Celsus' view of Christians and Christianity
Celsus was a Greek writer in the second century who criticized Christianity as a threat to the stable communities and worldview that the "pagan" religious and social system sought to uphold. His work as a whole has been lost, but when the third century theologian Origen sought to answer Celsus' charges in a work appropriately called Against Celsus, he preserved most of Celsus' criticisms. Origen's replies are certainly worth reading in their own right, but the following excerpts are chosen in order to show how a thoughtful "pagan" viewed Christianity. In the excerpts that follow, Celsus' words are highlighted for easy of reading.
Excerpts from Contra Celsus by Origen
Translation is from volume 4 of The Ante-Nicene Fathers
published 1867-1872 and in the public domain
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Go to excerpts from book 1, book 3, book 4, book 5, book 6, or book 8
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BOOK 1
Chap. 28
...[Celsus] accuses [Jesus] of having "invented his birth from a virgin," and upbraids Him with being "born in a certain Jewish village, of a poor woman of the country, who gained her subsistence by spinning, and who was turned out of doors by her husband, a carpenter by trade, because she was convicted of adultery; that after being driven away by her husband, and wandering about for a time, she disgracefully gave birth to Jesus, an illegitimate child, who having hired himself out as a servant in Egypt on account of his poverty, and having there acquired some miraculous powers, on which the Egyptians greatly pride themselves, returned to his own country, highly elated on account of them, and by means of these proclaimed himself a God."...
BOOK 3
Chap. 44
After these points Celsus quotes some objections against the doctrine of Jesus, made by a very few individuals who are considered Christians, not of the more intelligent, as he supposes, but of the more ignorant class, and asserts that "the following are the rules laid down by them. Let no one come to us who has been instructed, or who is wise or prudent (for such qualifications are deemed evil by us); but if there be any ignorant, or unintelligent, or uninstructed, or foolish persons, let them come with confidence. By which words, acknowledging that such individuals are worthy of their God, they manifestly show that they desire and are able to gain over only the silly, and the mean, and the stupid, with women and children."...
Chap. 55
But as Celsus delights to heap up calumnies against us, and, in addition to those which he has already uttered, has added others, let us examine these also, and see whether it be the Christians or Celsus who have reason to be ashamed of what is said. He asserts, "We see, indeed, in private houses workers in wool and leather, and fullers, and persons of the most uninstructed and rustic character, not venturing to utter a word in the presence of their elders and wiser masters; but when they get hold of the children privately, and certain women as ignorant as themselves, they pour forth wonderful statements, to the effect that they ought not to give heed to their father and to their teachers, but should obey them; that the former are foolish and stupid, and neither know nor can perform anything that is really good, being preoccupied with empty trifles; that they alone know how men ought to live, and that, if the children obey them, they will both be happy themselves, and will make their home happy also. And while thus speaking, if they see one of the instructors of youth approaching, or one of the more intelligent class, or even the father himself, the more timid among them become afraid, while the more forward incite the children to throw off the yoke, whispering that in the presence of father and teachers they neither will nor can explain to them any good thing, seeing they turn away with aversion from the silliness and stupidity of such persons as being altogether corrupt, and far advanced in wickedness, and such as would inflict punishment upon them; but that if they wish (to avail themselves of their aid,) they must leave their father and their instructors, and go with the women and their playfellows to the women's apartments, or to the leather shop, or to the fuller's shop, that they may attain to perfection;--and by words like these they gain them over."
Chap. 59
This statement also is untrue, that it is "only foolish and low individuals, and persons devoid of perception, and slaves, and women, and children, of whom the teachers of the divine word wish to make converts."... After this it is superfluous for us to wish to offer a reply to such statements of Celsus as the following: "For why is it an evil to have been educated, and to have studied the best opinions, and to have both the reality and appearance of wisdom? What hindrance does this offer to the knowledge of God? Why should it not rather be an assistance, and a means by which one might be better able to arrive at the truth?"...
Chap. 64
But since he says, in addition to this, "What is this preference of sinners over others?" and makes other remarks of a similar nature, we have to reply....
BOOK 4
Chap. 14
But let us look at what Celsus next with great ostentation announces in the following fashion: "And again," he says, "let us resume the subject from the beginning, with a larger array of proofs. And I make no new statement, but say what has been long settled. God is good, and beautiful, and blessed, and that in the best and most beautiful degree. But if he come down among men, he must undergo a change, and a change from good to evil, from virtue to vice, from happiness to misery, and from best to worst. Who, then, would make choice of such a change? It is the nature of a mortal, indeed, to undergo change and remoulding, but of an immortal to remain the same and unaltered. God, then, could not admit of such a change."...
BOOK 5
Chap. 25
Let us next notice the statements of Celsus, which follow the preceding, and which are as follow: "As the Jews, then, became a peculiar people, and enacted laws in keeping with the customs of their country, and maintain them up to the present time, and observe a mode of worship which, whatever be its nature, is yet derived from their fathers, they act in these respects like other men, because each nation retains its ancestral customs, whatever they are, if they happen to be established among them. And such an arrangement appears to be advantageous, not only because it has occurred to the mind of other nations to decide some things differently, but also because it is a duty to protect what has been established for the public advantage; and also because, in all probability, the various quarters of the earth were from the beginning allotted to different superintending spirits, and were thus distributed among certain governing powers, and in this manner the administration of the world is carried on. And whatever is done among each nation in this way would be rightly done, wherever it was agreeable to the wishes (of the superintending powers), while it would be an act of impiety to get rid of the institutions established from the beginning in the various places."...
Chap. 33
The remarks which we have made not only answer the statements of Celsus regarding the superintending spirits, but anticipate in some measure what he afterwards brings forward, when he says: "Let the second party come forward; and I shall ask them whence they come, and whom they regard as the originator of their ancestral customs. They will reply, No one, because they spring from the same source as the Jews themselves, and derive their instruction and superintendence from no other quarter, and notwithstanding they have revolted from the Jews."...
BOOK 6
Chap. 78
Celsus next makes certain observations of the following nature: "Again, if God, like Jupiter in the comedy, should, on awaking from a lengthened slumber, desire to rescue the human race from evil, why did He send this Spirit of which you speak into one corner (of the earth)? He ought to have breathed it alike into many bodies, and have sent them out into all the world. Now the comic poet, to cause laughter in the theatre, wrote that Jupiter, after awakening, despatched Mercury to the Athenians and Lacedaemonians; but do not you think that you have made the Son of God more ridiculous in sending Him to the Jews?"...
BOOK 8
Chap. 21
Let us see what Celsus further says of God, and how he urges us to the use of those things which are properly called idol offerings, or, still better, offerings to demons, although, in his ignorance of what true sanctity is, and what sacrifices are well-pleasing to God, he call them "holy sacrifices." His words are, "God is the God of all alike; He is good, He stands in need of nothing, and He is without jealousy. What, then, is there to hinder those who are most devoted to His service from taking part in public feasts."...
Chap. 24
Let us now see on what grounds Celsus urges us to make use of the idol offerings and the public sacrifices in the public feasts. His words are, "If these idols are nothing, what harm will there be in taking part in the feast? On the other hand, if they are demons, it is certain that they too are God's creatures, and that we must believe in them, sacrifice to them according to the laws, and pray to them that they may be propitious."...
Chap. 28
We shall now proceed to the next statement of Celsus, and examine it with care: "If in obedience to the traditions of their fathers they abstain from such victims, they must also abstain from all animal food, in accordance with the opinions of Pythagoras, who thus showed his respect for the soul and its bodily organs. But if, as they say, they abstain that they may not eat along with demons, I admire their wisdom, in having at length discovered, that whenever they eat they eat with demons, although they only refuse to do so when they are looking upon a slain victim; for when they eat bread, or drink wine, or taste fruits, do they not receive these things, as well as the water they drink and the air they breathe, from certain demons, to whom have been assigned these different provinces of nature?"...
Chap. 33
From this it is evident that we have already met the next statement of Celsus, which is as follows: "We must either not live, and indeed not come into this life at all, or we must do so on condition that we give thanks and first-fruits and prayers to demons, who have been set over the things of this world: and that we must do as long as we live, that they may prove good and kind."...
Chap. 55
Celsus goes on to say: "They must make their choice between two alternatives. If they refuse to render due service to the gods, and to respect those who are set over this service, let them not come to manhood, or marry wives, or have children, or indeed take any share in the affairs of life; but let them depart hence with all speed, and leave no posterity behind them, that such a race may become extinct from the face of the earth. Or, on the other hand, if they will take wives, and bring up children, and taste of the fruits of the earth, and partake of all the blessings of life, and bear its appointed sorrows (for nature herself hath allotted sorrows to all men; for sorrows must exist, and earth is the only place for them), then must they discharge the duties of life until they are released from its bonds, and render due honour to those beings who control the affairs of this life, if they would not show themselves ungrateful to them. For it would be unjust in them, after receiving the good things which they dispense, to pay them no tribute in return."...
Chap. 38
Celsus goes on to say: "We must not disobey the ancient writer [Homer], who said long ago, 'Let one be king, whom the son of crafty Saturn appointed ;'" and adds: "If you set aside this maxim, you will deservedly suffer for it at the hands of the king. For if all were to do the same as you, there would be nothing to prevent his being left in utter solitude and desertion, and the affairs of the earth would fall into the hands of the wildest and most lawless barbarians; and then there would no longer remain among men any of the glory of your religion or of the true wisdom."...
Chap. 73
In the next place, Celsus urges us "to help the king with all our might, and to labour with him in the maintenance of justice, to fight for him; and if he requires it, to fight under him, or lead an army along with him." To this our answer is, that we do, when occasion requires, give help to kings, and that, so to say, a divine help, "putting on the whole armour of God." And this we do in obedience to the injunction of the apostle, "I exhort, therefore, that first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; for kings, and for all that are in authority;" and the more any one excels in piety, the more effective help does he render to kings, even more than is given by soldiers, who go forth to fight and slay as many of the enemy as they can. And to those enemies of our faith who require us to bear arms for the commonwealth, and to slay men, we can reply: "Do not those who are priests at certain shrines, and those who attend on certain gods, as you account them, keep their hands free from blood, that they may with hands unstained and free from human blood offer the appointed sacrifices to your gods; and even when war is upon you, you never enlist the priests in the army. If that, then, is a laudable custom, how much more so, that while others are engaged in battle, these too should engage as the priests and ministers of God, keeping their hands pure, and wrestling in prayers to God on behalf of those who are fighting in a righteous cause, and for the king who reigns righteously, that whatever is opposed to those who act righteously may be destroyed!" And as we by our prayers vanquish all demons who stir up war, and lead to the violation of oaths, and disturb the peace, we in this way are much more helpful to the kings than those who go into the field to fight for them. And we do take our part in public affairs, when along with righteous prayers we join self-denying exercises and meditations, which teach us to despise pleasures, and not to be led away by them. And none fight better for the king than we do. We do not indeed fight under him, although he require it; but we fight on his behalf, forming a special army--an army of piety--by offering our prayers to God.
Chap. 75
Celsus also urges us to "take office in the government of the country, if that is required for the maintenance of the laws and the support of religion." But we recognise in each state the existence of another national organization founded by the Word of God, and we exhort those who are mighty in word and of blameless life to rule over Churches. Those who are ambitious of ruling we reject; but we constrain those who, through excess of modesty, are not easily induced to take a public charge in the Church of God. And those who rule over us well are under the constraining influence of the great King, whom we believe to be the Son of God, God the Word. And if those who govern in the Church, and are called rulers of the divine nation--that is, the Church--rule well, they rule in accordance with the divine commands, and never suffer themselves to be led astray by worldly policy. And it is not for the purpose of escaping public duties that Christians decline public offices, but that they may reserve themselves for a diviner and more necessary service in the Church of God--for the salvation of men. And this service is at once necessary and right. They take charge of all--of those that are within, that they may day by day lead better lives, and of those that are without, that they may come to abound in holy words and in deeds of piety; and that, while thus worshipping God truly, and training up as many as they can in the same way, they may be filled with the word of God and the law of God, and thus be united with the Supreme God through His Son the Word, Wisdom, Truth, and Righteousness, who unites to God all who are resolved to conform their lives in all things to the law of God.
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Page maintained by Gerald W. Schlabach, gws@bluffton.edu.
Copyright © Gerald W. Schlabach. Last updated: 8 August 1997
giovedì 31 gennaio 2008
lunedì 28 gennaio 2008
BLASPHEMY AGAINST JESUS AND MARY MAGDALENE BY M.ANDROULAKIS
A judge in Greece has banned a book after it was condemned by the Greek Orthodox church because of passages about the possible sexual longings of Jesus Christ.
Judge Maria Robbi said she banned sales of the book in the north of the country to prevent outbreaks of violence, after religious zealots threatened to take action against the author and shops selling the book.
The ban applies to provinces around the northern city of Thessaloniki, where Judge Robbi's court has jurisdiction - an area that represents nearly 25% of the country.
A dark side of the Greek moon is revealed
Book's author, Mimis Androulakis
She said the ban would remain in force until 16 May, when a hearing is to be held to consider whether to halt the sale of the best-selling book "M to the Power of N", by former Communist parliamentary deputy Mimis Androulakis.
Mr Androulakis immediately condemned the judge's decision, saying it revealed "a dark side of the Greek moon".
A church spokesman, Metropolitan Kallinikos, said Mr Androulakis had no right "to insult millions of our faithful with what he has said about the leader of our faith."
The book is a series of fictional dialogues between women whose names all begin with the letter M. The central theme is misogyny in various aspects of life, including religion.
One chapter mentions a possible sexual element in the relationship between Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene, a prostitute who became a follower.
Mimis Androulakis
Nearly all political parties, literary societies and scholars have backed the author.
Development Minister Evangelos Venizelos, a leading professor of constitutional law, also questioned the court's jurisdiction to ban the book.
At a preliminary hearing on Wednesday, dozens of black robed priests and monks stormed the court house and Judge Robbi's chambers, rhythmically chanting "blasphemers" and "antichrists" at Androulakis' defence lawyer, Thomas Trikoukis, who was also attacked by some protesters.
One precedent
With one exception, publishers say they cannot recall any book being banned in Greece since the fall of the 1967-74 military dictatorship.
Two years ago, a court banned a dictionary and ordered the author to remove an insulting reference to residents of Thessaloniki.
But the supreme court overturned the ban, saying that constitutional guarantees on free speech did not allow books to be banned or censored.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/672736.stm
Judge Maria Robbi said she banned sales of the book in the north of the country to prevent outbreaks of violence, after religious zealots threatened to take action against the author and shops selling the book.
The ban applies to provinces around the northern city of Thessaloniki, where Judge Robbi's court has jurisdiction - an area that represents nearly 25% of the country.
A dark side of the Greek moon is revealed
Book's author, Mimis Androulakis
She said the ban would remain in force until 16 May, when a hearing is to be held to consider whether to halt the sale of the best-selling book "M to the Power of N", by former Communist parliamentary deputy Mimis Androulakis.
Mr Androulakis immediately condemned the judge's decision, saying it revealed "a dark side of the Greek moon".
A church spokesman, Metropolitan Kallinikos, said Mr Androulakis had no right "to insult millions of our faithful with what he has said about the leader of our faith."
The book is a series of fictional dialogues between women whose names all begin with the letter M. The central theme is misogyny in various aspects of life, including religion.
One chapter mentions a possible sexual element in the relationship between Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene, a prostitute who became a follower.
Mimis Androulakis
Nearly all political parties, literary societies and scholars have backed the author.
Development Minister Evangelos Venizelos, a leading professor of constitutional law, also questioned the court's jurisdiction to ban the book.
At a preliminary hearing on Wednesday, dozens of black robed priests and monks stormed the court house and Judge Robbi's chambers, rhythmically chanting "blasphemers" and "antichrists" at Androulakis' defence lawyer, Thomas Trikoukis, who was also attacked by some protesters.
One precedent
With one exception, publishers say they cannot recall any book being banned in Greece since the fall of the 1967-74 military dictatorship.
Two years ago, a court banned a dictionary and ordered the author to remove an insulting reference to residents of Thessaloniki.
But the supreme court overturned the ban, saying that constitutional guarantees on free speech did not allow books to be banned or censored.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/672736.stm
WHAT DID LUTHER SAY? JESUS AND MARY MAGDALENE
What did Luther say? Jesus and Mary Magdalene
Matthew Becker
A recent New Yorker article on Mary Magdalene, obviously written with an eye on her role as Jesus' paramour in Dan Brown's best-selling The Da Vinci Code, began by noting that "Brown is by no means the first to have suggested that Christ had a sex life--Martin Luther said it" (February 13-20). Bruce Chilton, an Episcopal scholar from Bard College, also makes this claim about Luther in Mary Magdalene: A Biography (2005). And a 2003 story in Time magazine declared that "Martin Luther believed that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married."
Did Luther really make these assertions? An electronic search of the digital edition of Luther's works, the massive Weimar Ausgabe (WA), uncovers no evidence that he did. Only two statements come even close to suggesting these unorthodoxies.
The first is a comment on Psalm 119:145 in which Luther interprets Mary Magdalene's actions at the tomb of Christ as an example of loving devotion. Mary "came beforehand at the dawn and with untimely haste and cried and called for her betrothed [sponsum] much more wonderfully in spirit than in the body. But I think that she alone might easily explain the Song of Songs."
Luther's Works: American Edition (LW) unfortunately mistranslates sponsum as "husband." In Luther's medieval monastic context, the word meant something different. The verb spondeo means "to pledge oneself to" or "to promise oneself to someone," as in "to pledge in the vow of marriage." The male form of the noun is "fiance" and the female form is "bride."
The full context of Luther's remark indicates that he was thinking allegorically. Influenced by mainstream allegorical interpretations of the Song of Songs, Luther viewed Mary as the prototypical disciple (a celibate nun?), the first "bride of Christ," who had made her vow of unconditional love and obedience to her sponsum ("betrothed," "groom"). Even today Roman Catholic nuns wear a ring to symbolize their betrothal to Christ. On another occasion Luther argued that all Christians are "brides of Christ" (LW 28:48). He certainly did not think Jesus and Mary were actually husband and wife. Several unambiguous statements in his writings clearly indicate that he held the traditional view that Jesus, like Paul, was celibate and chaste.
