Breaking the Davinci Code.pdf - Our Savior Lutheran Church

“Jesus Christ - The Savior of the World” by Rudolf Schäfer
BREAKING THE DA VINCI CODE
A Review of the Conspiracy Theory Proposed by Dan
Brown’s Bestseller “The Da Vinci Code”
Dr. Laurence White - Our Savior Lutheran Church
Houston, Texas

Copyright 2006 - Our Savior Lutheran Church
Houston, Texas
Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version.
Copyright 1973,1978,1984; International Bible Society. Used by Permission of
Zondervan Bible Publishers
Quotations from The Da Vinci Code are taken from The Da Vinci Code by Dan
Brown, Doubleday Publishers, A Division of Random House, New York, 2003 for
purpose of Review only.

PART I
The Canon of the Bible
The Da Vinci Deception
(p. 231)
“The Bible did not arrive by fax from heaven...The Bible is a product of man, my dear. Not of
God. The Bible did not fall magically from the clouds. Man created it as a historical record
of tumultuous times, and it has evolved through countless translations, additions, and revisions.
History has never had a definitive version of the book...The Bible, as we know it today, was
collated by the pagan Roman emperor Constantine the Great.”
The English word “canon” is derived from the
Hebrew word “qaneh” which originally referred to
a reed or stalk (cf. Job 40:21- “hidden among the
reeds in the marsh”). The Greek adaptation of this
term Semitic term reflected the practical use of
reeds in the ancient world. In their language the
word “kanon” came to denote a rule, a measuring
stick, or an instrument used to draw straight lines.
In classical Greek, “kanon” was used to describe
any authoritative standard by which behavior or
belief was to be measured. Thus, St. Paul uses the
Greek word “kanon” in Galatians 6:16 to describe
those who are faithful to the Christian Gospel as
“all who follow this rule.” Since Holy Scripture is
the final standard by which all doctrine and practice
are to be judged, the term “kanon” came to
describe the list of books which met the standard of
divine inspiration and were acknowledged as the
Word of God.
The Da Vinci Code limits its attack upon the integrity of the Biblical Canon to the
New Testament, despite a few confusing references to the Dead Sea Scrolls which are
Old Testament manuscripts. This is no doubt because the standards (or canons!) of
modern political correctness permit and encourage attacks upon historic Christianity
while criticism of Jews or Judaism is discouraged as anti-Semitic. The history of the
formation of the Old Testament canon, however is not without controversy of its own.
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The Hebrew Old Testament, called
the “Tanak” was divided into three
sections, the Law, the Prophets, and
the Writings (Hebrew - “Torah -
Naviim - Kethubim”). Jesus reflects
this historic division in His
identification of Old Testament
Scripture: “Everything must be
fulfilled that is written about Me in
the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and
the Psalms.” (Luke 24:44) In the
Hebrew Bible, these three sections
were subdivided into 24 books which
included all of the 39 books of the
modern Old Testament. The standard
of canonicity for the books of the Old
Testament prophetic authorship: that
is to say, for a book to have been
included it must indisputably have
been written by a prophet, one who
spoke the Word of God by divine
inspiration - a man called to proclaim
“Thus saith the Lord.” Josephus,
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the 1 Century Jewish historian, emphasized the Jews’ unique devotion to their Bible
as the defining characteristic of the nation:
“For we do not have an innumerable multitude of books among us,
disagreeing from and contradicting one another as the Greeks have, but
only 24 books which contain the records of all the past times; which are
justly believed to be divine...and how firmly we have given credit to
those books of our own nation is evident by what we do; for during so
many ages as have already passed, no one has been so bold as either to
add anything to them or take anything from them or to make any change
in them; but it becomes natural for all Jews, immediately and from their
very birth, to esteem those books to contain divine doctrines, and to
persist in them, and if occasion be, willingly to die for them.”
(Josephus, “Contra Apion,” 1,8)
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The consensus among the Jews was that the last of God’s prophets to Israel was the
prophet Malachi c. 400 B.C. The Rabbinic commentaries sadly note: “When the last
prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi died, the Holy Spirit ceased out of
Israel.” (Moore, I, p. 421) The absence of the prophetic witness during the 400
years of the Inter-Testamental period was viewed by Israel as a sign of God’s
judgment upon the nation. For example, 1 Maccabees 9:27 notes: “Thus, there was
great distress in Israel, such as had not been since the time that prophets ceased to
appear among them.” The official canon of the Old Testament was formalized at the
Rabbinical Council of Jamnia in A.D. 90.
“The Last Prophets of the Old Testament”
Many books were written within Judaism during the Inter-Testamental Period,
particularly among groups like the Essenes of Qumram, whose extensive library
comprises the majority of the famous Dead Sea Scrolls, but none of these books were
ever acknowledged as inspired Scripture by the Jews. That which is now called the
“Old Testament Apocrypha” (Greek - “Hidden Things”) is a collection of 15 of
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these books. Neither Judaism nor Christianity considered them to be a part of the Old
Testament although they have enjoyed widespread popularity among Christians as an
intriguing source of historical information. They were not a part of the Hebrew Bible
but they were added to “The Septuagint,” a Greek translation of the Old Testament
prepared at the end of the Inter-Testamental Period. When St. Jerome translated the
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Bible into Latin late in the 4 Century AD (“The Vulgate”) he also translated the
Apocrypha because of the widespread popularity of these books but careful
distinguished them from the Bible, noting that they could be read for edification but
“not for confirming the authority of church dogmas.” Martin Luther also included
them in his German translation of the Bible with this note: “Apocrypha - These
books are not held equal to Sacred Scriptures and yet are good and useful for
reading.” Hard pressed by Reformation era debates to provide a Biblical basis for
a number of its doctrines and practices, the Roman Catholic Church broke with both
Jewish and early Christian precedent by declaring the Apocrypha to be an official part
of the canon of Scripture at the Council of Trent in 1546. The Catholic Church
remains the only denomination in either Judaism or Christianity which considers the
Apocrypha to be a part of the Bible.
The Canon of the New Testament includes 27 books. The books of the New
st
Testament were written during the second half of the 1 Century by various apostles,
the 14 men directly commissioned by Jesus Christ to be His authoritative spokesmen
to the first generation of the Christian Church. The books were composed as the
apostles went about their mission of establishing churches across the ancient world.
The following list provides the estimated dates for the composition of the books of
the New Testament:
A.D. 45 James A.D. 63 Titus
A.D. 48 Galatians A.D. 65-67 2 Timothy
A.D. 50 1 & 2 Thessalonians A.D. 61-62 1 Peter
A.D. 55 1 & 2 Corinthians A.D. 62 2 Peter
A.D. 56 Romans A.D. 65-69 Luke, Acts
A.D. 59-61 Colossians, Philemon, A.D. 60-70 Jude
Ephesians, Philippians A.D. 65-70 Hebrews
A.D. 50-60 Matthew
A.D. 90-100 John, 1 John,
A.D. 60 Mark 2 John, 3 John
A.D. 62-63 1 Timothy A.D. 95 Revelation
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“The Apostle Paul” by Frederic Shields
The New Testament books themselves
are unequivocal in asserting their
inherent authority as the Word of God.
It is evident from the outset that the
epistles of the New Testament were
intended for a broader audience than
the individuals or congregations to
which they were addressed. For
example, at the conclusion of 1
Thessalonians, one of his earliest
letters (c.. A.D. 50), St. Paul
commands: “I charge you before the
Lord to have this letter read to all the
brothers.” (1 Thessalonians 5:27) He
issues similar instructions for the
widespread distribution of his letter to
the Colossians: “After this letter has
been read to you, see to it that it is
also read in the church of the
Laodiceans and that you in turn read
the letter from Laodicea.”
(Colossians 4:16) Earlier in the 1
Thessalonians, the apostle had been
unequivocal in asserting the identity of
his message as the Word of God: “And
we also thank God continually
because, when you received the Word
of God, which you heard from us,
you accepted it not as the word of
men, but as it actually is, the Word of
God, which is at work in you who
believe.” (1 Thessalonians 1:13)
Acceptance of the apostolic word as
the Word of God was the basic
standard of membership in the
Christian Church. “If anyone thinks
he is a prophet or spiritually gifted, let
him acknowledge that what I am
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writing you is the Lord’s command. If he ignores this, he himself will be ignored.”
(1 Corinthians 14:37-38) Peter endorses the letters of his fellow apostle Paul and
equates them with the sacred Scriptures of the Old Testament:
“Just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that
God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in
them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard
to understand which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do
the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.” (2 Peter 2:13-16)
The same equation of New Testament material with Old Testament Scripture is
evident in 1 Timothy 5:18 where Paul quotes the words of Deuteronomy 25:4 and
Luke 10:7 with the introduction: “For the Scripture says...” The Apostle
emphatically asserts the “plenary verbal inspiration” of “all Scripture:”
“From infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures which are able to
make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All
Scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking,
correcting and training in righteousness.” (2 Timothy 3:15-16)
Peter is equally direct in identifying the unique authority of the word of the prophets
and the apostles:
“We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about
the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were
eyewitnesses of His majesty...And we have the word of the prophets
made more certain, and you would do well to pay attention to
it...Above all you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came
about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its
origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were
carried along by the Holy Spirit.” (2 Peter 1:19-21)
It is evident that the formation of the canon of the New Testament was not a process
or pattern of human selection. The Word of God is by its very nature selfauthenticating.
The formation of the canon is merely the record of God’s peoples’
formal recognition of the divine authority inherent in the books which God had
inspired. Thus, the church did not create the Bible; the Bible created the church.
Another way of expressing this fundamentally important truth is to assert that the 27
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ooks of the New Testament are not authoritative because they are in the canon, they
are in the canon because they are authoritative. New Testament scholar Bruce
Metzger suggests the crucial significance of this distinction:
“The books within the collection are regarded as possessing an intrinsic
worth prior to their having been assembled and their authority is
grounded in their nature and source... The authority of the New
Testament books resides not in the circumstances of their inclusion
within a collection made by the Church but in the source from which
they came...The New Testament was in principle complete when the
various documents coming from this source had been written.”
(Metzger, p. 283)
Given the wide geographic dispersion of the congregations of the early church and
the period’s primitive methods of communication, it is remarkable that there was
already general acknowledgment of the majority of the books of the New Testament
nd
by the end of the 2 Century, less than 100 years after the death of the last apostle.
That undisputed core, included 21 books - the four Gospels, Acts, the 13 Pauline
Epistles, 1 Peter, 1 John and Revelation. These books came to be identified with the
Greek word “homologoumena,” which literally means “confessed by all.” The
remaining six books - James, Hebrews, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 John and 3 John were
recognized by a majority of the churches from the beginning but had not yet achieved
unanimous recognition. These books were identified as the “antilegomena,” that is,
“spoken against.” The “Standards of Canonicity,” that is, the criteria which were
used to determine the authenticity any proposed book included the following:
1. Apostolicity - the book in question had to undeniably have been
composed by one of the 14 apostles or by someone working under the
direct supervision and authority of one of the apostles - i.e. Mark (Peter)
& Luke (Paul). This meant, of course, that for a book to be considered
for inclusion in the Canon it had to have been written before A.D. 100
and the death of St. John the last apostle.
2. Orthodoxy - the content of the book in question had to have been
completely consistent with the historic doctrines of the Christian faith.
There was no room whatsoever for innovation or deviation in Christian
teaching.
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3. Catholicity - the book in question had to have been widely used and
recognized throughout the Church as authoritative. St. Augustine
summarized this concept with these well chosen words: “The Christian
reader will hold fast, therefore, to this measure in the canonical
Scriptures, that he will prefer those that are received by all Catholic
Churches to those which some of them do not receive.” (Metzger, p.
237).
This unanimity on the identity and authority of the great majority of the books of the
New Testament is reflected by the writings of the Apostolic Fathers, that is, the
leaders of the church in the first generation after the apostles. Their writings clearly
demonstrate that the books of what would come to be called the New Testament were
already widely distributed and acknowledged as authoritative throughout the church
nd
in the early decades of the 2 Century A.D. For example, in a letter composed at the
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end of the 1 Century (A.D.95-96), Clement, a leader of the congregation in Rome,
quotes freely from Matthew, Luke, 1 Corinthians, Ephesians, 1 Timothy, Titus,
James, and Hebrews. A few years later,
around A.D. 110, Ignatius, the bishop
of Antioch, composed a series of letters
to the other congregations of the early
church. Ignatius used material from
Matthew, John, Ephesians, 1
Corinthians, Philippians, 1
Thessalonians, and Philemon. The
same pattern of prolific New Testament
citation can be seen in a letter written
by Polycarp, the bishop of Symrna,
around A.D. 115. Polycarp cites
Scripture 112 times in his letter. 100 of
those references are to material from
the New Testament. The bishop
explicitly equates the authority of the
apostles to that of the Old Testament
prophets as inspired spokesmen for
God. He urges Christians to faithfully
serve the Lord on the basis of His Word
“Ignatius of Antioch”
conveyed by His apostles and prophets:
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“So then, let us serve Him (Christ)
with fear and all reverence, as He
Himself commanded us, as did the
apostles who preached the gospel to
us, and the prophets who proclaimed
beforehand the coming of our Lord.”
(Metzger, p. 60)
One of the earliest lists of the books
of the New Testament comes to us in
the fragmentary remains of an ancient
parchment manuscript discovered in
the library of an Italian monastery in
1740. The document is known as the
“Muratorian Canon,” named for its
discoverer, historian Ludvico
Muratori. The original manuscript
was composed between A.D. 180 -
200. Unfortunately, the first few lines
of the canon are missing and the
document now begins in the middle of
a broken sentence which evidently
“Bishop Polycarp
refers to the Gospel of Mark. The
description of the Gospels which remains intact reads as follows:
“....at which nevertheless he was present so he placed them in his
narrative. The third book of the Gospel is that according to Luke. Luke,
the well-known physician after the ascension of Christ, when Paul had
taken him with him as one zealous for the Law, composed it in his own
name, according to the general belief. Yet, he himself had not seen the
Lord in the flesh; and therefore, as he was able to ascertain events, so
indeed he begins to tell the story from the birth of John. The fourth of
the Gospels is that of John, one of the disciples. To his fellow disciples
and bishops who had been urging him to write he said: ‘Fast with me
from today for three days, and what will be revealed to each one let us
tell to one another.’ In the same night it was revealed to Andrew, one
of the apostles, that John should write down all things in his own name
while all should review it. And so, although various elements may be
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taught in the individual books of the Gospels, nevertheless, this makes
no difference to the faith of believers, since by the one sovereign Spirit
all things have been declared in all the Gospels concerning the nativity,
concerning the passion, concerning the resurrection, concerning life
with His disciples, and concerning His twofold coming, the first in
lowliness when He was despised, which has taken place, the second
glorious in royal power which is still in the future.” (Metzger, pp. 305-
306)
In addition to the four Gospels, the Canon goes on to list Acts, the 13 Epistles of
Paul, 1,2,3 John, Jude and Revelation. A number of other books are mentioned as
having been proposed by some within the church, but are not placed on a par with
those books that have achieved general recognition. This incredible discovery
nd
clearly indicates that already by the end of the 2 Century (A.D. 200) the four
Gospels, along with the great majority of the books of the New Testament as we
know it today were already firmly established throughout the Christian Church as the
only authoritative account of the life and teaching of Jesus Christ.
The Canon of Origen, published around A.D. 250 strongly reinforces this view.
Origen was the head of the famous school and library of Alexandria from A.D. 203-
230. Thereafter he moved to Caesarea in Palestine where he established another
eminent school and library. Origen lists the four Gospels, Acts, the 13 letters of Paul,
1 Peter, 1 John, and Revelation as the books which had already been accepted
throughout the church without dispute. He adds Hebrews, 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John,
and Jude as books which had been accepted by the majority but which were still
questioned by some. The only book from the present New Testament omitted from
Origen’s Canon was the Epistle of James. It is interesting to note that Origen is also
one of the first among the Church Fathers to specifically refer to the collection of
inspired writings as “the New Testament.” The learned Church Father also included
a representative list of rejected books.
Yet another very influential list of the entire Biblical Canon was published by the
Egyptian Bishop Athanasius in A.D. 367. The Bishop explains that such a list is
necessary to warn “ignorant and simple people” who might otherwise be misled by
the “fabricated books” of false teachers:
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“It seemed good to me also, having been urged thereto by true brethren,
and having learned from the beginning, to set before you the books
included in the Canon, and handed down, and accredited as divine; to
the end that anyone who has fallen into error may condemn those who
have led him astray, and that he who has continued steadfast in purity
may again rejoice, having these things brought to his remembrance.”
(NPNF, 4, pp. 551-552)
“Bishop Athanasius Among His Flock”
Athanasius proceeded to list the 39 books of the Old Testament and the 27 books of
the New Testament, concluding with the eloquent summary statement: “These are the
fountains of salvation, that they who thirst may be satisfied with the living words they
contain. In these alone is proclaimed the doctrine of godliness. Let no man add to
these, neither let him take ought from these.” (NPNF, 4, p. 552) This enumeration
of the Canon was formally approved by the Council of Hippo in A.D. 393 and
Carthage in 419.
The Da Vinci Code’s assertions in regard to the nature and scope of Holy Scripture
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are false and misleading. The governing principle which determines Dan Brown’s
conclusions in this regard is his basic conviction that “The Bible is a product of man,
my dear, not God.” (DVC, p. 231) This is a declaration of faith, not of fact. While
it is certainly the author’s prerogative to believe that the Bible is nothing more than
a human effort, his belief does not establish reality. Mr. Brown’s personal conclusion
in this matter is directly contrary to the Bible’s identification of itself as the Word of
God and nearly 2,000 years of
Christian affirmation of that
testimony. Furthermore, as has
already been demonstrated, to assert
that “history has never had a
definitive version of the book” (DVC,
p. 231) is simply false.
Constantine the Great
th
4 Century Bronze
Every good conspiracy theory needs
an evil villain. The villain at the core
of Brown’s elaborate web of
conspiracy is “the pagan Roman
emperor Constantine the Great,”
(DVC, p. 231) who, according to The
Da Vinci Code, transformed the man
Jesus into a divine Savior in order to
unite his crumbling empire. World
renown historian Dr. Paul Maier
describes Brown’s depiction of
Constantine as “the most concerted
falsification of a historical personality
that I have ever encountered in either
fiction or non- fiction.” (Maier, p. 13)
Brown characterizes Constantine as
“a lifelong pagan who was baptized
on his deathbed, too weak to protest.”
(DVC, p. 232) The emperor is presented as a wily politician who cynically used
Christianity for his own political ends while he himself maintained his personal
allegiance to the pagan gods and goddesses of Rome. This is yet another distortion
of history. The consensus among objective historians of the period is that Constantine
sincerely and conscientiously became an adherent of the Christian religion. The
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crucial turning point was the
emperor’s famous dream/vision and
subsequent victory at the Mulvian
Bridge outside of Rome in A.D. 312.
The incident took place in the midst of
a bitter civil war between Constantine
and his rival Maxentius. On the eve of
the climactic confrontation between
the two arch rivals, Constantine
reports that he saw the outline of a
cross in the heavens formed by the
combination of the Greek letters Chi -
Rho, the first two letters in the Greek
spelling of the name of Christ. At the
same time, he heard a voice declare
the Greek words “en toutoi nika” (“In
this sign conquer.”) He immediately
created a new imperial standard with
that emblem and ordered it
The Sign of Constantine
emblazoned on the shields of his
soldiers. Constantine won a crushing victory that day and went on to become the
undisputed ruler of the Roman Empire. Secular historian Michael Grant, in his
biography “Constantine the Great - The Man and His Times,” offers this summary
of Constantine’s personal religion:
“There is no doubt that Constantine became wholeheartedly converted
to Christianity - and we need not be too meticulous, as some are, to
avoid the word conversion...This Christian God was forever his Lord
and Master...and God had made Constantine His servant forever...He
revered the Christian God, as a God of power, as the God of power.”
(Grant, pp. 146-147)
But while the emperor was now a Christian, the overwhelming majority of the
powerful aristocracy and the army were still pagan. And so it was necessary for
Constantine to proceed cautiously and gradually in fostering his new faith within the
empire. He did so with consummate political skill. First he declared that from that
moment forward the official policy of the imperial government would be the
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“Constantine the Great”
16
toleration of all religions and the
persecution of none. He himself
became the advocate and patron of
Christianity throughout his realm,
compensating Christians for losses
suffered in past persecutions,
building churches, supporting the
clergy, and presiding at the
ecumenical Council of Nicea.
The Da Vinci Code’s reference to
Constantine’s deathbed baptism is
the book’s only semblance of
accuracy in this area and the
significance of even this detail is
maliciously misconstrued.
Constantine was not baptized
against his will when he was
nearly dead, “too weak to resist.”
(DVC, p. 232). In fact, the
emperor’s baptism occurred at his
own initiative, a few weeks before
his death in A.D. 337. W.H. C.
Frend describes the actual
sequence of events in this way:
“At Easter next year the emperor,
robed as a catechumen, was baptized by Eusebius of Nicomedia, now his personal
chaplain. He did not survive long for he died on 22 May, 337.” (Frend, p. 528) The
delay of baptism until shortly before death was a common, although misguided,
practice of the time. The flawed logic which led to this practice reasoned that since
the Sacrament granted full forgiveness of all sins committed up to the moment of
Baptism, it was therefore prudent to delay Baptism as long as possible to derive
maximum benefit from the baptismal remission of sins. This distortion remained
prevalent until nearly A.D. 400. St Augustine reports that his mother considered
having him baptized when he nearly died from a childhood illness. But upon his
recovery “my cleansing was deferred as if it was inevitable that, if I should live, I
would be further polluted; and further, because the guilt contracted by sin after
baptism would be still greater and more perilous.” (Olsen, p. 140)

