The Trinity & Da Vinci Code
READ John 8.37-42, 51-59
Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code is a wonderful book for making us think about who Jesus was
- it is a page-turning detective story delving into the origins and nature of the church
- I won't ruin it by telling you the end of the story, but I'll tell you what ruins it for me
- the Preface: it says the characters are fictional but the history is factual
- this made readers excited and made historians livid – well, mildly annoyed
- historians are usually mild-mannered academics with a narrow emotional range
- to historians, this is as accurate as Indiana Jones' movie Raiders of the Lost Ark
- and I think the story should be enjoyed in this way, or it should be seen as a hoax
- on the line of the Hitler Diaries, or the multitude of rival Gnostic Gospels
The Gnostic Gospels are important for Dan Brown, who appeals to them often
- he says they bear witness to the truth about Jesus, that he was just a man
- and that he had a sexual relationship with Mary Magdalene
- and that the church did not finally make Jesus God till the 4th C.
- and that the New Testament Gospels were a church cover-up to hide the truth
- they taught, instead, that that Jesus was God and Mary Magdalene was a prostitute
The DaVinci Code and the Raiders of the Lost Ark are good yarns
- they are full of historical inaccuracies, but who cares when they are such fun
- but I do care when people disparage Jesus in this way, making him a mere man
- and as an ancient historian (an increasingly accurate title) I'm mildly irritated by bad history
- I don't want to bore you with a long long list of bad history, because it's only
fiction, whatever the claims of the author who wants to sell more copies
- but I do want to look at the issue of Jesus, because that's important to me
First, we need to know something about the ancient Gnostic groups
- this was a series of sects who had different ideas about Jesus
- just like the church has lots of sects nowadays, with different views on Jesus
- Jehovah's Witnesses, who reject spirits like angels, demons and divine Jesus
- Christian Scientists, who say that illness is an illusion and we are all part of Adam's
dream (because Genesis never says that he woke up when God took his rib)
- Mormons, who follow the writings hidden by a descendant of the 10 tribes who
went to America – the original tablets were taken to heaven after being translated
- New Age believers, a hugely disparate group who appear to believe anything 'nice'
about crystals, Arthur, ley lines, sexual energy, and of course that nice man Jesus
- etc – lots of them thrive in this is a pick-n-mix society where religion is a matter
of choice and convenience rather than inheritance or rational thought
In the second century there were even more religions than now
- founding a religion was one way to make money, or get respect as a teacher
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- when the persecution of Christians started to lighten up, many sects flourished
- we clump lots of them together under the title "Gnostic", but this is too vague
- it is rather like the term "New Age" – it refers to lots of very different groups
- we have lots of writings from them, including the newly-found Gospel of Judas
- different teachers taught different things, for example:
Menander claimed that anyone who followed him would never die
(OK, so they died, but that didn't put off others teachers with a new idea)
Saturninius said Christ wasn’t really human and that sex & marriage are evil
Cerinthus said the Christ came as a dove on a human called Jesus at his baptism,
and inhabited his body till just before his crucifixion
Basilides said the god of the Jews was an oppressive angel. Simon of Cyrene was
crucified instead of Jesus, while the invisible Christ stood by laughing
Marcion said the god of the OT was bad, unlike the god of the NT, and that Jesus
was a phantom who merely appeared to be human.
Valentinus also said Jesus wasn't human, but his followers split over whether he
was a soul or a spirit.
Lots of variety, but there are some common features:
- they don't like the physical world, because matter is bad and spirit is good
- this means that Christ couldn't have been really human in a physical way
- so either he inhabited someone else's human body, or he was just an apparition
- and sex is bad, because it's physical and it brings more people into the world
- the human body traps your spirit in this world, and your task is to escape
- but you have to know the special passwords and names of angels to help you
- those secrets are called the 'gnosis' (Greek for 'knowledge') – hence 'Gnostic'
We have lots of documents from them, including several 'Gospels'
- they convey this secret knowledge using characters from mainstream Gospels
- like the Gospel of Judas, which would make no sense without the NT Gospels
- it isn't an account from Judas' point of view, but a series of discussion between
Jesus and Judas, in which Jesus tells Judas the secret names of angels etc
- it mentions things like the twelve, the betrayal of Judas, his replacement etc
- but they are all mentioned without explanation, as if the reader already knew them
- that is, it is written to people who have already read the NT Gospels
We have lots of similar Gospels which were inspired by the NT gospels
- the big Four became famous and everyone was using the title 'gospel'
- like when Lord of the Rings inspired a whole host of imitations
- but imitations are usually easy to spot, and the early church had no disputes about
any of these later Gospels – no one seriously thought they were genuine
- they are less believable than the Life of Brian, and no-body cared
- they weren't written to be historical records, but as vehicles for other teaching
- the Gospel of Judas which was published in April 2006 is a good example
In the Gospel of Judas, the disciples declare that Jesus is the Son of God
- but Judas shows even more insight, saying "you have come from the immortal realm
of Barbelo and I am not worthy to utter the name of the one who has sent you"
- Jesus says: "Step aside and I will tell you the mysteries of the kingdom. It is possible for
you to reach it, but you will grieve a great deal. For someone else will replace you."
