The time-honoured quest for the Holy Grail has been referred to by some as the 'ultimate quest', but in 1547 the Church condemned Grail lore as a heresy even though tradition perceives the Grail as a thoroughly Christian relic. A heresy is described as 'an opinion which is contrary to the orthodox dogma of the Christian bishops'. The word 'heresy' is nothing more than a derogatory label - a tag used by a fearful establishment that has long sought to maintain control of society through fear of the unknown. It can therefore define those aspects of philosophy and research which quest into the realms of the unknown and which, from time to time, provide answers and solutions that are quite contrary to authorized doctrine. As the years progress, however, it is evident that scientific and medical discovery must overturn much of the medieval religious dogma that has persisted to modern times. And, in this regard, some previously cited heresies are already being taken on board by a Church that has little option to do otherwise. So, let us begin with the most obvious of all questions: What is the Holy Grail? The word 'Gra-al' originates from ancient Mesopotamia, where it was recorded as being the 'nectar of supreme excellence'. It was directly related to the bloodline of kings who descended from the gods - those monarchs who were anointed with the fat of the sacred Mûs-hûs: a type of monitor-crocodile in the Euphrates Valley. By virtue of this anointing, the kings were also called Mûs-hûs (or, in Egypt, Messeh) - a term which in the later Hebrew tongue became Messiah, meaning Anointed One. By medieval times in Europe, this line of kingly descent was defined by the French word Sangréal, meaning Blood Royal. This was the Blood Royal of Judah - the line of King David which progressed to the family of Jesus. By the Middle Ages, the definition Sangréal became San Graal. When written more fully it was Saint Graal - the word 'saint', of course, relating to 'holy'. Then, by a natural linguistic process, came the more romantically familiar English term, Holy Grail. In symbolic terms the Grail is often portrayed as a chalice that contains the blood of Jesus. Alternatively it is portrayed as a vine of grapes. The product of grapes is wine, and it is the chalice and the wine of Grail tradition that sit at the very heart of the Eucharist (the Holy Communion). In this sacrament, the sacred chalice contains the wine that represents the perpetual blood of Jesus. It is quite apparent that, although maintaining the ancient Communion custom, the Christian Church has conveniently ignored and elected not to teach the true meaning and origin of the custom. Few people even think to enquire about the ultimate symbolism of the chalice and wine sacrament, believing that it comes simply from some Gospel entries relating to the Last Supper. But what is the significance of the perpetual blood of Jesus? How is the blood of Jesus (or of anyone else for that matter) perpetuated? It is perpetuated through family and lineage. So why was it that the Church authorities elected to ignore the bloodline significance of the Grail sacrament?

