Literature and film, as all art, do not merely entertain. It is in their nature to convey the principles and values of their creators and so they instruct in subtle or not-so-subtle ways. Much has been written and said about Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. Potential viewers, as they evaluate the film for themselves, ought to be mindful of the whopping historical falsehoods on which the book is based.

The literary merits of the book cannot be disputed. It flies along with its many threads, and seems to lag only in the final chapters. Nor can one question the advocacy of ideas and convictions through the respectable literary form of historical fiction. What is confusing about the book, and Brown's public statements, is the fudging between fiction and historical fact, and therefore also the consequent moral implication of misleading people unaware of the details of history. Brown says that he wrote the novel to generate discussion about faith, religion, and history, and that is all well and good. But why the apparently deliberate ambiguity between fact and fiction? Why the flagrant twisting of the major historical facts on which the book's story line is built?

Was Jesus married, as Brown contends? No historian, ancient or modern, and no follower or enemy of Jesus has ever seriously considered such a thing until Dan Brown at the end of the second millennium. Jesus' prominence, the open nature of his life and work, and the public mission of Christianity all preclude the possibility of the Church keeping such a grand secret throughout the ages. Of course, if on the basis of historical evidence Jesus was not married, as historians support, the edifice of Brown's tale crumbles. I have yet to read or hear Brown say clearly that this cornerstone of his novel is without historical basis. Startling at it may seem, however, the question can be reversed. For mainline Judaism and Christianity marriage was and is honorable and holy. What would be so scandalous, as theologian Eugenia Constantinou recently wrote, about Jesus being married as part of all the other human attributes he shared with humanity apart from sin? Why would the Church need to conceal such a thing and perpetrate a hoax had Jesus actually been married?

Was Mary Magdalene Jesus' "beloved disciple" depicted on the right hand of Jesus in Da Vinci's famous painting of The Last Supper? No serious art historian has backed up Brown on this claim. It is known that in Da Vinci's time artists' portrayed figures according to stock forms. For example students were depicted beardless and with long hair, exactly the portrayal of John the Evangelist, the youngest and beloved disciple, found in a number of Last Suppers painted over the centuries. Besides, Da Vinci has left several preliminary sketches of his famous painting which leave no doubt that he was depicting the youthful St. John, the beloved disciple, according to the received tradition. If art historians refute the claim about the presumed woman in Da Vinci's painting, Brown's story line concerning Mary Magdalene collapses to dust.

Who was Mary Magdalene? One can either go by the evidence of the canonical Gospels written in the first century or that of the apocryphal Gospels of Philip and of Mary Magdalene written in the late second or even the third century. The picture of Jesus and his ministry in these two sets of documents is so radically different that one cannot cherry pick from both sides. An objective historian would rely on the sources and related witnesses closest to Jesus and the events involved. On that basis Mary Magdalene was one of the women healed by Jesus and apparently of such courage and wealth as to accompany and support Jesus along with the male disciples (Luke 8:2-3). She was not, as is sometimes thought, the sinful woman who anointed Jesus. Mary Magdalene is one of the most prominent women in the traditional Gospels, a leader privileged to be the first witness of the good news of Christ's resurrection, but in no way a rival to St. Peter or to anyone else. The Gospel of Mary Magdalene and the Gospel of Philip deserve no more credibility than the so-called Gospel of Judas recently in the news. For the historian the bits of information about Mary Magdalene in the apocryphal Gospels, which in part inspired Dan Brown, come, as all fairy tales, from the realm of pure fantasy.

Did the Emperor Constantine virtually proclaim the divinity of Jesus in the fourth century? Brown claims that the Church, under Constantine's heavy hand, suppressed the apocryphal documents, promoted the canonical ones favoring the divinity of Jesus, and arrived at the decision that Jesus was the Son of God for the first time First Ecumenical Council (325 AD), and by a narrow vote at that! As history, these claims are nothing but rubbish in the eyes of an honest scholar. The divinity of Christ was already a firm teaching of St. Paul who was an eye-witness of the risen Christ and one directly connected with St. Peter and other original disciples of Jesus (Galatians 1:12-18; 2:1-10; Philippians 2:6-11; Colossians 1:15-18; Acts 15:1-29). The collection of the New Testament books, while it occurred over a long period of time, was mostly complete by the end of the second century and was the valued documented harvest of the apostolic tradition kept within the mainstream Church. In this collection process some books, such as the Book of Revelation and the Epistle of James, were disputed. The radically different apocryphal books, however, were never even part of the debate for inclusion.

The accusation about suppression is absurd because the persecuted Church had no power to suppress anyone. The apocryphal books and the people who wrote them had as much opportunity for success in the Greco-Roman society as the canonical books and the communities that fostered them. If they failed, they did so because of lack of substance and appeal. And as far as the Council vote is concerned, it was never over Jesus' divinity, which even the Arians gladly proclaimed, but about the adequate language to articulate this long held apostolic belief. That language was found in the word homoousios ("of the very essence or being of the Father") that precluded the false Arian understanding. The final consensus among the bishops was 348 for and 2 against, hardly a close tally—and it was a vote understood only to safeguard the received faith, not to invent (!) a radically new form of it as Brown contends.

Where does all this leave us regarding Brown's book and the new film? Those who have read the book and those who may see the film would do well to go beyond its story line to the agenda Dan Brown and others in our culture bring to the table. We all have our agendas, of course. Let the agendas clash honestly in open discussion in a free society. "We cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth" (2 Corinthians 13:8). Free and honest discussion can bring people closer to what is right and good for humanity because that is the nature of truth. The problem with Brown's story, if I may put it plainly, is its lack of sufficient intellectual honesty, and that misleads people. Without honesty, genuine dialog is impossible.

Fact or fiction? Neither in his book nor in his public statements does Brown seem to make up his mind. He cunningly mixes the two. He claims to be writing fiction but on the basis of facts. But what kind of facts and of what magnitude? The foundations of his story, as indicated above, have been debunked again and again by historical scholars. What then remains of Brown's imaginative work? Why does Brown not come clean and address the issue of the historical falsehoods that have been exposed? It is one thing to write fiction and advance whatever views one desires. It is quite another to promote views invoking historical events and historical figures, and then twist and falsify them to promote an agenda, because such a thing moves from fictional novel to intellectual dishonesty, from freedom of speech to moral cynicism, by confusing or misleading people. If this is all true, and it seems to be so, then one must draw the conclusion that Brown respects neither his subject matter, nor his readers.

What remains is Brown's real agenda having to do with our cultural wars. His book, a captivating web of fantasy, exploits the magnitude of Jesus and the influence that traditional Christianity still has on culture, in order to stealthily undermine both! The book bears a message sinister in the attempted cover-up of its real intent and foisted on unaware readers by appeals to half-truths and falsified historical events. When decoded, the message is a broadside against the Roman Catholic Church. It is an attack on traditional Christian beliefs and values centered on the person of Jesus Christ, human and divine. It repudiates the New Testament as a hoax in favor of the apocryphal books. It advocates unencumbered feminism, egalitarianism, and sexuality of all types. It is a message about an alternative so-called Christianity that much resembles the post-modern, new age ideology pervading today's media and Western culture. It is a philosophy of those pilgrims who submit to no authority but the self, commit to no abiding truth but their own predilection, and live by no absolute value but that of what has been called the "do-it-yourself-kit" of self-discovery.

Rev. Dr. Theodore Stylianopoulos is the Archbishop Iakovos Professor of Orthodox Theology and Professor of New Testament at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline, Massachusetts.

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