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Amy Welborn points out some of the many errors about religion, history, and art contained in The Da Vinci Code in this short pamphlet.

What is The Da Vinci Code?

The Da Vinci Code is a novel by Dan Brown that has held one of the top two or three places on best-seller lists since early summer. More than 3 million copies (ed: now over 40 million) are in print.

In Brown's novel, the 'Da Vinci code' refers to cryptic messages supposedly incorporated by Leonardo Da Vinci into his artwork. According to the novel, Leonardo was a member of an ancient secret society called the 'Priory of Sion' dedicated to preserving the 'truths' that Jesus designated Mary Magdalene as His successor, that His message was about the celebration of the 'sacred feminine,' that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and had children and that the Holy Grail of legend and lore is really Mary Magdalene, the 'sacred feminine,' the vessel who carried Jesus' children.

Sounds like an intriguing bit of lost history. Is it? Long story short: No.

Is the Holy Grail really the 'sacred feminine?'

The legend of the Holy Grail has taken many forms throughout history, but it has always identified the Grail as the cup Jesus used at the Last Supper. The idea of identifying it as the 'sacred feminine' and tying it into a supposed bloodline emanating from a union of Jesus and Mary Magdalene is lifted whole cloth from the 1981 classic of inventive esoteric wackiness, Holy Blood, Holy Grail.

Is the 'Priory of Sion' a real group?

No. Brown begins his book with a statement, under the title 'Fact,' that there are documents supporting the existence of the Priory in the Bibliotheque Nationale. These documents have long been understood to be forgeries, placed in the archives by an anti-Semitic supporter of the Vichy government named Pierre Plantard.

Does Da Vinci's The Last Supper really contain a code?

St. John and Jesus from The Last Supper by Leonardo Da Vinci (click to enlarge)

No. First, the idea that Da Vinci used any kind of code pertaining to any issue Dan Brown raises is unsupported by art historians.

Brown says that in this painting Da Vinci is telling us that the figure always identified as John the Evangelist is really Mary Magdalene, and that these two figures together form an 'M,' and that, because there is no grail in the picture, Da Vinci is telling us the 'grail' is the sacred feminine of Mary Magdalene.

Unfortunately for Brown, art historians tell us that the effeminate-looking John is quite a typical representation for the time, as is a Last Supper portrayal emphasizing betrayal rather than the institution of the Eucharist. In addition, the Last Supper is a dramatization of a scene from the Gospel of John, in which the institution narrative is not even described. No chalice? No problem. In context, it makes sense.

Who was Mary Magdalene according to the Scriptures?

St. Mary Magdalene is mentioned 12 times in the Gospels. She was healed of demon possession by Jesus (Luke 8:2), was present at the Crucifixion and the tomb and was sent by the Risen Jesus to the apostles to announce the Good News. Her feast day is celebrated July 22.

Who was Mary Magdalene according to Dan Brown?

Brown says Mary Magdalene was of royal blood, of the tribe of Benjamin, and Jesus' wife. According to Brown, after the crucifixion, Mary, pregnant with Jesus' child, moved to France and became the root of the Merovingian royal family.

He also says Jesus intended for Mary to be the head of his Church (celebrating the sacred feminine, remember) but that Peter wrested power from her, suppressed evidence of Jesus' real intentions and set into motion a 2,000-year conspiracy to demonize Mary Magdalene.

But Mary Magdalene is honored as a saint in the Catholic Church. How is that 'demonizing?'

Don't ask me. What is true is that in the sixth century, Pope Gregory the Great conflated the figures of Mary Magdalene, the penitent woman in Luke 7, and Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, saying that before her conversion, Mary had been a prostitute or adulteress. This has always been a disputed identification, however. Church Fathers from St. Ambrose to St. Thomas Aquinas have been undecided on the issue, and in the Eastern Church, the three are seen as distinct figures. This question has never been pushed underground, either, a Dan Brown claims.

So, who is Dan Brown?

He is a former English teacher who began full-time writing in 1996. His second novel, Angels and Demons, featured the Illuminati, a vial of anti-matter and a papal conclave. He holds no advanced degrees in religion.

What's the basis for Brown's views on Mry Magdalene and her competition with Peter?

All that Holy Blood, Holy Grail stuff, of course, but then there are also the Gnostic Gospels.

Gnosticism was a dualistic, esoteric mode of thinking that was widespread during the early Christian era, although its influence was not confined to Christianity. The Gnostic Gospels are works reflecting the Gnostic take on Christianity. Some have been known for centuries, but previously unknown works in the Nag Hammadi scrolls were discovered in Egypt in 1945.

Some modern scholars and religious writers have seized upon various passages from the Gnostic Gospels as indicative of a competing, woman-centered element of early Christianity, especially a passage fro The Gospel of Mary in which Jesus kisses Mary and the apostles express envy of His love for her. Brown works this thinking into his novel, but, like many others, ignores a deeply anti-woman passage from another Gnostic gospel, the Gospel of Thomas, in which Jesus says, 'For every woman who will make herself male will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.'

Gnosticism was rejected by Christianity, but not because of gender issues. Its claims (two gods, a belief that the created world was evil) were simply inconsistent with the rule of faith, as it was called, handed down from the apostles.

The canonical Gospels all date from the middle to late first century. The Gnostic gospels cannot be placed any earlier than the mid-second century. It is ironic, as historian James Hitchcock has pointed out, that elements of a profession that have for years derided the Gospels as unreliable history have now seized on later documents as reliable guides to Jesus' intentions.

Were Jesus and Mary Magdalene married?

Dan Brown has one of his fictional scholars say it's a 'matter of historical record.' No nonfictional scholars would claim this. The 'historical record' to which Brown refers are those 20th-century conspiracy books, not early Christian historical records.

Are Mary Magdalene's bones buried within the glass pyramid structure at the Louvre, as Brown presents it at the end of his novel?

No. Many things may have been buried with the pyramid, including good taste, but Mary Magdalene's bones are not among them.

Dan Brown claims that the idea of Jesus' divinity was dreamed up by the Council of Nicaea. Is this true?

No. When you read the Gospels and the letters of Paul, all of which date from the first century, you see a clear affirmation of Jesus as Lord.

The Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325 was a response to the threat of the Arian heresy, which claimed that Jesus was a semi-divine creature, not of the same being as God. This was quickly becoming a popular belief and threatening the unity of Christianity.

The Emperor Constantine, aware that disunity in Christianity threatened the empire, convened the Council. Traditional faith was re-articulated in the more precise, philosophical terms that the heresy demanded and was accepted as the most faithful reading of the evidence about Jesus given to us in the Gospels.

Brown indicates that the Gnostic Gospels were widely accepted in early Christianity and that Constantine ordered them destroyed. Is this true?

No. The process of discerning the authentic Gospels was a lengthy one, but it had already begun in the early second century. Some communities used various other Gospels, but second-century Church Fathers frequently cited the four Gospels as authoritative. Their criteria were apostolic origins and fidelity to the rule of faith, not gender issues. Brown's conspiracy theory is a fabrication. Moreover, the final determinations about what constituted the Christian canon of Scripture were made by councils held after Constantine's time.

So, the whole 'Mary vs. Peter' thing isn't true?

The historical evidence simply doesn't support it. It's based on speculation and a dramatic over-reading of a couple of passages from second-century fringe writings.

It's also illogical. Brown's argument rests on the assumption that the early apostles were concerned with suppressing the scandalous and radical. If that were so, why would they have the founder of their faith executed in manner reserved for the most shameful criminals?

It also is dependent on the assumption that Peter and his 'party' were all about power. For what purpose, we have to ask? Did they get rich from their 'version' of Christianity? Were they celebrated in their culture? No, they all died as despised martyrs. Some power trip.

This whole thing should fade pretty quickly, shouldn't it?

Probably not. The movie rights to The Da Vinci Code have been bought by Columbia, and Ron Howard is set to direct the film, probably to be released in 2005.

Oops!

Besides being logically and historically flawed, The Da Vinci Code is filled with more minor, but no less risible, errors. Here are a few:

One of Brown's scholars says, 'As the prophesied Messiah, Jesus toppled kings, inspired millions and founded new philosophies.' We'd like to meet those toppled kings.

The Emperor Constantine did not make Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire in A.D. 325. It happened under Theodosius 50 years later.

Gothic architecture was not 'masterminded' by the Knights Templar, a medieval military order that had nothing to do with the construction of Gothic cathedrals.

The Church did not burn 5 million witches during the Middle Ages. During the period 1400-1800, an estimated 30,000-50,000 people accused of witchcraft (20 percent of whom were men) were executed by Catholic and Protestant institutions and governments.

The Da Vinci Code: The facts behind the fiction of the bestselling novel
the pamphlet you have just read by Amy Welborn is available in a package of 50 pamphlets here.

Acknowledgement

Amy Welborn. 'The DaVinci Code: The facts behind the fiction.' Our Sunday Visitor. (May, 2004).

This article is reprinted with permission from Amy Welborn. . All rights reserved. To subscribe to Our Sunday Visitor click here.

