Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Archaeologist Sparks Hunt For Holy Grail
The Telegraph (UK) ^ | 6-20-2007 | Nick Pisa

Posted on 06/20/2007 3:54:57 PM PDT by blam

Archaeologist sparks hunt for Holy Grail

By Nick Pisa in Rome
Last Updated: 8:47pm BST 20/06/2007

An archaeologist has sparked a Da Vinci Code-style hunt for the Holy Grail after claiming ancient records show it is buried under a 6th century church in Rome.

The cup - said to have been used by Christ at the Last Supper - is the focus of countless legends and has been sought for centuries.

Alfredo Barbagallo, an Italian archaeologist, claims that it is buried in a chapel-like room underneath the Basilica of San Lorenzo Fuori le Mura, one of the seven churches which Christian pilgrims used to visit when they came to Rome.

Mr Barbagallo based his claim on two years spent studying mediaeval iconography inside the basilica and a description of a particular chamber, in a guide to the catacombs written in 1938 by a Capuchin friar named Giuseppe Da Bra.

The friar describes a room of about 20 square metres with a vaulted roof ceiling. "In the corner of a wall-seat there can be seen a terracotta funnel whose lower part opens out over the face of a skeleton," he wrote.

Da Bra then explains that giving liquid refreshment (refrigerium) to the dead was part of ancient funeral rites.

According to Mr Barbagallo, who heads an association called Arte e Mistero [Art and Mystery], this funnel is the Grail.

He also points out to several beautiful mosaics and frescos in the basilica which feature images of the sacred cup.

Mr Barbagallo added that its presence in the church fits the sketchy accounts of its early guardians.

In 258 AD, during a phase of Christian persecution, Pope Sixtus V reportedly entrusted the treasures of the early Church to a deacon called Lawrence, Lorenzo in Italian. This deacon was martyred four days later and since then no one has ever seen the Grail.

Various legends have it that the cup, given the name Holy Grail in the Middle Ages, was taken to different countries - including Britain.

Dan Brown’s work of fiction, The Da Vinci Code, said the cup had been buried at Rossyln Chapel in Scotland, and sparked off a stampede to the isolated location as thousands flocked to see it for themselves.

Mr Barbagallo said he believed it never went anywhere, and stayed with St Lawrence in his tomb.

Emperor Constantine built a shrine on the site of Lawrence’s martyrdom in the 4th Century and the main part of the Basilica of San Lorenzo Fuori le Mura was built in AD580 on the same spot.

The catacombs where Mr Barbagallo believes the cup to buried come under the authority of the Vatican’s Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology.

A spokesman said: "We are aware of the reports and a few weeks ago made an initial investigation of the area with the possibility of opening the catacombs up but as yet no decision has been made."


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: antichristian; archaeologist; davincicode; godsgravesglyphs; grail; holy; holygrail; kingarthur; rome; sangraal; thedavincicode
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 101-104 next last
To: mgstarr

That scene always bothered me because it was not a Carpenter’s son whose cup it was -— it was a rich merchant and observant Jew’s Passover cup.

Ergo, probably pretty fancy.

Nice sentiment, though.


21 posted on 06/20/2007 4:28:39 PM PDT by MeanWestTexan (Kol Hakavod Fred Thompson)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: MeanWestTexan
(See, this is why you have Jewish guys hang around on these threads.)
Cool. I'm Jewish too. Joseph of Arimathea was a Sanhedrin rabbi, probably well off. I don't know.

It makes me laugh to think of the holy grail as kosher for Pesach!
22 posted on 06/20/2007 4:29:04 PM PDT by Asclepius (the admin moderator ordered me to "lose" my tagline.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: MeanWestTexan

TIME
The Evangelists and critics generally agree that the Last Supper was on a Thursday, that Christ suffered and died on Friday, and that He arose from the dead on Sunday. As to the day of the month there seems a difference between the record of the synoptic Gospels and that of St. John. In consequence some critics have rejected the authenticity of either account or of both. Since Christians, accepting the inspiration of the Scriptures, cannot admit contradictions in the sacred writers, various attempts have been made to reconcile the statements. Matthew 26:17 says, “And on the first day of the Azymes”; Mark 14:12, “Now on the first day of the unleavened bread, when they sacrificed the pasch”; Luke 22:7, “And the day of the unleavened bread came, on which it was necessary that the pasch should be killed”. From these passages it seems to follow that Jesus and his disciples conformed to the ordinary custom, that the Last Supper took place on the 14th of Nisan, and that the Crucifixion was on the l5th, the great festival of the Jews. This opinion, held by Tolet, Cornelius a Lapide, Patrizi, Corluy, Hengstenberg, Ohlshausen, and Tholuck, is confirmed by the custom of the early Eastern Church which, looking to the day of the month, celebrated the commemoration of the Lord’s Last Supper on the 14th of Nisan, without paying any attention to the day of the week. This was done in conformity with the teaching of St. John the Evangelist. But in his Gospel, St. John seems to indicate that Friday was the 14th of Nisan, for (18:28) on the morning of this day the Jews “went not into the hall, that they might not be defiled, but that they might eat the pasch”. Various things were done on this Friday which could not be done on a feast, viz., Christ is arrested, tried, crucified; His body is taken down” (because it was the parasceve) that the bodies might not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day (for that was a great sabbath day)”; the shroud and ointments are bought, and so on.

