Catholic Answers Special Report: Cracking

The Da Vinci Code

'Everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false.'
This is the startling claim of a book that has taken the world by storm over the past
couple of years: 'The Da Vinci Code,' by Dan Brown.

'The Da Vinci Code' has become a huge publishing phenomenon: In the year after it was
released, it sold six million copies in hardback. It has spent more than a year on the New
York Times best-seller list, and by April, more than seventeen million people had read it.
It has been translated into twenty eight languages, and it's now being made into a film
starring Tom Hanks, Ian McKellen, and Audrey Tatou.

So why does it matter? It isn't the story that's important, but the back story. According to
this back story Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, and they had children. Jesus
intended Mary, not Peter, to lead his movement. However, everything went wrong. First
Jesus' movement was hijacked by Peter and the disciples, and then by the Roman
Emperor Constantine.

Constantine called a church council - the Council of Nicaea - which voted to make Jesus
divine. Until then, Jesus' followers had believed that he was just a mortal man - a great
prophet and teacher, but nothing more. After the Council, they believed he was the Son of
God.

Constantine also authorised a new version of the Bible, which only included Gospels that
presented Jesus as the Son of God. There were many other, earlier, Gospels, which
portrayed him as an inspired and inspiring human leader, but these were all burned on
Constantine's orders.

The Church has suppressed the true story of this human Jesus who was married to Mary
Magdalene, and in its place it has given us the false story of Jesus the Son of God. It is
this male-dominated story that has been responsible for so much conflict and bloodshed
in the world for the past two thousand years. This will only be put right when the
Church's story is dismissed, and masculine and feminine are brought back into mystical
harmony.

However, the secret of Mary Magdalene and Jesus' bloodline has never been completely
lost. It is the truth that lies behind the legends of the Holy Grail. It has been hinted at in
works of art, such as Leonardo Da Vinci's 'Last Supper.' It has been preserved in secret
Gospels that have recently been re-discovered, and through a cache of documents from
the temple in Jerusalem. These were found by a group of knights in the Middle Ages, and
subsequently protected by a secret society. At the right time, this society will make the
secret public. When they do, it will mean the end of Christianity as we know it.
 Sophie made her way closer to the painting, scanning the thirteen figures
—Jesus Christ in the middle, six disciples on His left, and six on His right.
“They’re all men,” she confirmed.

“Oh?” Teabing said. “How about the one seated in the place of honor, at
the right hand of the Lord?”

Sophie examined the figure to Jesus’ immediate right, focusing in. As she
studied the person’s face and body, a wave of astonishment rose within
her. The individual had flowing red hair, delicate folded hands, and the
hint of a bosom. It was, without a doubt…female.

“That’s a woman!” Sophie exclaimed.

Teabing was laughing. “Surprise, surprise. Believe me, it’s no mistake.

Leonardo was skilled at painting the difference between the sexes.”

...

Sophie moved closer to the image. The woman to Jesus’ right was young
and pious-looking, with a demure face, beautiful red hair, and hands
folded quietly….

“Who is she?” Sophie asked.

“That, my dear,” Teabing replied, “is Mary Magdalene.” (p. 243)

According to The Da Vinci Code, Mary Magdalene was the wife of Jesus, and their
offspring included the Merovingian kings of France. Hence Mary Magdalene, and not the
last-supper cup, was the Holy Grail, in that her womb served as the chalice from which
the royal blood of Jesus flowed forth in a royal posterity. A mysterious society called the
Priory of Sion (Leonardo was supposedly served as one-time Grand Master [p. 204]) was
dedicated to protecting “the true history of Jesus,” which the Roman Catholic Church
throughout its long history had energetically tried to suppress. This ancient antagonism
between Rome and the Priory of Sion, The Da Vinci Code asserts, is also symbolically
represented in The Last Supper:

[Teabing] “Jesus was the original feminist. He intended for the future of
His Church to be in the Hands of Mary Magdalene.”

“And Peter had a problem with that,” Langdon said, pointing to The Last
Supper. “That’s Peter there. You can see that Da Vinci was well aware of
how Peter felt about Mary Magdalene.”
 Again, Sophie was speechless. In the painting, Peter was leaning
menacingly toward Mary Magdalene and slicing his blade-like hand
across her neck. The same threatening gesture as in the Madonna on the
Rocks!

“And here too,” Langdon said, pointing now to the crowd of disciples near
Peter. “A bit ominous, no?”

Sophie squinted and saw a hand emerging from the crowd of disciples. “Is
that hand wielding a dagger?”

“Yes. Stranger still, if you count the arms, you’ll see that this hand
belongs to … no one at all. It’s disembodied. Anonymous.” (p. 248)
… Teabing burst in with enthusiasm. “The fundamental irony of
Christianity! The Bible, as we know it today, was collated by the pagan
Roman emperor Constantine the Great.”

“I thought Constantine was a Christian,” Sophie said.

Hardly,” Teabing scoffed. “He was a lifelong pagan who was bapized on
his deathbed, too weak to protest. In Constantine’s day Rome’s official
religion was sun worship—the cult of Sol Invictus, or the Invincible Sun
—and Constantine was its head priest….
Then a bit later on 232-33 we continue to read:
“Originally,” Langdon said, “Christianity honored the Jewish Sabbath of
Saturday, but Constantine shifted it to coincide with the pagan’s
veneration day of the sun.” He paused, grinning, “To this day, most
churchgoers attend services on Sunday morning with no idea that they are
there on account of the pagan sun god’s weekly tribute—Sun-day.”
For the moment we leave aside the claim that it was Constantine that collated the Bible in
order to deal with these three other false assertions: (1) that Constantine was a lifelong
worshipper of Sol Invictus, (2) that he was baptized on his death bed against his will, and
(3) the he is responsible for the fact that Christians worship on Sunday.
Teabing paused, eyeing Sophie. “Constantine commissioned and financed
a new Bible, which omitted those gospels that spoke of Christ’s human
traits and embellished those gospels that made Him godlike. The earlier
Gospels were outlawed, gathered up, and burned.”