The Author

Amy Welborn has an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University. She worked as a teacher in Catholic high schools, and a Parish Director of Religious Education and has been writing full time since 1999. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. Amy has written or edited nineteen books including Wish You Were Here: Travels Through Loss and Hope, A Catholic Woman's Book of Days, Friendship with Jesus: Pope Benedict XVI Talks to Children on Their First Holy Communion, The Loyola Kids Book of Saints, The Words We Pray: Discovering the Richness of Traditional Catholic Prayers, Loyola Kids Book of Heroes: Stories of Catholic Heroes and Saints throughout History, Decoding Mary Magdalene: Truth, Legend, and Lies,Prove It! Jesus, Prove It! Church, and Prove It! Prayer. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 29 to 7.

For 8 1/2 happy years beginning in 2000, she was married to Michael Dubruiel, who had worked as an editor for Our Sunday Visitor for nine years, but in the summer of 2008 changed jobs to serve as Director of Evangelization for the Diocese of Birmingham, Alabama. On February 3, 2009, Michael died while running on the treadmill at the gym. Amy's new book, Wish You Were Here: Travels Through Loss and Hope, is a memoir of those first few months, which included a sort of crazy decision to travel to Sicily. Visit her blog, Charlotte Was Both, here.

Copyright © 2004 Our Sunday Visitor
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In the Louvre, a monk of Opus Dei named Silasapprehends Jacques Saunière, the museum’s curator, and demands toknow where the Holy Grail is. After Saunière tells him, Silas shoots himand leaves him to die. However, Saunière has lied to Silas aboutthe Grail’s location. Realizing that he has only a few minutes tolive and that he must pass on his important secret, Saunière paintsa pentacle on his stomach with his own blood, draws a circle withhis blood, and drags himself into the center of the circle, re-creatingthe position of Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. He alsoleaves a code, a line of numbers, and two lines of text on the groundin invisible ink.

A police detective, Jerome Collet, calls Robert Langdon,the story’s protagonist and a professor of symbology, and asks himto come to the Louvre to try to interpret the scene. Langdon doesnot yet realize that he himself is suspected of the murder.

After murdering Saunière, Silas calls the “Teacher” andtells him that, according to Saunière, the keystone is in the Churchof Saint-Sulpice in Paris. The Teacher sends Silas there. Silasfollows Saunière’s clues to the keystone’s location and discoversthat he has been tricked. In a fit of rage, he kills Sister SandrineBieil, the church’s keeper and a sentry for the Priory of Sion.At the Louvre, Langdon meets Jerome Collet and Bezu Fache, the policecaptain, and realizes that the two policemen suspect him of themurder.

Sophie Neveu, an agent of the department of cryptologyand Saunière’s granddaughter, arrives at the crime scene and tellsLangdon that he must call the embassy. When Langdon calls the number Sophiegave him, he reaches her answering service. The message warns Langdonthat he is in danger and should meet Sophie in the bathroom at theLouvre.

In the bathroom, Sophie shows Langdon that Fache is notinghis movements with a tracking device. She throws the device outthe window onto a passing truck, tricking the police into thinkingthat Langdon has escaped from the Louvre.

Sophie also tells Langdon that the last line in the secretmessage, “P.S. Find Robert Langdon,” was her grandfather’s way ofalerting her: P.S. are the initials of her grandfather’s nicknamefor her, Princesse Sophie. Langdon thinks thatP.S. might stand for Priory of Sion, an ancient brotherhood devotedto the preservation of the pagan goddess worship tradition, andto the maintenance of the secret that Saunière died protecting.

Langdon decodes the second and third lines in Saunière’smessage: “Leonardo Da Vinci! The Mona Lisa!” Sophiereturns to the paintings to look for another clue. The police havereturned to the Louvre as well, and they arrest Langdon. Sophiefinds a key behind the Madonna of the Rocks. Byusing the painting as a hostage, she manages to disarm the policeofficer and get herself and Langdon out of the building.

As Sophie and Langdon drive toward the Swiss bank identified onthe back of the key, Langdon explains the history of the Prioryof Sion and their armed force, the Knights Templar. He reveals thatthe Priory protects secret documents known as the Sangreal,or the Holy Grail. Langdon’s latest manuscript is about this verysubject.

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When Sophie and Langdon enter the bank, an unnamed security guardrealizes that they are fugitives and calls the police, but André Vernet,the bank’s manager and a friend of Saunière’s, recognizes Sophieand helps her and Langdon escape. Sophie and Langdon figure outthat the number left near Saunière’s body must be the account numberthat will open the vault. When they open the vault they find a cryptex,a message delivery device designed by Da Vinci and crafted by Saunière.The cryptex can only be opened with a password.

