Dismantling The Da Vinci Code
SANDRA MIESEL
In the end, Dan Brown has penned a poorly written, atrociously researched mess. So, why bother with such a close reading of a worthless novel? The answer is simple: The Da Vinci Code takes esoterica mainstream.
“The Grail,” Langdon said, “is symbolic of the lost goddess. When Christianity came along, the old pagan religions did not die easily. Legends of chivalric quests for the Holy Grail were in fact stories of forbidden quests to find the lost sacred feminine. Knights who claimed to be “searching for the chalice” were speaking in code as a way to protect themselves from a Church that had subjugated women, banished the Goddess, burned non-believers, and forbidden the pagan reverence for the sacred feminine.” The Da Vinci Code, pages 238-239)
The Holy Grail is a favorite metaphor for a desirable but difficult-to-attain goal, from the map of the human genome to Lord Stanley's Cup. While the original Grail — the cup Jesus allegedly used at the Last Supper — normally inhabits the pages of Arthurian romance, Dan Brown's recent mega–best-seller, The Da Vinci Code, rips it away to the realm of esoteric history.
But his book is more than just the story of a quest for the Grail — he wholly reinterprets the Grail legend. In doing so, Brown inverts the insight that a woman's body is symbolically a container and makes a container symbolically a woman's body. And that container has a name every Christian will recognize, for Brown claims that the Holy Grail was actually Mary Magdalene. She was the vessel that held the blood of Jesus Christ in her womb while bearing his children.
Over the centuries, the Grail-keepers have been guarding the true (and continuing) bloodline of Christ and the relics of the Magdalen, not a material vessel. Therefore Brown claims that “the quest for the Holy Grail is the quest to kneel before the bones of Mary Magdalene," a conclusion that would surely have surprised Sir Galahad and the other Grail knights who thought they were searching for the Chalice of the Last Supper.
The Da Vinci Code opens with the grisly murder of the Louvre's curator inside the museum. The crime enmeshes hero Robert Langdon, a tweedy professor of symbolism from Harvard, and the victim's granddaughter, burgundy-haired cryptologist Sophie Nevue. Together with crippled millionaire historian Leigh Teabing, they flee Paris for London one step ahead of the police and a mad albino Opus Dei "monk" named Silas who will stop at nothing to prevent them from finding the "Grail."
But despite the frenetic pacing, at no point is action allowed to interfere with a good lecture. Before the story comes full circle back to the Louvre, readers face a barrage of codes, puzzles, mysteries, and conspiracies.
With his twice-stated principle, "Everybody loves a conspiracy," Brown is reminiscent of the famous author who crafted her product by studying the features of ten earlier best-sellers. It would be too easy to criticize him for characters thin as plastic wrap, undistinguished prose, and improbable action. But Brown isn't so much writing badly as writing in a particular way best calculated to attract a female audience. (Women, after all, buy most of the nation's books.) He has married a thriller plot to a romance-novel technique. Notice how each character is an extreme type…effortlessly brilliant, smarmy, sinister, or psychotic as needed, moving against luxurious but curiously flat backdrops. Avoiding gore and bedroom gymnastics, he shows only one brief kiss and a sexual ritual performed by a married couple. The risqué allusions are fleeting although the text lingers over some bloody Opus Dei mortifications. In short, Brown has fabricated a novel perfect for a ladies' book club.
Brown's lack of seriousness shows in the games he plays with his character names — Robert Langdon, "bright fame long don" (distinguished and virile); Sophie Nevue, "wisdom New Eve"; the irascible taurine detective Bezu Fache, "zebu anger."; The servant who leads the police to them is Legaludec, "legal duce." The murdered curator takes his surname, Saunière, from a real Catholic priest whose occult antics sparked interest in the Grail secret. As an inside joke, Brown even writes in his real-life editor (Faukman is Kaufman).
While his extensive use of fictional formulas may be the secret to Brown's stardom, his anti-Christian message can't have hurt him in publishing circles: The Da Vinci Code debuted atop the New York Times best-seller list. By manipulating his audience through the conventions of romance-writing, Brown invites readers to identify with his smart, glamorous characters who've seen through the impostures of the clerics who hide the "truth&"; about Jesus and his wife. Blasphemy is delivered in a soft voice with a knowing chuckle: "[E]very faith in the world is based on fabrication."
But even Brown has his limits. To dodge charges of outright bigotry, he includes a climactic twist in the story that absolves the Church of assassination. And although he presents Christianity as a false root and branch, he's willing to tolerate it for its charitable works.
(Of course, Catholic Christianity will become even more tolerable once the new liberal pope elected in Brown's previous Langdon novel, Angels & Demons, abandons outmoded teachings. "Third-century laws cannot be applied to the modern followers of Christ," says one of the book's progressive cardinals.)
Where Is He Getting All of This?
Brown actually cites his principal sources within the text of his novel. One is a specimen of academic feminist scholarship: The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels. The others are popular esoteric histories: The Templar Revelation: Secret Guardians of the True Identity of Christ by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince; Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln; The Goddess in the Gospels: Reclaiming the Sacred Feminine and The Woman with the Alabaster Jar: Mary Magdalen and the Holy Grail, both by Margaret Starbird. (Starbird, a self-identified Catholic, has her books published by Matthew Fox's outfit, Bear & Co.) Another influence, at least at second remove, is The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets by Barbara G. Walker.
The use of such unreliable sources belies Brown's pretensions to intellectuality. But the act has apparently fooled at least some of his readers — the New York Daily News book reviewer trumpeted, "His research is impeccable."
But despite Brown's scholarly airs, a writer who thinks the Merovingians founded Paris and forgets that the popes once lived in Avignon is hardly a model researcher. And for him to state that the Church burned five million women as witches shows a willful — and malicious—ignorance of the historical record. The latest figures for deaths during the European witch craze are between 30,000 to 50,000 victims. Not all were executed by the Church, not all were women, and not all were burned. Brown’s claim that educated women, priestesses, and midwives were singled out by witch-hunters is not only false, it betrays his goddess-friendly sources.
A Multitude of Errors
So error-laden is The Da Vinci Code that the educated reader actually applauds those rare occasions where Brown stumbles (despite himself) into the truth. A few examples of his "impeccable" research: He claims that the motions of the planet Venus trace a pentacle (the so-called Ishtar pentagram) symbolizing the goddess. But it isn't a perfect figure and has nothing to do with the length of the Olympiad. The ancient Olympic games were celebrated in honor of Zeus Olympias, not Aphrodite, and occurred every four years.
Brown's contention that the five linked rings of the modern Olympic Games are a secret tribute to the goddess is also wrong — each set of games was supposed to add a ring to the design but the organizers stopped at five. And his efforts to read goddess propaganda into art, literature, and even Disney cartoons are simply ridiculous.
No datum is too dubious for inclusion, and reality falls quickly by the wayside. For instance, the Opus Dei bishop encourages his albino assassin by telling him that Noah was also an albino (a notion drawn from the non-canonical 1 Enoch 106:2). Yet albinism somehow fails to interfere with the man's eyesight as it physiologically would.
But a far more important example is Brown's treatment of Gothic architecture as a style full of goddess-worshipping symbols and coded messages to confound the uninitiated. Building on Barbara Walker's claim that "like a pagan temple, the Gothic cathedral represented the body of the Goddess," The Templar Revelation asserts: "Sexual symbolism is found in the great Gothic cathedrals which were masterminded by the Knights Templar...both of which represent intimate female anatomy: the arch, which draws the worshipper into the body of Mother Church, evokes the vulva." In The Da Vinci Code, these sentiments are transformed into a character's description of "a cathedral's long hollow nave as a secret tribute to a woman's womb...complete with receding labial ridges and a nice little cinquefoil clitoris above the doorway."
These remarks cannot be brushed aside as opinions of the villain; Langdon, the book's hero, refers to his own lectures about goddess-symbolism at Chartres.
These bizarre interpretations betray no acquaintance with the actual development or construction of Gothic architecture, and correcting the countless errors becomes a tiresome exercise: The Templars had nothing to do with the cathedrals of their time, which were commissioned by bishops and their canons throughout Europe. They were unlettered men with no arcane knowledge of "sacred geometry" passed down from the pyramid builders. They did not wield tools themselves on their own projects, nor did they found masons' guilds to build for others. Not all their churches were round, nor was roundness a defiant insult to the Church. Rather than being a tribute to the divine feminine, their round churches honored the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Actually looking at Gothic churches and their predecessors deflates the idea of female symbolism. Large medieval churches typically had three front doors on the west plus triple entrances to their transepts on the north and south. (What part of a woman's anatomy does a transept represent? Or the kink in Chartres's main aisle?) Romanesque churches — including ones that predate the founding of the Templars — have similar bands of decoration arching over their entrances. Both Gothic and Romanesque churches have the long, rectangular nave inherited from Late Antique basilicas, ultimately derived from Roman public buildings. Neither Brown nor his sources consider what symbolism medieval churchmen such as Suger of St.-Denis or William Durandus read in church design. It certainly wasn't goddess-worship.
False Claims
If the above seems like a pile driver applied to a gnat, the blows are necessary to demonstrate the utter falseness of Brown's material. His willful distortions of documented history are more than matched by his outlandish claims about controversial subjects. But to a postmodernist, one construct of reality is as good as any other.
Brown's approach seems to consist of grabbing large chunks of his stated sources and tossing them together in a salad of a story. From Holy Blood, Holy Grail, Brown lifts the concept of the Grail as a metaphor for a sacred lineage by arbitrarily breaking a medieval French term, Sangraal (Holy Grail), into sang (blood) and raal (royal). This holy blood, according to Brown, descended from Jesus and his wife, Mary Magdalene, to the Merovingian dynasty in Dark Ages France, surviving its fall to persist in several modern French families, including that of Pierre Plantard, a leader of the mysterious Priory of Sion. The Priory — an actual organization officially registered with the French government in 1956 — makes extraordinary claims of antiquity as the "real" power behind the Knights Templar. It most likely originated after World War II and was first brought to public notice in 1962. With the exception of filmmaker Jean Cocteau, its illustrious list of Grand Masters — which include Leonardo da Vinci, Issac Newton, and Victor Hugo — is not credible, although it's presented as true by Brown.
Brown doesn't accept a political motivation for the Priory's activities. Instead he picks up The Templar Revelation’s view of the organization as a cult of secret goddess-worshippers who have preserved ancient Gnostic wisdom and records of Christ’s true mission, which would completely overturn Christianity if released. Significantly, Brown omits the rest of the book’s thesis that makes Christ and Mary Magdalene unmarried sex partners performing the erotic mysteries of Isis. Perhaps even a gullible mass-market audience has its limits.
