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Mary Magdalene »
Introduction
Sure, it's a novel, but the startling claims in The Da Vinci Code about a married Jesus,
a Last Supper with a secret message and shenanigans within the Roman Catholic
Church have left readers asking: Just how much of this is true? Just in time for the
movie, U.S. News separates fact from fantasy on a range of Code-related questions,
from the inner workings of Opus Dei to the truth about Mary Magdalene. Answers are
based on a U.S. News Special Edition, Secrets of the Da Vinci Code, and on the book
on which the special edition is based, Secrets of the Code: The Unauthorized Guide to
the Mysteries of the Da Vinci Code, edited by Dan Burstein. Think you know the
answers already? Click on the links to the right and test your knowledge of the world
of the Code.
The Da Vinci Code: True or False
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Mary Magdalene
The Church
Opus Dei
Leonardo Da Vinci
The Holy Grail
The Early Gospels
The Movie
The Priory of Sion
Dan Brown
Dan Brown's Paris
Mary Magdalene
True
Mary Magdalene's name crops up frequently in the New Testament. She is mentioned 12
times by name and is one of Jesus's closest companions. She sees him crucified, looks after his
body and is there for the Resurrection.
For centuries, the Catholic Church painted Mary Magdalene as a prostitute. Father Richard
McBrien, a Notre Dame theology professor, has speculated that early church leaders took it out
on Mary because they were unwilling to believe she was so close to Jesus and were annoyed by
the fact that she witnessed the Resurrection. The Church took it all back in 1969.
A gospel talks about Jesus kissing Mary "on the mouth." This is [partially] true. The Gospel
of Phillip, a collection of sayings about Jesus discovered at Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt, says,
"... he [used to] kiss her [often] on her [mouth]." The interpolations are intelligent guesswork.
There's some evidence that the other disciples were offended by Christ's love for Mary.
Again, the Gospel of Phillip provides some evidence of this, and so does the Gospel of Mary.
The act of anointing has many parallels with non-Christian fertility rites. Pouring unguent
over a body crops up in many Middle Eastern cultures.
False
Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married. Lots of speculation, no evidence. Don't look for
help from the newly translated Judas Gospel. It doesn't even mention Mary.
Jesus and Mary had a child together. If you're willing to believe they were married, this would
be the next logical step. That's a big if.
Mary graced the Last Supper with her presence. There's no evidence in the New Testament.
Of course, there is something subversively appealing about the idea that Leonardo might have
painted her in surreptitiously.
Mary Magdalene died in France and is buried at Vezelay. Lucius III, Urban III and Clement
III all issued papal bulls saying so, and there are some very appealing legends. One says Mary
ended up in France after the Crucifixion with Jesus's aunts and a black serving girl called Sarah.
The evidence? Slim. Skeptics would say none. And the Eastern Orthodox Church has her buried
in Constantinople.
We know who Mary really was. There is an age-old confusion as to whether she should be
identified with other Marys mentioned in the Bible, such as Mary of Bethany, or with the woman
sinner who anointed Jesus's feet. It was the decision to conflate all three Marys that led to bad
press for Mary from the Church.
Opus Dei
True
Opus Dei was founded by Josemaría Escrivá, a Spanish priest who "promoted a return to
conservative Catholic values and encouraged its members to make sweeping sacrifices in
their own lives in order to do the Work of God." Escriva founded Opus Dei in 1928 and
published a book in 1934 with 999 points of meditation. The original title was Spiritual
Considerations, later known, as Brown says, as The Way.
Pope John Paul II beatified Opus Dei's founder in 1992. The ceremony, in St. Peter's Square,
drew 300,000 supporters
A watchdog group has sprung up to monitor the order. The Opus Dei Awareness Network
really exists, and Dan Brown gives its correct Web address.Opus Dei adherents use the cilice, a
spiked bracelet worn round the thigh. The group plays this down, but some members do
practice self-mortification, including the cilice–one of the more flesh-creeping aspects of the
novel. It is designed to draw blood as an irritant.
FBI spy Robert Hanssen was a member. True. Author James Bamford told the New York
Times that Hanssen invited him to Opus Dei meetings.
False
Opus Dei is a religious order like the Jesuits. It's not officially an order, more a group with
several different levels of hierarchy. It emphasizes contact with the world rather than monkly
seclusion. Jack Valero, its London spokesman, has been quoted as saying, "We're not big on
albinos in Opus Dei, and we're even less big on monks."Opus Dei's world HQ in New York
City won praise from Architectural Digest as "a shining beacon of Catholicism sublimely
integrated with the modern landscape." When asked, the magazine denied it had ever featured
Opus Dei's headquarters. But Dan Brown has them at the right place–243 Lexington Avenue–
and hey, this is a novel.
