What Itching Ears Desire to Hear:
The Untruth of The Da Vinci Code

By Michael Gryboski

No fundamentalist website would be complete without at least one work denouncing The Da Vinci Code. Although it has been awhile since Da Vinci Code-mania ebbed off, it is still quite beneficial to maintain available resources on the persistent falsehoods perpetuated by the novel. Many wonder why bother with all this, as it is a work of fiction. The reason why is because at the very beginning the novel uses the f-word: fact. Just before the prologue, author Dan Brown states “The Priory of Sion—a European secret society founded in 1099—is a real organization.”¹ In addition, he notes “All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.”² Both of these remarks, as well as a few others, are called “FACT” in big bold letters. The novel therefore puts itself in a position where it can be and should be challenged on its intellectual underpinnings. Any work that claims to be FACT should be investigated for its merit. Consider this another work devoted to such a critical analysis. Regarding the Gnostic Gospels, the life of Jesus, the Council of Nicaea , transmogrification, certain aspects of church history and Leonardo Da Vinci, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code is continually and consistently inaccurate. Further, as shall be shown, not even non-trivial matters are accurately described.

I. “Teabing located a huge book and it toward him across the table. The leather bound edition was poster size, like a huge atlas. The cover read: The Gnostic Gospels.”³

The Da Vinci Code considers a collection of extra-biblical works known as the Gnostic Gospels as the authoritative sources on the ministry of Jesus Christ, as well his relations with his followers, notably Mary Magdalene. As explained through the character Teabing, “These are photocopies of the Nag Hammadi, and the Dead Sea Scrolls, which I mentioned earlier…The earliest Christian records.”⁴ There are two basic problems with this intellectual presupposition. First of all, the Gnostic Gospels are not the earliest resources we have on the life of Jesus and dubious in their accountability. Second, the beliefs of the Gnostics are not as friendly to the ‘Sacred Feminine’ as the novel alleges.

The Gnostic Gospels were discovered in 1945 near an Egyptian town named Nag Hammadi.⁵ They are a collection of works written by the mysterious heretical Christian sect from the last centuries of the Roman Empire. Considered the earliest sources on Christianity by some scholars and the novel, the Gnostic works present hardly fit. The overall library of Gnostic works found at Nag Hammadi only dates as far back as the fifth century.⁶ Some may note that these are copies of works and therefore could possibly date back further. For example, amongst the Gnostic writers whose works are present at the library is Valentinus. Works both confirmed as written by Valentinus and attributed to Valentinus were amongst the many scripts found, including “The Gospel of Truth, The Prayer of the Apostle Paul, The Treatise on the Resurrection, The Tripartite Tractate, The Gospel of Philip, The Interpretation of Knowledge, and A Valentinian Exposition.”⁷ Another half-dozen works found are also attributed to either Valentinus or his followers depending on the scholar. The significance of this is that even these works at their oldest derive from the second century.⁸

This is important because the Four Canonical Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are dated to the first century, typically around AD 49 to AD 90.⁹ This would make all four gospels, as well as the epistles of Paul and the rest of the New Testament, appear in the historical record within the lifetimes of the first generation of Christians, which is more than can be said for the Gnostic works. Although some have speculated that a few of the Gnostic or heretical works discovered at Nag Hammadi go as far back at the First century, their hypotheses have remained speculation. The Gospel of Philip, works the novel draws on heavily, cannot be accurately traced farther back than the third century.¹⁰ Regarding The Gospel of Thomas, another favorite of the novel, the best scholars can do is point to a second century date.¹¹

Even if the intellectual property of the Gnostics could be accurately dated to the same time as the Canonical Gospels, in reading the texts themselves one finds many things contradictory to the novel’s claims: for one, the ‘Sacred Feminine’ as described in The Da Vinci Code. The protagonist Robert Langdon describes it to his students in one of the scenes, “The next time you find yourself with a woman, look in your heart and see if you cannot approach sex as a mystical, spiritual act. Challenge yourself to find that spark of divinity that man can only achieve through union with the sacred feminine.”¹²

This elevation of women could not have come from the Gospel of Thomas. The concluding dialogue on salvation offers this rather misogynistic theological concept: “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 heaven’s kingdom.’”¹³

Another example: the novel speaks of a practice named Hieros Gamos, or sacred marriage. The context was that of marriage as union, or sexual intercourse as a spiritual act. Sophie, another protagonist in the novel, described part of this ritual to Langdon, “The women were in white gossamer gowns…with golden shoes. They held golden orbs. The men wore black tunics and black shoes.”¹⁴ The notion of a condoned public display of sexual intercourse could not have come from the Gospel of Philip, where the author wrote “If marriage is exposed, it has become prostitution, and the bride plays the harlot not only if she is impregnated by another man but even if she slips out of her bedchamber and is seen.”¹⁵

