Cracking The Da Vinci Code

Part Four: Mary Magdalene



I. Her Identity

A. The Attack – She is the Holy Grail

“The chalice that held the blood of Christ … it speaks, in fact, of Mary Magdalene – the female womb that carried Jesus’ royal bloodline… behold the greatest cover-up in human history. Not only was Jesus married, but he was a father.” (TDC, 249)

“Mary Magdalene was pregnant at the time of the crucifixion. For the sake of Christ’s unborn child, she had no choice but to flee the Holy Land. With the help of Jesus’ trusted uncle, Joseph of Arimathea, Mary Magdalene secretly traveled to France, then known as Gaul. There she found a refuge in the Jewish community. It was here in France that she gave birth to her daughter. Her name was Sarah.” (TDC, 255)

(Merovingian Line)

“The quest for the Holy Grail is the quest to kneel before the bones of Mary Magdalene. A journey to pray at the feet of the outcast one.” (TDC, 454)


  1. The Truth

Mary was a follower of Jesus from the town of Magdala. After Jesus cast seven demons out of her, she followed Him and helped support His ministry. She was at the cross, and was the first to see the resurrected Christ. Jesus sent her to proclaim His resurrection to the disciples. For this reason, she is sometimes referred to as an “apostle to the apostles.” She loved Christ and served Him magnificently as her Lord and Savior, like we should.


II. Her Intended Role

  1. The Attack

“According to the unaltered gospels, it was not Peter to whom Christ gave direction with which to establish the Christian church. It was Mary Magdalene.” (TDC, 245)


  1. The Truth

In the real gospels, Christ chose to establish the church at Pentecost by preaching the gospel.


III. The Support for Brown’s Case

Brown’s case for his portrayal of Mary Magdalene is built on four points.


  1. Argument from Da Vinci’s “Last Supper”

The person to Jesus’ right is described as having “flowing red hair, delicate folded hands, and the hint of a bosom. … It was, without a doubt … female” (TDC, 243)

Brown also appeals to Leonardo’s alleged clues of the letters “V” (symbol of a womb) and “M” (for “Mary Magdalene”) in the painting.

Response:

• John was often depicted with a feminine appearance, particularly among Florentine painters.
• The piece lacks clarity, and any measure of it today may have been added.
• This same character is very similar to Leonardo’s painting of St. John the Baptist.

• No credible art historians agree with Brown.


  1. Argument from Silence

“Jesus was a Jew… and social decorum during the time virtually forbid a Jewish man to be unmarried… If Jesus were not married, at least one of the Bible’s gospels would have mentioned it and offered some explanation for His unnatural state of bachelorhood.”

(TDC, 245)


Response:

C. Argument from the false gospels

And the companion of the Saviour is Mary Magdalene. Christ loved her more than all the disciples and used to kiss her often on the mouth. The rest of the disciples were offended by it and expressed disapproval. They said to him, “Why do you love her more than all of us.?” (TDC, 246)


1. “Kiss her often on the mouth”

Response: The text has several holes and actually reads: And the companion of the [ … ] Mary Magdalene. [ … loved ] her more than [ all ] the disciples [and used to] kiss her [often] on her [ … ]. The rest of the disciples were offended by it and expressed disapproval. They said to him, “Why do you love her more than all of us.?” (The Gospel of Philip)


  1. “Companion”

“As any Aramaic scholar will tell you, the word companion, in those days, literally meant spouse.” (TDC, 246)


Response: The Gospel of Philip was written originally in Greek, not Aramaic as Brown says. And the word for companion in the Coptic version of it is a Greek loan word, koinonos. It meant partner, or companion. It could be used for a sister or wife in the common sense of companion, but that was a secondary usage. Companion almost always meant companion.


What about the credibility of the Gospel of Philip?


What about the credibility of the Gospel of Mary?


D. Argument from the “Les Dossier Secrets”

Note: “FACT:” (TDC, 1)

Note: Sources listed in DVC, chapter 60 mention particularly Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Baigent, Leigh, & Lincoln. That book relied heavily upon the claims of Pierre Plantard, claims that he later – under oath – admitted he had fabricated. The story told in Holy Blood, Holy Grail and written into DVC goes like this:

Mary Magdalene fled with child (Sarah) to southern France, and lived in a Jewish community. A 5th century descendent injected the holy blood into the French Merovingian dynasty (whose last king was deposed in 751 AD) to the present Saint-Clair family.

The Priory of Sion was established in 1099 to guard the secret of Mary Magdalene’s identity, descendents by Jesus, and the location of her remains.

Berenger Sauniere, priest at Rennes-le-Chateau, came upon sudden wealth, supposedly because he discovered documents in a hollow pillar of his church that revealed the secret. The thought is that he sold them to the Catholic Church.

Les Dossier Secrets, a batch of supposed Priory documents, were discovered hidden deep in the Bibliotheque Nationale. They listed names of Priory members, and supposedly revealed the secret to interpret certain documents revealing all of the secrets of Mary Magdalene.


Response:

Pierre Plantard was a French fascist who served time in prison for his association with an anti-Semitic group called Alpha Galates. He also did time for fraud and embezzlement.

Plantard posed as an expert of the Knights Templar and was interviewed by the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail, who accepted and published his claims to be a Grand Master of the Priory of Sion.

In reality, the Priory of Sion was a small group organized by Plantard and his friend Andre Bonhomme in 1956 to endorse affordable housing. They published a pamphlet, Circuit, to promote their ideas. They abandoned the cause in 1957, and years later Plantard used the name “Priory of Sion” in an extraordinary and fictional claim to gain him political clout.

During a financial scandal involving Roger-Patrice Pelat, Plantard was called to testify and swore under oath that he had invented the fanciful legend of an ancient Priory of Sion. It was 1993, and Plantard admitted to having salted false documents (called Les Dossiers Secrets) into the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. Those documents alleged that A Priory of Sion had been created in 1099 to protect the secret that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had created an extraordinary royal bloodline that ran through the Merovingian kings to the present Saint-Clair family, and including – yes, you guessed it – Plantard himself. In fact, he admitted revising some of the forged documents to include Pelat in the list of the Priory’s Grand Masters. When the judge ordered Plantard’s home searched, they found more false documents that were designed to show Plantard as the heir to the French throne.


Plantard died in 2000.


Summary Response to Brown’s thesis of Mary





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