Cracking the Code

An Episcopal Priest Debunks the Da Vinci Code

By Father Gregory Jones

© 2003, the Rev. S. Gregory Jones

12-30-2003 Edition
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Introduction

So what’s my problem with Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code?

Is it that The Da Vinci Code is a run-away best seller, and will

become a major motion picture for Sony – to be directed by Ron
Howard? Is it that The Da Vinci Code criticizes the Roman
Catholic Church? Or is it that The Da Vinci Code reasserts the
rightful place of the sacred feminine? Not at all.

In fact, I was very glad to be reminded that Mary Magdalene was

not the harlot she was painted to be by centuries of Roman
Catholic teaching. As well, I hadn’t heard that Leonardo was a
homosexual, but I suppose I never really cared one way or the
other. The sexuality of Leonardo Da Vinci is of no matter to me
at all – for my understanding of the Gospel requires that I value
him regardless of his sexuality.

So what is my problem? Well, my problem with The Da Vinci

Code is that the book blurs the lines between fiction and fact – in a
way that comes across to me as deceptive, false and willfully
misleading. Most of all, I am troubled that many readers finish
the book with grave questions about the essentials of the
Christian faith and Church history. As a pastor, and a public
Christian authority, I have spoken with countless numbers of
confused people – who have read the book, and simply don’t
know what to make of the supposedly factual remarks by the
book’s scholarly characters. People don’t know what to make of
the claim to factuality made in the title pages of the hard-cover
edition. People in my church, all of whom are normally highly
educated, don’t know what in the book is true and what is pure
fiction.

Now, I wouldn’t normally be offended by a work of fiction.

Indeed, I like historical fiction. James Michener, Ken Follett, and

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Umberto Eco are three favorites of mine. Michener, Follett and

Eco have each written books which merge bible or church history
with legend and their own invention. Michener and Follett are
known for a high degree of factual content in their novels, and
Umberto Eco is himself a university academic.

Of the three authors I mention, Eco acts a good foil for Dan
Brown. At least three of Eco’s books – Name of the Rose,
Foucault’s Pendulum and Baudolino -- involve an intellectually
challenging and delighting blend of invention and historical fact
concerning the Church. Eco himself is rather like the real-life
version of Dan Brown’s Robert Langdon character. Robert
Langdon the fictional character is a professor of the fictional
discipline of “symbology.” Umberto Eco the real-life author is a
professor of the factual academic discipline of semiotics. Why
Dan Brown creates a phony academic discipline called symbology
is hard to fathom, given that academia already has disciplines
called iconology and semiotics. At any rate whereas Eco is an
agnostic with great knowledge of Christian theology and history,
Brown appears to have an axe to grind with the church, but not
much actual knowledge. Both authors write fiction involving the
Church, the Knights Templar, Post Modern philosophy, etc.

I suppose the key difference between the two is this: Eco doesn’t
create his stories out of claims of fact which are completely phony
or mistaken. Brown does. And what is stranger, Brown could
have written pretty much the same book, without inventing any
major historical facts. He could have criticized historic
Christianity, taken up the cause of women, and triumphed the
place of the “sacred feminine” within the factual context of real
Church history. He likewise could have retold the same Holy
Grail stuff – with little or no need to invent anything outside of
the now vast canon of established Grail Lore. But instead of
citing only historical facts, Brown makes numerous claims about
historic Christianity and Christian doctrine which if he is right –
undermine the essential beliefs of Christianity.

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I will never have time to address every single error made by The
Da Vinci Code, but I hope to address the things, which drove me
the most nuts, by virtue of their being simply false. Not “false”
from a “beliefs” perspective, but from that less mystical
perspective of “what is known and agreed upon by all reasonable
and educated persons” – regardless of religious beliefs.

And most important, perhaps, I would like to discuss the themes

raised by the book, which are of great importance for Modern
Christians. Most important of these are: where is the feminine
side of Biblical theology and our understanding of the divine;
what roles did women have in the early church of the first two or
three generations; and how did the early church grapple with
gnosticism, the creation of the canon of Scripture, and the
eventual rise of “imperial Christianity”?

Who am I?
I am an Episcopal priest. My church traces its origins back to the
apostles through the period of the English Reformation, and
before that, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Celtic church in
the British Isles. I have a Bachelor’s in English from the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a Master’s in
Divinity Cum Laude from the Episcopalian General Theological
Seminary. I received the prize for best graduate thesis for my
work in church history. I am a member of the Priory in the
United States of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St.
John of Jerusalem -- an organization headed by Queen Elizabeth
II of Great Britain, and descended from the crusading order of
Hospitallers. The Order of St. John was disbanded in England
after Henry VIII, but restored by Queen Victoria. We are a
brother order to the Knights of Malta, and the various members
of L’Alliance de Chevalerie des Hospitaliers de Saint Jean de Jerusalem.
As far as I know, our “ancient order” has no secrets of any
importance. We support ambulances and hospitals around the

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world, and in Jerusalem. We don’t possess the Holy Grail –

unless she’s Queen Elizabeth II.

In preparing this pamphlet, I have consulted sources of either

universal respect, or controversialists whose “agenda” is generally
sympathetic to feminist scholarship and the incumbent criticisms of
the Church through history.

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It is helpful to go over some basic vocabulary first.

Church – In English the word derives from the Greek, Kyriokos

– “the Lord’s”. In Greek the word is “ecclesia,” meaning the
“assembly.” When capitalized, Church implies the one, holy,
catholic and apostolic church of Jesus Christ – of which there are
currently many denominations and branches – but until the 11th
century there was one universal body – comprised of dioceses
throughout the Old World. These various incarnations of the
universal church – the “church catholic or Church” – often went
by the name of their patriarchal see city – the Church of
Alexandria, Jerusalem, Antioch, Rome, etc.

Catholic – Greek word, means “Universal.” Refers initially to the

shared doctrines and ideas of the early Church. The term would
become a kind of identifier for those Christian churches who
could trace their origins to the apostles and who followed the
“universally accepted doctrines and practices of the founders.”
Wouldn’t refer to the Western Church – aka the Roman Catholic
Church – until the 11th century.

Apostolic – Pertaining to the apostles. The apostles were those

“sent out” by Jesus, commissioned to tell the Gospel (Good
News) to all the world. The apostolic churches were those
communities founded and nurtured by persons chosen by Christ
in the flesh or in a resurrection appearance. The apostolic
churches placed great authority on their loyalty and dedication to
the teachings they received in the apostolic era, and which they
faithfully preserved and protected.

