Page 28 - 20060708 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - July/August 2006

28 Dismissing Da Vinci Dismissing Da Vinci 28 Dismissing Da Vinci years, a considerable proportion of the Church’s Dismissing Da Vinci hierarchy were proponents of the Gnostic teachings, which emphasized personal By Jean-Claude Gerard Koven experience over dogmatic faith. The Church By Jean-Claude Gerard Koven libraries of the time contained many such gospels, which were read aloud by the monks Dan Brown’s runaway best-seller, The Da for inspiration. These texts so bothered Vinci Code is shaking the foundations of Athanasius, archbishop of Alexandria, that in Christendom. The battle lines are clearly 367 he sent out an Easter letter to the clergy all drawn and the stakes are uncommonly high. over Egypt in which he condemned all texts not The outcome has yet to be determined. specifically included on his approved list as “the invention of heretics.” The meaning was With each week that Dan Brown’s unambiguous: all non-approved writings were blockbuster, The Da Vinci Code, remains one of to be immediately destroyed. the most talked-about books in the world, one Apparently some of the monks defied can almost sense the growing apprehension of the bishop’s orders and secreted some thirteen the Vatican. The innumerable editions of the papyrus codices in a heavy jar buried under a book and more than 40 million copies already in cliff, where they remained for over one and a print surely must seem like a bad dream to those half millennia. These texts, known as the Nag who feel targeted by Brown’s allegations of Hammadi Library, were discovered in 1945 and chicanery and skullduggery within the inner are believed to be some of the early Christian sanctums of the Holy See. Gnostic texts condemned by Athanasius. It turns Many critics slammed the book even as out that their authors were not heretics as it consolidated its position atop the New York Athanasius claimed but disciples of Christ, Times reports list and Amazon.com’s sales including some of the original twelve apostles, charts. Peter Millar, writing in the Times of or perhaps the followers of those disciples. London, considered The Da Vinci Code as What they reveal, if true, indeed shakes the very “without doubt, the silliest, most inaccurate, ill- foundations of Christendom. informed, stereotype-driven, cloth-eared, Creed, which upheld the position championed By popularizing some of the ideas in cardboard-cutout-populated piece of pulp by St. Alexander of Alexandria – that Jesus was these texts, as well as highlighting the Church’s fiction I have read.” indeed of the same substance as God the Father. banning of gospels other than those presently in Archbishop Angelo Amato, a high-level That having been decided, along with several the New Testament, Brown’s Da Vinci Code (its Vatican official, dismissed Brown’s best-seller other issues (such as the dating of Easter), possible literary and historical failings aside) as a work “full of calumnies, offenses, and Constantine requested that the synod produce a seems to have set a fox loose in the henhouse. historical theological errors.” On the Catholic cohesive sacred text as the agreed basis of Much to the Vatican’s chagrin, the new Answers website (www.catholic.com), the Christianity. This was a formidable task, as movie based on Brown’s already successful question was posed: “Should other Christians be many of the gospels in circulation at the time book is a smash hit. To quote the Deadline concerned about the book?” The answer was were deemed blasphemous and a threat to the Hollywood Daily (DHD) website: “Da Vinci clear and unequivocal: “Definitely. Only some newly agreed-upon doctrines. It was seven Code Is 2nd Biggest Opening Weekend of All of the offensive claims of The Da Vinci Code years before Emperor Constantine received fifty Time Worldwide with $224 Million; No. 1 pertain directly to the Catholic Church. The copies of the final version of the sacred International Opening Weekend with $147 Mil; remainder strike at the Christian faith itself. If scriptures, handwritten by practiced scribes on $77 Mil U.S. Opening Weekend; Sony Execs the book’s claims were true, then all forms of specially prepared parchment. These were Attribute Huge Success to Teen Moviegoers Christianity would be false (except perhaps for distributed throughout the Empire to Globally.” Now the blasphemous word is being Gnostic/feminist versions focusing on Mary standardize Christianity, and the text, the Bible spread worldwide to nonreaders, Magdalene instead of Jesus).” as we know it, has remained until today the impressionable teenagers, and God knows who Dan Brown refused to back down. In the basis of Christian teachings. else. Apparently there is no lid large enough or face of threats and denunciation he responded It is true that despite Brown’s claim to strong enough to contain what Dan Brown has by telling the Philadelphia Inquirer, “When you have researched the matter thoroughly, he unleashed on the bastions of Christianity. DHD finish the book, you’ve learned a ton. I had to do seems to have been casual about some finer further disclosed that the Vatican’s attempts to an enormous amount of research.” He has also points. For instance, he writes that the censure the film fell woefully short. The Da said his book is “meticulously researched and establishment of Jesus as the Son of God “was Vinci Code “was #1 in predominantly Catholic very accurate.” officially proposed and voted on by the Council countries Italy and Spain, and #1 or #2 in every History may well be in Brown’s corner of Nicaea” and that it was “a relatively close South American territory.” on certain matters. The Bible is a carefully vote at that.” Yet there is no record of a vote Now we have the predictable onslaught selected compendium of writings that were being taken on any matter during the Council. on the Internet – the ultimate weapon of debated by the bishops attending the First In other words, while decisions were made, we anarchists, modern-day Gnostics, and other Council of Nicaea convoked in 325 by the do not know definitively what method the radical freethinkers. A few weeks ago I received Roman emperor Constantine. Unfortunately, bishops used to arrive at them. a sixteen-page email that, judging by the there is no definitive account of what actually However, by basing his book on number of arrow brackets preceding each line of occurred during this historic conclave. The apocryphal material and giving the fallout from text, must have traveled around the world writings of those in attendance don’t even agree the Council of Nicaea a key role in the book, several times before finding its way to my as to the number of bishops present, with Brown has brought to the table a set of much inbox. The title alone piqued my curiosity: “The reports ranging from a low of 250 (Eusebius of larger issues for all the world to contemplate: Gospel of Judas, Barbelo, & Long-Kept Caesarea) to 318 (Athanasius of Alexandra). What did the discarded gospels say? Why did Secrets.” Since it would take multiple clones to The main purpose of the synod, however, seems the content of these gospels so deeply concern keep up with the email traffic that penetrates my relatively certain. Constantine needed a the bishops attending the synod that they were spam filters, I generally skim just the first few reconciled church to create stability within the not included in the Bible? And what happened paragraphs of such a long message before Empire. The major rift that needed to those gospels? These questions may be far deleting it. Not so with this one. reconciliation centered on the question of more worth probing than the theory of a Jesus’s divinity: was he the son of God or the Merovingian bloodline stemming from the (Continued on Page 29) son of man? union of Jesus and Mary Magdalene that lies at The bishops (however many were the heart of Brown’s book. present) overwhelmingly ratified the Nicaean During Christianity’s early, formative