So dark the gullibility of man

I find it hilarious that the slogan for the new Da Vinci Code movie is "So dark the con of man." After numerous books and documentaries that clearly show the claims of the book as preposterous, especially given the fact that the so-called "centuries old" Priory of Sion organization that is supposedly guarding the secret of Jesus's marriage to Mary Magdalene is based on 30- years old forged documents, I wonder who the "con man" really is? Is it the Catholic Church or Dan Brown and his pseudo-scholar friends who have cashed in millions on the fame of Jesus Christ?

If the book merely claimed that Mary Magdalene was a leader in the early church, there would be no controversy. Nobody disputes that Mary Magdalene was highly revered by early Christians, especially since the text of the New Testament gives her so much prominence, a fact that author Dan Brown conveniently ignores since it doesn't fit with his theory of the Church establishment faking the documents of the four gospels in order to smear Mary Magdelene. After all, it was Mary Magdalene that Jesus appeared to first after his resurrection according to the four gospels that were supposedly forged by Constantine.

The most preposterous claim in the book, however, is the idea that nobody believed that Jesus was divine until 325 a.d. when Constantine supposedly turned Jesus into God in order to establish his power over the Roman Empire. Let's think about this for a moment. Mr. Brown, do you really expect me to believe that the early Apostles such as Peter, James, John, and Paul as well as the early church fathers such as Polycarp, Irenaeus, Justin the Martyr, Tertullian, Origen, and Athanasius did not believe that Jesus was divine when their writings clearly indicate that they did? Furthermore, do you really expect me to believe that the tens of thousands of Christians who were thrown to the lions during the first three centuries were persecuted so severely because they believed that an itinerant Jewish rabbi was married? Get real!

By the way, Mr. Brown, if you knew your history, then you would know that the controversy during the time of Constantine was not "is Jesus Divine" but " just how divine is He?" What people really wanted to know was "has Jesus ,the Son of God, always existed or was He created by God the Father?" Arius said that Jesus was a created being. Athanasius said that Jesus was co-equal, co-eternal, and of the same substance as God the Father. Athanasius won the debate not because it was convenient for Constantine (in fact Constantine sided with Arius and drove Athanasius into exile), but because his view was consistent with the teachings of the New Testament that was universally recognized by that time as authoritative. And, by the way, Mr. Brown, the ancient gnostics from which you derive your trumped-up allegations, had no problem believing that Jesus was divine. They just weren't sure if He was really human. And, furthermore, since the gnostics believed that matter is evil and spirit is good (which by the way would have made the idea of Jesus's marriage to Mary Magdenene repulsive in their eyes), why would they care about writing a factual account of the historical Jesus? The gnostics relied on "secret revelations" and "hidden knowledge" to formulate their beliefs, not historical biographies like the four gospels.

I guess all of this shows that the Apostle Paul was exactly right when he said that unbelievers "know the truth but supress it." Given the utter absurdities of the claims of the Da Vinci Code, I question the motives not only of the author, but of all those who believe its historically absurd claims. Perhaps the slogan for the movie should read like this- So Dark the Gullibility of Man.