From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Da Vinci Code is a controversial mystery/detective novel by US author Dan Brown, published in 2003 by Doubleday. It follows symbologist Robert Langdon as he investigates a murder in the Louvre, and discovers a battle between the Priory of Sion and Opus Dei over the possibility of Jesus having been married to and fathering children with Mary Magdalene.
This novel has provoked a popular interest in speculation concerning the Holy Grail legend and the role of Mary Magdalene in the history of Christianity. The novel has been extensively criticized by Catholics and other Christians as a dishonest attack on the Church. It has also been criticized for historical inaccuracy.
According to the novel, the secrets of the Holy Grail, as kept by the Priory of Sion, are as follows:
• Jesus is not the divine son of God, but a human prophet of God.
• The Holy Grail is not a physical chalice, but a woman, namely Mary Magdalene, who carried the bloodline of Christ.
• The Old French expression for the Holy Grail, San gréal, actually is a play on Sang réal, which literally means "royal blood" in Old French.
• The Grail relics consist of the documents that testify to the bloodline, as well as the actual bones of Mary Magdalene.
• The Grail relics of Mary Magdalene were hidden by the Priory of Sion in a secret crypt, perhaps beneath Rosslyn Chapel.
• The Church has suppressed the truth about Mary Magdalene and the Jesus bloodline for 2000 years. This is principally because they fear the power of
the sacred feminine in and of itself and because this would challenge the primacy of Saint Peter as an apostle.
• Mary Magdalene was of royal descent (through the Jewish House of Benjamin) and was the wife of Jesus, of the House of David. That she was a prostitute was slander invented by the Church to obscure their true relationship. At the time of the Crucifixion, she was pregnant. After the Crucifixion, she fled to Gaul, where she was sheltered by the Jews of Marseille. She gave birth to a daughter, named Sarah. The bloodline of Jesus and Mary Magdalene became the Merovingian dynasty of France.
• The existence of the bloodline was the secret that was contained in the documents discovered by the Crusaders after they conquered Jerusalem in 1099 (see Kingdom of Jerusalem). The Priory of Sion and the Knights Templar were organized to keep the secret.
The secrets of the Grail are connected, according to the novel, to Leonardo Da Vinci's work as follows:
• Leonardo was a member of the Priory of Sion and knew the secret of the Grail. The secret is in fact revealed in The Last Supper, in which no actual chalice is present at the table. The figure seated next to Christ is not a man, but a woman, his wife Mary Magdalene. Most reproductions of the work are from a later alteration that obscured her obvious female characteristics.
• The androgyny of the Mona Lisa reflects the sacred union of male and female which is implied in the holy union of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Such parity between the cosmic forces of masculine and feminine has long been a deep threat to the established power of the Church. The name Mona Lisa is actually an anagram for "Amon L'Isa", referring to the father and mother gods of Ancient Egyptian religion (namely Amun and Isis).
source: Wikipedia
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