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A
Violation of Women Ideas
have consequences. Books have consequences. Novels have consequences. If The Da Vinci Code accuses the Catholic Church of oppressing women, then we need to ask ourselves how well women are depicted and treated by those in the book who claim to be honoring them. There is first of all Sophie Neveu, the cryptologist, who together with Robert Langdon tries to unlock the mystery as to what the last message of her grandfather, Jacques Saunière, means. Saunière was the curator of the musée du Louvre in Paris and the head of the Priory of Sion, a secret society, protecting the secret of Mary Magdalene’s and Christ’s offspring as the true grail. Saunière was murdered by a member of Opus Dei, but left an encrypted message for Sophie and the symbologist Langdon so that his secret would not die with him. During the rest of the novel Sophie and Langdon, who is suspected of murdering Saunière, are running away from the French police and from Saunière’s murderers while trying to decrypt a series of codes on their path to the truth and to the Holy Grail. Though Sophie has some good ideas, gets Langdon out of the clutches of the police in the Louvre and deciphers some of the codes, Langdon and the grail-specialist Teabing are continuously preaching down to her. She is ultimately an airhead and merely a good foil for Langdon and Teabing to show off their knowledge over and against her ignorance. Furthermore, she provides the romantic element at the end of the novel when she predictably sinks into Langdon’s arms and agrees to meet him again the following month in Florence to start an affair. Though this is standard for the kind of mystery-romance novel that Brown has written, one would have expected a little bit more from somebody who is revealing to the world the authentic religion of the sacred feminine. After all, Langdon who has a “spiritual experience” over the grave of Mary Magdalene and who believes in this nonsense, should treat Sophie differently. One would also have hoped that Brown would give us a heroine with more character and brains, especially since she is the descendent of Mary Magdalene and Jesus. But then, all of his characters lack depth and development, so what can one expect? The Priory of Sion claims to be honoring women. But if the worship and power of women is at its, why have only four women been Grand Masters of the Priory in its 1000 years of history (444)? Brown tries to present this in a way as to inspire his readers with awe at the emancipatory and women-friendly spirit of the Priory. But is this not very little to show for and should not all or most of the Priory’s leaders have been women? Before I continue with my analysis of the sacred feminine in Brown’s novel, let me just point out the utter absurdity and inherent contradiction of Brown’s alternative history of Christianity. According to Brown and the book from which he took most of his ideas called “Holy Blood, Holy Grail” by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln, Mary Magdalene was the truly beloved apostle of Christ. She was supposed to be his successor, but the male apostles took over instead, and Mary Magdalene had to escape with her child. Underlying this, of course, is the idea that Christ was not really the Son of God, but a wise and charismatic human being and nothing more. Thus Jesus did not resurrect, nor did he probably ever die on the cross. But if he was not the Son of God, did not resurrect, and all of Christianity was just a fraud and cover-up over his true relationship to Mary Magdalene, why were the apostles willing to give their lives for this lie? Fanatics sacrifice their lives, but they only do so if they believe that the ideal they are dying for is true and worthwhile. How could St Peter have accepted to undergo the horrible death of crucifixion, knowing that he was dying for a hoax? It does not make any sense. Why would the early Christians have come up with the idea of an ignominious death for Christ, the shameful death of a criminal of the worst sort, if they wanted to prove that he was the Son of God? Could they not have come up with a better tale? I think so. It wouldn’t take much. But the point is that it was not a tale and that they themselves had to try to understand why the son of God had to die such a horrible death, that there was a salvific plan behind what looked like a tremendous failure. It does not make any sense to speak of Christ as a wise and good man and nothing more – which is the position Brown takes. C.S. Lewis states the alternatives very clearly in his book Mere Christianity: “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about [Christ]…: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” But let us return to the question of the sacred feminine: an important rite for the Priory of Sion is the “hieros gamos”, a sex-act