Here's some interesting lore

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Posted by Inbanana from 207.138.224.142 on March 16, 2001 at 14:31:05:

In Reply to: What was the Chalice made of in Last Crusade? posted by Pat on March 16, 2001 at 09:42:27:

Below is from entry "Chalice", from the online Catholic encyclopedia. Interesting source for grail lore...
(and see link below)
"Curiously enough, while Antoninus of Piacenza refers to it as made of onyx, Adamnan, less than a century later, describes it as a "silver cup holding the measure of a Gallic
sextarius and with two opposite handles" (see Geyer, Itinera, Hierosolimitana,
pp. 154, 173, 234, 305). At a much later period two other vessels have been
venerated as the chalice of the Last Supper. One, the sacro catino of Genoa, is
rather a dish than a cup and is made of green glass, though long supposed to be
an emerald, fourteen and a half inches in diameter and of priceless value. The
other, at Valencia in Spain, is a cup of agate. The fact is that the whole tradition
is untrustworthy and of late date. It will be referred to further under the article
GRAIL, and meanwhile we may be content to quote the words of St. Chrysostom
(Hom. l in Matt.): in Matt.): "The table was not of silver, the chalice was not of
gold in which Christ gave His blood to His disciples to drink, and yet everything
there was precious and truly fit to inspire awe." So far as it is possible to collect
any scraps of information regarding the chalices in use among early Christians,
the evidence seems to favour the prevalence of glass, though cups of the
precious and of baser metals, of ivory, wood, and even clay were also in use.
(See Hefele, Beiträge, II, 323-5.) A passage of St. Irenæus (Hær., I, c. xiii)
describing a pretended miracle wrought by Mark the Gnostic who poured white
wine into his chalice and then after prayer showed the contents to be red, almost
necessarily supposes a vessel of glass, and the glass patens (patenas vitreas)
mentioned in the "Liber Pontificalis" under Zephyrinus (202-19) as well as certain
passages in Tertullian and St. Jerome, entirely favour the same conclusion. But
the tendency to use by preference the precious metals developed early. St.
Augustine speaks of two golden and six silver chalices dug up at Cirta in Africa,
(Contra Crescon., III, c. xxix), and St. Chrysostom of a golden chalice set with
gems (Hom. 1 in Matt.)."




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