From both Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The Templar Revelation, Brown takes a negative view of the Bible and a grossly distorted image of Jesus. He's neither the Messiah nor a humble carpenter but a wealthy, trained religious teacher bent on regaining the throne of David. His credentials are amplified by his relationship with the rich Magdalen who carries the royal blood of Benjamin: "Almost everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false," laments one of Brown's characters.
Yet it's Brown's Christology that's false — and blindingly so. He requires the present New Testament to be a post-Constantinian fabrication that displaced true accounts now represented only by surviving Gnostic texts. He claims that Christ wasn't considered divine until the Council of Nicea voted him so in 325 at the behest of the emperor. Then Constantine — a lifelong sun worshipper — ordered all older scriptural texts destroyed, which is why no complete set of Gospels predates the fourth century. Christians somehow failed to notice the sudden and drastic change in their doctrine.
But by Brown's specious reasoning, the Old Testament can't be authentic either because complete Hebrew Scriptures are no more than a thousand years old. And yet the texts were transmitted so accurately that they do match well with the Dead Sea Scrolls from a thousand years earlier. Analysis of textual families, comparison with fragments and quotations, plus historical correlations securely date the orthodox Gospels to the first century and indicate that they're earlier than the Gnostic forgeries. (The Epistles of St. Paul are, of course, even earlier than the Gospels.)
Primitive Church documents and the testimony of the ante-Nicean Fathers confirm that Christians have always believed Jesus to be Lord, God, and Savior — even when that faith meant death. The earliest partial canon of Scripture dates from the late second century and already rejected Gnostic writings. For Brown, it isn't enough to credit Constantine with the divinization of Jesus. The emperor's old adherence to the cult of the Invincible Sun also meant repackaging sun worship as the new faith. Brown drags out old (and long-discredited) charges by virulent anti-Catholics like Alexander Hislop who accused the Church of perpetuating Babylonian mysteries, as well as 19th-century rationalists who regarded Christ as just another dying savior-god.
Unsurprisingly, Brown misses no opportunity to criticize Christianity and its pitiable adherents. (The church in question is always the Catholic Church, though his villain does sneer once at Anglicans — for their grimness, of all things.) He routinely and anachronistically refers to the Church as "the Vatican," even when popes weren't in residence there. He systematically portrays it throughout history as deceitful, power-crazed, crafty, and murderous: "The Church may no longer employ crusades to slaughter, but their influence is no less persuasive. No less insidious."
Goddess Worship and the Magdalen
Worst of all, in Brown's eyes, is the fact that the pleasure-hating, sex-hating, woman-hating Church suppressed goddess worship and eliminated the divine feminine. He claims that goddess worship universally dominated pre-Christian paganism with the hieros gamos (sacred marriage) as its central rite. His enthusiasm for fertility rites is enthusiasm for sexuality, not procreation. What else would one expect of a Cathar sympathizer?
Astonishingly, Brown claims that Jews in Solomon's Temple adored Yahweh and his feminine counterpart, the Shekinah, via the services of sacred prostitutes — possibly a twisted version of the Temple's corruption after Solomon (1 Kings 14:24 and 2 Kings 23:4-15). Moreover, he says that the tetragrammaton YHWH derives from "Jehovah, an androgynous physical union between the masculine Jah and the pre-Hebraic name for Eve, Havah."
But as any first-year Scripture student could tell you, Jehovah is actually a 16th-century rendering of Yahweh using the vowels of Adonai ("Lord"). In fact, goddesses did not dominate the pre-Christian world — not in the religions of Rome, her barbarian subjects, Egypt, or even Semitic lands where the hieros gamos was an ancient practice. Nor did the Hellenized cult of Isis appear to have included sex in its secret rites.
Contrary to yet another of Brown's claims, Tarot cards do not teach goddess doctrine. They were invented for innocent gaming purposes in the 15th century and didn't acquire occult associations until the late 18th. Playing-card suites carry no Grail symbolism. The notion of diamonds symbolizing pentacles is a deliberate misrepresentation by British occultist A. E. Waite. And the number five — so crucial to Brown's puzzles — has some connections with the protective goddess but myriad others besides, including human life, the five senses, and the Five Wounds of Christ.
Brown's treatment of Mary Magdalene is sheer delusion. In The Da Vinci Code, she's no penitent whore but Christ's royal consort and the intended head of His Church, supplanted by Peter and defamed by churchmen. She fled west with her offspring to Provence, where medieval Cathars would keep the original teachings of Jesus alive. The Priory of Sion still guards her relics and records, excavated by the Templars from the subterranean Holy of Holies. It also protects her descendants — including Brown's heroine.
Although many people still picture the Magdalen as a sinful woman who anointed Jesus and equate her with Mary of Bethany, that conflation is actually the later work of Pope St. Gregory the Great. The East has always kept them separate and said that the Magdalen, "apostle to the apostles," died in Ephesus. The legend of her voyage to Provence is no earlier than the ninth century, and her relics weren't reported there until the 13th. Catholic critics, including the Bollandists, have been debunking the legend and distinguishing the three ladies since the 17th century.
Brown uses two Gnostic documents, the Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Mary, to prove that the Magdalen was Christ's "companion," meaning sexual partner. The apostles were jealous that Jesus used to "kiss her on the mouth" and favored her over them. He cites exactly the same passages quoted in Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The Templar Revelation and even picks up the latter's reference to The Last Temptation of Christ. What these books neglect to mention is the infamous final verse of the Gospel of Thomas. When Peter sneers that "women are not worthy of Life," Jesus responds, "I myself shall lead her in order to make her male.... For every woman who will make herself male will enter the Kingdom of Heaven."
That's certainly an odd way to "honor" one's spouse or exalt the status of women.
The Knights Templar
Brown likewise misrepresents the history of the Knights Templar. The oldest of the military-religious orders, the Knights were founded in 1118 to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land. Their rule, attributed to St. Bernard of Clairvaux, was approved in 1128 and generous donors granted them numerous properties in Europe for support. Rendered redundant after the last Crusader stronghold fell in 1291, the Templars' pride and wealth — they were also bankers — earned them keen hostility.
Brown maliciously ascribes the suppression of the Templars to “Machiavellian” Pope Clement V, whom they were blackmailing with the Grail secret. His "ingeniously planned sting operation" had his soldiers suddenly arrest all Templars. Charged with Satanism, sodomy, and blasphemy, they were tortured into confessing and burned as heretics, their ashes "tossed unceremoniously into the Tiber."
But in reality, the initiative for crushing the Templars came from King Philip the Fair of France, whose royal officials did the arresting in 1307. About 120 Templars were burned by local Inquisitorial courts in France for not confessing or retracting a confession, as happened with Grand Master Jacques de Molay. Few Templars suffered death elsewhere although their order was abolished in 1312. Clement, a weak, sickly Frenchman manipulated by his king, burned no one in Rome inasmuch as he was the first pope to reign from Avignon (so much for the ashes in the Tiber).
Moreover, the mysterious stone idol that the Templars were accused of worshiping is associated with fertility in only one of more than a hundred confessions. Sodomy was the scandalous — and possibly true — charge against the order, not ritual fornication. The Templars have been darlings of occultism since their myth as masters of secret wisdom and fabulous treasure began to coalesce in the late 18th century. Freemasons and even Nazis have hailed them as brothers. Now it's the turn of neo-Gnostics.
Twisting da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci
(1452-1519)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brown's revisionist interpretations of da Vinci are as distorted as the rest of his information. He claims to have first run across these views "while I was studying art history in Seville," but they correspond point for point to material in The Templar Revelation. A writer who sees a pointed finger as a throat-cutting gesture, who says the Madonna of the Rocks was painted for nuns instead of a lay confraternity of men, who claims that da Vinci received "hundreds of lucrative Vatican commissions" (actually, it was just one…and it was never executed) is simply unreliable.
Brown's analysis of da Vinci's work is just as ridiculous. He presents the Mona Lisa as an androgynous self-portrait when it's widely known to portray a real woman, Madonna Lisa, wife of Francesco di Bartolomeo del Giocondo. The name is certainly not — as Brown claims — a mocking anagram of two Egyptian fertility deities Amon and L'Isa (Italian for Isis). How did he miss the theory, propounded by the authors of The Templar Revelation, that the Shroud of Turin is a photographed self-portrait of da Vinci?
Much of Brown's argument centers around da Vinci's Last Supper, a painting the author considers a coded message that reveals the truth about Jesus and the Grail. Brown points to the lack of a central chalice on the table as proof that the Grail isn't a material vessel. But da Vinci's painting specifically dramatizes the moment when Jesus warns, "One of you will betray me" (John 13:21). There is no Institution Narrative in St. John's Gospel. The Eucharist is not shown there. And the person sitting next to Jesus is not Mary Magdalene (as Brown claims) but St. John, portrayed as the usual effeminate da Vinci youth, comparable to his St. John the Baptist. Jesus is in the exact center of the painting, with two pyramidal groups of three apostles on each side. Although da Vinci was a spiritually troubled homosexual, Brown's contention that he coded his paintings with anti-Christian messages simply can't be sustained.
Brown's Mess
In the end, Dan Brown has penned a poorly written, atrociously researched mess. So, why bother with such a close reading of a worthless novel? The answer is simple: The Da Vinci Code takes esoterica mainstream. It may well do for Gnosticism what The Mists of Avalon did for paganism — gain it popular acceptance. After all, how many lay readers will see the blazing inaccuracies put forward as buried truths?
What's more, in making phony claims of scholarship, Brown's book infects readers with a virulent hostility toward Catholicism. Dozens of occult history books, conveniently cross-linked by Amazon.com, are following in its wake. And booksellers' shelves now bulge with falsehoods few would be buying without The Da Vinci Code connection. While Brown's assault on the Catholic Church may be a backhanded compliment, it's one we would have happily done without.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Sandra Miesel. "Dismantling The Da Vinci Code." Crisis (September 2003).
This article is reprinted with permission from the Morley Institute a non-profit education organization. To subscribe to Crisis magazine call 1-800-852-9962.
THE AUTHOR
Sandra Miesel, medievalist and Catholic journalist, writes from Indianapolis.
Copyright © 2003 Crisis
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/persecution/pch0058.html
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lunedì 29 marzo 2010
The Da Vinci Hoax: Mary Magdalene
Author: CARL E. OLSON | Source:
The Da Vinci Hoax: Mary Magdalene
The real Mary Magdalene is a far cry from the mythological feminist martyr found in The Da Vinci Code.