- and Jesus tells Judas secret names and mysteries to help him access the kingdom
- then tells him what he has to do: "you will sacrifice the man that clothes me"
- ie he arranges the death not of Christ, but of the human he has been borrowing
Weird and weirder, and perhaps we regard the followers as dumb and dumber
- but they were trying to deal with a great mystery: how can Jesus be God and man?
- the NT Gospels appear to say both, but how can both be true?
Before I try (and probably fail) to answer that, lets peep again at the DaVinci Code
- Dan Brown uses Gnostic writings to argue that the church made Jesus into God
- countering Gnostics who (he says) taught Jesus was merely human, and married to
Mary Magdelene
- but this is topsy-turvy – the opposite of what we read in Gnostic writings
. The Gnostics thought matter was evil, so they said Christ couldn’t be human
- that's why they had him possess someone's body, or appear as a phantom
- and they taught sex and marriage were evil, so their Christ was completely non-sexual
- Brown based this on one Gnostic scrap which (when you fill in some gaps)
appears to say that Jesus kissed Mary
- in Gnostic terms this would mean that he shared secret knowledge with her
- but I can understand that this could be misconstrued as sexual by someone who
didn’t understand Gnosticism
OK, who cares about these long-dead sects with their weird ideas?
- they help us to understand why the Trinity was such a big deal for the church
- the NT says almost nothing about the Trinity, and never uses the word
- it simply says that Jesus was the Son of God and is to be worshiped like God
("the Word was God", Jn.1.1; "let all the angels worship him" Heb.1.6;
"we stone you for blaspheme because you … make yourself God" Jn.10.33)
- while at the same time it says that Jesus was fully human, and remains human
("there is one mediator between man and God, the man Jesus Christ – 1Tim.2.5)
- and also saying that there is only one God ("there is no other god but one" 1Cor.8.4)
- how do you put all this together? The Gnostics tried, and came up a simple answer:
- Jesus was in-between. He only pretended to be a man, and was divine but not God
- this caught on, along with the silliness which came with this (matter and sex are
evil, our bodies are a prison, and you need secret knowledge to escape to heaven)
- so the church needed an equally simple statement to summarise Christian teaching
- during a few centuries of debate they developed the Trinitarian formula
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- God is three "persons but one essence" in Nicene and Athanasian creeds
- Jesus is "one essence with the Father" but also "made man.. and suffered death"
This Trinitarian formula has much more to do with diplomacy than the Bible
- it doesn't really say anything, except how to identify a heretic
- a heretic either says that Jesus isn't fully God, or he isn't fully human
- that is, a heretic tries to make sense of something we can't express in language
- it is a bit like defining a real physicist as someone who believes that an electron is
both fully a particle and fully a wave
- this kind of concept is very exciting to physicists, but leaves most of us cold
- and only theologians manage to get excited about the trinity nowadays
- though it used to be all the rage to discuss it even in the marketplace
What IS important is that Jesus was God before he came to earth
- if we don't get this, we don't understand how much Jesus loves us
- Jesus took part in creating the universe, and was one with the Father and Spirit
- and yet he was willing to come down and become a tiny human baby
- and then live as someone who was despised, rejected, spat on, beaten, and killed
- all this, even though he could at any time have called: Stop. And then stepped out.
His poverty was the least of his shame. His biggest shame came from his birth
- being born to a virgin meant being born as seemingly illegitimate
- everyone knew, because they could count less than 9 months after the wedding
- though he wasn't officially an illegitimate because there weren't any witnesses
- no good Jewish family would let their daughter marry an illegitimate man
- an illegitimate could only marry another person branded as illegitimate
- but Jesus couldn't even do that because he wasn't officially illegitimate
- so he couldn't marry anyone, illegitimate or not, and this was a great stigma
- every Jewish male married, in order to fulfil the first commandment from God in
the Bible: Go forth and multiply.