Dan Brown contends that in order to accomplish his sinister goals Constantine found
it necessary to radically transform Christianity into a patriarchal power religion. To
that end, we are told, the emperor played a crucial role in reshaping the canon and
content of the New Testament. He ruthlessly suppressed and destroyed the thousands
of ancient documents which described the humanity, the sexuality, and the progeny
of Jesus. In their place, the
emperor “collated” (DVC, p.
231) the 27 books of the New
Testament, which he had
“embellished” (DVC, p. 234)
and altered to support his
political need for a Jesus who
was the divine Son of God.
The diabolical means by which
Constantine accomplished the
imposition of his new gospel
canon and the suppression of
all of its more genuine
predecessors brought about
what Brown grandiosely
describes as “the most
profound moment in Christian
history” (DVC, p. 234)! The
emperor’s strategy, we are told,
was simple and direct:
“Constantine commissioned
and financed a new Bible,
which omitted those gospels
which spoke of Christ’s human
traits and embellished those
gospels that made him godlike.
The earlier gospels were
outlawed, gathered up, and
“Constantine and his new Capital City Constantinople”
th
5 Century Mosaic
burned.” (DVC, p. 234) It is significant to note that Brown’s attention has now
subtly shifted from his starting point with the canon of the entire Bible to a specific
focus on the four Gospels and the divine nature of Jesus. We will deal with these
issues individually in subsequent sections. The slender shred of actual history which
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underlies this grand scenario of Christianity’s “most profound moment” is the fact
that after his conversion to Christianity, Emperor Constantine did commission 50
magnificent leather Bibles for the churches of his new capital city, Constantinople.
His initiative appears to have been nothing more than an act of patronage linked to
the establishment of Christianity in the Roman Empire’s new capital. Constantine
made his request to the most prominent scholar and church historian of the day,
Eusebius, the bishop of Caesarea.
Caesarea was, at that time, the
capital of the Roman province of
Palestine which meant that Eusebius
was in the ideal place to produce and
prepare the requested Bibles.
Princeton scholar Bruce Metzger
describes the actual history of this
rather mundane event in this way:
Eusebius of Caesarea
inspection.” (Metzger, p. 175)
“About the year 332 the Emperor
Constantine, wishing to promote and
organize Christian worship in the
growing number of churches in his
capital city, directed Eusebius to
have fifty copies of the sacred
scriptures made by practiced scribes
and written legibly on prepared
parchment. At the same time, the
emperor informed him, in a letter
still preserved to us, that everything
necessary for doing this was placed
at his command, among other things,
two public carriages for conveying
the completed manuscripts to the
emperor for his personal
As Dr. Metzger points out, Constantine’s detailed instructions to Eusebius remain
extent today. Unfortunately for Brown’s conspiracy theory, those instructions make
no mention of the canon of the New Testament nor do they give any indication of the
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slightest interest on the emperor’s part in altering or editing the books to be included.
This despite the fact that the emperor is very specific in his letter, dealing with minor
details of method and delivery. But he does nothing more than order 50 Bibles with
no specification as to their content. None of the Bibles which the bishop prepared
for the churches of Constantinople have survived. Therefore, we have no way of
knowing specifically which books were included in or excluded from Constantine’s
fifty Bibles. This must be regarded as somewhat ironic in view of the crucial
emphasis which Dan Brown has chosen to place upon this minor incident and the
great mountain of intriguing speculation which he based upon it.
It is probably safe to surmise, based on Bishop Eusebius’ definition of the canon in
his classic “The Church History” ( A.D. 324) that the 27 books of our present New
Testament were included. This is how Eusebius described the New Testament canon:
“Since we are dealing with this subject, it is proper to sum up the
writings of the New Testament which have already been mentioned.
First then must be put the holy quaternion of the Gospels; following
them the Acts of the Apostles. After this must be reckoned the Epistles
of Paul (This included the 13 letters of Paul and the Letter to the
Hebrews which had been traditionally ascribed to Paul.) Next in order,
the extent former Epistle of John and likewise the Epistle of Peter must
be maintained. After them is to be place, if it really seem proper, the
Apocalypse of John, concerning which we shall give the different
opinions at the proper time. These then belong among the accepted
writings (‘homolegoumenon’). Among the disputed writings
(‘antilegomenon’) which are nevertheless recognized by many, are
extent the so-called Epistle of James, and that of Jude, also the Second
Epistle of Peter, and those that are called the Second and Third of John,
whether they belong to the evangelist or to another person.”
(NPNF,1,p. 155-156)
Eusebius goes on to describe a handful of other books which he labels as “the
rejected writings” which are not to be considered part of Scripture but are
nonetheless orthodox in their theology and salutary to the true faith. In this category
he includes “the Acts of Paul, the so-called Shepherd, and the Apocalypse of Peter,
and in addition to these, the extent Epistle of Barnabas and the so-called Teachings
of the Apostles.” (NPNF, 1, p. 156) It is significant to note that in this section on the
rejected writings Eusebius expresses his own personal reservations about the Book
19

of Revelation. But he does not presume to alter the status of the book because of his
own individual opinion. It was the consensus of the Church that was determinative,
not mere personal preference. The learned bishop’s strongest negative judgement is
reserved for a number of pseudo-apostolic writings which are condemned in a final
category. These books are condemned as “the fictions of heretics” which must
therefore “be cast aside as absurd and impious.” Included in this category are some
of the gnostic writings which Dan Brown holds in such high esteem. These are the
bishop’s stern words:
“We have felt compelled to give this catalogue in order that we might
be able to know both these works and those that are cited by the heretics
under the name of the apostles, including, for instance, such books as
the Gospels of Peter, of Thomas, of Matthias, or of any others besides
them, and the acts of Andrew and John, and the other apostles which no
one belonging to the succession of ecclesiastical writers has deemed
worthy of mention in his writings. And further, the character of the style
is at variance with apostolic usage, and both the thoughts and the
purpose of the things that are related in them are so thoroughly out of
accord with true orthodoxy that they clearly show themselves to be the
fictions of heretics. Wherefore they are not to be placed even among the
rejected writings, but are all of them to be cast aside as absurd and
impious.” (NPNF, 1, p. 157)
Carl Olsen provides this helpful summary of historical reality in regard to the canon
of the New Testament:
“Constantine had nothing to do with the selection of the books within
these editions, or with their collation. He relied on the Church, which
had firmly established the four Gospels and the majority of the New
Testament long before the Fourth Century. The Christian Canon was
largely settled by the late 200's. Different regions had slightly different
lists of books that they used in liturgy, but Christians generally agreed
on what books did or did not belong in the New Testament canon with
the exception of books such as Hebrews and the Apocalypse. Finally,
in the late 300's and early 400's a series of regional councils settled the
issue in the West, while some debate continued in the East.” (Olsen, p.
176)
20

The Symbol of the Cross with the Initials of the Four
Evangelists
PART II
The Gospels of the New Testament
The Da Vinci Deception
(p. 231-234)
“More than eighty gospels were considered for the New Testament, and yet only a relative few
were chosen for inclusion - Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John among them. ‘Who chose which
gospels to include?’ Sophie asked...The Bible, as we know it today was collated by the pagan
Roman emperor Constantine the Great...Because Constantine upgraded Jesus’ status almost
four centuries after Jesus’ death, thousands of documents already existed chronicling his life
as a mortal man...Constantine commissioned and financed a new Bible which omitted those
gospels which spoke of Christ’s human traits and embellished those gospels that made him godlike.
The early gospels were outlawed, gathered up, and burned.”
The specific focus of The Da Vinci Code’s assault upon the authenticity and
reliability of the Biblical Canon is the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
Mr. Brown would have us believe that the four Gospels of the New Testament were
21

elative late-comers selected over scores of other earlier and more accurate accounts
of the life of Christ by Constantine and his minions at the Council of Nicea in order
to suppress the real truth about the humanity and sexuality of Jesus Christ. Once
again, an examination of the historical facts will demonstrate that Brown’s
imaginative scenario is flagrantly inaccurate.
“The Four Evangelists”
“One and the Same Spirit” 1 Cor. 12:4"
22
The reality of the situation is
that the four canonical
Gospels -Matthew, Mark,
Luke, and John - had already
been composed and were
being widely circulated
throughout the Church by the
st
end of the 1 Century (A.D.
100). This is necessarily the
case for the most basic
standard of canonicity was
apostolic authorship.
Tertullian, writing in North
Africa around A.D. 210,
defined this principle as basic
to the recognition and
acceptance of the Gospels:
“We lay it down as our first
position that the Evangelical
Testament has apostles for its
authors, to who was assigned
by the Lord Himself this
office of publishing the
gospel.” (ANF, 3, p,. 347)
Since John, the last of the
apostles died in the 90's, no
genuine Gospel could
possibly have been written
after that time. The earliest
extent physical evidence of
the antiquity of the Gospels is

the famous and fascinating Magdalen College Papyrus fragments of Matthew’s
Gospel. These three scraps of ancient paper were accidentally (if one believe’s in
accidents) rediscovered on Christmas Eve in 1994 by Dr. Carsten Peter Thiede, a
German papyrus expert, while on vacation in England. Based on the style of writing,
the ink, and type of papyrus itself, Dr. Thiede contends that these words from the
st
Gospel of Matthew date back to the mid 1 Century, perhaps as early as A.D. 60 and
could very well be a portion of the original autograph of Matthew’s Gospel. But
even without this most remarkable find, the antiquity of all four Gospels is firmly
established by a proliferation of extant papyrus manuscripts which date to the first
nd
half of the 2 Century (A.D. 100-150) well within the appropriate time-frame.
From the very beginning of Christianity, the uniqueness of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and
John as eyewitness accounts of the life and ministry of Jesus was acknowledged
throughout the Church. Justin Martyr, in a defense of Christianity written around
A.D. 150, refers to the crucial role which the Gospels played in the worship of the
earliest Christian congregations. The Gospels had already been recognized as the
authoritative source which established and defined the role of the sacraments in the
life of the Church. As the “memoirs” of the apostles, the Gospels served as the link
which conveyed to the Church the very words of Jesus Himself. Justin declared:
“For the apostles in the memoirs composed by them, which are called
Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them; that
Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, said, ‘This do ye in
remembrance of Me. This is My Body.’” (ANF,1, p. 185)
Writing a few years later (c. A.D. 180) in the Roman province of Gaul, Irenaeus
affirms that “It is not possible for the Gospels to be either more or fewer that they
are.” (ANF, 1, p. 428) He takes no small amount of satisfaction from the fact that
the heretics who would prefer one of the Gospels while rejecting others can be
refuted by the very book which they themselves acknowledge and in so doing
provides a specific list of all four canonical Gospels:
“So firm is the ground upon which these gospels rest, that the very
heretics themselves bear witness to them, and starting from these
documents, each one of them endeavors to establish his own peculiar
doctrine. For the Ebionites, who use Matthew’s Gospel only, are
confuted out of the very same...But Marcion, mutilating that according
23

to Luke, is proved to be a blasphemer of the only existing God from
those passages which he still retains. Those again who separate Jesus
from Christ...preferring the Gospel of Mark, if they read it with a love
of truth may have their errors rectified. Those, moreover, who follow
Valentinius, making copious use of that of John to illustrate their
conjunctions, shall be proved to be totally in error by means of this very
Gospel. Since then, our opponents do bear testimony to us and make
use of these very documents, our proof derived from them is firm and
sure.” (ANF, 1, p. 428)
To use the well-chosen words of Origen of Alexandria, who lived a generation after
Justin Martyr at the end of the 2 nd
Century, the Gospels of Matthew,
Mark, Luke, and John were viewed
as “the only indisputable ones in
the Church of God under heaven.”
(Metzger, p. 136) Origen was a
remarkable theologian and Bible
scholar at the turn of the 2 nd
Century. He was one of the first to
apply the designation “The New
Testament” to the writings of the
evangelists and the apostles, thus
deliberately equating them with the
prophetic writings of the Old
Testament as “divine Scriptures”
written by inspiration of God. In a
Commentary on the Gospel of
Matthew, Origen offered this
detailed description of the
apostolic sources of the four
Gospels:
“Concerning the four Gospels
which alone are uncontroverted in
the Church of God under heaven, I
have learned by tradition that the
Origen of Alexandria (A.D. 180-253)
24

