Is the Cup from the Last Supper the Holy Grail?
Since our previous installment, we received this email from our dear Irish lassie-lady friend. I have known her and her for decades, along with her late husband. I have changed their names to protect her privacy. QUOTE:
Hi James,
I’m enjoying this “series” on the book by Isabel Hill Elder on The Story of Glastonbury. The picture of the black thorn cross reminded me when Jerry and I visited Ireland, Jerry brought back a black thorn walking stick. It is very strong, stable.
“In County Sligo lived a tailor by the name of Patrick Waters, who said well and wisely enough that the branches of the blackthorn should never be cut except on the old May Day and the old November day, that is the 11th of each month, and no person of Ireland no matter how uneducated or unlettered would take so much as a thorn from their branches besides those days.
But cut them they did, and used them to make the fearsome Irish shillelaghs, rare walking and fighting sticks!”
Just a little history, Irish folklore. Jerry also brought back a shillelagh but didn’t know it was made from the black thorn tree.
Another thought, when you mention on your CDs that “I’ll tell the rest of the story at lunch.” Of course, we are dying to hear the “rest of the story” but not privy to that, and I understand your concern about the “listening ear”. Perhaps just eliminate that remark. Then I and all the rest on the CD ministry won’t be left out.🥴 Sincerely with love, Tara END QUOTE
Thank you so much for your note and the photos, Tara! …and for your suggestion. I am sorry for my insensitivity, and I shall henceforth eliminate that occasional remark about “the rest of the story.”
Now here is the final portion of Isabel Hill Elder’s treatise “The Story of Glastonbury.”
The Last Supper, which circumstantial evidence shows, took place at the town house of Joseph of Arimathea in Jerusalem, provided not only the Upper Room in which the Supper was held but also the cup, the only cup used at this feast of brotherhood which ever preceded the Passover in Israel.
This cup became a very sacred treasure to Joseph Marmore and was among the valued objects brought with him to Glastonbury, not for its intrinsic value—for it was but an ordinary wooden cup in everyday use in his household—but now become Joseph’s most treasured possession since with this cup our Lord inaugurated the New Covenant.
“This cup is the New Covenant in My blood”. (Luke XXII, 20).
This cup which Joseph brought to his home in Southern Britain was preserved as a cherished possession by his descendants. At a later date, probably at the time of the Saxon invasion, when the country was in a state of turmoil and unrest, fears were entertained for its safety; the cup was then deposited in the Celtic Church at Glastonbury.
There it lay through long years of troublous times and became forgotten. It was not until the Saxons overran Somerset, and the Saxon king, Ine, in 725 A.D. handed over the Glastonbury Church founded in 37 A.D., and now rebuilt, by Rome, that the Celtic Church was demolished to be replaced by a building approved by Rome and in this demolition the cup was discovered.
It would be enclosed in a box of some enduring material, and with it documentary evidence of its history and precious value, which the archaeologist may yet bring to light. To the great credit of its discoverers, the cup was preserved at Glastonbury as a secret and sacred treasure, passing from one Abbot to the next, from the eighth to the sixteenth century.
Although the Benedictine Order dare not deprive Rome of one iota of her claim to be, after Jerusalem, the Mother Church of Christendom, they yet were well aware that the claim was unfounded in view of the earlier church founded there by Joseph of Arimathea, whose name they added to their catalogue of saints.
The excavations which have taken place at Glastonbury, according to the official surveyor are all corroborative of the story told as to the Wattle Church, the model of which may be seen at the British Museum.
The resistance of the Celtic Church in Britain to the demands of the monk, Augustine, whose arrival in 597 as an emissary of Pope Gregory, was a brave effort to retain that freedom of worship which was its rightful heritage.
This independence was maintained at Glastonbury for 123 years after the arrival of Augustine. In 725, however, the Saxon king, Ine, having handed over the Church at Glastonbury to Rome, the Roman Catholic hierarchy then gained that ascendancy which they were to retain for 800 years.
One of the first acts of King Ine at Glastonbury was to make a grant of XXI hides of land to the church in addition to the original XII hides granted by Arviragus — a clear attempt to over-shadow the importance of the original grant to Joseph of Arimathea and his eleven companions.
