a beleaguered faith. Being a reusable artifact, later the cup took on deeper meanings. The same can be said for other artifacts that were actually or presumed to be associated with the life of Jesus – and particularly his Crucifixion.

The appeal of relics began in earnest in the 3rd-century, stimulated by the many pilgrimages to Jerusalem and the Holy Land. Sites supposed to be of the events in Israelite and Jesus follower history were sought out. It appears there was quite a market for relics even this early in the history of the Christian movement. One would be hard pressed to authenticate such a relic, or if such a thing actually existed outside the legend or the scripture story. The History and Discovery channels continue to present the idiotic search for Noah’s ark, as if such a metaphor were as real as the remains of the Titanic. The cause for the search of the Ark of the Covenant believed by some to be held by the Coptic Church in Ethiopia was given a New Age boost by the movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark. The frenzy for authentic relics that was so much a part of the Crusades is still with us. Instead of being based upon myth and legend, the current appeal is through archaeology – witness the recent “discovery” of the ossuary of “James, brother of Jesus.” The debate as to its authenticity still rages, with as much passion as 1,000 years ago.

The most desired relics were those associated with the Crucifixion. The saga of the Shroud of Turin will probably never be concluded, even though its origin is determined to have begun in Constantinople. Other relics are alleged to have come directly from the Holy Land. Legends say that Helena, Emperor Constantine’s mother, found the True Cross in Palestine in 326. The subsequent loss of the Cross to the Saracens and the desire for its recovery stimulated the preachments that launched a new Crusade in 1189-90. Among other relics from the Crucifixion are the Crown of Thorns, a phial of Holy Blood, Longinus’ Lance, and, of course, the Holy Grail. All but the Holy Grail seems to have a place in some reliquary. The apparent absence of the Hoy Grail only adds to its mystery.

With the fall of an already fragile Roman Empire extended too far into Europe, the cultural remains left no center.

Loyalty to memories of the Roman empire were not enough to provide such a center. Nor was the desire to transfer such loyalties to the popes of Rome sufficiently widespread, in a world characterized by strong regional churches, to bring about a centering of the western world on papal Rome . . . (Peter Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom, pg. 13).

In these waning days of the Roman Empire, Gaul became absorbed in honoring its local saints, those who died for the faith during the onslaught of tribal invasions – by Germans, Vikings, Huns, Magyars and Saracens. Gaul was essentially Arian in its theological stance from the days of the Arian-Athanasian conflicts following the Council of Nicea in 325. Alaric the Visigoth sacked Rome in 410 not because he was a vicious barbarian: he was an Arian Christian prevented from receiving the rites of the Church. His ire was against the emerging Athanasian orthodoxy, not the culture and civilization of Rome.

By the 6th-century, efforts to subsume local saints in favor of those aligned with the orthodoxy began to be pursued by the bishops. Gregory, bishop of Tours (538-594) set out to assure the catholicity of the saints. “For Gregory, a ‘relic’ was a physical fragment, an enduring ‘trace’ that had been, as it were, left behind in the material world by a fully redeemed person, a saint, who now dwelt in God’s Paradise” (Brown, pg. 162). In 561, Radegund, the founder of the convent in Poitiers, brought to her abbey . . .

nothing less than a relic of the Holy Cross itself, direct from the emperor of Constantinople . . . . The arrival of the True Cross at Poitiers brought a touch of international, East Roman piety into a Gaul which, up to then, had been largely devoted to the cult of local saints (Brown, pg. 229).

“East Roman piety” was not quite the same as the expectation in Europe. In the late 8th-century, Theodulph, bishop of Orleans,

. . . built his own exquisite little chapel . . . . In a place reserved for “consecrated things,” only visual objects known to have been given by God to his people, by his express command, should meet the eye [in which in his] opinion, the world of Latin Christianity [as opposed to Byzantium at the time] was right to value the shrines of the saints and the splendid cases which surrounded their relics. The unearthly brilliance of the gold and jeweled reliquaries in which the relics of the saints were encased showed that “the lords,” the saints, were “in” them. There was no doubt that this was where the saints were “present” on earth [as opposed the Byzantine view that the saints were everywhere] (Brown, pg. 458).

The collapse of the Roman Empire in Europe caused the cities to “become faceless conglomerations.” According to Brown, “In the former cities of the north, large, semi-rural spaces were ringed by ancient walls and studded with Christian shrines built around relics of the saints” (pg. 429). By the 10th-century, the custom and appeal of relics had firmly engrained itself into the European consciousness. As Barber notes,