Orthodox – Greek word, means “straight teaching.” Initially

used to describe the “catholic” or “apostolic” doctrines and
practices shared throughout the many cities of the early Church.
The apostolic church sought to preserve the straight tradition they
received, not swerving to the right or left according to the
innovations of false prophets or teachers.

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Gnostic – Greek. From “Gnosis, or knowledge.” Literally, a

gnostic is one who “knows” and an agnostic is one who doesn’t
know. Roughly between 100 BC and 300 AD there flourished in
the Hellenistic world a vast multitude of philosophical “schools”
and religious sects. The intersection of Greek (aka “Hellenistic”)
philosophy, “Eastern” mysticism, and Jewish thought deeply
influenced the early forerunners of modern Judaism and
Christianity. Numerous such groups would be rejected by the
rabbis and the Christian clergy – many of these called themselves
“Gnostics,” in that they focused their attention on gaining the
kind of divine knowledge, which alone would “save.” Typically
the Gnostic schools employed complex blends of Platonic
thought with various ideas from biblical and extra-biblical
traditions. The influence on Christianity would be huge – and
was not merely negative, as some have implied. Clearly, there is
much that might be called “gnostic” in the New Testament itself.

Doctrine – Teaching.

Canon – Means, “the rule,” or “the list.” Refers to the

authorized list of books in either the Old or New Testaments.

Bible – Means, the book or books. Refers to the many books of

canonical scriptures.

New Testament – The 27 canonical scriptures written in Greek

by the Church. Produced over a hundred years, partially accepted
very early, finally “set in stone” by various Church decrees in the
300’s.

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Old Testament – 39 canonical scriptures written in Hebrew by

the Jews. Produced over a 1,000 years. Partially accepted very
early BC . Finally set in stone in 90 AD by the Rabbinical Council
of Jamnia. Yet, editions we would consider ‘complete’ existed
hundreds of years before that.

Christ – Means, ‘Anointed One,’ or “Messiah.”

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Chapter One: Are all Christians Roman Catholic All of a

Sudden?
It is strange that the only picture of Apostolic Christianity painted
by The Da Vinci Code is the Roman Catholic Church. Honestly,
not since the 11th century have most Christians been unified in
one megalithic Church institution – but The Da Vinci Code seems
to forget the Orthodox Churches of the East and the Reformed
and Protestant Churches of the West. Which is a remarkable
thing to forget – half of the world’s Christians – considering that
the book essentially undermines not only Roman Catholic ideas,
but also basic Christian ones. The vast majority of Catholics,
Orthodox and Protestants agree on the core Christian ideas which
The Da Vinci Code calls false. Moreover, none of these key
doctrines and ideas originated in Rome. The Da Vinci Code seems
to ignore this altogether, postulating that the Church is some kind
of secrets-filled empire run by henchman of the Pope in the
Vatican.

Almost no mention is made of the vast reforms or progress made

in the wider portion of Christianity in the past several centuries.
No mention is made of how Christians have spent the past couple
hundred years trying to uncover the essentials of the church’s
earliest years. Modern science and a new approach to the same
old scriptures have revealed again for many “progressive
Christians” the highly significant roles women had in the apostolic
era of the Church. Especially post-World War II, Christians have
made huge strides in rediscovering just how “Jewish” the early
church fathers (and mothers) were. Likewise, for many
Christians, we have really peeled away years of additions and
overlays to get back to a pretty good understanding of the early
church and its doctrines. And amazingly – none of what we have
found in the past couple centuries of digging – agnostics and
believers alike mind you – corresponds with the “real truth” Dan
Brown seems to offer.

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Chapter Two: Leonardo Da Vinci and Art History

I took Art History in college, but I never learned that much.
That’s o.k. Because in the August 3, 2003 edition, the New York
Times ran a piece by an Art Historian named Bruce Boucher –
which tears The Da Vinci Code to shreds from a purely non-
religious art history perspective. The article was entitled, "Does
the Da Vinci Code Crack Leonardo?" And the answer is basically,
“no.”

Early in the book, The Da Vinci Code says:

“Da Vinci had always been an awkward subject for historians,

especially in the Christian tradition. Despite the visionary’s genius,
he was a flamboyant homosexual and worshipper of Nature’s
divine order, both of which place him in a perpetual state of sin
against God . . . Even Da Vinci’s enormous output of
breathtaking Christian art only furthered the artist’s reputation for
spiritual hypocrisy. Accepting hundreds of lucrative Vatican
commissions, Da Vinci painted Christian themes not as an
expression of his own beliefs but rather as a commercial
venture—a means of funding a lavish lifestyle." (The Da Vinci Code
45).

The New York Times article demolishes these claims. First off, no
curator or art historian would ever refer to the artist as “Da
Vinci.” The notion that an art historian would do so is absurd.
Leonardo is called Leonardo, by anyone in the know. Da Vinci is
not his name, but his place of origin.

Secondly, to call Leonardo a “flamboyant homosexual” is a gay-

bashing stereotype at worst and a mindless anachronism at best.
From the historical record, claims Bruce Boucher, there was only
one alleged incident of homosexuality early in Leonardo's
adulthood – and apart from that little is known of Leonardo’s
sexuality.

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Thirdly, Leonardo was apparently infamous for his meager

production of artwork, not his “enormous output of breathtaking
Christian art.” Indeed, by most historical accounts, he received
only one commission from the Vatican and spent little time in
Rome.

Lastly, art historian Bruce Boucher explains that The Da Vinci Code
offers a misleading interpretation of The Last Supper based
primarily upon the single fact that the person to Jesus’ right does
appear effeminate. Leonardo’s composition apparently
“conforms to traditional Florentine depictions of the Last Supper,
stressing the betrayal and sacrifice of Christ rather than the
institution of the Eucharist and the chalice.” The “disembodied”
hand holding the knife is more likely a reference to Peter’s
response to the men who arrested Jesus, wherein he drew his
sword and cut off the ear of one Malchus. Boucher explains that
however effeminate the depiction, the person to Jesus’ right is not
Mary Magdalene, but more likely the “Beloved Disciple” John.

Chapter Three: The Priory of Sion

The book acts as if the Priory of Sion is some kind of well-
established and ancient order. The idea that Leonardo, Victor
Hugo, and the like were all affiliated with the order, is based on
the claims of some that a set of parchments found in the French
National Library are legitimate.

But in fact, the Priory of Sion, and the “parchments” were

revealed in the past twenty years to be the fraudulent creation of
one Pierre Plantard in the 1950’s and 60’s. Plantard was an
extreme right-wing French nationalist, and pretender to the
Merovingian dynasty, who served time in French jails for fraud in
the 50’s. The parchments supposedly discovered in the French
National Library were proven to be complete frauds – having
been deposited there in the mid-1960’s. Several books in France
and a BBC special uncovered the whole scam. Moreover, the

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Plantard scam itself was based in part on an earlier fraud –

involving the Vicar of Rennes-le-Chateau, Father Sauniere.

The Da Vinci Code bases its Priory of Sion/Holy Bloodline of Jesus

idea on the 1982 book Holy Blood, Holy Grail – a book widely read,
but hardly conclusive. While now a part of the canon of Grail
Lore, nobody actually believes the Jesus/Mary
Magdalene/Merovingian/Priory of Sion thing is more than just
another silly thing to come out of France.

Chapter Four: Jesus Was a Feminist

In one scene, Sir Leigh Teabing says, “I daresay Peter was
something of a sexist” [The Da Vinci Code 46]. In another he says,
“Jesus was the original feminist. He intended for the future of His
Church to be in the hands of Mary Magdalene.” [The Da Vinci
Code 248] But the funny thing is – if Peter is a sexist – then Jesus
is a male chauvinist pig – at least according to the most important
Gnostic Gospel of them all – the Gospel of Thomas. In the
Gospel of Thomas, the pearl of the many “lost books of the Bible”
found in Nag Hammadi Egypt in the 1940’s, it says:

“Simon Peter said to them: ‘Let Mary leave us, for women are
not worthy of life.’” Jesus said, “I myself shall lead her in
order to make her male, so that she too may become a living
spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make
herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven.’” (G.Thom v.
114).

Chapter Five: Gnosticism and Nag Hammadi

On this same trajectory, The Da Vinci Code acts as if the Gnostic
books found in Nag Hammadi Egypt are some big secret – which
the patriarchal Vatican Mafia has kept under a tight lid for
seventeen centuries. And that is just false. While indeed the
second and third centuries of the Church were spent in
controversy with the leading and powerful Gnostic prophets and

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teachers of Egypt and the Near East – and indeed our Church
Fathers only tell us the bad side of these folks – we now know a
great deal about Gnosis and their teachings.

Indeed, while much has come of the Nag Hammadi collection of

Gnostic books, we have long known of other New Testament
“apocryphal texts” “false Gospels” and non-canonical material.
And while there really was no time in which the apostolic church
took these texts seriously, there is an amazing amount of Gnostic
influence in the witness of the New Testament itself.

The definitive book on Gnosticism is Gnosis by Kurt Rudolph.

The book is used by most serious students of the subject, and
even the popular religion writer Elaine Pagels refers to Rudolph’s
work. Rudolph explores the many positive contributions Gnostic
theology made to early Christian thought – and you can see it in
the canonical works of Paul and John. Likewise, we see in the
same New Testament how the apostolic founders separated the
truth from the lie in the many different movements labeled
‘Gnostic.’

The Da Vinci Code leaves this all out, but plants the idea that the
Gnostics were heroic bearers of open-minded truth, who were
suppressed by a patriarchal apostolic church Mafia. Yes, there
were controversies, but the early Church and the Gnostic
movements intermingled for generations, and it was hardly a
battle between entrenched patriarchal dogmatics and free-ranging
feminist mystics.

The Da Vinci Code leaves out the well-known fact that the basic
shape of the Canon of the New Testament was drawn in the 100’s
AD in response to the Gnostic Marcion, who himself desired to
leave out a great many books, authorizing only a very narrow
version of “the Gospel”. Marcion’s Canon included only a short
version of Luke and ten letters of Paul. Most historians of the
church understand that whereas most Gnostics rejected the Old

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Testament outright, and generally were narrow and exclusive of a

range of Christian scriptural traditions, the apostolic church were
far more expansive. It was the apostolic church that fought to
preserve the Old Testament as Scripture for the Church – and it
was the apostolic church that preserved the four gospels – not
one or another – as well as the other 23 books we now call the
New Testament.

The Da Vinci Code spends no time on the obvious problems with

the most important Gnostic teachings. Probably this is because
they aren’t at all in line with his apparent theory of Gnosis as pro-
feminine, open-minded and easy-going.

Most of the Gnostic texts found at Nag Hammadi hold the Jews
and the Old Testament in contempt. Indeed, the prevailing
Gnostic theologies held that the God of the Jews was either Satan
at worst, or at best a second-class fallen angel type of God.
Likewise, the Gnostics typically despised the Creation itself,
believing it to be the work of a second class God or the devil
himself. Gnostics typically disdained marriage and sex, for men
and women. And indeed, as we are reminded from Gospel of
Thomas, “becoming male” was key for women to move up and
beyond. They were hardly a bunch of nature loving “goddess
worshippers.”

Chapter Six: Mary Magdalene, and the Gospel of Mary

Perhaps the scholar most associated with the Gnostic Gospel of
Mary is Karen King. She explains that “Only three fragmentary
manuscripts are known to have survived into the modern period,
two third-century fragments in Greek, and a fifth-century Coptic
version.” And of the three, the Greek manuscripts are the oldest
and most trustworthy. She explains that there are important
variations between the Greek and Coptic manuscripts. Notably,
the Coptic variants reflect theological tendencies that arguably
belong to a later time. For example, the Greek fragments seem to
presume that the leadership of Mary Magdalene as a woman is not

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under debate; only her teaching is challenged. The Coptic

version, however, points toward a situation in which women's
leadership as such is being challenged and requires defense. Her
theory is that the changes in the text may reflect the historical
exclusion of women from their earlier leadership roles in Christian
communities. A historical exclusion which is part of the sad
practice of discrimination against women which the Church
carried on for most of its history – if not throughout the very
important ‘early church’ period.

Just as the Da Vinci Code tells us, The Gospel of Mary exalts Mary
Magdalene over the male disciples of Jesus. Without question The
Gospel of Mary provides important information about the role of
women in the early church. Indeed, modern scholars are well
aware of the many tensions in second-century Christianity –
particular in regard to the establishment of an authoritative set of
teachings and practices over against a highly variegated theological
landscape in which all sorts of different ideas and practices were
peddled throughout the Roman Empire by a variety of supposedly
“inspired charismatic prophets and teachers.” Religious and
philosophical esoterics were rampant in the first and second
century, and we know for a fact that the church quickly sought to
preserve the core teachings of Jesus and of his apostolic
witnesses. They did this by both establishing a “priesthood” of
leaders descended from the apostles – and dedicated to preserving
the apostolic inheritance – not improving it. As this “priesthood”
became established – being comprised of overseers (bishops),
elders (presbyters or ‘priests’) and deacons -- it did indeed leave out
women.

