TEMPLE OF THE GRAIL - a Novel

by Adriana Koulias

  Moments later, we emerged through the door and I prayed silently: ‘Te ergo quaesimus, tuis famulis subveni: quos pretioso sanguine redemisti. Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo. Amen.’

  24

  Capitulum

  Almost immediately we were in a chapel, walking down a long central nave. It was only as we approached what we thought must be the choir and altar that we realised that in their place where the ambulatories customarily led to the arms of the two transepts, there was an elliptical chamber that could be reached only through four portals.

  Timidly we entered through the portal marked ‘Occidens’, emerging within what we assumed must be the sanctum sanctorum of the holiest of holies.

  A round table top made from smooth black rock occupied the centre of the room. Upon it lay a boy surrounded by twelve men dressed in grey or perhaps white, for it was very dark. The twelve men circled his form, not noticing our presence as we approached, for their eyes were closed in deep meditation.

  The table supported fourteen columns cut from the same rock, seven on either side. Carved on the capitals I could barely make out intricate interwoven patterns, perhaps symbolic messages representing the seven planetary spheres: sun, moon, Mars, Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, that we had seen elsewhere in the catacombs. On the walls behind the table, so that they appeared between the planetary columns, there were seven apocalyptic seals. These I could see clearly because they were lit by torches, and I wondered if the curious odour I could smell all around me was the strange poisonous gas, but I realised that it was, rather, an unusually sweet incense that seemed to be burning from an altar nearby.

  Suddenly a light bloomed from within the circle of men, tongues, serpentine curls of cold flame danced at the centre, and through the form that became golden, I could see the boy transformed, in total splendour, washed in the clear brilliant light that illuminated the room. The brothers appeared to lose their original form, melting into this shining gold that was the boy, their mouths working in tender whispers. Approaching I saw that the boy was I, or he was me, or very like me, and I was overwhelmed, dropping to my knees, tears streaming unheeded down my cheeks.

  It was as I knelt this way, the world reeling around me like a turbulent ether, that I had a sudden powerful desire to be back in the warmth of the cloisters, to be back in the world of order, number, measure. But the ground seemed to fall away from me . . . what could I fasten onto? I felt as if I were hanging by the neck, suffocating with the world barely a hand’s breadth away with no way of reaching it. Words reverberated like living things in the chapel. They surrounded me like candles burning without wicks. I saw the sun descend through the boy’s head like a burning ball, and he became one with it. He became the sun and his body became the planets. Microcosm became macrocosm and a blackness engulfed me like a veil drawn over my senses. A soothing gentle darkness, poetic and beautiful, like night encroaching upon day, like the coolness of water over a flame. Then the abyss yawned and I fell into it . . .

  25

  Capitulum

  The day has dawned a brilliant blue, and I sit once again upon my stool, witnessing the birth of the daystar, the intercourse of all plains; the above and the below, the intus et foris scriptus. And as I grasp my quill in my gnarled hands, and prepare to set down these last words, I am aware that I am a mere corpus imperfectum whose faculties can scarcely contemplate, let alone narrate the unknowable, indefinable glory of God.

  Last night I had a dream. I dreamt that I was back at the abbey, listening with impudence to my master’s discourses. In this dream I experienced the briefest momentary sun on my skin and the snow on my lips and the wind on my face. I stretched out my youthful arms and embraced the panorama of nature. I shouted out at the ancient and venerable mountains and heard their reply. I was young and foolish, frightened, and filled with wonder. When I awoke I was overtaken by a most profound sorrow and a terrible loneliness. For I realized I was back in the exile of my existence, long separated from my dear master, able to see but never touch the world beyond these stone walls. It was then that I asked God to take away my spirit. To take from my feverish lips this cup, this wisdom, whose contents have for so long held my mortal carcass from the abyss of death! But Alas, he did not hear me! And as it is in all such cases, this morning I am glad, for I can begin the sanctioned journey to the end.

  I must warn those of you who have followed me thus far that, in the coming pages, my words may begin to sound like so many demented ravings from the pen of an old and tired monk. A monk, who has lived too long in exile, surrounded by crumbling walls and trivialities. But truth obliges me to tell even of the most fantastic things, for truth is indivisible.

  I pray then, for strength to continue this, my strange and awesome path, to narrate to you, dear unknown reader, the complexity of that brief instant where the world is hushed and still and the secrets of the ancients are made manifest to its errant, but faithful servants – an instant of the purest freedom.

  And if you are unable to see the serene light that bathes the soul with understanding I admonish that you proceed no further, for we are about to broach sacred and holy things.

  Where to begin? Saint Michael protect me.

  TEMPLE

  OF

  HIGHER WISDOM

  ‘To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.’

  Revelation ii 17

  26

  Capitulum

  Out of the darkness I saw the boy again, only now he stood unnaturally tall, one hand extended in my direction. His body, translucent, almost vitreous, and his cheeks flushed with love.

  ‘Come,’ he said, and though I did not move we seemed to draw nearer, and we became, in a strange way, united, like two spirits within one soul. I became him and he became me. Terrified, I was hardly able to restrain myself from crying out.