Ine also introduced the Latin rite, and having elevated the Virgin Mary to an unscriptural place in the church introduced the Order of St. Mary and decreed that missionaries should go forth as “Sons of St. Mary”; they went to many places founding religious houses and filling Sees.
The term “Our Lady” became as revered as that of her Divine Son, and the position of Mary as the “Queen of Heaven” a distinct feature of papal Christianity in Britain.
When the church at Glastonbury came under the new domination the secret was yet preserved and the Sacred Cup jealously guarded.
In the sixth century Uther Pendragon a direct descendant of Joseph of Arimathea had a circular table made “after the pattern of the table of the Last Supper.” This table Uther presented to his son Arthur, afterwards King Arthur, who, with his twelve knights, traditionally also descendants of Joseph of Arimathea, met in solemn conclave around this historic table throughout Arthur’s reign.
They had bound themselves to find the Holy Grail (grail = a wooden cup). Some of our most beautiful literature is written around the “Quest of the Holy Grail.” To retrieve this family heirloom, of no intrinsic value but of most sacred association, these valiant descendants of Joseph braved many hazards in fruitless search.
The modern controversy over Uther Pendragon, by some historians and others, contending that Uther was not a king is based upon a lack of knowledge of the common use made by the ancient Celts of titular designations.
Pendragon which signifies “Chief Leader in Battle” was a Celtic designation and conferred only upon a king. The Dragon is the symbol of the Welsh people which they hold as the first colonizers of Britain.
Arthur, therefore, inherited his kingdom and his royal title from his father, Uther Pendragon, son of Ygerna, as set forth in the royal pedigree by John of Glastonbury and he, Uther, with his descendants were princes of the House of David, inheriting from Joseph Marmore of Arimathea.
It is worth noting that some of the names in the pedigree are distinctly Biblical: The Table known as King Arthur’s Round Table now hangs in the Great Hall at Winchester.
And so when Arthur and his Queen, Guinevere were laid to rest at Glastonbury, the mystery unsolved, the brave attempt at recovery a failure, the sacred heirloom cup was stored for safe keeping in the nearby church. Let it be said that in the domination of Rome from 725 A.D. to 1539 reverence and secrecy continued to surround the cup until the time of the Reformation.
The dissolution of the Monasteries announced by Henry VIII in 1539 caused panic in these establishments, and not least at Glastonbury; its reputed wealth attracted Henry as an easy field for spoliation and replenishing of the royal coffers.
When the dire news reached Glastonbury, the Abbot, aware that resistance would be useless, devised a plan to safeguard the secret treasure by sending the Prior and six of the older monks “over the impassable mountains” into Wales to the Cistercian Monastery at Strata Florida, Cardigan.
The Cistercian was a poor Order and their Monastery not likely to excite the rapacity of Henry. There is some historical notice by several writers of a tradition—that the Prior and his monks rested at Ozzleworth, Gloucester, and deposited the cup, for the time being, in a recess in the tower of the church. In the tradition as handed down from one generation to another, the number never varies, seven monks including their chief, the Prior.
Here, at Strata Florida, the monks lived in peace and quietness until at the end of three years tidings came through to this secluded spot that the emissaries of Henry were on their way to despoil the monastery at Strata Florida.
Once again the monks prepared for a hasty flight, their leader shielding the sacred cup from harm. This time they turned in the direction of Aberystwyth which would suggest a resolve to escape by sea.
At the end of fifteen miles trudging over mountainous and marshy country, the monks arrived, travel stained and weary, at Nanteos Manor, situated in a sheltered valley, three miles from Aberystwyth, where they sought shelter; the monks received a warm welcome from Mr. Powell (Lord of the Manor) and Mrs. Powell and accorded that generous hospitality which they well knew how to appreciate, and here their troubles came to an end for Mr. and Mrs. Powell extended to the little band of refugees an invitation to make their home at Nanteos Manor.
It is believed that the Prior became the family chaplain, while the elderly monks were employed in light work on the 5000-acre estate. As the years passed the little band of monks was gradually depleted by death until the Prior only was left; in the course of years he also lay on his dying couch, but greatly disturbed in mind because of the secret he had carried all the years as custodian of the Holy Cup.
As the end approached the old Prior took Mr. and Mrs. Powell into his confidence and told them of his sacred charge, and then delivered the Cup into their safe keeping with the charge that the Cup should remain at Nanteos Manor “until the church claims her own.”