She was the wife of Jesus and is the Holy Grail.
She embodies the “sacred feminine.” She, not Peter, was meant to be the head apostle. The Church sought to destroy her reputation and slandered her name, forcing her to flee for her life. She is the Mary Magdalene of The Da Vinci Code, a mythical creation who is part priestess, part goddess and all nonsense. But the real Magdalene is a far cry from the mythological feminist martyr.
The Church, according to a character in Dan Brown’s novel, “outlawed speaking of the shunned Mary Magdalene.” The truth is quite different. There are at least a dozen references to Mary from Magdala (a town on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee) in the four Gospels. She suffered from demonic possession. Both Mark and Luke recount that Jesus expelled seven demons from her (Mark 16:9; Luke 8:2). She is prominently mentioned as one of the women who accompanied Jesus in his ministry (Luke 8:2), as a witness of the crucifixion (Matthew 27:56; John 19:25), of Jesus’ burial (Matthew 27:61; Mark 15:47), and of the empty tomb (Matthew 28:1-10; Mark 16:1-8; Luke 24:10). And, quite significantly, Jesus appears to her alone at the tomb after his resurrection (Mark 16:9; John 20:1-18).
In the Western Church she became identified with the sinful woman of Luke 7:37-50. That passage immediately precedes the description of “Mary who was called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out” in Luke 8:2, and the two descriptions were harmonized together. This, in part, was because the woman who is anointed (Luke 7:37-50) is described as a “sinner” and Mary Magdalene had been possessed by seven demons, which some understood as evidence that she was that sinner.
A third woman was also identified with Mary Magdalene: Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha and Lazarus (Luke 10:38-42; John 11). In the Eastern Church, however, the three women were identified separately, with feast days on March 21 (the unnamed sinner), March 18 (Mary of Bethany), and July 22 (Mary Magdalene).
Mary Magdalene has a prominent role in the Gospels as witness to Christ’s resurrection, remarkable considering the low value placed on the testimony of women in first century Jewish society. Yet despite being mentioned more times than some of the apostles (Thaddeus, for example, is named just twice), some feminist writers speak of her being marginalized by a piece of propaganda called the New Testament, written by “the anti-Magdalene party.”
The prime suspect in this alleged crime against femininity is Pope Gregory the Great (c. 540-604). On Sept. 21, 591, he preached a homily based on Luke 7:36-50 — the story of the woman “who was a sinner” who anointed Jesus’ feet with oil. “She whom Luke calls the sinful woman, whom John calls Mary,” Pope Gregory stated, “we believe to be the Mary from whom seven devils were ejected according to Mark. And what did these seven devils signify, if not all the vices?”
With Rome facing approaching war and famine, the Pope encouraged Christians to repent of their sins — and to follow the example of St. Mary Magdalene. He praised her because “she now immolated herself” and she “turned the mass of her crimes to virtues, in order to serve God entirely in penance.” (Hom. XXXIII, PL LXXVI, col. 1239). Gregory likely linked the sinner of Luke 7 and Mary of Bethany with Mary Magdalene because of their proximity to one another in Luke 7-8. Also, by the sixth century, the biblical city of Magdala had acquired a less than stellar reputation. Most importantly, Gregory’s exegesis of Luke 7 focused on the tropological, or moral, sense of the reading. He believed that the seven demons that once possessed Mary Magdalene were not only literal demons, but also represented the seven deadly sins.
Many early Church Fathers remarked about the Magdalene and she was described by Hippolytus (c. 170-236) as “the apostle to the apostles” in his commentary on the Song of Songs. By the eighth century the Western Church celebrated a feast day for Mary Magdalene on July 22. A century later there were specific prayers for her feast day, and in the 11th century devotion to the Magdalene began to increase.
The cult of Mary Magdalene was established at Vézelay, the Romanesque church in Burgandy founded in the ninth century and originally dedicated to the Virgin Mary. During the abbacy of Geoffrey (1037-1052) she was recognized as the patron of that church in a papal bull dated April 27, 1050 by Pope Leo IX. At the same time, relics of the Magdalene were being sought and gathered in earnest, and soon Vézelay became a major destination for pilgrimages.
A leading tradition in the West held that Mary Magdalene, Martha and Lazarus were expelled from Palestine following the crucifixion of Christ. They eventually arrived at the southern coast of France. In the East, a tradition stated that Mary had been the companion of the Apostle John and Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and that they settled in Ephesus. According to The Golden Legend, the Magdalene and John were betrothed. Some legends depict Mary living her final days in a cave in France, a hermit covered only by her long hair; these stories probably date back no farther than the ninth century. The truth is lost in the fog of history.
What is clear is that St. Mary Magdalene has been beloved and celebrated by Catholics for many centuries. She was a brave disciple who stood at her Savior’s cross; she was also a witness to the resurrected Christ. Far from being slandered, Mary of Magdala is recognized as an exemplar of faithfulness to the truth of the Gospel of her Master and Lord.
Carl E. Olson is the co-author,
with Sandra Miesel, of
The Da Vinci Hoax: Exposing the Errors in The Da Vinci Code
(www.davincihoax.com),
published by Ignatius Press.
the editor of IgnatiusInsight.com.
http://www.catholic.net/index.php?size=mas&id=2886&option=dedestaca
The Da Vinci Hoax: Mary Magdalene
The real Mary Magdalene is a far cry from the mythological feminist martyr found in The Da Vinci Code.
She was the wife of Jesus and is the Holy Grail.
She embodies the “sacred feminine.” She, not Peter, was meant to be the head apostle. The Church sought to destroy her reputation and slandered her name, forcing her to flee for her life. She is the Mary Magdalene of The Da Vinci Code, a mythical creation who is part priestess, part goddess and all nonsense. But the real Magdalene is a far cry from the mythological feminist martyr.
The Church, according to a character in Dan Brown’s novel, “outlawed speaking of the shunned Mary Magdalene.” The truth is quite different. There are at least a dozen references to Mary from Magdala (a town on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee) in the four Gospels. She suffered from demonic possession. Both Mark and Luke recount that Jesus expelled seven demons from her (Mark 16:9; Luke 8:2). She is prominently mentioned as one of the women who accompanied Jesus in his ministry (Luke 8:2), as a witness of the crucifixion (Matthew 27:56; John 19:25), of Jesus’ burial (Matthew 27:61; Mark 15:47), and of the empty tomb (Matthew 28:1-10; Mark 16:1-8; Luke 24:10). And, quite significantly, Jesus appears to her alone at the tomb after his resurrection (Mark 16:9; John 20:1-18).
In the Western Church she became identified with the sinful woman of Luke 7:37-50. That passage immediately precedes the description of “Mary who was called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out” in Luke 8:2, and the two descriptions were harmonized together. This, in part, was because the woman who is anointed (Luke 7:37-50) is described as a “sinner” and Mary Magdalene had been possessed by seven demons, which some understood as evidence that she was that sinner.
A third woman was also identified with Mary Magdalene: Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha and Lazarus (Luke 10:38-42; John 11). In the Eastern Church, however, the three women were identified separately, with feast days on March 21 (the unnamed sinner), March 18 (Mary of Bethany), and July 22 (Mary Magdalene).
Mary Magdalene has a prominent role in the Gospels as witness to Christ’s resurrection, remarkable considering the low value placed on the testimony of women in first century Jewish society. Yet despite being mentioned more times than some of the apostles (Thaddeus, for example, is named just twice), some feminist writers speak of her being marginalized by a piece of propaganda called the New Testament, written by “the anti-Magdalene party.”
The prime suspect in this alleged crime against femininity is Pope Gregory the Great (c. 540-604). On Sept. 21, 591, he preached a homily based on Luke 7:36-50 — the story of the woman “who was a sinner” who anointed Jesus’ feet with oil. “She whom Luke calls the sinful woman, whom John calls Mary,” Pope Gregory stated, “we believe to be the Mary from whom seven devils were ejected according to Mark. And what did these seven devils signify, if not all the vices?”
With Rome facing approaching war and famine, the Pope encouraged Christians to repent of their sins — and to follow the example of St. Mary Magdalene. He praised her because “she now immolated herself” and she “turned the mass of her crimes to virtues, in order to serve God entirely in penance.” (Hom. XXXIII, PL LXXVI, col. 1239). Gregory likely linked the sinner of Luke 7 and Mary of Bethany with Mary Magdalene because of their proximity to one another in Luke 7-8. Also, by the sixth century, the biblical city of Magdala had acquired a less than stellar reputation. Most importantly, Gregory’s exegesis of Luke 7 focused on the tropological, or moral, sense of the reading. He believed that the seven demons that once possessed Mary Magdalene were not only literal demons, but also represented the seven deadly sins.
Many early Church Fathers remarked about the Magdalene and she was described by Hippolytus (c. 170-236) as “the apostle to the apostles” in his commentary on the Song of Songs. By the eighth century the Western Church celebrated a feast day for Mary Magdalene on July 22. A century later there were specific prayers for her feast day, and in the 11th century devotion to the Magdalene began to increase.
The cult of Mary Magdalene was established at Vézelay, the Romanesque church in Burgandy founded in the ninth century and originally dedicated to the Virgin Mary. During the abbacy of Geoffrey (1037-1052) she was recognized as the patron of that church in a papal bull dated April 27, 1050 by Pope Leo IX. At the same time, relics of the Magdalene were being sought and gathered in earnest, and soon Vézelay became a major destination for pilgrimages.
A leading tradition in the West held that Mary Magdalene, Martha and Lazarus were expelled from Palestine following the crucifixion of Christ. They eventually arrived at the southern coast of France. In the East, a tradition stated that Mary had been the companion of the Apostle John and Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and that they settled in Ephesus. According to The Golden Legend, the Magdalene and John were betrothed. Some legends depict Mary living her final days in a cave in France, a hermit covered only by her long hair; these stories probably date back no farther than the ninth century. The truth is lost in the fog of history.
What is clear is that St. Mary Magdalene has been beloved and celebrated by Catholics for many centuries. She was a brave disciple who stood at her Savior’s cross; she was also a witness to the resurrected Christ. Far from being slandered, Mary of Magdala is recognized as an exemplar of faithfulness to the truth of the Gospel of her Master and Lord.
Carl E. Olson is the co-author,
with Sandra Miesel, of
The Da Vinci Hoax: Exposing the Errors in The Da Vinci Code
(www.davincihoax.com),
published by Ignatius Press.
the editor of IgnatiusInsight.com.
http://www.catholic.net/index.php?size=mas&id=2886&option=dedestaca
venerdì 1 febbraio 2008
MARY MAGDALENE FROM BREAKING THE DA VINCI CODE
PART IV
JESUS AND MARY MAGDALENE
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The Da Vinci Code (pp. 247-248)
“‘The woman they are speaking of,’ Teabing explained, ‘is Mary Magdalene. Peter is jealous of her.’ ‘Because Jesus preferred Mary?’ ‘Not only that. The stakes are far greater than mere affection. At this point in the gospels, Jesus suspects that He will soon be captured and crucified. So he gives Mary Magdalene instructions on how to carry on His Church after He is gone. As a result, Peter expresses his discontent over playing second fiddle to a woman. I daresay Peter was something of a sexist.’ Sophie was trying to keep up. ‘This Saint Peter, the rock on which Jesus built His Church?’ ‘The same, except for one catch. According to these unaltered gospels, it was not Peter to whom Christ gave directions with which to establish the Christian Church. It was Mary Magdalene.’ Sophie looked at him. ‘You’re saying the Christian Church was to be carried on by a woman?’ ‘That was the plan. Jesus was the original feminist. He intended for the future of His Church to be in the hands of Mary Magdalene.’”
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The key figure in “The Da Vinci Code’s” grand conspiracy theory is Mary Magdalen. The novel contends that Mary Magdalen was not only a devoted follower of the Lord, but was in fact His lover, His wife, and the mother of His child. It was the Lord’s intent, the novelist insists, that His wife and lover become the leader of the Christian Church after His death. The male leadership of the early church, we are told, fiercely resented the prominence of Mary and she was marginalized and ignored in the years which followed the Lord’s death. That pattern culminated when Constantine and his co-conspirators found it necessary to transform Christianity into a patriarchal religion based upon the identification of Jesus as the Son of God. The facts of Jesus’ marriage to Mary Magdalen, their sexual relationship with one another, the children which were produced by that relationship, and Christ’s intent that Mary become the leader of His Church were then brutally suppressed and denied. Dan Brown goes so far as to describe this effort as “the greatest cover-up in human history.” (Lutzer, p.49) The real truth about the man Jesus, His wife Mary, and the children which their marriage produced was kept alive through secret organizations and cryptic codes focusing on the ancient legend of the “Holy Grail.” Leonardo Da Vinci was supposedly one of the heroes who helped to perpetuate this legacy through his art - thus the novel’s title “The Da Vinci Code.”
In the Gospels of the New Testament Mary Magdalene is one of the most prominent of the Galilean women who followed Jesus in the course of His public ministry. Mary was from the town of Magdala, an important agricultural, fishing and trading center on the southern end of the Sea of Galilee. The Greek name of this town was Tarichaea and its population was predominantly Gentile. Josephus notes that the town had its own hippodrome and was notorious among the Jews for its immorality. Mary is introduced in the Gospel of Luke in this way:
“The Twelve were with Him and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; Joanna the wife of Cuza, the manager of Herod’s household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means.” (Luke 8:2-3)
The seven demons from whom the Lord had delivered Mary Magdalene are also mentioned in Mark 16:9. Mary was included among the courageous core of women who followed Jesus to the cross and remained by His side throughout His execution and burial.
“Some women were watching from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. In Galilee these women had followed Him and cared for His needs.” (Mark 15:40-41; cf. John 19:25)
“So Joseph brought some linen cloth, took down the body, wrapped it in the linen, and placed it in a tomb cut out of rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where He was laid.” (Mark 15:47)
On Easter Sunday morning. Mary is among the women who come out to complete the burial preparations only to discover the tomb empty and the body missing (cf. Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:1;Luke 24:10). John’s Gospel reports that Mary remained outside of the grave weeping and became the first person to encounter the risen Lord Jesus:
“Then the disciples went back to their homes, but Mary stood outside of the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb, and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. They asked her, ‘Woman, why are you crying?’ ‘They have taken my Lord away,’ she said, ‘ and I don’t know where they have put Him.’ At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. ‘Woman,’ He said, ‘why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?’ Thinking He was the gardener, she said, ‘Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have put Him, and I will get Him.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Mary.’ She turned toward Him and cried out in Aramaic, ‘Rabboni!’ (which means Teacher). Jesus said, ‘Do not hold on to Me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to My brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to My Father and to your Father, to My God and your God.’ Mary Magdala went to the disciples with the news: ‘I have seen the Lord!’ and she told them that He had said these things to her.” (John 19:10-18)
Not only is Mary the first person to encounter the risen Christ, but she is also given the responsibility to announce the resurrection to the apostles who remain in hiding. Dan Brown contends that the Biblical Gospels are nothing more than a conglomeration of fictions concocted by a committee of male chauvinists. These evil conspirators, we are told, invented the concept of all male apostles to contradict and deny the fact that Jesus had actually entrusted the leadership of His Church to Mary Magdalene. If any of this nonsense were true, it is impossible to imagine why the Gospels would continue to portray Mary Magdalene in such a positive fashion. She was indeed, as the ancient fathers of the Church declared, “the apostle to the apostles.”
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The Da Vinci Code - (pp. 244, 247)
“Teabing clarified, ‘The early Church needed to convince the world that the mortal prophet Jesus was a divine being. Therefore any gospels that described earthly aspects of Jesus’ life had to be omitted form the Bible’... ‘But how could Christ have a bloodline, unless...?’ She paused and looked at Langdon. Langdon smiled softly, ‘Unless they had a child.’ Sophie stood transfixed. ‘Behold,’ Teabing proclaimed. ‘The greatest cover-up in human history. Not only was Jesus Christ married, but He was a father. My dear, Mary Magdalene was the Holy Vessel. She was the chalice that bore the royal bloodline of Jesus Christ. She was the womb that bore the lineage from which the sacred fruit sprang forth.’
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The only documentation for any leadership role attributed to Mary Magdalen comes from gnostic writings of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, most notably the famous Nag Hammadi collection uncovered in 1945. (Cf. Notes pp. 29ff.) The dates of the Greek originals upon which the Coptic Nag Hammadi documents were based has been the subject of intense debate among scholars. Those sympathetic to neo-gnosticism often make fabulous claims about the reliability and the antiquity of these writings. They see in these documents a way to undermine and deny the content of historic Christianity. However, responsible historians, without an ideological axe to grind, reject those enthusiastic endorsements and strident attacks as unwarranted. Dr. Phillip Jenkins, of Pennsylvania State University, sums up the consensus of academic opinion:
“In most cases, all that can be known for certain about a given Nag Hammadi document is that the particular manuscript was written before the late fourth century, when it was concealed: the date of composition remains highly uncertain. Conceivably, even at this very late date, the ink might not have been too dry on some of these writings. While the canonical gospels were completed by 100 or so, it is unlikely that any of the Nag Hammadi materials date from much before 150, and most probably were written between about 150 and 250, or later. Indeed, the fact that we find so many efforts in the late second and early third century to specify the orthodox canon may indicate that it was in exactly these years that spurious and heterodox works were pouring forth from their creators in unprecedented numbers.” (Jenkins, pp. 92-93)
While the sources of these texts appear to have been written at least 100 years after the books of the canonical New Testament, they do provide an intriguing glimpse into 3nd Century gnostic thought. Most of the works are “pseudographical,” that is, falsely attributed to authors of the apostolic age to enhance their own authority and stature. At the same time, they reveal the gnostic’s disdain for history and the bewildering, often contradictory, varieties of gnostic philosophy. There is very little new historical information in these writings and the positions taken in one work are often specifically rejected in another. The contrast between these later works composed on the heretical fringes of the early Church and the books of the New Testament - consistent in content and rich in history - is overwhelming.
Both of the unfortunate patterns typical of gnostic writings - anti-historical bias and inconsistency - are evident in the Nag Hammadi documents’ treatment of Mary Magdalen. No additional details about her life or background are provided, and the perspective which they present on any potential leadership role which she may have played in the early church is ambiguous at best.
Mary fares best in “The Gospel of Phillip” (c. A.D. 225). The text describes her as the “companion” of Jesus - “Three Marys walked with the lord; His mother, His sister, and Mary Magdala, His companion.” (Barnstone, p. 267) Later we are told that the other disciples objected to the prominence accorded to Mary Magdalen. In response, Jesus indicates that she is more spiritually perceptive than any of the other disciples: “They said, ‘Why do you love her more than us?’ The savior answered, saying to them, ‘Why do I not love you like her? If a blind man and one who sees are together in darkness, they are the same. When the light comes, the one who sees will see light. The blind man stays in the darkness.’” (Barnstone, p. 273) Another of the gnostic writings that has survived outside of the Nag Hammadi collection is actually attributed to Mary Magdalen, although most scholars believe that “The Gospel of Mary” was not composed until after A.D. 200. Only fragmentary pieces of this text remain which makes its interpretation all the more difficult. But what’s left is enough to cause considerable controversy. Mary recounts the special visions which Jesus had bestowed upon her alone: “Then Mary stood up, greeted them all, and said to her brothers, ‘Do not weep, and do not grieve or be irresolute, for his grace will be fully with you and will protect you. Rather, let us praise his greatness. He prepared us and made us truly human.’ When Mary said this, she turned their hearts to the good and they began to discuss the words of the savior. Peter said to Mary, ‘Sister, we know that the Savior loved you more than other women. Tell us the words of the Savior that you remember, which you know and we do not. We have not heard them.’” (Barnstone, p. 479) Peter’s attitude evidently changed after Mary had spoken as he and his brother Andrew objected to the concept of the Lord granting revelation through the voice of a woman. This provokes a spirited debate among the apostles: “When Mary said this, she fell silent since the Lord had spoken to her of all these things. But Andrew answered, saying to the brothers, ‘Say what you think about what she said. I do not believe that the savior said this. These teachings are of strange ideas.’ Peter also opposed her about all this. He asked the others about the savior, ‘Did he really speak to a woman secretly, without our knowledge and not openly? Are we to turn and listen to her? Did he prefer her to us?’ Then Mary wept and said to Peter, ‘My brother Peter, what do you think? Do you think I concocted this in my heart, or I am lying about the savior? Levi answered, saying to Peter, ‘Peter, you are always angry. Now I see you contending against this woman as against an adversary. If the savior made her worthy, who are you to reject her? Surely the savior knows her very well. That is why he loved her more than us. We should be ashamed and put on the perfect person and be with him as he commanded us, and we should preach the gospel, without making any rule or law other than what the savior said.’” (Barnstone, p. 481) In the second half of the 3rd Century a gnostic gospel entitled “Pistis Sophia” (“The Wisdom of Faith”) was composed which also accords a primary leadership role to Mary Magdalen. Jesus announces to His disciples that Mary and St. John are to lead His Church: “But Mary Magdalene and John the Virgin will surpass all my disciples and all men who shall receive mysteries in the Ineffable, they will be on my right hand and on my left, and I am they and they are I.” (Schneemelcher, p. 366) As in the other texts, Peter expresses the resentment and frustration of the other apostles: “My Lord, we are not able to suffer this woman who takes the opportunity from us, and does not allow any one of us to speak, but she speaks many times.” (Brock, pp. 85-86) Mary notes Peter’s opposition to her role as she complains to Jesus: “My Lord, my mind is understanding at all times that I should come forward at any time and give the interpretation of the words which Pistis Sophia spoke, but I am afraid of Peter, for he threatens me and hates our kind.” (Brock , p. 86)
And yet, at the same time, other prominent gnostic writings like “The Gospel of Thomas,” written in the mid 2nd Century, present a somewhat less flattering picture of the role of Mary: “Simon Cephas said to them, ‘Mary should leave us. Females are not worthy of life.’ Jesus said, ‘Look, I shall guide her to make her male, so she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven.’” (Barnstone, p. 69)
The gnostic writings which advocate a major apostolic role for Mary Magdalen were written in the late 2nd and early 3rd centuries when gnostic heretics were locked in bitter controversy with the defenders of orthodox Christianity. The twenty-seven books of the canonical New Testament had been well established by this time throughout the Church as the definitive source of Christian doctrine. This explains the gnostic attempt to attribute their writings to apostolic authors who had been dead for centuries. One of the major selling points of the gnostic heresy was the argument that gnosticism liberated women from the repressive constraints placed upon them by the Scriptures of Judaism and Christianity. Gnostic women were allowed and encouraged to do the very things which they could not do in Christian churches. The effectiveness of that strategy can be seen in the classic book “Against Heresies” written by Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon in the Roman province of Gaul at the end of the 2nd Century. Irenaeus lamented the susceptibility of Christian women to these clever falsehoods from a gnostic teacher in his region named Marcus. Marcus would entice the women to worship the goddess and join with him in consecrating the elements of her sacrament and prophesying in her name before the congregation of his followers.
