When the book “The Da Vinci Code,” by Dan Brown, was released, it was praised (starting with a New York Daily News book review) for its scholarship and meticulous research. By my review, it actually is full of extremely sloppy research, bad misrepresentations, and one historical error after another. In fact, when looking at the “facts” that matter to the story or its premises in any discoverable way, it is harder to find significant clues he got right than ones he got wrong. The main premise of the book is that the Roman Catholic Church has attempted to conceal important historical facts about Jesus and Mary Magdalene, and has done so in order to distort the actual significance of Jesus as to the role of women in the world. The Church ostensibly was motivated by sexist reasons to suppress the “true” importance of Mary Magdalene. A secret has been concealed since the days of Jesus (the story goes) which would, if revealed, show the Roman Catholic church (and in fact most of Christianity) to be based on falsehood. There exists a secret society which knows the truth. I am not attempting here to challenge the philosophical implications of the book, some of which may be valid at some level, but only to identify the factual errors and distortions found in it. In doing so I am not ignoring the fact that the book is clearly fiction. The problem is that numerous statements of “historical truth” are put in the mouths of scholars whom the reader is, apparently, intended to accept as reliable sources although they are speaking in a fictional story. As a result, many readers mistakenly, but quite reasonably, think they are learning important facts about history from this novel. More important, the author starts the book with a brief introduction headed “FACT,” which the reader is clearly intended to accept as truth, not made up for the novel. These statements of “fact” are given separate treatment in the first table below. In the tables below, I attempt to identify statements in the book as “false,” “probably false,” “misleading,” “essentially true” and “true,” and explain why I attach those labels. I am including what may seem like very picky details on the list. This does not imply that every detail is important to the story. Some of them are included only as indicia of the credibility of the author as a scholar on the subject in question; others are included only because I thought some readers might find them interesting. I have relied to a significant extent on research by others. I do not refer to most of the many web sites “exposing“ the book, since I can't vouch for the accuracy of most of them. (One of the more cautious and balanced is Jim Kenney's review at www.cg.org/forms/THE%20DA%20VINCI%20CODE.pdf.) I have not, for instance, visited the Bibliothèque Nationale or judicial offices in France to verify to content of documents that others have posted on the Web about Pierre Plantard and others, but I have done considerable cross-checking of assertions found in other people’s critiques and, where possible, gone back to original sources to try to eliminate any questionable assertions. Please note that whether Mr. Brown did his historical research well or not does not necessarily indicate whether his thoughts about the Catholic Church are right or wrong. I am not addressing that here. The point is that if readers are going to draw conclusions from this book about whether the Church has been throughly honest or not about any particular doctrinal issue, they should not do so on the basis of an assumption that it is based on sound history. If, as one character puts it, “almost everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false,” Mr. Brown has not come up with the evidence to show it. I am not making any criticism here of Mr. Brown's writing. Whatever faults it has as literature or as a suspense novel are beside the point of this analysis. I should note that the author does, of course, have his own Web site, on which he continues to maintain the scholarly accuracy of his work. See, e.g., his Frequently Asked Questions page. The following explains codes in the columns below: |
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| Column “Imp” for “importance”: A = An important basis for the conspiracy theory B = Provides some significant support for the conspiracy theory C = Not very important to the story but possibly interesting Column “Statement”: Names in [square brackets] reflect the person who made the statement |
Column “Truth”: F = False PF = Probably false M = Misleading ET = Essentially true T = True |
| Imp | Truth | Statement | Sources |
| NOTE: The following items are stated to be “FACT” at the front of the book. | |||
| A | F | The Priory of Sion – a European secret society founded in 1099 – is a real organization. | Numerous. Examples: priory-of-sion.com priory-of-sion.com/psp/id22.html www.anzwers.org/free/posmis/ smithpp0.tripod.com/psp/id43.html – and check any legitimate reference source (encyclopedias, printed history books) for anything supporting the actual existence of such a group. |