The defenders of this opinion claim that there is only an apparent contradiction and that the differing statements may be reconciled. For the Jews calculated their festivals and Sabbaths from sunset to sunset: thus the Sabbath began after sunset on Friday and ended at sunset on Saturday. This style is employed by the synoptic Gospels, while St. John, writing about twenty-six years after the destruction of Jerusalem, when Jewish law and customs no longer prevailed, may well have used the Roman method of computing time from midnight to midnight. The word pasch does not exclusively apply to the paschal lamb on the eve of the feast, but is used in the Scriptures and in the Talmud in a wider sense for the entire festivity, including the chagigah; any legal defilement could have been removed by the evening ablutions; trials, and even executions and many servile works, though forbidden on the Sabbath, were not forbidden on feasts (Numbers 28:16; Deuteronomy 16:23). The word parasceve may denote the preparation for any Sabbath and may be the common designation for any Friday, and its connexion with pasch need not mean preparation for the Passover but Friday of the Passover season and hence this Sabbath was a great Sabbath. Moreover it seems quite certain that if St. John intended to give a different date from that given by the Synoptics and sanctioned by the custom of his own Church at Ephesus, he would have said so expressly. Others accept the apparent statement of St. John that the Last Supper was on the 13th of Nisan and try to reconcile the account of the Synoptics. To this class belong Paul of Burgos, Maldonatus, Pétau, Hardouin, Tillemont, and others. Peter of Alexandria (P.G., XCII, 78) says: “In previous years Jesus had kept the Passover and eaten the paschal lamb, but on the day before He suffered as the true Paschal Lamb He taught His disciples the mystery of the type.” Others say: Since the Pasch, falling that year on a Friday, was reckoned as a Sabbath, the Jews, to avoid the inconvenience of two successive Sabbaths, had postponed the Passover for a day, and Jesus adhered to the day fixed by law; others think that Jesus anticipated the celebration, knowing that the proper time He would be in the grave.

PLACE
The owner of the house in which was the upper room of the Last Supper is not mentioned in Scripture; but he must have been one of the disciples, since Christ bids Peter and John say, “The Master says”. Some say it was Nicodemus, or Joseph of Arimathea, or the mother of John Mark. The hall was large and furnished as a dining-room. In it Christ showed Himself after His Resurrection; here took place the election of Matthias to the Apostolate and the sending of the Holy Ghost; here the first Christians assembled for the breaking of bread; hither Peter and John came when they had given testimony after the cure of the man born lame, and Peter after his liberation from prison; here perhaps was the council of the Apostles held. It was for awhile the only church in Jerusalem, the mother of all churches, known as the Church of the Apostles or of Sion. It was visited in 404 by St. Paula of Rome. In the eleventh century it was destroyed by the Saracens, later rebuilt and given to the care of the Augustinians. Restored after a second destruction, it was placed in charge of the Franciscans, who were driven out in 1561. At present it is a Moslem mosque.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14341a.htm


23 posted on 06/20/2007 4:30:42 PM PDT by bnelson44 (http://www.appealforcourage.org)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: Asclepius

Really, it makes perfect sense for the Last Supper to be Passover.

Theologically, the idea is that Jesus replaced the Temple worship by being the “ultimate” Passover lamb, replacing the Levitical structure (and necessary animal sacrifice rituals for purity and forgiveness) enacted with Mt. Sinia and thus giving the every day Joe (Jew and non-Jew) direct access to God to repent and/or pray w/out the necessity of further sacrifice.

Of course, all this is lost on people who: (1) aren’t Jewish or (2) don’t know squat about Temple practices.

As a potential cohen (albeit one in severe apostasy), I should take my replacement personally, but I’m OK with it. :-)


24 posted on 06/20/2007 4:38:43 PM PDT by MeanWestTexan (Kol Hakavod Fred Thompson)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: Jet Jaguar

A bunch of Bologna?


25 posted on 06/20/2007 4:42:30 PM PDT by weegee (Libs want us to learn to live with terrorism, but if a gun is used they want to rewrite the Const.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: blam

Odds are they will not find it, but perhaps they will find some cool thing they did not expect!


26 posted on 06/20/2007 4:43:32 PM PDT by Recall Em All
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: bnelson44

I don’t see a time problem at all.

I see a Greek writer who measured a day from sunrise, and a Jewish writer who measured a day from sunset.

But I certainly would defer to an expert on the topic.


27 posted on 06/20/2007 4:43:53 PM PDT by MeanWestTexan (Kol Hakavod Fred Thompson)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: Calpernia
"He is too late. Indiana Jones already found it :)"


28 posted on 06/20/2007 4:44:59 PM PDT by monkapotamus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: monkapotamus

Short ribs, right?