“By there is another among these heretics, Marcus by name, who boasts himself as having improved upon his master. He is a perfect adept in magical impostures, and by this means drawing away a great number of men and not a few women, he has induced them to join themselves to him, as to one who is possessed of the greatest knowledge and perfection and who has received the highest power from the invisible and ineffable regions above...Handing mixed cups to the women, he bids them consecrate them in his presence...He devotes himself especially to women and to those such as are well-bred, and elegantly attired, and of great wealth, whom he frequently seeks to draw away as these by addressing them in such seductive words as these, ‘I am eager to make thee a partaker of my Grace...Behold Grace has descended upon thee, open thy mouth and prophesy.’...Some of his disciples too, addicting themselves to the same practices have deceived many silly women and defiled them.” (ANF,1, p. 334-335)
Mary Magdalen, as the most prominent female in the canonical gospels, became the convenient foil of these attacks upon historic Christianity. By presenting her as the beneficiary of unique spiritual insight, designated by Jesus as a preeminent leader of His Church, the gnostics sought to undermine and overcome the authority of the male leadership of orthodoxy and transform the Christian religion. Dan Brown’s uncritical embrace of these questionable and contradictory writings makes him the darling of feminists and neo-gnostics everywhere. That is evidently much more important to him than historical accuracy or credibility. The assertion of an apostolic role for Mary Magdalen is without support in Scripture or the traditions of historic Christianity. The sources upon which The Da Vinci Code selectively depends were written long after the completion of the Bible by false teachers far out of the fringes of the Christian faith.
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The Da Vinci Deception - (pp. 244,247)
“Teabing clarified, ‘The early Church needed to convince the world that the mortal prophet Jesus was a divine being. Therefore any gospels that described earthly aspects of Jesus’ life had to be omitted from the Bible’... ‘But how could Christ have had a bloodline, unless?... ‘She paused and looked at Langdon. Langdon smiled softly, ‘Unless they had a child.’ Sophie stood transfixed. ‘Behold,’ Teabing proclaimed, ‘The greatest cover-up in human history. Not only was Jesus Christ married, but He was a father. My dear, Mary Magdalene was the Holy Vessel. She was the chalice that bore the royal bloodline of Jesus Christ. She was the womb that bore the lineage from which the sacred fruit sprang forth.’”
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The assertion that Mary Magdalene was Jesus’ lover, His wife, and the mother of His children is the central component in The Da Vinci Code’s conspiracy theory. This, we are told again and again, is the great secret which Constantine suppressed, which institutional Christendom sought to eliminate through bloody persecution and witch-hunt for centuries, and which the Renaissance genius Leonardo da Vinci both concealed and conveyed in the masterpieces of his art.
This claim is not new to Dan Brown or his Da Vinci Code. It has been repeatedly advanced in recent years by New Age mystics and amateur conspiracy theorists. Dan Brown’s personal favorite appears to be a 1982 occult classic entitled “Holy Blood - Holy Grail” by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln. (The name of one of the novel’s central characters, “Sir Leigh Teabing” is an anagram based on the names of Baigent and Leigh.) This amazing book purports to reveal the secret history of Christ and the shocking legacy of the Holy Grail. The book asserts not only that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and fathered children through her, but also that Christ did not die on the cross, and that secret documents concealed beneath the Temple Mount in Jerusalem revealed this secret to the Knights Templar who then dedicated themselves to the perpetuation of Christ’s royal descendants through the Merovingian line of French royalty. In the novel, Sir Leigh Teabing specifically cites this work as the “international bestseller” which “brought the idea of Christ’s bloodline into the mainstream.” (DVC, pp. 253-254) The other works mentioned as authorities in the field to prove that “the royal bloodline of Christ has been chronicled in detail by scores of historians” (DVC, p. 253) are The Templar Revelation by Lynn Pickett and Clive Prince, The Woman with the Alabaster Jar and The Goddess in the Gospels by Margaret Starbird. Richard Abanes offers this telling analysis of the authors cited as authoritative historians:
“None of these authors are, in fact, historians. Starbird holds an M.A. in Comparative Literature and German. Baigent has an undergraduate degree in psychology and has recently been pursuing an M.A. in Mysticism and Religious Experience. And Leigh is ‘ primarily a novelist and a writer of short stories.’ What about Lincoln? He is a BBC television personality and scriptwriter. And Picknett and Prince are actually conspiracy theorists with a penchant for occultism, the paranormal, and UFOs.” (Abanes, pp. 41-42)
Such are the “scores of historians” that document the remarkable theory upon which the entire plot of The Da Vinci Code is based. Lutheran historian Dr. Paul L. Maier argues that despite the zeal of these “sensationalizing authors” that there is not “one spark of evidence from antiquity”, “not a scintilla of evidence anywhere in the historical sources” to suggest that Jesus may have gotten married to Mary Magdalene. (Hanegraff, Maier, p. 18)
In the novel, Teabing pontificates that the marriage of Jesus to Mary Magdalene was “ a particularly troubling earthly theme which kept recurring in the gospels.” (DVC, p. 244) This is not true. There is of course, no reference whatsoever to any such marriage in the canonical gospels of the New Testament. That, Sir Leigh concludes, is the reason why they were included in the canon while other - more accurate documents - were not. Evidently the gospels of which the fictional historian speaks are the gnostic writings of the Fourth Century. But even here there are, in fact, no references to a marriage between Jesus and Mary. The most compelling evidence Brown can produce is a quotation from the gnostic “The Gospel of Phillip.” The passage cited says:
“And the companion of the Savior is Mary Magdalene. Christ loved her more than all the disciples and used to kiss her often on the mouth. The rest of the disciples were offended by it and expressed disapproval. They said to Him, ‘Why do you love her more than all of us?’” ( DVC, p. 246)
Sophie, the novel’s heroine, then makes the obvious observation that these words in no way constitute an affirmation of any marriage between Christ and Mary Magdalene. Professor Teabing goes on to clinch his argument with the assertion that “As any Aramaic scholar will tell you, the word companion in those days literally meant spouse.” (DVC, p. 246) This categorical assertion is false and misleading in every way. Actually, the oldest copy of the Gospel of Phillip extant today is written in Coptic, not Aramaic, and that copy is a translation of an original Greek text. Thus, what an Aramaic term may or may not have meant is hardly relevant. Even if, theoretically, one might argue that the Aramaic word could have been used in an earlier oral tradition - assuming the highly dubious authenticity of this document - the point remains invalid nonetheless. For as Craig Bloomberg of Denver Seminary (a real Aramaic scholar!) will tell you: “no Aramaic or Hebrew words for companion normally mean spouse.” (Abanes, p. 38)
What then does this passage mean when it says that “Christ loved her more than all the other disciples and used to kiss her often on the mouth.”? The answer to that question must be determined from the context of the passage itself and from the use of similar language in other contemporary documents. “The Gospel of Phillip” does not define the relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene in terms of physical intimacy or marriage as Dan Brown would have us believe. In fact, the same text goes on to commend Mary for her unique spiritual insight as one who sees the light while the other disciples remain in the darkness. In that regard, The Da Vinci Code’s translation of the text is misleading -“Christ loved her more than all the disciples and used to kiss her often on the mouth.” In the original text both parts of the phrase, not merely the first part as in this translation, are comparative. “The Gnostic Bible,” a standard scholarly translation of the passage, more accurately reads: “The companion is Mary of Magdala. Jesus loved her more than His students. He kissed her often on her face, more than all His students.” (Barnstone, Meyer, p. 273) There is no sexual connotation whatsoever in this language. “The Gospel of Phillip” later quotes Jesus defining the significance of His kiss as an act of spiritual nourishment that leads to spiritual enlightenment: “For it is by a kiss that the perfect conceive and give birth. For this reason we also kiss one another. We receive conception from the grace that is in one another.” (58:30-59:6) The “Apocalypse of James,” another gnostic writing of the same period, uses exactly the same language to describe Christ’s special revelation its author: “And He kissed my mouth. He took hold of me saying, ‘My beloved! Behold, I shall reveal to you those things which neither the heavens nor the archons have known.’” (Olson, Miesel, p. 95)
The Da Vinci Code also contends that Jesus must have been married because “the social decorum during that time virtually forbid a Jewish man to be unmarried.” (DVC, p. 245) Once again, the novel’s assertion directly contradicts the historical evidence. Archaeological exploration near the Dead Sea has indicated that the Jewish Essene community at Qumram included both married and single men and women. The two most prominent non-Christian Jewish writers of the period, Josephus and Philo, both refer to the practice of celibacy among the Jews. Our Lord Himself refers to celibacy when He describes those “who have renounced marriage for the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 19:12) It is also significant to note that in his defense of an apostle’s right to marry if he so chooses, St. Paul cites “the other apostles, the Lord’s brothers, and Cephas” as those who have taken wives. (1 Corinthians 9:5) Surely, if Jesus Himself had been married, Paul would not have failed to mention that fact to conclusively clinch his argument. Once again, The Da Vinci Code’s conclusion is untenable and the evidence cited to support it is inaccurate.