The fact is that every Government and every Church teaches the form of history or dogma most conducive to its own vested interest. In this regard we are all conditioned to receiving a very selective form of teaching. We are taught what we are supposed to know, and we are told what we're supposed to believe. But, for the most part, we learn both political and religious history by way of national or clerical propaganda. This often becomes absolute dogma - teachings which may not be challenged for fear of reprisals. With regard to the Church's attitude towards the chalice and the wine, it is apparent that the original symbolism had to be reinterpreted by the bishops because it denoted that Jesus had offspring. The 2nd-century chronicler Julius Africanus of Edessa recorded that, during the Jewish Revolt from AD 66, the Roman governor of Jerusalem instructed the troops that all Messianic records should be burned so as to prevent future access to the details of Jesus' family genealogy. He added, however, that "A few careful people had private records ... and took pride in preserving the memory of their aristocratic origin". Africanus described these royal inheritors as the Desposyni - a hallowed style meaning Heirs of the Lord. Subsequently, the Palestinian historian, Hegesippus, reported that in AD 81 (during the reign of the Roman Emperor Domitian) the execution of these family inheritors was ordered by Imperial decree. It was then later confirmed by Eusebius, the 4th-century Bishop of Caesarea, that they were hunted down and put to the sword - first by command of the Empire and then by the newly introduced Roman Church. The writers were unanimous, however, in stating that although many of the Desposyni were seized, others became leaders of a Nazarene church movement that opposed the Church of Rome, with leaders who became the heads of their sects by way of a "strict dynastic progression". Hence, the required destruction of records was far from complete, and relevant documents were retained by Jesus' heirs, who brought the Messianic heritage from the Holy Land to the West. Not only were sacraments and customary ritual reinterpreted, but the Gospels themselves were corrupted to comply with the newly designated 'male-only' establishment of the emergent hybrid Church. We are all familiar with the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John - but what about the other Gospels: those of Philip, of Thomas, of Mary and of Mary Magdalene? What of all the numerous Gospels, Acts and Epistles that were not approved by the Church councils when the New Testament was compiled? Why were they excluded when the choices were made? There were actually two main criteria for selection, and these (from an earlier short-list prepared by Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria) were determined at the Council of Carthage in the year AD 397. The first criterion was that the New Testament Gospels must be written in the names of Jesus' own apostles. Matthew was, of course, an apostle, as was John - but Mark was not an apostle of Jesus as far as we know, neither was Luke; they were both colleagues of the later St. Paul. Thomas and Philip, on the other hand, were among the original twelve, and yet the Gospels in their names were excluded. Not only that but, along with various other texts, they was sentenced to be destroyed. And so, throughout the Mediterranean world, numerous unapproved books were buried and hidden in the 5th century. Although many of these books were not rediscovered until the 20th century, they were used openly by the early Christians. Certain of them, including the Gospels mentioned, along with the Gospel of Truth, the Gospel of the Egyptians and others, were actually mentioned in the 2nd-century writings of early churchmen such as Clement of Alexandria, Irenaeus of Lyon and Origen of Alexandria. So, why were these and other apostolic Gospels not selected? Because there was a second, far more important criterion to consider - the criterion by which, in truth, the Gospel selection was really made. It was, in fact, a wholly sexist regulation which precluded anything that upheld the status of women in Church or community society. Indeed, the Church's own Apostolic Constitutions were formulated on this basis. They state: "We do not permit our women to teach in the Church, only to pray and to hear those who teach. Our master, when he sent us the twelve, did nowhere send out a woman - for the head of the woman is the man, and it is not reasonable that the body should govern the head". This was an outrageous statement with no apparent foundation, but it was for this very reason that dozens of Gospels were not selected, because they made it quite clear that there were many active women in the ministry of Jesus - women such as Mary Magdalene, Martha, Helena-Salome, Mary-Jacob Cleopas and Joanna. These were not only ministering disciples, but priestesses in their own right, running exemplary schools of worship in the Nazarene tradition.

The Church was so frightened of women that it implemented a rule of celibacy for its priests - a rule that became a law in 1138; a rule that persists today. But this rule has never been quite what it appears on the surface, for it was never sexual activity as such that bothered the Church. The more specific problem was priestly intimacy with women. Why? Because women become mothers, and the very nature of motherhood is a perpetuation of bloodlines. It was this that caused such concern - a taboo subject which, at all costs, had to be separated from the necessary image of Jesus. We have all learned to go along with what we are taught about the Gospels in schoolrooms and churches. But is the teaching correctly related? Does it always conform with the written scriptures? It is actually quite surprising how much we learn from pulpits or picture-books without checking the biblical text. The Nativity story itself provides a good example. It is widely accepted that Jesus was born in a stable - but the Gospels do not say that. In fact, there is no 'stable' mentioned in any authorised Gospel. The Nativity is not mentioned at all in Mark or John, and Matthew makes it quite plain that Jesus was born in a house. So where did the 'stable' idea come from? It came from a misinterpretation of the Gospel of Luke, which relates that Jesus was 'laid in a manger' - and a manger was nothing more than an animal feeding-box. In practice, it was perfectly common for mangers to be used as emergency cradles and they were often brought indoors for that very purpose. Why, then, has it been presumed that this particular manger was in a stable? Because the English translations of Luke tell us that there was 'no room in the inn'. But the old manuscript of Luke did not say that. In fact, there were no inns in the region. The original Greek text of Luke does not relate that there was 'no room in the inn'. By the best translation it actually states that there was 'no place in the room' (that is: 'no topos in the kataluma'). As previously mentioned, Matthew states that Jesus was born in a house and, when correctly translated, Luke reveals that Jesus was laid in a manger (a feeding-box) because there was no cradle provided in the room. To facilitate the best possible trust in the Gospels, we must go back to the original Greek manuscripts with their often used Hebrew and Aramaic words and phrases. In this respect, we discover that a good deal of relevant content has been misrepresented, misunderstood, mistranslated, or simply just lost in the telling. Sometimes this has happened because original words have no direct counterpart in other languages.

