Dan Brown’s fictional work, “The Da Vinci Code” has sold millions of copies worldwide. The movie is now due for release. Wonder how much money Brown made out of the book, and how much more he will get out of the movie?
The adage that a half-truth is more dangerous than a lie holds good for Brown’s Code (why call it Da Vinci’s Code anyway?) It is sugar coated poison. I am an Indian Christian, and believe in the uniqueness and divinity of Jesus Christ. This is not because I was born into a Christian family, but because I have experienced the love and power of Jesus in my life. At the same time I have been actively involved in promoting communal harmony and inter-religious dialogue in my hometown of Kanpur. I have constantly challenged any form of religious bigotry, clerical hegemony or injustice in my own community. I say this by way of introduction, because I am no religious zealot, when I call Dan Brown a cunning and clever insinuator.
Brown is a master of double speak, double entendre and insinuation. He knows only too well that if he makes an objective averment he can be hauled up for fomenting religious hatred, or deliberately denigrating a particular religion – in this case Christianity. We need to distinguish between faith and practice, including distortions of faith. The notoriety of inquisitions and crusades cannot be attributed to Christianity; but a gross distortion of the same. By the same yardstick we cannot blame Hinduism per se for the perpetuation of caste, or Islam for certain terrorist movements.
Brown uses fictitious characters to mouth unsubstantiated allegations, that a gullible public would lap us as “Gospel Truth”. What irony? If Brown had written a scholarly thesis, with references of research, his sources could have been crosschecked and countered by scholars. A fictional work has no counter point. Of course, if Brown’s intention were scholarly research, his book would have just gathered dust in university libraries. By writing fiction, Brown has attained his primary objective, of making a lot of money. If Christianity, or the Catholic Church, is embarrassed in the process, so what! Make money by hook or by crook or a fictional book!
What does Brown base his fiction on? His first funda is the Divine Proportion, the mathematical term PHI, and the Fibonacci Sequence, around which he constructs his hypothesis of Da Vinci’s cryptic messages. I checked out with a professor of Maths (a PhD and DSc), who in turn checked out with the most respected and competent number theorists in the world. Their considered response – you cannot read too much into these numbers. PHI is not found in the dictionary of mathematical terms. The Fibonacci Sequence is the quotient of adjacent numbers, and the further one goes in the sequence, the closer the quotient is to PHI. However, we cannot stretch a natural phenomenon beyond reasonable limits, to present a case like Brown’s, via Da Vinci. If there are natural progressions, there are also millions of “exceptions” in nature. No scientist or mathematician in his right senses would distort one mathematical progression to codify all of nature.
Brown gives the impression of having done much research on art, maths, nature, ancient religions, symbols, Opus Dei and the Priory of Sion. Unfortunately his scholarship of Christian biblical texts, exegesis and canonicity (what constitutes divine revelation in the Bible) is woefully lacking. The Bible is the most researched and documented compendium in the world. Biblical scholars over centuries have not hesitated in picking it apart. Brown has arrived 2000 years too late.
He alleges that the Catholic Church in particular has “doctored” the Bible, suppressed sexuality and the feminine. He couldn’t be further from the truth. There are 4 Gospel writers – Mathew, Mark Luke and John. In several instances their accounts vary – especially of the Baptism, Transfiguration and Resurrection of Jesus. If there had been a doctoring of the texts, then these anomalies would have easily been edited, long before the advent of the printing press. The Bible is replete with the sexual escapades of hallowed characters like Abraham, Gideon, Solomon and David. The book “Song of Songs” in the Old Testament (OT) of the Bible has passionate words like breasts, buttocks and kissing. By Brown’s convoluted logic, all these “offensive” texts should have been expunged from the Bible.
Brown’s obsession with the Divine Feminine accuses Christianity of suppressing womanhood. Again off the mark. In the second chapter of Genesis (the first of 72 books that constitute the Bible) God says that a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife! In nature, which Brown so admires, the male has always been dominant. Physical strength was the dominating force – warrior, hunter, ironsmith, carpenter, etc. With mechanisation, computerisation and education, physical prowess has become redundant. If Christianity were accused of suppressing women for centuries, Islam and Hinduism would be even greater defaulters. Brown should have visited India before hypothesising about the Divine Feminine. Hinduism has a pantheon of Goddesses. Many women are also addressed as Devi. This did not stop bride burning, sati, ban on widow remarriage and modern female foeticide. Ironically British (Christian?) colonisers were the first liberators of Hindu womenfolk.
Brown’s mystery thriller leads to the grave of Sir Isaac Newton, and the missing orb – the apple. The double entendre connects Newton’s gravitational apple to the apple with which Eve tempted Adam, and thereby brought a curse on womanhood. Brown is a liar. There is no mention of Eve eating an apple in the Bible. Apples are not mentioned anywhere in the Bible. Apples are not a Mediterranean fruit like grapes, pomegranates and figs – that are repeatedly mentioned in the Bible.
