What is The Da Vinci Code?

The Da Vinci Code is a novel by Dan Brown that has held one of the top two or three places on best-seller lists since early summer. More than 3 million copies (ed: now over 40 million) are in print.

In Brown's novel, the "Da Vinci code" refers to cryptic messages supposedly incorporated by Leonardo Da Vinci into his artwork. According to the novel, Leonardo was a member of an ancient secret society called the "Priory of Sion" dedicated to preserving the "truths" that Jesus designated Mary Magdalene as His successor, that His message was about the celebration of the "sacred feminine," that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and had children and that the Holy Grail of legend and lore is really Mary Magdalene, the "sacred feminine," the vessel who carried Jesus' children.

Sounds like an intriguing bit of lost history. Is it? Long story short: No.

Is the Holy Grail really the "sacred feminine?"

The legend of the Holy Grail has taken many forms throughout history, but it has always identified the Grail as the cup Jesus used at the Last Supper. The idea of identifying it as the "sacred feminine" and tying it into a supposed bloodline emanating from a union of Jesus and Mary Magdalene is lifted whole cloth from the 1981 classic of inventive esoteric wackiness, Holy Blood, Holy Grail.

Is the "Priory of Sion" a real group?

No. Brown begins his book with a statement, under the title "Fact," that there are documents supporting the existence of the Priory in the Bibliotheque Nationale. These documents havelong been understood to be forgeries, placed in the archives by an anti-Semitic supporter of the Vichy government named Pierre Plantard.

Does Da Vinci's The Last Supper really contain a code?

No. First, the idea that Da Vinci used any kind of code pertaining to any issue Dan Brown raises is unsupported by art historians.

Brown says that in this painting Da Vinci is telling us that the figure always identified as John the Evangelist is really Mary Magdalene, and that these two figures together form an "M," and that, because there is no grail in the picture, Da Vinci is telling us the "grail" is the sacred feminine of Mary Magdalene.

Unfortunately for Brown, art historians tell us that the effeminate-looking John is quite a typical representation for the time, as is a Last Supper portrayal emphasizing betrayal rather than the insttution of the Eucharist. In addition, the Last Supper is a dramatization of a scene from the Gospel of John, in which the institution narrative is not even described. No chalice? No problem. In context, it makes sense.