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The
Da Vinci Code: Old Heresy, New Clothes
By
Charles Lehmann
The Sainted
Apostle Paul in his letter to the church in Galatia writes:
"But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach
a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be
eternally condemned." (Galatians 1:8, NIV)
Christians
sometimes are given a bad reputation for taking stands against
works of literature. Sometimes, that reputation is well earned.
Sometimes, we are revealing ourselves to be artless and legalistic.
But when we condemn Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, it is not
one of those times. Saint Paul's words are apt when authors
like Brown sling satanic arrows at the truths, drawn from
Scripture, that the Church has always confessed.
Brown
draws on a mythos that fascinates the American mind. He endeavors
to tell the "true story" of the Holy Grail. We love
Grail stories. We love watching Arthur answer "these
questions three" at the Bridge of Despair. We shiver
when the Knight Templar, within an ancient city, says to Indiana
Jones, "you have chosen. . . wisely." Dan Brown
also spins a good yarn. I read The Da Vinci Code in one sitting
of about ten hours.
Unfortunately,
that is the problem. Brown is such a skilled wordsmith that
it gives his message credibility when it deserves none. His
book could easily shake the faith of one who is weak. It should
not be read by any not well versed in the history of the early
Church.
In brief,
this is Brown's argument:
- The
Early Church never believed, taught, or confessed that Jesus
was divine. This belief was the result of a really close
vote in 325 at the Council of Nicea.
- Jesus
was married to Mary Magdalene and intended her to lead his
church after his death.
- At
the time of Jesus death, Mary Magdalene (The Holy Grail)
was pregnant with Jesus' child (The Blood of Christ). This
child, named Sarah, was later born and raised in France,
where Jesus' descendants became the Merovingians of Paris.
- After
Jesus' death, Peter and the apostles, jealous of Mary Magdelene,
usurped her authority and built a male-god Jesus myth based
on the pagan rites of Mithras and other pagan Roman gods.
- The
text for the New Testament books was not set until well
into the fourth century (at the earliest).
Here's
a Christian response.
- The
New Testament is unequivocal about Jesus' divinity. We can
see from early liturgies of the church that we have worshiped
Jesus Christ as true God ever since the age of the apostles.
The vote at the council of Nicea was not a johnny-come-lately
attempt to deify Jesus. It condemned a new heretical teaching
by a renegade Alexandrian theologian named Arius. Arius
taught of Christ that "there was when he was not,"
denying His divinity. At Nicea, Arianism was condemned.
The Nicene Creed was there confessed, not as a new teaching,
but as what the Scriptures had always taught.
- That
Jesus intended Mary Magdalene to lead the church after his
death is an argument that is inextricably bound up with
Brown's idea of "the sacred feminine." Brown is
essentially a dualist. God must have a male and female element.
The female element, he argues, is Mary Magdalene. In support
of this and Jesus marriage to Magdalene, Brown offers that
there were over 80 "gospels" written but only
four included in the Bible. Among these other "gospels"
are the "gnostic gospels," including the oft touted
Gospel of Thomas. Gnosticism, like Brown, embraces a dualistic
view of the cosmos.
- The
canon of the New Testament was determined by a number of
factors. Apostolic authorship was one such element. This
is why we have so many New Testament pseudepigrapha, that
is, books that have the name of an apostle tacked onto them
even though the apostle did not write them. None of these
are in the New Testament. In fact, many pseudepigrapha were
written after their namesakes died. Another factor was adherence
to the regula fidei or "rule of faith." This was
the teaching of the apostles. It was known that if a book
didn't confess what the apostles confessed then it could
not be the Word of God. It is on this basis that Brown?s
other "gospels" were rejected. Also, none of these
other "gospels" were regularly used in the congregations
of the early church.
- Though
the Scriptures do not directly say, "Jesus never married,"
we do know that he never did. A brief look at a few passages
will be helpful in this regard. Matthew 8:20 teaches that
Christ had nowhere to "lay his head." Jewish men
were expected to be able to provide a home for their wives.
Jesus had no home. Far stronger is Ephesians 5:25: "Husbands
love your wives, just as Christ loved the church."
Throughout the New Testament we are taught that the Church
is the Bride of Christ. Indeed heaven is described as the
wedding feast. Our good works are our wedding gown. (Revelation
19) One of my students, a high school sophomore, is quick
to point out, "Why would Jesus provide for His mother
as He died on the cross, but not His soon to be widowed
wife?" Steve asks a good question.
- Though
there were legends among early heretics about Mary Magdalene
doing all sorts of odd things, no one close to the apostles
ever touted such lies. We can dispose of these legends along
with the imaginary marriage.
- Liberal
"scholars" of the 20th centuries love apostolic
conspiracy theories. The usual suspect is Paul, who they
will say made up such silly doctrines as "justification
by grace through faith." Laying the blame at Peter's
feet is only slightly innovative. It is true that many pagan
religions of the past and present involve cycles of life,
death, and resurrection, but the 1st century historical
evidence for the reality of Jesus? death and resurrection
are simply too strong to be ignored. Even Roman officials
and non-Christian Jewish historians of the first century
acknowledged the truth of many events in Jesus' life.
- The
claim that the text of the New Testament was set late in
history is one of the more absurd claims Brown makes. We
have thousands of manuscripts that are in essential agreement
on the text of the New Testament. The earliest come from
less than fifty years after the books were originally written.
Some non-Christian scholars of the Bible will even acknowledge
this.
For those
who would like more detailed reviews of the material in The
Da Vinci Code, I would recommend the following excellent analyses:
http://www.crisismagazine.com/september2003/feature1.htm
http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/newsletter/2003/nov7.html
Suffice
to say, Dan Brown does indeed proclaim a gospel other than
the one entrusted to us by our Lord Christ and His apostles.
When we are presented with claims like these, we need only
look to the faithful Word that Christ has given us. There
we will find the truth of the matter.
In His
Service,
Charles
Lehmann |