29 posted on 06/20/2007 4:52:55 PM PDT by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]

To: blam

30 posted on 06/20/2007 4:55:16 PM PDT by Hoodat ( ETERNITY - Smoking, or Non-smoking?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Calpernia; SevenofNine
"Short ribs, right?"

Short Round.


31 posted on 06/20/2007 4:57:57 PM PDT by monkapotamus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies]

To: Asclepius

You took the words out of my mouth. The legend took root when Christians were desperate to find something to validate and legitimize their religion...The holy grail is on the order of
“relics’ such as a piece of John the baptists skull, a vial of Mother Mary’s breast milk, hairs from the ass Jesus rode, etc...


32 posted on 06/20/2007 4:58:54 PM PDT by Duffboy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: blam

We've already got one, you see?!

33 posted on 06/20/2007 5:00:58 PM PDT by uglybiker (relaxing in a luxuriant cloud of quality, aromatic, pre-owned tobacco essence)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam

“The Da Vinci Code, said the cup had been buried at Rossyln Chapel in Scotland, and sparked off a stampede to the isolated location as thousands flocked to see it for themselves.”

The last I heard, the caretakers of Rossyln refuse to allow entry into the basement. The mystery is what keeps the tourists coming.


34 posted on 06/20/2007 5:05:24 PM PDT by gcruse
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: uglybiker

You silly....


35 posted on 06/20/2007 5:07:26 PM PDT by bmwcyle (Satan is working both sides of the street in World Socialism and World Courts.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 33 | View Replies]

To: AmericaUnited
Exactly. As it happens, there's a simple stone cup that fits both the legend and the realities of historical Judea perfectly. According to Catholic history, Saint Peter carried a simple agate cup (a semi-translucent polished stone) which he used to perform communions. Agate was a popular material in ancient times for adornment and decoration. It wasn't as valuable as gold, but it was more valuable than simple terra cotta and would have been a nice piece for a Jewish household to celebrate Passover with. You may recall what the dinner was for, and why this fits. Peter himself claimed that the cup was the cup of the Last Supper, a cup which would later become known as the Holy Grail. The cup was used by early popes for centuries, before it was finally given to Lawrence (Lorenzo) to hide. At that point it "officially" disappears from history. Up to this point, it's all well recorded.

Shortly afterward, a guy named Proselius showed up on the doorstep of Lawrences parents home in Spain with a story and a treasure. Proselius held a simple agate cup which perfectly matched the description of the now-hidden Holy Chalice. When Lawrence realized that he was about to be arrested, he wrote a letter describing the cup, and gave it to Proselius, a Christian Roman soldier and a friend, and asked him to take it to Spain. After Pope Sixtus was executed, Saint Lawrence was ordered to turn over all the riches of the Church to the Emperor of Rome. He asked for three days to gather the treasures, which was granted. Instead of doing so, he gave the treasures away to the poor, and gave many of the more venerable items to friends for safekeeping. According to Ambrose, he was executed for defying the emperor. Shortly after that, Proselius turned up in Spain with a package for his parents. Inside was the simple agate cup, along with a letter explaining that this was the Holy Chalice and the cup that Christ drank from at the last supper. They took the cup and letter to a monastary, where it remained for the next thousand years. There's little documentation about it from this period, but apparently the monks who lived in the monastary during that period only existed to guard the chalice and the letter. After a thousand years, the cup changed hands a few times during some very well documented transfers between kings, before finally ending up in the Cathedral of Valencia, where it sits today.

People looking at the cup today see a beautiful golden chalice adorned with pearls, rubies, and other gems, topped with a small brown, almost dirty looking cup. What they often don't realize is that the gold is simply a base designed sometime in the middle ages to support a simple stone cup.

Personally, I think the hunt for the grail is nonsense. I believe it does exist, and it's sitting in a cathedral in Spain. The cup's design fits, it matches early descriptions of the Holy Chalice, and the story behind its transfer fits extremely well with known history.

Interestingly, unlike many so called "holy relics" that heal people in their waters, grant luck, or do a gazillion other supernatural things, there is no claims to supernatural powers surrounding the Chalice of Valencia. It's just a stone cup with a pretty base that Jesus happened to drink out of (if you believe the story, anyway).
36 posted on 06/20/2007 5:16:35 PM PDT by Arthalion
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: rabidralph
smite thine enemies

And blow them to bits.

37 posted on 06/20/2007 5:46:12 PM PDT by Bloody Sam Roberts (Don't question faith. Don't answer lies.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: sageb1
"What do they really want? DNA?"

Don't know. Who would they compare it to/with?

38 posted on 06/20/2007 6:58:15 PM PDT by blam (Secure the border then, Introduce an Illegal Immigrant Deportation Bill)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: blam

Who cares. The cup is just a cup. Jesus is the Son of God and our Saviour. Who cares about a cup? Maybe Satan the deceiver. Good Grief.


39 posted on 06/20/2007 7:03:55 PM PDT by therut
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: RightWhale
Yeah, Europe got all the good stuff. Mary Magdelene’s toe is in France. I saw it.
40 posted on 06/20/2007 7:08:17 PM PDT by Ditter
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 101-104 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson