The Da Vinci Code

Gnostic propaganda

THE DA VINCI CODE
By Dan Brown
Bantam Press. 454 pages. £10.99
ISBN 0 593 05152 1

A page-turner with badly drawn characters and mediocre writing - why should EN want to review 'The Da Vinci Code'?

Take a look at the reviews on Amazon.com and you'll get an idea of the answer. Usually a book gets a handful of reviews, some a bit more - 'The Da Vinci Code' has had over 1,100 reviews posted and the numbers are still growing. Overall the book receives an average four star rating (out of five) as many people felt it was a great thriller, couldn't put it down, found it loaded with many interesting historical facts and lots of intrigue. A significant number gave it a bad review for poor writing, predictability, and flat characters.

I have to admit I found that it was a pacey book that drew me along, but overall I must agree with those who found its poor writing painful at many points. There are of course many best sellers of a similar literary quality. The very disturbing thing about this book is its barely hidden agenda, its gross misrepresentation of history, and the way in which so many people have taken these on board as fact.

Murder mixture

Beginning with a murder in the Louvre, the modern-day hero and heroine are embroiled on a hunt through codes, symbols and hidden messages that lead on to a quest for the Holy Grail. Although clearly a work of fiction, Brown has done a masterful job of confusing and deluding many people by setting his tale in a web of pseudo-information about art history, symbolism, religion, cults, architecture, and, more crucially, the life of Christ, the doctrine of the early church, and the formation of the biblical canon. The author mixes some accurate information with a multitude of falsehoods in a way that leads the less discerning into believing in the veracity of it all. As one reviewer on Amazon wrote: 'The book becomes something less than a novel, and more like propaganda. Try a few Googles (search engine on internet) and you will find that this novel has fed the fires of Christian bashing. People are quoting it as a trustworthy source of factual information about Christian history. But it's just a novel, right? The author can't be blamed if people take a work of fiction and believe it as fact - unless that was the author's intent.'

And that it was the author's intent can hardly be doubted.

Startling revelations?

So what are some of these startling revelations? Just to catalogue the highlights: the holy grail is not really Christ's cup at the last supper, but the person of Mary Magdalene, who was actually married to Jesus and pregnant by him when he was crucified. The divinity of Christ was established by a vote in the fourth century at the council of Nicaea, at which Constantine was shaping the church in a way to strengthen his own power base. Many documents were suppressed/ burned at this time and the canon was merely picked in order to perpetuate a convenient fiction and to demonise the sacred feminine - a job carried on by the Church from that point forward.

All of this ludicrous nonsense would be laughable if it were not for the fact that many people who have read the book believe that they were reading historical truth with scholarly support. Readers have praised the book as enlightening and informative. One reader said it 'changed her life'. Amazingly even the New York Daily News reviewer has judged 'His research is impeccable' (so much for the quality of research at the NY Daily News!).

Thankfully, there are some readers whose grasp of history is sufficient for them to identify this 'information' as the nonsense it is. But it is alarming to see the number of people who are taken in by Brown's book. Just a small amount of reflection is enough to overturn some of Brown's contentions. If Christ had been married and fathered a child, it can hardly be imagined that it could be hushed up a few hundred years later at the Council of Nicaea. And the historical record, which supports his life, death and even his resurrection as we understand it from the New Testament, is more compelling than any of the sources Brown draws on for his theory.

Again, the idea that Jesus's deity was a late addition made by scheming males wanting to consolidate power is patently false. A belief in Christ's divine nature can be clearly seen in the works of the early church fathers, such as Clement of Rome and Ignatius who lived in the first century. The Council of Nicaea in the fourth century was certainly a time of formalising existing belief and practice, but the decisions made there were not arbitrary but in accordance with beliefs carried down from the apostolic times.

Arian controversy

In stating that Jesus's divinity was voted on, Brown is probably alluding to the Arian controversy. This was a major issue at Nicaea, and did revolve around Jesus's status as the Word of God and how he is related to God the Father. Arius proposed a view of Christ as God's pre-eminent first creation and therefore not divine. That Arius with his inadequate view of Christ was the originator of a new and unorthodox idea was clear, however. The Bishop of Alexandria denounced his ideas as heretical more than five years before the council of Nicaea even met! Arius did manage to convince some heavyweight supporters, but the bitter controversy that ensued shows the strength with which the belief in Christ's divinity was held. It was not a new idea being formed but an established doctrine being challenged by heresy.

It is interesting to note, however, that even the heretic Arius's view of Christ was much higher than that which Brown propounds in his book. Arius's teaching on Christ was also much more elevated than that of many modern liberal theologians!

NT canon

Brown's other principle attack, that upon the canon of the New Testament, draws on the Gnostic gospels, such as the Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Mary. He asserts that these lost gospels were excluded by those in power because they did not suit the desired paradigm.

Two points are important to counter Brown here. Firstly, it should be remembered that those at the Council of Nicaea were formalising already strongly held beliefs about the authority of the writings of our New Testament. More-over, these writings were chosen based on the important tenets of authorship by an apostle or a close associate of an apostle, conformity with Christ's teaching, and acceptance and use among the church at large.

Secondly, most scholars think that the Gnostic gospels were originally written in the second or even third century, and their authenticity and reliability is more than highly questionable. These sorts of writings are known as pseudepigrapha - writings falsely credited to an important person to give the work credibility. They are very different in nature to the authentic Gospels and merely draw on the Christian tradition as a platform for developing the philosophy of Gnosticism, and scholars view them as derivative rather than original documents. The authors of the Gnostic gospels were not primarily interested in history, but in promoting an esoteric mystery religion. In contrast, there is firm evidence that the New Testament Gospels were written by those whom they claim for authorship, and their accounts are largely confirmed by non-Christian historical sources (i.e. Roman and Jewish).

'Sacred feminine'

Finally, a word about the 'sacred feminine'. This is a major theme for Brown, and, while Jesus is denied divinity in his book, Mary Magdalene is practically worshipped as a goddess. I will not belabour the topic here, as I trust it is obvious to EN readers that any of the great monotheistic religions reject the idea of God as a sexual being. Brown's ideas at this point are pure paganism. And this is really what his thesis boils down to, a pick-and-mix paganism flavoured with populist feminism, exalting the role of secret societies and esoteric hidden knowledge. History is twisted to suit the programme.

We need church history

Needless to say, I would not recommend this book to anyone. I have read books that are challenging to Christianity, some well-written and some less so. But of these, this book can lay claim to the dubious honour of being among the most poorly written. More crucially, it is also the least honest in its attack. Here is one the prince of darkness is sure to love. It has impressed on me, however, the importance of a reasonable knowledge of church history, and the necessity of healthy scepticism. The world at large seems to reserve all its scepticism for Christianity alone, and is ready to believe almost anything else, however fantastic or implausible.

Alicia Felce looks at a book that is very big in the US