Questions about the Da Vinci Code

Introduction and useful resources

This reponse is a brief answer to the key questions about the Da Vinci Code that I have been asked by those who have read the book and/or seen the film. This text in no way claims to be exhaustive, and is just an extract from the presentation I gave before the June Youth Mass: the DVC mixes its few facts with so much fiction that there is a lot to unravel in terms of art history, theology, Roman history, early and medieval Christian history, and much more.

Download: "The Da Vinci Truth" full lecture »
Download: Supporting slide show - "The Da Vinci Truth" »

One highly recommended website is:
www.catholic.com »

Probably the best DVD is the Tony Robinson/Channel 4 production, The Real Da Vinci Code - this focuses more on the art and history issues than on the theology.

CTS Publications have produced two excellent small books:

Cracking the Da Vinci Code by Jimmy Atkin. This is in Q&A format, covering all the main questions.

The Truth About Jesus – Not the Da Vinci Code by Fr John Redford. This looks especially at the answers the Bible provides to the Da Vinci Code.


Who are Opus Dei?

Opus Dei get a hammering in the DVC. The facts are that they are an organisation founded in 1928 by St Josemaria Escriva. They today have around 83,000 members. In the DVC it is called a “sect”, and Silas is called a “monk.”

Opus Dei is a fully integrated Catholic organisation, not a sect. Some of its members are Diocesan Priests, but it does not ask people to live a monastic life withdrawn from the world. Its members are just that - members, not monks. Opus Dei are open to criticism for not being sufficiently transparent in terms of their finance or membership.

However, the depiction of Opus Dei in the DVC is outrageously extreme and damaging, Imagine a fictionary footballer called Brazzilliare. He would drink no alcohol, coffee or fizzy drinks - in fact he would only drink water, he exercised for 21 hours each day, and kicked footballs through people’s windows as he ran down the road, smashing the windows and the furniture in the rooms. By the broadest definition, he is a footballer, just as in some perverse way, Silas is a member of Opus Dei and a Christian. But just as we would not judge all footballers by the actions of Brazzilliare let’s not believe that there are members of Opus Dei like Silas.

In the DVC there are graphic and hideous scenes with Silas. The fact is that the corporal mortification with whip and cilice that the DVC depicts is appalling and violent in a way which is simply not consistent with how Jesus asks us to live. It is certainly true that Christians are asked to be disciplined - things like fasting are part of the Christian tradition. Exactly the same is true for athletes, actors, and musicians. To be good at anything takes dedicated effort - and so it is with faith.

The saint who founded Opus Dei spoke about mortification as “your friendly conversation with the person you find boring and tactless; that daily effort to overlook one irritating detail or another in the persons who live with you … this, with perseverance, is indeed solid interior mortification” In terms of physical mortification, there is a tradition of this in the church that includes great Saints like Francis and Benedict, and this is an aspect of some members within Opus Dei, but never in such hideous violence as portrayed by DVC.

Fundamentally the members of Opus Dei aim to live in their working lives in a way which helps to spread the Gospel, including a lot of generous support to charities and personal charitable acts. Their members try to follow the teaching of Christ, and they are fundamentally good and hard-working people. To allege that they murder in the name of power is a terrible allegation against any Christian, for whom life is sacred and precious, and is another example of Dan Brown taking a real organisation or person - the Louvre, the Vatican, Emperor Constantine - and making a complete fiction around them.


What is the real truth about Mary Magdalene?

Mary Magdalene has had such a rough ride that it is a good moment to help set the record straight. The mentions in the Bible of Mary Magdalene show us an incredible woman:

She is a woman of courage - standing at the foot of the cross (Jn 19:25) when almost everyone else has deserted Jesus.

She is a careful woman - noting the details of where Jesus was laid (Mk 15:47)

She is a woman of reverence - going to anoint Jesus (Mk 16:1, Lk 24:1-10)

She is the first witness to the resurrection - Mk 16:9, Mt 28:9, Jn 20:11-18)

So why is it that she gets this reputation as a prostitute and a sinner. Sadly, this is largely the fault of a Pope. In the Gospels Mary Magdalene is referred to as having “seven devils” cast out of her by Jesus (Mk 16:10, Lk. 8:1). In the 590s AD Pope Gregory the Great was trying to make a point about how even the worst sinners are forgiven by Jesus and he took the seven devils to refer to the seven deadly sins. He also linked Mary Magdalene with the figure in Luke chapter 7, the prostitute who washes the feet of Jesus. Gregory was making a good point, but he was in error about the Scriptural basis, and the reputation of Mary Magdalene has suffered ever since.

In the Eastern church this never happened: Mary Magdalene is recognised as the positive model we see in scripture. Again, let’s emphasise that whatever the mistakes have been about Mary Magdalene in no Gospel, Biblical or apocryphal, does anyone ever write about Mary Magdalene marrying Jesus or having his child: that is complete invention. Mary Magdalene deserves to be remembered as the Saint that she is, a courageous and reverent person, who was the very first witness to the Risen Christ.