Vernet successfully smuggles Sophie and Langdon past Colletin the back of a locked armored car. Vernet turns on them, but they manageto get away with the cryptex, which Langdon realizes is actuallythe Priory keystone—that is, the key to all of the secrets the Prioryholds about the location of the Holy Grail.

Langdon and Sophie go to the house of Sir Leigh Teabing,a historian, to ask for his help opening the box. Teabing tellsthem the legend of the Grail, starting with the historical evidencethat the Bible didn’t come straight from God but was compiled byEmperor Constantine. He also cites evidence that Jesus’ divinitywas decided by a vote at Nicaea, and that Jesus was married to MaryMagdalene, who was of royal blood, and had children by her. Teabingshows them the hidden symbols in The Last Supper andthe painted representation of the Magdalene. He tells them thatthe Holy Grail is actually Mary Magdalene’s body and the documentsthat prove Mary’s blood line is related to Jesus. He says he thinksSaunière and the others may have been killed because the Churchsuspected that the Priory was about to unveil this secret.

As Langdon is showing off the cryptex, Silas appears andhits him over the head. Silas holds Sophie and Teabing at gunpointand demands the keystone, but Teabing attacks Silas, hitting himon the thigh where his punishment belt is located, and Sophie finisheshim off by kicking him in the face. They tie Silas up.

Collet arrives at the castle, but Sophie, Langdon, thebound Silas, Teabing, and his servant, Rémy, escape and board Teabing’sprivate plane to England. Sophie realizes that the writing on thecryptex is decipherable if viewed in a mirror. They come to understandthe poem, which refers to “a headstone praised by Templars” andthe “Atbash cipher,” which will help them arrive at the password.Langdon remembers that the Knights Templar supposedly worshipped thegod Baphomet, who is sometimes represented by a large stone head.The word, unscrambled by the Atbash Cipher, is Sofia.When they open the cryptex, however, they find only another cryptex,this one with a clue about a tomb where a knight was buried by apope. They must find the orb that should have been on the knight’stomb.

Fache realizes that Teabing and the rest of them are inthe jet. He calls the British police and asks them to surround theairfield, but Teabing tricks the police into believing that thereis nobody inside the plane but himself. Then he goes with Sophie,Langdon, Rémy, and Silas to the Temple Church in London, the burialsite of knights that the Pope had killed.

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Rémy frees Silas and reveals that he, too, follows theTeacher. Silas goes to the church to get the keystone, but whenhe tries to force Langdon to give it up, Langdon threatens to breakit. Rémy intervenes, taking Teabing hostage and thus forcing Langdonto give up the cryptex.

Meanwhile, Collet and his men look through Teabing’s house andbecome suspicious when they find that he has been monitoring Saunière.Over the phone, the Teacher instructs Silas to let Rémy deliverthe cryptex. The Teacher meets Rémy in the park and kills him. TheTeacher calls the police and turns Silas in to the authorities.As Silas tries to escape, he is shot, and he accidentally shootshis idol, Bishop Aringarosa.

Silas takes Bishop Aringarosa to the hospital and staggersinto a park, where he dies. In the hospital the next day, Aringarosabitterly reflects that Teabing tricked him into helping with hismurderous plan by claiming that if the Bishop delivered the Grailto him, he would help the Opus Dei regain favor with the Church.

Sophie’s and Langdon’s research leads them to the discoverythat Sir Isaac Newton is the knight they are looking for, the oneburied by a Pope, because they learn he was buried by AlexanderPope. They go to Westminster Abbey, where Newton is buried. There,the Teacher lures them to the garden with a note saying he has Teabing. Theygo there only to discover that Teabing himself is the Teacher. Teabingsuspected that Saunière had decided not to release the secret ofthe Priory of Sion, because the Church threatened to kill Sophieif the secret was released. Wanting the secret to be public knowledge,he had decided to find the Grail himself.

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Teabing gives Langdon the cryptex and asks Langdon and Sophieto help him open it. Langdon figures out that the password is apple—theorb missing from Newton’s tomb. He opens the cryptex and secretlytakes out the papyrus. Then he throws the empty cryptex in the air,causing Teabing to drop his pistol as he attempts to catch it andprevent the map inside from being destroyed. Suddenly, Fache burstsinto the room and arrests Teabing.

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The papyrus inside the second cryptex directs Sophie andLangdon to Scotland, where Sophie finds her brother and her grandmother.During the reunion, she discovers that her family is, indeed, ofthe bloodline of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Sophie and Langdon part,promising to meet in Florence in a month. Back in Paris, Langdoncomprehends the poem, which leads him to the small pyramid builtinto the ground in the Louvre, where he is sure the Grail must behidden.