The Silver Chalice
By Thomas B. Costain

840 Pages • $13.95

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
AND REFLECTION

The Silver Chalice
By Thomas B. Costain

[Open a pdf version]

Use the following questions as guides to deeper individual understanding of the novel or for group discussion.

1. Basil, a silversmith, is charged with the task of re-creating the face of Jesus for the silver Chalice. Why is it difficult for him to do this? What is it he does not “see”?

2. Seeing and blindness are frequent metaphors for faith and disbelief in the Gospels. When Jesus heals a blind person, it is an event that signifies more than physical seeing. How have you experienced this in your own life? What has kept you from sometimes “seeing” Jesus?

3. In The Silver Chalice, the young Christian community is besieged from every side: from enemies within Judaism, from the Roman Empire, and from Simon Magus and the Gnostic, magical thinking he represents. What pressures and threats do you think modern Christians, even in free nations, experience? How does this impact the faith of Christians? How did it impact the faith of the characters in The Silver Chalice?

4. Were you surprised by the revelation of Peter’s identity? What did you think of the portrayal of the historical characters of Luke, Joseph of Arimathea, and Paul?

5. Cephas assures Basil that when he is finally able to “see,” “The world will light up and the sun will shine in all the dark places where before you saw nothing but shadows. You will cry out what you believe and you will want everyone to hear.” (end of chapter 24) Is this characterization of faith consistent with your own experience? How does it finally manifest itself in the life of Basil? What event prompts his full acceptance of faith in Christ?

6. What kind of attitude towards religious experience and spirituality does Simon Magus represent? In what ways does this attitude continue today? What are the temptations of magical thinking? What is the Christian response to magical thinking?

7. Deborra has spent the course of the novel pursuing her inheritance rights, and Basil has done the same, in addition to fashioning the silver chalice. What is the final irony of the book in regard to these points? What does that suggest to you about your own life and faith?

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