| There was an order of “knights of Mt. Sion” created around that time by Godefroi of Bouillon, one of the most aggressive and successful – and ruthless and bigoted – of the Crusaders. It may have existed for a couple of decades. There is no record in any known source of it existing between the Crusades and 1956 or later. The modern existence of a “Priory of Sion” was the creation of a known con man and forger, Pierre Plantard, who with the assistance of friends André Bonhomme and Philippe de Chérisey created such an organization on paper in about 1956. This new Priory of Sion appears to have dissolved (if it existed at all other than in the imagination) in 1957, though Plantard used the name in some publications in the 1960’s. Bonhomme later claimed that it was just a joke and he didn’t know why anyone took it seriously. There are many people who believe in the existence of this organization, but it is well established to have been a hoax from start to finish, supported by a number of forgeries, lies, and finally rumors spread as truth by the very credulous. |
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| A | F | In 1975 Paris’s Bibliothèque Nationale discovered parchments known as Les Dossiers Secrets . . . | See above. Also The Holy Place, by Henry Lincoln (Arcade Publishing, NY, 1991). |
| These documents were not “discovered” in 1975; they were never missing. They were only first deposited there in 1965, apparently by Plantard. (Plantard filed them in the Bibliothèque Nationale, approximately equivalent to the U.S. Library of Congress, in order to give them an air of authenticity.) The documents in question were written by Philippe de Chérisey, apparently under Plantard’s direction, when they created a new organization called the Priory of Sion as a hoax; Plantard, who had earlier created other frauds in apparent efforts to pass himself off as a descendant of the Merovingian kings, admitted this himself to Henry Lincoln, one of the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail. (Plantard later said de Chérisey’s “confections” were based on good originals, but did not elaborate.) Plantard had previously (starting 1942) edited Vaincre, a Vichyite, anti-Semitic and anti-Masonic journal, the organ of the Alpha Galates (“first Gauls”); he called himself “Pierre de France” and tried to show that he was the heir of the Merovingian kings. He served six months in prison for fraud in the 1940’s in connection with this activity, and six months in 1953 for fraud and embezzlement. Plantard publicized the story of Abbé Beranger Saunière – note the name – and relics that he supposedly found in a "hollow Visigothic pillar" of his church. As far as modern researchers can discover, the pillar was not hollow, the relics have never been seen, and there is no indication that Saunière ever made any such claims in his life. In Holy Blood, Holy Grail, Lincoln, with co-authors Richard Leigh and Michael Baigent, repeats this story but stops short of saying it is definite historical fact. The story of Saunière discovering a “treasure” apparently was created by a restaurant owner, Noel Corbu, when he opened a restaurant in the Villa Bethanie during Easter in 1955, and needed a publicity gimmick in order to attract custom to his establishment. In 1967 a book by Gérard de Sède (a friend of Plantard), Le Tresor Maudit (“the accursed treasure”), embellished the tale and presented it as history. De Sède’s writings are the earliest known written source of most of the details. Saunière supposedly found such remarkable secret evidence that he was able to blackmail the Vatican to maintain the secret, and became tremendously wealthy. He did in fact became fairly wealthy during his life, and was brought up on charges by the church for selling more masses than he could possibly say. (He may possibly have been innocent; he maintained that he merely collected a lot of donations from wealthy patrons. Whether the charge is true or not, it is hard to believe that if he had such dangerous secrets that he was able to blackmail the Vatican, the church would have done its best to prosecute him as a way of keeping him quiet about it.) He was prohibited from saying masses at all or performing other priestly duties in 1911, and reportedly died in poverty. All more recent references to the Priory are traceable to Plantard’s efforts. |
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| A | F | . . . identifying numerous members of the Priory of Sion, including Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Leonardo da Vinci. | See above. There is no supporting evidence for this anywhere but in a supposed history book referenced by Plantard – which book, however, never existed as far as anyone now knows. |
| There is not the slightest indication that any of these people ever heard of the Priory of Sion, or that anyone ever associated their names with it until the mid-1960’s, when it appears Plantard made up the list out of his head. Note that Botticelli and Leonardo were Catholics; Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton were Protestant; Hugo was an atheist and republican; Cocteau was a mystic. Nicolas Flamel, also listed by Plantard (and Brown) as a Grand Master, was an alchemist and reputed sorcerer. (He was also used as a character in Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s [Philosopher’s] Stone, but is an historical character.) The individuals chosen appear to have nothing in common but, for the most part, being selected as historical characters of intellect (or, in some cases, for their possible connections with other bodies of legend). | |||
| A | M | The Vatican prelature known as Opus Dei is a deeply devout Catholic sect that has been the topic of recent controversy due to reports of brainwashing, coercion, and a dangerous practice known as “corporal mortification.” | www.opusdei.org/art.php?w=32&p=7017 www.opusdei.org/art.php?w=32&a=37 www.opusdei.org/art.php?w=32&s=307 |