ritual celebrating the sacred feminine. As a young student, Sophie Neveu came home early to her grandfather’s castle, only to discover him engaged in a sex-ritual with an elderly woman while people in white and black robes wearing masks were standing around and chanting (142ff & 307ff). Sophie has the right reaction. She is profoundly shocked, runs away and never speaks to her grandfather again for the next 10 years. Langdon on the other hand, explains to her the meaning of this rite within a few sentences which suddenly sets it all right – again turning Sophie into a nitwit (307ff). We need to ask ourselves: is this act really a celebration of womanhood? Does it make sex holier? Does it honor women and sex more than the Catholic Church does? I would claim that “hieros gamos”, which is Greek and means “holy marriage,” is anything but holy and really demeans sex and women rather than honoring them. The fact that Jacques Saunière is married to the woman with whom he is having sex in public does not change this. There are some things that are so special and intimate that they are meant to happen in private. Intercourse between husband and wife is one of these things. It has such power that this act consummates the sacrament of marriage. But when there are onlookers to the act, as in the case of hieros gamos, this demeans its beauty, intimacy and holiness. To say that the Catholic Church thinks sex is wicked and sinful as such is simply wrong. God invented sex; therefore it is good. Not only did He invent sex, but He uses erotic language in the Bible to describe His love for and relationship with His people. He wants a closeness and intimacy with human beings of which sexual intimacy is only a pale reflection. When His people turn away from Him and worship idols in the Old Testament, He compares them to an adulterous wife for whom He waits, hoping that she will return. Jesus compares heaven in his parables to a wedding-feast in which he will be the bridegroom (Mt 9:15, Jn 3:28-36). The Catholic Church has always spoken of her nuptial character (Eph 5:21-33). So if the Church thought poorly of sex, why would she continue using erotic language to describe her relationship to God? Thus The Da Vinci Code’s claim does not make any sense whatsoever. If the Church condemns extra-marital sex, she does not do so because she thinks that sex is bad, but precisely because sex is holy. The nobler something is, the more one can demean it and drag it through the mud. While sex in marriage is a very strong means of union between spouses, a great expression of love, a gift of self leading to a transcending of self, in extra-marital sex it turns on itself, and pleasure becomes its main focus instead of gift-of-self. Thus extra-marital sex separates two people rather than uniting them; for how can something that turns one in on oneself be unitive? This would be inherently contradictory. The “hieros gamos” rite is demeaning for all the participants for the following reasons: all they are celebrating is sex, not the intimacy it creates between human beings. The two engaging in the act have their faces covered. This turns sex into something impersonal – a mere instinct and force – raw sex. The participants do not have the privacy to engage in a real “I-thou” relationship which is exclusive and demands some private space. Since this sexual act is not interpersonal, it cannot bring about a gift-of-self. Instead of sex becoming the means to communion, Jacques and his wife simply become its puppets, the enactors of a greater force in which they loose their individuality. How ennobling is that? True intimacy requires gift of self, otherwise it is just the intermingling of bodily fluids; using a prostitute for a few minutes for these purposes does not create real intimacy – this is obvious, I think. The onlookers present at this rite cannot but help becoming voyeuristic, whatever their intentions; thus they too with their masked faces become mere puppets of instinct. Langdon tells Sophie that the man engaging in the sex-act of hieros gamos is really experiencing wholeness, that for a split-second he is forgetting himself completely, thereby experiencing communion with God (309). This means that the woman is just there to provide man with a climactic moment so that he can have a spiritual experience. How is this supposed to honor women? And what about the woman’s access to a spiritual experience of the same sort? Langdon barely touches upon that because his focus is on the man. Anyway, this claim of Langdon is nonsense, for this kind of sexual experience is not spiritual, since it is not about an intimate union with God. What Langdon describes is the Gnostic desire to save oneself, to feel whole, to overcome the consequences of original sin on one’s own. Salvation is not necessary. Communion with God is not the goal – only feeling O.K. and contented. How spiritual is that? How much transcendence does that involve? None whatsoever. Let me raise a further question, namely: how is this celebration of sex supposed to honor women? If this is the way to celebrate Mary Magdalene or the sacred feminine in general, this means reducing women to sex. But are women not more than just their sexuality? Instead of honoring women, hieros gamos dishonors them, demeans them, turns them into merely sexual objects. Thus this rite is the very opposite of Christianity which reveals the transcendence to which the human person is called, whether man or woman. Should it not outrage women to be told that what is most important about them is their sexuality, and the highest way to celebrate their femininity is to engage in a public sex-act so that the man (and not the woman) can experience God? I could think of many better ways of honoring them. I think it has become clear which rite, hieros gamos or the Catholic sacrament of marriage, is more ennobling and shows greater respect for the mystery of sexuality. However, at one point Langdon explains the meaning of sex in a way that – at least partially – is in line with that of the Catholic Church. But it is ironic that he presents the sacredness of sexuality as if it were something new, as if the Catholic Church hadn’t figured this out a long time ago. He states: “it’s important to remember that the ancients’ view of sex was entirely opposite from ours today. Sex begot new life – the ultimate miracle – and miracles could be performed only by a god. The ability of the woman to produce life from her womb made her sacred” (309). Does this sound familiar? Does the Catholic Church not say that God is the creator of new human beings, even if the parents are the procreators? Does she not say that the finality of sex is new life and that new life is a miracle? Does she not therefore point to the dignity and sacredness of women in whose womb God creates new life? Brown’s argument that Christ cannot have been celibate because all Jewish men got married, is also inaccurate (245). The Essenes, for example, formed a religious community of Jewish men who lived a celibate life in expectation of the apocalyptic end-times, the unfolding of history with the arrival of the Messiah. Brown, by the way, is aware of this community for he mentions the Dead Sea Scrolls, but claims falsely that they were Christian (245). In light of the Essenes, Christ’s celibacy as well as that of St. John the Baptist is not as unusual as all that. And again, it does not indicate that they believe sex to be evil or impure. If priests and religious men and women give up marriage and sex, it is precisely because they esteem it. This sounds paradoxical, but if one wants to give a nice present to someone, one tries to give that person something really special, something of value. If I give my husband a dirty, old shirt for Christmas, he will start wondering whether I am angry or resentful at him (and rightly so). If I give God something that I don’t really care about, for example giving up milk in my coffee during Lent when I hate milk in my coffee to start with, then this shows that I don’t really care about Him. But giving up the possibility of marriage and of sexual intimacy is a real sacrifice and challenge, and therefore a worthy gift expressing one’s unconditional love for God. It is precisely because priests, religious and consecrated lay persons know the value and beauty of sexuality and marriage that they give it up – because they feel called by God to do so. Dan Brown’s lack of research and his agenda become manifest once again in the greatest omission of the book. How can he say that the Catholic Church does not honor women, yet never mention once Mary, the Mother of Christ? Our Lady is the pinnacle of creation, the Queen of Heaven and Earth, and all the angels and saints serve her. Could Brown explain to me how this could be demeaning to women? However, Brown’s omission of Our Lady in the novel makes sense in a certain way, for she presents a kind of femininity that is at odds with our culture at large and certainly at odds with the values of the Priory of Sion. Christianity, of which Mary is the full expression, is a religion of service and love. Her femininity does not find its fulfillment in trying to emulate the role of the apostles. She works behind the scenes and significantly does not draw attention to herself, but to her son. At the Wedding Feast of Cana, she draws Christ’s attention to the embarrassing situation that their hosts are running out of wine (Jn 2:3). Though Christ tells her that his time has not yet come, she remains confident that he will help and she tells the servant to obey his commands (Jn 2:5). This has become emblematic for her role in the Church: she points to her son so that we may follow and obey him. Though she led a hidden life, God did not allow this to remain so once she was assumed into heaven. She is central to the Catholic Faith and is honored all over the globe. She fully embodies Christ’s humility which he explained to us when washing the feet of his disciples (Jn 13: 3-17), namely that to be the greatest in the kingdom of God means to be humble and a servant to all (Mt 18: 1-4). This is very unpopular with radical feminists who hold an unorthodox view of Christianity and think primarily in terms of power – as if this were Christ’s message. Teabing’s claim in the novel that Mary Magdalene is not honored by the Catholic Church is another falsehood (244). Not only is she honored as a saint, but she is given a place of prominence in the New Testament which, Brown claims, the gospel writers had wanted to hide. If that were so, why did they turn her into the first witness of the Resurrection? According to St. John’s gospel, she is the first one to whom the resurrected Christ appears and this is a great honor (Jn 20:11-18, Mk 16: 9). If the apostles wanted to undermine her role, then putting this into the gospels would not only have been a very stupid thing to do, but would be the sign of utter idiocy. There is a certain tradition in Catholicism which holds that Mary Magdalene is also the woman sinner who comes to Christ, bathing his feet with her tears, drying them with her hair and pouring oil on him. This identification, however, is not de fide – it does not belong to the dogmatic teaching of the Church. The idea, it seems, first started when Pope Gregory the Great (540-604) during a homily at the basilica of San Clemente of Rome on September 21, 591, identified the two. The idea was not that far-fetched since Mary of Magdala, “from whom seven demons had gone out” is mentioned in Luke 8:2 just after the story of the “sinful woman” in the previous chapter (Lk 7:37-50). Furthermore, John in his gospel (Jn 11:1-2) identifies the woman who anointed Christ and dried his feet with her hair as Mary of Bethany, sister of Martha and Lazarus. Honoring a woman who has repented of her life-style and who is fully forgiven by Christ does not strike me as a smear campaign by the Catholic Church (244). If Mary Magdalene were really an outcast as Teabing claims, then we should be hearing and seeing a lot less about her than we do. Let me finish this talk by pointing out some of the literary flaws and inconsistencies of the novel. Salmon Rushdie said it is: “A book so bad that it makes bad books look good.” I would agree with Rushdie. The characters are one-dimensional, the dialogue is flat, the plot contradicts itself, the research is flawed, there is no style to speak of and the conclusion is a disappointment. The characters, as I mentioned, have no depth and are simply puppets moving along the story and voicing Dan Brown’s ideology. His vocabulary is limited and full of clichés. I started getting tired of hearing that someone “revved the engine” or “gunned the car” (18). Or listen to this clichéd description of Bezu Fache, the Captain of the Central Directorate Judicial Police: “his dark eyes seemed to scorch the earth before him, radiating a fiery clarity that forecast his reputation for unblinking severity in all matters” (21). Furthermore, Brown likes to mention details that are irrelevant and seem to lead to something meaningful, but don’t. He describes the Grande Gallerie in the Louvre (33) as having the exact “length of three Washington Monuments laid end to end”. Who cares? Is that supposed to indicate some master-plan or connection between the Washington Monument and the architects of the Louvre? When Langdon is driven through Paris, he looks at the Eiffel tower and immediately thinks of it as a phallic symbol (16). Does that tell me anything about Paris? No! If everything that is vertical becomes a phallic symbol, then one is living in a very sad and boring world – and one that is very distorted too. Yet this is the kind of world that Brown is offering to his readers. Brown is obsessed with sex and this becomes manifest again and again: for example in Teabing’s vulgar metaphor of Sophie as a grail-virgin, or in Brown’s description of the Bois de Boulogne (229, 157, 140). But I will spare you further vulgar details. Then Brown lets an albino monk, Silas, be the hit-man. Apart from the fact that Opus Dei does not have any monks, it is somewhat unbelievable that an albino could get away with all these murders without being noticed. However, Brown knows how to end each chapter with a cliff-hanger, thus letting the novel become a page-turner for many readers. But even on that level the book is a disappointment, for the end is a real let-down. Time and again people tell me that they have been disappointed with the conclusion of the novel. Brown at first seems to present us with a cleverly crafted plot, hurrying us on in a chase in which the characters have to decrypt one code after the next. All of this is supposed to