Gospel according to Matthew, who was at one time a publican and
afterwards and Apostle of Jesus Christ, was written first; and that he
composed it in the Hebrew tongue and published it for converts from
Judaism. The second written was according to Mark, who wrote it
according to the instruction of Peter, who in his General Epistle,
acknowledged him as a son, saying, ‘The church that is in Babylon,
elect together with you, saluteth you; and so doth Mark, my son.’ (1
Peter 5:13). And the third was according to Luke, he Gospel
commended by Paul, which he composed for the converts from the
Gentiles. Last of all, that according to John.” (ANF, 9, p. 412)
Pennsylvania State University historian Dr. Phillip Jenkins persuasively argues that
the four Gospels formed the solid core of a broad consensus on canon of the New
nd
Testament which had already been established by the end of the 2 Century. Jenkins
summarizes the evidence in this way:
“The list of approved Gospels was first to be determined. Already by
150, Justin Martyr’s Roman school was using a fourfold gospel
collection, namely Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. About 170, the
Syrian Tatian composed his ‘Diatesseron’ (literally - ‘through four’) a
harmony or synthesis of the texts of the four gospels, again showing that
four was the full and complete complement of gospel texts. A few years
later in Gaul, Irenaeus argued that the only correct number of gospels
was four, on the mystical analogy of the four winds, four directions, and
so on; ‘it is not possible that the gospels can be either more or fewer in
number than they are.’ Accordingly, the four strongest and most
celebrated candidates drove out their competitors, and in terms of
gospels at least, if not of other Scriptures, this policy very soon became
the norm across the empire. By the third century, there was a lively
debate about what texts were included in the canon, but not, generally,
about the approved list of gospels. In the churches of which we have
any knowledge, this list had been fixed by about 200, long before the
supposed machinations of Athanasius and Constantine.” (Jenkins, p.
85)
This view is strongly reinforced by Dr. Donald Guthrie in his classic “New
Testament Introduction.” (1961) Dr. Guthrie summarized the status of the four New
25

Testament Gospels in this most unambiguous way: “By the end of the second century
it is clear from all the evidence available that our four Gospels were accepted not
only as authentic, but also as Scripture on a level with the Old Testament.” (Guthrie,
p. 17) Guthrie further noted that the remarkable unanimity on the authenticity of the
four Gospels which prevailed throughout Christendom by A.D. 200 was all the more
impressive because it was achieved within only a few generations of the apostles
themselves. Perhaps, he
suggested, this historical
proximity ought to lead us to
defer to the firm conclusions of
nd
the 2 Century Church Fathers
over the dubious scepticism of
some modern Bible critics.
“None of these writers seems to
have questioned the origin of
these Gospels in the apostolic
age, although their approach
has been challenged by modern
criticism. It may well be that
these men were nearer the truth
than is often allowed.” (Guthrie,
p. 18)
These historical realities are in
clear contradiction to the
titillating fantasies of “The
DaVinci Code.” Dan Brown has
evidently decided that actual
facts should not be allowed to
obstruct the course of
“The Emperor Constantine” - Byzantine Mosaic entertaining fiction.
Accordingly, He would have us
believe that the four canonical gospels were, in fact, late-comers - written long after
numerous other, more accurate accounts of the life of Jesus. As has been previously
noted this is not the case. The four Gospels of the New Testament were written in the
st
second half of the 1 Century and had all been completed and were being widely
26

circulated among the churches by A. D. 100. This is in clear contrast to the
nd
alternative gospels which did not originate until well into the 2 Century and
thereafter. Paul Maier summarizes:
“The gnostic gospels which the church rejected were not written earlier
but actually much later than the Biblical Gospels. The earliest gnostic
gospel, the so-called ‘Gospel of Thomas,’ was written at least 100 years
after Christ’s ascension - and certainly not by the apostle Thomas.”
(Maier, p. 6)
The plot thickens as Brown informs us that Constantine and his wicked coconspirators
found it necessary for their own sinister purposes to suppress the real
truth about Jesus and so “the early gospels were outlawed, gathered up, and
burned.” (DVC, p. 234) Again, as has been previously demonstrated, consensus on
the canon had been established long before Constantine and there is no historical
evidence that the emperor played any role or had any interest in reshaping the
boundaries of the New Testament. But while the “The Da Vinci Code”’s conspiracy
“Constantine and Fausta”
27

theories may not be accurate, they are certainly intriguing and entertaining. So
history notwithstanding, the plot must go on.
These allegedly earlier, more authentic accounts of the life of Christ with which
Brown and his ilk are so enamored were produced in the context of a
theology/philosophy called “gnosticism.” The term “gnosticism” is based on the
Greek word “gnosis” which means “knowledge.” This philosophy flourished in the
nd
rd
Greco-Roman world during the 2 and 3 centuries of the Christian era and
thereafter. It was not specifically Christian, and significantly impacted a number of
world religions. Dr. Marvin Meyer sympthetically notes:
“Some gnostics were Jewish, others Greco-Roman and many were
Christians. There were Mandaean gnostics from Iraq and Iran;
Manichaeans from Europe, the
Middle East, North Africa, and
all the way to China; Islamic
gnostics in the Muslim world,
and Cathars in Western
Europe.” (Meyer, p. 2)
The Greek Philosopher Socrates
In the Christian context, those who
followed this philosophy were
scornfully called “gnostics,”, a label
first applied to these “heretics” by the
th
4 Century church father Epiphanius
(A.D. 310-403), because they believed
that they had achieved a secret,
mystical knowledge - available only
to the enlightened elite. This superior
insight enabled them to see beyond
the outward appearances of the
physical/historical world to the
genuine reality of the inner spiritual
world. Gnostics held to a strict
dualism which distinguished between
the pure realm of ideas and the
hopelessly corrupt physical world. To
28

this extent, gnosticism was similar to the world view of the classic Greek philosophy
of Socrates and Plato who despised the physical while exalting the spiritual, scorning
the body, for example, as the “prison house of the soul.” The gnostics hated the
earthy realism of the Old Testament and derided “Yaweh,” the God of the Old
Testament, as an impotent fool who sought to suppress humanity by restricting its
knowledge. They rejected God’s law as the instrument of that repression because it
limited human experience and therefore human knowledge. In the gnostic view it was
man who created God, not God who created man. According to gnostic theology,
God is not a separate being, independent and sovereign. He is a mere projection of
humanity and its needs. The gnostic Gospel of Philip ironically notes: “”God
created humanity, but now human beings create God. That is the way it is in the
world - human beings make gods and worship their creation. It would be
appropriate for the gods to worship human beings!” (Pagels 1, p. 122) This being
the case, the gnostics also insisted upon a careful male/female balance in our
understanding of the god/goddess. To use the language of Princeton professor Dr.
Elaine Pagels, the foremost contemporary authority on and advocate of gnosticism,
the gnostic texts tend to “speak of God as a dyad who embraces both masculine and
feminine elements.” (Pagels 1, p. 49) She goes one to quote one text in which the
god/goddess declares: “I am androgynous. I am both Mother and Father, since I
copulate with Myself...and with those who love Me...I am the Womb that gives shape
to all...the glory of the Mother.” (Pagels 1, p. 55) The same classic gnostic themes are
often heard in the writings of modern feminists. For example, in her best-selling
study “The Goddess in the Gospels - Reclaiming the Sacred Feminine” feminist
scholar Margaret Starbird urgently demands the restoration of what she calls “the
partnership paradigm - the imaging of the Divine as both bride and bridegroom.”
(Starbird 1, p. 145) She argues that as long as “the other face of God is scorned and
neglected” humanity can never be whole.
“We must look at the many facets of the sacred feminine in order to
understand what we truly need to reclaim. The celibate male image of
God worshiped for nearly 2,00 years of Western civilization is a
distorted image that desperately needs to be corrected.” (Starbird 1, p.
146)
Dan Brown conveys all of this to adoring contemporary feminists through the
impassioned words of his hero Robert Langdon who declares:
29

“Powerful men in the early church ‘conned’ the world by propagating
lies that devalued the female, obliterating the goddess from modern
religion forever...Mother earth had become a man’s world and the gods
of destruction and war were taking their toll. The male ego had spent
two millennia running unchecked by its female counterpart.” (Brown,
pp. 124-125)
The attraction of gnosticism was (and is) that the individual and his endless quest for
personal enlightenment alone are sovereign and absolute. Modern observer Duncan
th
Greenlees, who describes himself as a gnostic of the 20 Century, asserts that this
burning desire for the liberation of the human spirit without restriction of any kind
is the central feature of every genuine religion in history:
“Gnosticism is a system of direct experiential knowledge of God...the
soul, and the universe...In the early centuries of this era, amid a
growing Christianity, it took the form of the Christian faith, while
rejecting most of its specific beliefs. Its wording is therefore largely
Christian, while its spirit is that of the latest paganism of the West.”
(Garlow, p. 167)
This absolute personal freedom, without constraint of truth or morality, is a message
most congenial to contemporary liberal elites and helps to explain the phenomenal
success of “The Da Vinci Code.” This book is no mere novel. It is a work of
religious propaganda with a message precisely tailored to fit the times in which we
live. Its popularization of ancient gnostic writings seems to validate everything that
hedonistic moderns have been seeking. As James Garlow and Peter Jones have
observed, “The Da Vinci Code” has a message whose time has come:
“Here we begin to decipher The Da Vinci Code and to suggest the real
reason for its enormous popularity. The book appeals to many people
because it expresses in such an engrossing way the new liberating
religious option that has taken the West by storm...The Gnostic writings
have re-appeared at a time when patriarchy, doctrinal precision,
canons, confessions, clearly defined sexual morality, church institutions,
and authority are out. What’s in? The personal spiritual quest,
diversity, individualism, egalitarianism, and sexual liberation. And the
prospect of finding ancient ‘Christian’ scrolls that support this new
30

era’s spiritual viewpoint is, for many postmoderns,
a dream come true.”
(Garlow/Jones, p. 168)
Historically, most of our knowledge of
gnosticism was derived from the writings of
early church fathers like Irenaeus (A.D. 130-
200), Hippolytus (A.D. 170-236) and
Tertullian (A.D. 160-220) who described
ideas of the gnostics in detail as they
attacked and condemned them as deviations
from apostolic doctrine in their day. So, for
example, Irenaeus of Lyons in the Preface to
his “Against Heresies,” offers this incisive
assessment of the dangers of gnosticism:
“These men falsify the oracles of God, and
prove themselves evil interpreters of the
good word of revelation. They also
Tertullian
overthrow the faith of many by drawing
them away under a pretense of superior knowledge from Him who founded and
adorned the universe; as if they had something more excellent and sublime to reveal,
than the God who created the heaven and the earth and all things that are therein.
By means of specious and plausible words, they cunningly allure the simple-minded
to inquire into their system; but they initiate them into their blasphemous and impious
opinions respecting the Demiurge and these simple ones are unable, even in such a
matter, to distinguish falsehood from truth.” (ANF, 1, p. 315)
The modern world’s first substantive direct contact with gnostic sources came with
the discovery of the now famous “Nag Hammadi Manuscripts” discovered in Upper
Egypt in 1945. An Egyptian peasant named Muhammed Ali and his brothers were
digging around in a massive boulder in the desert near the village of Naj Hammadi.
They were looking for fertilizer. Instead, they stumbled across a large red clay
pottery jar. The brothers hesitated to break the jar open, fearing that it might contain
an evil “jinn.” But Mohammed Ali also realized that the vessel might hold golden
treasure so the jar was smashed open. The jar held neither gold nor an evil ‘jinn’ but
it was filled with treasure, treasure of a different and unexpected kind. Within they
31

discovered 13 large leather bound
papyrus books written in Coptic, a
language of Egypt early in the
Christian era. These volumes
contained a library of 52 gnostic
writings which had been collected
and translated from the original
th
Greek late in the 4 Century.
Muhammed’s family had no idea of
the significance of what they had
uncovered but after some of the
pages had been burned for kindling,
one of the books finally found its
way onto the black market in Cairo
and eventually the Egyptian
government located and confiscated
the remainder. Since then, the
collection has been widely
translated and published to
scholarly acclaim as “The Gnostic
Bible.”
A Fragment from ‘The Gospel of Thomas’
32
The Nag Hammadi manuscripts
contain a handful of documents that
have been described as “gospels.”
They include “The Gospel of
Thomas,” “The Gospel of Philip,”
“The Gospel of Truth,” “The
Gospel of the Egyptians,” “The
Apocalypse of Peter,” “The
Apocalypse of Paul,” “The Letter of
Peter to Phillip,” and “The
Thunder.” None of these are
narrative accounts of the life and
ministry of Jesus like the four
gospels of the New Testament.
Instead, reflecting the gnostic

distaste for factual history, these gospels are largely collections of random teaching
and sayings, laden with hidden meanings and secret significance. A sampling of
pithy sayings attributed to Jesus (Yeshua) in the Gospel of Thomas, the best known
of these writings, provides an enlightening insight in the nature of the gnostic
gospels:
“Jesus said, ‘Blessings on the lion if a human eats it, making the lion
human. Foul is the human if a lion eats it, making the lion
human’...Jesus said unto them, ‘When you make the two into one, and
when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and
the upper like the lower, and when you make the male and female into
a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female,
when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot
in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter the
kingdom’.... Jesus said, ‘Whoever has come to know the world has
discovered a carcass, and whoever has discovered a carcass, the world
is not worthy.’” (Lutzer, pp. 28-29)
The earliest of these works, the gospels of Thomas and Phillip, may date back as early
as A.D. 150 while the remainder were written in the centuries that followed.
Dan Brown’s extravagant claims that “eighty gospels were considered for the New
Testament” (DVC, p. 231) and that “thousands of documents already existed
chronicling his life as a mortal man” (DVC, p. 234) are flagrantly inaccurate. The
numbers are wildly inflated and the suggestion that any of these gnostic writings
predated or were ever considered on a par with the canonical gospels is simply wrong.
As previously noted (cf. p. 21), all four of the Bible’s Gospels were written between
A.D. 60 - 90, within the lifetimes of the apostles. The very earliest date assigned to
one of the gnostic gospels is A.D. 150 for the Gospel of Thomas and that date is
challenged by a great many scholars. Most of these documents were not composed
for another one hundred years. Furthermore, not even their most ardent advocates
today would argue that any of the gnostic documents were actually written by the
apostles or the other Biblical figures to whom they are ascribed. These are clearly
pseudonyms, designed to give stature to the writings of a later, unknown authors. By
A.D. 200, long before most if not all of the gnostic alternatives had even been written,
the four Gospels had already been recognized throughout the church as the
“foundation documents in what later came to be called the New Testament.” (Maier,
p. 33)
33

Sir Leigh Teabing, Dan Brown’s fictional authority figure, indulges in a bit of fiction
himself as he describes the survival of the gnostic gospels:
“‘Fortunately for historians,’ Teabing said, ‘some of the gospels which Constantine
attempted to eradicate managed to survive. The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in the
1950's hidden in a cave near Qumram in the Judean desert. And, of course, the
Coptic scrolls in 1945 at Nag Hammadi. In addition to telling the true Grail story,
these documents speak of Christ’s ministry in very human terms. Of course, the
Vatican, in keeping with their tradition of misinformation tired very hard to suppress
the release of these scrolls.”
(DVC, p. 234)
The reference to the Dead Sea
Scrolls is somewhat mystifying
since they have nothing
whatsoever to do with Jesus, the
Gospels, or the New Testament.
They contain only the library of
the Essenes, a dissident group
within Old Testament Judaism.
The Dead Sea Scrolls were
hidden by Essene community at
Qumram around A.D. 70, just
before it was destroyed by the
Roman legions of Titus. All of
this predates the evil Constantine
and his alleged machinations by
three hundred years. The
manuscripts found at Nag
Hammadi were not scrolls at all,
as Teabing incorrectly states
Modern Excavations at Qumram (“the Coptic scrolls”), but
papyrus books that had been
th
written and concealed late in the 4 Century. There is nothing in them about “the
true Grail story” as our fictional authority figure alleges. Any delays in the
publication of the Nag Hammadi documents between 1945 and the present were the
result of the illegal circumstances of their discovery, scholarly rivalries, and disputes
with the government of Egypt which presently controls the great majority of the
manuscripts. There is no evidence of any sinister Vatican plot to delay the
34

publication of either the Dead Sea Scrolls or the Nag Hammadi documents, the
allegations of the novel notwithstanding. Nor has any real life scholar ever alleged
such a conspiracy.
It is absolutely essential for “The Da Vinci Code” to completely discredit the
authenticity of the Biblical Gospels and their confession of Jesus Christ as the Son
of God and the Savior of the world. The imposition of this so-called “lie” is the core
component in Brown’s conspiracy theory and he describes the plot with exuberant
gusto. Neither undisputed facts of history nor the long-standing orthodoxy of
millennia can be allowed to stand in the way of the erection of this grand edifice of
malicious subterfuge.
A Portion of the Psalms Scroll from the Library at Qumram
“The Da Vinci Code”’s treatment of the Gospels of the New Testament illustrates the
pernicious symbiosis at the heart of this remarkable novel. On the one hand is the
fictional story itself, titillatingly told, with the flourish of an undeniably great
novelist. Woven into the tale, as its factual foundation, are the non-fictional theories
and assessments of revisionist scholars and modern mystics. The novel’s use of their
theories lends authenticity to its story, making the narrative more compelling. At the
same time, the presentation of the theories in the novel as fact grants them new
credibility and accessibility to a wider audience than could otherwise ever have been
possible. Books which until now have been obscurely hidden in the occult sections
of local bookstores are now flying off the shelves in unprecedented numbers. Both
the novel and the theories have benefitted immeasurably from their co-existence with
35

one another. Critic James Garlow coins the new term “fact-tion” - that is a
deliberate and artful blending of fact and fiction - to describe “The Da Vinci Code.”
He warns that it is this combination of fact and fiction which makes “The Da Vinci
Code” “a stunning and effective propaganda piece that moves its readers to a skewed
perception of reality.” (Garlow/Jones, p. 58) Garlow sums up his concern in these
words:
“If ever a book should be written off as mere fiction, “The Da Vinci
Code” is the one. On the other hand, this book can’t be ignored so
easily. Due to its author’s effective sprinkling of occasional ‘facts,’
along with the assertions by the characters that they are speaking the
truth. It is ‘fact-tion’ - that is, a wily narrative that blends limited facts
with some grossly exaggerated claims; these claims are placed in the
unfolding plot in real locations and times to provide sufficient
plausibility. The result is a stunning and effective propaganda piece
that moves its readers to a skewed perception or reality.”
(Garlow/Jones, p. 58)
Parchment Page from the “Diatessaron” of Tatian
nd
2 Century Compilation of the Four Gospels
36