Opus Dei stands against the modernizing reforms within the Catholic Church that sprang
from the Second Vatican Council. Actually, as the Times Literary Supplement noted recently,
Escriva claimed that by embracing the world while maintaining Catholic traditions, Opus Dei
was right in the spirit of Vatican II.
Opus Dei is trying to take over the world. It's been slow to counter allegations against it, and not just
from books like The Da Vinci Code. But it's hard to see that the conspiracy theorists are right on this one.
Opus Dei is an embarrassment to the Catholic Church. Dan Brown goes so far as to downgrade the
group's status toward the end of the book, but there's no evidence this is likely to happen. Opus Dei is
widely thought to have rescued the Vatican during the Banco Ambrosiano scandal in the 1908s, although
that has never been proved. And the group has many mainstream adherents. They include Ruth Kelly, a
British cabinet minister.
Leonardo Da Vinci
True
Leonardo da Vinci wrote in code: When jotting down ideas, Da Vinci often wrote from right to
left, a type of mirror writing that makes his manuscripts hard to read. The fact that he used
shorthand doesn't help, either.
The artist's Adoration of the Magi was painted and modified by another, unknown hand.
Dan Brown has this right, and he is correct in identifying Italian art analyst Maurizio Seracini as
the researcher who penetrated beneath the painting's layers of pigment and discovered this.
Da Vinci was not necessarily responsible for every "Leonardo." Because of the studio
apprenticeship system, it was common for other artists to complete a commission.
Da Vinci saw the wonders of the Earth as the creation of nature, not God. Yale Prof.
Sherwin B. Nuland points out that Da Vinci came surprisingly close to describing the theory of
evolution.
No one knows why Mona Lisa is smiling. In fact, some people don't think she is.
False
The character on Jesus's right in The Last Supper is Mary Magdalene. It's John. Despite
spirited arguments by authors Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince, whose books Dan Brown used in
his research, there's no reason to think Da Vinci deviated from the normal grouping in Last
Suppers of his age. And whatever he thought of Mary Magdalene at the time, he was perfectly
content to paint her in the traditional way 15 years later.
Da Vinci was a secret devotee of the Knights Templar and a grand master of the Priory of
Sion. Only if you believe the Dossiers Secrets. Check out the link under "The Priory of Sion."
Da Vinci's output of Christian art was "breathtaking." In fact his reputation is based on
fewer than two dozen surviving paintings–relatively few compared with other great artists.
The artist left coded messages in his paintings. There's no evidence for this. Among the more
far-fetched suggestions is Brown's contention that the name of the Mona Lisa is a code and can
be rearranged to become Amon L'isa, a supposedly androgynous union. Unlikely: The name
Mona Lisa (Mona is a contraction of Madonna) dates from well after Da Vinci's death.
In the world of art, people routinely refer to "Da Vinci." Actually, your average teaching
assistant in Art Appreciation 101 is likely to wince at any reference other than "Leonardo." "Da
Vinci" indicates the town he came from.
The Holy Grail
True
In Christian tradition, the Holy Grail is the cup that Jesus drank from at the Last Supper
and in which Joseph of Arimathea caught his blood at the crucifixion. The Joseph
connection comes along late in the tradition, but it has a venerable history.
The Holy Grail ended up in Britain. Not everything in Monty Python and the Holy Grail is
true, but at least according to legend when the Grail disappeared it was taken to England by
Joseph of Arimathea. To Camelot (not to confuse a musical with a movie).
Scotland's Rosslyn Chapel, one of the final destinations in the novel, has a code carved into
its masonry that has never been cracked. And it's not for lack of trying.
Rosslyn is also an exact replica of the Temple of Solomon. Well, that's stretching the truth.
But at least that's the legend.
The rose (a symbol in Dan Brown's book for the Grail) has a long association with secrecy.
Brown's allusion to the phrase sub rosa is correct; the Romans did use a rose to symbolize that a
meeting was private.
False
The Holy Grail isn't a cup at all–it's an inverted V, the ancient symbol for womanhood.
Hard to swallow. In the words of Diane Apostolos-Cappadona, a religious art professor at
Georgetown University, "that's a very Jungian reading of Mary Magdalene."
The French phrase for "Holy Grail" derives from the words for "royal blood." The relevant
word would be sang, but the more likely derivation is from saint followed by an old word for
dish. The Catholic Encyclopedia thinks the "blood" explanation was too fanciful for later writers
to resist.
Leonardo left out the central cup of wine in The Last Supper as an allegorical reference to
the Grail. It's true there's no central cup of wine in front of the figure of Jesus but it's hard to
read much into it.
The 90-degree angle between Jesus and "Mary Magdalene" in the same painting
represents the symbol of the chalice (and of the sacred feminine). Actually, it was Leonardo's
mastery of perspective and composition that made his work eternal. Everything about the
arrangement of the figures in the painting suggests artistic deliberation, not hidden code.