Seemingly more problematic is a small notation from John Schlagenhaufen, one of Luther's close friends, which contains a recollection of something Luther supposedly said informally at his Wittenberg dinner table in 1532:
Christ [as] adulterer. In the first instance
Jesus became an adulterer
with the woman at the well in John
4, because they say (no one understands),
"What is he doing with
her?" In the same way with Magdalena;
in the same way with the
adulteress of John 8, whom he let
off so easily. In that way the godly
Christ first of all must also become
an adulterer before he died. (WA
TR 6, 107, sec. 1472; cf. LW 54:154)
No one knows if Luther actually said this. The critical apparatus in the Weimar Ausgabe reveals the textual and grammatical problems in this supposed quotation. Schlagenhaufen recorded only a portion of what he remembered Luther to have said that day (and after how many beers?). No context is given.
Scholars know how difficult, if not impossible, it is to link the lapidary "table notations" of Luther's friends to Luther's own views. The editors of the American Edition speculate in a footnote that the "probable context is suggested in a sermon of 1536 (WA 41, 647) in which Luther asserted that Christ was reproached by the world as a glutton, a winebibber, and even an adulterer" (LW 54:154).
A more probable context is Luther's account of the atonement. One of his basic assertions is that our sins become Christ's and Christ's perfect righteousness becomes ours by faith. This idea of "the happy exchange" is found in many Luther texts. Given his central soteriological and christological concern, the theological irony in Schlagenhaufen's remembered notation becomes clearer: The "godly" Christ becomes or is made a sinner through his solidarity with sinners, even to the point of dying as a God-forsaken criminal on the cross. This is how Luther understood Paul's statement, "God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Cor. 5:21).
So Christ "becomes" an adulterer, though he does not actually commit adultery with Mary or anyone else. He puts mercy front and center, and rejects the legalism which demanded that the woman caught in adultery be killed and the woman at the well and Mary Magdalene be shunned. The holy one becomes the sinner by putting himself into the situation of sinners, by loving and forgiving them, and ultimately by taking their sins on himself. For this gospel reason, Luther could also remark that God made Jesus "the worst sinner of the whole world," even though he also acknowledged that the sinless, righteous Christ actually committed no sin himself.
Trapped in a literalistic approach to Schlagenhaufen's contextless note, some readers have missed the metaphorical character of the remark, which Luther may have made, if he made it at all, with a twinkle in his eye. I'm confident that Luther would not be a fan of The Da Vinci Code--except perhaps with a beer in hand and that twinkle in his eye.
Matthew Becker teaches theology at Valparaiso University.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_10_123/ai_n16439938/print
Matthew Becker
A recent New Yorker article on Mary Magdalene, obviously written with an eye on her role as Jesus' paramour in Dan Brown's best-selling The Da Vinci Code, began by noting that "Brown is by no means the first to have suggested that Christ had a sex life--Martin Luther said it" (February 13-20). Bruce Chilton, an Episcopal scholar from Bard College, also makes this claim about Luther in Mary Magdalene: A Biography (2005). And a 2003 story in Time magazine declared that "Martin Luther believed that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married."
Did Luther really make these assertions? An electronic search of the digital edition of Luther's works, the massive Weimar Ausgabe (WA), uncovers no evidence that he did. Only two statements come even close to suggesting these unorthodoxies.
The first is a comment on Psalm 119:145 in which Luther interprets Mary Magdalene's actions at the tomb of Christ as an example of loving devotion. Mary "came beforehand at the dawn and with untimely haste and cried and called for her betrothed [sponsum] much more wonderfully in spirit than in the body. But I think that she alone might easily explain the Song of Songs."
Luther's Works: American Edition (LW) unfortunately mistranslates sponsum as "husband." In Luther's medieval monastic context, the word meant something different. The verb spondeo means "to pledge oneself to" or "to promise oneself to someone," as in "to pledge in the vow of marriage." The male form of the noun is "fiance" and the female form is "bride."
The full context of Luther's remark indicates that he was thinking allegorically. Influenced by mainstream allegorical interpretations of the Song of Songs, Luther viewed Mary as the prototypical disciple (a celibate nun?), the first "bride of Christ," who had made her vow of unconditional love and obedience to her sponsum ("betrothed," "groom"). Even today Roman Catholic nuns wear a ring to symbolize their betrothal to Christ. On another occasion Luther argued that all Christians are "brides of Christ" (LW 28:48). He certainly did not think Jesus and Mary were actually husband and wife. Several unambiguous statements in his writings clearly indicate that he held the traditional view that Jesus, like Paul, was celibate and chaste.
Seemingly more problematic is a small notation from John Schlagenhaufen, one of Luther's close friends, which contains a recollection of something Luther supposedly said informally at his Wittenberg dinner table in 1532:
Christ [as] adulterer. In the first instance
Jesus became an adulterer
with the woman at the well in John
4, because they say (no one understands),
"What is he doing with
her?" In the same way with Magdalena;
in the same way with the
adulteress of John 8, whom he let
off so easily. In that way the godly
Christ first of all must also become
an adulterer before he died. (WA
TR 6, 107, sec. 1472; cf. LW 54:154)
No one knows if Luther actually said this. The critical apparatus in the Weimar Ausgabe reveals the textual and grammatical problems in this supposed quotation. Schlagenhaufen recorded only a portion of what he remembered Luther to have said that day (and after how many beers?). No context is given.
Scholars know how difficult, if not impossible, it is to link the lapidary "table notations" of Luther's friends to Luther's own views. The editors of the American Edition speculate in a footnote that the "probable context is suggested in a sermon of 1536 (WA 41, 647) in which Luther asserted that Christ was reproached by the world as a glutton, a winebibber, and even an adulterer" (LW 54:154).
A more probable context is Luther's account of the atonement. One of his basic assertions is that our sins become Christ's and Christ's perfect righteousness becomes ours by faith. This idea of "the happy exchange" is found in many Luther texts. Given his central soteriological and christological concern, the theological irony in Schlagenhaufen's remembered notation becomes clearer: The "godly" Christ becomes or is made a sinner through his solidarity with sinners, even to the point of dying as a God-forsaken criminal on the cross. This is how Luther understood Paul's statement, "God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Cor. 5:21).
So Christ "becomes" an adulterer, though he does not actually commit adultery with Mary or anyone else. He puts mercy front and center, and rejects the legalism which demanded that the woman caught in adultery be killed and the woman at the well and Mary Magdalene be shunned. The holy one becomes the sinner by putting himself into the situation of sinners, by loving and forgiving them, and ultimately by taking their sins on himself. For this gospel reason, Luther could also remark that God made Jesus "the worst sinner of the whole world," even though he also acknowledged that the sinless, righteous Christ actually committed no sin himself.
Trapped in a literalistic approach to Schlagenhaufen's contextless note, some readers have missed the metaphorical character of the remark, which Luther may have made, if he made it at all, with a twinkle in his eye. I'm confident that Luther would not be a fan of The Da Vinci Code--except perhaps with a beer in hand and that twinkle in his eye.
Matthew Becker teaches theology at Valparaiso University.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_10_123/ai_n16439938/print
MARY MAGDALENE BY SUSAN HASKINS
Susan Haskins
Mary Magdalene is as factually central to the Christian story as she is fictively to the story of The Da Vinci Code. Beyond the myth of her 'bloodline' is the real debate that as the first witness to the risen Christ she could have a better claim as founder of the Church than Paul himself
Mary Magdalene has been in the background - and often in the foreground - of our consciousnesses for nearly 2,000 years. At the moment she is very much in the foreground and for many reasons, not the least of which is due to the release of The Da Vinci Code, the film of Dan Brown's novel. For those who believe the Christian story, Mary Magdalene was the first person to see the risen Christ, and yet for those very same people, for most of that 2,000 years, she was also another figure, playing a role that was far more prominent and for whom she was better known: the repentant prostitute forgiven by Christ.
She was that little scarlet-clad figure, so identifiable in Christian art, the art justified by Pope Gregory the Great when he declared that its purpose was to teach those who could not read the Bible and so that they might marvel and seek to emulate the exploits and martyrdoms of the saints. In countless images, the most depicted saint after the Virgin Mary, weeping and often wiping Christ's feet with her hair, Mary Magdalene was there to remind the sinner that it was his or her sins, as well as her own, that had put Christ on the Cross.
Just after my book on the Magdalen was published in 1993, a torrent of titles about her began to engulf bookshop shelves, ranging from the seriously academic and scholarly to the seriously deranged and speculative. It is a torrent that seems to have not yet ceased. I little knew that mine, written I thought when no one was interested in her, would be just the tip of an iceberg. Studies into her Gnostic figure, her medieval one, and relating her to the role of women in the Church continue to proliferate, together with works purporting to relate the "true" story of her relationship with Jesus, with her figure encapsulating at almost every level the female question. There is no sign of their abating.
I had come to Mary Magdalene through seventeenth-century art history and literature. Here she was the Weeper, the beautiful half-naked figure draped in her hair, sculpted by artists such as Bernini and painters such as Guercino, crying in her grotto. Poets, such as the Englishman Richard Crashaw, waxed lyrical over her tears and eyes, while John Donne quizzically asked of her, "Were there one, two or three Magdalens?"
She was here the very essence of feminine pulchritude, the lover of Christ and yet also a repentant prostitute, the prime model offered by the Church from the Middle Ages, and particularly again from the Counter-Reformation, to those who wished to repent of their sins. While their sins might have varying causes, the cause for hers was her sexuality: her beauty, vanity and lust.
Looking in the gospels for the source of this character was confusing. She was nowhere to be found and so began the search into how Mary Magdalene was transformed and had other figures accrue to her. For Mary is quite clearly not a prostitute, nor is the figure in Luke described as a repentant sinner. The gospels, the only information we have concerning her - until we include non-canonical Gnostic texts - show her clearly as a faithful follower to the bitter end, so faithful that she followed and supported Christ during his ministry, was at the Crucifixion (when his male followers had run away), sat by the sepulchre (according to Mark)
and rose before dawn to visit the tomb, to be rewarded for her fidelity and courage by the first sighting of the risen Christ (according to John).
All these are actions that show devotion and courage. That Mary Magdalene is important is also clear: since her name is always mentioned first, she is likely to have been leader of the women followers. But there are intimations that all was not right with her: she is described as having had seven devils driven from her. In Mark, the women, fearful of what they have discovered at the tomb on Easter morning, tell no one; in Luke their words are regarded as idle tales, and it could be and has been said that in not recognising Christ and taking him for the gardener that Mary Magdalene showed her ignorance of the significance of the Resurrection. Such negativities may have been merely the comments of the gospel writers or later editors, or contemporary male prejudice choosing to deride what the women had to say, seeking to demote their and her importance, particularly since women were disqualified from testifying, according to Jewish law.
Indeed, Christ's egalitarian treatment of women seems to have been remarkable for his times. He revealed himself as the Lord to the Samaritan woman, who became the apostle to her own people; he forgave Luke's sinner not because she repented, but because she loved; he made no judgement against the woman taken in adultery; and he appeared to Mary Magdalene, telling her to tell the other disciples, so that she is a messenger, apostle (the Greek word apostolein signifies someone sent as an envoy). This is a unique aspect of the gospels, showing that Christ regarded women as equals with men, as recipients and proselytisers of the faith, without gender bias.
While there might be some ambiguity in the women's roles in the canonical gospels, there is none in the Gnostic texts, where they are clearly disciples, and where Mary Magdalene is one of the most significant among them. One can therefore quite understand why, in a Church claiming that only men were chosen by Christ as priests and teachers, texts talking of Mary Magdalene's importance would clearly be undesirable.
In the Gnostic gospels, not only does Mary teach, as a conduit of revelation through her visions of Christ, but she is also the leader of the disciples after the Ascension, supporting and comforting the others; she is the woman who knows all, the "companion of the Saviour", "with whom he always walked" and "whom Jesus loved more than the other [male]
disciples", prompting jealousy and ire from the male disciples such as Peter. She is both an equal of and superior to the male disciples.
In the Gospel of Mary, the Pistis Sophia and the Gospels of Philip and Thomas, Mary Magdalene is placed firmly in the foreground, a hugely more powerful figure, derived from that in the Synoptic gospels, though the exact significance of these texts is still unclear. But what is manifest is that she is in a position of leadership.
Michael Baigent and his fellow writers of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (a book which was a major influence on Dan Brown) were not the first to posit a relationship between Mary Magdalene and Christ. The pagan Celsus suggested it in the third century and, much later, even Luther suggested that they had a sexual relationship. Is this because people find it difficult to accept the single independent female, as Mary Magdalene is described in Luke's Gospel, and one who may also have been wealthy, since she contributed, along with the other women, of her own means to bankroll the Jesus movement? Or is it because there is a desire to evoke Christ's own sexuality, making him a more human man?
Nikos Kazantzakis' Christ rejects Mary Magdalene's sexuality in order to assume his divinity in The Last Temptation of Christ; Scorsese's film of this novel caused a furore. Two serious books in 1992, by the American Anglican Bishop John Spong and by the Australian theologian Barbara Thiering, suggested that Christ and the Magdalen had married and had children, while the best-selling Greek novel, M to the Power of N, by Mimis Androulakis, was banned for blasphemy by the Orthodox Church in 2000 for suggesting that Christ and Mary Magdalene had sex.
In the Middle Ages, it was to John the Evangelist that Mary was betrothed (their marriage according to this legend took place at the feast of Cana, but was interrupted when Christ called John to join his ministry, and out of pique she became a prostitute), not to Christ. In medieval texts, but purely in a metaphorical fashion - just in the way that St John of the Cross described his love for God - Christ was described as Mary's lover, as she was his "sweet lover".
Sexual imagery has always been part of the mystical tradition, and one has to ask what mileage - except sensationalism and sales - is there in perpetuating the story of the repentant prostitute or the "bride" of Christ? As an independent female favoured by Christ, she has far more power than by being his "wife" and therefore receiving it second-hand.
Dan Brown's cleverness was to home in on what had been happening in the United States, and to a lesser extent in Britain, during the end of the 1990s and beginning of the new millennium. Interest in Mary Magdalene had become rife. Harvard Ecclesiastical History Professor Karen L. King's discussion of the Gnostic Magdalen (2003) reached a wide audience; as did studies by feminist scholars arguing the importance of Mary Magdalene's Gospel role for women's ordination, once taboo. Margaret George's Mary, Called Magdalene (2001) was a best-seller as was Margaret Starbird's indefinable prose in The Woman with the Alabaster Jar - just two manifestations of the popular genre.
Brown was also clever in linking his reading of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail - where Mary Magdalene was hypothesised as Christ's wife and vessel bearing their child - to her Gnostic figure as the saviour's "companion", whom he "kissed often", and further linking the figure of his heroine, Sophie, to Mary Magdalene (heroine of the Gnostic text, the Pistis Sophia, or Wisdom of the Faith) as her descendant. But Brown's Gnostic Magdalen is narrow, existing only in relationship to Christ, through marriage to him and as a vessel.
In the present ecclesiastical climate, with its stories of popes being murdered (John Paul I), links to Masonic matters (P.2), paedophile scandals and stories of "fallen" women having to work in the Magdalen laundries of Ireland, together with the submission of women in the Church - Mary Magdalene being emblematic of that - conspiracy theorists are having a field day. And to these theorists, every notion put forward by Brown has to be accepted, regardless of facts getting in the way. For instance, Leonardo's Last Supper was painted for the Dominicans, that very band of preachers who hunted out heresy, so their commissioned artist was unlikely to paint an image - of Mary Magdalene in place of St John the Apostle - that was heretical.
Much of the Magdalen's enduring fascination is because of the art that depicts her. There are wonderful images of dramatic sorrowful womanhood that strike chords in all of us who look at them, created by artists as diverse as Fra Bartolommeo, Bernini, Guido Mazzoni, Titian and Savoldo. She represents strength, courage and fidelity of womanhood and its relation to divine, and is an example of human fragility, as well as of love, fearlessness and power.
Above all, there is the extraordinary importance she has as Christ's leading female disciple, the first witness of the Resurrection, and First Apostle. (As the primary witness to the Resurrection, she could be said to have a better claim than Paul to have founded the Christian Church.)
Mary Magdalene is a metaphor for the history of womankind, a woman for all seasons, her very multifariousness showing us why she is still a matter of fascination today. But her true figure shows that there is no benefit, least of all to Mary Magdalene herself, in perpetuating the myth.
Susan Haskins writes on art. She is the author of Mary Magdalen, published by Pimlico. On 22 May she will speak on icon and metaphor: the image of Mary Magdalene as part of a series of talks organised by Winchester Cathedral and to be held in the Chapel of Winchester College.
http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/17535.htm
Mary Magdalene is as factually central to the Christian story as she is fictively to the story of The Da Vinci Code. Beyond the myth of her 'bloodline' is the real debate that as the first witness to the risen Christ she could have a better claim as founder of the Church than Paul himself
Mary Magdalene has been in the background - and often in the foreground - of our consciousnesses for nearly 2,000 years. At the moment she is very much in the foreground and for many reasons, not the least of which is due to the release of The Da Vinci Code, the film of Dan Brown's novel. For those who believe the Christian story, Mary Magdalene was the first person to see the risen Christ, and yet for those very same people, for most of that 2,000 years, she was also another figure, playing a role that was far more prominent and for whom she was better known: the repentant prostitute forgiven by Christ.
She was that little scarlet-clad figure, so identifiable in Christian art, the art justified by Pope Gregory the Great when he declared that its purpose was to teach those who could not read the Bible and so that they might marvel and seek to emulate the exploits and martyrdoms of the saints. In countless images, the most depicted saint after the Virgin Mary, weeping and often wiping Christ's feet with her hair, Mary Magdalene was there to remind the sinner that it was his or her sins, as well as her own, that had put Christ on the Cross.
Just after my book on the Magdalen was published in 1993, a torrent of titles about her began to engulf bookshop shelves, ranging from the seriously academic and scholarly to the seriously deranged and speculative. It is a torrent that seems to have not yet ceased. I little knew that mine, written I thought when no one was interested in her, would be just the tip of an iceberg. Studies into her Gnostic figure, her medieval one, and relating her to the role of women in the Church continue to proliferate, together with works purporting to relate the "true" story of her relationship with Jesus, with her figure encapsulating at almost every level the female question. There is no sign of their abating.
I had come to Mary Magdalene through seventeenth-century art history and literature. Here she was the Weeper, the beautiful half-naked figure draped in her hair, sculpted by artists such as Bernini and painters such as Guercino, crying in her grotto. Poets, such as the Englishman Richard Crashaw, waxed lyrical over her tears and eyes, while John Donne quizzically asked of her, "Were there one, two or three Magdalens?"
She was here the very essence of feminine pulchritude, the lover of Christ and yet also a repentant prostitute, the prime model offered by the Church from the Middle Ages, and particularly again from the Counter-Reformation, to those who wished to repent of their sins. While their sins might have varying causes, the cause for hers was her sexuality: her beauty, vanity and lust.
Looking in the gospels for the source of this character was confusing. She was nowhere to be found and so began the search into how Mary Magdalene was transformed and had other figures accrue to her. For Mary is quite clearly not a prostitute, nor is the figure in Luke described as a repentant sinner. The gospels, the only information we have concerning her - until we include non-canonical Gnostic texts - show her clearly as a faithful follower to the bitter end, so faithful that she followed and supported Christ during his ministry, was at the Crucifixion (when his male followers had run away), sat by the sepulchre (according to Mark)
and rose before dawn to visit the tomb, to be rewarded for her fidelity and courage by the first sighting of the risen Christ (according to John).
All these are actions that show devotion and courage. That Mary Magdalene is important is also clear: since her name is always mentioned first, she is likely to have been leader of the women followers. But there are intimations that all was not right with her: she is described as having had seven devils driven from her. In Mark, the women, fearful of what they have discovered at the tomb on Easter morning, tell no one; in Luke their words are regarded as idle tales, and it could be and has been said that in not recognising Christ and taking him for the gardener that Mary Magdalene showed her ignorance of the significance of the Resurrection. Such negativities may have been merely the comments of the gospel writers or later editors, or contemporary male prejudice choosing to deride what the women had to say, seeking to demote their and her importance, particularly since women were disqualified from testifying, according to Jewish law.
Indeed, Christ's egalitarian treatment of women seems to have been remarkable for his times. He revealed himself as the Lord to the Samaritan woman, who became the apostle to her own people; he forgave Luke's sinner not because she repented, but because she loved; he made no judgement against the woman taken in adultery; and he appeared to Mary Magdalene, telling her to tell the other disciples, so that she is a messenger, apostle (the Greek word apostolein signifies someone sent as an envoy). This is a unique aspect of the gospels, showing that Christ regarded women as equals with men, as recipients and proselytisers of the faith, without gender bias.
While there might be some ambiguity in the women's roles in the canonical gospels, there is none in the Gnostic texts, where they are clearly disciples, and where Mary Magdalene is one of the most significant among them. One can therefore quite understand why, in a Church claiming that only men were chosen by Christ as priests and teachers, texts talking of Mary Magdalene's importance would clearly be undesirable.
In the Gnostic gospels, not only does Mary teach, as a conduit of revelation through her visions of Christ, but she is also the leader of the disciples after the Ascension, supporting and comforting the others; she is the woman who knows all, the "companion of the Saviour", "with whom he always walked" and "whom Jesus loved more than the other [male]
disciples", prompting jealousy and ire from the male disciples such as Peter. She is both an equal of and superior to the male disciples.
In the Gospel of Mary, the Pistis Sophia and the Gospels of Philip and Thomas, Mary Magdalene is placed firmly in the foreground, a hugely more powerful figure, derived from that in the Synoptic gospels, though the exact significance of these texts is still unclear. But what is manifest is that she is in a position of leadership.
Michael Baigent and his fellow writers of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (a book which was a major influence on Dan Brown) were not the first to posit a relationship between Mary Magdalene and Christ. The pagan Celsus suggested it in the third century and, much later, even Luther suggested that they had a sexual relationship. Is this because people find it difficult to accept the single independent female, as Mary Magdalene is described in Luke's Gospel, and one who may also have been wealthy, since she contributed, along with the other women, of her own means to bankroll the Jesus movement? Or is it because there is a desire to evoke Christ's own sexuality, making him a more human man?
Nikos Kazantzakis' Christ rejects Mary Magdalene's sexuality in order to assume his divinity in The Last Temptation of Christ; Scorsese's film of this novel caused a furore. Two serious books in 1992, by the American Anglican Bishop John Spong and by the Australian theologian Barbara Thiering, suggested that Christ and the Magdalen had married and had children, while the best-selling Greek novel, M to the Power of N, by Mimis Androulakis, was banned for blasphemy by the Orthodox Church in 2000 for suggesting that Christ and Mary Magdalene had sex.
In the Middle Ages, it was to John the Evangelist that Mary was betrothed (their marriage according to this legend took place at the feast of Cana, but was interrupted when Christ called John to join his ministry, and out of pique she became a prostitute), not to Christ. In medieval texts, but purely in a metaphorical fashion - just in the way that St John of the Cross described his love for God - Christ was described as Mary's lover, as she was his "sweet lover".
Sexual imagery has always been part of the mystical tradition, and one has to ask what mileage - except sensationalism and sales - is there in perpetuating the story of the repentant prostitute or the "bride" of Christ? As an independent female favoured by Christ, she has far more power than by being his "wife" and therefore receiving it second-hand.
Dan Brown's cleverness was to home in on what had been happening in the United States, and to a lesser extent in Britain, during the end of the 1990s and beginning of the new millennium. Interest in Mary Magdalene had become rife. Harvard Ecclesiastical History Professor Karen L. King's discussion of the Gnostic Magdalen (2003) reached a wide audience; as did studies by feminist scholars arguing the importance of Mary Magdalene's Gospel role for women's ordination, once taboo. Margaret George's Mary, Called Magdalene (2001) was a best-seller as was Margaret Starbird's indefinable prose in The Woman with the Alabaster Jar - just two manifestations of the popular genre.
Brown was also clever in linking his reading of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail - where Mary Magdalene was hypothesised as Christ's wife and vessel bearing their child - to her Gnostic figure as the saviour's "companion", whom he "kissed often", and further linking the figure of his heroine, Sophie, to Mary Magdalene (heroine of the Gnostic text, the Pistis Sophia, or Wisdom of the Faith) as her descendant. But Brown's Gnostic Magdalen is narrow, existing only in relationship to Christ, through marriage to him and as a vessel.
In the present ecclesiastical climate, with its stories of popes being murdered (John Paul I), links to Masonic matters (P.2), paedophile scandals and stories of "fallen" women having to work in the Magdalen laundries of Ireland, together with the submission of women in the Church - Mary Magdalene being emblematic of that - conspiracy theorists are having a field day. And to these theorists, every notion put forward by Brown has to be accepted, regardless of facts getting in the way. For instance, Leonardo's Last Supper was painted for the Dominicans, that very band of preachers who hunted out heresy, so their commissioned artist was unlikely to paint an image - of Mary Magdalene in place of St John the Apostle - that was heretical.
Much of the Magdalen's enduring fascination is because of the art that depicts her. There are wonderful images of dramatic sorrowful womanhood that strike chords in all of us who look at them, created by artists as diverse as Fra Bartolommeo, Bernini, Guido Mazzoni, Titian and Savoldo. She represents strength, courage and fidelity of womanhood and its relation to divine, and is an example of human fragility, as well as of love, fearlessness and power.
Above all, there is the extraordinary importance she has as Christ's leading female disciple, the first witness of the Resurrection, and First Apostle. (As the primary witness to the Resurrection, she could be said to have a better claim than Paul to have founded the Christian Church.)
Mary Magdalene is a metaphor for the history of womankind, a woman for all seasons, her very multifariousness showing us why she is still a matter of fascination today. But her true figure shows that there is no benefit, least of all to Mary Magdalene herself, in perpetuating the myth.
Susan Haskins writes on art. She is the author of Mary Magdalen, published by Pimlico. On 22 May she will speak on icon and metaphor: the image of Mary Magdalene as part of a series of talks organised by Winchester Cathedral and to be held in the Chapel of Winchester College.
http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/17535.htm
GNOSTIC NONSENSE AND DA VINCI DECEPTION BY MICHAEL J. PENFOLD
Gnostic Nonsense and the Da Vinci Deception
Michael J. Penfold
In New England, USA, there lives a former English teacher by the name of Dan Brown who claims to know the truth about the greatest cover-up in human history – and through the incredible worldwide popularity of his Da Vinci Code book and film he has shared this explosive ‘revelation’ with tens of millions of readers and viewers.
Though the information he discloses already existed in older non-fiction books such as Holy Blood Holy Grail (Dell, 1983) and The Templar Revelation (Simon & Schuster, 1998), it took what The Boston Globe called a ‘dazzling performance’ by this previously almost unheard of American novelist to introduce it to the wider world – first in print and then, once he’d caught the attention of Hollywood, through film.
Readers familiar with history will find the following summary of The Da Vinci Code somewhat bewildering. According to Brown, like most other men of His day, Jesus Christ married and had a child. His wife and chief apostle, Mary Magdalene, fled to France immediately after the crucifixion where she gave birth to a baby named Sarah. In the fifth century, Mary and Jesus’ bloodline married into the French Royal family and created a lineage called the Merovingian dynasty. An organisation called the ‘Priory of Sion’ has protected both this secret, Mary’s tomb and her living descendants through the last 1,000 years until today. The ‘Sangreal documents’ and other writings of the early followers of Jesus are said to recount this story. Four trunk loads of these papers apparently lie buried in Mary’s tomb. Bent on eradicating the ‘divine feminine’ from religion and desperate to uphold a patriarchal system that is anti-women and anti-sex, the Church set about waging a campaign to destroy any trace of the real truth about Jesus and Mary. From 325AD onwards it began to promote the idea that Jesus was the divine celibate son of God. As for Mary, it branded her a prostitute. Since Matthew, Mark, Luke and John have all been tampered with in order to portray Jesus in a divine light, they are to be rejected in favour of the Gnostic gospels which, like the Sangreal documents, prove that Jesus really did marry Mary. Since Mary Magdalene was the vessel through whom the ‘royal bloodline of Jesus’ was preserved, that makes her, rather than the famed chalice used at the Last Supper, the Holy Grail. Where does the Renaissance artist Leonardo Da Vinci fit into all of this? As the one time Grand Master of the Priory of Sion, Leonardo was privy to this dark and dreadful secret. To keep ‘the truth’ alive, he decided to encode it into his famous 15th Century work of art The Last Supper, which he painted on one of the walls of the monastery refectory in Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan, Italy.
Now who on earth would be interested in such a tale? How about 40 million purchasers of the Da Vinci Code book since 2003, or tens of millions of moviegoers since May 2006? In a day when the masses no longer read serious literature and are generally ignorant about history, nothing fills the void more effectively than ‘the movies’. Delivering the Chancellor’s Lecture at the University of Newcastle on 3rd December 2001, Britain’s Lord Puttnam of Queensgate (producer of Chariots of Fire, Memphis Belle, The Killing Fields etc.) incisively observed that due to film’s dominant position as the world’s principal means of conveying knowledge and understanding, Hollywood is engaged in “tinkering around in people’s minds, imprinting emotions, messages and ideas which may well influence them for life…Far more than any other influence, more even than home or school, my attitudes, dreams and preconceptions [have] been irreversibly shaped five and a half thousand miles away in a suburb of Los Angeles called Hollywood.” Remembering that a survey taken in Canada in 2005 (reported in the June 24th edition of the Ottawa Citizen) revealed that 32% of The Da Vinci Code’s readers believed its story line to be true, one can only dread to think what kind of long term impact the movie and DVD will have, especially on the minds of the young.
Though multiplied reviewers have acclaimed The Da Vinci Code as a clever and gripping novel based on historical facts, viewed in the cold light of history it is seen to be nothing more than a wild conspiracy theory based on imagination, exaggeration and pure fabrication. Brown’s work is littered with glaring historical inaccuracies about the size of paintings, the dates and original languages of manuscripts, the identity of various gods and goddesses, the structure and content of buildings and facts and figures connected with groups like, for instance, the ‘Priory of Sion’. Any wonder that Steven Kellmeyer, who has written a critique of Dan Brown’s work, has gone so far as to call The Da Vinci Code the most badly researched book he has ever read.1 Perhaps that’s why Brown has never appeared on TV or Radio alongside a critical historian.
Brown claims on his initial ‘fact’ page that, “In 1975 Paris’ Bibliotheque Nationale discovered parchments known as Les Dossiers Secrets, identifying numerous members of the Priory of Sion, including Sir. Isaac Newton, Sandro Botticelli, Victor Hugo and Leonardo Da Vinci.” (p.15)2 These documents really existed – but they were forgeries, planted in the Parisian library by a French conman named Pierre Plantard. He and several colleagues, who formed a club called the Priory of Sion in 1956, put together numerous fraudulent genealogical documents which purported to prove that Plantard himself descended from Christ and Mary Magdalene through the Merovingian dynasty. Plantard the pretender, an anti-Semite with a criminal record, was eventually forced to admit his fabrications under oath to a French court in 1993. A French journalist named Jean-Luc Chaumeil, who also collaborated in a BBC documentary in 1996 which presented evidence demolishing the whole story, exposed him in several books. Another researcher, Paul Smith, has been tirelessly exposing the Priory of Sion fraud since at least 1985 (see http://priory-of-sion.com). As for Plantard, he died in obscurity in 2000.
Readers who remember as far back as 1983 will perhaps recognise Plantard from the book Holy Blood Holy Grail.3 In that work, authors Richard Leigh, Michael Baigent and Henry Lincoln promoted this same conspiracy theory about Jesus and Mary and their bloodline. The Da Vinci Code relies on Holy Blood Holy Grail to such an extent that two of its three authors took Dan Brown to court in London in 2006 claiming he had plagiarised their work. Though they failed to win damages, the case did at least demonstrate the true extent to which Brown had borrowed from their ‘research’.
Brown harnesses many such fraudulent theories in his attempt to undermine two of the main pillars on which true Christianity rests; the divinity of Jesus Christ and the inspiration of scripture. Make no mistake. Behind the smile and the assurances of good will to men is a clearly discernable strategy to discredit the Bible and the gospel. Lest any reader accuse me of hyperbole, here are some pertinent quotes from The Da Vinci Code:
1) “The Bible is a product of man…not of God.” (p. 312)
2) “Nothing in Christianity is original.” (p. 314)
3) “Jesus’ divinity was the result of a vote…A relatively close vote at that.” (p. 315)
4) “Almost everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false.” (p. 318)
5) “It’s a matter of historical record…Jesus and [Mary] Magdalene were a pair [i.e. married].” (p. 329)
6) “Jesus was the original feminist.” (p. 334)
7) “Behold the greatest cover-up in human history. Jesus was not only married, but he was a father…Mary Magdalene…was the chalice that bore the royal bloodline of Jesus Christ.” (p. 336)
8) “…the Holy of Holies in Solomon’s Temple housed not only God but also His powerful female equal, Shekinah.” (p. 411)
9) “…every faith in the world [including Christianity] is based on fabrication.” (p. 451)
10) “Should we wave a flag and tell…that Jesus was not born of a literal virgin birth? [No] Those who understand their faiths understand the stories are metaphorical.” (p. 452)
But isn’t it just a novel? Officially yes, but Dan Brown has gone on record stating that he personally believes all the claims he inserts about Jesus marrying and having a child by Mary Magdalene.4 Though Brown is a lousy researcher and a hopelessly inaccurate ‘historian’, he is very adept at peddling fiction as fact. He commences his book with the following bold but deceptive assertion: “All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.” (p. 15) This claim subtly leads readers to assume that when Brown’s fictional characters speak about Christianity, all the supplementary and background information is true when, as we shall see, it is not.
The Da Vinci Code contains 105 short chapters, the two most critical of which, as far as the Bible is concerned, are 55 and 58. Brown’s embarrassing howlers assail the historically knowledgeable mind inaccurate paragraph after inaccurate paragraph through these few short pages. Indeed, Christian and secular historians alike have been left shaking their heads at the bewildering fireworks display of ignorance and shameless fabrication Brown has produced in these two damning chapters.
Product of Man?
Chapter 55 puts the following words into the mouth of Sir Leigh Teabing,5 a fictional character who plays the part of a religious historian and one time British royal historian: “To fully understand the Grail…we must first understand the Bible.” (p. 311) He is addressing Harvard Professor Robert Langdon and ‘agent’ Sophie Neveu who are ‘on the case’ of the Holy Grail. Why will first understanding the Bible lead us to agree with Brown’s heady conspiracy theory? Because in Brown’s view, the Bible is not the divinely inspired word of God but a conspiratorial collection of biased and doctored writings whose purpose is to rewrite the facts of history and conceal the real truth about Jesus. Hence the bold statement, “The Bible is a product of man…not of God. Man created it and it has evolved through countless translations, additions and revisions. History has never had a definitive version of the book.” (p. 312-313)
This swipe at the trustworthiness of the Bible is either gravely misinformed or deliberately misleading. Either way it is wholly inaccurate. The fact that today’s literal Bible translations contain to a very high degree of accuracy exactly what was originally written down by the apostles and prophets, has been proven beyond reasonable doubt through the rigorous science of textual criticism. Eugene Ulrich, editor of Oxford University’s Dead Sea Scroll series states: “The [Dead Sea] scrolls have shown that our traditional Bible has been amazingly accurately preserved for over 2,000 years.”6 The Encyclopaedia Britannica makes a similar point: “Compared with other ancient manuscripts, the text of the New Testament is dependable and consistent…In sharp contrast to the fact that the oldest extant full manuscript of a work by the Greek philosopher Plato (died 347 BC) is a copy written in 895 – a gap of more than 1,000 years bridged by only a few papyrus texts – there was a time gap of less than 200 or 300 years between the original accounts of the New Testament events and extant manuscripts. In fact, a small papyrus fragment with verses from the 18th chapter of the Gospel according to John can be dated c. 120–130; this earliest known fragment of the New Testament was written 40 years or less after the presumed date of the production of that Gospel (c. 90).”7 Furthermore, nothing in the 2 or 3% or so of scribal variants between over 5,000 ancient hand-written Greek manuscripts of the New Testament affects any material question of historical fact or detail of Christian faith and practice.
How loosely educated must Brown have been not to have known that by examining the writings of ancient secular historians such as Tacitus, Josephus and Pliny, and the pre-Nicene and post-Nicene church fathers, as well as comparing the Biblical record with thousands of archaeological digs in Biblically significant areas, scholars have been able to prove the authorship, reliability and truthfulness of the four Gospel records (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John)? Add to that the internal evidence of the complimentary eye-witness accounts, the obvious intelligence and skill of the writers, and the fact that in many cases they record exactly the opposite kind of evidence one would have expected had they been trying to concoct a lie,8 and there is every reason to trust the record of the Biblical writers.
This fresh attempt to brand the Bible as a ‘creation’ or ‘product of man’ is also undone by its ‘predictive accuracy’ strike rate of 100%. Hundreds of years before Christ was born, the location of His birth, the person who would announce His ministry, how He would enter Jerusalem, who would be crucified along side Him, how He would die and in what type of grave He would be buried were all predicted in detail in the Old Testament. The pre-Christian date of these predictions has been empirically proven through the Dead Sea Scrolls. Dozens of such predictions, all of which were accurately fulfilled, put the Bible beyond the ability of any man or body of men to create. Taking just 8 of these predictions, Professor Peter Stoner calculated that: ‘‘We find the chance that any man might have lived to the present time and fulfilled all eight prophecies is 1 in 1017…that would be 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000.’’9
80 Considered – 4 chosen?
‘Sir. Teabing’ continues: “More than 80 gospels were considered for the New Testament but only a relatively few were chosen for inclusion – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John among them…The Bible, as we know it today, was collated by the pagan Roman emperor Constantine the Great.” (p. 313) The theory Brown is pushing here goes back to an event known as the Council of Nicaea held in 325AD. This church council was convened by the Roman emperor Constantine I to solve the problem created in the Eastern church by Arianism, a heresy first proposed by Arius of Alexandria who believed Christ to be a created being, not divine.10 The council neither discussed nor pronounced on the issue of the canon (which books should or should not be in the Bible). Yet Brown claims that the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, were selected for inclusion in the Bible as late as 325AD, out of a total of 80 available gospels, simply because they contained the record of Jesus’ life and death most favourable to those who were trying to cover up the real truth about Jesus and Mary Magdalene.
One can only assume Brown has never researched the 10 volumes of the writings of the ante-Nicene fathers. These early church leaders wrote copiously about most aspects of Christianity and their comments on the gospels are revealing. Take Irenaeus for instance. Writing in 180AD, Irenaeus states concerning Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, “It is not possible that the gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are…Now, the church is scattered throughout all the world, and the ‘pillar and ground’ of the church is the Gospel. Therefore, it is fitting that she should have four pillars…”11 Further quotes from other church fathers such as Tertullian and Origen could easily be added, the point being that long before the Council of Nicaea it was widely recognised among the followers of Jesus Christ that there were only four gospel records that bore the marks of divine inspiration. The church looked for several features before accepting a gospel as inspired. It had to be an account of an eyewitness or a close associate of an eyewitness. It had to be theologically in line with the divinely inspired Old Testament. It had to be accepted by Christians in all parts of the area covered by the early spread of the gospel. The fact is, there is written proof that very early in the church’s history some of the writings of the apostles had already been recognized as part of the Bible. The apostle Peter, writing in 2 Peter 3:16, in 66AD, refers to some of the apostle Paul’s writings as ‘scripture’. So the Bible’s inspiration was recognized much, much earlier than the Council of Nicaea, and its gospels were marked off as ‘four only’ at least 145 years prior to the sitting of that council. As for those 80 so-called gospels, apart from the four early Biblical gospels, all of which were composed before the end of the first century, no more than a dozen other ‘gospels’ have ever been found or referred to, and these were all written during the period 150-400AD. Who is more trust-worthy? Those who knew Christ intimately and wrote about him before their own deaths in the first century, or those who came along several generations later who are known to have held all kinds of weird Gnostic notions and who deliberately reinterpreted the account of Jesus’ life and teachings to fit their own mystical and esoteric system of philosophy?
Nothing Original?
In the middle of an explanation of the fact that many of the Church’s symbols come down to us directly from ancient paganism, Brown’s character Sir. Leigh Teabing oversteps the mark by claiming that, “Nothing in Christianity is original.” (p. 314) He claims that one of the pagan influences brought in by the Emperor Constantine was the change from Saturday (the Jewish Sabbath) to Sunday as the day of Christian worship. This is yet another cringing betrayal of Brown’s woeful historical illiteracy. The change from the Saturday Sabbath to ‘Sunday’ was made during the time of the apostles, immediately following the resurrection of their Lord on a Sunday. Indeed, the church began on a Sunday, as recorded in Acts Ch. 2 (the day of Pentecost). The early disciples met for worship on Sunday a fact proved by Acts 20:7 and 1 Corinthians 16:2. Sunday is called in the Bible “the first day of the week” and “the Lord’s Day” (Revelation 1:10). Long before Nicaea, the church fathers explicitly rejected any link with Sunday worship and the sun god, going to lengths to explain that they met together on the first day of the week because on it the Lord Jesus had risen again from the dead. Writing in 105AD, just after the last book of the New Testament had been finished, Ignatius, who was a personal disciple of one or more of the 12 apostles, spoke of Christians, “no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord’s Day.”12
Jesus Divinity – A late close vote?
Brown then takes a direct hit at the deity of Christ. Again putting words in Teabing’s mouth, Brown states his belief that “until that moment in history [the Council of Nicaea in 325AD], Jesus was viewed by his followers as a mortal prophet…a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless. A mortal…Jesus’ establishment as the ‘Son of God’ was officially proposed and voted on by the Council of Nicaea.” Sofie then asks, “Hold on. You’re saying Jesus’ divinity was the result of a vote?” “A relatively close vote at that,” Teabing replies (p. 315). By now fairly drowning in conspiracy theories, Brown here claims that it was a Roman Emperor, Constantine, who literally turned Jesus into a God. Then he collected and burned any ‘gospels’ that emphasised Jesus’ humanity, and produced “a new Bible”, the one ‘the church’ uses today, which contains only those handpicked gospels which emphasise Jesus’ deity. Even then Constantine apparently further embellished those gospels to make Jesus seem more godlike. (p. 317) So much for the fairy tale, but what of the facts?
It is a matter of historical record that the followers of Jesus viewed Him as God manifest in the flesh from the first century onwards, long before Constantine was born. The apostle John wrote repeatedly of the deity of Christ in his gospel, which is dated around 100AD.13 He records not only Jesus Himself claiming equality with God (5:17-23, 8:58, 10:30-36, 14:9), but also Jesus’ disciples crediting Him with deity (20:28). John actually begins his gospel by stating, “The word [Jesus] was God.” Though John’s Gospel was among the last of the 27 New Testament books to be written, it was still 225 years shy of the Council of Nicaea. A trip to the John Rylands Library in Manchester will furnish the visitor with a look at an actual papyrus fragment of a portion of John Ch. 18, known as P52, that has survived from the second century (c. 125-150AD) proving an early date of John’s Gospel. Its text matches what’s written in the Bibles on sale in bookshops today. Small wonder that the former director of the British Museum, Sir Frederic Kenyon, declared, “The interval between the dates of the original composition [of the Gospels] and the earliest extant evidence [is] so small as to be negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed.”14 Any assertion that Constantine tampered with either the Gospel of John or any other gospels is pure fiction.
Attempting to circumvent the obvious fact that the early disciples believed Jesus was God manifest in the flesh, sceptics have suggested that the disciples, being ignorant fishermen, must have been tricked into believing such nonsense. Fellow and tutor of Magdalen College, Oxford, the classical scholar C.S. Lewis, gives the lie to this claim: “One attempt consists in saying that the man [Jesus] did not really say these things, but that His followers exaggerated the story, and so the legend grew up that He had said them. This is difficult because His followers were all Jews. That is, they belonged to that nation which was of all others most convinced that there was only one God - that there could not possibly be another. It is very odd that this horrible invention about a religious leader should grow up among the one people in the whole earth least likely to make such a mistake. On the contrary, we get the impression that none of His immediate followers…embraced the doctrine at all easily.”15 Having embraced the deity and resurrection of Jesus Christ these same disciples all died as martyrs or in exile, refusing to recant their belief in a risen Messiah. To die for what one believes to be true is a relatively common occurrence: but to die for what one knows to be false – like a concocted story about a divinely resurrected Messiah – when an admission of ‘story telling’ would instantly avoid one’s own crucifixion, is unheard of.
If the testimony of the New Testament writers should prove inadequate to convince a sceptic that Jesus was believed to be the divine Son of God long before the Council of Nicaea in 325AD, there are always the voluminous writings of the ante-Nicene Church Fathers. The following is a list of those early writers who unequivocally stated at a very early date that Jesus was the divine Son of God: Polycarp (69-155AD), Ignatius (died C. 110AD), Irenaeus (C. 125-200AD), Justin Martyr (110-166AD) and Clement (died C. 101AD). To give but one actual example, when writing his introduction to his epistle to the Romans, Ignatius states, “God, who formed all things that are according to the faith and love of Jesus Christ, our God and Saviour.”16 One can even turn to the pre-Nicene enemies of the Christian faith to prove that Jesus claimed to be God back in 30-33AD. The second century philosopher, Celsus, in a written attack on the Christian faith called A True Discourse, said: “[Jesus] proclaimed himself a god.”17 Everything points to the fact that the traditional theology of Christianity believed by Christians today is undoubtedly a product of the first century, not the fourth.
What about the ‘close vote’ of which Brown speaks? When the Bishops assembled at Nicaea in 325AD they wanted, among other things, to combat the view of Arius that Jesus was not co-eternal with the Father. The ‘close vote’ Brown alludes to wasn’t close at all. Of the 318 gathered Bishops, only two, Theonas and Secumdus of Egypt, refused to sign the Nicene Creed, a document that described Jesus as “the Son of God, begotten of the Father, light of light, very God of very God, begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father.”18 As for the selection of which books were included in the Bible, the Christians of the fourth century AD did not need nor did they request Constantine’s help. Early Christians, like Tertullian, were fighting for the retention of Matthew, Mark, John and most of the other New Testament books back in 140AD long before Constantine was born, when a Gnostic heretic called Marcion was denying their inspiration.19 Marcion’s actions were viewed so seriously that he was expelled from the church at Rome in 144AD.20
Having delivered himself of so many daring falsehoods in so short a time, Brown confidently marches on in chapter 55 seemingly oblivious to his own shocking historical ineptitude. He claims the Dead Sea Scroll ‘Gospels’ speak of Christ’s ministry in human terms (p. 317). The fact is, none of the Dead Sea Scrolls even mention Jesus.21 Furthermore he wrongly identifies what all historians know are the Jewish Dead Sea Scrolls as ‘Christian records’ (p. 331). He then states that the Bible celebrates the Last Supper as the moment of the arrival of the Holy Grail (p. 319). In reality, the Bible places no special significance, either physical, mystical or historical, on the actual cup used in the upper room on the night before Christ’s crucifixion. The Holy Grail (chalice) legend is a medieval development, possibly inspired by classical and Celtic mythologies.22
Mary Magdalene
The lid on the box of Brown’s core conspiracy theory is finally lifted in chapter 58. There he claims that Jesus married Mary Magdalene who is the Holy Grail. He gives a number of so-called evidences for this assertion:
The Gnostic Gospel of Philip states that Mary Magdalene was the ‘spouse’ of Jesus and that He kissed her often on the mouth. (p. 331)
The Gospel of Mary Magdalene states that Jesus loved Mary more than all the disciples and wanted her to lead the Christian Church after His death. (p. 334)
Several other Gnostic gospels mention a romantic relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. (p. 331)
Jesus and ‘Mary’ are painted as mirror images of each other, yin and yang style, with a symbolic ‘V’ shaped ‘womb’ between them. (p. 330)
The figure occupying the honoured right hand of Christ in Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper must be a woman (Mary Magdalene) because of ‘her’ long hair and delicate hands etc. (p. 327)
The Last Supper shows Peter “slicing his blade-like hand across her neck” because he was a jealous sexist who wanted to head up the church himself. (p. 333-334)
Social decorum in first century Palestine condemned celibacy and obliged all males (and therefore Jesus) to be married. (p. 330)
Mary was from the tribe of Benjamin, which makes her of royal descent. As such she could carry the royal bloodline of Christ, the history of which is contained in thousands of Sangreal documents. (p. 335)
Each of these 8 ‘evidences’ is holed below the waterline, as we shall presently see. The first three ‘proofs’ involve what are known as the Gnostic Gospels.
The Gnostics and their ‘Gospels’
Apart from the fact that the authors were Gnostics (mainly from Egypt), exactly who wrote the Gnostic Gospels is largely a mystery. For instance, The Gospel of Philip was not written by the apostle Philip who features in the Biblical gospels. Rather it acquired its name from the fact that Philip is the only apostle to be mentioned by name in its few pages. Gnosticism was the primary heresy opposed to the true faith in the second and third centuries AD. While the four Biblical gospels were all written before the first century closed and set forth a systematic largely eyewitness record of the birth, life, teachings and passion of Christ (in copious detail), the Gnostic Gospels were written much later and record very little actual history. Rather they record Gnostic versions of some of Christ’s sayings and occasional conversations He and His disciples supposedly had, both together and separately. Rather than being an attempt to, in the words of Luke the physician, “Set forth an eyewitness narrative…of all that Jesus began to do and teach” (Luke 1:1, Acts 1:1), the Gnostic Gospels actually represent a deliberate attempt by unorthodox mystics to rewrite the teachings of Jesus to suit their own theology, several generations after Jesus lived on earth. An early church chronicler named Hegesippus (110-180AD) makes this fact clear in his commentary on the life of the early church: “But, when the sacred band of apostles had in various ways closed their lives, and that generation of men to whom it had been vouchsafed to listen to the Godlike wisdom with their own ears had passed away, then did the confederacy of godless error take its rise through the treachery of false teachers [Gnostics] who, seeing that none of the apostles any longer survived, at length attempted with bare and uplifted head to oppose the preaching of the truth by preaching ‘knowledge’ [Gnosis] falsely so called.”23
One such Gnostic text is called the Gospel of Truth written by Valentinus. This short esoteric text, which can be read in a few minutes, presents a very different theology to that found in the New Testament. (Brown makes nothing of this text presumably because it doesn’t mention Mary Magdalene). What was Valentinus’ motive for writing this text? The contemporary Church Father Irenaus, writing in 180AD, reveals it all too clearly: “But those who are from Valentinus, being, on the other hand, altogether reckless, while they put forth their own compositions, boast that they possess more Gospels than there really are. Indeed, they have arrived at such a pitch of audacity, as to entitle their comparatively recent writing ‘the Gospel of Truth’, though it agrees in nothing with the gospels of the Apostles...”24 Valentinus, a leading Gnostic, was a native of Egypt, well-known as the hotbed of Gnosticism in the period following the completion of the New Testament. Basilides and Carpocrates, leading Gnostic teachers during the first half of the second century both came from Alexandria in Egypt. Yet another Gnostic leader, Cerinthus, though a Jew, was educated into Gnosticism in Alexandria at the beginning of the second century. Alexandria was “strategically positioned in the second century to act as a kind of laboratory for Christians experimenting with the commonalities between Christian faith and Greek philosophy.”25 The Gnostic heresies gained a considerable following in those early days as Tertullian pointed out in 200AD, “The Valentinians…are no doubt a very large body of heretics.”26
For ready reference, here is a list of the main Gnostic ‘Gospels’ on which Brown has staked so much:27
Title
Date & Language
Author
Where Found
Word
Count* Brief Summary of Content
The Gospel
of Thomas
About 140AD. In Greek, surviving mainly in Coptic
Claimed for Thomas though he died long before 140AD
Nag Hammadi, Egypt,
Dec 1945
4,700
A collection of 114 supposed sayings of Jesus.
The Gospel
of Judas
c. 140-160AD. In Greek, but surviving only in Coptic
Anonymous
A cavern in Middle Egypt in the 1970s
2,500
In part purports
to record a conversation between Jesus
and Judas.
The Gospel
of Truth
Prior to 175AD. In Greek, but surviving only in Coptic
Valentinus (died 175AD)
Nag Hammadi, Egypt,
Dec 1945
4,700
A sermon to an audience on the saving knowledge
of God.
The Gospel
of Mary
c. 190-200AD. In Greek, but surviving only in Coptic
Anonymous
In Egypt in 1896 (half is missing)
1,000
A dialogue between Jesus, Mary and the disciples.
The Gospel
of Philip
c. 250-300AD. In Greek, but surviving only in Coptic
Anonymous
Nag Hammadi,
Egypt,
Dec 1945
9,900
Quotes from sermons, letters
and texts, some attributed to Jesus.
The Gospel of the Egyptians
Date unknown. In Greek, but surviving only in Coptic
Anonymous (claimed
to be ‘God-written’)
Nag Hammadi,
Egypt,
Dec 1945
4,000
An esoteric document presenting Gnostic salvation history.
* These are approximate figures working from English translations. In contrast to these short Gnostic texts, Mark, the shortest Biblical gospel, contains about 14,500 words. Luke, the longest, about 24,800.
What do we know so far? We know some of the Gnostics’ names; we know during what time period they lived and what they were trying to accomplish; but what did they actually believe? According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Gnostics were known by the distinction they made “…between the unknown supreme God and the Demiurge (identified with the God of the Old Testament) who created this world; their dualist disparagement of the material order and insistence that the Redeemer became incarnate in appearance only; their belief in salvation by esoteric knowledge; and their division of humanity into a spiritual elite able to achieve salvation and, below this elite, ‘psychics’ capable of a modified form of salvation and ‘material’ people cut off from salvation.”28
The word Gnostic stems from the Greek gnosis, meaning knowledge. By combining Greek philosophy with Christianity the Gnostics produced a whole host of complicated and specialist terminology.29 They talked much about the pleroma, the demiurge, emanations, aeons and archons. They sought personal salvation through freeing the inner spirit from the shackles of the fleshly life by banishing ignorance and gaining higher gnosis. Since they believed all physical matter, especially the flesh, was intrinsically evil, ascetic conduct was widespread among them. They took a dim view of sex, marriage and red meat, the last of which was believed to impart virility to the eater. Interestingly, bearing Dan Brown’s thesis in mind, the Gnostic God was androgynous – both god and goddess at the same time (a balance of masculine and feminine). Many Gnostics held that the redeemer is a ‘Christ spirit’ who adopted the body of Jesus at His baptism and departed from that same body just prior to the crucifixion. They denied a bodily resurrection, claiming that one experiences the resurrection when one attains self-realization or inner gnosis. These false teachings existed in embryonic form even while the apostles were writing the New Testament as can be seen from an examination of the apostle Paul’s words in Colossians 2:18-23, 1 Timothy 6:20 and 2 Timothy 2:16-18, and the apostle John’s words in 1 John 4:1-3.
With this background in mind, let us return to the eight so-called proofs for a romantic and marital relationship between Mary Magdalene and Jesus in chapter 58 of The Da Vinci Code.
1. The Gnostic Gospel of Philip states that Mary Magdalene was the ‘spouse’ of Jesus and that He kissed her often on the mouth (p. 331)
Dan Brown wrongly refers to the The Gospel of Philip as part of the “earliest Christian records” (p. 331). The fact is, scholars are universally agreed that The Gospel of Philip was written up to 200 years later than either Matthew, Mark, Luke or John.30 What is one to make of an author who claims that all his descriptions of documents are accurate and then proceeds to repeatedly make such incredibly careless and patently false assertions (for which a teenager would be marked down in an ancient history exam)?
What does this all-important Gnostic text from the end of the third century actually say? According to Brown it reads, “And the companion of the Saviour is Mary Magdalene. Christ loved her more than all the disciples and used to kiss her often on the mouth.” (p. 331) When Brown’s character Sofie objects to the use of this passage as proof of romance – because it doesn’t mention marriage – Teabing retorts, “As any Aramaic scholar will tell you, the word companion, in those days, literally means spouse,” a statement to which Langdon, played by Tom Hanks in the movie, nods his head in agreement.
Here again Brown is embarrassingly wide of the mark. To start with, the Gospel of Philip is not written in Aramaic. The copy found in Nag Hammadi is written in Coptic having been translated from Greek. Coptic is a late form of Egyptian whereas Aramaic is a Semitic language, closely related to Hebrew. Nowhere in this short ‘gospel’, which can be read in a matter of minutes, is there any reference whatsoever to a marriage between Jesus and Mary. As for the ‘kissing’ sentence, the word ‘mouth’ is missing. Due to the age of the manuscript there are many lacunas (gaps). The word ‘mouth’ has been supplied by Brown. The missing word could have been hand, cheek, forehead or mouth. Brown picked the option that best suited his sensationalistic style without informing the reader of his motive. As for the claim that the word companion has to mean spouse, Gnostic expert J. Michael Matkin states: “But it’s important to note that the word ‘companion’ or ‘consort’ does not indicate a sexual relationship in the way that some authors have claimed…[the passage] should be read in the context of the entire Gospel of Philip, which takes a dim view toward sexual relationships. It seems highly unlikely that Philip’s editor would have deliberately included works that alleged a sexual relationship between Jesus and any woman...”31
Those who believe that the Gospel of Philip is an authoritative text which deserves to be taken seriously should ponder some sentences in the lines just before the ‘Jesus and Mary’ paragraph: “God is a man-eater. For this reason men are [sacrificed] to him…if glass decanters break they are done over, for they came into being through a breath. If earthenware jugs break, however, they are destroyed, for they came into being without breath…The Lord went into the dye works of Levi. He took seventy-two different colours and threw them into the vat. He took them out all white. And he said, ‘Even so has the son of man come [as] a dyer.”
In summary, at least three facts prevent the Gospel of Philip from carrying any historical weight. Firstly, it is riddled throughout by sheer nonsense as noted above. Secondly, it is a late non-eyewitness text written well over two hundred years after the death of Christ and thirdly, it betrays a heavy Gnostic bias throughout its narrative.32
2. The Gospel of Mary Magdalene states that Jesus loved Mary more than all the disciples and wanted her to establish the Christian Church after His death (p. 334)
The so-called Gospel of Mary Magdalene is a tiny document of not much more than 1,000 words – part of a Codex discovered in Egypt at the end of the 19th Century. Dr. Carl Reinhardt bought the whole Codex in an antiquities shop in Cairo in 1896. Now known as the Berlin Codex it was not published until 1955. Half of the original is missing. Presumably originally written in Greek, the Berlin version is in Coptic. It was composed at the earliest toward the end of the second century AD, a good 100 years after the Biblical gospels.33 Even the most cursory reading of this document reveals it to be a deeply Gnostic work in which ‘Mary’ speaks of seeing a vision of a soul ascending and overcoming various ‘powers’ that appear in assorted ‘manifestations’. It records Jesus saying, “There is no such thing as sin”34 except for loving and mingling with the material world. Interestingly, according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, those in the centuries immediately after Christ who “believed that matter is evil and redemption is attained by an enlightened elite,” regarded Mary Magdalene as “a medium of secret revelation, so described in their Gospel of Mary, Gospel of Philip, and Pistis Sophia.”35
Dan Brown quotes from a section of this text in which an argument takes place after ‘Mary’ finishes recounting her Gnostic vision. Andrew and Peter reject her ideas as foreign to that which they had learned from the Lord. However, Levi steps in to defend Mary and claims that “the Saviour knows her very well. That is why He loved her more than us.” Even taking this sentence in this late Gnostic ‘gospel’ at face value, it still provides no evidence that anything of a sexual or marital nature took place between Mary and Jesus.
3. Several other Gnostic gospels mention a romantic relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene (p. 331)
Dan Brown’s character Sir. Leigh Teabing claims that there are “countless references [in the Gnostic gospels] to Jesus and Magdalen’s union.” (p. 333). For ‘countless references’ to a ‘union’, read ‘two references’ to a special non-sexual love for Mary as recorded by the Gnostics. Period. The whole romance and marriage idea is the product of overactive imaginations operating with a total disregard for historical integrity. What do serious academics believe? “Liberal and conservative scholars agree that there is no evidence that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene…when liberals and conservatives agree it’s probably right”, says Dr. Darrell L. Bock Ph.D, author of Breaking the Da Vinci Code (Nelson Books, 2004).
4, 5 & 6. Mirror images, Long Hair and Delicate Hands and Peter the sexist.
Could the person on the right hand of Jesus in the The Last Supper actually be a woman? Don’t the Biblical records place 12 male disciples in the Upper Room with Jesus the night before He dies? To settle this issue it is vital to realize that Leonardo’s painting depicts the tense moment when Jesus announces that the hand of the betrayer is on the table. That is why he paints the disciples in dramatic dialogue with each other and not with the Messiah. Leonardo is not portraying the moment when Jesus says “This cup is the New Testament in My blood,” or all eyes would have been focused upon Him (Luke 22:20). These simple observations expose the mistaken emphasis Brown places on the fact of the ‘missing chalice’, which he interprets as Leonardo’s way of pointing to a Marion identity for the Holy Grail.
If all the characters at the table are men, why does the one on the right of Christ look so feminine? Da Vinci debunkers Sandra Miesel and Carl Olson explain: “The figure is undoubtedly effeminate, as Leonardo depicted the youthful John in early fifteenth-century Florentine style. This approach can be seen in other paintings of the period, including Leonardo’s own Saint John the Baptist (ca. 1513-1516), which depicts a young man who is quite effeminate in appearance and also has flowing hair and delicate hands.”36
As for the ‘mirror image’ Jesus and Mary theory which Brown borrowed from The Templar Revelation by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince (Simon & Schuster, 1998), noted art historian and critic E. H Gombrich explains, “…tradition still had St John leaning against Christ, and the only rapid sketch we have by Leonardo for this composition indicates he originally meant to adopt this tradition as well as the action of Christ reaching across the table to give the sop to Judas, who was generally placed there in isolation from the others.”37 However, Leonardo decided in the end to paint the twelve disciples in four groups of three. He portrays the apostle John as a mirror image of Christ firstly so that Christ might be seen as isolated at the moment of betrayal and, secondly, that though isolated Jesus and John will still be seen as “soul-mates…matched in outline, in (original) hue of garment and tilt of head.”38
Peter, John and Judas are grouped together for a purpose. Each man is destined for a distinct and notable role in the coming events surrounding the crucifixion. Once Jesus announces His imminent betrayal, Peter lunges forward wielding a knife as if to defend His Lord. John, who always described himself as ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved’ and who enjoyed a special closeness to the Lord reacts altogether differently. He calmly reflects on the tragic meaning of the betrayal announcement of Christ. Peter and John, close friends who are fiercely loyal to Christ, thus form the backdrop for the traitor Judas, who is portrayed holding tightly to a bag of money.
As for the ‘V’ shape between Jesus and John (Brown’s ‘Mary’) forming the ‘focal point’ of the painting and representing ‘the female womb’ no evidence is forthcoming. The fact is, Jesus Himself is clearly the focal point with six disciples each side of Him and His head the only one totally silhouetted (by the central window). When asked whether or not Leonardo Da Vinci’s painting depicted Jesus and Mary Magdalene as a married couple, Joseph Forte, an art historian at Sarah Lawrence College replied, “I know of no serious scholar who has proposed this notion.”39
Based on the sentence in the Gnostic Gospel of Mary where Peter disagrees with Mary’s supposed esoteric revelations, Brown portrays him as a dagger-wielding sexist who is out to kill Mary in order to take her place as the chosen head of the church. In contrast Brown portrays Jesus is ‘the original feminist’ who wants to liberate Mary and promote the ‘sacred feminine’ among His followers. The truth is much less sensational. In the words of J. Michael Matkin, “There evidently was a tradition in the early church that associated Mary Magdalene with the viability of women serving in leadership…Mary was adopted as a symbol and spokesperson by those who found their views marginalized in the Christian movement.”40 So in summary, the Last Supper shows Peter wielding his knife in readiness to defend his Lord, while the passage in the Gospel of Mary that casts him in a harsh light is a false account designed to promote women in leadership, contrary to the character and content of the earlier Biblical gospel records.
7. First Century decorum
The fact that most Jewish men in the first century were married and that bachelorhood was frowned upon means, according to Dan Brown, that if Jesus were not married the Biblical gospels would certainly have mentioned the fact. Actually those familiar with the New Testament will know that the unmarried state receives a number of mentions, one from the lips of Jesus Himself. He speaks of people who have “made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake” (Matthew 19:12). The apostle Paul recommended celibacy in his first letter to the Corinthians (7:7). In the same letter Paul, whose writings are indisputably the earliest in the history of Christianity, spoke of foregoing his right to have a wife (9:5). He said to the Corinthians, “Do we have no right to take along a believing wife, as do also the other apostles, the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas?” Now, if Jesus had been married, surely Paul would have cited Him as setting the greatest precedent of all – but he didn’t.
8. The Sangreal documents contain the bloodline?
There is no evidence anywhere in archaeology, literature or history of any kind to prove the existence of a bloodline from Christ to the present day through the ancient French Royal family or any other family. It is pure fantasy invented by the fraudulent Pierre Plantard, published in Holy Blood Holy Grail and copied by Dan Brown in The Da Vinci Code. The hand-written family tree that is supposedly hidden in a chest inside tomb of Mary Magdalene is a fiction. Period. The Sangreal documents don’t exist. They belong in the same category as Joseph Smith’s golden plates. The whole idea is a fabrication from beginning to end, concocted by those who desire to undermine the Bible.
Brown claims that the word Holy Grail stems not from ‘holy chalice’ but from ‘royal blood’. The trick, according to Brown’s character Teabing, is in how you divide the word Sangreal (the title of the non-existent documents on which the whole hoax is built). If you divide it as San Greal it means Holy Grail. However if it is divided as Sang Real, as Brown claims it was done in its most ancient form, it means ‘blood royal’ i.e. royal blood (in old French).
Those who delight in fanciful conspiracy tales may find this an eye-opening revelation. Others who prefer real history can check out the etymology of the words ‘holy grail’ in any serious dictionary. What they will discover is that grail comes from the Old French graal or grael (a flat dish), from the Low Latin gradalis (a flat dish) and ultimately from the Greek krater (a bowl). Of course, the concept of a Holy Grail is not found anywhere within the pages of the Bible. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, “The first extant text to give such a vessel Christian significance as a mysterious, holy object was Chrétien de Troyes’s late 12th-century unfinished romance Perceval, or Le Conte du Graal.”41 That’s over 1,000 years after Christ. As for Mary being from the house of Benjamin. This is more fanciful nonsense from Brown, totally devoid of any historical proof. Even if she had come from the line of Benjamin, for her to marry a man from the Tribe of Judah would not have involved the fusion of two royal bloodlines. The Benjamites were not the Kingly tribe.
What can we know for sure about Mary? In twelve passages about her spread across the four Biblical Gospels we learn that she is called ‘the Magdalene’ after her hometown Magdala (Luke 8:2). On becoming a follower of Christ she was the subject of an exorcism, after which she joined a group of women who ministered to the needs of their Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth. She was present at the cross among a group of Christ’s followers and family (Matthew 27:55-56). Lastly she witnesses the resurrection of Christ, and after having a unique meeting with the risen Messiah, is sent by Him to announce His resurrection to the disciples (John 20:11-18). There is devotion, worship and a special relationship – but not the slightest hint of anything approaching the fanciful notions of Dan Brown and the other authors on whom he relied.
Never once is Mary Magdalene called a prostitute in the Bible. Half a dozen centuries after Christ, on September 21st 591AD, in a homily preached at the basilica of San Clemente in Rome, Pope Gregory the Great stated that the ‘sinner’ who anointed the Lord’s feet in Luke 7:37 is Mary Magdalene, who is mentioned a few verses later as having been demon possessed (Luke 8:2). To add to the confusion, many others have mistakenly conflated the story of the sinful woman who anoints the Lord’s feet in Luke Ch. 7 with the story of the woman who anoints His feet in John Ch. 12. The woman in John 12 is indeed called Mary, but she is a different Mary altogether to the Magdalene, while the ‘sinful woman’ of Luke 7 is never named. Small wonder that there were mistakes of interpretation made – but to imagine that it involved a deliberate conspiracy to obliterate the sacred feminine from religion, a conspiracy cooked up in the highest echelons of the Christian Church no less, is just more baseless conjecture on Brown’s part.
The Mask Slips
Why would anyone set out to write such a book as The Da Vinci Code? What is Dan Brown’s motive? The answer is to be found on his official website. There he betrays his own Gnostic worldview in the following revealing words: “Faith is a continuum and we all fall on that line wherever we may fall…Each of us must follow our own path to enlightenment…There is enormous danger in believing…that our version of the truth is absolute.”42 Like so many others, Brown is absolutely sure that no one can be absolutely sure. Yet in his book he claims to know a lie when he sees it. For Brown, the Biblical narrative of a divine Christ who became flesh, lived a sinless life, died on the cross for the sins of the world and rose again bodily from the dead three days later is a lie. It is, to use his exact words, ‘false’ (p. 318) and a ‘fabrication’ (p. 451). His bias is all too obvious. When Christians claim to have the absolute truth Brown labels them as dangerous, but when Brown himself claims to know that Christianity is based on an absolute lie he calls himself a truth-teller. As for Brown’s Gnostic Christ and his androgynous god, that’s no ‘version of the truth’ at all. It’s an outright perversion.
Brown, along with the majority of the world’s population, is following his own path to Gnosis, or enlightenment. In doing so he is mirroring the course of human history since the fall of man when, turning his back on his creator and questioning God’s authority, man went his own way, pursuing the deception he had been sold, “You shall be as gods” (Genesis 3:5). The results that flowed from man’s original exercise of his sinful autonomy and rebellion are seen in everything that is wrong with our world today.
True enlightenment begins by turning one’s back on finding the answer within oneself and agreeing with God’s assessment of the human condition in His word the Bible which states: “We are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses [good deeds] are like filthy rags; we all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.” (Isaiah 64:6) True wisdom lies in humbling oneself and bowing at the feet of the Creator, acknowledging one’s sinfulness before a holy God. Eternal life and personal salvation are available to all, but attainable by none through self-effort and religious works. Instead, God has provided the way for sinners to be reconciled to Himself through His Son, Jesus Christ, the only Saviour of mankind. Listen to what Jesus says about Himself:
“I am the way, the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except by Me.” (John 14:6)
“I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he shall be saved.” (Jn 10:9)
“I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me shall live even if he dies.” (John 11:25)
“I am the light of the world; he who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” (John 8:12)
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)
The true path to light, forgiveness and peace with God is to turn from sin and self and trust for personal salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ alone who died for sinners on the cross and rose again the third day. “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)
Notes:
1. Speaking on the DVD documentary Breaking The Da Vinci Code, (Spokane, WA: Grizzly Adams Productions, 2005).
2. All page numbers are from the Corgi Books edition of The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, published by Transworld Publishers, London, 2004.
3. Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln, Holy Blood Holy Grail (New York, NY: Dell, 1983).