lead us to the revelation of that secret truth that the naughty Church has kept from us ignorant people for 1000s of years. Instead, it leads us to Sophie’s remaining family members who are the descendants of Christ and therefore the true grail. Langdon, it seems, must give up the search for the tomb of Mary Magdalene and the Oh-so-revealing manuscripts buried with her. But then he stumbles unto her grave in the very end, underneath the Louvre. Over the ages the Priory of Sion and now Langdon have decided to do precisely what they accuse the Catholic Church of having done, namely of hiding the truth from the world. Why? Because it is better to let people be blind and happy, as Langdon explains earlier on: “Religious allegory has become a part of the fabric of reality. And living in that reality helps millions of people cope and be better people” (342). And as Sophie’s grandmother, Marie Chauvel, points out: “In fact the Priory has always maintained that the Grail should never be unveiled” (444). So the Priory of Sion and Langdon are just as condescending and conspiratorial as they accuse the Church of being; nay, they are worse, for they have the power to show the truth to the world, but they refuse to do so. They are snobs and decide to keep the people in ignorance since it would be difficult for them to cope with the truth. The Catholic Church, by the way, has never done that: the message of Christ’s death on the Cross is a stumbling-block to the Jews and foolishness to the world, as St Paul says (1 Cor 1: 23). Yet, she does not back down and announces the truth despite terrible persecutions over the ages. I have to admit that I had a hard time finishing the book. It was simply written too poorly to captivate my attention. I am not expecting Brown to write like Charles Dickens or Henry James, but one would hope for a somewhat higher literary quality. What makes it so appealing then? Why have at least 40 million people bought the hardcopy version of his book? Brown put together a potent mixture of sex, thriller and conspiracy with an ideological angle which speaks to our culture. The novel is so appealing since it makes us readers part of a secret knowledge. It means being in the know, not being part of the mass of ignorant people. Brown exudes an air of superiority throughout the book which is unwarranted, letting Langdon and Teabing speak for him. He strings together empty statements that give the impression of erudition. For example, at one point we are told: “Langdon was always surprised how few Christians who gazed upon ‘the crucifix’ realized their symbol’s violent history was reflected in its very name: ‘cross’ and ‘crucifix’ came from the Latin verb cruciare – to torture” (145). This creates the illusion of erudition, but Langdon really says nothing except that many Catholics don’t know Latin. So what? Of course, one does not want to be part of the ignorant plebs and therefore one prefers to swallow what Brown has to say hook, line and sinker. Ironically, however, one is thereby trusting the theories of Brown and a few crackpots, rather than the research of serious scholars as well as 2,000 years of tradition. It is worrying what an impact Brown’s propaganda has had. Many Catholics no longer know their faith and are unable to see through Brown’s lies. Western Culture is displaying an anti-Catholic and anti-Christian bias, thus making the novel particularly popular. Furthermore, the Christ presented in Brown’s novel reflects the values and ideological mindset of modern people, namely feminism. When Christ fits the culture rather than the culture trying to conform to Christ, then we know that something is seriously wrong. In the 20th century, Jesus has been portrayed in turn as a Communist, a hippy, a rock-star, a homosexual and now as a feminist (248). It is attractive to fit Christ to our ideas rather than conforming our ideas to him, since it involves no change of heart nor of behavior. Jesus, according to Dan Brown’s novel and his like-minded friends, wants women to have all the power and everybody to have lots of sex - and some of it in public. Unfortunately, this does not quite gel with the gospels. Why does Christ say to the adulterous woman: “Go, and do not sin again” after he has forgiven her (Jn 8:11)? Why does he tell the woman at the fountain that the man she lives with is not her real husband (Jn 4: 17-18)? This is not a popular teaching for our times, but, at least, we should have the honesty to acknowledge that our behavior is contrary to Christ’s teaching rather than claiming that Jesus said something different than he did. Dan Brown got things seriously wrong. Christ has something much greater to offer than sex and power – a communion of love with Love itself, giving us a happiness going beyond our wildest dreams. Let us make the right choice. Dr. Marie Meaney |
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