| Partially true. Opus Dei is a well-known organization, with few secrets, though it has been the “topic of controversy.” The organization emphatically denies all of these accusations but the “corporal mortification,” which they say is only practiced by some of their most extreme members. Incidentally, Opus Dei is not a religious order, and its members are not monks and do not wear monastic robes, though a relatively small number of them do take vows of celibacy. Its priests remain subject to the discipline of their regional bishops. |
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| A | M | All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate. | |
| Much of the objective physical description of art and architecture is accurate, but the interpretations attributed to art historians are far-fetched. Descriptions of the origins of architectural features are, for the most part, unfounded and improbable. (Some will be addressed in more detail as they arise in the text.) The descriptions of “secret rituals” are, as far as I can discover, imaginary. (The rituals were, after all, “secret,” and some are reported as practiced by organizations that do not exist.) | |||
| STATEMENTS ABOUT LEONARDO | ||||
| Imp | Truth | Statement | Sources | |
| C | M | The title and other references to “Da Vinci” | Any art history or biography. | |
| The artist’s name was Leonardo and he was born near Vinci. Art historians routinely refer to him as “Leonardo,” never “Da Vinci.” | ||||
| C | M | “He was a flamboyant homosexual” | ||
| He probably was homosexual or had tendencies that way (he at least was accused of homosexual conduct once as a young man); but if so he was discreet about it, not “flamboyant,” and according to his own writings was scornful of sex in general – he may not have been sexually active as an adult at all. | ||||
| B | F | “accepting hundreds of lucrative Vatican commissions” | ||
| As far as anyone knows he only had two commissions from individual orders of monks – the Adoration of the Magi, which he never finished, and the altarpiece that included the first Virgin of the Rocks, which he didn’t complete in the time allowed by the contract, and so wasn’t paid. (He was involved in litigation for many years as a result.) I can find no indication of any commissions from the Vatican at all. | ||||
| A | F | Description of the Virgin of the Rocks – Brown says it was commissioned by the “Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception,” an order of nuns, who “reacted with horror” when it was delivered because of the “explosive and disturbing details” Leonardo had put in it, including Mary making a “decidedly threatening gesture” toward the infant John. | ||
| Unsurprisingly, the confraternity (a word meaning “brotherhood”) consisted of monks, not nuns, and they were not horrified but annoyed that it was not ready when required by his contract. (The contract, and correspondence relating to the litigation that ensued, survive.) There are no “threatening” images in it. Mary’s gesture is one of benediction. Angel Uriel is clearly pointing at Jesus, not making a “slicing” motion as Brown describes. Brown's description (via Langdon and Teabing) is bizarre. There are two versions of this painting, as mentioned in the text. However, many scholars believe that the version in the London gallery is the one that Leonardo delivered first, in an unfinished state; at least there are unmistakable signs that it was started by him but completed later by someone else. Neither painting strikes most viewers as in any way threatening or frightening, but the “toned down” version that Brown says was created to placate the nuns [who were monks] may well have instead been the first version, that was delivered to them late. |
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| C | PF | Various comments about the Mona Lisa: the name is an anagram of Amon and “l’Isa” (Isis); it is an androgynous self-portrait; the fleur-de-lis is the “flower of Lisa”; etc. | ||
| There is some uncertainty about the painting. The name is widely believed to be a shortened form of “Madonna Elisabetta,” the subject, the young wife of Francesco del Giocondo. (Therefore it is also known as la Gioconda). On the other hand, gioconda is Italian for “playful” or “smiling,” so it may be just a nickname. “Mona Lisa” may not even have been Leonardo’s name for it; it may have first been applied as much as a century later. “Fleur-de-lis” means “lily flower.” There is no historical indication that it is a self-portrait. | ||||
| C | F | [Langdon] “he believed he possessed the alchemic power to turn lead into gold” | ||
| Leonardo scorned alchemy as irrational and without any basis. (He also wrote that he looked forward to the day when “all astrologers will be castrated.”) | ||||
| A | F | No one would have painted the character to Jesus’ right in The Last Supper as a beardless, effeminate-looking youth unless he was really intended to be a woman. Recent restoration, removing layers of grime, show him to be in fact a woman. Therefore it has to be Mary Magdalene. | There is a good reproduction of Leonardo's painting at images.fbrtech.com/dnew/ Italy2001/Postcards/Milan1.jpg. Additional Last Supper paintings: Duccio di Buoninsegna, 1308-1311 Pietro Lorenzetti, 1320's Jaume Serra, late 1300's Sassetta, 1423 Andrea del Castagno, 1447 Andrea del Castagno, 1447, detail Dieric Bouts, ca. 1465 Jaime Huguet, ca. 1470 |