  ‘What strange thing is this?’ I asked, but I was not heard. Dominus illuminatio mea, et salus mea quem timebo? I remember having heard these words before . . . Was it Brother Daniel who, in his confused state, had said them that afternoon in the north transept? That the Lord is the source of my light, and my safety, so whom shall I fear? In a blackness that has no shadows, but is indeed the darkness of the soul, I became afraid . . . I was now a being whose past was deserting him, and whose future was not yet written.

  Naked as the day I was born, standing in the midst of nothingness, my soul transported beyond the world that I had heretofore known, I met the guardian.

  Assaulting my numbness, the most terrible spectral being, hideous beyond description, stood barring my way, guarding the first portal that was not physical, but spiritual. When he spoke I shuddered, wanting to look away, and yet I remained transfixed.

  ‘Behold! You are me,’ he said with authority, ‘and I am that which you have made! I am the angel of death, but I represent a higher life that has no end. Enter my threshold and you will be released. Enter my threshold and you will finally see!’

  Then the veil was drawn and I, too, in Arcadia experienced everything! It was as though my being were an eye, and an ear, for it was through majestic sounds resounding in the vastness of space, through colours whose essence pulsated and breathed light and air and water and fire, that I perceived. Through intuitions springing up from the fountain-head of inspiration I saw . . . and there was goodness and wisdom personified in every creature, in every being. With total clarity, and transparency, I observed the sun, not as a mere reflection, but as light itself, shining from within my own being that was indeed nothing, or perhaps something that I did not as yet recognise. This light shone into the surrounds, spread open like the pages of a great book. ‘Have you sufficient oil in thine own lamp?’ Could I illuminate the darkness with my own spirit light?

  I felt a bliss, which none can know whose spirit has not escaped the mortal shackles of this physical nature and
I no longer feared death whose face now seemed to be joyful and beauteous beyond description. I rather welcomed it, feeling myself die of tender piety. When I finally opened my being, like the petals of a rose opens to the first limpid rays, I beheld, with great reverence, the psalms whose garments were like that of a vital thought, spinning out wondrous imaginations. From within their incandescence the martyrs appeared as offspring of these holy words, their many faces upturned toward the One, whose superhuman form of Christ invaded the universe, His being resounding in sound throughout space like a mighty trumpet!

  I then felt myself arrayed like a lyre, an instrument for His music, each note a miracle of harmony and consonance. Upon me He played the seven tones of the stars, through the twelve tones of my own being!

  Ex Deo nascimur

  In Christo morimur

  Per Spiritus Sanctum reviviscimus

  Out of God we are born

  We die in Christ

  Through the Holy Spirit we are reborn.

  A cup now descended from above, and from it emanated the most sublime and indescribable radiance.

  ‘This is the Holy Grail that exists even now in spirit worlds as a gift to humanity that he, who is purified, may drink of the blood of the Christ and eat of the body, so that it may come to be one with him in spirit. Let he who hath been chosen come forth, and drink of the blood, for he drinketh of the knowledge of Christ and the knowledge of Christ is the knowledge of God and the Holy Spirit.

  At that moment the boy tore away his spirit from mine like a breath that escapes one’s lungs. His being went forth and knelt at the foot of the Christ who handed him the Grail, from which he drank.

  The voice said again:

  ‘Let thy temple be such that it may be a receptacle, purify thy body so that it may hold within it the spirit of the Christ, that is the blood of his love, and resideth in the Grail. Make it such that all men know this and feel this in their hearts and souls and spirits. Be ye a knight of the Golden Stone.’

  After the youth had drunk from the cup, he turned his gaze to me and said these words:

  ‘Let the Fisher-King come forward, so that he may know the grave and serious task before him, as guardian of the Grail! Let him who hath been chosen see the wedding of man and God!’

  I was given the golden chalice whose beauty bears no description, whose virtue has no equal, from whose womb springs the living water, the myrrh, the hill of frankincense, the bed, the litter, the crown, the palm and apple tree, the flower of Sharon, the sapphire, the turquoise, the wall, tower and rampart. From it springs all joy, all sorrow, all love, all chastity, all virtues combined in one single unutterable, ineffable, unmentionable, impossible word. The fruits of the garden, the honeycomb and the milk of the valley. The marriage of fire and water, of good that becomes saintly through having known evil. Of past, of present, of future, in which all are but one instant, within one singular moment. The sighing of planets as they whisper their secrets to the stars whose own wisdom could never be exceeded. All this I felt as I held the grail, the holy of holies, but I did not drink from it. I was not yet purified.

  I fell upon my face, thanked God and praised His holy name, but I was beckoned to rise by the boy who was no longer a boy, but a man, and yet not a man, but an angel, and yet not an angel.

  He said, ‘Look! O, brother knight!’

  . . . and I saw my life spread about me, like an immense spectacle of pictures. Before my eyes a world of visions appeared to pass at a considerable speed, so that I had to concentrate all my unworthy faculties, not to miss anything. It all appeared to me in a kind of backward motion. Firstly, my master, Eisik, the monastery, and then further and further, my father and mother, my earliest memories, and then I returned to the uterus sanctus; the dark womb, a germ, a speck, a root, a seed, the bud and the source of all . . . Ecce homo! I became the moon and all the planets, and the stars were my companions. I was at once inward, and outward. Diverse and singular. Had I not experienced this before?