“Christa” - The Female Personification of Jesus
PART III
God or Goddess?
The Da Vinci Deception
(pp.124-125)
“Powerful men in the early Christian Church ‘conned’ the world by propagating lies that
devalued the female and tipped the scales in favor of the masculine...Constantine and his male
successors successfully converted the world from matriarchal paganism to patriarchal
Christianity by waging a campaign of propaganda that demonized the sacred feminine,
obliterating the goddess from modern religion forever...Women, once celebrated as an essential
half of spiritual enlightenment, had been banished from the temples of the world. There were
no female Orthodox rabbis, Catholic priests, nor Islamic clerics. The once hallowed act of
Hieros Gamos - the natural sexual union between man and woman through which each
became spiritually whole - has been recast as a shameful act. Holy men who had once required
sexual union with their female counterparts to commune with God now feared their natural
sexual urges as the work of the devil, collaborating with his favorite accomplice, woman.”
37

Hero Robert Langdon’s sorrowful tale of the deliberate banishment of the goddess
from Western religious consciousness establishes yet another key component in “The
Da Vinci Code”’s conspiracy theory. The novel asserts that Constantine and his
chauvinist co-conspirators systematically destroyed humanity’s original religion, the
worship of the goddess, in order to foist upon mankind a patriarchal power system
which they could manipulate and control. Brown argues that what Constantine began
has been successfully carried on through centuries of brutal bloody persecution by the
Church. In what may be the novel’s most amazing overstatement he contends that
any “freethinking woman” was branded as a witch and detailed instructions were
provided by the Church to its all-male clergy as to how “to locate, torture, and
destroy them”
“Those deemed witches by the Church included all female scholars,
priestesses, gypsies, mystics, nature lovers, herb gatherers, and any
women suspiciously attuned to the natural world. Midwives were also
killed for their heretical practice of using medical knowledge to ease the
pain of childbirth - a suffering the Church claimed, that was God’s
rightful punishment for Eve’s partaking of the Apple of Knowledge, thus
giving birth to the idea of Original Sin. During three hundred years of
witch hunts, the Church burned at the stake an astounding five million
women.” (DVC, p. 125)
A Witch Burning in Amsterdam - 1549
38

At the core of this view is the belief that the worship of the feminine image of the
divine, the goddess, is the oldest and, in fact, the original human religion. Feminist
scholars tell us that the worship of the goddess is constant throughout human history
and has taken on an endless variety of forms throughout the ages. A recent study
entitled “The Myth of the Goddess - Evolution of An Image,” traces the various
stages in the development of goddess worship throughout the ages:
“The myth of the goddess has moved through several stages of
diminishing influence from the Paleolithic Age to the present, and these
have registered the way in which humanity looks upon itself and its
world...In the beginning, the Great Mother Goddess alone gives birth to
the world out of herself, so that all creatures, including the gods, are
her children, part of her divine substance...Thereafter, the Mother
Goddess unites with the god - once her son, now her consort - to give
birth to the world. Here the distinction is made between the eternal
womb and its temporal phases (whether of the moon or the seasonal life
of vegetation) and the focus of the myth is on the relationship between
the Mother Goddess and her god, her son-lover....In the next stage the
Mother Goddess is killed by the god, her great- great- grandson, who
then makes the world from her dead body, and the human race from the
blood of her dismembered son-lover...Finally, the god creates the world
alone without reference to the Mother Goddess, either through selfcopulation
(the Egyptian Atum) or through the Word...In the Hebrew
creation myth, inherited by the Islamic and Christian traditions, there
is no relation whatever to the Mother Goddess, who is no longer even
an enemy and has disappeared from view.” (Baring, Cashford, pp. 660-
661)
John Michael Greer, an active occultist and author of “The New Encyclopedia of the
Occult,” (2003) convincingly argues that this view has more to do with the needs of
modern romantics than the facts of history. Greer defines the goddess as “the
principal deity of the modern Neo-pagan movement, associated with nature, fertility,
the moon, the cycles of biological life, and the planetary eco-system of the earth,
conceived as a single vast entity.” (p. 198) After a careful review of the historical
evidence he concludes:
“Many of her modern votaries hold that the worship of the goddess has
39

een handed down continuously in its present form since pre-historic
times. The actual history of the goddess, however, is a good deal more
complex...The Goddess herself, though, is essentially a modern figure
and her emergence is the most recent and best documented example of
the birth of new divinity.”
(Greer, p. 198)
Dr. Phillip Davis, in a
perceptive study entitled
“The Goddess Unmasked,”
is somewhat more pointed in
his observations: “It has
been clear from the outset,
however, that goddess books
are not simply about the
history of religion and
culture. They are, in and of
themselves, the expression
of a particular religious
mindset which shapes both
their presuppositions and
conclusions...Goddess
books, accordingly, should
be seen as professions of
faith and their authors as
neo-pagan evangelists.”
(Davis, pp.86-87)
Feminist scholars argue that
the chauvinist prophets of
the Old Testament banished
“The Sumerian Goddess Inanna”
the goddess and replaced her
with the stern male figure of
Jehovah as the reflection and the justification of their own patriarchal culture.
Memories of the goddess remained in Hebrew myths and legends about “Lilith,”
Adam’s first wife and the Queen of the Demons and Creatures of the Night. The only
direct reference to Lilith in Scripture is in Isaiah 34:14 where the prophet describes
40

the desolation which will be left in the aftermath of God’s judgment upon the heathen
land of Edom - “Wild cats will meet hyenas there, the sartyrs will call to each other,
there too will Lilith take cover seeking rest.” Lilith is often linked to the Sumerian
goddess Inanna, the Goddess of the Moon and the Queen of the Night Sky, who
played a similar role in the mythology of ancient Mesopotamia. The same one sided
male dominated distortion, we are told, was perpetuated in orthodox Christianity and
the writings of the canonical New Testament which it produced. “Literalist
Christianity took as its scriptural backdrop the Jewish Old Testament with its
patriarchal monotheism. It therefore vigorously suppressed the idea that there was
a Christian goddess.” (Freke/Gandy, p. 44)
“The Fall Into Sin” by Hugo van der Goes, 1470
(The Serpent is Depicted with the female face of Lilith)
41

The “The Da Vinci Code,” repeatedly and forcefully advocates modern feminism’s
standard line about the suppression of the goddess and the sacred feminine. We are
told that these beliefs were at the core of the original authentic Christian faith and
were brutally suppressed by a male dominated Church. Robert Langdon patiently
spells out the real story for his confused companion Sophie in this way:
“The Holy Grail represents the sacred feminine and the goddess, which
of course has now been lost, virtually eliminated by the Church. The
power of the female and her ability to produce life was once very
sacred, but it posed a threat to the rise of the predominantly male
church, and so the sacred feminine was demonized and called unclean.”
(DVC, p. 238)
The Bible’s accounts of Creation and the Fall in Genesis are dismissed as male
inventions maliciously designed to “embezzle the female’s creative power.”
“‘ It was man, not God, who created the concept of original sin whereby
Eve tasted of the apple and caused the downfall of the human race.
Woman, once the sacred giver of life, was now the enemy.’ ‘I should
add,’ Teabing chimed, ‘that this concept of woman as life-bringer was
the foundation of ancient religion. Childbirth was mystical and
powerful. Sadly, Christian philosophy decided to embezzle the female’s
creative power by ignoring biological truth and making man the
Creator. Genesis tells us that Eve was created from Adam’s rib.
Woman became an offshoot of man. And a sinful one at that. Genesis
was the beginning of the end for the goddess.’” (DVC, p. 238)
This emphasis would help to explain why gnostic variations of Christianity figure so
prominently and are presented so favorably in “The Da Vinci Code.” In many
instances the gnostics attempted to combine traditional pagan worship of the goddess
with different components of the Christian Gospel. Valentinius, a gnostic leader in
nd
2 Century Egypt, taught that the goddess was the “first universal creator” who
brought into being all things and who enlightens human beings and makes them wise.
In one of the gnostic writings of the Nag Hammadi collection the goddess declares:
“I am the Triple Formed Primal Thought that dwells in light...She who exists before
the All...I move in every creature...I am the Invisible One within the All.” (Pagels, p.
55) Many of the gnostics believed that the jealous God of the Old Testament was
42

either subject to or simply ignorant
of the all powerful Goddess from
whom He too had come. Princeton
scholar Elaine Pagels sums up this
astonishing view as follows:
“This creator was a derivative,
merely instrumental power whom
the Mother had created to
administer the universe, but his
own self-conception was far more
grandiose. They say that he
believed that he had made
everything by himself, but that, in
reality, he created the world
because Wisdom, his Mother,
‘infused him with energy’ and
implanted into him Her own ideas.
But he was foolish and acted
unconsciously, unaware that the
ideas he used came from Her; ‘he
was even ignorant of his own
Mother...It was because he was
foolish and ignorant of his Mother
that he said, ‘I am God, there is
none beside Me.’” (Pagels, p. 57)
“The Da Vinci Code” would have
us believe the rediscovery of the
goddess will do nothing more than
restore the original harmony of
Christianity, creating a kinder,
gentler version of the faith than that
which men have fashioned in their
own violent image. It should
already be completely evident that
there is much more at stake here
Artemis - the Greek Goddess of Nature
nd
2 Century Roman Bronze
43

than minor redecorating. These folks want to tear down the house, destroy the
foundation, and start over again from scratch. Carl Olsen is quite correct when he
warns:
“The point of the goddess movement and books is not a revitalization or
a renewal of Christianity, as proponents sometimes assert, but a
complete transformation involving the removal and destruction of core
beliefs about the nature of God and the person of Jesus.” (Olsen, p. 91)
The God(dess) of modern feminists and ancient gnostics is not a supreme being who
reveals objective truth through his Word, but personal divinity within every
individual. The delightful thing about this view was, and is, that’s it’s all up to me
and it’s all about me. The goal of such religion is not the forgiveness of sin and
salvation but, in the words of classical historian Bruce Thornton, “validating
individualist self-actualization.” (Thornton, p. 185) In all this, Jesus as the Son of
God and Savior of the world becomes completely irrelevant. As feminist theologian
Delores Williams recently remarked: “I don’t think we need folks hanging on crosses
and blood dripping and weird stuff.” (Olsen, p. 92)
“The Birth of Venus” by Sandro Botticelli - 1478
44

“Witches Sabbath” - Hans Baldung Grien (1510)
PART IV
“Hieros Gamos” - The Sacred Marriage
The Da Vinci Deception (pp. 308-309)
“It’s called Hieros Gamos,” he said softly. “It dates back more than two thousand years.
Egyptian priests and priestesses performed it regularly to celebrate the reproductive power of
the female”...”Hieros Gamos is Greek,” he continued. “It means sacred marriage”...He
explained that although what she saw probably looked like a sex ritual, Hieros Gamos had
nothing to do with eroticism. It was a spiritual act. Historically intercourse was the act
through which male and female experienced God. The ancients believed that the male was
spiritually incomplete until he had carnal knowledge of the sacred feminine. Physical union
with the female remained the sole means through which man could become spiritually
complete and ultimately achieve gnosis - knowledge of the divine. Since the days of Isis, sex
rites have been considered man’s only bridge from earth to heaven. “By communing with
woman,” Langdon said, “man could achieve a climactic instant when his mind went totally
blank and he could see God.” Sophie looked skeptical. “Orgasm as prayer?” Langdon gave
a non-committal shrug, although Sophie was essentially correct. Physiologically speaking, the
male climax was accompanied by a split second entirely devoid of thought. A brief mental
vacuum. A moment of clarity during which God could be glimpsed.
45

“Mary Magdalen in the House of Simon” by Simon
Vouet
The narcissistic hedonism at the
essence of the modern goddess
movement is clearly revealed in
The Da Vinci Code ‘s obsession
with the sexual ceremony called
“hieros gamos.” Dan Brown
describes this act of ritual
intercourse as “a deeply
sacrosanct ceremony” (DVC, p.
309) through which, at the instant
of orgasm, the male is able to
achieve “spiritual wholeness and
communion with God.” (DVC, p.
309) It is sadly ironic that this
nonsense brings the author as
close to reverence as he will ever
come in this novel.
Here, as elsewhere throughout
The Da Vinci Code, Brown is
simply echoing the fantasies of
new age mystics and radical
feminists, presenting them in his
novel as incontestable facts. But these are nothing more than the ravings of fringe
writers whose trendy books reflect not reality but the needs of their own way-out
theories. That is why, until now, they have never been taken seriously by anyone and
their ideas have remained far out on the margins of popular culture. Margaret
Starbird, another of Brown’s favorite authors, is an excellent example of the problem.
In The Woman with the Alabaster Jar - Mary Magdalen and the Holy Grail, this
imaginative writer argues - without benefit of any historical evidence or textual
support - that the Gospel episode in which Christ’s feet were anointed by an
anonymous woman in Bethany is a actually the sacred marriage ceremony of Jesus
and Mary Magdalen (cf. Mark 14:1-9). Lest you suspect that I am making this up,
allow Ms. Starbird to speak for herself:
“In Greek this rite was called the hieros gamos or Sacred Marriage.
The anointing of the head had erotic significance...The chosen
46

idegroom was anointed by the royal priestess, the surrogate of the
goddess...Through his union with the priestess, the king/consort
received royal status. He became known as ‘the anointed one,’ in
Hebrew, the Messiah...The story of the anointing of Jesus by the woman
in Bethany is one of the most important events recorded in the New
Testament Gospels...The story of the anointing is easily the most
intimate expression of Eros/relatedness in the recorded events of the life
of Jesus.” (Starbird 1, pp. 36,40)
In her subsequent study The Goddess
and the Gospels - Reclaiming the
Sacred Feminine, Ms. Starbird
concludes that the suppression of hieros
gamos was the work of a misogynist
Church: “The hieros gamos was one of
the original teachings of Christianity
attributed directly to Jesus but obscured
in later Church tradition.” (Starbird, p.
157) She bases this startling conclusion
on her own unique brand of “gematria,”
the secret number codes hidden in the
words of the parable of the mustard seed,
the movements of the earth and the
moon, the principles of ying and yang,
and the 666.
Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince, also
featured as authorities in The Da Vinci
Code, espouse the same bizarre theory.
They not only insist that Mary Magdalen
was the anonymous woman at Bethany
but that she was a pagan priestess, a
temple prostitute who enabled men to
experience the divine by having sex with
“Supper in the House of the Pharisee” by
Moretto da Brescia
them: “The anointing of Jesus was a pagan ritual: the woman who performed it,
Mary of Bethany, was a priestess. Given this new scenario, it is more than likely that
her role in Jesus’ inner circle was as sexual initiatrix.” (Picknett/ Prince, p. 258) We
47

in the West, they condescendingly inform us, cannot hope to understand the view of
sacred sexuality reflected in hieros gamos because of the negative view of women
and human sexuality with which we have been indoctrinated for centuries.
Ms. Picknett goes even further in a book on Mary Magdalene which she authored
independently in 2003. Her astounding thesis in Mary Magdalene - Christianity’s
Hidden Goddess is that “Jesus was probably a charlatan trained in the Egyptian
conjurers’ art who coveted the Baptist’s popularity and may have taken drastic steps
to usurp it.” (Picknett, p. 240) He arranged for the beheading of John and then used
his severed head in magical rites to harness the power of the Baptist’s spirit. Mary
Magdalene, we are told, was nothing less than “the most important woman in
history.” (Picknett, p. 241) She was a priestess of the ancient cult of the Egyptian
fertility goddess Isis. She came, Picknett argues, from the Ethiopian city of Magdala
and was “an outspoken and independent woman of means” (Picknett, p. 65). She
was Jesus’ sexual companion and engaged with him in sexual rites and magical
ceremonies. Mary’s presence was offensive to the Jewish male disciples because she
was “black, outspoken, rich, a pagan priestess and Jesus’ closest advisor, a woman
of extraordinary power.” (Picknett, p. 66) Mary Magdalene, in Picknett’s view, was
the assertive power behind the throne, directing and controlling the activities of Jesus.
She helped to stage his fake crucifixion and arranged for herself to be designated as
his successor and heiress.
‘From such authorities Dan Brown has derived the “facts” which he presents in his
novel.
“Supper in the House of Simon” by Paolo Veronese
48

PART V
Sacred Prostitutes and the “Shekinah”
The Da Vinci Deception (pp. 309-310)
“Admittedly, the concept of sex as a pathway to God was mind-boggling at first. Langdon’s
Jewish students always looked flabbergasted when he first told them that the early Jewish
tradition involved ritualistic sex. In the Temple, no less. Early Jews believed that the Holy of
Holies in Solomon’s Temple housed not only God but His powerful female equal Shekinah.
Men seeking spiritual wholeness came to the Temple to visit priestesses - hierodules - with
whom they made love and experienced the divine through physical union. The Jewish
tetragrammaton YHWH - the sacred name for God - in fact derived from Jehovah, and
androgenous physical union between the masculine Jah and the pre-Hebraic name for Eve,
Havah.”
With these remarkable assertions Dan
Brown moves from the fantastic to the
ridiculous. It is ludicrous to suggest
that the Jews practiced sex rituals and
kept sacred prostitutes in the Temple
of Solomon as an ordinary and
acceptable part of Hebrew religious
life. When the Israelites did indulge in
these heathen practices it was in
defiance of God’s Law and was
always viewed as an aberration and an
abomination which would result in
God’s fearsome judg ment upon the
nation. If this distortion were not part
and parcel of Dan Brown’s total
misrepresentation of the Biblical view
of human sexuality it could be
dismissed as laughable. But nothing
seems too extreme for this author or
too shocking for his millions of
readers.
The practice of cultic prostitution was
common among the Canaanite peoples
“The Holy of Holies in the Temple of Solomon”
by Leen Rittmeyer
49

of Palestine. The practice remained pervasive long after the Israelite conquest of the
th
land. In the 8 Century B.C., the prophet Hosea denounced Israel’s widespread
involvement in this abomination:
“They sacrifice on the mountain tops and burn offerings on the hills,
under oak, poplar, and terebinth, where the shade is pleasant.
Therefore your daughters turn to prostitution and your daughters-inlaw
to adultery. I will not punish your daughters when then turn to
prostitution, nor your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery,
because the men themselves consort with harlots and sacrifice with
temple prostitutes - a people without understanding will come to
ruin...A whirlwind will sweep them away and their sacrifices will bring
them shame.” (Hosea 4:13-14,19)
“The Temple in Jerusalem” by Leen Rittmeyer
The divine command against temple prostitution was absolute. The most devastating
depiction of a temple prostitute in Scripture is provided by the prophet Ezekiel
(Chapter 23) as he compares the kingdoms of Judah and Israel to pair of such
prostitutes. The prophet pictures their debasement and shame in almost pornographic
detail. They are overcome with lust and have been completely defiled by the men to
whom they have given themselves -
“They even sent messengers for men who came from far away, and
50

when they arrived you bathed yourself for them, painted your eyes and
put on your jewelry. You sat on an elegant couch with a table spread
before it on which you had placed the incense and oil that belonged to
Me.” (Ezekiel 23:40-41)
Through Moses, God declared that such detestable things were to remain totally
separate from the worship of God and His holy Temple: “No Israelite man or woman
is to become a temple prostitute. You must not bring the earnings of a female
prostitute or a male prostitute into the House of the Lord your God to pay any vow
because the Lord your God detests them both.” (Deuteronomy 23:17-18) A priest
who served in the house of the Lord was not allowed to marry a prostitute or a former
prostitute and if the daughter of a priest became a prostitute the punishment was death
by fire (Leviticus 21:7,9) The text explains that these drastic measures were necessary
because of the role of the priests as servants in the sacred house of the Lord: “Regard
them as holy because they offer up the food of your God. Consider them holy,
because I the Lord who makes you holy, am holy.” (Leviticus 21:8) But despite
these stern commands the allure of cultic prostitution often proved irresistible. The
radical reform of King Josiah in the latter days of the Kingdom of Judah reveals that
by that time this corruption had penetrated within the very walls of the temple itself.
“The king ordered Hilkiah the High Priest, the priests next in rank and
the doorkeepers to remove from the Temple all the articles made for
Baal and Asherah and all the starry hosts. He burned them outside of
Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron Valley and took the ashes to
Bethel...He took the Asherah pole from the Temple of the Lord to the
Kidron Valley and burned it there...He also tore down the quarters of
the male shrine prostitutes, which were in the Temple of the Lord and
where women did weaving for Asherah...He removed for the entrance
to the Temple of the Lord the horses that the kings of Judah had
dedicated to the sun. They were in the court near the room of an
official named Nathan Melech. Josiah then burned the chariots
dedicated to the sun.” (1 Kings 23:4-11)
But the text also reports that “the fierce anger of God” burned against Judah and
brought God’s judgment upon that apostate nation and its corrupted Temple: “I will
remove Judah also from My presence as I removed Israel and I will reject
Jerusalem, the city I chose, and this Temple, about which I said, ‘There shall My
Name be.’” 2 Kings 23:27) It was this sexual sin that led to the final downfall and
destruction of the nation. Somehow The Da Vinci Code conveniently overlooks this
51

dimension of the Biblical
message about temple
prostitution.
The identification of the
“shekinah” as the goddess, “the
powerful female equal” (DVC, p.
310) of God is completely
fanciful. “Shekinah” is a Hebrew
word which means “the one who
dwells.” The term is not used in
the Bible. It occurs commonly in
the rabbinic translations and
commentaries of the Old
Testament as a circumlocution for
God to describe the glory of His
presence. It was applied to the
pillar of cloud and fire which
signified God’s presence leading
Israel through the years of
wandering in the wilderness (cf.
Exodus 13:21-22; 14:24) and the
fiery cloud which demonstrated
the presence of God upon Mount “The High Priest Before the Ark on the Day of Atonement”
Sinai (cf. Exodus 19:16-18).
Upon the completion of the Tabernacle that Glory Cloud rested upon the Tabernacle
and filled the Holy of Holies (Exodus 40:34-38) as it also did later in the Temple of
Solomon:
“The priests then bought the ark of the Lord’s covenant to its place in
the inner sanctuary of the Lord’s temple, the Most Holy Place, and put
it beneath the wings of the cherubim. The cherubim spread their wings
over the place of the ark and overshadowed the ark and its long
carrying poles...There was nothing in the ark except the two stone
tablets that Moses placed in it at Horeb, where the Lord made a
covenant with the Israelites after they came out of Egypt. When the
priests withdrew from the Holy Place, the cloud filled the Temple of the
Lord. And the priests could not perform their service because of the
cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled His temple.” (1 Kings 8:6-11)
52

“The Holy Place of the Temple in Jerusalem”
There is not the slightest suggestion anywhere in Scripture that God could have had
a “powerful female equal.” Margaret Starbird cites only unnamed “Jewish mystics”
to support her contention that the Shekinah was God’s female counterpart:
“As a model for the sacred ‘human vessel’ - each human individual - the
Temple in Jerusalem with its outer and inner courts leading to the ‘Holy
of Holies’ was designed, according to Jewish mystics, to contain the
presence of Jahweh and his holy consort, the Shekinah, dwelling together
in intimate union in their ‘bridal chamber’ the human psyche/heart.”
(Starbird 2, p. 150)
The assertion of the Shekinah as God’s female equal appears to be based upon a
woeful misunderstanding (or a deliberate distortion) of the teachings of the
“Kabbalah” (Hebrew - “tradition”) - a strange blending of mysticism and the occult
th
th
which arose on the edges of Judaism in the 11 and 12 Centuries A.D. The
practitioners of the “Kabbalah” taught that a distinction had to be made between the
essence of God Himself who was utterly infinite and transcendent, and the ten forms
in which God chose to reveal His power to man. The Kabbalists distinguished
53

etween male and female manifestations of divine power. In this obscure system, the
“Shekinah” was a female manifestation of divine power, although these Jews who
dabbled in magic and the occult were careful to stress that this should never be
understood as a reference to a goddess or as a suggestion that there could be more than
one God. This, of course, is a far cry from saying that God had”an equal female
partner” living with Him in the Temple. There is also a major chronological
discrepancy here. Dan Brown declares that this female deity was the belief of “early
Jews” and links that belief to “Solomon”s temple.” The Temple of Solomon was
destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 B.C. The discussion of the “Shekinah” as a
female manifestation of God’s power did not take place for another 1,800 years! Nor
was this bizarre view ever accepted by any branch of orthodox Judaism. All such
nonsense direct contradicts the strict monotheism which was the essence of the Old
Testament. The famous “Shema,” the most fundamental confession of Israel’s faith,
acknowledges this basic
truth: “Hear O Israel, the
Lord our God, the Lord is
one.” (Deuteronomy 6:4)
The Da Vinci Code’s
analysis of the
Tetragrammaton is equally
imaginative: “The Jewish
tetragrammaton YHWH -
the sacred name of God -
in fact derived from
Jehovah, an androgynous
physical union between
the masculine Jah and the
pre-Hebraic name for Eve,
Havah.” (DVC, p. 309)
This assessment is, as one
Moses at the Burning Bush by Carolsfeld
critic notes, “wildly off
the mark.” (Olsen/Miesel,
p. 291) In Hebrew tradition since the days of the Babylonian Captivity in the 6 th
Century B.C. the pious demonstrated their reverence for God by their refusal to utter
His sacred Name - “Yahweh.” They believed that human lips were unworthy even to
speak the Name of God when reading the Biblical text. Instead, they commonly
th
substituted the Hebrew word “Adonai” which means “lord.” Prior to the 6 Century
A.D. the Hebrew text of Scripture was printed without vowels. The reader would
54

supply the vowels as he read,
based upon his familiarity with
the language. Vowel points
were finally added beneath the
printed consonants between A.D.
600-700 by a school of Hebrew
scribes called the Masorites. In
the case of “YHWH” the vowels
of “Adonai” were placed
beneath to consonants to
indicate the substitution of
“Adonai” for God sacred name.
Around A.D. 1520 a scholar
named Petrus Galatinus
conceived the idea of combining
the consonants of “Yahweh”
with the vowels of “Adonai” to
form an entirely new word -
“Jehovah.” The term gained
widespread acceptance,
primarily within the Gentile
world, and found its way into
traditional English Bible
translations. Once again, as we
have found to be the case
throughout our study, Dan
Brown has it backwards.
“Ezekiel’s Vision of the Glory of the Lord” by Raphael
“Yahweh” is not derived from “Jehovah.” “Jehovah” is derived from “Jahweh.”
“Jehovah” is not a Hebrew word at all but a hybrid combination of two Hebrew words
used primarily by Gentiles. The word “Jehovah” is not - in any way, shape or form -
a verbal image for the physical union of man and woman. The Hebrew name for Eve -
“havah” means “the mother of all living” (Genesis 3:20). It has nothing whatsoever
to do with the Name of God. This type of wildly inaccurate speculation without any
foundation in history or linguistics is characteristic of the occult theorists upon whose
writings Dan Brown depends.
55

“The Magdalene at the Foot of the Cross” by Lovis Corinth - 1895
PART VI
Jesus and Mary Magdalene
The Da Vinci Deception (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.’”
56

“The Holy Women at the Tomb”
by William Adolphe Bouguereau
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 coconspirators
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.”
57

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)
Mary Magdalene at the Burial of Our Lord by Charles F. Jalabert
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.
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“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:
“Nolo Me Tangere” - Croatian Icon
“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
59

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.”
th
“Mary Magdalene and the Apostles” 12 Century
60

The only documentation for any leadership role attributed to Mary Magdalen comes
nd rd
from gnostic writings of the 2 and 3 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
nd
3 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. Even New Age author Lynn Picknett, an ardent
proponent of an enhanced role for Mary Magdalen, cautions her readers that if they
are going to read these gnostic documents they must recognize that “some are
marvelous examples of pseudo-mystical gobbledygook; impenetrable, giddy and
silly.” (Picknett, p. xiv) The contrast between these later works composed on the
61

“Mary Magdalen Before Her
Conversion”
by J. James Tissot
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
62

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
rd
half of the 3 Century a gnostic gospel
entitled “Pistis Sophia” (“The Wisdom of
Faith”) was composed which also accords a “The Repentant Magdalen”
primary leadership role to Mary Magdalen.
by J. James Tissot
Jesus announces to His disciples that Mary
and St. John are to lead His Church: “But Mary Magdalene and John the Virgin will
63

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
nd
mid 2 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)
“Mary Magdalene at the Feet of Jesus” by J.
James Tissot
The gnostic writings which advocate a major apostolic role for Mary Magdalen were
nd
rd
written in the late 2 and early 3 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”
64

written by Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon in the Roman province of Gaul at the end of the
nd
2 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.
65

“Mary Magdalen - High Priestess of Isis” by Frank Ordaz
PART VII
The Bloodline of Jesus
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.’”
66

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 witchhunt
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
“The Penitent Magdalene” by Marius Vesselon - 1887
67

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)
68

“Mary Magdalene at the Foot of the Cross”
by Fra Angelica
(Abanes, p. 38)
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.”
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
69

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)
th
“Mary Magdalene” 16 Century Dutch Painting
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
70

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
“The Risen Christ and Mary Magdalene” - 19 th
Century Engraving
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)
71

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 so long as they have Him with them. But the time will come
“Blessed Are Those Who Are Called to the Marriage Feast of the
Lamb” by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld
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
72

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)
“The Foolish Virgins Excluded from the
Wedding” by August Gendron
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
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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. They seek a total
transformation of our view of God and a return to pagan pantheism. 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)
74

“The Divine Trinity” by Albrecht Durer
PART VIII
The Nature of God and the Divine Nature of Christ
The Da Vinci Deception pp. 341-342
“Langdon smiled. ‘Sophie, every faith in the world is based on fabrication. That is the
definition of faith - acceptance of that which we imagine to be true, that which we cannot
prove. Every religion describes God through metaphor, allegory, and exaggeration, from the
early Egyptians through modern Sunday School. Metaphors are a way to help our minds
process the unprocessible. The problems arise when we begin to believe literally in our own
metaphors.’”
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Dan Brown’s god is clearly not the transcendent Creator of Scripture. The deity of
The Da Vinci Code is nothing more than personal divinity within every individual.
Brown articulated this view more clearly in his previous novel, Angels and Demons.
Both books share the same hero, Robert Langdon, battling against the evil and
destructive falsehoods of Christian orthodoxy. A crucial conversation between
Langdon and Vittoria, the heroine of Angels and Demons, offers this explanation of
faith and religion:
“‘Religion is like language or dress. We gravitate toward the practices
with which we were raised. In the end, though, we are all proclaiming
the same thing. That life has meaning. That we are grateful for the
power that created us.’ Langdon was intrigued. ‘So you are saying that
whether you are a Christian or a Muslim simply depends on where you
were born? ...So faith is random?’ ‘Hardly, faith is universal. Our
specific methods for understanding it are arbitrary. Some of us pray to
Jesus, some of us go to Mecca, some of us study sub-atomic particles.
In the end, we are all just searching for truth, that which is greater than
ourselves...’ ‘And God?’ he asked. ‘Do you believe in God?’ Vittoria
was silent for a long time. ‘Science tells me God must exist. My mind
tells me I will never understand God. And my heart tells me that I am
not meant to.’ ‘So you believe God is fact but you will never understand
him?’ ‘Her,’ she said with a smile. ‘Your Native Americans had it right.’
Langdon chuckled. ‘Mother Earth.’ ‘Gaea. The planet is an organism.
All of us are cells with different purposes. And yet we are intertwined,
serving each other, serving the whole.’” (AAD, p. 110)
This view - which rejects any standard beyond the opinions and desires of the
th
individual - is as old as the gnostics of the 4 Century and as modern as the New Age
paganism of contemporary feminists and environmentalists. In her sympathetic study
The Gnostic Gospels, Elaine Pagels defines the classic Gnostic view with this
incredible quotation from the gnostic Gospel of Phillip: “God created humanity, but
now human beings create God. That is the way it is in the world - human being make
gods and worship their creation. It would be appropriate for the gods to worship
human beings.” (Pagels, p. 122) It is significant to note that The Da Vinci Code
specifically cites the same Gospel of Phillip in support of the marriage of Jesus and
Mary Magdalen (cf. Notes, p.66f.). Dr. Pagels concludes by observing the similarity
between the gnostics’ religion of self-discovery and modern practitioners of every
76

variety New Age humanism and paganism:
“For gnostics, exploring the psyche became explicitly what it is for
many people today implicitly - a religious quest. Some who seek their
own interior direction, like the radical gnostics, reject religious
institutions as a hindrance to their progress. Others, like the
Valentinians, willingly participate in them, although they regard the
church more as an instrument of their own self-discovery than as the
necessary ‘ark of salvation.’” (Pagels, p. 123)
Phillip G. Davis, in his incisive
critique of neo-pagan feminisim,
The Goddess Unmasked, spells
out the contrast between the
Bible’s view of God and that of
much of modern feminism:
“Goddess devotees reject...the
transcendent God of the Bible.
The monotheistic affirmation of
God’s transcendence means that
the world is not God - it is no
more and no less than the
contingent object and outcome of
His creative power...The goddess
represents the conviction that the
world is intrinsically divine,
because the goddess herself is
immanent in all existing things.
From here it is but a short step to
eco-feminist contention that
Mother Earth is alive, a concept
“Mother Earth” by Judith Anderson commonly expressed through the
name for the ancient Greek earth
goddess Gaia...The notion of divine immanence has a fairly specific and direct
application to human beings - we ourselves are all divine, inasmuch as the goddess
is already present within us.” (Davis, p. 91)
77

