Note
for Holy Grail Enthusiasts
(or Sceptics)
Stephen Adam's text
actually refers to Mary of Bethany (sister of Martha and Lazarus),
however trying to cross-reference the various Marys in the gospel
story has led to several of them, including Mary of Bethany, being
traditionally identified as one and the same person - Mary
Magdalene.
2nd Century
Christian leaders Clement of Alexandria and Justin Martyr, are
on record as denying that Christ was married which
shows that, by the 2nd Century, there was already a
tradition that Jesus was married. The grounds of their denial
were that (1)
the Bible is silent about that (which doesn't follow, because it is
silent about St. Paul and St. Peter’s wives too. Peter had
a mother-in-law so he must have been married, and if Paul was a
Pharisee as he claimed, he also must have been married because that
was mandatory for Pharisees), and (2) it created a theological
problem (not to mention a competing ecclesiastical succession).
Mary is depicted
ambiguously, with her girdle below her abdomen rather than round her
waist. Could she be pregnant? Jewish first century marriages could
be celebrated in several stages - betrothal, marriage and the first
safe pregnancy, so a marriage ceremony could not be ruled out
as Stephen Adam’s subject, even if pregnancy is just a trick of
the light.
The diagonal cross
(St.
Andrew’s??) is a known Holy Grail symbol. In outline like a
chalice, it is a composite of two shapes:
denoting the male principle (reminiscent of the Kilmore tower,
which has itself been transported into the window scene surmounting
the columns and centre of the archway), and
the
female. According to Grail historians, this fertility association
caused the early church fathers to abandon the diagonal cross in
favour of the now familiar asymmetrical vertical form …,
which is conspicuous by its absence from the Kilmore window.
Instead, the glass segments low down on each of the archway columns
can be seen to depart from their normal irregular pattern and
resolve into a series of repeated grail shapes
.
Perceiving her as a threat to their male dominance, the church
fathers ensured that Mary Magdalene was firmly classed as a harlot,
an injustice which was only righted in Roman Catholicism in 1969. (I
don’t know if Protestantism has ever got round to righting it).
Meanwhile, she came to represent throughout Europe the ancient
nature and fertility principles, which were overlain and suppressed
particularly by Roman Christianity, although perhaps not entirely by
the Celtic Columban form. “Dervaig”, for instance is Gaelic for
“little grove”, recalling the symbolic pre-Christian “sacred
groves” common in Pagan, Druidic, Biblical and other traditions.
On the wall of 13th Century Celtic Kilvickeon Chapel, near Bunessan
is a carved "sheela-na-gig", an ancient fertility symbol.
These lend credibility to
the idea that Columban Christianity could have had a much more
accepting view of Mary Magdalene than its Roman cousin, which
Stephen Adam has recognised in his window. Finally, the sun is
depicted rising over the central tower (or could it be a rose??),
reminding the observer that the remains of a stone circle are
nearby.
Kilmore has everything!