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| The character in question is obviously supposed to be John, the Disciple “whom Jesus loved.” Contrary to being a shocking break with tradition, every single known version of the Last Supper for two centuries leading up the Leonardo’s shows a similarly effeminate-looking John (often leaning on Jesus’ breast, in keeping with the Gospel text, or on the table). It would have been surprising if Leonardo had painted him any other way. Incidentally, the work is also not a “fresco,” as Brown refers to it. Fresco painting involves mixing pigment into wet plaster, which was not an option in this case. |
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| A | F | In The Last Supper there is an extra, “disembodied” hand, holding a knife. Peter is making a “threatening,” “slicing” gesture across Mary Magdalene’s throat. | See above, and look at the painting. See also commentary in Leonardo da Vinci, by Jack Wasserman (Harry N. Abrams, Inc., NY, 2003); critic Bruce Boucher's New York Times review, “Does ‘The Da Vinci Code’ Crack Leonardo?” (August 3, 2003) (reprinted at The New age Center); or other art histories. | |
| It is not Mary (see above). There is no extra or “disembodied” hand holding a knife; a look at the picture makes clear that it is Peter’s. (The knife may or may not be intended as a reminder that Peter was the one who drew a sword just slightly later.) His other hand is drawing John's attention, as stated in John 13:23: “One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was lying close to the breast of Jesus; so Simon Peter beckoned to him and said, ‘Tell us who it is of whom he speaks.’” | ||||
| A | F | It is remarkable that there is no chalice on the table, since the painting portrays the moment at which Jesus speaks of the wine as his blood. | See samples above, and the four Gospels. | |
| The painting unmistakably does not show the blessing of the wine but the announcement of the impending betrayal. Each of the disciples is visibly wondering “is it me?” While there are also Last Supper paintings that do portray the bread and wine, this is the most traditional version of Last Supper scenes; several painted before Leonardo’s also show no chalice (if any cups at all). | ||||
| BIBLE AND RELATED HISTORY ISSUES | ||||
| Imp | Truth | Statement | Sources | |
| B | T/M | [Teabing] “Don’t get a symbologist started on Christian icons. Nothing in Christianity is original. The pre-Christian God Mithras – called the Son of God and the Light of the World – was born on December 25, died, was buried in a rock tomb, and then resurrected in three days.” | ||
| Largely true. The celebration of birth of Mithras was December 25. This was a competing religion in Rome, though not nearly the only one. The selection of December 25 as Christmas was very likely based, in part, on such factors. (No serious Christian scholar will tell you that the Church claims that it was really the date of Jesus’ birth; the date is absolutely unknown but, from the few clues available, not likely to have been about the end of the calendar year.) The details of being buried and resurrected in three days may or may not have been part of Mithraism earlier than when the Gospels were written, but rather adopted from Christianity later; it was a mystery religion, it had variant forms in the areas of Persia and Rome, and there is little known with confidence about what was included in the myth in or before Jesus’ day. | ||||
| A | F | [Teabing] “The marriage of Jesus to Mary Magdalene is a matter of historical record.” | ||
| There is no support for this statement. The only ostensible support Brown points to is the Gospel of Philip, a Gnostic text probably written in Syria in the late 3d Century CE. Within that text, the only statement he points to as demonstrating the existence of a marriage is the statement that Mary Magdalene was the “companion” of Jesus. Teabing says: “As any Aramaic scholar will tell you, the word companion, in those days, literally meant spouse.” This is of course absurd. If the Aramaic word meant “spouse,” it would be translated “spouse” and not “companion.” In any event, the Gospel of Philip was written in Greek, not Aramaic. | ||||
| A | T/F | “The Church, in order to defend itself against the Magdalene’s power, perpetuated her image as a whore and buried evidence of Christ’s marriage to her, thereby defusing any potential claims that Christ had a surviving bloodline and was a mortal prophet.” | ||
| There is no evidence that the Church had anything to fear or hide as to Mary Magdalene. However, dating from Pope Gregory's pronouncement on the subject in 600 and lasting until 1969, the preferred (not universal) teaching was that the “sinner” in Luke 7:36 was probably the same woman as Mary Magdalene. On its face this seems a strained interpretation, but the only motivation appears to have been to reduce the confusion of readers as to how many Marys (and how many unnamed characters) there were. However, the implication of the book is that the Church labeled Mary Magdalene as a prostitute in order to deny the idea that she could be carrying the chld of Jesus. If the Church had any reason to lie about her, this seems like a singularly inept lie. Brown seems to have missed the point of the story of the “sinner” in Luke. There had to be a sinner for Jesus to forgive sins. It would have harmed the story not in the least to clearly state either that Mary Magdalene was the sinner, or that she wasn’t. If the Church had desperately wanted to discredit Mary, it is unlikely that it would have made her a saint. |
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| A | F | [Teabing] “With the help of Jesus' trusted uncle, Joseph of Arimathea, Mary Magdalene secretly traveled to France, then known as Gaul. There she found safe refuge in the Jewish community. It was here in France that she gave birth to a daughter.” | ||
