Sangreal... Sang Real... San Greal... Royal Blood... Holy Grail.
It was all intertwined.
The Holy Grail is Mary Magdalene... the mother of the royal bloodline of Jesus Christ. Sophie felta new wave of disorientation as she stood in the silence of the ballroom and stared at RobertLangdon. The more pieces Langdon and Teabing laid on the table tonight, the more unpredictablethis puzzle became.
"As you can see, my dear," Teabing said, hobbling toward a bookshelf, "Leonardo is not the onlyone who has been trying to tell the world the truth about the Holy Grail. The royal bloodline ofJesus Christ has been chronicled in exhaustive detail by scores of historians." He ran a finger downa row of several dozen books.
Sophie tilted her head and scanned the list of titles:
THE TEMPLAR REVELATION:
Secret Guardians of the True Identity of ChristTHE WOMAN WITH THE ALABASTER JAR:
Mary Magdalene and the Holy GrailTHE GODDESS IN THE GOSPELSReclaiming the Sacred Feminine"Here is perhaps the best-known tome," Teabing said, pulling a tattered hardcover from the stackand handing it to her. The cover read:
HOLY BLOOD, HOLY GRAILThe Acclaimed International BestsellerSophie glanced up. "An international bestseller? I've never heard of it.""You were young. This caused quite a stir back in the nineteen eighties. To my taste, the authorsmade some dubious leaps of faith in their analysis, but their fundamental premise is sound, and totheir credit, they finally brought the idea of Christ's bloodline into the mainstream.""What was the Church's reaction to the book?""Outrage, of course. But that was to be expected. After all, this was a secret the Vatican had tried tobury in the fourth century. That's part of what the Crusades were about. Gathering and destroyinginformation. The threat Mary Magdalene posed to the men of the early Church was potentiallyruinous. Not only was she the woman to whom Jesus had assigned the task of founding the Church,but she also had physical proof that the Church's newly proclaimed deity had spawned a mortalbloodline. The Church, in order to defend itself against the Magdalene's power, perpetuated herimage as a whore and buried evidence of Christ's marriage to her, thereby defusing any potentialclaims that Christ had a surviving bloodline and was a mortal prophet."Sophie glanced at Langdon, who nodded. "Sophie, the historical evidence supporting this issubstantial.""I admit," Teabing said, "the assertions are dire, but you must understand the Church's powerfulmotivations to conduct such a cover-up. They could never have survived public knowledge of abloodline. A child of Jesus would undermine the critical notion of Christ's divinity and thereforethe Christian Church, which declared itself the sole vessel through which humanity could accessthe divine and gain entrance to the kingdom of heaven.""The five-petal rose," Sophie said, pointing suddenly to the spine of one of Teabing's books. Thesame exact design inlaid on the rosewood box.
Teabing glanced at Langdon and grinned. "She has a good eye." He turned back to Sophie. "That isthe Priory symbol for the Grail. Mary Magdalene. Because her name was forbidden by the Church,Mary Magdalene became secretly known by many pseudonyms—the Chalice, the Holy Grail, andthe Rose." He paused. "The Rose has ties to the five-pointed pentacle of Venus and the guidingCompass Rose. By the way, the word rose is identical in English, French, German, and many otherlanguages.""Rose," Langdon added, "is also an anagram of Eros, the Greek god of sexual love."Sophie gave him a surprised look as Teabing plowed on.
"The Rose has always been the premiere symbol of female sexuality. In primitive goddess cults,the five petals represented the five stations of female life—birth, menstruation, motherhood,menopause, and death. And in modern times, the flowering rose's ties to womanhood areconsidered more visual." He glanced at Robert. "Perhaps the symbologist could explain?"Robert hesitated. A moment too long.
"Oh, heavens!" Teabing huffed. "You Americans are such prudes." He looked back at Sophie.
"What Robert is fumbling with is the fact that the blossoming flower resembles the femalegenitalia, the sublime blossom from which all mankind enters the world. And if you've ever seenany paintings by Georgia O'Keeffe, you'll know exactly what I mean.""The point here," Langdon said, motioning back to the bookshelf, "is that all of these bookssubstantiate the same historical claim.""That Jesus was a father." Sophie was still uncertain.
"Yes," Teabing said. "And that Mary Magdalene was the womb that carried His royal lineage. ThePriory of Sion, to this day, still worships Mary Magdalene as the Goddess, the Holy Grail, theRose, and the Divine Mother."Sophie again flashed on the ritual in the basement.
"According to the Priory," Teabing continued, "Mary Magdalene was pregnant at the time of thecrucifixion. For the safety of Christ's unborn child, she had no choice but to flee the Holy Land.
With the help of Jesus' trusted uncle, Joseph of Arimathea, Mary Magdalene secretly traveled toFrance, then known as Gaul. There she found safe refuge in the Jewish community. It was here inFrance that she gave birth to a daughter. Her name was Sarah."Sophie glanced up. "They actually know the child's name?""Far more than that. Magdalene's and Sarah's lives were scrutinously chronicled by their Jewishprotectors. Remember that Magdalene's child belonged to the lineage of Jewish kings—David andSolomon. For this reason, the Jews in France considered Magdalene sacred royalty and revered heras the progenitor of the royal line of kings. Countless scholars of that era chronicled MaryMagdalene's days in France, including the birth of Sarah and the subsequent family tree."Sophie was startled. "There exists a family tree of Jesus Christ?""Indeed. And it is purportedly one of the cornerstones of the Sangreal documents. A completegenealogy of the early descendants of Christ.""But what good is a documented genealogy of Christ's bloodline?" Sophie asked. "It's not proof.
Historians could not possibly confirm its authenticity."Teabing chuckled. "No more so than they can confirm the authenticity of the Bible.""Meaning?""Meaning that history is always written by the winners. When two cultures clash, the loser isobliterated............