How did popular art depict Eve eating an apple? The OT, which predates Jesus, was written by the Jews in their mother tongue – Hebrew. In the fourth century AD St Jerome translated the Bible into Latin. As per the Bible, the fruit that Adam and Eve ate was from the Tree of Good and Evil. In Latin this got translated to “Bonum et Malum”. Mal is the Latin root word for bad or evil – malfunctioning, malicious, mala-fide, etc. In modern times, with the advancement of science, a glossary of botanical names was prepared in Latin. Ask any zoologist or botanist, and they will tell you that all flora and fauna have Latin names. The Latin name for apple is Malus Pumila. Malus therefore is common to evil and apple in Latin. Perhaps this caused confusion in people’s minds and artists’ work. Popular calendar art still shows Eve offering an apple to Adam. Brown should have researched better, before making mountains out of molehills.
This brings us to Brown’s central theme – Da Vinci’s so called cryptic messages, hidden in the painting of the Last Supper. We have already seen in the case of the apple that it is an artist’s misconception. Let us address another artist’s myth – the cross. Popular imagery to this day shows Christ’s death on a cross – two beams intersecting at right angles +. Historical and biblical research has established that it was not a cross at all, but a T shaped contraption. Unfortunately popular artistic belief has greater impact than scientific and objective truth. The same goes for Da Vinci. He was not an eyewitness to the Last Supper. He was born 1500 years later. However, Brown would have us believe that Da Vinci had access to secret sources, via the Masons, Knights Templar and Priory of Sion. He therefore gives a cryptic message that the disciple sitting next to Jesus is actually a woman, his wife, Mary Magdalene, who bore his child. This is stretching a point to absurd limits. Stray references from “secret“ sources are deployed to destroy the basis of Christianity – the Divinity of Jesus.
As a believing Christian I have no problem if people don’t accept the divinity of Jesus. In fact Jesus always referred to himself as Son of Man (Bar-e-Nasa in the native Aramaic language that he spoke). I would also not be unduly alarmed if it were conclusively proved that Jesus was married. After all marriage is God’s gift to humanity, and there is nothing to be upset about it. 11 out of 12 of Jesus’ apostles were married. Had Jesus also been married the apostles would have had no difficulty in portraying him as a married man.
Biblical evidence is to the contrary. Jesus, referring to himself, said that the foxes had their holes and the birds their nests, but the Son of Man had nowhere to lay his head. Before he breathes his last on the T shaped “Cross”, he asks John, the only unmarried apostle, to look after his mother Mary. If he were married, with a wife and child, he would not have made such a request or bequeathal.
Brown would have us believe that the secret of Jesus would destroy Christianity if it were revealed. For fear of the Church, the secret could not be revealed. How come Brown is not afraid of this “malicious” church when he reveals the secret? Also, if Jesus was just an ordinary human being, then what is so special about his royal lineage? Nothing. The grail then is a meaningless trail. By Brown’s own convoluted logic there is nothing worth guarding, protecting or secreting.
As for destroying Christianity, it is based on the Resurrection of Jesus, not his death on the T Cross. The Romans killed thousands that way. 600 years after Jesus, the Prophet Mohammed stated that Jesus did not die on the cross. He was taken up to heaven, from where he will return in triumph on Judgement Day. This should have destroyed Christianity 1400 years ago. It hasn’t. Try again Brown.
And finally, Brown liberally uses words like Mason, Knights Templar, Priory of Sion, Masonic tools and symbols. He also refers to eclectic, occult and cultic ceremonies with black, red and white colours, and a sex act thrown in for good measure. The resemblance to modern day Freemasonry is much too obvious to be dismissed as mere coincidence. Brown himself admits that he is influenced by Freemasonry. The Freemason’s website also has things like Knights Templar cufflinks, and an illustrated version of The Da Vinci Code for sale! It is no secret that the Catholic Church was arch enemy number one of the Freemasons. Is The Da Vinci Code then, Freemasonry’s latest and subtler attack on Catholicism?
Many Christian organisations are incensed at the blasphemous nature of Brown’s insinuations. He knows that modern day Christians are not going to launch inquisitions and crusades against him. It does not absolve Brown of his culpability in distorting truth, and fomenting communal tension. Recall the recent turmoil over the Danish cartoonist’s impression of Prophet Mohammed.
Christians have a right to peaceful protest against Brown’s code of lies. More importantly, they should study the Bible and find the answers there. If cine-goers in India want to see the movie, we cannot stop them. However, if they are prepared to buy the storyline of what is admittedly fiction, then they too need to first read the Bible before forming any opinion. There is nothing to fear from Brown or Da Vinci. What we should be afraid of is our own ignorance.
* The author is the former National President of the All India Catholic Union, and Founder Secretary of the Manav Sadbhav Abhiyan, Kanpur
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