| The idea that Mary Magdalene ever left the Eastern Mediterranean or had descendants is pure myth. The most traditional belief is that she died in Ephesus and her bones were eventually brought to Constantinople, though this is of course legend. There is in fact a legend in France that she (and possibly Lazarus) settled there, but it appears to date from about the 12th century. The claim that the descendents of Jesus married into the Merovingian royal dynasty is based on a figure called Giselle de Razes who married King Dagobert II in the 7th century. Giselle de Razes probably never existed, but was invented in the 20th century. |
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| A | F | [Teabing] “Mary Magdalene, in addition to being Christ's right hand, was a powerful woman already . . . . [because she was of the House of Benjamin] Mary Magdalene was of royal descent.” | ||
| There is no reasonably contemporaneous evidence of any kind for Mary Magdalene’s genealogy. Even assuming she was of the House of Benjamin, this would just mean she was from one of the twelve tribes from which all Jews were descendants, not “of royal descent.” | ||||
| A | F | [Langdon] “the early Jewish tradition involved ritualistic sex. In the Temple, no less. Early Jews believed that the Holy of Holies in Solomon's Temple housed not only God but also His powerful female equal, Shekinah. Men seeking spiritual wholeness came to the Temple to visit priestesses – or hierodules – with whom they made love and experienced the divine through physical union. The Jewish tetragrammaton YHWH – the sacred name of God – in fact derived from Jehovah, an androgynous physical union between the masculine Jah and the pre-Hebraic name for Eve, ‘Havah.’” | Any encyclopedia or history of religion. Good general sources for all these issues include the Britannica Encyclopedia (old version available free online at www.1911encyclopedia.org/); Westminster Dictionary of the Bible, John D. Davis, Westminster Press, Philadelphia. The Catholic Encyclopedia is also very thorough and well-researched, though possibly not entirely objective. On this specific issue, see “The Masoretes and the Punctuation of Biblical Hebrew” for general background; also article, “How Should We Address God?” | |
| All of this is completely fabricated (though of course not necessrily by Brown). 1. Shekinah is Aramaic for “dwelling place,” but as used in the Jewish Bible appears to represent the Spirit of God as it manifests itself in the world – arguably closely comparable to the Christian idea of the “Holy Spirit.” There is no evidence that it ever represented a separate female personality, or that it represented a second personality at all until the mystical writings of the Kabbalah, composed in the later medieval period. 2. There is some evidence that the priestly class allowed prostitution in or around the Temple grounds (as they apparently also allowed money-changing). There is none for the use of sexual rituals in Judaism at any time. 3. The four characters often transliterated YHWH should be YHVH; there is no W in Hebrew. The original pronunciation is unknown, since for many centuries no Hebrew scrolls exist with vowel characters. It was, however, almost certainly a sacred name of God which readers of the Torah – with the possible exception of the High Priest – must not say aloud. Instead it has always been replaced, in oral reading, with the word “Adonai,” meaning “Lord.” In medieval times, “Masoretes” (biblical transcribers working on what we now call the Masoretic text) added vowels to the scrolls, but did not know what vowels to add to YHVH. It is suspected that they added the vowels from Adonai, as a reminder to the reader to substitute that word in reading the text aloud. This resulted in the pronunciation “Jehovah.” This is a modern artifact, not arising from any ancient names. If by chance there were an ancient god “Jah,” the combination of that name with the Hebrew “Havah” would not have resulted in YHVH; much more likely it would have been YH-HVH. |
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| A | F | [Langdon] Emperor Constantine shifted the Christian day of worship to Sunday. | Any reliable history. See, e.g., encyclopedia articles on Justin Martyr and Sunday. See also text of Justin Martyr's first Apologia. | |
| Sunday was designated as the “Lord's Day” at the latest by the time of Justin Martyr, mid-2d Century CE. Constantine just made it a civil holiday as well. | ||||
| A | F | Under pressure from Constantine, Christ was declared to be divine at the Council of Nicaea in 325. “Until that moment in his history Jesus was viewed by his followers as a mortal prophet . . . a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless.” | ||
| Read the Gospels – Jesus was obviously viewed as divine. What the Council of Nicaea did, among other things, was not to declare Jesus divine but put to rest the Arian heresy, that Christ was created by God some time late in the world’s history, not coextensive with Him. This position, stated in the Nicene Creed, was adopted by a vote of (probably) 316 to 2 – not exactly a “relatively close vote” as Brown says. | ||||
| A | F | Constantine “was a lifelong pagan who was baptized on his deathbed, too weak to protest.” | ||
| According to all available history, Constantine practiced Christianity, including Christian prayer, for decades before his death. He requested and received baptism only shortly before death –which was not unusual. | ||||
