In the Grail tradition, Mary emerges as a lightning rod of brilliant, focused, religio-political thought and action who had little resemblance to the diminutive and repentant prostitute portrayed by the Catholic Church. She constantly questioned Jesus, as if she were checking his work, and was the benefactor of his most advanced and secretive scientific teachings concerning the universe. One of the tenets of the Grail heresy holds that the marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene