The Da Vinci Code: History or Fiction?
Everybody loves a conspiracy, but nobody likes to be duped. Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code (Random, 2003) pulls the reader through page after page of layered plots, multiple codes, intrigue, and finally betrayal only to culminate in-No, I will not spoil the ending for you. Somewhere along the winding trail from Paris to London back to Paris, the reader learns that powerful churchmen portrayed Jesus Christ as the Son of God to suppress the sacred feminine when, in fact, he was a mortal man who fell in love with Mary Magdalene with whom he had a daughter, Sarah. Only the Priory of Sion-a secret society whose members included such well-known figures as Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Leonardo da Vinci-knows the truth. The rest of humankind has been duped.
The villain is-I cannot tell you that either-but I can tell you there is an evil conspiring church that will stop at nothing to destroy the documents that would expose their historic farce. The evil church's plot is similar to that of Star Wars. In a far, faraway land (Nicea), a wicked emperor (Constantine) decided that to solidify his empire (Rome) he needed an army of imperial storm troopers (bishops). So, at a council to authorize his army of domination, the evil emperor-in collusion with the clones of the supreme clone-decided that only twenty-seven documents (the New Testament) would be considered authoritative.
To enforce the will of the emperor, Constantine and the boys of Nicea created a supreme male who was superhuman and never married-Jesus Christ. To make sure that no one found out about their subterfuge, Constantine also sent forth an edict to burn all heretics and heretical writings (the Gnostic gospels). However, as in the case of all the other edicts before and since, there was someone who would not do what he or she was told. That person hid the documents in the ground (the Nag Hammadi Library in Egypt), and it was only a matter of time (1945) before the Force caused these to be found and to reveal the truth about Jesus and Mary showing up at the Last Supper dressed like yin and yang.
When The Da Vinci Code is viewed this way, it does not sound serious, but people are taking this book seriously because it purports to be based on historic documents. People should not be blamed for this seriousness, for the author affirms on the opening fact sheet, "All descriptions of artwork, architecture, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate." Also, there are some claims made about Mona Lisa's smile that just ruin the whole image. What is most disturbing, and what I consider the most critical historical claim of the book, is that there are other gospels portraying Jesus as solely mortal and that Constantine willfully suppressed them.
Like any good fictional conspiracy, there is just enough truth in The Da Vinci Code to make it believable, but when the facts are examined the conspiracy collapses. It is true that Constantine did wait until three days before his death to be baptized. It is also true that Constantine retained the title of High Priest of the Heathen, but it is not true that Constantine limited the number of gospels.
Long before Constantine became emperor, the New Testament gospels were limited to
four. In A.D. 250, Origen wrote: "I know a certain gospel which is called The
Gospel according to Thomas, and a Gospel according to Matthias and
many others I have read-lest we should in any way be considered ignorant..
Nevertheless, among all these, we have approved solely what the church
has recognized, which is that only the four gospels should be accepted."1 Origen
was president of the catechetical school in Alexandria,
Indeed, Origen was in on the common consensus of the church that approved solely of the four gospels. In A.D. 250, he endorsed the church's approval of only four gospels even though he knew of the others. For all you CSI buffs out there, this removes Constantine from the crime scene. Personally, I am not a big fan of Constantine, but on this one he has an ironclad alibi. He was not born yet, so it is rather hard to pin it on him. The gospels were already limited by A.D. 250. If Constantine did not limit the gospels, who did? Origen tells us it was the church. Was this the Roman Catholic Church? No. This was before the bishop of Rome rose to supremacy. The very fact that Origen would give his approval tells us that he was free to speak for himself. The church he referred to was not a unified hierarchical church but a diverse church unified in its recognition of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as the sole authentic gospels.
As early as A.D. 110, Papias, the bishop of Hierapolis, stated, "Mark, having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately, though not indeed in order, whatsoever he remembered of the things done or said by Christ."2 Just forty years later in Rome, Justin Martyr, the leader of a theological school wrote, "For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them" 3 Papias's and Justin's references to the gospels show that the church received them as authoritative because they contained the words of Christ. The church did not invest the gospels with authority; the church recognized the authority in the gospels invested by Christ.
The
gospels Justin Martyr's school studied in Rome were the four gospels. This was made clear by Tatian,
one of Justin's pupils. In A.D. 170, Tatian wrote
the Diatessaron. ("Diatessaron"
is a musical term for the harmony of four.) Tatian harmonized
the four gospels-Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John-into one continuous gospel
and called it Diatessaron. That he harmonized only four tells us
how many gospels were recognized in the second century. In A.D. 190, Irenaeus, the bishop of Lyon in southern
In
the early third century, Tertullian of Carthage,
North Africa (A.D. ca. 155-ca. 225), corrected those who departed from
the four gospels as follows: "Forasmuch as every man, just as it suits
his own temper, modifies the traditions he has received after the same
fashion as the man who handed them down did, when he molded them according
to his own will."5 Valentinus (A.D. ca. 100-ca. 175) was the one Tertullian referred to as having molded a gospel (the "Gospel
of Truth") according to his own will. By the early third century, gospels
that were made up were being modified, which Tertullian showed was another indicator that they were not
authentic. By the mid-third century, Origen added his voice to a chorus
of voices from Asia Minor, southern
As they said in the old West, "All the shootin' was over" by the time Constantine showed up. He had nothing to do with limiting the gospels. Constantine did request fifty copies of the Bible, and years later, after Constantine's death (A.D. 337), Athanasius (A.D. 296-373), the bishop of Alexandria, sent out an Easter letter (Festal Letter 39, A.D. 367) listing the number of books in the New Testament recognized as canonical. But only a conspiracy theorist would accuse a guy (Constantine) who was not yet alive when the gospels were limited to four-and who had been dead thirty years before a letter was sent out listing the New Testament books as twenty-seven-as the one who limited the number of books in the New Testament.