Henry had a pension scheme for displaced monks, or alternatively gratuities; the highest pension, £20, was the annual allowance for an Abbot.
How faithfully the Powell family cared for the sacred Cup, the Holy Grail, in the intervening centuries history will attest. Local people, as also people from afar learning of the healing virtues of the Cup would come to the Manor to drink from it, and to-day, in the principality, it is known as the “Healing Cup.”
Cures have been oft times miraculous. A specially made glass bowl now holds the Cup, so that, no longer may chips be bitten from the rim by sick folk who believed that the healing water taken from the Cup would be more efficacious if a chip of the wood were consumed along with it.
We may discount the many legends which have grown around the story of the Holy Grail; the germ of truth remains, however fantastic the legend. The Cup is a precious relic and a symbol.
There seems to be no reason to doubt that the Cup is of olive wood and made, in all probability, from wood cut from the olive grove in Joseph of Arimathea’s Gethsemane Garden.
We have in our midst two symbols. One, that of the Old Covenant, the Stone in Westminster Abbey upon which our Sovereigns are crowned. The other, the Holy Grail, the Cup of the Last Supper, the Symbol of the New Covenant.
In Joseph Marmore of Arimathea’s party, the members of his family who accompanied him to Britain, we have the names of but two—his daughter Anna and his son Josephes.
Joseph did not come as a stranger, for he counted among his friends in Britain the king, Arviragus, born Caractacus, son of Cunobeline, or King Belinus, now become high king as the title Arviragus signified. Joseph, as a Prince of the House of David, received, with his family, that royal welcome and hospitality which the Briton knew well how to bestow.
Arviragus, as Caractacus, had himself married Genuissa, daughter of the Emperor Claudius. It was a wonderful strengthening of the link between Britain and the Holy Land when a Prince of the Royal House of Britain. Belinus sought and won the hand of Anna, daughter of Joseph of Arimathea, and here we have documentary evidence which has been preserved throughout the centuries.
Anna’s son, Beli, became the ancestor of Howel the Good, from which the Tudor line descended to our Sovereign, Elizabeth II. Anna’s daughter married King Lyr or Lear, and became the ancestor of Helena, mother of Constantine the Great. (see Harl. M.S. (British Museum) 3859.f., 193.b; also Jesus College. M.S. 20).
In one of the M.S.S. Anna is recorded as “Cousin of the B.V. Mary”. (“All generations shall call me blessed.” Luke I, 48). It was considered more important to record Anna’s relationship to the Virgin Mary than daughter of Joseph Marmore of Arimathea.
In the English College of Arms, the Herald’s Office, there is a pedigree of Christ and his relatives from Adam downwards. It is both in chart and narrative form (Roll 33, Box 26). This is clearly set forth by the Rev. Smithett Lewis in his exhaustive work “Joseph of Arimathea,” p: 155.
It is not, perhaps, sufficiently well-known that the Virgin Mary was the daughter of an elder brother of Joseph. How precious are these records in the archives of Britain, putting to silence the sceptic and the scoffer.
History and legend connect the Celtic King Arthur with Glastonbury. “He left a name to be glorified in a song of wonder and awe.” Arthur was only a boy (c.500 A.D.) when the Saxon Cedric’s ships sailed up the Parrett. Here, later, Arthur besieged the island to recover Guinevere, and she was restored to him by Gildas the Wise of the Steep Holme.
Here he came to reside at times and enjoy his favourite view from the Wirral. Here he prepared for his greatest of twelve battles, Bradbury, in 520. Here he was carried to die after his last fight, and here he lies buried.
On Wirral Hill, the ancient cattle pasture of the Fortress or Sanctuary (City of Refuge) there lies a flat stone to mark the spot where Joseph thrust his staff into the ground, a spot well-known to Joseph’s descendant Arthur, and where the king must often have gazed upon the Holy Thorn.
When King Arthur drew up the Rules of the Round Table, on the Druidic principles of patriotism and self-sacrifice in the cause of King and Country, he re-organised the old Order on Christian lines.
It is very remarkable that the Romans, Saxons and Danes made no attack upon Glastonbury, and that church alone claims as her peculiar privilege never to have failed in her worship of the true Faith, preserved, in the darkest days, by the tiny band of Culdees.
