# The Holy Platter **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 18, 2019, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holy-platter/829770 "2019-02-18T16:41:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2019, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holy-platter/829770/1 "2019-02-18T16:41:55Z")
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? ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2019, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holy-platter/829770/2 "2019-02-18T16:46:14Z")
Would there have been a platter? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2019, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holy-platter/829770/3 "2019-02-18T16:47:05Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Would there have been a platter? Holy breadbasket? ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2019, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holy-platter/829770/4 "2019-02-18T17:06:05Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![TSBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/77aa72/32.png) [@TSBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TSBG)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2019, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holy-platter/829770/5 "2019-02-18T17:16:32Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2019, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holy-platter/829770/6 "2019-02-18T17:24:55Z")
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. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2019, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holy-platter/829770/7 "2019-02-18T17:36:39Z")
Actually, in the earliest version of the tale, it was a platter: > **[Holy Grail](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Grail)** > > The Holy Grail (French: Saint Graal, Breton: Graal Santel, Welsh: Greal Sanctaidd, Cornish: Gral) is a treasure that serves as an important motif in Arthurian literature. Various traditions describe the Holy Grail as a cup, dish, or stone with miraculous healing powers, sometimes providing eternal youth or sustenance in infinite abundance, often guarded in the custody of the Fisher King and located in the hidden Grail castle. By analogy, any elusive object or goal of great significance may be per... > [@](#): > > 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. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2019, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holy-platter/829770/8 "2019-02-18T17:52:09Z")
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? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2019, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holy-platter/829770/9 "2019-02-18T18:02:22Z")
> [@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. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2019, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holy-platter/829770/10 "2019-02-18T18:10:16Z")
> [@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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Lance)** > > The Holy Lance, also known as the Lance of Longinus (named after Saint Longinus), the Spear of Destiny, or the Holy Spear, is alleged to be the lance that pierced the side of Jesus as he hung on the cross during his crucifixion. As with other instruments of the Passion, the lance is only briefly mentioned in the Christian Bible, but later became the subject of extrabiblical traditions in the medieval church. Relics purported to be the lance began to appear as early as the 6th century, originall... ---
**Author:** ![Reindeer\_Flotilla](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reindeer_flotilla/32/3024_2.png) [@Reindeer\_Flotilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reindeer_Flotilla)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2019, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holy-platter/829770/11 "2019-02-18T21:13:58Z")
> [@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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Lance) It also was an important plot point in the 2005 movie ‘Constantine’, which is where I first heard of the “Spear of Destiny”. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2019, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holy-platter/829770/12 "2019-02-18T21:47:03Z")
> [@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. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2019, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holy-platter/829770/13 "2019-02-19T01:51:45Z")
> [@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. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2019, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holy-platter/829770/14 "2019-02-19T03:18:29Z")
[Brân](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br%C3%A2n_the_Blessed) already hosied the platter, Futurama-style. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2019, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holy-platter/829770/15 "2019-02-19T17:00:00Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2019, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holy-platter/829770/16 "2019-02-19T17:43:32Z")
> [@](#): > > it was plastic and disposable Then we can start looking for the grail in [these spots](https://response.restoration.noaa.gov/about/media/how-big-great-pacific-garbage-patch-science-vs-myth.html). ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2019, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holy-platter/829770/17 "2019-02-19T19:02:06Z")
> [@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](https://youtu.be/b5VsYT5vbWE?t=2m20s), though it’s not the one you mention. ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2019, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holy-platter/829770/18 "2019-02-19T23:42:28Z")
When he divided the loaves and fishes he apparently touched at least one of them, from which we get the expression “Holy Mackerel.” ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2019, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holy-platter/829770/19 "2019-02-20T00:26:31Z")
Was part of Christ’s body does the holy guacamole represent? Or is that just for dipping? ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2019, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holy-platter/829770/20 "2019-02-20T00:47:58Z")
At the time/place the grail story was created, [did people even eat bread from plates](http://medievalcookery.com/notes/trenchers.html)? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holy-platter/829770.md?page=2)