In addition to Nag Hammadi, the novel attempts to attach a Gnostic-Sacred Feminine relevance to the find of the Dead Sea Scrolls. In the novel’s interpretation of history, the Dead Sea Scrolls were part of the collection of works undermining the Roman Catholic Church, with Constantine and future rulers making attempts to destroy their secrets. However the Dead Sea Scrolls are not related to the Gnostics and the find did not contain any Gnostic works:

”Of the 80 texts presently identified from among the material in the caves, [75] are copies of Bible books, and 70 of these are of the Pentateuch. There are 48 scrolls of the prophets, the majority being of the book of Isaiah, and 57 copies of the Books of Psalms and the historical writings.” ¹⁶

II. “As I said earlier, the marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene is part of the historical record.”¹⁷

This is part of the overall revision on the life of Jesus offered by the novel. There are other claims made on Jesus Christ by the novel, such as the idea that His Divinity was nonexistent until a narrow vote by the Council of Nicaea made it so, with Constantine creating the notion, padding the life of Jesus with pagan-inspired myths. Granted, as soon as one leaves the Four Canonical Gospels first century accounts of Jesus of Nazareth are sparse (a fact that actually contradicts one of the statements made by the character Teabing about halfway through the book).¹⁸ Nevertheless, the framework for the claims on Jesus of Nazareth is a faulty one, as seen by historical feasibility and notably historical fact.

The novel’s claim of Jesus being married and even siring a child stirred up enormous controversy even though it technically should not have. After all, Jesus having a wife and even a child could never be used as evidence against His Divinity, or any of the components such as His Virgin Birth, Bodily Resurrection, and eventual Second Coming. That being said, the arguments put forth to support this idea are poorly reasoned. Teabing offered one reason for Jesus being married to Sophie and Langdon: “If Jesus was not married, at least one of the Bible’s gospels would have mentioned it and offered some explanation for His unnatural state of bachelorhood.”¹⁹

This is very poor reasoning given its reliance on the absence of evidence. By this logic, Jesus must have owned a portable laptop with high-speed wireless Internet; after all, none of the Gospels ever say He didn’t. Although not mentioned in the Four Canonical Gospels, the First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians does allude to the celibacy of Jesus. In chapter nine, Paul is defending the right of a Man of God to have a wife. Verse 5 has him giving examples of men of God who were married. He does not mention Jesus. If Jesus was indeed married Paul could have proven his point once and for all. What better justification than the life of the Savior? Regarding of absence of evidence, the Gnostic Gospels that the novel relies on so heavily do not mention a marriage either. If one is to interpret the Gnostics literally, most of them only speak of Mary Magdalene being Jesus’ closest disciple, not His spouse. In other words not even the novel’s own authoritative works acknowledge the marriage.

His state of bachelorhood was not unnatural, for there were plenty of religious sects then and to the present day that have celibacy as a mandate. For the first century Levant, the Essenes serve as an important example. A current well-supported theory in ancient historical studies is that the Essenes created the ideological foundation for Christianity.²⁰ These are the people who inhabited the Dead Sea community of Qumran, which was where the Dead Sea Scrolls were located. Another important point about them was that they were celibate, only allowing men to join their community.²¹ This means that it would not have been impossible for Jesus to have been celibate for religious reasons.

The novel goes farther than a mere marriage being at stake. “By officially endorsing Jesus as the Son of God, Constantine turned Jesus into a deity.”²² According to the revised history, Jesus was never considered Divine, much less the Son of God, until the Council of Nicaea and the decision of Constantine. This goes under the assumption that no works existed before Constantine that referred to Jesus Christ as Divine. Take into consideration the following verses from the Holy Bible:

”And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” (Luke 24:46-47)

”And looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God!” (John 1:36)

”Now when all the people were baptized, it came to pass, that Jesus also being baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened. And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove above him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased.”(Luke 3:21-22)

These and other verses in the Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament showcase at the very least a population that lived centuries before Constantine who nevertheless believed Jesus was Divine. Now one could argue, as Teabing in the novel argues, that the four accepted Gospels were embellished with deity references, but that is an argument of convenience. A bigger problem persists than what the Canonical Gospels say about Jesus’ Divinity: what do the Gnostics say about Jesus’ Divinity? The Gospel of Philip apparently denies the resurrection and the virgin birth, but it does have this passage:

”Christ came to purchase some, to save some, to redeem some. He purchased strangers and made them his own, and he brought back his own whom he had laid down of his own will as a deposit. Not only when he appeared did he lay the soul of his own will as a deposit, but from the beginning of the world he laid down the soul, for the proper moment, according to his will.”²³

This creates a situation for the claims of the novel. According to the novel, the Gnostics are the earliest and most reliable sources on the life of Jesus. But the novel also says that Christ’s divinity was invented by Constantine in the fourth century. How does this account for the above passage, as well as the passage below from The Gospel of Thomas:

”Jesus said, ‘I am the light that is over all things. I am all: from me all has come forth, and to me all has reached. Split a piece of wood; I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there.’”²⁴

In creating a controversy the novel has not only forsaken factual evidence but also the very statements of the sources it deems authoritative. Branching out from the life of Jesus, one notes the crucial theological event that the novel inaccurately reports on.