Christians are taught that Jesus' father Joseph was a carpenter, as explained in the English-language Gospels. But it did not say that in the original Gospels. By the best translation, it actually said that Joseph was a "master craftsman" (rendered in Greek as 'ho tekton' from the Semitic term 'naggar'). The word 'carpenter' was simply a translator's concept of a craftsman - but the text actually denoted that Joseph was a masterly, learned and scholarly man. Another example is the concept of the Virgin Birth. English-language Gospels tell us that Jesus' mother Mary was a 'virgin'. It was the same in an early Latin text which referred to her as being a 'virgo', meaning nothing more than a young woman. To have meant the same thing as virgin does today, the Latin would have been 'virgo intacta' - that is to say, a young woman intact. Looking back beyond the Latin to the older documents, we discover that the word translated to 'virgo' (a young woman) was the Semitic word 'almah' which meant the very same - a young woman. It had no sexual connotation whatever. Had Mary actually been physically virgo intacta, the Semitic word used would have been 'bethulah', not 'almah'. Apart from such anomalies, the canonical Gospels suffer from numerous purposeful amendments. In about AD 195, Bishop Clement of Alexandria made the first known amendment to the Gospel texts. He deleted a substantial section from the Gospel of Mark and justified his action in a letter, stating: "For even if they should say something true, one who loves the truth should not agree with them - for not all true things are to be said to all men". Even at that stage, there was already a discrepancy between what the Gospel writers had written and what the early bishops wanted to teach! But what exactly was in this removed section of Mark? It was the item which dealt with the raising of Lazarus - in the course of which the account made it perfectly clear that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were man and wife.

Many scholars have suggested that the wedding at Cana was the marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene - but this was not the wedding ceremony as such, being simply the pre-marital betrothal feast. The marriage is defined by the quite separate anointings of Jesus by Mary at Bethany. Chronologically, these anointings (as given in the Gospels) were two-and-a-half years apart. Readers of the 1st century would have been fully conversant with the two-part ritual of the sacred marriage of a dynastic heir. Jesus, as we know, was a Messiah, which means quite simply an Anointed One. In fact, all anointed senior priests and Davidic kings were Messiahs; Jesus was not unique in this regard. Although not an ordained priest, he gained his right to Messiah status by way of descent from King David and the kingly line, but he did not achieve that status until he was ritually anointed by Mary Magdalene in her capacity as a bridal high priestess. In the Old Testament's Song of Solomon we learn of the bridal anointing of the king. It is detailed that the oil used in Judah was the fragrant ointment of spikenard (an expensive root oil from the Himalayas), and it is explained that this ritual was performed while the kingly husband sat at the table. In the New Testament, the anointing of Jesus by Mary Magdalene was indeed performed while he sat at the table, and specifically with the bridal ointment of spikenard. Afterwards, Mary wiped Jesus' feet with her hair and, on the first occasion of the two-part ceremony, she wept. All of these things signify the marital anointing of a dynastic heir. Messianic marriages were always conducted in two stages. The first (the anointing in Luke) was the legal commitment to wedlock, while the second (the later anointing in Matthew, Mark and John) was the cementing of the contract. In Jesus and Mary's case the second anointing was of particular significance for, as explained by Flavius Josephus in the 1st-century Antiquities of the Jews, the second part of the marriage ceremony was never conducted until the wife was three months pregnant. Dynastic heirs such as Jesus were expressly required to perpetuate their lines. Marriage was essential, but community law protected the dynasts against marriage to women who proved barren or kept miscarrying. This protection was provided by the three-month pregnancy rule. Miscarriages would not often happen after that term, subsequent to which it was considered safe enough to complete the marriage contract. After the second Bethany anointing, the Gospels relate that Jesus said: "Wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her". But did the Church authorities honour Mary Magdalene and speak of this act as a memorial? No they did not; they completely ignored Jesus' own directive and denounced Mary as a whore. To the Nazarenes, however, Mary Magdalene was always regarded as a saint. She is still revered as such by many today, with numerous churches dedicated to her in the Renaissance era. But the interesting fact of this sainthood is that Mary is the recognized patron saint of wine-growers - the ultimate Grail guardian of the Vine. Aspects of the Gospels can actually be followed outside the Bible. Even the crucifixion sentence of Jesus is mentioned in the Annals of Imperial Rome. We can now determine from chronological survey that the Crucifixion took place at the March Passover of AD 33, while the Bethany second marriage anointing was in the week prior to that. We also know that, at that stage, Mary Magdalene was three months pregnant - which means she should have given birth in September of AD 33.

From the moment of a dynastic birth, the parents were physically separated - for six years if the child was a boy and for three years if the child was a girl. Their marriage would only be recommenced at designated 'times of restitution'. Meanwhile, the mother and child would enter the equivalent of a convent and the father would enter the kingdom of heaven. This kingdom was the Essene high monastery at Mird, by the Dead Sea, and the ceremony of entry was conducted by the angelic priests under the supervision of the appointed leader of the pilgrims. In the Old Testament