The Grail legends were stories of forbidden quests to find the "sacred feminine." That
would have come as news to Geoffrey of Monmouth, on whose 12th-century chronicle of King
Arthur and Merlin the Grail story is based.
The Early Gospels
True
The "lost Gospels" are real. "Lost Gospels" abound, including ones identified with Phillip,
Thomas, Mary Magdalene and, most famously, Judas. The four Gospels selected for the New
Testament were by no means the only ones in existence. But it's easy to be misled about the
nature of some of the others; the Gospel of Phillip, for example, is essentially a collection of
statements about the meaning of the sacraments.
The Gnostic Gospels have cast new light on the early days of Christianity. Much of the texts
contradicts what we thought we knew through the writings of St. Paul. It's clear, for example,
that early Christianity was remarkably diverse.
The Gnostic Gospels are more sympathetic to women than church tradition. James M. Robinson,
general editor of The Nag Hammadi Library, says the Gnostics were more "liberated." He says, "Their
view of women in the church was based more on the perceived quality of their religious experience than
on the relationship between bishop and supplicant."
Some of the Nag Hammadi texts were burned immediately after they were discovered. One of the
discoverers took them home and dumped them next to the oven. His mother used them to light the fire.
Some of the sayings duplicate sayings known from the New Testament. On the other hand, many
present cryptic utterances that strike a more mystical note.
False
The Gospel texts found at Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt are scrolls. Despite what The Da
Vinci Code says, they are codices–books with individual pages. "They're actually the oldest
examples we have of leather bound books," says Robinson.
The Gnostic Gospels are in the language they were originally written in. In fact, they appear
to be Coptic translations of Greek originals.
The word companion in the Gospel of Phillip implies Jesus and Mary were married. That's
reading too much into it. The word that's being translated doesn't have all the connotations of the
English word, despite Sir Leigh Teabing's confidence in his command of Aramaic.
Those who wrote the texts regarded themselves as heretics. The "true faith" was by no means
settled when the Gospels were written. It's interesting to speculate what Dan Brown might have
made of the somewhat extreme Judas Gospel, which had not been translated when he wrote The
Da Vinci Code.
The New Testament Gospels are a contemporary record of Jesus's life. In fact, scholars
estimate that there's a gap of at least 40 years between the death of Jesus and the first of the four
Gospels.
The Movie
True
The original proposal was to use The Da Vinci Code as the basis for an episode of the TV
drama 24. Dan Brown nixed the idea and held out for movie treatment.
Instead of Audrey Tautou, we could have been watching Kate Beckinsale as Sophie Neveu.
Tautou, who is much better known in France (A Very Long Engagement), apparently had stiff
competition, which also included Juliette Binoche.
The movie goes one better than the book–it shows a tension-filled struggle to decode an
anagram that Neveu solves in a flash in the print version. The anagram is So dark the con of
man, which she decodes brilliantly as Madonna of the Rocks.
One of the leading actors went from a crazed lunatic with tentacles fused to his spine to a
suave Roman Catholic bishop. That would be Alfred Molina (Aringarosa), who starred as
Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man 2.
Tom Hanks has a completely new hairstyle. Hey, long hair looks professorial.
False
Tom Hanks was the choice for Robert Langdon from Day 1. Ron Howard's original choice
for the part was reportedly Bill (Big Love, Titanic) Paxton.
The film debuts May 19. Actually, if you're lucky enough to snag an invitation to the Cannes
Film Festival, you can watch it two days earlier.
Westminster Abbey is just as impressive on film as it was in the book. In fact, church
authorities decided the movie was "theologically unsound," so Ron Howard used Lincoln
Cathedral instead.
Opus Dei wants a boycott of the movie. Instead, the group is fighting back with blogs and more
conciliatory tactics, such as asking for a restrictive movie rating so minors aren't unduly
influenced by it.
The fact that the book doesn't have a proper ending spells doom for the movie. Hey–we
don't want to give everything away ...
The Priory of Sion
True
The Priory of Sion really did exist. In one sense this is true; it even published a periodical in
the 1950s and 1960s. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to predate 1956. See the first item under
"False" below.
The BBC aired a series of documentaries giving credence to the stories about the French
town of Rennes-le-Château and its connection with the Priory of Sion. True. In 1997,
however, the BBC produced another documentary admitting the story wasn't true.
The medieval Knights Templar were particularly close to the pope. In 1139, Pope Innocent
II declared that they would be answerable only to the papacy.
The Knights Templar were very rich. It was part of their Rule that all new members had to
hand over their property to the order.