The reader needs to remember that The Da Vinci Code is a fictional conspiracy theory. Even its Scripture lessons are made up. YMHW is not the corruption of Jehovah but the exact opposite. Any first-year seminary student learns in Hebrew 101 (that is not a code, just a number for a class) the name Jehovah is the combination of the vowel points for Elohim with the consonants of YHWH. And Shekinah is not the feminine name for God; it is the word that rabbis later used to describe God's presence. It is really unfair to hold the author of The Da Vinci Code to the standards of historical research when he is really writing fiction. The problem is that fiction based even haphazardly on history often provides the basis for many people's belief systems. Some find in The Da Vinci Code what they believe deep down, and, admittedly, it is easy to believe that the church has been involved in cover-ups and that men have suppressed women. But we should be a little suspicious of anything that recasts Jesus into the role of a gender-neutral multiculturalist who really did not die for sins and rise again but encouraged us to follow the inner light. Though this may be modern and acceptable, it certainly is neither historical nor biblical.
However, all this does not really answer the question "Did Jesus and Mary Magdalene have sex?" If you believe the movies (such as The Last Temptation of Christ), fiction books (such as The Da Vinci Code), and made-up gospels (such as the Gospel of Philip), the answer is yes. If, on the other hand, you believe the canonical gospels passed down to us by those who walked with Jesus, confirmed through ancient testimony of the church and verified by over five thousand manuscripts written in Greek, Coptic, and Latin, the answer is no. Well, then, what about the "sacred feminine"? The Da Vinci Code says that the Gnostic gospels elevated women whereas the canonical gospels suppressed them. Have you read the Gnostic gospels? The last supposed saying of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas reads like this: "Simon Peter said to them, 'Make Mary leave us, for females are not worthy of life.' Jesus said, 'Look, I shall guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the Kingdom of Heaven" (Thomas 114). 6 So much for the sacred feminine in the Gnostic gospels!
As for the insinuation that the canonical gospels suppress women, it just does not match up with the words of Jesus. Jesus' command to men to not lust is also an affirmation that a woman's value is not as a sex object (Matthew 5:28). When a woman raised her voice and said to Jesus, "Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that you sucked!" Jesus responded, "Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!" thereby affirming that a woman's highest role in life resides not in motherhood but in doing the will of God (Luke 11:27-28, RSV). This is good advice for everyone. The four gospels demonstrate that Jesus raises everyone without an agenda for either gender. This is more than I can say for the Gnostic gospels.
Knowing this, I could not help noticing that The Da Vinci Code skirted (pun intended) the Gospel of Thomas. Truthfully, I am glad it did because even the plot of Thomas is boring. How many ways can people try to turn Jesus into the Buddha? I wish people who want to be Buddhists would be honest with themselves and just join a society of the divine spark of man rather than trying to de-historicize Jesus. Jesus really walked on earth, died, and rose again. It is history! All that being said, I enjoyed The Da Vinci Code. After all, everybody loves a conspiracy. But do not be duped. This is not history; it is just fiction.
Notes
1 Origen. "Homilies on Luke: Fragments on Luke." The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation (Washington: Catholic U of America P, 1996), vol. 94, p. 6.
2 G. A. Williamson, trans. Eusebius: The History of the Church (New York: Penguin, 1965), EC 3.39, p. 103.
3 Justin Martyr. "The First Apology." The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), vol. 1, chapter LXVI, p. 185.
4 Irenaeus. "Against Heresies. The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), vol. 1, book 3.11.8-9, p 428.
5 Tertullian. "The Prescription against Heretics." The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), vol. 3, chapter 42, p 264.
6 John Dart and Ray Riegert. The Gospel of Thomas: Unearthing the Lost Words of Jesus (Berkeley: Seastone, 2000), pp. 79-80.
7 If you wish to know the real history of the New Testament documents, read Hidden Gospels: How the Search for Jesus Lost Its Way (Oxford UP, 2001) by Philip Jenkins, a professor of history and religious studies at The Pennsylvania State University. You might also read How We Got the Bible (2nd ed., Baker, 1988) by Neil R. Lightfoot or The Canon of Scripture (InterVarsity, 1988) by F. F. Bruce.
Michael Peters, Ph.D. <pete@christthekinginfo.com>
Pastor, Christ the King Church
Webster Groves, Missouri
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