The summer of 2003 will surely be remembered as a banner season for Gnostic heresy. Dan Brown's book The Da Vinci Code found its way onto millions of people's summer reading list. Elaine Pagels, a leading authority on the subject of gnosticism, released a new book titled Beyond Belief. It seems everywhere I go people are talking about the themes and ideas presented by these two authors. What is most alarming, however, is that the now-blurred line between fact and fiction hasn't gotten any clearer as the summer has turned to fall.

In her book, Pagels defines a "gnostic" as "one who knows" — who by personal, experiential insight has attained a knowledge of God beyond that of the "common" Christian. She quotes the Gospel according to Philip: "Faith is our earth, in which we take root; hope is the water through which we are nourished; love is the air through which we grow; gnosis is the light through which we become fully grown." Sounds spiritual to me. Sounds fresh and bold to millions of others. So what's the problem?

The problem is I've checked all the Christian Bibles on my shelf and can't find the Gospel of Philip; it's not in there. And this is far from some kind of new age stuff. Actually, this is quite old age — 1,850 years old. 

The Other "Gospels"

 

In the second century after the birth of Christ, there were not just four Gospels (i.e., testaments to the life and time of Jesus) in circulation; there were about 80. The four Gospels we find in Christian Bibles were all written within a few decades of Christ's death. By one generation after the apostolic age, every book of our New Testament had been cited as authoritative by some church father. 

But legends surround all great men. Napoleon, Julius Caesar, even George Washington all have legendary stories that are not historically accurate. It should come as no surprise, then, to find such stories surrounding the life of Jesus of Nazareth. As the Jesus movement grew, more and more people wanted to get in on the act, and the quickest way was to write a story about Jesus and attach an apostle's name to it. So, this practice began in the second century — as much as 75 to 100 years after the canonical Gospels had been written, copied, distributed and accepted as authoritative among Christians. These legends were not suppressed by the Apostles, as Pagels asserts. They could not have been suppressed by the Apostles because they were not written while they were alive.

These bogus stories about Jesus represented a wide diversity of traditions. The Apocalypse of Peter, for example, has Jesus on the cross, "glad and laughing." The Acts of John imagines Jesus "celebrating the eucharist by leading his disciples as they chant and dance together a mystical hymn, the Round Dance of the Cross." There was a Gospel of Mary Magdalene, in which Andrew says to Simon Peter, "Surely the Savior knows her very well. That is why he loved her more than us."

Particularly popular then — and in some circles, now — was the Gospel according to Thomas. According to Pagels, there was a great competition of ideas between the Gospel bearing Thomas' name and the Gospel of John (which, by the way, is in every Bible on my shelf). Pagels writes, "Thomas' gospel encourages the hearer not so much to believe in Jesus, as John requires, as to seek to know God through one's own, divinely given capacity, since all are created in the image of God."

For those inclined to shrug all this off as inconsequential, Pagels explains further, "Thomas' Jesus directs each disciple to discover the light within ('within a person of light there is light')." In other words, Jesus is sort of a self-help guide. Pagels continues, "But John's Jesus declares instead that 'I am the light of the world.'" In other words, if you don't have Jesus, you don't have light. If such nuances don't matter to you, they should. And you can rest assured they mattered in the second century. Pagels suggests that the author of the Gospel of John showed his disgust for what was written in Thomas' name by casting Thomas as a doubter. Never mind the fact that John's Gospel also has this same Thomas making perhaps the greatest confession of faith found in Scripture (John 20:28).

Pagels furthers her theory that Jesus was just here to help us discover what was already within us by referring to the Secret Book of James. This really ups the ante. In it, Jesus is seen exhorting souls, not merely to follow him, but to surpass him! "Become better than I; make yourselves like the son of the Holy Spirit!"

Pagels writes that her interest in this whole subject goes back to her days at Harvard, where she "wondered what it was about Christianity that I had found so compelling and at the same time so frustrating." A professor there "had file cabinets filled with 'gospels' and 'apocrypha' written during the first centuries, many of them secret writings of which I'd never heard. These writings, containing sayings, rituals and dialogues attributed to Jesus and his disciples, were found in 1945 among a cache of texts from the beginning of the Christian era, unearthed near Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt.... Prior to the Nag Hammadi discovery in 1945, many of these materials weren't even known to exist."

The Best Selling Gnostic Gospel

 Pagels' latest book can be seen as a non-fiction companion piece to Dan Brown's blockbuster novel, The Da Vinci Code, which is perhaps the first Gnostic murder mystery to hit number one on the New York Times bestseller list.

Brown tells an ingenious story, starting with a murder at the Louvre in Paris, the dying man arranging his own body as a clue that only our protagonist, Harvard Professor of Religious Symbology Robert Langdon, will be able to decipher — and that with extreme difficulty. (You have to respect a book that casts a Professor of Religious Symbology in the role of action hero.)

The deceased is renowned museum curator Jacques Sauniere. Using his own blood as ink and his abdomen as canvas, Sauniere has drawn five straight lines intersecting to form a five-pointed star — no small feat for a man who has been mortally wounded and is bleeding to death. Of course, Langdon immediately recognizes the symbol as a pentacle, "one of the oldest symbols on earth. Used over four thousand years before Christ."

The French police inspector assumes the pentacle represents devil worship. No, Langdon explains, that is a gross misperception, the product of Hollywood's imagination. "The pentacle is a pre-Christian symbol that relates to Nature worship. The ancients envisioned their world in two halves — masculine and feminine. Their gods and goddesses worked to keep a balance of power. Yin and yang. When the male and female were balanced, there was harmony in the world. When they were unbalanced, there was chaos. The pentacle is representative of the female half of all things — a concept religious historians call the 'sacred feminine' or 'the divine goddess.'"

Not only has the deceased drawn a pentacle on his belly, but, in what has to be the busiest death scene ever written, he has taken his clothes off and positioned his corpse in pentacle form, per Da Vinci's famous drawing, "The Vitruvian Man." Clearly, there are deep things afoot here.

The late Curator Sauniere has left other clues that are even more perplexing (a workaholic, even in his death), but before Robert Langdon can investigate, he must first escape the clutches of the French police who figure him as the murderer. Enter beautiful young Sophie Neveu, granddaughter of the deceased. Ms. Neveu befriends Langdon and offers to facilitate his getaway. Before leaving the museum, however, they must first check out the Mona Lisa. Well, of course. And here is where the book takes one of its many excursions into the arcane.

Langdon tells Sophie the Egyptian god of fertility was called Amon. The Egyptian goddess of fertility was Isis, which in ancient pictograms reads L'ISA. Put them together, and you get AMON L'ISA. Move one letter, and you get MONA LISA. 

It has been often noted the she is not particularly beautiful. But not until now have we known why. Langdon explains that Da Vinci painted an androgynous self-portrait — equal parts male and female. "And that," he says, "is Da Vinci's little secret, and the reason for Mona Lisa's knowing smile." Forget the fact that most art historians believe this is a portrait of a real woman, Madonna Lisa, wife of Francesco di Bartolomeo del Giocondo. By now it's clear that Brown is less interested in actual history and more interested in presenting an agenda.

Of more direct importance to our story, at the Mona Lisa a clue leads Robert Langdon to the astonishing discovery that the dead man down the hallway, Sophie's grandfather, had been a member of the oldest surviving secret society on earth, the Priory of Sion, devoted to the sacred feminine, with an abiding contempt for the church. Langdon has written about this group. Da Vinci served as grand master from 1510-1519. According to the novel, the list of past masters includes Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli, scientist Isaac Newton, author Victor "Hunchback of Notre Dame" Hugo and composer Claude Debussy — the elite of the artistic elite. None of this has ever really been corroborated, but why bother with history now? Isn't it a fun ride?

"Sophie," says Langdon, "the Priory's tradition of perpetuating goddess worship is based on the belief that powerful men in the early Christian church 'conned' the world by propagating lies that devalued the female and tipped the scales in favor of the masculine.

"The Priory believes that Constantine and his male successors successfully converted the world from matriarchal paganism to patriarchal Christianity by waging a campaign of propaganda that demonized the sacred feminine, obliterating the goddess from modern religion forever."

Langdon educates Sophie on the Catholic Inquisition's 300-year campaign against "the dangers of freethinking women," identifying such as witches, burning them wholesale at the stake. Today's world, Langdon suggests, is living proof of the success of said campaign.

"Women, once celebrated as an essential half of spiritual enlightenment, had been banished from the temples of the world. There were no female Orthodox rabbis, Catholic priests, nor Islamic clerics."

It takes a cool customer to offer such tutorials even as the French version of the FBI is combing the hallways of the Louvre looking for him. And, as the reader knows, the real killer is still out there — a giant albino monk (I am not making this up) bent on suppressing secrets that, if told, could be the undoing of the church. 

There's Something about Mary

Those attuned to contemporary Christian culture wars may have already noted that Sophie's name is itself a clue: Sophie Neveu — "Wisdom New Eve."  In the Greek version of the Old Testament Book of Proverbs, the word we translate as wisdom was the word "Sophia," suggesting a female quality to the wisdom of God. Recently, there has been a growing trend to "Re-image" God in female form. Some today will be found praying to Sophia, "Now Sophia, dream the vision, share the wisdom dwelling deep within." Sophia serves as kind of a god created for women, by women. The idea of re-creating God in our image is usually considered anathema in Christian circles.

Finally taking leave of the Louvre, Robert and Sophie wind up at the palace of an eccentric religious art historian who tells Sophie the key to the mystery is in Da Vinci's portrait, "The Last Supper." This eccentric religious art historian invites Sophie to look closely at the person seated at Jesus' right hand — the place of honor. "As she studied the person's face and body, a wave of astonishment rose within her. The individual had flowing red hair, delicate folded hands and the hint of a bosom...." Exclaims Sophie, "That's a woman!"

"That my dear," says the eccentric religious art historian, "is Mary Magdalene."

Sophie turned, "The prostitute?"

Now the reader gets another lecture in revisionist church history. We learn that Jesus used to kiss Mary Magdalene on the mouth in front of the rest of the disciples, making them all jealous. So, once Jesus was out of the picture, they launched a smear campaign to wreck her reputation, portraying her as a whore so no one would let her be the leader of the group. Interesting? Yes. Historical? No.

Mary in the Bible

 I have to confess: I have no background as a literary critic. My background and training is in the field of Christian theology. I specialized in New Testament studies. So, I need to shift to more familiar ground here. In the Gospel of John, we read:

Then the disciples went back to their homes, but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.

 They asked her, "Woman, why are you crying?"

 "They have taken my Lord away," she said, "and I don't know where they have put him." At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

 "Woman," he said, "why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?"

 Thinking he was the gardener, she said, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him."

 Jesus said to her, "Mary."

 She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, "Rabboni!" (which means Teacher).

 Jesus said, "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'"

 Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: "I have seen the Lord!" And she told them that he had said these things to her.

John 20:10-18

There it is in black and white: the biblical account says Mary Magdalene was the first to proclaim the resurrection of Jesus. "I have seen the Lord!" Jesus commissioned her to tell the others. And, since the act of evangelism can practically be defined as proclamation of the resurrection, it is exceedingly odd, when you stop to think about it, that for most of the 2,000-year history of the church, evangelism has been considered a man's job — even to the deliberate exclusion of the female.

And while I've read too many historical books to embrace all or even most of Dan Brown's conspiracy theories, he may be on solid ground in suggesting that Mary Magdalene has been a victim of a smear job — not by those who authored the Bible, but by those who have interpreted it.

I read a scholarly book some years ago by Susan Haskins, titled Mary Magdalene: Myth and Metaphor. In it the author argues from Scripture, rather convincingly, that the popular image of Mary Magdalene as a prostitute is actually a synthesis of three different biblical women. There really isn't any good evidence to believe the first witness to the resurrection was a prostitute.

So why is she remembered that way? Why does Andrew Lloyd Webber have her sing, "I don't know how to love him, and I've had so many men before in very many ways"? Could it have something to do with the messy fact that the Bible reports that while Peter, James, John and the other men were still hiding, it was Mary Magdalene who went to the tomb and found it empty? This could give some freethinking women the idea that they might be a candidate for service in God's kingdom, an idea that could scarcely be tolerated in a male-only priesthood. But if Mary could be cast as a woman of ill-repute.... But that's a conspiracy theory for another time.

One of the basic premises we must remember is that what we have been told about the Bible (for example, that Mary Magdalene was a hooker or that Thomas was a doubter) and what is actually in the Bible are sometimes two different things. I, unlike Dan Brown, am especially interested in what is actually in the Bible.

I am in complete sympathy with those who assert the church has too often promoted the masculine to the exclusion of the feminine. Many women have been abused; men have misused their authority and put their own agendas first. Women have historically been unfairly discriminated against in churches and in the workplace. Often, the Bible has been twisted and distorted in an attempt to justify such behavior. But this is an important distinction: one has to twist the Scriptures to arrive at such conclusions. The Bible itself does not lead us to these ideas.

There was a reason for the Protestant Reformation, and it is still proceeding to this day. We are in the midst of a continuing revolution, based not on the ideas of men or some "secret writings," but on the premise of sola scriptura.

The History of Heresy

The reason for this lengthy article is that millions and millions of Americans this summer, along with untold numbers around the world, read the Dan Brown version of church history. In his telling, the books of the New Testament, as we have received it, were selected by self-interested men for self-interested purposes, and the church has been involved in a 2,000-year conspiracy to suppress the writings that didn't toe the company line.

Says the eccentric religious art historian in Brown's novel, "The modern Bible was compiled and edited by men who possessed a political agenda — to promote the divinity of the man Jesus Christ and use His influence to solidify their own power base."

Robert Langdon interjects, "An interesting note. Anyone who chose the forbidden gospels over Constantine's version was deemed a heretic. The word heretic derives from that moment in history. The Latin word haereticus means 'choice.' Those who 'chose' the original history of Christ were the world's first heretics." If by "original history of Christ," one means the notion that Jesus was not God in the flesh living a sinless life and dying on the cross to pay the price for the sins of the world, then, yes, these were the world's first heretics. The word haereticus doesn't just mean "choice" or "able to choose." Its original meaning also carries the notion of being factious. 

Granted, in a year when former Senator Frank Keating, a man hand-picked by Roman Catholics to lead the inquiry into the church's role in sheltering pedophilia among priests, resigned after saying his experience was like dealing with the Mafia, it will be easy for many to believe the historic church is just one big organized crime syndicate. It's relatively easy to cast the Roman Catholic Church in the role of bad guys. It's not too big a stretch to see them branding everyone who disagreed with them with a scarlet "H" for "Heretic."

But, while the word "heretic" has been misused in the past and continues to be misused today, we cannot dismiss it as easily as Dan Brown wants us to. It is a sad but true fact that we may be called heretical for disagreeing over a great many things — ordination of women, modes of baptism, our view of biblical prophecy. Unfortunately, the word "heresy" is often used to protect a base of power or some long-held dogma. 

Sometimes, however, a person is called a heretic because they actually are a heretic. Dan Brown, Elaine Pagels and those who champion the Gnostic gospels are heretics, not simply because they choose to believe an alternative story of Jesus, but because they create division and foster attitudes of superiority among "those in the know."

Firing the Canon at Gnostic Heresy

What doesn't fit into Dan Brown's conspiracy plot is the fact that the canonization of New Testament Scripture and establishment of creedal statements was initially borne out of the dilemma faced by second century church leaders such as Irenaeus, who believed it of critical importance to forge a unified church. Irenaeus' mentor, Polycarp, himself a disciple of the apostle John, had been burned alive by the Romans in 167. How was the church to survive that kind of pressure if it couldn't even agree on whether Jesus was laughing or suffering on the cross?

As Pagels tells it, the issue came to a head when "The Three" — Montanus, Maximilla and Priscilla — began traveling around the churches of Asia Minor "claiming to communicate directly with the holy spirit." The Three were having all sorts of visions and revelations. Priscilla, writes Pagels, "claimed that Christ had appeared to her in female form." Furthermore, they taught others to fast and pray so they too could receive direct visions and revelations, their own personal gnosis.

Gnostics, such as "The Three," made a distinction between Common Christians and Spiritual Christians — they, of course, being the latter. They were Christians "in the know." But the Book of Acts tells us that the first edition of the church held everything in common (Acts 2:44). They were all in the same boat. Irenaeus cannot be blamed for being concerned that a two-tier system was evolving with Christians "in the know" holding themselves superior to the others.

There are Christians today who, because of some spiritual experience, practically disdain other believers who have not experienced what they have. We see still what Irenaeus was talking about, when he said, in effect, you can always tell a Gnostic, "strutting around with a superior expression on his face, with all the pomposity of a rooster."

How was the church ever going to sing out of the same hymnal if there were 80 gospels floating around and anybody and everybody could claim to be communicating directly with the Holy Spirit, their gnosis making them more spiritual than other believers?

It was Irenaeus himself who came up with the four-gospel solution. The bishop noted that Ezekiel had envisioned God's throne "borne up by four living creatures;" likewise the church would be borne up by four pillars: the "full formed gospels" of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. These had been accepted for generations; Irenaeus wisely saw no need to add to them.

Then, in the second decade of the next century, the aforementioned Constantine himself was converted. Dan Brown portrays the emperor as a master manipulator, using Christianity to his own political purpose. I don't know that his accusation is entirely justified. Legend says that Constantine had seen a vision of the cross in the sky with the words "In this sign conquer." Having committed himself to Christianity, it was perhaps understandable that Constantine would want to know what he was supposed to believe. Thus, it was he who called church leaders from across the empire to gather in Nicaea, June of 325, asking them to come up with a clear statement of belief. The result is remembered as the Nicene Creed:

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.

 

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father; through him all things were made. For us and our salvation he came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary and became truly human. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.

 

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets. We believe in the one holy universal and apostolic church. We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

 

Culture Wars and Conspiracy Theories

As Dan Brown suggests, there was a culture war in the early church between those who accented Jesus' divinity and those who stressed his humanity. And there were extremists on both sides; Dan Brown merely sides with the extremists who stressed Jesus' humanity to the exclusion of his deity. And, while that culture war may still be going on in 2003, perhaps it's not entirely fair to blame it all on Constantine. In the original creed, Jesus is understood as both fully human and fully divine. Some have trouble with the paradox. Others take the paradox itself as evidence of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Forty years later, in 367, the highly influential bishop of Alexandria, Athanasius, delivered an Easter sermon in which he endorsed the writings that make up the New Testament as we know it today. To eliminate potential confusion, Athanasius wanted other books with other teachings destroyed. "But someone," writes Pagels, speculating specifically about the monks of a monastery in Upper Egypt, "gathered dozens of the books that Athanasius wanted to burn, removed them from the monastery library, sealed them in a heavy, six-foot jar and, intending to hide them, buried them in a nearby hillside near Nag Hammadi," where they were unearthed in 1945, providing fodder for conspiracy theorists in general and Dan Brown's novel in particular.

In a real sense, however, Brown's novel only underscores the wisdom of Irenaeus. Remember, Pagels defined a Gnostic as "one who knows." She suggests Irenaeus and other early church leaders "used the term derisively to refer to those they dismissed as people claiming to 'know it all.'" At the core of Dan Brown's novel is the conviction that folks like Leonardo Da Vinci, Robert Langdon and Elaine Pagels know things about God that lesser people such as us cannot know, matters kept secret from common Christians such as ourselves, who are not "in the gnosis."

The Basis of My Gnosis

Leonardo Da Vinci may have drawn a woman into his famous fresco. But it should go without saying that Da Vinci was no more an authority than I am. He just drew really nice pictures and perhaps saw a means of goosing the church, which, God knows, can always use some goosing.

I, for one, am thankful the church settled on four Gospels; there's more than enough there to keep the reader challenged. Even after years of study, there are always new things to discover.

More importantly, not all ideas, then or now, are necessarily equal. Earlier we saw the competition of ideas between the Gospels bearing the respective names of Thomas and John. Pagels summarized the competition by saying, "Thomas' Jesus directs each disciple to discover the light within ('within a person of light there is light'), but John's Jesus declares instead that 'I am the light of the world.'"

One of those is true; the other is false. I can only speak for myself, but the light within John Alan Turner is a flickering thing. My faith journey has not been unlike that of Elaine Pagels. I, too, have wondered what it is about Christianity that I find so compelling and at the same time so frustrating. If Jesus is not the light of the world, I don't know where or what the light is, or if it is. If Jesus was laughing on the cross, well, I don't want any part of it. Only a Savior who has suffered is going to be able to understand my interior life. On my best day, faith is a struggle. I have seen, up close and personal, the foolishness and pretentiousness of the church, and if I'm going to believe in anything, I'm going to believe in the Jesus of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. All other ground is sinking sand. That's my gnosis.

ONLINE ARTICLES

 

"Dismantling the Da Vinci Code" by Sandra Miesel

"Deciphering 'The Da Vinci Code'" by Albert Mohler

 

BOOKS FOR FURTHER READING

 

Allen, Charlotte. The Human Christ: The Search for the Historical Jesus. New York: Free Press, 1998.

Bock, Darrell L. Jesus According to Scripture: Restoring the Portrait from the Gospels. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2002.

__________. Studying the Historical Jesus: A Guide to Sources and Methods. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2002.

Bruce, F.F. Are the New Testament Documents Reliable? Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1954.

Eusebius. The History of the Church from Christ to Constantine. New York: Dorset Press, 1965.

Geisler, Norman L. and William E. Nix. A General Introduction to the Bible, rev. and exp. ed. Chicago, IL: Moody, 1986.

Habermas, Gary R. The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ. Joplin, MO: College Press, 1996.

Johnson, Luke Timothy. The Creed: What Christians Believe and Why It Matters. New York: Doubleday, 2003.

__________. The Real Jesus: The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels. San Francisco: Harper, 1997.

Lutzer, Erwin W. Seven Reasons Why You Can Trust the Bible. Chicago, IL: Moody, 1998.

Montgomery, John Warwick. History and Christianity. Minneapolis, MN: Bethany, 1964.