It is not theoretically impossible that Jesus could have chosen to marry. Had He been married there is no reason why He could not have carried on a normal sexual relationship with His wife within the context of that marriage. However, the reality of the personal union of the divine and the human natures in Christ would seem to rule out the possibility of the procreation of children. But the real question is not could Jesus have married - a question which must remain theoretical - but rather, did Jesus marry. As we have noted, there is no hint or suggestion anywhere in Scripture or in the traditions of the ancient church that Jesus was married. All of the modern speculation about a marriage between Jesus and Mary Magdalen is just that, idle speculation without any Biblical or historical basis. Erwin W. Lutzer is correct when he concludes: “The Da Vinci Code bases its conclusions on imaginary data, hoping that gullible readers will give them credence.” (Lutzer, p. 52)
Given our Lord’s single minded commitment to His mission and ministry this should not be surprising. Jesus did not come into this world for Himself. The God/man lived only to accomplish the plan of salvation and to offer His life as the innocent sacrifice for the sins of mankind. And yet, in the language and imagery of Scripture, Jesus is indeed a bridegroom. His perfect bride is not a particular individual, but the entire Church, all the people of God. Thus John the Baptist declared of the Christ : “I am not the Christ, but am sent ahead of Him. The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who awaits the bridegroom awaits and listens for Him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine.” (John 3:28-29) Jesus uses the same imagery of the bridegroom and the bride to describe His earthly ministry: “How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while He is with them? They cannot they have Him with them. But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast.” (Mark 2:19-20; cf. Matthew 22:1-14; 25:1-13) St. Paul used Jesus as the example of the perfect husband. He urged Christian husbands to demonstrate the same selfless love for their wives that Christ has showered upon His bride, the Church:
“Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her, to make her holy cleansing her with the washing with water through the Word, and to present her to Himself as a radiant Church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.” (Ephesians 5:25-27; cf. Also 2 Corinthians 11:2)
The great theme of the marriage of Christ and His bride, the Church recurs in the Bible’s triumphant conclusion:
“Hallelujah! For the Lord our God Almighty reigns! Let us rejoice and be glad and give Him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and His bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear. (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints.) Then the angel said to me, ‘Write: Blessed are those who are called to the marriage feast of the Lamb.’” (Revelation 19:6-9)
A few verses later, in the closing words of Scripture, the Church plead’s for the glorious return of her victorious Bridegroom in Revelation 22: “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’” (Revelation 22:17)
For the feminist advocates of New Age religion there is much more at stake here than the status of Mary Magdalen. Mary is perceived to be the personification of all women and her proper recognition will signal the liberation of women from the curse of male domination within the Church. Susan Haskins , author of Mary Magdalen - Myth and Metaphor, writes: “In the radical revision of much of what until now had been accepted interpretations of the early Church and women’s participation in it, Mary Magdalen’s figure has emerged in bold relief, restored to her New Testament role as chief female disciple, apostle to the apostles and first witness of the resurrection. The significance of this re-evaluation has so far gone mostly unacknowledged by the Church or Rome, whilst it is only partially conceded by other churches, because of the residual patriarchalism of those institutions. If the ‘victimization’ of Mary Magdalen can stand as a metaphor for the historically subordinate position of women in Christianity, now that the woman, so long regarded as a penitent sinner has been shown in her true light, then it may be that Christianity’s view of woman in history itself requires some kind of radical revision...From the early centuries of the Christian era, Mary Magdalen has, like the women she represents, been the scapegoat of the ecclesiastical institution, manipulated, controlled, and, above all, misrepresented.” (Haskins, pp. 392-393)
For some in the feminist camp, the agenda is even more ambitious. Margaret Starbird sees in the rehabilitation of the Magdalen not only the liberation of women in the Church, but the restoration of the long suppressed feminine component of the deity and the belated recognition of the divine within every human being, male and female. “When I speak now of reclaiming the lost Bride, I am at once thinking of restoring the historical wife of Jesus to her rightful place at his side, and, at the same time, on a deeper plane, thinking of how this will help to restore the ‘partnership paradigm’ - the imaging of the Divine as both the Bride and Bridegroom - in the holy inner sanctum of our collective psyche...The celibate male image of God worshiped for nearly two thousand years of western civilization is a distorted image that desperately needs to be corrected...At some point in my journey I understood that my original goal had evolved into a much larger purpose. I now realize that I am charged not only with restoring the Bride to Christianity - the Goddess in the Gospels - but also with restoring the partnership paradigm that was the cornerstone of ancient civilizations....The doctrine of the sacred partnership of humanity and divinity in each human individual will be the fundamental tenet of a Church of the Holy Spirit.” (Starbird, pp. 151-153)
http://www.osl.cc/believe/daVinci/BREAKING%20DA%20VINCI%20CODE%204.htm
JESUS AND MARY MAGDALENE
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The Da Vinci Code (pp. 247-248)
“‘The woman they are speaking of,’ Teabing explained, ‘is Mary Magdalene. Peter is jealous of her.’ ‘Because Jesus preferred Mary?’ ‘Not only that. The stakes are far greater than mere affection. At this point in the gospels, Jesus suspects that He will soon be captured and crucified. So he gives Mary Magdalene instructions on how to carry on His Church after He is gone. As a result, Peter expresses his discontent over playing second fiddle to a woman. I daresay Peter was something of a sexist.’ Sophie was trying to keep up. ‘This Saint Peter, the rock on which Jesus built His Church?’ ‘The same, except for one catch. According to these unaltered gospels, it was not Peter to whom Christ gave directions with which to establish the Christian Church. It was Mary Magdalene.’ Sophie looked at him. ‘You’re saying the Christian Church was to be carried on by a woman?’ ‘That was the plan. Jesus was the original feminist. He intended for the future of His Church to be in the hands of Mary Magdalene.’”
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The key figure in “The Da Vinci Code’s” grand conspiracy theory is Mary Magdalen. The novel contends that Mary Magdalen was not only a devoted follower of the Lord, but was in fact His lover, His wife, and the mother of His child. It was the Lord’s intent, the novelist insists, that His wife and lover become the leader of the Christian Church after His death. The male leadership of the early church, we are told, fiercely resented the prominence of Mary and she was marginalized and ignored in the years which followed the Lord’s death. That pattern culminated when Constantine and his co-conspirators found it necessary to transform Christianity into a patriarchal religion based upon the identification of Jesus as the Son of God. The facts of Jesus’ marriage to Mary Magdalen, their sexual relationship with one another, the children which were produced by that relationship, and Christ’s intent that Mary become the leader of His Church were then brutally suppressed and denied. Dan Brown goes so far as to describe this effort as “the greatest cover-up in human history.” (Lutzer, p.49) The real truth about the man Jesus, His wife Mary, and the children which their marriage produced was kept alive through secret organizations and cryptic codes focusing on the ancient legend of the “Holy Grail.” Leonardo Da Vinci was supposedly one of the heroes who helped to perpetuate this legacy through his art - thus the novel’s title “The Da Vinci Code.”
In the Gospels of the New Testament Mary Magdalene is one of the most prominent of the Galilean women who followed Jesus in the course of His public ministry. Mary was from the town of Magdala, an important agricultural, fishing and trading center on the southern end of the Sea of Galilee. The Greek name of this town was Tarichaea and its population was predominantly Gentile. Josephus notes that the town had its own hippodrome and was notorious among the Jews for its immorality. Mary is introduced in the Gospel of Luke in this way:
“The Twelve were with Him and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; Joanna the wife of Cuza, the manager of Herod’s household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means.” (Luke 8:2-3)
The seven demons from whom the Lord had delivered Mary Magdalene are also mentioned in Mark 16:9. Mary was included among the courageous core of women who followed Jesus to the cross and remained by His side throughout His execution and burial.
“Some women were watching from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. In Galilee these women had followed Him and cared for His needs.” (Mark 15:40-41; cf. John 19:25)
“So Joseph brought some linen cloth, took down the body, wrapped it in the linen, and placed it in a tomb cut out of rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where He was laid.” (Mark 15:47)
On Easter Sunday morning. Mary is among the women who come out to complete the burial preparations only to discover the tomb empty and the body missing (cf. Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:1;Luke 24:10). John’s Gospel reports that Mary remained outside of the grave weeping and became the first person to encounter the risen Lord Jesus:
“Then the disciples went back to their homes, but Mary stood outside of the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb, and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. They asked her, ‘Woman, why are you crying?’ ‘They have taken my Lord away,’ she said, ‘ and I don’t know where they have put Him.’ At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. ‘Woman,’ He said, ‘why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?’ Thinking He was the gardener, she said, ‘Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have put Him, and I will get Him.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Mary.’ She turned toward Him and cried out in Aramaic, ‘Rabboni!’ (which means Teacher). Jesus said, ‘Do not hold on to Me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to My brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to My Father and to your Father, to My God and your God.’ Mary Magdala went to the disciples with the news: ‘I have seen the Lord!’ and she told them that He had said these things to her.” (John 19:10-18)
Not only is Mary the first person to encounter the risen Christ, but she is also given the responsibility to announce the resurrection to the apostles who remain in hiding. Dan Brown contends that the Biblical Gospels are nothing more than a conglomeration of fictions concocted by a committee of male chauvinists. These evil conspirators, we are told, invented the concept of all male apostles to contradict and deny the fact that Jesus had actually entrusted the leadership of His Church to Mary Magdalene. If any of this nonsense were true, it is impossible to imagine why the Gospels would continue to portray Mary Magdalene in such a positive fashion. She was indeed, as the ancient fathers of the Church declared, “the apostle to the apostles.”
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The Da Vinci Code - (pp. 244, 247)
“Teabing clarified, ‘The early Church needed to convince the world that the mortal prophet Jesus was a divine being. Therefore any gospels that described earthly aspects of Jesus’ life had to be omitted form the Bible’... ‘But how could Christ have a bloodline, unless...?’ She paused and looked at Langdon. Langdon smiled softly, ‘Unless they had a child.’ Sophie stood transfixed. ‘Behold,’ Teabing proclaimed. ‘The greatest cover-up in human history. Not only was Jesus Christ married, but He was a father. My dear, Mary Magdalene was the Holy Vessel. She was the chalice that bore the royal bloodline of Jesus Christ. She was the womb that bore the lineage from which the sacred fruit sprang forth.’