There is no doubt that the role of women diminished from the

original apostolic era – primarily because of the patriarchal
prejudices of men in that time. And while this is clearly true, an
analysis of the Gospel of Mary still doesn’t support anything like The
Da Vinci Code claims about Jesus and Mary.

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Following the logic of Karen King, our leading Gospel of Mary

scholar, The Gospel of Mary says more about the role women should
have than about the role Mary Magdalene herself actually had. It
tells us more about the era in which it was written (ca. 150 AD)
than the era in which Jesus and Mary were friends.

We know from other sources, that in that period of the second

century, charismatic preachers traveled all over the Roman world
– and carried the gifts of speaking in tongues and other spiritual
powers -- and many of them were women. The more likely
situation is that the author of the Gospel of Mary was a Gnostic
charismatic – who sought credibility for these charismatic
preachers, and set about establishing their authority over and
against the fairly well-established Church hierarchy of bishop,
priest and deacon, which was now in place throughout the many
cities of the Ancient World.

Chapter Seven: Witches and Witch Burning

The Da Vinci Code claims that the Church killed five million women
during the Inquisitions. “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.’” [The Da Vinci Code 125]

Dr. Brian Pavlac is Associate Professor of History at King’s

College in Wilkes-Barr, Pennsylvania. His research shows that the
Roman Catholic Church – he refers to it as the Latin Catholic
Church -- did obviously participate in the horrible persecution of
human-beings accused of witch-craft in the early modern period
after the Middle Ages. But, he notes, they weren’t all women,
there weren’t five million victims, and the Roman Catholic
Church didn’t actually conduct most of the atrocities.

His scholarship has led him to estimate that between 30,000 to

110,000 people were killed for being “witches” across several
centuries. And a large percentage of them were men.

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Pavlac writes:

When the Witch Hunts first began to intensify, in the 1400s, one church hierarchy,
what I call the Latin Catholic Church, dominated Western Civilization. Even
within that one church, however, uniformity in all matters of faith and belief had
not been fully imposed.

The predominant Christian view of witchcraft during the Middle Ages was that it
was an illusion. People might think they were witches, but they were fooling
themselves, or the Devil was fooling them. Most authorities thought that
witchcraft could do no serious harm, because it was not real. It took a number of
inquisitor’s manuals and a series of papal bulls (written letters of judgment and
command) to contradict that traditional Christian idea, and identify witchcraft
with a dangerous heresy. Ultimately in 1484, Pope Innocent VIII, in his bull
Summis desiderantes, let the Inquisition pursue witches.

There is some legitimate historical debate, though, about how far the bull applied
throughout the church, and how many church authorities really believed that
witches were a serious danger. In any case, just about at that time the “Church”
broke apart because of the Reformation. While Roman Catholicism redefined
itself under a papal magisterium, Lutheranism and Calvinism asserted other
sources for divine authority.

Surprisingly, the Protestant reformers often agreed with Rome, that witches were
a clear and present danger. All three of the western Christian “churches”
persecuted witches to some degree or another.

But none of these persecutions could have been carried out without the permission
and cooperation of secular governments. In only a few small regions, like the
Papal States and various Prince-Bishoprics in Germany, were religious and
temporal government leaders one and the same. But in all the rest of Western
Europe, secular princes ultimately decided whether or not witches were hunted.1

A feminist human-rights organization named Gendercide Watch

has published an excellent article touching on some of the latest
scholarship on the early-Modern Witch Hunts. The group argues
that estimates such as the one made in The Da Vinci Code are
completely unfounded on any facts whatsoever. The group
writes:

1
Pavlac, Brian A. “Ten Common Errors and Myths about the Witch Hunts, Corrected and Commented,” Prof.
Pavlac's Women's History Resource Site. (October 31, 2001). URL:
<http://www.kings.edu/womens_history/witcherrors.html> (accessed on 12/27/03).

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"The most dramatic [recent] changes in our vision of the Great Hunt [have]
centered on the death toll," notes Jenny Gibbons. She points out that estimates
made prior to the mid-1970s, when detailed research into trial records began,
"were almost 100% pure speculation." … “On the wilder shores of the feminist
and witch-cult movements," writes Robin Briggs, "a potent myth has become
established, to the effect that 9 million women were burned as witches in Europe;
gendercide rather than genocide. … This is an overestimate by a factor of up to
200, for the most reasonable modern estimates suggest perhaps 100,000 trials
between 1450 and 1750, with something between 40,000 and 50,000 executions,
of which 20 to 25 per cent were men." Briggs adds that "these figures are chilling
enough, but they have to be set in the context of what was probably the harshest
period of capital punishments in European history." 2

Even with these scholarly estimates of between 40,000 to 50,000

men and women executed as witches over three centuries – this
was still an atrocity by a supposedly “Christian” society. But let’s
be clear, as The Da Vinci Code is not, it wasn’t “the Church” but
rather all of Western European society over three centuries which
took part in these acts of barbarism against women and some
men.

Chapter 8: Constantine and Christianity

In a crucial scene, Sir Leah Teabing claims that at the Council of
Nicea, in 325, the divinity of Jesus was established by a close vote.
He makes it seem like the divinity of Jesus was as tenuous as the
election of George W. Bush to the presidency.

He says, “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.” [The Da Vinci Code p. 232] He goes
on to say that “…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. . . .” (The Da Vinci Code 233) He says, “Because
Constantine upgraded Jesus’ status almost four centuries after
Jesus’ death, … Constantine [had to create a] a new Bible, which
2
Jones, Adam. “Case Study: The European Witch-Hunts, c. 1450-1750 and Witch-Hunts Today”. Gendercide
Watch Website. Accessed 12/23/03. URL: http://gendercide.org/case_witchhunts.html

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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." (The Da Vinci
Code 234) He concludes “that almost everything our fathers
taught us about Christ is false.” [The Da Vinci Code 235]

This is totally false.