“Mary and Mary Magdalene at the Tomb”
th
19 Century Engraving
Dan Brown’s dependence upon and
advocacy of these views is clearly
evident throughout his writings. His
characters simply mimic the
language of ancient gnostics and
modern feminists: “Langdon
chuckled. ‘Mother Earth.’ ‘Gaea.
The planet is an organism. All of us
are cells with different purposes.”
(AAD, p. 110) Z. Budapest, a
leading feminist thinker and founder
of the Susan B. Anthony Witches’
Coven, defines the pantheism and
self-deification of contemporary
goddess worship in almost exactly
the same way:
“There was opposition with the
feminist movement toward the
spiritual movement. Those who
didn’t share the experiences
wondered why intelligent women
would want to ‘worship the
goddess.’ They missed the crucial
meaning: It is self-worship. If the
goddess is seen as being ‘out there’
(or ‘up there’), it is because all
living things are part of her: trees,
stars, moon, honeybees, rocks, and us. Just as she has thousands of different names,
she can be worshiped in thousands of different ways. It will take time for women to
get rid of patriarchal ways of worshiping. If some see her as sitting on a cloud with
her magic wand blessing them, maybe this is a step toward seeing her inside
themselves. In the Susan B. Coven, we teach that women are goddesses every time
they make a choice.” (Kassian, p. 162)
This god (or goddess) of self-actualization also rules out the possibility of any
objective truth or morality. It’s all up to every individual and no one has the right to
78

judge or condemn the beliefs of the behavior of anyone else. There can be nothing
more than that which is right or true for me - “me,” of course, being the operative
word in the sentence. Robert Langdon condescendingly explains to Sophie that the
truths of any religion are only valid to the extent that are helpful in the lives of those
who choose to believe them:
“The Bible represents a fundamental guidepost for millions of people
on the planet, in much the same way the Koran, Torah, and Pali Canon
offer guidance to people of other religions. If you or I could dig up
documentation that contradicted the holy stories of Islamic belief,
Judaic belief, Buddhist belief, pagan belief, should we do that? Should
we wave a flag and tell the Buddhists that we have proof the Buddha did
not come from a lotus blossom? Or that Jesus was not born of a literal
virgin birth? Those who truly understand the faith understand the
stories are metaphorical.” (DVC, p. 342)
Nothing is objectively true. The beliefs of the Christian, the Muslim, the Jew, and the
Buddhist are all equally true although they contradict one another. They are true
nonetheless for the people who believe them. According to this view, the god, or
gods, of every religion exist only
as a projection of the needs and
the desires of those who believe in
them. As James Herrick puts it:
“Deities are the symbolic
personifications of the very
energies that are yourself.”
(Olsen/Miesel, p. 71)
In direct contrast this immanent
individualized deity the God of the
Bible is transcendent - that is God
is not merely a part of the physical
universe. His existence is
independent of any other reality.
He does not have a source. He is
the source of everything else that
exists. That is precisely the point
“Moses at the Burning Bush” by Rudolf Schäfer
79

of the divine name JAHWEH (Hebrew - “I AM”) revealed to Moses at the burning
bush (Exodus 3:13-14). As the New Testament writer to Hebrews declares: “For
every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything.” (Hebrews
3:4) In contrast to the false gods of the heathen, which are indeed nothing more than
the projection of human needs and desires, the true God is the Creator of everything
that exists: “We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these
worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and
everything in them.” (Acts 14:15) Scripture repeatedly links the nature of God to His
identity as the Creator of all things. This is the basis for His claim upon us and our
relationship with Him:
“You alone are the Lord. You made the heavens, even the highest
heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the
seas and all that is in them. Your gave life to everything, and the
multitudes of heaven worship You.” (Nehemiah 9:6)
“The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world and all who
live in it; for He founded it upon the seas and established it upon the
waters.” (Psalm 24:1-2)
“By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, their starry host by
the breath of His mouth. He gathers the waters of the sea into jars; he
puts the deep into storehouses. Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all
the people of the world revere Him. For He spoke and it came to be;
He commanded and it stood firm.” (Psalm 33:6-9)
“For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods. In His
hands are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to
Him. The sea is His for He made it, and His hands formed the dry
land. Come, let us bow down in worship; let us kneel before the Lord
our Maker; for He is our God and we are the people of His pasture,
the flock under His care.” (Psalm 95:3-6)
If God is by definition the only independent existence, the source of all being, then
it necessarily follows that there can be only one God: “We know that an idol is
nothing in all the world and there is no God but one.” (1 Corinthians 8:4) This
central conviction is affirmed again and again throughout Holy Writ:
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“The Lord will judge His people
and have compassion on His
servants...He will say, ‘Now where
are their gods the rock they took
refuge in?...See now that I Myself
am He. There is no god besides
Me. I put to death and I bring to
life.’” (Deuteronomy 33:37-39)
“How great are You, O sovereign
Lord! There is no one like You,
and there is no God but You, as we
have heard with our own ears.” (2
Samuel 7:22)
“‘You are My witnesses,’ declares
the Lord, ‘and My servant whom I
have chosen, so that you may know
and believe Me and understand
that I am He. Before Me no god
was formed, nor will there be one
after Me. I, even I am the Lord,
and apart from Me there is no
Savior.’” Isaiah 43:10-11)
“This is what the Lord says -
Israel’s King and Redeemer; the
Lord Almighty: I am the first and I
am the last; apart from Me there is “The Holy Trinity” by Rudolf Schäfer
no God. Who then is like Me? Let
him proclaim it. Let him declare and lay out before Me what has happened since
I established My ancient people, and what is yet to come - yes, let him foretell what
will come. Do not tremble, do not be afraid. Did I not proclaim this and foretell
it long ago? You are My witnesses. Is there any God besides Me? No, there is no
other Rock. I know not one.” (Isaiah 44:6-8)
“For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ
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Jesus.” (1 Timothy 2:5)
The Bible repudiates the anything
goes - your truth is as good as my
truth - view which predominates
throughout our culture and
permeates the world view
expressed in The Da Vinci Code.
As there is one God and one God
alone, so also there is one truth
and one truth alone. That truth is
objective. That is to say, its
validity is not dependent upon any
one’s acceptance or recognition of
it. The Word of God, written by
His inspired prophets and apostles
is the ultimate and decisive source
of the one truth.
“All Scripture is God-breathed
and is useful for teaching,
rebuking, correcting and training
in righteousness, so that the man
of God may be thoroughly
equipped for every good work.”
(2 Timothy 3:16)
“The Word of the Prophets and Apostles - The Source of
Life and Light” by Rudolf Schäfer
“For prophecy never had its
origin in the will of man, but men
spoke from God as they were
carried along by the Holy Spirit.”
(2 Peter 1:21)
Since each and every word of Scripture is God’s Word (“plenary verbal inspiration”)
the Bible is necessarily without error or contradiction and carries the full authority of
God Himself. The truth of the Bible is final and decisive.
“God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He
82

should change His mind. Does He speak and then not act? Does He
promise and not fulfill?” (Deuteronomy 23:19)
“The Scripture cannot be broken.” (John 10: 35)
“Sanctify them by the truth. Your Word is truth.” (John 17:17)
“What if some did not have faith? Will their lack of faith nullify God
faithfulness? Not at all! Let God be true and every man a liar. As it
is written, ‘So that You may be proved right in Your words and prevail
in Your judging.’” (Romans 3:3-4)
“Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Christ Jesus for the faith of
God’s elect and the knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness - a
“Lord Keep Us Steadfast in Thy Word”
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faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God,
who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time.” (Titus 1:1-
2)
“Consequently you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow
citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on
the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself
as the chief cornerstone.” (Ephesians 2:19-20)
“But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other
than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned. As
we have already said, so now I say again: if anybody is preaching to
you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally
condemned.” (Galatians 1:8-9)
“And we also thank God continually
because, when you received the Word
of God, which you heard from us, you
accepted it not as the Word of men,
but as it actually is, the Word of God,
which is at work in you who believe.”
(1 Thessalonians 2:13)
“The Inspiration of the Evangelist Matthew”
Dan Brown and his Da Vinci Code
view the Bible as nothing more than
“a product of man” (DVC, p. 231)
which “did not arrive by fax from
heaven.” (DVC, p. 231) It should
therefore come as no surprise that
throughout the novel the Scriptural
record is ridiculed and rejected.
Historic Christianity stands or falls
with the authority of the Bible. If the
Bible is not the inspired Word of God
then then we are left with nothing
more than the “anything goes”
religion of The Da Vinci Code.
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“Jesus Christ the Son of God” by Rudolf Schäfer
PART IX
The Divine Nature of Christ
The Da Vinci Deception - p.233
“‘My dear,’ Teabing declared, ‘until that moment in history, 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 Nicea.’
‘Hold on. You’re saying Jesus’ divinity was the result of a vote?’ ‘A relatively close vote at that,’
Teabing added, ‘Nonetheless, establishing Christ’s divinity was critical to the further unification
of the Roman empire and the new Vatican power base. By officially endorsing Jesus as the Son
of God, Constantine turned Jesus into a deity who existed beyond the scope of the human world,
an entity whose power was unchallengeable. This not only precluded further pagan challenges
to Christianity, but now the followers of Christ were able to redeem themselves only via the
established sacred channel - the Roman Catholic Church...the early Church literally stole Jesus
from his original followers, hijacking His human message, shrouding it in an impenetrable cloak
of divinity and using it to expand their own power.’”
85

The Da Vinci Code’s assault upon the divinity of Christ is an overt attack upon the
very heart of the Christian religion. If the novel’s claim is accurate and the doctrine
of the two natures in Christ - that Jesus was both true God and true man at the same
th
time - is, in fact, a falsehood invented in the 4 Century and foisted upon the Church
for political reasons by Constantine, then historic Christianity is nothing more than
a fraud. In this instance, as we have seen so often to be the case, Brown is simply
mimicking his own variation of the standard line of his favorite occult theorists. One
of his prime sources, The Templar Revelation - Secret Guardians of the True
Identity of Christ concludes that Jesus was a magician and a missionary of the
Egyptian goddess Isis: “Jesus was not so much the Son of God as a devoted Son of
the Goddess.” (Picknett/Prince, p. 297). Picknett and Prince summarized their
amazing argument in this way:
“Jesus was not the Son of God and neither was he of the Jewish religion
- although he may have been ethnically a Jew. The evidence points to
his preaching a foreign message to the land in which he mounted his
campaign and began his mission. Certainly his contemporaries thought
of him as being an adept of Egyptian magic...Mary Magdalene was a
priestess who was Jesus’ partner in a sacred marriage...She was also
‘apostle of the apostles’ and a renowned preacher...although it is
impossible to know exactly what her message was it is certain that it
would have borne little relationship to what is now known as
Christianity...If anyone was Jesus’ successor, it was the
Magdalene...John (the Baptist), Jesus, and Mary were linked together
inextricably by their religion (that of ancient Egypt) which they adapted
for the Jewish culture.” (Picknett/Prince, pp. 352-353)
Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln, the authors of Holy Blood, Holy
Grail - The Secret History of Christ, also deny the divinity of Jesus, albeit in a
somewhat less extravagant and imaginative way. Their focus is on Mary Magdalen
as the Holy Grail, that is, the vessel through whom the children of Jesus formed a
royal succession. They argue that Jesus was a priest/king who launched an
unsuccessful attempt to regain the throne of Israel and founded a “mystery religion”
in support of that attempt. “It seemed clear that Jesus was a priest-king - an
aristocrat and a legitimate claimant to the throne - embarking on an attempt to
regain his rightful heritage.” (Baigent/Leigh/Lincoln, p. 357) They go on to explain
that he and his wife, Mary Magdalen, based their movement in Bethany outside of
86

Jerusalem. In order to escape his political enemies among the Jews, a fake crucifixion
and resurrection were staged after which they secretly left the country and traveled
to Europe. The basic concern of this theory is not theological but political - that is
the preservation of a dynastic bloodline from which the Merovingian kings of France
could later be descended. The authors at least have the decency to acknowledge that
from the perspective of historic Christianity their views are “heretical, perhaps even
blasphemous” (Baigent/Leigh/Lincoln, p. 408) - which they most certainly are.
What all of these bizarre
theories have in common “is
the conviction that historical,
creedal Christianity is a lie, an
elaborate ruse born our of
thirst for power and a violent
desire to suppress the truth
about Jesus; that he was a
mere mortal or a married man
with lofty political goals or the
high priest of an Egyptian
mystery religion. In their own
ways each denies the death and
resurrection of Jesus, His
salvific work, and the
establishment of a unique
people, the Church, bound not
by ethnicity, or sex, or social
status, but by the unique work
of Jesus Christ the God-man.”
(Olsen/Miesel, p. 112) All
share the conviction that
“King of Kings and Lord of Lords” by Rudolf Schäfer
Christianity should not be
about the forgiveness of sin
and eternal salvation. They deny the stern message of the Law and the reality of sin
as negative and repressive. Their theme is not forgiveness but self-realization and
liberation. “I must be free to be me!” is their constant cry: free to pursue my own
pleasure, free to express my own truth, free to establish my own standards - subject
to no external authority. Jesus as the Son of God and Savior of the world has no
87

th
“I Am the Light of the World” 12 Century Mural from the Church of
Saint Clement in Tahull, Spain
place in the grand Universe of Me. Feminist theologian Mary Daly is painfully direct
in her demand for a radical revision of Christian theology:
“To put it rather bluntly, I propose that Christianity itself should be
castrated by cutting away the products of supermale arrogance; the
myths of sin and salvation which are simply two diverse symptoms of the
same disease...So also the idea of a God-man (God-male on the
imaginative level), the dogma of the hypostatic union, is beginning to be
perceived by some women as a kind of cosmic joke.” (Daly, pp. 71-72)
Dan Brown’s denial of the deity of Christ is more specific than those of his comrades.
He not only rejects the doctrine that Jesus was the Son of God but specifically asserts
that this teaching was not held by Christ’s original followers nor taught in the early
th
Church prior to the Council of Nicea in the 4 Century. This assertion contradicts the
repeated testimony of Scripture and the overwhelming evidence of history.
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The Gospel of Matthew begins with the declaration that Jesus is the fulfillment of the
ancient prophecy of Isaiah: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his
name will be called Emmanuel (which means God with us.)” (Matthew 1:23) The
magnificent Prologue of the Gospel of John opens with the unambiguous assertion:
“In the beginning was the Word and the was with God, and the Word was God. He
was in the beginning with God; and things were made through Him, and without
Him was not anything made that was made.” (John 1:1-3) The four Gospels
specifically refer to Jesus as “the Son of God” more than forty times: “Simon Peter
answered, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’” Matthew 16:16; cf. Also
Matthew 11:27; Mark 12:6;13:32; 14:61-62; Luke 10:22; 22:70; John 10:30; 14:9).
It was Christ’s claim to divinity which most provoked the Jews: “For this reason the
Jews tried all the harder to kill Him; not only was He breaking the Sabbath, but He
was even calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.” (John
5:18) When challenged as to His identity and authority, Jesus specifically invoked
JHWH, the sacred name of God in reference to Himself: “‘I tell you the truth,’ Jesus
answered, ‘before Abraham was born, I am!” (John 8:58). The most compelling
summary of the Gospel, the famous “Gospel in a Nutshell” affirms the same essential
truth: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son that
whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)
That unambiguous testimony to the deity of Jesus continues throughout the New
Testament. St. Paul introduces his letter to the Romans by defining the resurrection
as the definitive demonstration Christ’s deity: “Who through the Spirit of Holiness
was declared with power to be the Son of God by His resurrection from the dead:
Jesus Christ, our Lord.” (Romans 1:4; cf. Also Romans 9:5) In his letter to the
Philippians, St. Paul describes the two natures in Christ in magnificent detail as the
defining truth of the Christian faith:
“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: who being
in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to
be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a
servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in
appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to
death - even death on cross! Therefore, God exalted Him to the
highest place and gave Him the Name that is above every name, that
at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and one earth
and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is
Lord to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:5-11)
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As he writes to young Timothy, Paul
marvels: “Beyond all question, the mystery
of godliness is great: He appeared in a
body, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen
by angels, was preached among the
nations, was believed on in the world, was
taken up in glory.” (1Timothy 3:16) The
writer to the Hebrews offers the same
compelling testimony to the deity of Jesus in
response to those who merely considered
Him to be one of the mighty angels of
heaven:
“But in these last days He has spoken to us
through His Son, whom He appointed Heir
of all things, and through whom He made
the universe. The Son is the radiance of
the Father’s glory and the exact
representation of His being, sustaining all
things by His powerful word. After He had
provided purification for sins, He sat down
at the right hand of the majesty in heaven.
So He became as much superior to the
angels as the Name He has inherited is
superior to theirs.” (Hebrews 1:2-4)
In the triumphant conclusion to the New
Testament, Jesus speaks to St. John in
language that clearly identifies Him as the
“Christ the Light of the World”
by Holeman Hunt
Son of God: “Do not be afraid, I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One:
I was dead and behold I am alive forever! And I hold the keys of death and
Hades.” (Revelation 1:18; cf. Isaiah 44:6 - “I am the First and I am the Last;
besides Me there is no God.” also Isaiah 41:4; 48:12)
To reject the doctrine of the two natures in Christ in the face of this overwhelming
Biblical evidence requires a concomitant rejection of the inspiration and authority of
Scripture. That is, of course, precisely the position of Mr. Brown and his cohorts who
90