Friday the Thirteenth is unlucky because the attempt to exterminate the Knights Templar
took place on Friday, Oct. 13, 1307. This is one possible explanation, although it has a lot of
competition.
False
The Priory of Sion preserved the truth about Jesus and Mary Magdalene for centuries.
Sorry. Documents related to the history of the Priory of Sion were proved in the 1990s to be an
elaborate hoax.
Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo and da Vinci all belonged to the Priory. Well, if the
Priory was a hoax, this wouldn't be true either, would it? Jean Cocteau was another nonmember,
although it's intriguing to think of the author of Les Enfants Terribles entrusted with weighty
religious secrets.
The Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris contains documents that prove the Priory really did
exist. These were planted by a hoaxer with the remarkably appropriate name of Pierre Plantard.
An early Grail romance suggests the sacred chalice was guarded by the Templars. Not in
any accepted interpretation.
The Merovingian kings of France were descended from Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Quite a
stretch. Although Dagobert II was indeed murdered, as Leigh Teabing states, historians do not
see the hand of the Vatican behind the fatal dagger.
Dan Brown
True
Dan Brown hid a coded message on the book's dust jacket. Check out the first line of the text
and you'll notice a boldface letter i. The same is true of the second s in symbologist on the
second line. Piece the bold letters together and you get "Is there no help for the widow's son?"
Speculation is that the phrase, which has connotations of Freemasonry, hints at the theme of
Brown's next novel.
The fictional Depositary Bank of Zurich has a real Web site. True–it was produced by
Random House, Brown's publisher, but it's eerily plausible.
Brown's first book was 187 Men to Avoid: A Survival Guide for the Romantically Frustrated
Woman (1995). The authors are listed as Dan and Danielle Brown, somewhat oddly, since Dan
wrote it with his wife, whose name is Blythe.
Dan Brown went to the same prep school where his father taught. It was Phillips Exeter.
The Da Vinci Code's use of symbols is foreshadowed in his previous book. Angels & Demons
is full of a type of illustration called ambigrams, words that are readable upside down as well as
right side up.
False
Dan Brown has always been a writer. In fact, he moved to California after college to sing and
write songs, producing four CDs. Then he followed his father as a teacher at Phillips Exeter.
Tom Hanks was always the author's first choice to play Robert Langdon. In fact, Brown told
an interviewer, C.M. McDonald, "One of the beauties of the reading experience is that
everybody pictures Langdon in his or her perfect way.... The second you slap a character [into a
movie], no matter how you describe Langdon or any other character, they picture Ben Affleck or
Hugh Jackman or whoever it happens to be."
Doubleday jumped at the chance to publish Dan Brown when his editor jumped ship from
Simon & Schuster. In fact, the actual reaction was reportedly: "Who's Dan Brown?"
Brown is the world's bestselling author. Don't underestimate Harry Potter; J.K. Rowling has
Dan Brown beaten hands down (300 million to 40 million was one recent count).
Dan Brown is an evening According to his Web site, he starts writing at four every morning.
Dan Brown's Paris
True
Paris had its own version of the Greenwich Meridian. The Paris Meridian–the French version
of zero longitude– was first plotted in 1718 and recalculated in the early 1800s. It predates the
Greenwich Meridian. And yes, it does bisect both the Louvre and the church of Saint-Sulpice.
The Paris Meridian is marked with brass disks. Dutchman Jan Dibbets laid down the disks–
135 of them–in 1994 as an art installation.
The Louvre pyramid was commissioned by the French president himself. Francois
Mitterrand asked architect I.M. Pei to execute the commission–and the result, as Dan Brown
says, was certainly controversial.
The Church of Saint-Sulpice has a polished strip of brass set in its floor. It's an astronomical
gnomon that works like a sundial. And yes, it does climb a stone obelisk on the church's northsouth axis.
Sir Leigh Teabing's estate, Chateau Villette, really exists. However, it's not as close to
Versailles as Brown says. And Teabing doesn't actually live there.
False
There are 666 panes in the pyramid at the Louvre. Not exactly. For one thing, 666 isn't
divisible by four. The official answer is 698.
It would take a visitor an estimated five weeks to "properly appreciate the 65,300 pieces of
art in the Louvre." For Secrets of the Code, David A. Shugarts calculated that if you spent one
minute in front of each piece of art, it would take 45 days at 24 hours a day just to visit all the
artwork, never mind appreciate it.
The caretaker of Saint-Sulpice is a nun who lives in a two-room apartment upstairs. Umm,
no.
A temple of Isis lies beneath the sanctuary. No, but the crypt does contain Romanesque walls
and columns.
Sophie Neveu's SmartCar gets "a hundred kilometers to the liter." Sadly (this would be one
way to ease the gas crisis), SmartCars, which are just 8 feet long, guzzle fuel at five times that
rate.