| A | F | [Teabing] “More than eighty gospels were considered for the New Testament, and yet only a relative few were chosen for inclusion – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John among them. . . . The fundamental irony of Christianity! The Bible, as we know it today, was collated by the pagan Roman emperor Constantine the Great.” “Constantine commissioned and financed a new Bible, which omitted those gospels that spoke of Christ's human traits and embellished those gospels that made Him godlike. The earlier gospels were outlawed, gathered up, and burned.” |
See above. Also, The Other Bible, ed. and with introductions by Willis Barnstone (HarperSanFrancisco, 1984). | |
| There is no evidence that Constantine had anything to do with selecting the books. By the late second century the early Church recognized the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as the four inspired by the Holy Spirit and meant for the canon of the New Testament. Those still known, such as the Gospels of Thomas [not specifically cited by Brown], Philip and Mary Magdalene were much later and less reliable. They are also, at best, no more favorable to women than those that were retained. For instance, the Gospel of Thomas ends with these lines: “Simon Peter said to them: ‘Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life.’ Jesus said, ‘I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven.’” The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, also cited by Teabing, was written in Greek in the 2d Century CE, and so is clearly not Mary's own writing. If considered to reflect her own story, it would logically be the best place to look for evidence that she was married to Jesus. It contains not one word of support. Throughout, she refers to Jesus only as “Lord” and “Savior” and gives no suggestion that she has a specially close relationship with him. |
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| ART HISTORY AND FACT ISSUES | ||||
| Imp | Truth | Statement | Sources | |
| C | F | “Through the reddish haze, he could see that the woman had actually lifted the large painting off its cables and propped it on the floor in front of her. At five feet tall, the canvas almost entirely hid her body.” | Details of paintings at the Louvre can be checked at the museum's Web site. | |
| The Virgin of the Rocks is 78 inches high, six and a half feet, without the frame. Presumably it would have done more than “almost entirely hide her body.” (On the other hand, some critics also point out that it was painted on wood, so the description of Sophie pressing her knee into the back of the canvas can’t be right. By luck, Brown is not necessarily wrong about this; it was in fact originally on a wood panel, part of a a triptych, but it was transferred to canvas in the 19th century.) | ||||
| C | N/A | Saunière pulls a painting off he wall at random to set off an alarm. Langdon identifies it as a Caravaggio. | ||
| Possible but improbable. The smallest painting in the Louvre by Caravaggio is four feet, four inches wide without the frame. (The largest is eight feet wide by over twelve tall.) | ||||
| OTHER HISTORY AND FACT ISSUES | ||||
| Imp | Truth | Statement | Sources | |
| B | F | During three hundred years of witch hunts, the Church burned at the stake an astounding five million women. | Any reputable history. For details, see Mackay, Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. Encyclopedia of World History article on Western Europe, 1300–1500 |
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| It would indeed be astounding. In 1500, the entire population of western Europe was probably under 40 million. Best estimates are that a total of 30,000 to 50,000 people of all ages were killed in the witch craze, many of them men, and the large majority killed by local secular courts acting without church authority, few by the church. | ||||
| A | F | [Teabing] “The Priory of Sion . . . was founded in Jerusalem in 1099 by a French king named Godefroi de Bouillon, immediately after he had conquered the city. . . . The Priory vowed that no matter how long it took, these documents must be recovered from the rubble beneath the temple and protected forever, so the truth would never die. In order to retrieve the documents from within the ruins, the Priory created a military arm – a group of nine knights called the Order of the Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon. . . . More commonly known as the Knights Templar.” | Any encyclopedia. See also the Templars’ official history at www.osmth.org/. | |
| The Templars weren’t founded by Godefroi. Godefroi [a/k/a/Godfrey] was not a king; his king was Henry IV when he left France, replaced by Philip I in 1098. Godfrey was offered the title of King of Jerusalem but refused it and instead took the title of “Defender of the Holy Sepulchre.” (His brother Baudoin or Baldwin became king of Jerusalem.) There is no known connection between the Priory of Sion and the Templars (nor for that matter any known connection between the Priory of Sion and anything else). The Templars were founded in 1118, by Hugues de Payens, a knight of Champagne, and eight companions, who vowed to defend the Christian kingdom. Baldwin accepted their services and assigned them a portion of his palace, adjoining the temple of the city; hence their title pauvres chevaliers du temple (Poor Knights of the Temple). | ||||