“The noble Arthur, first of the three great Christian worthies of the world.” Malory “Morte D’Arthur,” Revised Caxton Edition. It was Henry Tudor’s proud boast to have descended, not from Norman and Plantagenet, but from the Celtic kings, Arthur and Cadwalader the Blessed, the last of his race to assume the royal title.
In the Sovereign’s robing-room of the Palace of Westminster, the history of King Arthur is set forth in carved panels from birth to death, while Dyce’s magnificent pictures illustrating the virtues of chivalry adorn the walls.
The pedigree of King Arthur, ninth in descent from Joseph of Arimathea, is given by John of Glastonbury. It is said that every one of the Twelve Knights of the Round Table were descended from Joseph of Arimathea.
The Chalice Well
There are two possible sources for the name “chalice” as applied to both the hill and well at Glastonbury.
“Chalice” may be a corruption of chalybeate, and became known by this name when the water of the well was found to be medicinal.
The second source, and perhaps the more likely, is connected with Dunstan who was made Abbot of Glastonbury by his friend Edmund the Elder in 936 A.D., an office he filled for thirty years. Both the source and the inspiration of Dunstan’s life was Glastonbury.
“Here he was born and educated. Here he learned from the Irish scholars, music, painting and metal work.” The latter he engaged in with absorbing delight and was “fashioning a chalice when he routed the devil with his stithey tongs.” This is depicted on a window in the Bodleian Library.
The “devil” was probably the ravaging Danes whose incursions were at that period the scourge of Southern England, and during this troublous time the chalice made by the Abbot would be viewed as sacred and hidden for safety, perhaps in the hill, perhaps near the well at the base of the Tor, and so account for the name “chalice.”
In a somewhat superstitious age, a mystical aura would surround the chalice made by the Abbot, and whether retrieved or not from its safe hiding place, the memory of it would remain in the Benedictine Order at Glastonbury.
Dunstan was the greatest and most saintly of its Abbots, beloved by his monks; he made the monastery a storehouse of learning and a home of the arts.
If the chalice made by Dunstan, the Abbot, should prove to be the origin of the name applied to the hill and well at
Glastonbury, a meed of gratitude must not be withheld from this great and good man, for in this way the preservation of the well of so great antiquity has been ensured.
The Chalice Well Trust at enormous expense has made the well with its adjoining garden something of a place of pilgrimage for lovers of Glastonbury, and believers in its ancient and unique past; the garden so beautifully laid out and tended by a devoted band of helpers is now become a place of seclusion, peace and delight.
The Land Grant = Domesday Book.
The Staff = Sacred Thorn.
The Cup = Holy Grail.
The Marriage = Harl M.S. (British Museum) 3859.f. 193.b.
Four links connecting Britain with the Holy Land, and the foundation of the Christian Faith among its people, not the least being the marriage link in fulfilment of the Hebrew prophets declaration: “Kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and queens thy nursing mothers” (Isa. XLIX, 23).
It is not without reason that Glastonbury is referred to as the “English Jerusalem.” When the time comes Glastonbury will rise again in all her Celtic glory, and again send forth missionaries from her Galilee. Such a belief inspired William Blake to conclude his poem with the lines:
“I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall the sword cease from my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England’s green and pleasant land.”
END QUOTE
That is the end of Ms. Elder’s little book on The Story of Glastonbury. We have more from other sources concerning Joseph of Arimathea and other of the early disciples of our Lord which we shall share in this space relatively soon.
Also, concerning the Holy Grail, I shall also share here my pair of lectures on that subject which are entitled, Holy Grail, Holy Bible. That pair is available on two CDs for $17 postpaid.
Early in my series of 20 lectures called From Inner Space to Outer Space (ISOS), I encouraged listeners to obtain that pair of lectures about what I called “the Grail tales,” as an excellent pre-study to several of my lectures in ISOS which were these:
CD #s 447, 448 ISOS lectures 3 & 4: Science, Miracles and the New Age Movement, 1 & 2. And …
CD #s 449, 450 ISOS lectures 5 & 6: Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Leonardo DaVinci and UFO’s, 1 & 2.
We do NOT recommend hearing these ISOS lectures without hearing the prior lectures. They build upon each other progressively from lecture #1 through lecture #20. The whole set can be viewed here with synopses of all the lectures and ordering information.
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