The Council of Nicea was called in 325 AD, and indeed the
Emperor made it happen. But it is very important to stress that
such a council of the leaders of the Church – bishops, presbyters,
deacons and laity -- couldn’t have happened before that time.
Why? Because was illegal to be a Christian before Constantine.
We have plenty of records of the extent to which Christians were
persecuted, tortured and killed for their faith in between the reign
of Nero and the reign of Constantine. There were numerous
waves of imperial oppression of Christians and Jews, and as such
the church could not “get a group together” to discuss in any
“universal sense” the heart and soul doctrines or practices they
sought to share in a unified Catholic witness.

Indeed, twenty years before Nicea, in the reign of Diocletian,

thousands of Christians were tortured and/or put to death.3 We
have records of the persecutions early Church members suffered
at the hand of the Romans. Even high-ranking Roman women
would be killed if found out to be “unrepentant Christians.” A
famous example is the martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicity – a
Roman aristocrat and her pregnant servant – who were Christians
together – and who were executed by the state in 203 AD for

3
One of Modernity’s greatest skeptics and antagonists of the Church is Edward Gibbon,
whose Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is perhaps still the most influential secular
English text on the Roman period of Christianity. The book is contemporary with the
Declaration of Independence, and as such comes from the early days of what we might
call the “Modern Era” – but still it is a must read. His highly dubious and very low
estimate of Christians executed by Roman persecution is in the low thousands – more
ancient sources put the number higher. Whether the ancients exaggerated is debatable,
but likely.

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their bold proclamation of faith in Jesus Christ. The great Bishop

of Carthage -- Tertullian – spread her story throughout the
Church as a sign of their apostolic witness to Christ in death.

The Council of Nicea is best known for producing a rough draft

statement of the orthodox faith embodied in what we now the
Nicene Creed. Actually, the “Nicene” Creed was finalized at a
council in Constantinople in 381. More importantly, the full
divinity of Christ was settled at Nicea. But, let’s be clear, no one
argued that Jesus was “only a man.” The question was: “Just how
divine is Jesus?”

The debate that was really settled at Nicea was as follows:

The so-called “heretic” was Arius -- a Carthaginian Christian, who

studied in Antioch and was ordained to the clergy in Alexandria.
He taught that Jesus’ divine nature was subordinate to the divinity
of God the Father, but superior to all other natures and beings.
He argued with his bishop in Alexandria over the exact nature of
the Son of God. Arius asserting that Jesus was indeed the
Messiah, and indeed the Son of God, but as such was a “creation”
of God. His point was simple: there was a time when the Son was
not yet existent. He agreed that the Son was more divine than
anybody else was – but not eternally begotten of the Father,
sharing the same substance and nature.

The opposition to Arius’ position – or “orthodox side” -- argued

that Jesus was the eternally existing Logos or Word of God.
Their view was the Logos, or Word, was not “created” but rather
somehow “begotten” – existing co-eternally and equally as one of
the three aspects of the nature of the One God. In other words
the orthodox position was “there was no time before the Son
existed.”

Most argue that Constantine really didn’t care – only that he

wanted the issue finally settled. Indeed, today, from a distance,

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the difference between the Arian perspective and the Orthodox

perspective is hard to see – at least for most people who don’t
have a degree in classical philosophy or theology. And indeed,
centuries of subsequent disagreement over one of the phrases in
the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, “…who proceeds from the
Father and the Son,” would become the pretext for the Great
Schism between the Western and Eastern branches of the Church
in 1054.

But regardless, the claim that Constantine invented the Divinity of

Jesus in the fourth century is ridiculous. And it is easily disproved
– as a quick glance at any modern critical study of the New
Testament would confirm. Even modern agnostics agree that the
early church believed in the divinity of Jesus – by at least some
“primitive” definition. To verify this, one would have only to
check with the apparent thinking of the authors of the New
Testament, the 27 books of which were written between 49 and
130 AD. Christians have pretty much always revered the Letters
of Paul as scripture. Their apostolic authenticity is without
question the best attested of all the Christian and Gnostic writings
of the First Century. They are clearly the oldest books in the New
Testament, being dated by even the most liberal scholars to
between 49-62 AD. Even the great Gnostic teacher Marcion
revered Paul above all others.

And significantly, Paul’s letters clearly state that Jesus was the
Messiah, and of a stature equal to God. To verify this, one needs
only to read Philippians chapter 2 – written by Paul around the
year 50 AD – within the lifetime of the first apostles and other
witnesses to Jesus:

“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

who though he was in the form of God, did not regard
equality with God as something to be exploited, but
emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in
human likeness. And being found in human form, he

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humbled himself and became obedient to the point of

death – even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly
exalted him and gave him the name, so that at the name
of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth
and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that
Jesus Christ is the Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

The Da Vinci Code says that Constantine compiled the Bible in the
300’s, but it is a simple fact that the Old Testament was
completed seven to eight centuries before Constantine’s time.
Most scholars believe that the books of the Law were finalized
before 500 BC (at the latest), that the books of the Prophets and
the Writings were finalized sometime before 250 BC or so. And
we possess plenty of ancient manuscripts to prove that
Constantine had nothing to do with the creation of the Old
Testament – he clearly didn’t “burn them all.”

Likewise, all reputable scholars agree that the 27 books of the

New Testament were written between 49 AD and 130 AD at the
absolute latest. And most scholars agree that at least Matthew,
Mark and Luke, and all of Paul were in circulation among the
widespread Christian communities by 90 AD, when the Rabbis of
Judaism held the Council of Jamnia, and officially declared the
Old Testament to be a “Closed Canon” while expelling all Jews
who believed in Jesus from the synagogues. Moreover, the
leading bishops of Europe, Africa and Asia recognized the basic
core of the New Testament canon by the middle of the 100’s.

We know that no single Christian bishop in antiquity – even in

Constantine’s day – had the authority to speak for the entire
church. Neither the bishop of Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria,
nor Rome had singular authority in the first five centuries of the
church. In those days, even long after Constantine’s death, the
bishops of the church had authority only over their own diocese
and region. The bishops (the direct descendants of the early
“overseers” and “apostles”) were in a relationship of brotherhood

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with one another, and at best the interacted by letter, and mutual
study or conversation from time to time. Obviously, the Roman
Empire allowed for a great deal of travel, mobility and
communication – provided folks were cautious and secretive
when needed.

But we also know that at the council of Nicea, the first really
major gathering of Christians from the known world, for the first
time Christians could meet in the open, and affirm the core
practices and beliefs shared throughout the apostolic churches, as
well as settle relatively minor points about the Bible. Things were
more or less settled at Nicea – not invented.