III. “Constantine decided something had to be done. In 325 A.D., he decided to unify Rome under a single religion. Christianity.”²⁵

The Council of Nicaea is the consolidation of the power of the Roman Catholic Church over the ‘Sacred Feminine.’ From this event came the divinity of Christ, the rejection of the ‘Sacred Feminine’ and its Gnostic supporters, and end of a peaceful age of masculine-feminine equality. That is what the novel claims even though history teaches otherwise. Although the Council of Nicaea was called to cement Christian orthodoxy, the dissenting theology had nothing to do with the ‘Sacred Feminine’, but instead a very troubling heresy known as Arianism. It was named after Arius, who “held that Christ had not co-existed eternally with the Father This implied a denial of Christ’s equality with God the Father and undermined the entire theology of the Incarnation and Redemption.”²⁶

The Council led to a crackdown on heresy, but not the one the novel claims. “The majority of bishops voted to crack down on Arianism: they banished Arius to Illyria, a rough Balkan region, and declared that the Father and the Son were indeed ‘of one substance’ and co-eternal.”²⁷ So where does the ‘Sacred Feminine’ fit into all this? Nowhere. It was not even a topic. It must also be stressed that doctrinally Constantine was apparently sympathetic to the Arians--in other words the heretics.²⁸

Details on the Council of Nicaea as provided by the novel are continually false. Going through them point by point is the simplest way:

"The fundamental irony of Christianity! The Bible, as we know it today, was collated by the pagan Roman emperor Constantine the Great.”²⁹

Granted that as a Roman elite born in the late third century Constantine was brought up in a polytheistic pagan environment, he did not remain that way. No historian is fully certain as to when he converted, but it was not on his deathbed. In AD 312, or thirteen years before the Council of Nicaea, Constantine defeated his rival Maxentius at the battle of Milvian Bridge. “Constantine let it be known to Christians that he considered that he had owed his victory outside Rome to a specific and unique sign from the One God which they worshipped.”³⁰

”Constantine commissioned and financed a new Bible, which omitted those gospels that spoke of Christ’s human traits and…earlier gospels were outlawed, gathered up, and burned.”³¹

Another historical error. Under Constantine, paganism was not persecuted. “After his conversion, Constantine did not outlaw polytheism or make Christianity the official religion. Instead, he decreed religious toleration.”³² It would not be until the end of the 300s that Christianity would be established as the state religion and state-sponsored repression against polytheism would take place.

“Anyone who chose the forbidden gospels over Constantine’s version was deemed a heretic. The word heretic derives from that moment in history.”³³

Actually, the word heretic had been around well before the Council of Nicaea. For example, in the third-century the Christian apologist Tertullian wrote a polemic entitled Prescriptions Against Heretics.³⁴ So a word that was supposedly created by the Council of Nicaea was being used over a century before Constantine’s alleged efforts to suppress the ‘Sacred Feminine.’

“’Hold on. You’re saying Jesus’ divinity was the result of a vote?’ ‘A relatively close one at that.’” ³⁵

The final vote at the Council of Nicaea on the divinity of Jesus was 300 to 2.³⁶ Not exactly close, now was it? This is to be expected given that the Council of Nicaea was in regards to Christian orthodoxy, not interreligious dialogue as alleged by the novel. From the falsehoods contrived about the Council comes a whole host of accusations that are a section unto themselves.

IV. “By fusing pagan symbols, dates, and rituals into the growing Christian tradition, he created a kind of hybrid religion that was acceptable to both parties”³⁷

The result of the Council of Nicaea was a new religion, stealing the original Jesus of Nazareth who was merely a philosopher and deifying him via the incorporation of various pagan myths as well as the destruction of heretical gospels. That is what the book claims without accuracy. As has already been shown, the Council of Nicaea had nothing to do with the ‘Sacred Feminine’ or any other paganisms and Jesus’ divinity was acknowledged even in most of the Gnostic works as well as first century documents. Now we shall look at this major hypothesis. This claim on the part of the novel is the closest it gets to the truth, but even then it is half-truth at best.