4. Dan Brown, interview by Charles Gibson, Good Morning America, ABC, November 3rd 2003.
5. Leigh Teabing is a combination/anagram of the two surnames of Richard Leigh and Michael Baigent who, with Henry Lincoln, wrote Holy Blood Holy Grail (1983).
6. Quoted by Jeffery L. Sheler, Is the Bible True? How Modern Debates and Discoveries Affirm the Essence of the Scriptures (San Francisco: Harper; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999), 151.
7. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2003 CD-ROM. Biblical Literature/New Testament Canon and Versions/Texts and Versions/Textual Criticism.
8. For example, they record the fact that the first witnesses to see Christ after His resurrection were women (Matt 28:1-8). In the legal culture of 1st Century Judaism, the testimony of women was deemed unreliable. They also frequently recorded their own failings and weaknesses and the many difficult, controversial and seemingly harsh sayings of Jesus.
9. Professor Peter Stoner, Science Speaks (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1963).
10. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2003 CD-ROM. Nicaea, Council of.
11. Irenaeus, Ante-Nicene Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1999), Vol 1, 428.
12. Ignatius, Ante-Nicene Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1999), Vol 1, 62.
13. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2003 CD-ROM. John, Gospel According to.
14. F.F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity, 1972), 20.
15. C.S. Lewis, “What Are We To Make of Jesus Christ?” The Grand Miracle: Essays from God in the Dock (New York: Ballantine, 1983), 113.
16. Ignatius, Ante-Nicene Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1999), Vol 1, 73.
17. Origen, Ante-Nicene Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1999), Vol 4, 413.
18. Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2002), Vol 3, 629.
19. Tertullian, Ante-Nicene Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1999), Vol 3, 345-353.
20. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2003 CD-ROM. Marcionite.
21. Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (London: Penguin Books, 2004), 21.
22. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2003 CD-ROM. Grail.
23. Hegesippus, Ante-Nicene Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1999), Vol 8, 764.
24. Irenaeus, Ante-Nicene Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1999), Vol 1, 429.
25. J. Michael Matkin, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Gnostic Gospels (New York, NY: Alpha Books, 2005), 38.
26. Tertullian, Ante-Nicene Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1999), Vol 3, 503.
27. This table was constructed using information gleaned from the following works: The Nag Hammadi Library (New York, NY: HarperSanFrancisco, 1990), The Secret Gospels of Jesus (London: Dartman, Longman & Todd, 2005) and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Gnostic Gospels (New York, NY: Alpha Books, 2005).
28. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2003 CD-ROM. Patristic Literature, the Ante-Nicene Period.
29. In a Gnostic library of thirteen ancient codices discovered at Nag Hammadi in Egypt in 1945, along with the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip and Valentinus’ Gospel of Truth, a segment from Plato’s Republic was found.
30. James M. Robinson, General Editor, The Nag Hammadi Library (New York, NY: HarperSanFrancisco, 1990), 141.
31. J. Michael Matkin, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Gnostic Gospels (New York, NY: Alpha Books, 2005), 135.
32. Consider: “Some said Mary became pregnant by the Holy Spirit. They are wrong…Mary is the virgin whom none of the powers defiled.” Or “Abraham circumcised the flesh of the foreskin, thus teaching us that it is necessary to destroy the flesh.” Selections from the Gospel of Philip in The Secret Gospels of Jesus (London, Dartman Longman and Todd Ltd., 2005).
33. Ben Witherington, The Gospel Code (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004), p. 35.
34. Marvin Meyer, The Secret Gospels of Jesus (London: Dartman, Longman & Todd, 2005), 37.
35. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2003 CD-ROM. Mary Magdalene, Saint.
36. Carl Olson and Sandra Miesel, The Da Vinci Hoax (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2004), p. 269-270.
37. E. H. Gombrich, Papers Given on the Occasion of the Dedication of The Last Supper (after Leonardo), Magdalen College, Oxford, March 10, 1993. Accessed online at http://davinci.ntu.ac.uk/gombrich/oxford.htm
38. Leo Steinberg Leonardo’s Incessant Last Supper (New York, NY: Zone Books, 2001), p. 76.
39. Quote by Carl Olsen & Sandra Miesel in The Da Vinci Hoax (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2004), 240.
40. J. Michael Matkin, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Gnostic Gospels (New York, NY: Alpha Books, 2005), 90.
41. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2003 CD-ROM. Grail.
42. www.danbrown.com
http://www.webtruth.org/print-friendly.php?art_id=63
Michael J. Penfold
In New England, USA, there lives a former English teacher by the name of Dan Brown who claims to know the truth about the greatest cover-up in human history – and through the incredible worldwide popularity of his Da Vinci Code book and film he has shared this explosive ‘revelation’ with tens of millions of readers and viewers.
Though the information he discloses already existed in older non-fiction books such as Holy Blood Holy Grail (Dell, 1983) and The Templar Revelation (Simon & Schuster, 1998), it took what The Boston Globe called a ‘dazzling performance’ by this previously almost unheard of American novelist to introduce it to the wider world – first in print and then, once he’d caught the attention of Hollywood, through film.
Readers familiar with history will find the following summary of The Da Vinci Code somewhat bewildering. According to Brown, like most other men of His day, Jesus Christ married and had a child. His wife and chief apostle, Mary Magdalene, fled to France immediately after the crucifixion where she gave birth to a baby named Sarah. In the fifth century, Mary and Jesus’ bloodline married into the French Royal family and created a lineage called the Merovingian dynasty. An organisation called the ‘Priory of Sion’ has protected both this secret, Mary’s tomb and her living descendants through the last 1,000 years until today. The ‘Sangreal documents’ and other writings of the early followers of Jesus are said to recount this story. Four trunk loads of these papers apparently lie buried in Mary’s tomb. Bent on eradicating the ‘divine feminine’ from religion and desperate to uphold a patriarchal system that is anti-women and anti-sex, the Church set about waging a campaign to destroy any trace of the real truth about Jesus and Mary. From 325AD onwards it began to promote the idea that Jesus was the divine celibate son of God. As for Mary, it branded her a prostitute. Since Matthew, Mark, Luke and John have all been tampered with in order to portray Jesus in a divine light, they are to be rejected in favour of the Gnostic gospels which, like the Sangreal documents, prove that Jesus really did marry Mary. Since Mary Magdalene was the vessel through whom the ‘royal bloodline of Jesus’ was preserved, that makes her, rather than the famed chalice used at the Last Supper, the Holy Grail. Where does the Renaissance artist Leonardo Da Vinci fit into all of this? As the one time Grand Master of the Priory of Sion, Leonardo was privy to this dark and dreadful secret. To keep ‘the truth’ alive, he decided to encode it into his famous 15th Century work of art The Last Supper, which he painted on one of the walls of the monastery refectory in Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan, Italy.
Now who on earth would be interested in such a tale? How about 40 million purchasers of the Da Vinci Code book since 2003, or tens of millions of moviegoers since May 2006? In a day when the masses no longer read serious literature and are generally ignorant about history, nothing fills the void more effectively than ‘the movies’. Delivering the Chancellor’s Lecture at the University of Newcastle on 3rd December 2001, Britain’s Lord Puttnam of Queensgate (producer of Chariots of Fire, Memphis Belle, The Killing Fields etc.) incisively observed that due to film’s dominant position as the world’s principal means of conveying knowledge and understanding, Hollywood is engaged in “tinkering around in people’s minds, imprinting emotions, messages and ideas which may well influence them for life…Far more than any other influence, more even than home or school, my attitudes, dreams and preconceptions [have] been irreversibly shaped five and a half thousand miles away in a suburb of Los Angeles called Hollywood.” Remembering that a survey taken in Canada in 2005 (reported in the June 24th edition of the Ottawa Citizen) revealed that 32% of The Da Vinci Code’s readers believed its story line to be true, one can only dread to think what kind of long term impact the movie and DVD will have, especially on the minds of the young.
Though multiplied reviewers have acclaimed The Da Vinci Code as a clever and gripping novel based on historical facts, viewed in the cold light of history it is seen to be nothing more than a wild conspiracy theory based on imagination, exaggeration and pure fabrication. Brown’s work is littered with glaring historical inaccuracies about the size of paintings, the dates and original languages of manuscripts, the identity of various gods and goddesses, the structure and content of buildings and facts and figures connected with groups like, for instance, the ‘Priory of Sion’. Any wonder that Steven Kellmeyer, who has written a critique of Dan Brown’s work, has gone so far as to call The Da Vinci Code the most badly researched book he has ever read.1 Perhaps that’s why Brown has never appeared on TV or Radio alongside a critical historian.
Brown claims on his initial ‘fact’ page that, “In 1975 Paris’ Bibliotheque Nationale discovered parchments known as Les Dossiers Secrets, identifying numerous members of the Priory of Sion, including Sir. Isaac Newton, Sandro Botticelli, Victor Hugo and Leonardo Da Vinci.” (p.15)2 These documents really existed – but they were forgeries, planted in the Parisian library by a French conman named Pierre Plantard. He and several colleagues, who formed a club called the Priory of Sion in 1956, put together numerous fraudulent genealogical documents which purported to prove that Plantard himself descended from Christ and Mary Magdalene through the Merovingian dynasty. Plantard the pretender, an anti-Semite with a criminal record, was eventually forced to admit his fabrications under oath to a French court in 1993. A French journalist named Jean-Luc Chaumeil, who also collaborated in a BBC documentary in 1996 which presented evidence demolishing the whole story, exposed him in several books. Another researcher, Paul Smith, has been tirelessly exposing the Priory of Sion fraud since at least 1985 (see http://priory-of-sion.com). As for Plantard, he died in obscurity in 2000.
Readers who remember as far back as 1983 will perhaps recognise Plantard from the book Holy Blood Holy Grail.3 In that work, authors Richard Leigh, Michael Baigent and Henry Lincoln promoted this same conspiracy theory about Jesus and Mary and their bloodline. The Da Vinci Code relies on Holy Blood Holy Grail to such an extent that two of its three authors took Dan Brown to court in London in 2006 claiming he had plagiarised their work. Though they failed to win damages, the case did at least demonstrate the true extent to which Brown had borrowed from their ‘research’.
Brown harnesses many such fraudulent theories in his attempt to undermine two of the main pillars on which true Christianity rests; the divinity of Jesus Christ and the inspiration of scripture. Make no mistake. Behind the smile and the assurances of good will to men is a clearly discernable strategy to discredit the Bible and the gospel. Lest any reader accuse me of hyperbole, here are some pertinent quotes from The Da Vinci Code:
1) “The Bible is a product of man…not of God.” (p. 312)
2) “Nothing in Christianity is original.” (p. 314)
3) “Jesus’ divinity was the result of a vote…A relatively close vote at that.” (p. 315)
4) “Almost everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false.” (p. 318)
5) “It’s a matter of historical record…Jesus and [Mary] Magdalene were a pair [i.e. married].” (p. 329)
6) “Jesus was the original feminist.” (p. 334)
7) “Behold the greatest cover-up in human history. Jesus was not only married, but he was a father…Mary Magdalene…was the chalice that bore the royal bloodline of Jesus Christ.” (p. 336)
8) “…the Holy of Holies in Solomon’s Temple housed not only God but also His powerful female equal, Shekinah.” (p. 411)
9) “…every faith in the world [including Christianity] is based on fabrication.” (p. 451)
10) “Should we wave a flag and tell…that Jesus was not born of a literal virgin birth? [No] Those who understand their faiths understand the stories are metaphorical.” (p. 452)
But isn’t it just a novel? Officially yes, but Dan Brown has gone on record stating that he personally believes all the claims he inserts about Jesus marrying and having a child by Mary Magdalene.4 Though Brown is a lousy researcher and a hopelessly inaccurate ‘historian’, he is very adept at peddling fiction as fact. He commences his book with the following bold but deceptive assertion: “All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.” (p. 15) This claim subtly leads readers to assume that when Brown’s fictional characters speak about Christianity, all the supplementary and background information is true when, as we shall see, it is not.
The Da Vinci Code contains 105 short chapters, the two most critical of which, as far as the Bible is concerned, are 55 and 58. Brown’s embarrassing howlers assail the historically knowledgeable mind inaccurate paragraph after inaccurate paragraph through these few short pages. Indeed, Christian and secular historians alike have been left shaking their heads at the bewildering fireworks display of ignorance and shameless fabrication Brown has produced in these two damning chapters.
Product of Man?
Chapter 55 puts the following words into the mouth of Sir Leigh Teabing,5 a fictional character who plays the part of a religious historian and one time British royal historian: “To fully understand the Grail…we must first understand the Bible.” (p. 311) He is addressing Harvard Professor Robert Langdon and ‘agent’ Sophie Neveu who are ‘on the case’ of the Holy Grail. Why will first understanding the Bible lead us to agree with Brown’s heady conspiracy theory? Because in Brown’s view, the Bible is not the divinely inspired word of God but a conspiratorial collection of biased and doctored writings whose purpose is to rewrite the facts of history and conceal the real truth about Jesus. Hence the bold statement, “The Bible is a product of man…not of God. Man created it and it has evolved through countless translations, additions and revisions. History has never had a definitive version of the book.” (p. 312-313)
This swipe at the trustworthiness of the Bible is either gravely misinformed or deliberately misleading. Either way it is wholly inaccurate. The fact that today’s literal Bible translations contain to a very high degree of accuracy exactly what was originally written down by the apostles and prophets, has been proven beyond reasonable doubt through the rigorous science of textual criticism. Eugene Ulrich, editor of Oxford University’s Dead Sea Scroll series states: “The [Dead Sea] scrolls have shown that our traditional Bible has been amazingly accurately preserved for over 2,000 years.”6 The Encyclopaedia Britannica makes a similar point: “Compared with other ancient manuscripts, the text of the New Testament is dependable and consistent…In sharp contrast to the fact that the oldest extant full manuscript of a work by the Greek philosopher Plato (died 347 BC) is a copy written in 895 – a gap of more than 1,000 years bridged by only a few papyrus texts – there was a time gap of less than 200 or 300 years between the original accounts of the New Testament events and extant manuscripts. In fact, a small papyrus fragment with verses from the 18th chapter of the Gospel according to John can be dated c. 120–130; this earliest known fragment of the New Testament was written 40 years or less after the presumed date of the production of that Gospel (c. 90).”7 Furthermore, nothing in the 2 or 3% or so of scribal variants between over 5,000 ancient hand-written Greek manuscripts of the New Testament affects any material question of historical fact or detail of Christian faith and practice.
How loosely educated must Brown have been not to have known that by examining the writings of ancient secular historians such as Tacitus, Josephus and Pliny, and the pre-Nicene and post-Nicene church fathers, as well as comparing the Biblical record with thousands of archaeological digs in Biblically significant areas, scholars have been able to prove the authorship, reliability and truthfulness of the four Gospel records (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John)? Add to that the internal evidence of the complimentary eye-witness accounts, the obvious intelligence and skill of the writers, and the fact that in many cases they record exactly the opposite kind of evidence one would have expected had they been trying to concoct a lie,8 and there is every reason to trust the record of the Biblical writers.
This fresh attempt to brand the Bible as a ‘creation’ or ‘product of man’ is also undone by its ‘predictive accuracy’ strike rate of 100%. Hundreds of years before Christ was born, the location of His birth, the person who would announce His ministry, how He would enter Jerusalem, who would be crucified along side Him, how He would die and in what type of grave He would be buried were all predicted in detail in the Old Testament. The pre-Christian date of these predictions has been empirically proven through the Dead Sea Scrolls. Dozens of such predictions, all of which were accurately fulfilled, put the Bible beyond the ability of any man or body of men to create. Taking just 8 of these predictions, Professor Peter Stoner calculated that: ‘‘We find the chance that any man might have lived to the present time and fulfilled all eight prophecies is 1 in 1017…that would be 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000.’’9
80 Considered – 4 chosen?
‘Sir. Teabing’ continues: “More than 80 gospels were considered for the New Testament but only a relatively few were chosen for inclusion – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John among them…The Bible, as we know it today, was collated by the pagan Roman emperor Constantine the Great.” (p. 313) The theory Brown is pushing here goes back to an event known as the Council of Nicaea held in 325AD. This church council was convened by the Roman emperor Constantine I to solve the problem created in the Eastern church by Arianism, a heresy first proposed by Arius of Alexandria who believed Christ to be a created being, not divine.10 The council neither discussed nor pronounced on the issue of the canon (which books should or should not be in the Bible). Yet Brown claims that the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, were selected for inclusion in the Bible as late as 325AD, out of a total of 80 available gospels, simply because they contained the record of Jesus’ life and death most favourable to those who were trying to cover up the real truth about Jesus and Mary Magdalene.
One can only assume Brown has never researched the 10 volumes of the writings of the ante-Nicene fathers. These early church leaders wrote copiously about most aspects of Christianity and their comments on the gospels are revealing. Take Irenaeus for instance. Writing in 180AD, Irenaeus states concerning Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, “It is not possible that the gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are…Now, the church is scattered throughout all the world, and the ‘pillar and ground’ of the church is the Gospel. Therefore, it is fitting that she should have four pillars…”11 Further quotes from other church fathers such as Tertullian and Origen could easily be added, the point being that long before the Council of Nicaea it was widely recognised among the followers of Jesus Christ that there were only four gospel records that bore the marks of divine inspiration. The church looked for several features before accepting a gospel as inspired. It had to be an account of an eyewitness or a close associate of an eyewitness. It had to be theologically in line with the divinely inspired Old Testament. It had to be accepted by Christians in all parts of the area covered by the early spread of the gospel. The fact is, there is written proof that very early in the church’s history some of the writings of the apostles had already been recognized as part of the Bible. The apostle Peter, writing in 2 Peter 3:16, in 66AD, refers to some of the apostle Paul’s writings as ‘scripture’. So the Bible’s inspiration was recognized much, much earlier than the Council of Nicaea, and its gospels were marked off as ‘four only’ at least 145 years prior to the sitting of that council. As for those 80 so-called gospels, apart from the four early Biblical gospels, all of which were composed before the end of the first century, no more than a dozen other ‘gospels’ have ever been found or referred to, and these were all written during the period 150-400AD. Who is more trust-worthy? Those who knew Christ intimately and wrote about him before their own deaths in the first century, or those who came along several generations later who are known to have held all kinds of weird Gnostic notions and who deliberately reinterpreted the account of Jesus’ life and teachings to fit their own mystical and esoteric system of philosophy?