The Da Vinci Code makes a number of very specific claims about

how “nothing in Christianity was original” and how the Church
simply incorporated a lot of pagan ideas into a supposedly
Constantinian Christianity. Henry Chadwick is the author of the
Penguin History of the Church Volume I -- The Early Church. It is
a standard undergraduate-level text that traces the story of
emergent Christianity from the apostolic age through the time of
Constantine. Chadwick points out the following:
¾ “Constantine was not aware of any mutual exclusiveness
between Christianity and his faith in the Unconquered Sun.
The transition from solar monotheism (the most popular form
of contemporary paganism) to Christianity was not difficult.
In Old Testament prophecy Christ was entitled “the sun of
righteousness’. Clement of Alexandria (c. A.D. 200) speaks of
Christ driving his chariot across the sky like the Sun-god. A
tomb mosaic recently found at Rome, probably made early in
the fourth century, depicts Christ as the Sun-god mounting the
heavens with his chariot. Tertullian [b. A.D. 160] says that
many pagans imagined the Christians worshipped the sun
because they met on Sundays and prayed towards the East.
Moreover, early in the fourth century there begins in the West
(where first and by whom is not known) the celebration of 25
December, the birthday of the Sun-god at the winter solstice,

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as the date for the nativity of Christ. How easy it was for
Christianity and solar religion to become entangled at the
popular level is strikingly illuminated by a mid-fifth century
sermon by Pope Leo the Great, rebuking his over-cautious
flock for paying reverence to the Sun on the steps of St.
Peter’s before turning their back on it to worship inside the
westward-facing basilica.” [Chadwick, p.127]
¾ “[Constantine] was not baptized until he lay dying in 337, but
this implies no doubt about his Christian belief. It was
common at this time (and continued so until about A.D. 400)
to postpone baptism to the end of one’s life, especially if one’s
duty as an official included torture and execution of criminals.
Part of the reason for postponement lay in the seriousness
with which the responsibilities of baptism were taken. [Ibid.]
¾ “Constantine favoured Christianity among the many religions
of his subjects, but did not make it the official or ‘established’
religion of the empire.” [Ibid.]
¾ “Constantine assigned a fixed proportion of provincial
revenues to church charity.” [Chadwick, 128]
¾ “Constantine also endeavored to express Christian ideals in
some of his laws, protecting children, slaves, peasants and
prisoners. An edict of 316 directs that criminals may not be
branded on the face ‘because man is made in God’s image.’”
[Ibid.]
¾ “A law of Constantine of 321 closed law courts ‘on the
venerable day of the sun’ except for the pious purpose of
freeing slaves, and deprecated Sunday labor except where
necessary on farms…This is the earliest evidence for the
process by which Sunday became not merely the day on which
Christians met for worship but also a day of rest…The
Christian practice of commemorating the Lord’s resurrection
on the first day of the week was already traditional before St.
Paul wrote 1 Corinthians. The Church derived the habit of
worship on one day in seven from Judaism, not from Mithraic
sun-cult, and they chose Sunday as the day when the Lord rose
again.” [Ibid, 128]

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¾ As to the vote of the bishops regarding the divinity of Jesus, “218 out of
220 bishops signed the creed, a unanimity that must certainly
have gratified the anxious emperor. It is, however, clear that
the crucial terms of the creed were not understood in a
precisely identical sense by all the signatories. ‘Of one
substance’ affirmed identity. It declared that the Father and
the Son are ‘the same.’ But this was ambiguous. To some it
meant a personal or specific identity; to many others it meant a
much broader, generic identity. The happy accident of this
ambiguity enabled Constantine to secure the assent of
everyone except two Libyan bishops, whose objections seem
to have been less to the creed than to the sixth canon which
subjected them to Alexandrian control.” [ibid, 130]

Something The Da Vinci Code neglects is despite the nearly

unanimous affirmation of Jesus’ full equality with the Father
which came by vote at the Council of Nicea, most of the fourth
century still saw a great deal of theological controversy between
the orthodox definition of the Son and the slightly-lesser Arian
version. There were lots of Arian sympathizers in the Greek and
Gothic ends of the Empire – including Constantine’s own
mother.

And this fact only goes to undermine The Da Vinci Code idea that
Constantine’s “stamped out” persons who didn’t believe in the
divinity of Jesus. Both the Arians and the orthodox parties
believed in Jesus’ divinity – it was simply a question of degree and
of defining how the Church would understand the internal nature
of the Trinity. The fact that Constantine was baptized himself, at
the end of his life, by a known Arian sympathizer says it all.

Chapter 9: Yahweh, Jehovah and Shekinah

The Da Vinci Code says
¾ “The blade and the chalice, fused as one. The Star of David
… the perfect union of male and female … Solomon’s Seal …
marking the Holy of Holies, where the male and female deities

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– Yahweh and Shekinah – were thought to dwell.” – [DVC,

446]

¾ “Early Jews believed that the Holy of Holies in Solomon’s

Temple housed not only God but also His powerful female
equal, Shekinah.”

¾ “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.”

Umm… these statements are completely false.

I offer some basic definitions I’ve adapted from entries in my

copy of the Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible – a Protestant standard
easily accessed by anyone who lives near a mainline Protestant
church or seminary library. Any Roman Catholic, Jewish or
Orthodox scholar would likely agree with these definitions – and I
would stake my house on that claim.

Yahweh is the vocalization from the four consonants used in

Hebrew shorthand to refer to the name of God, which itself
cannot be uttered. God used the phrase, “I am what I am, or
I will be what I will be,” in the revelation to Moses, when
Moses said, “Who is talking to me here?” This phrase in
Hebrew was denoted by the consonants YHWH, so as not to
speak the name of God profanely – the letters began to be
pronounced “Yahweh” – which itself is a made up word.

Jehovah is an artificial form, not Biblical in any way, dating to

around 1520, in an effort to offer a way of pronouncing the
Tetragrammaton (YHWH).

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Shekinah means, “that which dwells.” It is a word not found

in the Bible, but it is rooted in the Old Testament tradition,
and in Rabbinical writings, in reference to God’s abiding
presence on Earth, and is reflected in the New Testament
especially in the belief that God became incarnate in human
form in the person of Jesus.

Indeed, one of the key notions of the Old Testament theology is

“God’s tabernacling presence” with God’s people. The concept
of Glory is in fact related to this. Glory really means “the shining
light of God’s abiding presence” with someone or on something.
Glory is like those rays of light, which sometimes break down
through the clouds in the afternoon or morning.