The character Teabing lists several images that Christianity is said to have stolen, including various clothing items like the miter, pictograms of Isis with child which became the design for the Virgin Mary nursing the Christ-child, and others. Now these points could be and many times have been successfully argued to be so, but think a moment: so what? Images are not doctrines; neither do they have sway over church councils and matters of heresy and orthodoxy. Images are images. Even if the image of Isis nursing Horus had a major influence on Virgin Mary with Christ-Child iconography, does that prove that the doctrines of Christianity are nothing more than plagiarism from Egyptian cults? Well, the novel sure makes it sound that way by describing Horus as being “miraculously conceived,”³⁸ implying that the Immaculate Conception was a doctrine stolen from Egyptian paganism. Yet events in mythology can be described with similar terms to Christian theology, but that does not mean they are exactly the same. For example, one could describe the birth of Athena as miraculous, thereby advancing the idea that Christianity stole it. But, since Athena was born by coming out of the head of Zeus, one can see the two stories are not exactly similar per se.

If one wants to use images of proof of ideological theft, one will find plenty of problems in contemporary life. Think of all the non-profit organizations in the United States of America that have the American flag as part of their logo, including the left wing American Civil Liberties Union and the right wing Alliance Defense Fund. Does the fact that both use similar symbols serve as proof that one group has stolen the other’s beliefs? Teabing does list other examples, ones of a doctrinal nature and therefore more threatening to mainstream Christianity. But the claims are so baseless there is no real way to tackle them. For example, Teabing speaks to Langdon and Sophie on the Cult of Mithras, claiming that key doctrines were taken from the mysterious sect. “The pre-Christian God Mithras—called the Son of God and the Light of the World—was born on December 25th, died, was buried in a rock tomb, and then resurrected in three days.”³⁹

First off, Christmas being observed on the day it is observed offers no proof one way or the other that the nativity story of a recycled pagan myth. Secondly, Mithraism had no written records, making the claims that certain key Christian names for Jesus were stolen from them baseless. The proceedings on Mithraic studies put it best, “The only domain in which we can ascertain in detail the extent to which Christianity imitated Mithraism is that of art.”⁴⁰ If the scholars can only ascertain scant evidence about the beliefs of the Cult of Mithras, under what authority can this novel claim anything about comparisons between Christianity and Mithraism? Dead religions are not the only ones that the novel uses to claim that Christianity stole doctrines from other sects.

“The newborn Krishna was presented with gold, frankincense, and myrrh.”⁴¹ This is another inaccurate statement. As Hindu scholars focusing on Krishna record, “The streets were swept clean and all the houses were decorated with flags and flowers. Cows were smeared with turmeric, and adorned with peacock feathers and garlands. All people of Gokul danced in joy and flocked to Nanda’s house to see baby Krishna and to offer gifts.”⁴² Note the absence of the three distinct gifts listed.

V. “I was just thinking that Sauniere shared a lot of spiritual ideologies with Da Vinci, including a concern over the Church’s elimination of the sacred feminine from modern religion.”⁴³

If the novel’s observation of early Christians stealing pagan imagery was the most accurate part of the claims ushered against Christianity in The Da Vinci Code, then the novel’s interpretation of church history from Nicaea to the birth of Leonardo Da Vinci has to be least. At least some half truth came from the claims covered in the last section. There is no merit whatsoever to the accusations made about the Medieval Church by the novel. Indeed, the claims are so inaccurate, so poorly argued, that the Roman Catholic Church may have a strong case of libel to sue Dan Brown. The best way to handle this shall be point-by-point.

"The Priory of Sion believed that it was this obliteration of the sacred feminine in modern life that had caused what the Hopi Native Americans called koyanisquatsi—‘life out of balance’—an unstable situation marked by testosterone-fueled wars, a plethora of misogynistic societies, and a growing disrespect for Mother Earth.”⁴⁴

This quote is beyond fascinating for its total ignorance of pre-Christian and non-Christian histories. Most certainly by whatever standard “testosterone-fueled wars” is defined, by blaming it on Nicene Christianity one leaves out a lot of examples. The conquests of Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, as well as the chronic warfare initiated by Persia, Assyria, and Babylonia in the Ancient Near East could all qualify for the classification of “testosterone-fueled”, but they were all fought well before Jesus Christ was even born. Misogynistic societies have always existed; human history is laden with them starting well before the church came into being. That does not stop the novel from blaming Christianity for their manifestation, even though acts like female circumcision, suti and polygyny all derive from non-Christian cultures. If one looks at the rise of Christianity, one sees the status of women rising with it, as noted by many historians:

Writes Lynn Hunt et al., “Women could sometimes be leaders in the movement, but not without arousing controversy; many people believed that men should teach and women only listen. Still, early Christianity was diverse enough that the first head of a congregation named in the New Testament was a woman.”⁴⁵

Peter Brown (most likely unrelated to The Da Vinci Code author), noted the typical Christian congregation during the Roman Imperial era, “High and low, men and women met as equals because equally subject, now, to the overruling law of one God.”⁴⁶

Of course the twentieth century did bring untold evil to the world. The manifestation of genocide, the AIDS-HIV virus, totalitarianism, fascism, and communism, global terrorism and global warming are part of the legacy of the modern era. However it is important to note these events did not begin after the alleged elimination of the ‘sacred feminine’ but rather coincide with the growth of secularism. One could correlate these horrid events with the increasingly successful efforts to separate church and state on a cross-national scale in Western Civilization. After al, they did take place after most Christian countries took away their churches’ political power. Therefore, in order to preserve a proper balance, we should reunite church and state. Of course it does naturally follow that with this reasoning we could argue also that the Industrial Revolution caused them (which in the case of abuse of mother earth, is quite legitimate). So should we, with this knowledge, destroy all our industrial capacities and shut down all factories just to resolve this imbalance?