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The only documentation for any leadership role attributed to Mary Magdalen comes from gnostic writings of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, most notably the famous Nag Hammadi collection uncovered in 1945. (Cf. Notes pp. 29ff.) The dates of the Greek originals upon which the Coptic Nag Hammadi documents were based has been the subject of intense debate among scholars. Those sympathetic to neo-gnosticism often make fabulous claims about the reliability and the antiquity of these writings. They see in these documents a way to undermine and deny the content of historic Christianity. However, responsible historians, without an ideological axe to grind, reject those enthusiastic endorsements and strident attacks as unwarranted. Dr. Phillip Jenkins, of Pennsylvania State University, sums up the consensus of academic opinion:
“In most cases, all that can be known for certain about a given Nag Hammadi document is that the particular manuscript was written before the late fourth century, when it was concealed: the date of composition remains highly uncertain. Conceivably, even at this very late date, the ink might not have been too dry on some of these writings. While the canonical gospels were completed by 100 or so, it is unlikely that any of the Nag Hammadi materials date from much before 150, and most probably were written between about 150 and 250, or later. Indeed, the fact that we find so many efforts in the late second and early third century to specify the orthodox canon may indicate that it was in exactly these years that spurious and heterodox works were pouring forth from their creators in unprecedented numbers.” (Jenkins, pp. 92-93)
While the sources of these texts appear to have been written at least 100 years after the books of the canonical New Testament, they do provide an intriguing glimpse into 3nd Century gnostic thought. Most of the works are “pseudographical,” that is, falsely attributed to authors of the apostolic age to enhance their own authority and stature. At the same time, they reveal the gnostic’s disdain for history and the bewildering, often contradictory, varieties of gnostic philosophy. There is very little new historical information in these writings and the positions taken in one work are often specifically rejected in another. The contrast between these later works composed on the heretical fringes of the early Church and the books of the New Testament - consistent in content and rich in history - is overwhelming.
Both of the unfortunate patterns typical of gnostic writings - anti-historical bias and inconsistency - are evident in the Nag Hammadi documents’ treatment of Mary Magdalen. No additional details about her life or background are provided, and the perspective which they present on any potential leadership role which she may have played in the early church is ambiguous at best.
Mary fares best in “The Gospel of Phillip” (c. A.D. 225). The text describes her as the “companion” of Jesus - “Three Marys walked with the lord; His mother, His sister, and Mary Magdala, His companion.” (Barnstone, p. 267) Later we are told that the other disciples objected to the prominence accorded to Mary Magdalen. In response, Jesus indicates that she is more spiritually perceptive than any of the other disciples: “They said, ‘Why do you love her more than us?’ The savior answered, saying to them, ‘Why do I not love you like her? If a blind man and one who sees are together in darkness, they are the same. When the light comes, the one who sees will see light. The blind man stays in the darkness.’” (Barnstone, p. 273) Another of the gnostic writings that has survived outside of the Nag Hammadi collection is actually attributed to Mary Magdalen, although most scholars believe that “The Gospel of Mary” was not composed until after A.D. 200. Only fragmentary pieces of this text remain which makes its interpretation all the more difficult. But what’s left is enough to cause considerable controversy. Mary recounts the special visions which Jesus had bestowed upon her alone: “Then Mary stood up, greeted them all, and said to her brothers, ‘Do not weep, and do not grieve or be irresolute, for his grace will be fully with you and will protect you. Rather, let us praise his greatness. He prepared us and made us truly human.’ When Mary said this, she turned their hearts to the good and they began to discuss the words of the savior. Peter said to Mary, ‘Sister, we know that the Savior loved you more than other women. Tell us the words of the Savior that you remember, which you know and we do not. We have not heard them.’” (Barnstone, p. 479) Peter’s attitude evidently changed after Mary had spoken as he and his brother Andrew objected to the concept of the Lord granting revelation through the voice of a woman. This provokes a spirited debate among the apostles: “When Mary said this, she fell silent since the Lord had spoken to her of all these things. But Andrew answered, saying to the brothers, ‘Say what you think about what she said. I do not believe that the savior said this. These teachings are of strange ideas.’ Peter also opposed her about all this. He asked the others about the savior, ‘Did he really speak to a woman secretly, without our knowledge and not openly? Are we to turn and listen to her? Did he prefer her to us?’ Then Mary wept and said to Peter, ‘My brother Peter, what do you think? Do you think I concocted this in my heart, or I am lying about the savior? Levi answered, saying to Peter, ‘Peter, you are always angry. Now I see you contending against this woman as against an adversary. If the savior made her worthy, who are you to reject her? Surely the savior knows her very well. That is why he loved her more than us. We should be ashamed and put on the perfect person and be with him as he commanded us, and we should preach the gospel, without making any rule or law other than what the savior said.’” (Barnstone, p. 481) In the second half of the 3rd Century a gnostic gospel entitled “Pistis Sophia” (“The Wisdom of Faith”) was composed which also accords a primary leadership role to Mary Magdalen. Jesus announces to His disciples that Mary and St. John are to lead His Church: “But Mary Magdalene and John the Virgin will surpass all my disciples and all men who shall receive mysteries in the Ineffable, they will be on my right hand and on my left, and I am they and they are I.” (Schneemelcher, p. 366) As in the other texts, Peter expresses the resentment and frustration of the other apostles: “My Lord, we are not able to suffer this woman who takes the opportunity from us, and does not allow any one of us to speak, but she speaks many times.” (Brock, pp. 85-86) Mary notes Peter’s opposition to her role as she complains to Jesus: “My Lord, my mind is understanding at all times that I should come forward at any time and give the interpretation of the words which Pistis Sophia spoke, but I am afraid of Peter, for he threatens me and hates our kind.” (Brock , p. 86)
And yet, at the same time, other prominent gnostic writings like “The Gospel of Thomas,” written in the mid 2nd Century, present a somewhat less flattering picture of the role of Mary: “Simon Cephas said to them, ‘Mary should leave us. Females are not worthy of life.’ Jesus said, ‘Look, I shall guide her to make her male, so she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven.’” (Barnstone, p. 69)
The gnostic writings which advocate a major apostolic role for Mary Magdalen were written in the late 2nd and early 3rd centuries when gnostic heretics were locked in bitter controversy with the defenders of orthodox Christianity. The twenty-seven books of the canonical New Testament had been well established by this time throughout the Church as the definitive source of Christian doctrine. This explains the gnostic attempt to attribute their writings to apostolic authors who had been dead for centuries. One of the major selling points of the gnostic heresy was the argument that gnosticism liberated women from the repressive constraints placed upon them by the Scriptures of Judaism and Christianity. Gnostic women were allowed and encouraged to do the very things which they could not do in Christian churches. The effectiveness of that strategy can be seen in the classic book “Against Heresies” written by Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon in the Roman province of Gaul at the end of the 2nd Century. Irenaeus lamented the susceptibility of Christian women to these clever falsehoods from a gnostic teacher in his region named Marcus. Marcus would entice the women to worship the goddess and join with him in consecrating the elements of her sacrament and prophesying in her name before the congregation of his followers.
“By there is another among these heretics, Marcus by name, who boasts himself as having improved upon his master. He is a perfect adept in magical impostures, and by this means drawing away a great number of men and not a few women, he has induced them to join themselves to him, as to one who is possessed of the greatest knowledge and perfection and who has received the highest power from the invisible and ineffable regions above...Handing mixed cups to the women, he bids them consecrate them in his presence...He devotes himself especially to women and to those such as are well-bred, and elegantly attired, and of great wealth, whom he frequently seeks to draw away as these by addressing them in such seductive words as these, ‘I am eager to make thee a partaker of my Grace...Behold Grace has descended upon thee, open thy mouth and prophesy.’...Some of his disciples too, addicting themselves to the same practices have deceived many silly women and defiled them.” (ANF,1, p. 334-335)
Mary Magdalen, as the most prominent female in the canonical gospels, became the convenient foil of these attacks upon historic Christianity. By presenting her as the beneficiary of unique spiritual insight, designated by Jesus as a preeminent leader of His Church, the gnostics sought to undermine and overcome the authority of the male leadership of orthodoxy and transform the Christian religion. Dan Brown’s uncritical embrace of these questionable and contradictory writings makes him the darling of feminists and neo-gnostics everywhere. That is evidently much more important to him than historical accuracy or credibility. The assertion of an apostolic role for Mary Magdalen is without support in Scripture or the traditions of historic Christianity. The sources upon which The Da Vinci Code selectively depends were written long after the completion of the Bible by false teachers far out of the fringes of the Christian faith.
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The Da Vinci Deception - (pp. 244,247)
“Teabing clarified, ‘The early Church needed to convince the world that the mortal prophet Jesus was a divine being. Therefore any gospels that described earthly aspects of Jesus’ life had to be omitted from the Bible’... ‘But how could Christ have had a bloodline, unless?... ‘She paused and looked at Langdon. Langdon smiled softly, ‘Unless they had a child.’ Sophie stood transfixed. ‘Behold,’ Teabing proclaimed, ‘The greatest cover-up in human history. Not only was Jesus Christ married, but He was a father. My dear, Mary Magdalene was the Holy Vessel. She was the chalice that bore the royal bloodline of Jesus Christ. She was the womb that bore the lineage from which the sacred fruit sprang forth.’”
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The assertion that Mary Magdalene was Jesus’ lover, His wife, and the mother of His children is the central component in The Da Vinci Code’s conspiracy theory. This, we are told again and again, is the great secret which Constantine suppressed, which institutional Christendom sought to eliminate through bloody persecution and witch-hunt for centuries, and which the Renaissance genius Leonardo da Vinci both concealed and conveyed in the masterpieces of his art.