scorn the Bible as nothing more than the self-serving work of fallible men who
patched and pieced this documents together long after the fact to validate their own
ideas and reinforce their own power.
The record of Church history is equally consistent in its affirmation of the deity of
Jesus from the very beginning. In his standard history Early Christian Doctrines,
noted scholar J. N. D. Kelly does not exaggerate when he asserts that long before the
decrees of the Council of Nicea “the all but universal Christian conviction in the
preceding centuries had been that Jesus Christ was divine as well as human.” (Kelly,
p. 138) The testimony of the apostolic fathers of the Church, those who studied at the
feet of the apostles, is consistent and compelling. Ignatius of Antioch (c. 50-117)
unequivocally states the incomprehensible mystery of the two natures in Christ:
“We also have a Physician of the Lord our God, Jesus the Christ, the
only-begotten Son and Word, before time began, but who afterwards
became also man, of Mary the virgin. For ‘the Word of God became
flesh.’ Being incorporeal, He was in the body; being impassible, He
was in a passible body; being immortal, He was in a mortal body; being
Life, He became subject to corruption, that He might free our souls from
death and corruption, and heal them and might restore them to health,
when they were diseased with ungodliness and wicked lust.” (ANF,1,
p. 52)
Justin Martyr ( c.100-165) who taught in Ephesus and Rome during the Second
Century is equally direct: “Jesus Christ is the only proper Son who has been begotten
by God, being His Word and first begotten and power; and becoming man according
to His will, He taught us these things for the conversion and restoration of the human
race.” (ANF, 1, p. 170) Bishop Ireneas of Lyon (died c. 190) was an eloquent
defender of historic Christianity against the heresies of the gnostics. In his best
known work “Against Heresies,” Ireneas offers an articulate and detailed defense of
the doctrine of the two natures in Christ:
“But again, those who assert that He was simply a mere man, begotten
by Joseph, remaining in the bondage of the old disobedience, are in a
state of death; having not yet been joined to the Word of God the
Father, nor receiving liberty through the Son...Now the Scripture would
not have testified these things of Him, if, like others, He had been a mere
91

man. But that He had, beyond all others, in Himself that pre-eminent
birth which is from the Most High Father and also experienced the preeminent
generation which is from the Virgin, the divine Scriptures do in
both respects testify of Him; also that He was a man without comeliness
and liable to suffering; and that He sat upon the foal of an ass; that He
received for drink vinegar and gall; that He was despised among the
people and humbled Himself even unto death; and that He is the holy
Lord, the Wonderful, the Counselor, the Beautiful in appearance, and
the Mighty God, coming on the clouds as the Judge of all men - all these
things did the Scriptures prophesy of Him.” (ANF, 1, pp. 448-449)
“The Holy Trinity” by Michael Kirmer (1560)
Clement of Alexandria, a leading theologian of the Church at the end of the 2 nd
century, offers this testimony: “This Word, then, the Christ, the cause of both our
being at first, (for He was in God), of and our well-being, this very Word has now
92

th
“Christ the Divine Judge” 13 Century Mosaic
appeared as man. He alone being both God and man - the Author of all blessings to
us; by whom we, being taught to live well, are sent on our way to life eternal.”
(ANF, 2, p. 173) Tertullian ( c. 160-225), the foremost teacher of the church in North
Africa, applied the doctrine of the two natures in Christ to the events of our Lord’s
passion and resurrection with passionate conviction. He accused those who would
deny either the divine or the human nature of attempting to “halve Christ with a lie:”
“But answer me at once, you who murder truth: Was not God really
crucified? And, having been crucified, did He not really die? And
having indeed really died, did He not really rise again?...The Son of
God was crucified; I am not ashamed because men must needs be
ashamed of it. And the Son of God died. It is by all means to be
believed because it is absurd. And He was buried and rose again; the
fact is certain, because it is impossible...Thus the nature of the two
substances displayed Him as man and God - in one respect born, in the
other unborn; in one respect fleshly, in the other spiritual; in one sense
weak, in the other exceeding strong; in one sense dying and the other
living. This property of the two states, the divine and the human - is
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distinctly asserted as equal truth of both natures alike, with the same
belief both in respect of the spirit and of the flesh.” (ANF, 3, p. 525)
Countless other voices could be added to this unbroken stream of tradition which
followed throughout the early Church. To contend, as does Dan Brown, that the
doctrine of Christ’s deity was a Constantinian innovation foisted upon the Council
of Nicea ( A.D. 325), one must either be completely ignorant of the historical record,
or willing to deliberately misrepresent that history.
The Da Vinci Code’s references to the Council of Nicea are equally inaccurate and
misleading. Brown informs us that the Council concocted the concept of the deity of
Christ and adopted it “by a relatively close vote” (DVC, p. 233) in order to solidify
“The Council of Nicea With the Heretic Arius in the
Foreground Shuddering Before Their Decree”
94

“the new Vatican power base” (DVC, p. 233) and establish “the Roman Catholic
Church” as the only“established sacred channel” (DVC, p. 233) through which men
could be saved.
“St. Athanasius - Champion of the Truth”
by Robin Armstrong
The actual facts bear no resemblance to the novel’s description. Constantine became
the undisputed ruler of the Roman Empire in A.D. 324. A year later, in the Spring of
325, he summoned all the bishops of the Christian Church to an ecumenical Council
at the city of Nicea in Asia Minor. The main purpose of the gathering was to resolve
a bitter dispute which had arisen over the doctrines of a gifted teacher named Arius
from the Egyptian city of Alexandria. Arius and his followers, mainly in the Greek
speaking eastern part of the empire, had challenged the deity of Jesus Christ. The
Arians denied that Jesus had existed before his conception in the womb of the blessed
Virgin Mary. Their popular slogan was “There was a time when he was not.” Nearly
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300 bishops responded to the emperor’s call and gathered for the Council. (The
traditional number of participants was 318) It was the largest meeting of church
leaders in the history of Christendom. The great majority of the bishops came from
the East. Sylvester, the aged bishop of Rome, did not attend. He was in failing health
and jealous of the prominence given to the Eastern Church in the assembly. Instead
he sent two priests to represent him as observers. The leaders of the orthodox
majority in the Council were Bishop Alexander and his assistant Athanasius from
Alexandria. After four weeks of discussion and debate, the bishops adopted this
forceful affirmation of the historic Christian faith in both the humanity and the deity
of Jesus Christ:
“We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible
and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, onlybegotten
from the Father, that is, from the substance of the Father, God
from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made,
of one substance with the Father through whom all things came into
being, things in heaven and things on earth, who for us men and for our
salvation came down and became flesh, becoming man, suffered and
rose again on the third day, ascended into heaven, and will come to
judge the living and the dead. And in the Holy Spirit. But as for those
who say, ‘There was when he was not,’ and ‘Before being born he was
not,’ and that he came into existence out of nothing, or who assert that
the Son of God is of a different reality or substance, or is subject to
alteration or change - these the universal and apostolic church
anathematizes.” (Visalli, p. 221)
Dan Brown’s characterization of this crucial episode in Church history is wrong in
every detail. In the end, only two bishops in the entire assembly, Secundus and
Theonas from the North African province of Libya, voted against the declaration. A
vote of 316 to 2 can hardly be called “relatively close.”
It is anachronistic to cast the Vatican and the Roman Catholic Church as villains in
these events for they did not yet exist at this early date. As noted, the Bishop of
Rome did not even attend the Council and the overwhelming majority of those who
did came from the Eastern part of the Church which did not recognize any particular
leadership role for the Roman Bishop. The senior bishop at the Council who played
a dominant role in its deliberations was Bishop Alexander from the Egyptian city of
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Alexandria.
The affirmation of the deity of Jesus
as the Son of God was not a novelty.
It had been the unanimous teaching
of Christianity since the beginning,
affirmed by the 27 books of the New
Testament (which had been in use
throughout the Church for over 200
years by this time) and endorsed
by the consistent tradition of
Christian teaching. The doctrine of
Arius, which compromised and
questioned the deity of Jesus, was
rejected because it was a novelty.
Arius and his followers were
expelled from the Christian Church.
The Formula of Nicea was edited a
number of times in the years that
followed and ultimately became the
core of one of Christendom’s most
basic statements of faith in the form
of the Nicene Creed.
The Emperor Constantine, also cast
as a villain in the novel, does not
seem to have had a particular
“The Risen Christ with Mary Magdalen”
by Jacob Cornelisz (1507)
preference as to how the debate was to be settled. Early on in the controversy, he
accused the leaders of both sides of being argumentative and quibbling over obscure
points. In a letter to the principals, the Emperor asserted: “Having enquired faithfully
into the origin and foundation of your differences, I find their cause to be of a truly
insignificant nature and quite unworthy of such fierce contention.” (Norwich, I, p.
53) He just wanted it settled so that the ongoing argument would not divide his
newly reunified empire. If he had entertained a personal preference, it would
probably have been in favor Arius, since many of his closest advisors and family
members - including his influential mother Helena and his sister Constantia - were
supporters of the heretic. It would appear that the Emperor did not play an active role
97

in the debates, which were conducted in Greek, a language which he did not speak
fluently. Like a typical politician, ever sensitive to the winds of public opinion,
Constantine figured out where the majority was and then jumped on their bandwagon.
To suggest that these leaders of the Church cravenly yielded to political pressure from
the emperor and compromised on this most crucial point of doctrine is a grievous
injustice. Official persecution of Christianity - most recently under Emperor Galerius
- had only ended fourteen years earlier. Many of the bishops at Nicea were honored
as “confessors.” These were men who had taken their place in the arena facing the
lions. They had endured physical torment and torture and bore on their bodies the
scars that witnessed to their
unwillingness to compromise or
deny the faith. “From the East
came bishops who had suffered
persecution. There was Paul,
bishop of Mesopotamian Caesaria,
with his hands scorched by flames.
Paphnutius of Upper Egypt, famous
for the austerity of his life, had had
his right eye dug out and the sinews
of his left leg cut during the
Dioceltian persecution. Bishop
Potammon of Heraclea had also lost
an eye.” (Payne, p. 5) Surely mere
political pressure could not succeed
in intimidating these brave men
where physical torture and the threat
of death had failed.
“The Holy Trinity” by Lucas Cranach (1515)
The doctrine of the two natures in
Christ is of crucial importance
within God’s plan of salvation. It is
not an exaggeration to assert that
belief in Jesus Christ as both true
man and true God is the very heart
of the Christian faith. Without the
reality of the God/Man, the
incarnation, the substitutionary
death on the cross, and the
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triumphant resurrection are all robbed of
their power. In his classic study The Two
Natures in Christ, Martin Chemnitz, the
great theologian of the Lutheran
reformation, explains the importance of
this doctrine with these well chosen words:
“The knowledge of the person of Christ is
described in the Word of God as knowing
that He is true God and equal with God
and that He is made a partaker of flesh
and blood as we are, except for sin. That
is, there are two natures, the divine and
the human, in the incarnate Christ.
Scripture expressly teaches that these two
natures do not subsist by themselves, but
that they have been united into the one
person of the Logos...Thus there are not
two persons, but one Christ, one Lord, one
Mediator. Furthermore, Scripture teaches
that from the hypostatic union a
communication of attributes results
whereby those things which are the
properties of the one nature are attributed
to the person...For although the Deity does
not die, God was made man and suffered
and died in His own flesh. Scripture also
shows that in the works of Christ as
Mediator and Savior, because of the
hypostatic union, each performs in
communion with the other that which is
proper to it...On this basis, Scripture then
leads us to the communication of the
majesty. For although cleansing from sin
and vivification are essentially properties
of the divine nature of Christ, yet Scripture
also predicates vivification, or making
“The Holy Trinity”
Robert Campin - 1410
99

alive to the flesh of Christ...Moreover,
this communication of majesty does
not take place through commingling,
conversion, or equating of the natures
but through the plan of the hypostatic
union, as the ancients used to
say...Scripture carefully treats this
doctrine and repeats it in many
places. Christ indeed proclaims that
this faith and confession, is the rock
on which He will build His Church
(Matthew 16:16). John does not
hesitate to assert that this is the norm
by which the Spirit of truth is
distinguished from the spirit of error,
namely that the only-begotten Son of
God, whom the Father had sent into
the world, has come in the flesh (1
John 4:2). I shall not now add the fact
that successive ecumenical councils
were called at great expense and
carried on with great labor in order to
explain and illuminate this doctrine.
And I shall pass over in silence the
fact that almost all of the writers of
the ancient Church devoted the
greatest part of their efforts to
refining the teaching of this mystery.
They felt and judged that it was in no
100
“The Risen Christ”
by Andrea Mantegna (1495)
way useless or unnecessary to explain and understand the doctrine of the person of
Christ, for the Athanasian Symbol has been right in proclaiming that for him who
wishes to be saved it is necessary for eternal salvation that he faithfully believe the
incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ...God has revealed to us in His Word through
His Spirit, as much concerning this mystery as He judged necessary and useful for
us in this life for a true and saving knowledge of our Savior Christ. Thus the things
that are in the revealed Word regarding this mystery are not to be rejected or
suppressed, but rather we must learn and understand them with grateful minds.”
(Chemnitz, pp. 16-17)

“The Vision of the Holy Grail” by Burne Jones - 1890
PART X
The Legend of the Holy Grail
The Da Vinci Deception - pp. 238, 249, 257
“‘Sophie, legend tells us the Holy Grail is a chalice - a cup. But the Grail’s description as a
chalice is actually an allegory to protect the true nature of the Holy Grail. That is to say, the
legend uses the chalice as a metaphor for something far more important...The Grail is literally
the ancient symbol for womanhood, and the Holy Grail represents the sacred feminine and the
goddess, which, of course, has now been lost, virtually eliminated by the Church. The power of
the female, and her ability to produce life was once very sacred, but it posed a threat to the and
so the sacred feminine was demonized and called unclean...The Grail is symbolic of the lost
goddess. When Christianity came along, the old pagan legends did not die easily. Legends of
chilvalric quests for the lost Grail were, in fact stories of forbidden quests to find the lost sacred
feminine’... ‘The legend of the Holy Grail is a legend about royal blood. When Grail legends
speak about the chalice that held the blood of Christ it speaks, in fact of Mary Magdalene - the
female womb that carried Jesus’ royal bloodline...The royal bloodline of Jesus Christ is the
source of the most enduring legend of all time - the Holy Grail’... ‘At its heart, the quest for the
Holy Grail has always been a quest for the Magdalene - the wronged queen, entombed with proof
of her family’s rightful claim to power...Christ’s lineage was in perpetual danger. The early
Church feared that if the lineage were permitted to grow, the secret of Jesus and Magdalene
would eventually surface and challenge the fundamental Catholic doctrine - that of a divine
Messiah who did not consort with women or engage in sexual union.’”
101