“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.”⁴⁷

There is a fundamental problem with the above statement other than its inaccuracy: during the witch hunts of the Medieval and Renaissance eras, men were accused and found guilty and executed as well. “Before 1400, when witchcraft trials were rare, nearly half of those accused had been men.”⁴⁸ Take note: during the Medieval era, witchcraft trails WERE RARE. Rare as in, did not happen all that often, were not common occurrences, etcetera. This would make the following Da Vinci Code claim a little questionable: “During the three hundred years of witch hunts, the Church burned at the stake an astounding five million women.”⁴⁹ What makes it totally wrong is the fact that historians place the actual number as being about 40,000-60,000. As one modern pagan website notes:

"Estimates in the 19th century were often around one million. By the 1950's, they dropped to hundreds of thousands. Then, after the trial evidence became widely available, estimates fell to between 40,000 and 60,000. There they've stayed, and there's now little academic debate over them."⁵⁰

Minor note: not all those killed for witchcraft were women:

"Between 1300 and 1500, approximately 35%-40% of all Witches were men. Under the influence of misogynist Witch-hunting manuals, like the _Malleus Maleficarum_, the percentage of women gradually rose. At the height of the Burning Times, this percentage hit 95% in some centers of the persecution. Several of the Scandinavian countries, however, killed approximately equal numbers of men and women, or slightly more men. Iceland is the most anomalous. There, a type of magick called 'galdur' became associated with Witchcraft. Since galdur was primarily practiced by men, an astonishing 95% of Icelandic Witches were male."⁵¹

One of the few half-truth claims of this section of the novel’s interpretation of history is that the Church intentionally targeted midwives “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.”⁵² Although it is true that midwives were special targets for the witch hunts, it was based on a completely different reasoning: “Another commonly accused woman was the midwife, who was a prime target for suspicion when a baby or mother died in childbirth.”⁵³

“In fact, so strong was the Church’s fear of those who lived in the rural villes that the once innocuous word for “villager”—vilan—came to mean a wicked soul.”⁵⁴

Christianity started out in urban areas, thriving in trading centers across the Roman Empire as it spread. Cities were the first places to become thoroughly Christianized in the Mediterranean World, with rural areas being the last bulwarks of the old paganisms. However, in its efforts to religiously dominate the rural regions, the Church did not create the word villain. According to Webster’s, the word villain originated in thirteenth century Middle English as “villain.”⁵⁵ Granted, its purpose was most likely to marginalize rural inhabitants, but by that time they would have been completely Christian in their spiritual loyalty.

“Not even the feminine association with the left-hand side could escape the Church’s defamation. In France and Italy, the words for ‘left’—gauche and sinistra—came to have deeply negative overtones…”⁵⁶

Left has always had a negative context. For example, in Ancient Greece to have someone sneeze on another’s right hand was seen as a good omen, but if a sneeze hit a left hand it was seen as a misfortunate.⁵⁷

The novel’s interpretation of history is completely bogus. One would wonder if Brown was referring to the same dimension as Medieval Europe. Still, it should come as no surprise that many may actually believe this segment of the novel more than the others, since popular American culture has painted the time period between the Fall of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance as the “Dark Ages,” in spite of the many intellectual, artistic, cultural, technological, and even political advancements that took place in Christendom. In that regard, Brown can plead that he is merely a victim of our society and its wrongful view on the Middle Ages. Still, the novel’s brutally false retelling of history continues with the Knight’s Templar, the Priory of Sion, and Leonardo Da Vinci.

VI. “Langdon thoughts of the notorious Templar round-up in 1307—un-lucky Friday the thirteenth—when Pope Clement killed and interred hundreds of Knights Templar.”⁵⁸

After distorting the history behind the Council of Nicaea, the Middle Ages, and the Gnostic gospels, the novel continues its violation of history by claiming the Knights Templar as part of the effort to protect the ‘Sacred Feminine.’ Claims put forth for the Knights Templar simply lack evidence. Given that the Knights, when rounded up, admitted to things under torture and given the complex political situation, it is very hard to confirm anything with them regarding whether or not they practiced heresy. Although, there are points made by the novel that can be refuted with certainty.