Nothing Original?
In the middle of an explanation of the fact that many of the Church’s symbols come down to us directly from ancient paganism, Brown’s character Sir. Leigh Teabing oversteps the mark by claiming that, “Nothing in Christianity is original.” (p. 314) He claims that one of the pagan influences brought in by the Emperor Constantine was the change from Saturday (the Jewish Sabbath) to Sunday as the day of Christian worship. This is yet another cringing betrayal of Brown’s woeful historical illiteracy. The change from the Saturday Sabbath to ‘Sunday’ was made during the time of the apostles, immediately following the resurrection of their Lord on a Sunday. Indeed, the church began on a Sunday, as recorded in Acts Ch. 2 (the day of Pentecost). The early disciples met for worship on Sunday a fact proved by Acts 20:7 and 1 Corinthians 16:2. Sunday is called in the Bible “the first day of the week” and “the Lord’s Day” (Revelation 1:10). Long before Nicaea, the church fathers explicitly rejected any link with Sunday worship and the sun god, going to lengths to explain that they met together on the first day of the week because on it the Lord Jesus had risen again from the dead. Writing in 105AD, just after the last book of the New Testament had been finished, Ignatius, who was a personal disciple of one or more of the 12 apostles, spoke of Christians, “no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord’s Day.”12
Jesus Divinity – A late close vote?
Brown then takes a direct hit at the deity of Christ. Again putting words in Teabing’s mouth, Brown states his belief that “until that moment in history [the Council of Nicaea in 325AD], Jesus was viewed by his followers as a mortal prophet…a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless. A mortal…Jesus’ establishment as the ‘Son of God’ was officially proposed and voted on by the Council of Nicaea.” Sofie then asks, “Hold on. You’re saying Jesus’ divinity was the result of a vote?” “A relatively close vote at that,” Teabing replies (p. 315). By now fairly drowning in conspiracy theories, Brown here claims that it was a Roman Emperor, Constantine, who literally turned Jesus into a God. Then he collected and burned any ‘gospels’ that emphasised Jesus’ humanity, and produced “a new Bible”, the one ‘the church’ uses today, which contains only those handpicked gospels which emphasise Jesus’ deity. Even then Constantine apparently further embellished those gospels to make Jesus seem more godlike. (p. 317) So much for the fairy tale, but what of the facts?
It is a matter of historical record that the followers of Jesus viewed Him as God manifest in the flesh from the first century onwards, long before Constantine was born. The apostle John wrote repeatedly of the deity of Christ in his gospel, which is dated around 100AD.13 He records not only Jesus Himself claiming equality with God (5:17-23, 8:58, 10:30-36, 14:9), but also Jesus’ disciples crediting Him with deity (20:28). John actually begins his gospel by stating, “The word [Jesus] was God.” Though John’s Gospel was among the last of the 27 New Testament books to be written, it was still 225 years shy of the Council of Nicaea. A trip to the John Rylands Library in Manchester will furnish the visitor with a look at an actual papyrus fragment of a portion of John Ch. 18, known as P52, that has survived from the second century (c. 125-150AD) proving an early date of John’s Gospel. Its text matches what’s written in the Bibles on sale in bookshops today. Small wonder that the former director of the British Museum, Sir Frederic Kenyon, declared, “The interval between the dates of the original composition [of the Gospels] and the earliest extant evidence [is] so small as to be negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed.”14 Any assertion that Constantine tampered with either the Gospel of John or any other gospels is pure fiction.
Attempting to circumvent the obvious fact that the early disciples believed Jesus was God manifest in the flesh, sceptics have suggested that the disciples, being ignorant fishermen, must have been tricked into believing such nonsense. Fellow and tutor of Magdalen College, Oxford, the classical scholar C.S. Lewis, gives the lie to this claim: “One attempt consists in saying that the man [Jesus] did not really say these things, but that His followers exaggerated the story, and so the legend grew up that He had said them. This is difficult because His followers were all Jews. That is, they belonged to that nation which was of all others most convinced that there was only one God - that there could not possibly be another. It is very odd that this horrible invention about a religious leader should grow up among the one people in the whole earth least likely to make such a mistake. On the contrary, we get the impression that none of His immediate followers…embraced the doctrine at all easily.”15 Having embraced the deity and resurrection of Jesus Christ these same disciples all died as martyrs or in exile, refusing to recant their belief in a risen Messiah. To die for what one believes to be true is a relatively common occurrence: but to die for what one knows to be false – like a concocted story about a divinely resurrected Messiah – when an admission of ‘story telling’ would instantly avoid one’s own crucifixion, is unheard of.
If the testimony of the New Testament writers should prove inadequate to convince a sceptic that Jesus was believed to be the divine Son of God long before the Council of Nicaea in 325AD, there are always the voluminous writings of the ante-Nicene Church Fathers. The following is a list of those early writers who unequivocally stated at a very early date that Jesus was the divine Son of God: Polycarp (69-155AD), Ignatius (died C. 110AD), Irenaeus (C. 125-200AD), Justin Martyr (110-166AD) and Clement (died C. 101AD). To give but one actual example, when writing his introduction to his epistle to the Romans, Ignatius states, “God, who formed all things that are according to the faith and love of Jesus Christ, our God and Saviour.”16 One can even turn to the pre-Nicene enemies of the Christian faith to prove that Jesus claimed to be God back in 30-33AD. The second century philosopher, Celsus, in a written attack on the Christian faith called A True Discourse, said: “[Jesus] proclaimed himself a god.”17 Everything points to the fact that the traditional theology of Christianity believed by Christians today is undoubtedly a product of the first century, not the fourth.
What about the ‘close vote’ of which Brown speaks? When the Bishops assembled at Nicaea in 325AD they wanted, among other things, to combat the view of Arius that Jesus was not co-eternal with the Father. The ‘close vote’ Brown alludes to wasn’t close at all. Of the 318 gathered Bishops, only two, Theonas and Secumdus of Egypt, refused to sign the Nicene Creed, a document that described Jesus as “the Son of God, begotten of the Father, light of light, very God of very God, begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father.”18 As for the selection of which books were included in the Bible, the Christians of the fourth century AD did not need nor did they request Constantine’s help. Early Christians, like Tertullian, were fighting for the retention of Matthew, Mark, John and most of the other New Testament books back in 140AD long before Constantine was born, when a Gnostic heretic called Marcion was denying their inspiration.19 Marcion’s actions were viewed so seriously that he was expelled from the church at Rome in 144AD.20
Having delivered himself of so many daring falsehoods in so short a time, Brown confidently marches on in chapter 55 seemingly oblivious to his own shocking historical ineptitude. He claims the Dead Sea Scroll ‘Gospels’ speak of Christ’s ministry in human terms (p. 317). The fact is, none of the Dead Sea Scrolls even mention Jesus.21 Furthermore he wrongly identifies what all historians know are the Jewish Dead Sea Scrolls as ‘Christian records’ (p. 331). He then states that the Bible celebrates the Last Supper as the moment of the arrival of the Holy Grail (p. 319). In reality, the Bible places no special significance, either physical, mystical or historical, on the actual cup used in the upper room on the night before Christ’s crucifixion. The Holy Grail (chalice) legend is a medieval development, possibly inspired by classical and Celtic mythologies.22
Mary Magdalene
The lid on the box of Brown’s core conspiracy theory is finally lifted in chapter 58. There he claims that Jesus married Mary Magdalene who is the Holy Grail. He gives a number of so-called evidences for this assertion:
The Gnostic Gospel of Philip states that Mary Magdalene was the ‘spouse’ of Jesus and that He kissed her often on the mouth. (p. 331)
The Gospel of Mary Magdalene states that Jesus loved Mary more than all the disciples and wanted her to lead the Christian Church after His death. (p. 334)
Several other Gnostic gospels mention a romantic relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. (p. 331)
Jesus and ‘Mary’ are painted as mirror images of each other, yin and yang style, with a symbolic ‘V’ shaped ‘womb’ between them. (p. 330)
The figure occupying the honoured right hand of Christ in Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper must be a woman (Mary Magdalene) because of ‘her’ long hair and delicate hands etc. (p. 327)
The Last Supper shows Peter “slicing his blade-like hand across her neck” because he was a jealous sexist who wanted to head up the church himself. (p. 333-334)
Social decorum in first century Palestine condemned celibacy and obliged all males (and therefore Jesus) to be married. (p. 330)
Mary was from the tribe of Benjamin, which makes her of royal descent. As such she could carry the royal bloodline of Christ, the history of which is contained in thousands of Sangreal documents. (p. 335)
Each of these 8 ‘evidences’ is holed below the waterline, as we shall presently see. The first three ‘proofs’ involve what are known as the Gnostic Gospels.
The Gnostics and their ‘Gospels’
Apart from the fact that the authors were Gnostics (mainly from Egypt), exactly who wrote the Gnostic Gospels is largely a mystery. For instance, The Gospel of Philip was not written by the apostle Philip who features in the Biblical gospels. Rather it acquired its name from the fact that Philip is the only apostle to be mentioned by name in its few pages. Gnosticism was the primary heresy opposed to the true faith in the second and third centuries AD. While the four Biblical gospels were all written before the first century closed and set forth a systematic largely eyewitness record of the birth, life, teachings and passion of Christ (in copious detail), the Gnostic Gospels were written much later and record very little actual history. Rather they record Gnostic versions of some of Christ’s sayings and occasional conversations He and His disciples supposedly had, both together and separately. Rather than being an attempt to, in the words of Luke the physician, “Set forth an eyewitness narrative…of all that Jesus began to do and teach” (Luke 1:1, Acts 1:1), the Gnostic Gospels actually represent a deliberate attempt by unorthodox mystics to rewrite the teachings of Jesus to suit their own theology, several generations after Jesus lived on earth. An early church chronicler named Hegesippus (110-180AD) makes this fact clear in his commentary on the life of the early church: “But, when the sacred band of apostles had in various ways closed their lives, and that generation of men to whom it had been vouchsafed to listen to the Godlike wisdom with their own ears had passed away, then did the confederacy of godless error take its rise through the treachery of false teachers [Gnostics] who, seeing that none of the apostles any longer survived, at length attempted with bare and uplifted head to oppose the preaching of the truth by preaching ‘knowledge’ [Gnosis] falsely so called.”23
One such Gnostic text is called the Gospel of Truth written by Valentinus. This short esoteric text, which can be read in a few minutes, presents a very different theology to that found in the New Testament. (Brown makes nothing of this text presumably because it doesn’t mention Mary Magdalene). What was Valentinus’ motive for writing this text? The contemporary Church Father Irenaus, writing in 180AD, reveals it all too clearly: “But those who are from Valentinus, being, on the other hand, altogether reckless, while they put forth their own compositions, boast that they possess more Gospels than there really are. Indeed, they have arrived at such a pitch of audacity, as to entitle their comparatively recent writing ‘the Gospel of Truth’, though it agrees in nothing with the gospels of the Apostles...”24 Valentinus, a leading Gnostic, was a native of Egypt, well-known as the hotbed of Gnosticism in the period following the completion of the New Testament. Basilides and Carpocrates, leading Gnostic teachers during the first half of the second century both came from Alexandria in Egypt. Yet another Gnostic leader, Cerinthus, though a Jew, was educated into Gnosticism in Alexandria at the beginning of the second century. Alexandria was “strategically positioned in the second century to act as a kind of laboratory for Christians experimenting with the commonalities between Christian faith and Greek philosophy.”25 The Gnostic heresies gained a considerable following in those early days as Tertullian pointed out in 200AD, “The Valentinians…are no doubt a very large body of heretics.”26
For ready reference, here is a list of the main Gnostic ‘Gospels’ on which Brown has staked so much:27
Title
Date & Language
Author
Where Found
Word
Count* Brief Summary of Content
The Gospel
of Thomas
About 140AD. In Greek, surviving mainly in Coptic
Claimed for Thomas though he died long before 140AD
Nag Hammadi, Egypt,
Dec 1945
4,700
A collection of 114 supposed sayings of Jesus.
The Gospel
of Judas
c. 140-160AD. In Greek, but surviving only in Coptic
Anonymous
A cavern in Middle Egypt in the 1970s
2,500
In part purports
to record a conversation between Jesus
and Judas.
The Gospel
of Truth
Prior to 175AD. In Greek, but surviving only in Coptic
Valentinus (died 175AD)
Nag Hammadi, Egypt,
Dec 1945
4,700
A sermon to an audience on the saving knowledge
of God.
The Gospel
of Mary
c. 190-200AD. In Greek, but surviving only in Coptic
Anonymous
In Egypt in 1896 (half is missing)
1,000
A dialogue between Jesus, Mary and the disciples.
The Gospel
of Philip
c. 250-300AD. In Greek, but surviving only in Coptic
Anonymous
Nag Hammadi,
Egypt,
Dec 1945
9,900
Quotes from sermons, letters
and texts, some attributed to Jesus.
The Gospel of the Egyptians
Date unknown. In Greek, but surviving only in Coptic
Anonymous (claimed
to be ‘God-written’)
Nag Hammadi,
Egypt,
Dec 1945
4,000
An esoteric document presenting Gnostic salvation history.
* These are approximate figures working from English translations. In contrast to these short Gnostic texts, Mark, the shortest Biblical gospel, contains about 14,500 words. Luke, the longest, about 24,800.
What do we know so far? We know some of the Gnostics’ names; we know during what time period they lived and what they were trying to accomplish; but what did they actually believe? According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Gnostics were known by the distinction they made “…between the unknown supreme God and the Demiurge (identified with the God of the Old Testament) who created this world; their dualist disparagement of the material order and insistence that the Redeemer became incarnate in appearance only; their belief in salvation by esoteric knowledge; and their division of humanity into a spiritual elite able to achieve salvation and, below this elite, ‘psychics’ capable of a modified form of salvation and ‘material’ people cut off from salvation.”28
The word Gnostic stems from the Greek gnosis, meaning knowledge. By combining Greek philosophy with Christianity the Gnostics produced a whole host of complicated and specialist terminology.29 They talked much about the pleroma, the demiurge, emanations, aeons and archons. They sought personal salvation through freeing the inner spirit from the shackles of the fleshly life by banishing ignorance and gaining higher gnosis. Since they believed all physical matter, especially the flesh, was intrinsically evil, ascetic conduct was widespread among them. They took a dim view of sex, marriage and red meat, the last of which was believed to impart virility to the eater. Interestingly, bearing Dan Brown’s thesis in mind, the Gnostic God was androgynous – both god and goddess at the same time (a balance of masculine and feminine). Many Gnostics held that the redeemer is a ‘Christ spirit’ who adopted the body of Jesus at His baptism and departed from that same body just prior to the crucifixion. They denied a bodily resurrection, claiming that one experiences the resurrection when one attains self-realization or inner gnosis. These false teachings existed in embryonic form even while the apostles were writing the New Testament as can be seen from an examination of the apostle Paul’s words in Colossians 2:18-23, 1 Timothy 6:20 and 2 Timothy 2:16-18, and the apostle John’s words in 1 John 4:1-3.
With this background in mind, let us return to the eight so-called proofs for a romantic and marital relationship between Mary Magdalene and Jesus in chapter 58 of The Da Vinci Code.
1. The Gnostic Gospel of Philip states that Mary Magdalene was the ‘spouse’ of Jesus and that He kissed her often on the mouth (p. 331)
Dan Brown wrongly refers to the The Gospel of Philip as part of the “earliest Christian records” (p. 331). The fact is, scholars are universally agreed that The Gospel of Philip was written up to 200 years later than either Matthew, Mark, Luke or John.30 What is one to make of an author who claims that all his descriptions of documents are accurate and then proceeds to repeatedly make such incredibly careless and patently false assertions (for which a teenager would be marked down in an ancient history exam)?
What does this all-important Gnostic text from the end of the third century actually say? According to Brown it reads, “And the companion of the Saviour is Mary Magdalene. Christ loved her more than all the disciples and used to kiss her often on the mouth.” (p. 331) When Brown’s character Sofie objects to the use of this passage as proof of romance – because it doesn’t mention marriage – Teabing retorts, “As any Aramaic scholar will tell you, the word companion, in those days, literally means spouse,” a statement to which Langdon, played by Tom Hanks in the movie, nods his head in agreement.
Here again Brown is embarrassingly wide of the mark. To start with, the Gospel of Philip is not written in Aramaic. The copy found in Nag Hammadi is written in Coptic having been translated from Greek. Coptic is a late form of Egyptian whereas Aramaic is a Semitic language, closely related to Hebrew. Nowhere in this short ‘gospel’, which can be read in a matter of minutes, is there any reference whatsoever to a marriage between Jesus and Mary. As for the ‘kissing’ sentence, the word ‘mouth’ is missing. Due to the age of the manuscript there are many lacunas (gaps). The word ‘mouth’ has been supplied by Brown. The missing word could have been hand, cheek, forehead or mouth. Brown picked the option that best suited his sensationalistic style without informing the reader of his motive. As for the claim that the word companion has to mean spouse, Gnostic expert J. Michael Matkin states: “But it’s important to note that the word ‘companion’ or ‘consort’ does not indicate a sexual relationship in the way that some authors have claimed…[the passage] should be read in the context of the entire Gospel of Philip, which takes a dim view toward sexual relationships. It seems highly unlikely that Philip’s editor would have deliberately included works that alleged a sexual relationship between Jesus and any woman...”31
Those who believe that the Gospel of Philip is an authoritative text which deserves to be taken seriously should ponder some sentences in the lines just before the ‘Jesus and Mary’ paragraph: “God is a man-eater. For this reason men are [sacrificed] to him…if glass decanters break they are done over, for they came into being through a breath. If earthenware jugs break, however, they are destroyed, for they came into being without breath…The Lord went into the dye works of Levi. He took seventy-two different colours and threw them into the vat. He took them out all white. And he said, ‘Even so has the son of man come [as] a dyer.”