In late Jewish Scripture – the books of wisdom – this notion is

given expression in terms of language about God’s breath,
wisdom, and word. These understandings of God’s presence in
wisdom and spirit very much continued into the early Christian
period, as the apostles and their followers began to make some
kind of theological sense out of just how God could come to
dwell in the Messiah – or the “anointed one.”

The concept of Shekinah clearly informs the apostolic teaching of

how God’s presence came to dwell in the person of Jesus – the
notion of the Holy Spirit coming over Mary, such that within her
womb would be knit the fully present Godhead in form of a
human being. As Luke writes: “The Holy Spirit will come upon
you and the power of the Most High will come over you.” Luke
1.35

Stoic and Platonic thought greatly influenced Jewish and Early

Christian thinkers in the First Century. They taught that the
Logos or the WORD of God created the universe. Jewish
thinkers began to merge their Biblical notion of Wisdom, or
Shekinah, with the notion of the Logos. Indeed, by the time of
Jesus’ birth, this understanding was rather well established, and it

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informed the early Christian writers who borrowed from the

predominant Greek philosophical vocabulary as they explored the
meaning of Jesus. The Gospel of John reveals this philosophical
terminology in its use of the word “LOGOS,” or “The Word.”
As John writes, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word
was with God and the Word was God.”

The concept of Shekinah has feminine overtones of course --

Wisdom, Sophia, and Holy Spirit. In Christian theology, the
whole matter of the incarnation of God’s presence by the Holy
Spirit and through the Virgin Mary is rather obviously of great
value for those seeking to explore the “feminine qualities of the
Godhead.” But, this is very different from the “Male Deity and
Female Deity” that Da Vinci Code talks about.

Chapter 10: An exploration of the real role of women in the

early Church

Paul wrote, “In Christ there is neither male nor female.” [Galatians 3]

Duke University’s Elizabeth Clark has said that the evidence of

women’s roles in the Early Church is “somewhat mixed.” Of
course there’s plenty of evidence in the New Testament itself of
women doing many things within early Christianity. In Paul's
letters he greets women, calling them “co-workers,” and in
Romans, he refers to a deaconess and a woman apostle.

Paul writes in Romans 16:

“I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the

church, …so that you may welcome her in the Lord as is
fitting for the saints, and help her in whatever she may
require from you, for she has been a benefactor of many and
of myself as well. Greet Prisca and Aquila, who work with
me in Christ Jesus, and who risked their necks for my life, to
whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the

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Gentiles. Greet also the church in their house. Greet my

beloved Epaenetus, who was the first convert in Asia for
Christ. Greet Mary, who has worked very hard among you.
Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives who were in
prison with me; they are prominent among the apostles, and
they were in Christ before I was… Greet one another with a
holy kiss. All the churches of Christ greet you. I urge you,
brothers and sisters, to keep an eye on those who cause
dissentions and offenses, in opposition to the teaching that
you have learned; avoid them. For such people do not serve
our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk
and flattery they deceive the hearts of the simple-minded.”

The woman Junia is called “an apostle.” For many years, the
Church debated whether or not this could possibly be a woman’s
name – many argued that Junias was a man. But the best
manuscript traditions support the idea that this is a female name –
which makes sense in light of the passage. Paul says Junia became
a Christian before he did, which is fascinating, and not debatable.
Since Paul was converted within a few years of the Resurrection, a
likely conclusion would have to be that Junia was one of the
earliest converts to Christianity. Insofar as she is identified as part
of the Roman church, and that church was founded before Paul
and Peter arrived there, she must have been one of the founding
members of the church at Rome. If Paul is referring to her as an
“apostle,” it is very possible that she had been in Jerusalem at the
time of the passion and resurrection. Following the account of
Pentecost in Acts, maybe Junia was one of the “visitors from
Rome” who heard the Gospel from those Spirit-filled witnesses.4

So what did these early women leaders do in the church? Well,

the earliest Christian communities met in people's houses; they
didn't have churches yet for quite some time. The New
Testament tells us in many places that women owned the houses
4
This section follows the logic of Professor Elizabeth Clark of Duke University as
presented in the PBS series: “From Jesus to Christ.”

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in which the early Christians met. As Professor Clark says, “This

is significant because these women weren’t just providing coffee
and cookies.”5

Clearly, if women owned houses used as churches, then as

patrons of the nascent community they would have had great
influence. As the Gospel of Mary confirms, by the middle of the 2nd
century and with the establishment of clerical orders, women did
get excluded from the hierarchy of clergy. But it is reasonable to
say that the church in the 100’s and 200’s was still very far from
being dominated by clergy – as it would become after the time of
Constantine and into the Middle Ages.

But as women were increasingly shut out of roles now reserved

for “ordained clergy,” the rise of Christian monasticism created
another place where early Church women could find great
influence over the wider Church. Elizabeth Clark explains that as
monasticism developed in Egypt in the 300’s and 400’s, and with
the founding of monasteries, “a whole new avenue opens up for
women's activity in the church.” We know quite factually that in
the ancient Roman empire, there were many wives, mothers,
sisters and daughters of aristocrats or merchant princes who
controlled households and vast wealth. During the reign of
Constantine, and for centuries thereafter, powerful women
founded churches, monasteries and other Christian institutions.
In numerous instances, a wealthy Christian woman would endow
and then become head of a monastery herself.

Obviously, the most important woman in the church in the 300’s

was Constantine’s mother, Helena. Helena was a single mother,
whose husband Constantius abandoned her upon assuming the
purple as “Caesar” of Gaul, Spain and Britain in 292 – a position
something like a ‘vice-emperor.’ Constantius married the
daughter of his patron, in an effort to better position himself

5
Clark interview.

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politically. Constantine was born to her in 274 AD. Constantine

spent many years in the court of Diocletian, and was a military
leader during the great persecution of Christians. But when he
became emperor himself he recalled his mother, and restored her
to her place in the imperial family. After becoming emperor, he
declared an edict legalizing Christianity in the Roman Empire.
Helena became a Christian in 312, and as the most powerful
woman in the Roman Empire that was a very big thing for
Christianity. Scholars believe that she had probably been a “secret
Christian” for a very long time before then, in order to avoid
persecution in the horrible swath of violence against Christians
which took place in the reign of Diocletian. With her son as
emperor, Helena would zealously guard, protect and empowered
the Church.