- and the fact that Jesus was single was a constant reminder of his shameful birth
- so the crowds can taunt Jesus: "At least we weren't born in fornication" (Jn.8.41)
- no wonder Matthew and Luke spend so much time explaining his birth
The DaVinci Code suggests that Jesus was secretly married
- so the church invented Jesus' singleness as a cover-up, and to discourage marriage
- a strange cover-up. It creates far more problems than it solves
- Jesus did teach that it was OK to stay unmarried and "be a eunuch for the sake of
the kingdom" (Matt.19.12)
- though Paul emphasised this didn't mean marriage was wrong (1Cor.7.7-9, 28),
even if it was unwise during the "present distress" (1Cor.7.26)
I'm glad that the DaVinci Code has brought up the issue of women again
- of course it has done so in the most sensational way which will sell more copies
- but at least the subject is being discussed in terms of early church practice
- though I don't like the way it implies that the NT church was down on women
It's true that the church did initially discourage women from being leaders
- in that society it was scandalous for women to talk to even one strange man
- both women and slaves were asked to submit, as society expected, "so that the
Gospel is not scandalised" (Titus 2.5, 10; 1Tim.6.1)
- this didn't mean they endorsed society's views on women or slaves, but they
regarded spreading the Gospel as much more important than their own rights
- but soon society loosened up, and the early church had women leaders
There is a sea of sceptical faces in front of me.
- some of you are thinking: The earliest church didn't really teach Jesus was God
- others of you are thinking: The earliest church didn't really allow women leaders
- and I can't prove anything to you from the Bible
- you will say: Ah, but the later church changed the text. It was a big conspiracy
- so what can I do?
I call into the witness box Pliny the Younger, an impartial Roman official
- it was his job in the early 2nd C to find and punish Christians in Bithinia
- he reported his findings in 111 AD to the Emperor Trajan:
"I found out the truth, by means of torture, from two servant girls (ancillis)
who were called Ministers (ministrae). I could find nothing more than a
disgusting fanatical superstition. … They used to gather on a stated day
before dawn and sing to Christ as if he were a god, and they took an oath not
to involve themselves in villainy, but rather to commit no theft, no fraud, no
adultery, not to break faith, nor to deny money placed with them in trust.
Once these things were done, it was their custom to part and return later to
eat a meal together, innocently, although they stopped this after my edict,
which forbade all secret societies, as you ordered." (Epistle X.96)
There we are: the disgusting truth, as Pliny calls it. The church was small, run by the
lowest of society, sometimes women (as Pliny found) and they worshiped Christ as God.
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A sermon on the Trinity isn't complete without a mention of the Holy Spirit
- it seems rather disparaging to mention so briefly that the Spirit is equal to God
- but that is how it happens in the creeds which have long sections on the Father and the Son
and then add "…And the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son".
- the Holy Spirit was not physical, so Gnostics didn’t have the same problems
- and once you allow that God is more than one person, adding a third is no big deal
- and so, unfortunately, it was not till the 20th century that the church really realised
the importance of the Holy Spirit
Books like the DaVinci Code remind us that such things are in the mists of history
- but history is not as misty as some suppose, though I agree that there is lots of mist
- it is like living in Los Angeles, which is covered by a permanent smog
- a friend said months after moving there, he saw something amazing one morning
- snow covered mountains just a few miles away which dwarf the city
- the mountains are always there, but only visible when a rare easterly wind blows
the smog into the sea
- the Trinity is always present in the New Testament, but the whole glory of it is rarely seen
- like when Jesus tells his disciples to "make disciples of all nations, baptising
them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit" (Matt.28.19)
- or the closing blessing at the end of 2 Corinthians (13.13): May the grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be
with you all.
Amen.
Menander - his followers will never die
Saturninius Christ wasn't really human. Sex & marriage are evil
Pliny the Younger, reported in 111 AD: (Epistle X.96)
Cerinthus Christ possessed Jesus till just before his crucifixion
"I found out the truth, by means of torture,
from two servant girls (ancillis) who were
called Ministers (ministrae). I could find
nothing more than a disgusting fanatical superstition.
… They used to gather on a stated day before dawn
and sing to Christ as if he were a god… "
Basilides Invisible Christ watched Simon of Cyrene crucified in his place.
Marcion The OT god was evil. Jesus was a phantom who appeared to be human.
Valentinus Jesus wasn't human - he was a spirit or soul without a body.
Judas:
"You have come from the immortal realm of Barbelo and
I am not worthy to utter the name of the one who has sent you".
Make disciples of all nations,
baptising them in the name of
the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
(Matt.28.19)
Jesus:
"Step aside and I will tell you the mysteries of the kingdom.
It is possible for you to reach it, but you will grieve a great deal.
For someone else will replace you.
…you will sacrifice the man that clothes me"
May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the love of God and
the fellowship of the Holy Spirit
be with you all.
(2 Corinthians 13.13)
Jesus is God:
"the Word was God" (John 1.1)
"let all the angels worship him" (Hebrews 1.6)
"we stone you for blaspheme because you
… make yourself God" (John 10.33)
Jesus is human:
"there is one mediator between man and God,
the man Jesus Christ" (1 Timothy 2.5)
Only one God:
"there is no other god but one" (1 Cor.8.4)
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