“The Templars honored Baphomet by encircling a stone replica of his head and chanting prayers.”⁵⁹

Once again, there is scant evidence confirming this in the historical record. Furthermore, the name Baphomet is a Medieval French name for Mohammed.⁶⁰ Come to think of it, one almost has to wonder if that does not answer a lot given the Knights Templar’s initial occupation was defending Christian pilgrims from Muslim attack. Perchance they turn-coated--of course that theory has even less evidence. As for the idol, it was part of the things confessed to by various Templars after being tortured.⁶¹ This should put things into perspective: in the novel the heroes are the devotees to the ‘Sacred Feminine’, which according to Brown included the Knights Templar. The antagonists are the Church, its reactionaries, and Christians through the centuries. Think on this: Christians throughout the centuries, including those times in which the novel paints them as being nothing but chauvinists and intolerant, have professed their beliefs without being tortured; the torture and martyrdom typically came afterwards. Yet the Templars, who are supposed to be defenders of the ‘Sacred Feminine’, have to be tortured extensively in order to even admit it. If they are so brave, then why not say they worshipped the idol at the onset, before the torture? Why not stand up for their beliefs as their enemies in mainstream Christianity had done and continue to do? Further significance can be found in the fact that the actual guilt of the Knights Templar for these actions has never been proven, which makes all these acts pagan or otherwise a non-issue.

”The architecture is pagan to the core…The church is round. The Templars ignored the traditional Christian cruciform layout and built a perfectly circular church in honor of the sun.”⁶²

Round churches are not necessarily homage to paganism. Ruined temples found in countries like Rome and Greece are rectangular. Furthermore, Eastern Churches, such as those found in Ethiopia, are oftentimes designed with concentric circles.⁶³ This is not a way to defy Christianity, but rather to emulate the Temple of Solomon, an edifice built by a culture whose population was noted for its violent stamping out of pagan practices (including goddess worship) in the Levant.

Connected to the Knights Templar is the Priory of Sion. This secret society is said to be the protectors of the ‘Sacred Feminine,’ a constant opponent of the Roman Catholic Church, and comprised of many great minds through the centuries, including Galileo, Newton, and of course Leonardo Da Vinci. But what about the things the novel says about Da Vinci? Is there any merit to the notion that he was active in the secret war, preserving the ‘Sacred Feminine’ and Jesus Royal Bloodline via his paintings, including most notably The Last Supper? Well, not exactly.

“Despite the visionary’s genius, he was a flamboyant homosexual and worshipper of nature’s order divine order, both of which placed him in a perpetual state of sin against God.”⁶⁴

The accusation that Da Vinci was a homosexual is nothing new; it apparently was even alleged as early as the fifteenth century (although the definition for a homosexual then most certainly does not fit the definition given now). Evidence does exist that Da Vinci was very close to some of his male pupils, possibly meaning that he was intimately involved. But, as biographer Charles Nicholl wrote, “It is all, in the end, a matter of interpretation. Like most students of Leonardo today, I interpret him as homosexual—though there is some piquant evidence…that he was not exclusively so. The allegation laid against him in 1476 is plausible enough, though this is not the same as saying it was true.”⁶⁵

Then there are the interpretations of the paintings of Da Vinci. The novel continues in its spiral into the darkness of perpetual historical inaccuracy by claiming that Da Vinci’s works were meant to stick it to the Church all the while appearing at first glance to be reverent. The problem is historical context. Da Vinci’s work came during the Classical Renaissance. As described by Hayes et al., Da Vinci was under no obligation to serve only the Church on an artistic level:

”The art of [the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries], while still largely religious in subject matter, was no longer fostered exclusively by the church. It was now patronized also by individual lay princes and wealthy townsmen, and was notably influenced by contemporary secularism, classicism, and humanism. Along with representations of Madonnas, saints, and biblical scenes, it became fashionable to depict characters from pagan mythology and scenes from classical Greece and Rome.”⁶⁶

If Da Vinci believed in the ‘Sacred Feminine’ why not paint images directly referencing it? Other non-Christian works were being painted or sculpted during that era, including many pagan deities and human nudes. But he chose to paint biblical scenes. The novel would still claim that these were vehicles to hide innuendos to the marriage of Mary Magdalene and Jesus, as most noted in The Last Supper. As any Renaissance art scholar can attest to, if Da Vinci hid these references in his works he must have done a really good job, since virtually no one with a substantial art history background has written a peer reviewed work concluding that these innuendos even exist.