What did the early Christians believe about Jesus?

The most serious - and blasphemous - claim of all in the DVC is that Jesus was a man, not God, and that the early Christians believed this until Constantine forced them to change their minds in the 300s AD.

Let’s be very clear that we believe Jesus was fully human and fully divine - uniquely God and human. That means Jesus knows us, through and through: Jesus understands us as a human and loves us as God. It is this love that meant he died for us, and this love meant he triumphed over death. We believe this - and Christians have always believed it - because it is what Jesus said!

There are many, many examples in Scripture:

From the Gospels:

In the letters of St Paul, Jesus is also clearly seen as God:

There is also testimony in numerous early Christian and non-Christian writers that Christians regarded Jesus as fully God and fully human, for example in Iraneus (180AD), Ignatius of Antioch (100AD), Justin (150AD), Tertullian and Cyprian

eg. Ignatius of Antioch says “Jesus Christ our God”


How much of the novel, The da Vinci Code, is true?

One of the striking features of the DVC is how so much of the novel is presented as based in fact. With this in mind, it is helpful to look at some of these “facts”:

“Fact: The Priory of Sion, founded in 1099, is a real organization” (DVC, page 3)

Truth: The Priory of Sion was a fabrication by four Frenchmen in 1956.
One of them - Andre Bonhomme - admitted this in a BBC interview in 1996, and one of them - Pierre Plantart has multiple convictions for fraud. The documents that are supposed to authenticate the Priory are clearly nonsense: Leonardo, for example, would never have referred to himself as Leonardo da Vinci - “da Vinci” referred to the province where he came from.

“Fact: All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.” (DVC, page 3)

Truth: There are 91 statements presented as fact in the pages of the Da Vinci Code. 15 are true. 7 are partially true. 69 are false.
This is one factual error every nine pages. For example, the claim that there are 666 panes of glass in the Louvre pyramid (DVC page 40). There are 673. Or the claim that there is a Bible on the altar of San Sulpice (DVC pg 177). Bibles are not left on the altars of Catholic churches.

“The Bible as we know it today was collated by the pagan Roman emperor Constantine the Great … a lifelong pagan until 325AD” (DVC, page 313-314)

Truth: There are multiple historical texts which verify that Constantine converted in 312AD after he saw a vision of a cross in the sky before a decisive battle (Milvern Bridge, just outside Rome) in his journey to becoming Emperor.

Truth: The Bible was collated over a period of time, but this had nothing at all to do with Constantine.

“We have the male God, Amon, and the female goddess, Isis ... once called L’Isa. ... Put them together and you have AMON L’ISA. Ring any bells?”
“Mona Lisa”
“...Her name is an anagram of the divine union of male and female. And that my friends is Da Vincis little secret and the reason for the Mona Lisa’s knowing smile” (‘Art Lecture’ by Langdon, DVC, page 168)

Truth: Leonardo knew the painting as “La Gioconda” after the person that is in it, and never called the painting the Mona Lisa, so he could not have seen it as an anagram of Greek gods and goddesses. This theory is false and groundless.

In the Da Vinci Code there are only three Catholics who have any part in the action: one, Bishop Manuel Aringarosa, is entirely corrupt, both financially and morally; the second, the Sister at San Sulpice, is supposedly guarding the secrets of the Priory of Sion, and the third, Silas, is a mentally unstable killer.

For a film that has so much to say about Christ, it is astonishing that there are so few Christians in it! It is good to ask, actually, “Where am I in this film?” by which I mean - where are the normal, struggling, loving, mainstream Christians? The fact they are not in it - we are not in it - probably tells us all we need to know about the true authenticity of the Da Vinci Code.

But the film and book have led to great challenges to our beliefs and our Church. For some they confirm that Christians are strange, secretive, possibly ruthless. For others they confirm that Jesus was just a man, and all of Christianity is founded on a myth.

We need to stand up for what we believe: to be honest about our mistakes, yet to be clear about all that is good, loving and true about our faith. Yes, the Church is not perfect - St Peter was impulsive, doubted and even betrayed Christ. St Paul tells us that the early churches were full of divisions. In 2000AD Pope John Paul II read a Mea Culpa - a letter of sorrow and apology to those people the Catholic church has treated badly through the ages. But these flaws and imperfections must be taken in the light of the fact that the Church is also - and always has been - full of people who are trying our best to live like Christ. For example:


The Greatest Truth

“What matters is what you believe” says Langdon, to Sophie, twice. And this, ultimately, is the greatest problem in the DVC. It is important that we shape our beliefs, important that we have beliefs. But

what matters is what is true

The Da Vinci Code is fiction. If only Dan Brown had done some elementary research he would have found that the truth is much more inspirational, much more dynamic, much more interesting, and much more loving. The truth is awesome, challenging, life-changing and astonishing. We need to tell people the truth. People deserve to know the truth.

The Truth is Jesus Christ.

Download: "The Da Vinci Truth" full lecture »
Download: Supporting slide show - "The Da Vinci Truth" »

Article Written: 7th June 2006

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