| A | F | [Sophie] “You’re saying the Knights Templar were founded by the Priory of Sion to retrieve a collection of secret documents? I thought the Templars were created to protect the Holy Land.” [Teabing] “A common misconception. The idea of protection of pilgrims was the guise under which the Templars ran their mission. Their true goal in the Holy Land was to retrieve the documents from beneath the ruins of the temple.” | ||
| This is “a common misconception” shared by all reputable historians – and the Templars. There is no evidence for this origin of the Templars before the 20th century. Incidentally, they deny that they are directly related to the original Templars. The modern order is not part of the Catholic Church and in fact for many years denied entrance to Catholics. The original order of Templars was banned and probably went out of existence shortly after the execution of its Grand Master in Paris in 1314. |
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| B | F/M | “Langdon thought of the notorious Templar round-up in 1307 – unlucky Friday the thirteenth – when Pope Clement killed and interred hundreds of Knights Templar.” [Teabing] “Many of them were burned at the stake and tossed unceremoniously into the Tiber River.” |
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| The inquisition of the Templars was begun by Philip IV of France, with Clement’s grudging permission, in an effort to seize their wealth, which Philip needed for a new crusade. (He needed Clement’s permission because they were a holy order, and it was granted only for purposes of rooting out heresy among them.) When Clement found out that Philip was using torture and possibly trumped-up charges, he annulled the proceedings and took over. His inquiry extended to all of Europe, but in most of the countries the charges were dismissed. 54 Templars were burned as heretics in 1310 – in France. It is unlikely that Clement would have tossed anyone in the Tiber, since he never sat as Pope in Rome. He was crowned in Lyons and moved the Holy See to Avignon by 1309. |
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| C | F | “Langdon quickly gave Sophie the standard academic sketch of the accepted Knights Templar history, explaining how the Knights were in the Holy Land during the Second Crusade and told King Baldwin II that they were there to protect Christian pilgrims on the roadways.” | Any history of the Crusades | |
| Impossible, since Pope Eugene III declared the Second Crusade in 1145, while King Baldwin II had died in 1131. (However, this is a minor error, since King Baldwin III was alive in 1145.) | ||||
| C | F | “These were the gardens in which Claude Monet had experimented with form and color, and literally inspired the birth of the Impressionist movement.” | ||
| It was Edouard Manet who “experimented with form and color, and inspired the birth of the Impressionist movement.” Monet was a later practitioner. | ||||
| B | F | “He [Langdon] wondered if Fache had any idea that this pyramid, at President Mitterrand’s explicit demand, had been constructed of exactly 666 panes of glass . . . ” | Various architecture and design sites say there are 603 diamond-shaped and 70 triangular panes (see, for instance, www.glassonweb.com/articles/article/94/. An official Louvre description says “673 diamond-shaped panes.” Another says "nearly 800 glass diamonds and triangles." | |
| There are not 666 panes of glass in the Louvre pyramid. As best I can determine, there are 603 diamond-shaped and 70 rectangular panes. | ||||
| B | M | “. . . a bizarre request that had always been a hot topic among conspiracy buffs who claimed 666 was the number of Satan.” | ||
| I don’t know if any “conspiracy buffs” claimed this, but if so they were ignorant ones; “six hundred threescore and six” is the Number of the Beast in Revelations 13:18. | ||||
| C | PF | “Langdon had been stunned to learn the planet Venus traced a perfect pentacle across the ecliptic sky every four years.” | ||
| As far as I can discover, it doesn’t “trace a perfect pentacle”; apparently one can be traced over the handful of points found if you mark where in the sky it reappears after each time it is hidden from our view in its orbit, over a four-to-eight-year period. It also is not associated with the games of the ancient Olympiad, which were celebrated every four years in honor of Zeus Olympia, not Aphrodite. “Ecliptic sky” doesn’t mean anything; in this context “ecliptic” is a noun. The ecliptic is the apparent plane in which the sun moves across the sky (equivalent to the plane of the Earth’s orbit around the sun). |
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| C | T | [Silas’ eyesight] | ||
| Some critics say it is impossible that Silas, as an albino, has good eyesight. In fact albinism generally leads to the optic nerve connections developing abnormally; rarely do they have good eyesight. However, I don't understand that it is impossible. | ||||
| A | PF | “Almost daily, DCPJ arrested American exchange students in possession of drugs, U.S. businessmen for soliciting underage Prostitutes, American tourists for shoplifting or destruction of property. Legally, the U.S. Embassy could intervene and extradite guilty citizens back to the United States, where they received nothing more than a slap on the wrist.” | ||
| It is conceivable that the US Embassy is given this leeway in France, though it seems unlikely. It is certainly not true that “legally” it has the right to intervene. US citizens in France are entirely subject to French law, including punishment, with the exception of diplomatic personnel. If a US citizen were deported from France to the US as a result of a crime in France, normally he would not even get a “slap on the wrist,” since in most cases there would be no jurisdiction for prosecution in a US court. | ||||