As an old lady in 326 AD, Helena made a pilgrimage to the Holy

Land, in part to seek God’s pardon for her son – who had
executed his first son Crispus on charges of treason brought by
his second wife Fausta; and then executed Fausta when it was
shown that she falsely accused Crispus. The Hamlet-like tragedy
caused Constantine great guilt and grief, and apparently his sin
and repentance were called out by his mother.

While on her pilgrimage, Helena asked local Christians to identify

the many places associated with Christ’s life, death and
resurrection. She founded churches on many of the sites
traditionally identified by the Christians of Palestine – who had
been there since the days of Jesus – among the more famous are
the churches on the Mount of Olives, on Calvary, and in
Bethlehem. Helena also made a discovery – or claimed to have made
it -- that would no doubt establish the pattern from which the
Crusaders and their Medieval balladeers would construct their
Holy Grail legends: Helena claims to have discovered the true
cross

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Another prominent woman in the period after Constantine, was

Olympias of Constantinople. She was a good friend and
confidante of John Chrysostom, one of the greatest Church
figures of all time, who was Patriarch of Constantinople in the late
300’s and early 400’s. She built monasteries, churches and
hospitals. Her contributions to the Church of Constantinople and
beyond equaled something like 900 million dollars in modern
terms.6 Her generosity enabled the charity operations of the
church, which after Constantine empowered it offered a “social
safety net” for the poor, needy, sick, orphaned and widowed.

6
Clark interview

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Appendix:

Here’s a great piece I culled from the Martin Marty Center online
by Associate Professor Margaret M. Mitchell of the University of
Chicago. Reprinted without permission:

SEPTEMBER 24, 2003

Cracking the Da Vinci Code
— Margaret M. Mitchell
Besieged by requests for my reaction to The Da Vinci Code, I
finally decided to sit down and read it over the weekend. It was a
quick romp, largely fun to read, if rather predictable and preachy.
This is a good airplane book, a novelistic thriller that presents a
rummage sale of accurate historical nuggets alongside falsehoods
and misleading statements. The bottom line: the book should
come coded for “black light,” like the pen used by the character
Sauniere to record his dying words, so that readers could scan
pages to see which “facts” are trustworthy and which patently not,
and (if a black light could do this!) highlight the gray areas where
complex issues are misrepresented and distorted.
Patently inaccurate:
In his own lifetime Jesus “inspired millions to better lives”
(p.231); there were “more than eighty gospels” (p.231; the number
80 is factual-sounding, but has no basis); “the earliest Christian
records” were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls (including
gospels) and Nag Hammadi texts (pp.234, 245); the Nag
Hammadi texts “speak of Christ’s ministry in very human terms”
(p.234); the marriage of Mary Magdalene and Jesus is “a matter of
historical record” (p.244); Constantine invented the divinity of
Jesus and excluded all gospels but the four canonical ones;
Constantine made Christianity “the official religion” of the
Roman Empire (p.232); Constantine coined the term “heretic”
(p.234); “Rome’s official religion was sun worship” (p.232). There
are more.
Gray areas:

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“The vestiges of pagan religion in Christian symbology are

undeniable” (p.232), but that does not mean “Nothing in
Christianity is original.” The relationship between early
Christianity and the world around it, the ways in which it was
culturally embedded in that world, sometimes unreflectively,
sometimes reflexively, sometimes in deliberate accommodation,
sometimes in deliberate cooptation, is far more complicated than
the simplistic myth of Constantine’s Stalinesque program of
cultural totalitarianism. Further, Constantine’s religious life—
whether, when, how and by what definition he was Christian
and/or “pagan”—is a much debated issue because the literary and
non-literary sources (such as coins) are not consistent. That
Constantine the emperor had “political” motives (p.234) is hardly
news to anyone! The question is how religion and politics (which
cannot be separated in the ancient world) were interrelated in him.
He is as hard to figure out on this score as Henry VIII, Osama
Bin Laden, Tammy Fay Baker and George W. Bush. Brown has
turned one of history’s most fascinating figures into a cartoon-ish
villain.
“Paganism” is treated throughout The Da Vinci Code as though it
were a unified phenomenon, which it was not (“pagan” just being
the Christian term for “non-Christian”). The religions of the
Mediterranean world were multiple and diverse, and cannot all be
boiled down to “sun-worshippers” (232). Nor did all “pagans”
frequently, eagerly, and with mystical intent participate in the
hieros gamos (ritual sex acts). “The Church” is also used
throughout the book as though it had a clear, uniform and unitary
referent. For early Christian history this is precisely what we do
not have, but a much more complex, varied and localized
phenomenon. Brown presumes “the Church” is “the Holy Roman
Catholic Church” which he thinks had tremendous power always
and everywhere, but ecclesiastical history is a lot messier.
Brown propagates the full-dress conspiracy theory for Vatican
suppression of women. Feminist scholars and others have been
debating different models of the “patriarchalization” of

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Christianity for decades. Elisabeth Schuessler Fiorenza’s landmark

work, In Memory of Her (1983), argued that while Jesus and Paul
(on his better days) were actually pretty much pro-women, it was
the next generations (the authors of letters in Paul’s name like 1
and 2 Timothy and others) who betrayed their feminist agenda
and sold out to the Aristotelian, patriarchal vision of Greco-
Roman society. Others (unfortunately) sought to blame the
misogyny on the Jewish roots of Christianity. More recently it has
been argued that the picture is more mixed, even for Jesus and
Paul. That is, they may have been more liberal than many of their
contemporaries about women, but they were not all-out radicals,
though they had ideas (such as Gal 3:28) that were even more
revolutionary than they realized (in both senses of the term). Alas,
no simple story here. And while obsessing over Mary Magdalene,
The Da Vinci Code ignores completely the rise and incredible
durability and power of the other Mary, the mother of Jesus, and
devotion to her which follows many patterns of “goddess”
veneration (she even gets the Athena’s Parthenon dedicated to her
in the sixth century).
This list is just a sample. A “black light” edition of The Da Vinci
Code would, however, be unnecessary if readers would simply
take the book as fiction. But there is an obstacle: the first page of
the book reads, under the bold print headline “Fact”: “all
descriptions of ...documents, and secret rituals in this novel are
accurate.”
Margaret M. Mitchell is Associate Professor of New Testament at the University of Chicago Divinity School
and the Chair of the Department of New Testament and Early Christian Literature. Her latest book is
The Heavenly Trumpet: John Chrysostom and the Art of Pauline Interpretation (Westminster/John Knox,
2002).

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