In summary, at least three facts prevent the Gospel of Philip from carrying any historical weight. Firstly, it is riddled throughout by sheer nonsense as noted above. Secondly, it is a late non-eyewitness text written well over two hundred years after the death of Christ and thirdly, it betrays a heavy Gnostic bias throughout its narrative.32
2. The Gospel of Mary Magdalene states that Jesus loved Mary more than all the disciples and wanted her to establish the Christian Church after His death (p. 334)
The so-called Gospel of Mary Magdalene is a tiny document of not much more than 1,000 words – part of a Codex discovered in Egypt at the end of the 19th Century. Dr. Carl Reinhardt bought the whole Codex in an antiquities shop in Cairo in 1896. Now known as the Berlin Codex it was not published until 1955. Half of the original is missing. Presumably originally written in Greek, the Berlin version is in Coptic. It was composed at the earliest toward the end of the second century AD, a good 100 years after the Biblical gospels.33 Even the most cursory reading of this document reveals it to be a deeply Gnostic work in which ‘Mary’ speaks of seeing a vision of a soul ascending and overcoming various ‘powers’ that appear in assorted ‘manifestations’. It records Jesus saying, “There is no such thing as sin”34 except for loving and mingling with the material world. Interestingly, according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, those in the centuries immediately after Christ who “believed that matter is evil and redemption is attained by an enlightened elite,” regarded Mary Magdalene as “a medium of secret revelation, so described in their Gospel of Mary, Gospel of Philip, and Pistis Sophia.”35
Dan Brown quotes from a section of this text in which an argument takes place after ‘Mary’ finishes recounting her Gnostic vision. Andrew and Peter reject her ideas as foreign to that which they had learned from the Lord. However, Levi steps in to defend Mary and claims that “the Saviour knows her very well. That is why He loved her more than us.” Even taking this sentence in this late Gnostic ‘gospel’ at face value, it still provides no evidence that anything of a sexual or marital nature took place between Mary and Jesus.
3. Several other Gnostic gospels mention a romantic relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene (p. 331)
Dan Brown’s character Sir. Leigh Teabing claims that there are “countless references [in the Gnostic gospels] to Jesus and Magdalen’s union.” (p. 333). For ‘countless references’ to a ‘union’, read ‘two references’ to a special non-sexual love for Mary as recorded by the Gnostics. Period. The whole romance and marriage idea is the product of overactive imaginations operating with a total disregard for historical integrity. What do serious academics believe? “Liberal and conservative scholars agree that there is no evidence that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene…when liberals and conservatives agree it’s probably right”, says Dr. Darrell L. Bock Ph.D, author of Breaking the Da Vinci Code (Nelson Books, 2004).
4, 5 & 6. Mirror images, Long Hair and Delicate Hands and Peter the sexist.
Could the person on the right hand of Jesus in the The Last Supper actually be a woman? Don’t the Biblical records place 12 male disciples in the Upper Room with Jesus the night before He dies? To settle this issue it is vital to realize that Leonardo’s painting depicts the tense moment when Jesus announces that the hand of the betrayer is on the table. That is why he paints the disciples in dramatic dialogue with each other and not with the Messiah. Leonardo is not portraying the moment when Jesus says “This cup is the New Testament in My blood,” or all eyes would have been focused upon Him (Luke 22:20). These simple observations expose the mistaken emphasis Brown places on the fact of the ‘missing chalice’, which he interprets as Leonardo’s way of pointing to a Marion identity for the Holy Grail.
If all the characters at the table are men, why does the one on the right of Christ look so feminine? Da Vinci debunkers Sandra Miesel and Carl Olson explain: “The figure is undoubtedly effeminate, as Leonardo depicted the youthful John in early fifteenth-century Florentine style. This approach can be seen in other paintings of the period, including Leonardo’s own Saint John the Baptist (ca. 1513-1516), which depicts a young man who is quite effeminate in appearance and also has flowing hair and delicate hands.”36
As for the ‘mirror image’ Jesus and Mary theory which Brown borrowed from The Templar Revelation by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince (Simon & Schuster, 1998), noted art historian and critic E. H Gombrich explains, “…tradition still had St John leaning against Christ, and the only rapid sketch we have by Leonardo for this composition indicates he originally meant to adopt this tradition as well as the action of Christ reaching across the table to give the sop to Judas, who was generally placed there in isolation from the others.”37 However, Leonardo decided in the end to paint the twelve disciples in four groups of three. He portrays the apostle John as a mirror image of Christ firstly so that Christ might be seen as isolated at the moment of betrayal and, secondly, that though isolated Jesus and John will still be seen as “soul-mates…matched in outline, in (original) hue of garment and tilt of head.”38
Peter, John and Judas are grouped together for a purpose. Each man is destined for a distinct and notable role in the coming events surrounding the crucifixion. Once Jesus announces His imminent betrayal, Peter lunges forward wielding a knife as if to defend His Lord. John, who always described himself as ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved’ and who enjoyed a special closeness to the Lord reacts altogether differently. He calmly reflects on the tragic meaning of the betrayal announcement of Christ. Peter and John, close friends who are fiercely loyal to Christ, thus form the backdrop for the traitor Judas, who is portrayed holding tightly to a bag of money.
As for the ‘V’ shape between Jesus and John (Brown’s ‘Mary’) forming the ‘focal point’ of the painting and representing ‘the female womb’ no evidence is forthcoming. The fact is, Jesus Himself is clearly the focal point with six disciples each side of Him and His head the only one totally silhouetted (by the central window). When asked whether or not Leonardo Da Vinci’s painting depicted Jesus and Mary Magdalene as a married couple, Joseph Forte, an art historian at Sarah Lawrence College replied, “I know of no serious scholar who has proposed this notion.”39
Based on the sentence in the Gnostic Gospel of Mary where Peter disagrees with Mary’s supposed esoteric revelations, Brown portrays him as a dagger-wielding sexist who is out to kill Mary in order to take her place as the chosen head of the church. In contrast Brown portrays Jesus is ‘the original feminist’ who wants to liberate Mary and promote the ‘sacred feminine’ among His followers. The truth is much less sensational. In the words of J. Michael Matkin, “There evidently was a tradition in the early church that associated Mary Magdalene with the viability of women serving in leadership…Mary was adopted as a symbol and spokesperson by those who found their views marginalized in the Christian movement.”40 So in summary, the Last Supper shows Peter wielding his knife in readiness to defend his Lord, while the passage in the Gospel of Mary that casts him in a harsh light is a false account designed to promote women in leadership, contrary to the character and content of the earlier Biblical gospel records.
7. First Century decorum
The fact that most Jewish men in the first century were married and that bachelorhood was frowned upon means, according to Dan Brown, that if Jesus were not married the Biblical gospels would certainly have mentioned the fact. Actually those familiar with the New Testament will know that the unmarried state receives a number of mentions, one from the lips of Jesus Himself. He speaks of people who have “made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake” (Matthew 19:12). The apostle Paul recommended celibacy in his first letter to the Corinthians (7:7). In the same letter Paul, whose writings are indisputably the earliest in the history of Christianity, spoke of foregoing his right to have a wife (9:5). He said to the Corinthians, “Do we have no right to take along a believing wife, as do also the other apostles, the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas?” Now, if Jesus had been married, surely Paul would have cited Him as setting the greatest precedent of all – but he didn’t.
8. The Sangreal documents contain the bloodline?
There is no evidence anywhere in archaeology, literature or history of any kind to prove the existence of a bloodline from Christ to the present day through the ancient French Royal family or any other family. It is pure fantasy invented by the fraudulent Pierre Plantard, published in Holy Blood Holy Grail and copied by Dan Brown in The Da Vinci Code. The hand-written family tree that is supposedly hidden in a chest inside tomb of Mary Magdalene is a fiction. Period. The Sangreal documents don’t exist. They belong in the same category as Joseph Smith’s golden plates. The whole idea is a fabrication from beginning to end, concocted by those who desire to undermine the Bible.
Brown claims that the word Holy Grail stems not from ‘holy chalice’ but from ‘royal blood’. The trick, according to Brown’s character Teabing, is in how you divide the word Sangreal (the title of the non-existent documents on which the whole hoax is built). If you divide it as San Greal it means Holy Grail. However if it is divided as Sang Real, as Brown claims it was done in its most ancient form, it means ‘blood royal’ i.e. royal blood (in old French).
Those who delight in fanciful conspiracy tales may find this an eye-opening revelation. Others who prefer real history can check out the etymology of the words ‘holy grail’ in any serious dictionary. What they will discover is that grail comes from the Old French graal or grael (a flat dish), from the Low Latin gradalis (a flat dish) and ultimately from the Greek krater (a bowl). Of course, the concept of a Holy Grail is not found anywhere within the pages of the Bible. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, “The first extant text to give such a vessel Christian significance as a mysterious, holy object was Chrétien de Troyes’s late 12th-century unfinished romance Perceval, or Le Conte du Graal.”41 That’s over 1,000 years after Christ. As for Mary being from the house of Benjamin. This is more fanciful nonsense from Brown, totally devoid of any historical proof. Even if she had come from the line of Benjamin, for her to marry a man from the Tribe of Judah would not have involved the fusion of two royal bloodlines. The Benjamites were not the Kingly tribe.
What can we know for sure about Mary? In twelve passages about her spread across the four Biblical Gospels we learn that she is called ‘the Magdalene’ after her hometown Magdala (Luke 8:2). On becoming a follower of Christ she was the subject of an exorcism, after which she joined a group of women who ministered to the needs of their Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth. She was present at the cross among a group of Christ’s followers and family (Matthew 27:55-56). Lastly she witnesses the resurrection of Christ, and after having a unique meeting with the risen Messiah, is sent by Him to announce His resurrection to the disciples (John 20:11-18). There is devotion, worship and a special relationship – but not the slightest hint of anything approaching the fanciful notions of Dan Brown and the other authors on whom he relied.
Never once is Mary Magdalene called a prostitute in the Bible. Half a dozen centuries after Christ, on September 21st 591AD, in a homily preached at the basilica of San Clemente in Rome, Pope Gregory the Great stated that the ‘sinner’ who anointed the Lord’s feet in Luke 7:37 is Mary Magdalene, who is mentioned a few verses later as having been demon possessed (Luke 8:2). To add to the confusion, many others have mistakenly conflated the story of the sinful woman who anoints the Lord’s feet in Luke Ch. 7 with the story of the woman who anoints His feet in John Ch. 12. The woman in John 12 is indeed called Mary, but she is a different Mary altogether to the Magdalene, while the ‘sinful woman’ of Luke 7 is never named. Small wonder that there were mistakes of interpretation made – but to imagine that it involved a deliberate conspiracy to obliterate the sacred feminine from religion, a conspiracy cooked up in the highest echelons of the Christian Church no less, is just more baseless conjecture on Brown’s part.
The Mask Slips
Why would anyone set out to write such a book as The Da Vinci Code? What is Dan Brown’s motive? The answer is to be found on his official website. There he betrays his own Gnostic worldview in the following revealing words: “Faith is a continuum and we all fall on that line wherever we may fall…Each of us must follow our own path to enlightenment…There is enormous danger in believing…that our version of the truth is absolute.”42 Like so many others, Brown is absolutely sure that no one can be absolutely sure. Yet in his book he claims to know a lie when he sees it. For Brown, the Biblical narrative of a divine Christ who became flesh, lived a sinless life, died on the cross for the sins of the world and rose again bodily from the dead three days later is a lie. It is, to use his exact words, ‘false’ (p. 318) and a ‘fabrication’ (p. 451). His bias is all too obvious. When Christians claim to have the absolute truth Brown labels them as dangerous, but when Brown himself claims to know that Christianity is based on an absolute lie he calls himself a truth-teller. As for Brown’s Gnostic Christ and his androgynous god, that’s no ‘version of the truth’ at all. It’s an outright perversion.
Brown, along with the majority of the world’s population, is following his own path to Gnosis, or enlightenment. In doing so he is mirroring the course of human history since the fall of man when, turning his back on his creator and questioning God’s authority, man went his own way, pursuing the deception he had been sold, “You shall be as gods” (Genesis 3:5). The results that flowed from man’s original exercise of his sinful autonomy and rebellion are seen in everything that is wrong with our world today.
True enlightenment begins by turning one’s back on finding the answer within oneself and agreeing with God’s assessment of the human condition in His word the Bible which states: “We are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses [good deeds] are like filthy rags; we all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.” (Isaiah 64:6) True wisdom lies in humbling oneself and bowing at the feet of the Creator, acknowledging one’s sinfulness before a holy God. Eternal life and personal salvation are available to all, but attainable by none through self-effort and religious works. Instead, God has provided the way for sinners to be reconciled to Himself through His Son, Jesus Christ, the only Saviour of mankind. Listen to what Jesus says about Himself:
“I am the way, the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except by Me.” (John 14:6)
“I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he shall be saved.” (Jn 10:9)
“I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me shall live even if he dies.” (John 11:25)
“I am the light of the world; he who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” (John 8:12)
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)
The true path to light, forgiveness and peace with God is to turn from sin and self and trust for personal salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ alone who died for sinners on the cross and rose again the third day. “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)
Notes:
1. Speaking on the DVD documentary Breaking The Da Vinci Code, (Spokane, WA: Grizzly Adams Productions, 2005).
2. All page numbers are from the Corgi Books edition of The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, published by Transworld Publishers, London, 2004.
3. Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln, Holy Blood Holy Grail (New York, NY: Dell, 1983).
4. Dan Brown, interview by Charles Gibson, Good Morning America, ABC, November 3rd 2003.
5. Leigh Teabing is a combination/anagram of the two surnames of Richard Leigh and Michael Baigent who, with Henry Lincoln, wrote Holy Blood Holy Grail (1983).
6. Quoted by Jeffery L. Sheler, Is the Bible True? How Modern Debates and Discoveries Affirm the Essence of the Scriptures (San Francisco: Harper; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999), 151.
7. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2003 CD-ROM. Biblical Literature/New Testament Canon and Versions/Texts and Versions/Textual Criticism.
8. For example, they record the fact that the first witnesses to see Christ after His resurrection were women (Matt 28:1-8). In the legal culture of 1st Century Judaism, the testimony of women was deemed unreliable. They also frequently recorded their own failings and weaknesses and the many difficult, controversial and seemingly harsh sayings of Jesus.
9. Professor Peter Stoner, Science Speaks (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1963).
10. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2003 CD-ROM. Nicaea, Council of.
11. Irenaeus, Ante-Nicene Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1999), Vol 1, 428.
12. Ignatius, Ante-Nicene Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1999), Vol 1, 62.
13. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2003 CD-ROM. John, Gospel According to.
14. F.F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity, 1972), 20.
15. C.S. Lewis, “What Are We To Make of Jesus Christ?” The Grand Miracle: Essays from God in the Dock (New York: Ballantine, 1983), 113.
16. Ignatius, Ante-Nicene Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1999), Vol 1, 73.
17. Origen, Ante-Nicene Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1999), Vol 4, 413.
18. Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2002), Vol 3, 629.
19. Tertullian, Ante-Nicene Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1999), Vol 3, 345-353.
20. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2003 CD-ROM. Marcionite.
21. Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (London: Penguin Books, 2004), 21.
22. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2003 CD-ROM. Grail.
23. Hegesippus, Ante-Nicene Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1999), Vol 8, 764.
24. Irenaeus, Ante-Nicene Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1999), Vol 1, 429.
25. J. Michael Matkin, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Gnostic Gospels (New York, NY: Alpha Books, 2005), 38.
26. Tertullian, Ante-Nicene Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1999), Vol 3, 503.
27. This table was constructed using information gleaned from the following works: The Nag Hammadi Library (New York, NY: HarperSanFrancisco, 1990), The Secret Gospels of Jesus (London: Dartman, Longman & Todd, 2005) and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Gnostic Gospels (New York, NY: Alpha Books, 2005).
28. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2003 CD-ROM. Patristic Literature, the Ante-Nicene Period.
29. In a Gnostic library of thirteen ancient codices discovered at Nag Hammadi in Egypt in 1945, along with the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip and Valentinus’ Gospel of Truth, a segment from Plato’s Republic was found.
30. James M. Robinson, General Editor, The Nag Hammadi Library (New York, NY: HarperSanFrancisco, 1990), 141.
31. J. Michael Matkin, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Gnostic Gospels (New York, NY: Alpha Books, 2005), 135.
32. Consider: “Some said Mary became pregnant by the Holy Spirit. They are wrong…Mary is the virgin whom none of the powers defiled.” Or “Abraham circumcised the flesh of the foreskin, thus teaching us that it is necessary to destroy the flesh.” Selections from the Gospel of Philip in The Secret Gospels of Jesus (London, Dartman Longman and Todd Ltd., 2005).
33. Ben Witherington, The Gospel Code (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004), p. 35.
34. Marvin Meyer, The Secret Gospels of Jesus (London: Dartman, Longman & Todd, 2005), 37.
35. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2003 CD-ROM. Mary Magdalene, Saint.
36. Carl Olson and Sandra Miesel, The Da Vinci Hoax (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2004), p. 269-270.
37. E. H. Gombrich, Papers Given on the Occasion of the Dedication of The Last Supper (after Leonardo), Magdalen College, Oxford, March 10, 1993. Accessed online at http://davinci.ntu.ac.uk/gombrich/oxford.htm
38. Leo Steinberg Leonardo’s Incessant Last Supper (New York, NY: Zone Books, 2001), p. 76.
39. Quote by Carl Olsen & Sandra Miesel in The Da Vinci Hoax (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2004), 240.
40. J. Michael Matkin, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Gnostic Gospels (New York, NY: Alpha Books, 2005), 90.
41. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2003 CD-ROM. Grail.
42. www.danbrown.com
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