The Holy Platter

[Czarcasm]

There are many legends about the cup Jesus drank from during The Last Supper(aka the Holy Grail), but are they any about the platter the bread sat on? While the wine in the cup represented his blood, the bread on the plate represented his body, so are there any accompanying stories about the Holy bread platter?

[Thudlow_Boink]

Would there have been a platter?

[Czarcasm]

@Thudlow_Boink

Would there have been a platter?

Holy breadbasket?

[Dewey_Finn]

Maybe this is obvious, but the cup might be venerated particularly because he touched it with his lips. He might never have even touched the platter or breadbasket.

[TSBG]

Holy napkin?

I don’t recall the platter or what have you ever being mentioned in my Catholic youth. It is interesting, though, in Catholicism the wine=blood and bread=flesh. The grail (blood holder) is/was a big deal, you’d sort of expect veneration of the other vessel. But in thinking about the other “relics” of Jesus (shroud, bits of the cross, crown of thorns, nails) all of those “actually” touched him, whereas as Dewey points out, he might never have touched the bread-serving device.

[kenobi_65]

Comedian Don Novello, as his Father Guido Sarducci character, had a routine in which he claimed to have the actual receipt from the Last Brunch.

[mbh]

Actually, in the earliest version of the tale, it was a platter:

Holy Grail

The Grail was considered a bowl or dish when first described by Chrétien de Troyes. There, it is a processional salver, a tray, used to serve at a feast.[15] Hélinand of Froidmont described a grail as a “wide and deep saucer” (scutella lata et aliquantulum profunda); other authors had their own ideas. Robert de Boron portrayed it as the vessel of the Last Supper.

The Grail is first featured in Perceval, le Conte du Graal (The Story of the Grail) by Chrétien de Troyes,[17] who claims he was working from a source book given to him by his patron, Count Philip of Flanders.[18] In this incomplete poem, dated sometime between 1180 and 1191, the object has not yet acquired the implications of holiness it would have in later works. While dining in the magical abode of the Fisher King, Perceval witnesses a wondrous procession in which youths carry magnificent objects from one chamber to another, passing before him at each course of the meal. First comes a young man carrying a bleeding lance, then two boys carrying candelabras. Finally, a beautiful young girl emerges bearing an elaborately decorated graal, or “grail”.[19]

Chrétien refers to this object not as “The Grail” but as “a grail” (un graal), showing the word was used, in its earliest literary context, as a common noun. For Chrétien a grail was a wide, somewhat deep dish or bowl, interesting because it contained not a pike, salmon, or lamprey, as the audience may have expected for such a container, but a single Mass wafer which provided sustenance for the Fisher King’s crippled father. [edited for brevity–mbh]The story of the Wounded King’s mystical fasting is not unique; several saints were said to have lived without food besides communion, for instance Saint Catherine of Genoa. This may imply that Chrétien intended the Mass wafer to be the significant part of the ritual, and the Grail to be a mere prop.[20]

The “cup of Christ” motif came later:

Though Chrétien’s account is the earliest and most influential of all Grail texts, it was in the work of Robert de Boron that the Grail truly became the “Holy Grail” and assumed the form most familiar to modern readers in its Christian context.[21] In his verse romance Joseph d’Arimathie, composed between 1191 and 1202, Robert tells the story of Joseph of Arimathea acquiring the chalice of the Last Supper to collect Christ’s blood upon his removal from the cross. Joseph is thrown in prison, where Christ visits him and explains the mysteries of the blessed cup. Upon his release Joseph gathers his in-laws and other followers and travels to the west, and founds a dynasty of Grail keepers that eventually includes Perceval.

[Dewey_Finn]

That the cup supposedly collected his blood as it dripped from his body might also explain why it’s venerated above the platter that held the bread. Wasn’t there also something about the spear used to stab him also being considered sacred or possessing supernatural powers?

[Nava]

@Czarcasm

There are many legends about the cup Jesus drank from during The Last Supper(aka the Holy Grail), but are they any about the platter the bread sat on? While the wine in the cup represented his blood, the bread on the plate represented his body, so are there any accompanying stories about the Holy bread platter?

The cup in Valencia which is said to be the Holy Grail is actually a set of a bowl and its small platter. If you look for images you’ll see a heavily decorated chalice: the bling is from a king who apparently didn’t think something could be important if it wasn’t blingy; the Cup is the drinking part of the chalice and the Plate is its foot. We don’t have any other legends about it: no supposed miraculous powers, no fancy lights, no striking down the unworthy or healing the dead; it’s just said to be a cup with historical importance.
Dewey Finn, the spear is usually called the spear of Longinos. More than legends about it, there is one legend which for some reason caught the eye of a bunch of writers who have multiplied it far before the reach it had just a few decades ago.

[mbh]

@Dewey_Finn

Wasn’t there also something about the spear used to stab him also being considered sacred or possessing supernatural powers?

That’s the “Holy Lance”, or “Spear of Destiny”. It has been a subject of folktales longer than the Grail has.

Holy Lance

[Reindeer_Flotilla]

@mbh

That’s the “Holy Lance”, or “Spear of Destiny”. It has been a subject of folktales longer than the Grail has.
Holy Lance - Wikipedia

It also was an important plot point in the 2005 movie ‘Constantine’, which is where I first heard of the “Spear of Destiny”.

[Riemann]

@kenobi_65

Comedian Don Novello, as his Father Guido Sarducci character, had a routine in which he claimed to have the actual receipt from the Last Brunch.

I vaguely remember a sketch or comedy routine where the origin of Judas’ resentment is because Judas only had a salad, whereas Jesus was eating and boozing it up all night, but then Jesus wanted to just divide the bill equally.

[UDS]

@Dewey_Finn

Maybe this is obvious, but the cup might be venerated particularly because he touched it with his lips. He might never have even touched the platter or breadbasket.

There’s no scriptural record that he touched the cup with his lips; according to the gospels, and to Paul, he took the cup, blessed it and gave it to the others.

And this makes sense; if you’re giving people drinks, you don’t offer it to them in the cup or glass that you have just used yourself.

[susan]

Brân already hosied the platter, Futurama-style.

[md2000]

Maybe they used paper plates, if it was take-out. Which would explain why nobody has really found the Holy Grail, it was plastic and disposable.

[susan]

it was plastic and disposable

Then we can start looking for the grail in these spots.

[GreenWyvern]

@Riemann

I vaguely remember a sketch or comedy routine where the origin of Judas’ resentment is because Judas only had a salad, whereas Jesus was eating and boozing it up all night, but then Jesus wanted to just divide the bill equally.

That reminds me of Mel Brooks’ version of the Last Supper, though it’s not the one you mention.

[TreacherousCretin]

When he divided the loaves and fishes he apparently touched at least one of them, from which we get the expression “Holy Mackerel.”

[Riemann]

Was part of Christ’s body does the holy guacamole represent? Or is that just for dipping?

[Darren_Garrison]

At the time/place the grail story was created, did people even eat bread from plates?