  Sound echoed now around me and I was caught in that which first moves and rules all nature in all natural things as the twelve Zodiacal gates opened up before, but I was barred from the higher worlds by the greater guardian who keeps the second portal.

  ‘Behold!’ He said, ‘I stand before the portal of the higher regions! Follow the white path! Follow thine destiny! With selfless devotion and sacrifice you must now break the seven seals.’

  I broke the first seal and the word, like a sword came from my mouth like a creative fire.

  I broke the second seal and I was the bull, the eagle, the lion and the lamb!

  I broke the third seal and the trumpets sounded, and I was the thunder of the horses and the calls of their riders.

  I broke the fourth seal and the blue blood mingled with the red in my veins, and I was crowned with the sun.

  I broke the fifth seal, and I was the child born from out of the loins of a woman who had conquered the Moon, but I was about to be seized by the seven-headed dragon when I broke the sixth seal.

  I was saved by Michael, who held the key to the vanquishing of evil and was able to fetter the dragon and throw him into the abyss.

  When I broke the seventh seal, the heavens opened up in the great expanse and I saw it all. I saw a Gospel, written in the clouds. Each moment captured in the minutest detail passed now before my eyes! I cannot say how long I remained in contemplation of it, except that I was started by the young man’s voice, which spoke these words as if through thunder and lightning:

  ‘What you have seen written upon the tables of the law is a heavenly script. It is written in the ether and is not the same as that which is written from the oral tradition, nor is a likeness of it found as a Greek translation of Hebrew documents of antiquity. It is only found in the cloud libraries of God!

  ‘Who are you?’ I asked.

  ‘I am the incarnation of John the beloved of Christ Jesus. Before that I was Hiram Abiff, and before him Joshua. I have again been raised from the dead after three days and I too have seen it, all the wisdom of the world is contained in it in a Christened synthesis. Now my initiation is complete, never more will a man need to die before he can see into the Imago Mundi, for I have returned with the Gospel, the mystery of the Grail – the mystery of how through Christ’s sacrifice men will one day know how to transform evil to become gods…such is the mystery hidden in your grandmaster’s seal.’ He added.

  But I was thinking other things! The mystery of the Grail was indeed the mystery of eternal life, but not of the body, it was the secret of the immortality of the spirit, an immortality gained through knowing the Gospel of Christ! This was the dying and becoming, the initiation from the lowest to the highest!

  ‘I must leave you now,’ the boy said, ‘but Ruach will live within you here below, as an eagle lives within and yet above, in the stirring of a prophetic wind.’

  And the wind stirred around me and it became a great roar, which forced my eyes to open so that I realized I was back from the vision and in the chapel and that my master was lying prostrate at my side. I had no time to think on the marvels I had seen for the chapel began to collapse all around us and the walls were crumbling and rocks tumbled from above. I could no longer see the table nor the twelve who had encircled the boy lying upon it.

  In the tumult that I likened to Armageddon, I concentrated on helping my master to his feet, and together we ran. But along the way he lost his gospel parchments, which scattered here and there in the debris. He made to go after them, but the world shook with such ferocity around us that we barely managed to escape the chamber before the entire roof collapsed.

  Once in the central nave we ran through dust and rubble to the aperture and I fumbled trying to open it, for my agitation made me clumsy and awkward.

  ‘Hurry, the whole thing is coming down!’ my master shouted near my ears, but I barely heard him over the great noise. Suddenly there was a violent movement, a cataclysm, a shattering. It was indeed the end of the world! An un
derground thunder then burst open the door, splintering it, as if it were only touchwood. For a moment I stood perched on the edge of the channel, not ready to die inside its cool depths.

  ‘Jump in!’ my master cried, ‘It should carry us to the outside!’

  ‘But master, you cannot swim!’ Looking around I found a large piece of the door and handed it to him. ‘Here, hold on to this!’

  ‘Good boy! Pity it is as we are about to die that you start to think with your head.’ He smiled, ‘Go!’

  An instant later I found myself being taken by the body of water, as it rushed with haste into an infinite darkness. It was so cold that I could no longer feel my limbs. The churning rose higher, threatening to overwhelm us, for it seemed to be gathering speed with every moment, and I assumed that we must be coursing down a steeper incline. Ahead of us rocks had fallen into the channels, and these we had to avoid by turning our bodies in this or that direction. More than once I nearly lost my talisman, but I held on tightly having faith in its protection. My master must have bumped his bad leg, for I heard him yell out, ‘Damn the Count of Artois!’ several times and I thanked God that he was all right. Around us the walls contracted with an awesome power and presently, somewhere in the darkness ahead, a light seemed to draw nearer. Finally it was upon us and I closed my eyes thinking that it must indeed be the great light of heaven. It was, however, the light of day, whose relative brilliance seemed a thousand times brighter than the sun. The mountain was expelling us from out of its loins and into a rocky stream.