This claim is not new to Dan Brown or his Da Vinci Code. It has been repeatedly advanced in recent years by New Age mystics and amateur conspiracy theorists. Dan Brown’s personal favorite appears to be a 1982 occult classic entitled “Holy Blood - Holy Grail” by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln. (The name of one of the novel’s central characters, “Sir Leigh Teabing” is an anagram based on the names of Baigent and Leigh.) This amazing book purports to reveal the secret history of Christ and the shocking legacy of the Holy Grail. The book asserts not only that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and fathered children through her, but also that Christ did not die on the cross, and that secret documents concealed beneath the Temple Mount in Jerusalem revealed this secret to the Knights Templar who then dedicated themselves to the perpetuation of Christ’s royal descendants through the Merovingian line of French royalty. In the novel, Sir Leigh Teabing specifically cites this work as the “international bestseller” which “brought the idea of Christ’s bloodline into the mainstream.” (DVC, pp. 253-254) The other works mentioned as authorities in the field to prove that “the royal bloodline of Christ has been chronicled in detail by scores of historians” (DVC, p. 253) are The Templar Revelation by Lynn Pickett and Clive Prince, The Woman with the Alabaster Jar and The Goddess in the Gospels by Margaret Starbird. Richard Abanes offers this telling analysis of the authors cited as authoritative historians:
“None of these authors are, in fact, historians. Starbird holds an M.A. in Comparative Literature and German. Baigent has an undergraduate degree in psychology and has recently been pursuing an M.A. in Mysticism and Religious Experience. And Leigh is ‘ primarily a novelist and a writer of short stories.’ What about Lincoln? He is a BBC television personality and scriptwriter. And Picknett and Prince are actually conspiracy theorists with a penchant for occultism, the paranormal, and UFOs.” (Abanes, pp. 41-42)
Such are the “scores of historians” that document the remarkable theory upon which the entire plot of The Da Vinci Code is based. Lutheran historian Dr. Paul L. Maier argues that despite the zeal of these “sensationalizing authors” that there is not “one spark of evidence from antiquity”, “not a scintilla of evidence anywhere in the historical sources” to suggest that Jesus may have gotten married to Mary Magdalene. (Hanegraff, Maier, p. 18)
In the novel, Teabing pontificates that the marriage of Jesus to Mary Magdalene was “ a particularly troubling earthly theme which kept recurring in the gospels.” (DVC, p. 244) This is not true. There is of course, no reference whatsoever to any such marriage in the canonical gospels of the New Testament. That, Sir Leigh concludes, is the reason why they were included in the canon while other - more accurate documents - were not. Evidently the gospels of which the fictional historian speaks are the gnostic writings of the Fourth Century. But even here there are, in fact, no references to a marriage between Jesus and Mary. The most compelling evidence Brown can produce is a quotation from the gnostic “The Gospel of Phillip.” The passage cited says:
“And the companion of the Savior is Mary Magdalene. Christ loved her more than all the disciples and used to kiss her often on the mouth. The rest of the disciples were offended by it and expressed disapproval. They said to Him, ‘Why do you love her more than all of us?’” ( DVC, p. 246)
Sophie, the novel’s heroine, then makes the obvious observation that these words in no way constitute an affirmation of any marriage between Christ and Mary Magdalene. Professor Teabing goes on to clinch his argument with the assertion that “As any Aramaic scholar will tell you, the word companion in those days literally meant spouse.” (DVC, p. 246) This categorical assertion is false and misleading in every way. Actually, the oldest copy of the Gospel of Phillip extant today is written in Coptic, not Aramaic, and that copy is a translation of an original Greek text. Thus, what an Aramaic term may or may not have meant is hardly relevant. Even if, theoretically, one might argue that the Aramaic word could have been used in an earlier oral tradition - assuming the highly dubious authenticity of this document - the point remains invalid nonetheless. For as Craig Bloomberg of Denver Seminary (a real Aramaic scholar!) will tell you: “no Aramaic or Hebrew words for companion normally mean spouse.” (Abanes, p. 38)
What then does this passage mean when it says that “Christ loved her more than all the other disciples and used to kiss her often on the mouth.”? The answer to that question must be determined from the context of the passage itself and from the use of similar language in other contemporary documents. “The Gospel of Phillip” does not define the relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene in terms of physical intimacy or marriage as Dan Brown would have us believe. In fact, the same text goes on to commend Mary for her unique spiritual insight as one who sees the light while the other disciples remain in the darkness. In that regard, The Da Vinci Code’s translation of the text is misleading -“Christ loved her more than all the disciples and used to kiss her often on the mouth.” In the original text both parts of the phrase, not merely the first part as in this translation, are comparative. “The Gnostic Bible,” a standard scholarly translation of the passage, more accurately reads: “The companion is Mary of Magdala. Jesus loved her more than His students. He kissed her often on her face, more than all His students.” (Barnstone, Meyer, p. 273) There is no sexual connotation whatsoever in this language. “The Gospel of Phillip” later quotes Jesus defining the significance of His kiss as an act of spiritual nourishment that leads to spiritual enlightenment: “For it is by a kiss that the perfect conceive and give birth. For this reason we also kiss one another. We receive conception from the grace that is in one another.” (58:30-59:6) The “Apocalypse of James,” another gnostic writing of the same period, uses exactly the same language to describe Christ’s special revelation its author: “And He kissed my mouth. He took hold of me saying, ‘My beloved! Behold, I shall reveal to you those things which neither the heavens nor the archons have known.’” (Olson, Miesel, p. 95)
The Da Vinci Code also contends that Jesus must have been married because “the social decorum during that time virtually forbid a Jewish man to be unmarried.” (DVC, p. 245) Once again, the novel’s assertion directly contradicts the historical evidence. Archaeological exploration near the Dead Sea has indicated that the Jewish Essene community at Qumram included both married and single men and women. The two most prominent non-Christian Jewish writers of the period, Josephus and Philo, both refer to the practice of celibacy among the Jews. Our Lord Himself refers to celibacy when He describes those “who have renounced marriage for the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 19:12) It is also significant to note that in his defense of an apostle’s right to marry if he so chooses, St. Paul cites “the other apostles, the Lord’s brothers, and Cephas” as those who have taken wives. (1 Corinthians 9:5) Surely, if Jesus Himself had been married, Paul would not have failed to mention that fact to conclusively clinch his argument. Once again, The Da Vinci Code’s conclusion is untenable and the evidence cited to support it is inaccurate.
It is not theoretically impossible that Jesus could have chosen to marry. Had He been married there is no reason why He could not have carried on a normal sexual relationship with His wife within the context of that marriage. However, the reality of the personal union of the divine and the human natures in Christ would seem to rule out the possibility of the procreation of children. But the real question is not could Jesus have married - a question which must remain theoretical - but rather, did Jesus marry. As we have noted, there is no hint or suggestion anywhere in Scripture or in the traditions of the ancient church that Jesus was married. All of the modern speculation about a marriage between Jesus and Mary Magdalen is just that, idle speculation without any Biblical or historical basis. Erwin W. Lutzer is correct when he concludes: “The Da Vinci Code bases its conclusions on imaginary data, hoping that gullible readers will give them credence.” (Lutzer, p. 52)
Given our Lord’s single minded commitment to His mission and ministry this should not be surprising. Jesus did not come into this world for Himself. The God/man lived only to accomplish the plan of salvation and to offer His life as the innocent sacrifice for the sins of mankind. And yet, in the language and imagery of Scripture, Jesus is indeed a bridegroom. His perfect bride is not a particular individual, but the entire Church, all the people of God. Thus John the Baptist declared of the Christ : “I am not the Christ, but am sent ahead of Him. The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who awaits the bridegroom awaits and listens for Him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine.” (John 3:28-29) Jesus uses the same imagery of the bridegroom and the bride to describe His earthly ministry: “How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while He is with them? They cannot they have Him with them. But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast.” (Mark 2:19-20; cf. Matthew 22:1-14; 25:1-13) St. Paul used Jesus as the example of the perfect husband. He urged Christian husbands to demonstrate the same selfless love for their wives that Christ has showered upon His bride, the Church:
“Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her, to make her holy cleansing her with the washing with water through the Word, and to present her to Himself as a radiant Church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.” (Ephesians 5:25-27; cf. Also 2 Corinthians 11:2)
The great theme of the marriage of Christ and His bride, the Church recurs in the Bible’s triumphant conclusion:
“Hallelujah! For the Lord our God Almighty reigns! Let us rejoice and be glad and give Him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and His bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear. (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints.) Then the angel said to me, ‘Write: Blessed are those who are called to the marriage feast of the Lamb.’” (Revelation 19:6-9)
A few verses later, in the closing words of Scripture, the Church plead’s for the glorious return of her victorious Bridegroom in Revelation 22: “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’” (Revelation 22:17)
For the feminist advocates of New Age religion there is much more at stake here than the status of Mary Magdalen. Mary is perceived to be the personification of all women and her proper recognition will signal the liberation of women from the curse of male domination within the Church. Susan Haskins , author of Mary Magdalen - Myth and Metaphor, writes: “In the radical revision of much of what until now had been accepted interpretations of the early Church and women’s participation in it, Mary Magdalen’s figure has emerged in bold relief, restored to her New Testament role as chief female disciple, apostle to the apostles and first witness of the resurrection. The significance of this re-evaluation has so far gone mostly unacknowledged by the Church or Rome, whilst it is only partially conceded by other churches, because of the residual patriarchalism of those institutions. If the ‘victimization’ of Mary Magdalen can stand as a metaphor for the historically subordinate position of women in Christianity, now that the woman, so long regarded as a penitent sinner has been shown in her true light, then it may be that Christianity’s view of woman in history itself requires some kind of radical revision...From the early centuries of the Christian era, Mary Magdalen has, like the women she represents, been the scapegoat of the ecclesiastical institution, manipulated, controlled, and, above all, misrepresented.” (Haskins, pp. 392-393)
For some in the feminist camp, the agenda is even more ambitious. Margaret Starbird sees in the rehabilitation of the Magdalen not only the liberation of women in the Church, but the restoration of the long suppressed feminine component of the deity and the belated recognition of the divine within every human being, male and female. “When I speak now of reclaiming the lost Bride, I am at once thinking of restoring the historical wife of Jesus to her rightful place at his side, and, at the same time, on a deeper plane, thinking of how this will help to restore the ‘partnership paradigm’ - the imaging of the Divine as both the Bride and Bridegroom - in the holy inner sanctum of our collective psyche...The celibate male image of God worshiped for nearly two thousand years of western civilization is a distorted image that desperately needs to be corrected...At some point in my journey I understood that my original goal had evolved into a much larger purpose. I now realize that I am charged not only with restoring the Bride to Christianity - the Goddess in the Gospels - but also with restoring the partnership paradigm that was the cornerstone of ancient civilizations....The doctrine of the sacred partnership of humanity and divinity in each human individual will be the fundamental tenet of a Church of the Holy Spirit.” (Starbird, pp. 151-153)
http://www.osl.cc/believe/daVinci/BREAKING%20DA%20VINCI%20CODE%204.htm
lunedì 28 gennaio 2008
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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