The Virgin on the Rocks can serve as an example. The novel interprets the work as alluding to the Da Vinci’s anti-Catholic beliefs and tacit support for the Priory of Sion, for which he was allegedly a Grand Master. Yet most of the allusions identified in the painting by Nicholl have a more Christian nature to them:

”To the right of the Virgin’s head is the columbine (Aquilegia vulgaris), whose popular name suggests the dove (columba) of the Holy Ghost, and just above her right hand is a species of gallium known in English as Our Lady’s Bedstraw and traditionally associated with the manger.”⁶⁷

This begs the question: why would Da Vinci, if so committed to preserving the Sacred Feminine via encoded symbols in his paintings, have symbols and images representing Christianity’s worldview instead of the one he allegedly held? Regarding The Last Supper, in which the novel claims the figure to the left of Jesus is Mary Magdalene rather than John due to its more feminine appearance. Younger males painted by Da Vinci tended to look feminine, Saint John from the The Last Supper was not the only example. In his work St. John the Baptist, the saint painted looks very feminine by any perspective.⁶⁸

But what about Da Vinci’s association with the Priory of Sion? What about the long list of Grand Masters the secret organization had up until the present day? Well, the list provided in the novel is a hoax.⁶⁹ Not only has the Priory of Sion provided a false list of names from the past, but the organization itself cannot be traced back farther in time than the 1950s!⁷⁰

So much for the facts of the novel.

VII. “Sophie, the historical evidence supporting this is substantial.”⁷¹

The sheer number of inaccuracies in Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code is hard to count. Other more comprehensive works have noted geographical errors in the layout of the sites that the characters Langdon and Sophie venture to, further errors regarding history, and so on. Small wonder they put it in the fiction section at the library, even if the novel itself is convinced that it holds some shred of “Fact.” Below are a few more factual errors in the novel that for a lack of talent on my part I was unable or unwilling to place them in the previous sections.

“The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in the 1950s hidden in a cave near Qumran in the Judean desert.”⁷²

The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947.⁷³

“The Jewish tetragrammation YHWH—the sacred name for God—in fact derived from Jehovah, an androgynous physical union between the masculine Jah and pre-Hebraic name for Eve, Havah.”⁷⁴

“So when people saw YHWH in their Bible, they would say the word ‘Lord’ in whatever language they were speaking. That four letter combination YHWH is called the ‘tetragrammaton’. YHWH was said to have been chosen (by God) because it was similar to ‘HYH’ which means "to become". This was combined with ‘HWH' meaning ‘he is’.”⁷⁵

“He wondered if Fache had any idea that this pyramid at President Mitterrand’s explicit demand had been constructed of exactly 666 panes of glass.”⁷⁶

The Louvre Pyramid has 673 panes of glass, not 666.⁷⁷

“Originally, Tarot had been designed as a secret means to pass along ideologies banned by the Church.”⁷⁸

Not exactly, the original Tarot cards were mere game cards to play that included symbols that are perspective at best. As clarified by a Tarot site,

”Tarot cards (or taroc cards, or tarocchi cards) were originally used for playing a card game called tarocchi, and had no more (or less) to do with foretelling the future than did other types of playing cards…Tarot cards have not specifically been known as "cards of the devil." That title was given to all playing cards by early churchmen - and had nothing to do with fortune-telling. These protectors of the faith were condemning playing cards because they were used for gambling.”⁷⁹

“Blinding ignorance does mislead us. O Wretched mortals, open your eyes!”⁸⁰

This one line from Dan Brown’s very popular and very inaccurate novel could be applied to those who believe it when it says that it is “Fact.” A plea to be just as willing to hear the truth in these matters after reading what is essentially a literary bombardment of falsehood encased in a page-turning fiction story. Even on the matters that were not trivial, Brown consistently got things wrong. Unfortunately, there are still people out there who believe the core ideas of the novel almost unquestioningly. Even as mainstream media has churned out several documentaries exposing the implausibility and erroneous nature of Brown’s bestseller, some maybe many still believe some or a considerable number of its claims. The only explanation for this must be the strong level of preexisting hatred for Christianity, either on a moral or religious level, as encouraged by popular culture. Few who do adhere to some of the claims may take exception to their dislikes being labeled hatred, but what better word can be used to describe an inherent willingness to believe the worst in an entity and then not allowing that entity to defend itself? This is especially telling when on matters regarding the Gnostic gospels, the life of Jesus, the Council of Nicaea , transmogrification, certain aspects of church history and Leonardo Da Vinci, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code is continually and consistently inaccurate.

1. Brown, Dan The Da Vinci Code, (New York: Doubleday, 2003) p.1.

2. Ibid.

3.Brown, p.245.

4.Ibid.

5. King, Karen L., What Is Gnosticism? (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press) 2003, p.1.

6.Grant, R.M., Gnosticism and Early Christianity(2nd ed.) (London: Columbia University Press) 1966, p.5.

7.King, What Is Gnosticism?, p.154.

8.Grant, Gnosticism and Early Christianity, p.5 and King, What Is Gnosticism?, p.154.

9.http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_ntb1.htm#mary, accessed July 20th, AD 2008.

10. http://www.theologywebsite.com/etext/naghammadi/philip.shtml

11. Meyer, Marvin, The Gnostic Gospels of Jesus HarperSanFrancisco, 2005, p.5.

12.Brown, The Da Vinci Code, p.310.