Dan Brown weaves his tangled web of conspiracy around the popular legend of the
Holy Grail which he grandiosely describes as “the most enduring legend of all time.”
(DVC, p. 249) In his complex scenario, the Grail becomes the symbol of the sacred
feminine, the lost goddess, Mary Magdalen as the wife of Christ and mother of His
children, and the royal bloodline of Jesus descendants. The novel reports that the
actual artifacts protected by the Grail guardians are the bones of Mary Magdalen and
four huge chests of documents which certify the continuation of the descendants of
Christ. All of this is an ungainly combination of the conspiracy theories of Brown’s
favorite occult and feminist writers. “To this degree Brown fuses the principle
tenets of Holy Blood , Holy Grail with The Templar Revelation’s emphasis on the
goddess and the mystical feminism of Margaret Starbird.” (Olsen/Miesel, p. 179)
th
“The Presentation of the Grail to King Arthur” - 14 Century
The actual legend of the Holy Grail, while genuinely fascinating, is considerably less
dramatic than The Da Vinci Code’s revision of it. The legend seems to have been
based upon Irish Celtic tales of magical vessels which provided endless bounty. The
English word “grail” is derived from the Latin noun “gradale” which refers to a
deep platter or tray upon which food was served. In the novel, Professor Teabing
performs a bit of etymological sleight of hand as he transforms the Old French words
“San Greal” (Holy Grail) into the words “Sang Real” (Royal Blood). The shift of
this single letter, he contends, is of enormous significance and provides the key to
understanding the Grail legend. Teabing argues that”Sang Real” is “the most ancient
form of the word” (DVC, p. 250). This is simply not true. The term “Greal” first
appears in conjunction with the myth of the Grail in a French romantic poem by
102

Chretien de Troyes written in the
th
second half of the 12 century ( c.
A.D. 1175). In this original text, the
noun “Greal” (Grail) is used without
the adjective “San” (Holy) so that
there can be no doubt whatsoever as to
the author’s intent. The mistaken
identification of Holy Grail (“San
Greal”) as Royal Blood (“Sang
Real”) originated in England in the
th
15 Century - in all probability the
result of “the misreading or whim of
an English writer perhaps not entirely
at ease with French.” (Barber, p. 311)
But for Dan Brown, this 500 year old
scribal error becomes the single crucial
key to the entire mystery of the Grail.
In Chretien de Troyes unfinished
medieval epic, the Grail is a large
jeweled serving dish containing a
single Communion Wafer which is
presented at the royal banquet of a
maimed King. The King cannot be
healed until a hero knight named
Percival releases the magical powers
of the Grail by posing the correct
103
“The Consecration of a Grail Knight”
by Edmund Blair Leighton - 1901
questions about its origin. In the decades which followed the tale was retold many
times, amended and expanded over and over again. The jeweled bowl became a
golden chalice. The chalice became the cup with which Christ celebrated the Last
Supper. The chalice, we are then told, was also present on Calvary to catch the sacred
blood which poured from the Savior’s side. Joseph of Arimathea became the
custodian of the Grail. According to the legend, the Jews walled Joseph up in a
prison cell in Jerusalem for his role in the burial of Jesus. Throughout the years of his
entombment, the Grail provided the food and drink that he needed to survive. He
was finally released from his confinement in A.D. 70 by the Roman emperor
Vespasian. Joseph of Arimathea carried the Grail with him on his journeys across the
ancient world. That pilgrimage ended in England and the quest for the Holy Grail
was linked to King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table. Sir Galahad, the

purest and most noble of Arthur’s knights, was privileged to stand before the Grail
and receive communion from the hand of Christ Himself. The Arthurian version of
the Grail legend was preserved and elaborated in the English speaking world by
writers like Thomas Mallory (“Le Morte D’ Arthur”) and Alfred Lord Tennyson
(“The Idylls of the King”). In Germany, the story followed a different path. The
legend was retold by the medieval poet Wolfram von Eschenbach (c. 1210). His hero
was the noble knight Parzifal, and the Grail became a magical white stone placed on
earth by the angels at the time of the great War in Heaven. The stone was kept within
the Grail Fortress and guarded by the noble knights of the Holy Grail. This variation
of the tale was immortalized in the operas of Richard Wagner (“Parsifal” and
“Lohingrin”) and led to bizarre occult ceremonies held by Heinrich Himmler and the
elite inner circle of his Nazi SS. Himmler constructed a massive mountaintop castle
at Wewelsburg with the “Führershalle” - the Leader’s Hall - at its heart built around
a huge oak roundtable where the “Reichsführer” and his elite could gather in
Arthurian splendor. Special SS teams scoured Europe and the globe in search of the
Holy Grail which Himmler was convinced would give him the power to destroy
“Der Führershalle” in the Wewelsburg Castle with Its Arthurian
Roundtable
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Christianity once and for all and replace it with a Teutonic religion fit for the Master
Race. Peter Levenda, author of Unholy Alliance - A History of Nazi Involvement
with the Occult, describes Heinrich Himmler’s quest for the Holy Grail as “one of the
most outlandish - yet somehow oddly grand, strangely cosmic - endeavors of the
Third Reich in general, and of the SS in particular.” (Levenda, p. 203) These efforts,
which most people dismiss as purely fictional, were immortalized in the first and third
movies of Steven Spielberg’s “Indiana Jones” trilogy.
There is considerable variety in the different versions of the legend of the Holy Grail.
But in all of them, the Grail is a mystical, magical object - a golden platter, a jeweled
chalice, or a sacred stone. In every case, the stories encourage the knightly virtues
of bravery, selflessness, and purity. In most instances, the empowerment of or reward
for such virtues is bestowed through a relic that is somehow linked to the Passion of
Jesus Christ and His presence in the
Sacrament of Holy Communion. Grail
historian Norma Lorre Goodrich is
correct when she concludes that every
major aspect of the legend “derives from
Jesus, His life and His death.”
(Goodrich, p. 329)
This pattern can be seen most
emphatically in a scene from one of the
earliest versions of the story, “The Quest
for the Holy Grail,” written around A.D.
1220. The worthy knights who have
achieved their quest, and have come into
presence the Grail - a beautiful golden
serving dish (“the platter in which Jesus
partook of the pascal lamb with His
disciples”(Matarasso, p. 276) - take part
in a celebration of communion with
Bishop Josephus, the son of Joseph of
Arimathea. As the Words of Institution
are pronounced, “He took from the
Vessel a host made in the likeness of
bread. As he raised it aloft, there
“Sir Galahad Before the Grail”
105

“The Achievement of the Quest” by Beardsley
106
descended from above a figure like
unto a child, whose countenance
glowed and blazed a bright as a fire;
and he entered the bread which quite
distinctly took on human form before
the eyes of those assembled there.”
(Matarasso, p. 275) The service
continues, and the knights behold “the
figure of a man appear from out of the
Holy Vessel, unclothed, and bleeding
from his hands and feet and side.”
(Matarasso, p. 276) This man, the
Lord Jesus, distributes the Sacrament
to the assembled knights and “it
seemed that the host placed on his
tongue was made of bread. But when
they had all received the holy food,
which they found so honeyed and
delectable, it seemed as though the
essence of all sweetness was housed
within their bodies.” (Matarasso, p.
276). The progression from the small
child to the man who bears the wounds
of the cross signifies the incarnation and the passion of our Lord. The fact that Christ
enters and proceeds from the consecrated Host within the Grail indicates His gracious
presence in the Sacrament. Grail Historian P. M. Maratasso correctly summarizes the
significance of the timeless legend in this way: “The Grail itself is the symbol of
God’s grace. At once, the dish of the Last Supper, the vessel which received the
effusion of Christ’s blood when His side was pierced, and in the text both chalice and
ciborium, its secrets are the mystery of the Eucharist unveiled.” (Maratasso, p.15)
This unmistakably clear Christian symbolism notwithstanding, the legend of the Holy
Grail has proven to be fertile ground for occult speculators of every stripe and
description. For feminist mystic Margaret Starbird, the Grail became the key in her
quest to rediscover the lost goddess:
“It was clear that the ‘Grail Heresy’ - that Jesus had been married and
that Mary Magdalene had brought a child of his to Gaul- existed and

had existed in Europe for a long
time...Everywhere I was finding
confirmation of the basic tenet of the
heresy of the Holy Grail - that Mary
Magdalene was the Beloved of
Christ. I sometime felt as if my hair
had caught fire...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...This Grail spirituality has
been neglected...the doctrine of the
sacred partnership of humanity and
divinity in each human individual.”
(Starbird, pp. 77-78,153)
Alan Butler, author of The Goddess,
The Grail, And The Lodge, is a bit
more colorful in making the same
point as he asserts “that the Holy
Grail represents every vagina on
earth.” (Butler, p. 334) Princeton
scholar Roger Sherman Loomis, in
his intriguing study The Grail - From
Celtic Myth to Christian Symbol,
dismisses all such speculation as
“Sir Perceval Sees the Grail for the First Time”
by Ferdinand Piloty
“preposterous.” (Loomis, p. 197). The Da Vinci Code’s outlandish manipulation of
the Grail legend transcends these and the abundance of other occult fantasies on this
topic. In Brown’s hyper-active imagination the Grail is transformed into a metaphor
for every one of his numerous grievances against historic Christianity - the denial of
deity of Christ, the marriage of Jesus to Mary Magdalene, the royal bloodline which
was the result of their sexual relationship, the religion of the goddess and the
restoration of the sacred feminine. outlandish manipulation of the Grail legend
transcends these and the abundance of other occult fantasies on this topic. In
Brown’s hyper-active imagination, the Grail is transformed into a metaphor for every
one of his numerous grievances against historic Christianity. According to this all
107

encompassing scenario, the Grail
represents the denial of the deity of
Christ and the marriage of Jesus to
Mary Magdalen. At the same time
it is a symbol for the religion of the
goddess and the principle of the
divine feminine. In addition to all
of this, Brown also subscribes to the
view that the Grail symbolizes the
ongoing royal bloodline of Jesus
Christ which has a host of far
reaching implications all its own. In
his bestseller Bloodline of the Holy
Grail - The Hidden Lineage of
Jesus Revealed, popular occult
writer Laurence Gardner details and
applies the bloodline argument in
this way:
“In the original Grail legends there
were constant references to the
Grail family, the Grail dynasty and
the custodians (or guardians) of the
Grail. Quite apart from legend, the
“The Grail Maiden” by Arthur Rackam Knights Templars of Jerusalem
were indeed the guardians of the
Sangreal...- the Blood Royal, carried in the uterine chalice of Mary Magdalene...As
detailed in medieval literature, the Grail was identified with a family and a dynasty.
It was the desposynic Vine of Judah, perpetuated in the West through the blood of
Jesus...It descended to the Merovingian kings of France and the Stuart kings of
Scots...In descent from Jesus’ brother James/Joseph of Arimathea, the Grail family
founded the princely house of Camulod and the Princely House of Wales. Notable in
these lines were King Lucius, Coel Hen, Empress Helena, Ceredig Gwledig and King
Arthur. The divine legacy of the Sangreal was perpetuated in the sovereign and most
noble houses of Britain and Europe and is still extent today.” (Gardner, pp. 201-202)
These, The Da Vinci Code ominously informs us, are the dark secrets which
108

Christianity generally and the Roman Catholic Church specifically have conspired for
centuries to conceal and deny. The evil minions of Rome will stop at nothing , we are
told, to prevent the disclosure of the ancient truths which would bring about the
collapse of Christianity. Brown contends that the Church has been guilty of
countless murders over the years to suppress the secrets of the Holy Grail. Professor
Teabing sums up the Church’s pattern of brutal repression in this way:
“My dear, the Church has two thousand years of experience pressuring
those who threaten to unveil its lies. Since the days of Constantine, the
Church has successfully hidden the truth about Mary Magdalene and
Jesus. We should not be surprised that now, once again, they have
found a way to keep the world in the dark. The Church may no longer
employ crusaders to slaughter non-believers, but their influence is no
less pervasive. No less insidious...History repeats itself. The Church
“The Holy Grail Appearing Before the Knights of the
th
Round Table” - 15 Century Illustration
109

has a precedent of murder when it comes to
silencing the Sangreal.”(DVC, p. 409) For
this reason, The Da Vinci Code insists, the
guardians of the Grail legend, the Knights
Templar and geniuses like Leonardo da
Vinci, Botticelli, and Sir Isaac Newton,
risked their very lives to protect and
preserve the truths which the legend
conveyed.
The Damsel of the Grail”
by Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1857
All of this nonsense is nothing more than a
house of cards built upon suspicion,
innuendo, and allegation. When The Da
Vinci Code’s theory is subjected to honest
historical scrutiny, it quickly disintegrates,
revealing its total lack of substance or basis
in fact. Medieval historian Richard Barber
is the author of The Holy Grail -
Imagination and Belief - a work considered
by many to be the most comprehensive and
authoritative modern assessment of the Grail
legend. Barber offers a devastating critique
of the conspiracy approach to the history of
the Holy Grail. He uses Holy Blood, Holy
Grail - The Secret History of Christ - The
Shocking History of the Grail by Michael
Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln
as the prime example of such “pseudohistory.”
As previously noted, Holy Blood,
Holy Grail is one of the foundational
sources for The Da Vinci Code, specifically
endorsed by Dan Brown as the book which
“finally brought the idea of Christ’s
bloodline into the mainstream.” ( DVC, p.
253). This is Dr. Barber’s analysis:
“The Templar-Grail myth was not seriously
110

th
revived until the last two decades of the 20 Century. It is at the heart
of the most notorious of all the Grail pseudo-histories Holy Blood, Holy
Grail which is a classic example of the conspiracy theory of history. For
‘conspirators’ history is not bunk, as Henry Ford famously described it,
but its orthodox form is a vast deception, practiced by those in power to
cover up the truth...It would take a book as long as the original to refute
and dissect Holy Blood, Holy Grail point by point; it is essentially a text
which proceeds by innuendo not by refutable scholarly debate...
Essentially, the whole argument is an ingeniously constructed series of
suppositions combined with forced readings of such tangible facts as
are offered....And it is not sufficient to confine oneself exclusively to
facts. This is carte blanche to create an imaginary network of
previously invisible links...Once again, the Grail’s chief function seems
to be as a lodestar for imaginative creation, in this case disguised as
history but in truth imaginative indeed.” (Barber, pp. 310-311)
In the world of conspiracy buffs, those who are in on the secret are the only ones who
know the truth, and anyone who disagrees with them is either ignorant or a part of the
“How Sir Galahad, Sir Bors and Sir Percival Were Fed with the Sanc Grael”
by Dante Rossetti
111

evil conspiracy. It is a world filled with delusions and paranoia. It is the world of
The Da Vinci Code.
There is a tragic irony in the modern transformation of the legend of the Holy Grail.
That which was once a profoundly Christian symbol has mutated into just one more
emblem of our contemporary obsession with self. That which was once the means of
expressing Christian truth and encouraging Christian piety has become instead one
more weapon in the arsenal of those who would attack and destroy historic
Christianity. Dr. Barber notes the substance of this change:
“The Grail looms large as a non-specific symbol of the quest for interior truth,
stripped of its Christian overtones, and, given the New Age fondness for a return to
a more primitive religious state on the grounds that it leads us closer to the natural
world and therefore brings us into harmony with our environment...For this is in
many ways, a new faith based on belief in the overriding importance of the self...The
Western idealization of the individual is taken to its extreme, and the Grail, once a
symbol of universal redemption, is the means only to individual selffulfillment...Ironically,
a symbol with a very precise Christian origin and context has
become a means of escaping from established religion and into a world where
everything has a voice.” (Barber, pp. 319-320)
“Knights of the Round Table Leaving on the Grail Quest” by Burne-Jones
112

PART XII
Conclusion
The Da Vinci Code is a sadly typical example of contemporary culture’s aversion for
any vestige of historic Christianity. Author Dan Brown has concocted an unseemly
brew of historical inaccuracy, Biblical misrepresentation, theological distortion,
occult fantasy, and New Age/Feminist mysticism in his quest to discredit the
Christian faith. The fact that all of this gobbledygook has been accorded any
credence whatsoever is indicative of the desperate desire of modern cultural elites that
it be true. In today’s politically correct world view, outlandish conspiracy theories
are characteristic of crazies and kooks on the radical right. However, when a liberal
suggests that “Opus Dei” and the Roman Catholic Church have been secretly
assassinating people for centuries to maintain the falsehood of the deity of Christ, he
is hailed as a courageous champion of the truth and propelled to instant celebrity
status by the keepers of our cultural conscience. Thus has The Da Vinci Code
become a multi-million dollar best seller and a blockbuster movie. The audacity and
arrogance of the double-standard in operation here is mind boggling.
Christians dare not simply dismiss all of this because of the blatant nature of the
fraud. There is simply too much at stake in this matter. The falsehoods advanced
within The Da Vinci Code - under the clever guise of fiction - contradict the very
essence of the Christian faith - the Trinity, the Two Natures in Christ, the authority
of the Bible as the Word of God. In more forthright times, these are the truths for
brave martyrs shed their blood and died. The religion of The Da Vinci Code is
merely another variation the deification of self which rejects any standard of truth or
morality beyond my own desires and delusions. The great god “I” will tolerate no
rivals to his reign and all must bow down before him. Those who fail to do so will
be marginalized within society by constant ridicule and scorn. The quiet hiss of the
ancient lie reverberates all around us still - “You will not surely die...For God knows
that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing
good from evil.” (Genesis 3:4-5) There is no truth beyond my truth. There is no
right or wrong beyond my own need or power. If it feels good, do it. The same lies
that brought death in the beginning continue to destroy us still today.
In the face of this overwhelming falsehood God’s people must stand firm and
resolute. The only antidote for the lies of Satan is the truth of God. “Submit
yourselves then to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7)
113

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