| LINGUISTIC AND MISCELLANEOUS TRICKS | ||||
| Imp | Truth | Statement | Sources | |
| C | N/A | “Bezu Fache,” the driver said, approaching the pyramid’s main entrance. “We call him le Taureau.” “Captain Bezu Fache carried himself like an angry ox, with his wide shoulders thrown back and his chin tucked hard into his chest.” |
Any French dictionary and atlas | |
| A double reference. Fâché is “angry” in French, and a zebu is a kind of ox, so his name literally is “angry ox.” Also, there is a mountain called Bézu and a town St. Just et le Bézu near Rennes-le-Chàteau, the town where Beranger Saunière supposedly found the relics of Mary Magdalene; these are mentioned in Holy Blood, Holy Grail. | ||||
| C | F | Fache’s men called him (or the picture of him with the Pope) the “papal bull.” | Any French dictionary | |
| In French, this pun would not exist – bull (animal) is “taureau,” bull (papal) is “bulle.” | ||||
| C | PF | [Langdon] “The Romans actually referred to the study of anagrams as ars magna – ‘the great art.’” | ||
| I can find no basis for this at all and consider it very unlikely. More likely some language students made a play on words: ars magna is an anagram of ‘anagrams.’ However, the word ‘anagrams’ is Greek, not Latin. The label ars magna was at one time applied to alchemy, at another numerology, and eventually algebra, but never (as far as I can find) anagrams. | ||||
| C | PF | [Saunière] “They’re gargling; Gargariser! And that’s where they get the silly name ’gargoyles.’” | Any modern French dictionary plus an Old French dictionary, such as Godefroy’s Lexique de L’Ancien Français (Éditions Champion, Paris, 1971) | |
| Gargariser is modern French. Gargouille is Old French for ‘throat,’ and by extension ‘drain spout’ – which is what the original gargoyles were. | ||||
| C | F | [Langdon] “Did your grandfather ever speak to you of something called la clef de voûte?” “The key to the vault?” Sophie translated. “No, that’s the literal translation. Clef de voûte is a common architectural term. Voûte refers not to a bank vault, but to a vault in an archway. Like a vaulted ceiling.” |
Any French dictionary | |
| It is indeed a common architectural term, and a literate French person would not have made this mistake. The French word for a vault in a bank is chambre forte or strong-room, unrelated to the word voûte for a vault in a ceiling. | ||||
| C | N/A | [Miscellaneous plays on words] | ||
| Leigh Teabing = Richard Leigh and Michael Baigent, co-authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail. Neveu =(?) neu (new) Eve |
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| A | F | “In moments of failure, Teabing had questioned whether his life’s quest would ever be rewarded. Now those doubts were gone forever. He could hear the ancient words . . . the foundation of the Grail legend: Vous ne trouvez pas le Saint-Graal, c’est le Saint-Graal qui vous trouve. You do not find the Grail, the Grail finds you.” |
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| This language appers to conflict with his explanation that the original of the phrase is sang-real, “royal blood” (for which there is no historical support). | ||||
| A | M | “The Priory, like many European secret societies at odds with the Church, had considered English the only European pure language for centuries. Unlike French, Spanish, and Italian, which were rooted in Latin – the tongue of the Vatican – English was linguistically removed from Rome’s propaganda machine, and therefore became a sacred, secret tongue for those brotherhoods educated enough to learn it.“ | ||
| Since the Priory doesn’t exist it is difficult to challenge what they might think; but it is evident that English is far less “linguistically removed from” Latin than, for instance, German or any Scandinavian language. Latin was not just the language of the church but of all scholarship. | ||||
| C | T | “Sub rosa,” Langdon said. “The Romans hung a rose over meetings to indicate the meeting was confidential. Attendees understood that whatever was said under the rose – or sub rosa – had to remain a secret.” | ||
| Believed to be the correct origin of the term. | ||||
| C | F | “an apt title for this device that used the science of cryptology to protect information written on the contained scroll or codex.” | Any standard dictionary | |
| A codex is not a scroll but a book. | ||||
| C | T | Lengthy description by Langdon of the Fibonacci series, Phi and the “golden proportion” | ||
| This description, while of no significance to the story, is largely accurate. There are logical mathematical reasons for at least some of the appearances of the “golden proportion” in nature, such as the birth ratios of male and female honeybees. Leonardo (and other careful artists) did make significant use of the “golden proportion.” | ||||
| C | F | “In fact, so strong was the Church’s fear of those who lived in the rural villes that the once innocuous word for ‘villager’ – villain – came to mean a wicked soul.” | Oxford English Dictionary, and any French translating dictionary | |
| There is no indication that the Church had anything to do with this. The English word vilein acquired its pejorative meaning during the Norman occupation years, meaning an uncouth character; only in modern times did it come to mean a wicked one. The word never became as pejorative in (Roman Catholic) France as in (Anglican) England. | ||||
| E-mail me at: steve dot gruenwald at gmail dot com |