13.Meyer, The Gnostic Gospels of Jesus, p.25.

14.Brown, The Da Vinci Code, p.308.

15.Meyer, The Gnostic Gospels of Jesus, p.83.

16. Romer, Testament: The Bible and History, p.141.

17.Brown, The Da Vinci Code, p.245.

18. “Understandably, [Jesus’] life was recorded by thousands of followers across the land.” (Brown, The Da Vinci Code, p.231.

19. Brown, The Da Vinci Code, p.245.

20. Grant, Gnosticism and Early Christianity, p.2.

21. Romer, John, Testament: The Bible and History, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1988, p.138.

22.Brown, The Da Vinci Code, p.233.

23. Meyer, The Gnostic Gospels of Jesus, p.50.

24.Ibid, p.20.

25. Brown, The Da Vinci Code, p.232.

26.Hayes et al., History of Europe, (New York: MacMillan Company) 1956, p.60.

27.Hunt et al., The Making of the West, (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s ) 2003, p.228.

28.Ibid.

29. Brown, The Da Vinci Code, p.231.

30.Brown, Peter, The Rise of Western Christendom (2nd ed.) (Blackwell Publishing, 2003) p.60.

31. Brown, The Da Vinci Code, p.234.

32.Hunt et al., The Making of the West, p.221.

33. Brown, The Da Vinci Code, p.234.

34. King, What Is Gnosticism?, p.27.

35. Brown, The Da Vinci Code, p.233.

36. http://209.85.215.104/search?q=cache:KqGeebI3IzAJ:www.religionandpluralism.org/GranteeArticles/KarenKing_DaVinciCodeQuestionsObjections_AJC021504.pdf+%22300-2%22+vote+Brown&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us, accessed July 20th, AD 2008.

37. Brown, The Da Vinci Code, p.232.

38.Ibid.

39.Ibid.

40.Mithraic Studies: Proceedings of the First International Congress of Mithraic Studies, Manchester Univeristy Press: 1975, 508n.

41. Brown, The Da Vinci Code, p.232.

42. http://www.sanatan.org/en/campaigns/KJ/birth.htm, accessed August 14th, AD 2008.

43. Brown, The Da Vinci Code, p.46.

44. Brown, The Da Vinci Code, pp.125-126.

45.Hunt et al., The Making of the West, p.199.

46. P. Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom, p.64.

47.Brown, The Da Vinci Code, p.125.

48. Hunt et al., The Making of the West, p.522.

49. Brown, The Da Vinci Code, p.125.

50. http://www.summerlands.com/crossroads/remembrance/impactof.htm, accessed July 20th, AD 2008.

51. http://www.summerlands.com/crossroads/remembrance/_remembrance/00000083.htm, accessed July 20th, AD 2008.

52. Brown, The Da Vinci Code, p.125.

53. Hunt et al., The Making of the West, p.523.

54. Brown, The Da Vinci Code, p.36.

55.Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Random House, Inc., USA, 2001, p.2122.

56. Brown, The Da Vinci Code, p.125.

57. http://www.sacred-texts.com/etc/mhs/mhs43.htm, accessed August 14th, AD 2008.

58. Brown, The Da Vinci Code, p.338.

59.Ibid, p.316.

60. Walsh, Michael, Warriors of the Lord, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company) 2003, p.190.

61.Ibid, p.172.

62. Brown, The Da Vinci Code, p.339.

63.http://www.exploreafrica.net/trips/eth_heart.php, accessed July 26th, AD 2008.

64. Brown, The Da Vinci Code, p.45.

65.Nicholl, Charles, Leonardo Da Vinci: Flights of the Mind, (New York: Viking Penguin) 2004, p.116.

66.Hayes et al., History of Europe, pp.413-414.

67.Nicholl, Leonardo Da Vinci, p.201.

68.http://www.leonardo-da-vinci-biography.com/leonardo-da-vinci-painting.html, accessed July 26th, AD 2008.

69.http://www.livescience.com/history/050524_davinci_code.html, accessed July 26th, AD 2008.

70. Ibid.

71. Brown, The Da Vinci Code, p.254.

72. Brown, The Da Vinci Code, p.234.

73. http://www.usc.edu/dept/LAS/wsrp/educational_site/dead_sea_scrolls/discovery.shtml, accessed July 20th, AD 2008.

74. Brown, The Da Vinci Code, p.309.

75. http://www.lisashea.com/hobbies/art/yhwh.html

76. Brown, The Da Vinci Code, p.21.

77. http://www.louvre.or.jp/louvre/presse/en/activites/archives/anniv.htm , accessed May 20th, AD 2008.

78. Brown, The Da Vinci Code, p.92.

79. http://www.tarot-decks.com/tarotarticle.htm, accessed July 20th, AD 2008.

80. Brown, The Da Vinci Code, p.231.