A Christian Response to The Da Vinci Code
by: Dr N.R. Needham
The
Gospel according to The Da Vinci Code
The Da Vinci Code (originally a best-selling novel, now a popular movie)
challenges the Christian belief that Jesus Christ was the eternal Son
of God. Its author, Dan Brown, claims that for the first 300 years of
the church's existence, the church itself believed that Jesus was nothing
more than a great man, that Mary Magdalene was really the wife of Jesus,
and that they had a daughter called Sarah, who was the start of a Messianic
bloodline which has survived to the present day. According to Brown, the
Christian Church has always tried to suppress and destroy this truth.
He asserts that in Leonardo da Vinci's famous painting of the Last Supper,
the figure leaning against Jesus (traditionally believed to be apostle
John) is really a woman - Mary Magdalene. Leonardo deliberately portrayed
Mary at Jesus' side because he knew the secret of Jesus' real teaching.
This real
teaching has been preserved through the centuries by the Priory of Sion,
a mysterious organisation founded in the year 1099 A.D. This organisation
knew that, after Jesus' death, Mary Magdalene and her daughter Sarah escaped
to France and went into hiding. And the royal descendants of Jesus and
Mary lived on, right up to the present. Their identity has been protected
by the Priory of Sion, and some of the greatest figures in European history
have been grand masters of this Priory - including Leonardo da Vinci and
Sir Isaac Newton.
Dan Brown claims that the truth about Jesus and Mary Magdalene was included
in thousands of gospels written and circulated during the first centuries
of Christianity. But in the 4th century, the Emperor Constantine decided
to adopt Christianity as the state religion of the Roman Empire, and at
the Council of Nicaea, (the first general or universal council of the
church held in 325 A.D.) Constantine imposed on the church the previously
unknown idea in that Christ was divine. Yet despite Constantine's pressure,
the vote at the council to establish the new belief in Christ's deity
was very close. Constantine also rounded up and burned all the gospels
which taught the truth about Jesus and imposed on the church the four
gospels now in the New Testament - Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These
gospels misrepresented Jesus by presenting him as a divine figure, the
incarnate Son of God. And ever since then, the Church has deliberately
suppressed the truth, silencing - even killing - anyone who might openly
proclaim it. For this reason the Priory of Sion has remained a secret
organisation, cherishing behind closed doors and in elaborate codes and
symbols the original teachings of Jesus.
