When the Homily is about Immunology

The Da Vinci Load

I've been meaning to post this, but I went and got sick and have been lounging about, with precious little to say or type.

Last week I attended Fr. Steve Tsichlis presentation on Dan Brown's book "The Da Vinci Code" which is being made into a major motion picture starring Orthodox Christian-in law Tom Hanks.
One of the most interesting things about the presentation to me was that apparently the end of the book has them pinpointing the "holy grail", which by that we mean Mary Magdalene whose relics are purported by the book to be in the Louvre. Gee, all that trouble to find Mary Magdalene...when all Dan Brown could have done was asked the Roman Catholics or the Orthodox and we could have told him where to find St. Mary's relics, and it ain't at the Louvre. He could start at Mt. Athos which might have done Dan Brown some good.

Anyway, Fr. Steve also gave us this quote from the book which explains to me the nonsense Brownites have been vomiting upon me (and I will break it up with snide comments of my own since Brown saw fit to apparently let TeaBAG go on and on without anyone challenging him in the novel - except perhaps crazed religious fanatics out to kill):

“The Bible did not arrive by fax from heaven” declares Teabing. “The Bible is a product of man, my dear. Not of God. The Bible did not magically fall from the clouds.

Yeah...duh. This is an appeal to profoundly ignorant Christians and hungry and equally ignorant non-Christians.

"The Bible, as we know it today, was collated by the pagan Roman emperor Constantine the Great."

Rubish. St. Constantinre did no such thing and indeed we can read that well after Nicea the New Testament Canon was not completely settled upon. St. Constantine never had anything to do with it. And really now, itsn't it a judgement (one that protestants usually like) to refer to him as a pagan at this point? I mean, has Dan Brown met and talked to Constantine? Does he know Constantine's heart and mind? But, after 1700 years we feel like we can sit in judgement of his eternal soul? Mind boggling...we are not even supposed to judge our brothers who I assume we know a hellavu lot better than a 1700 year old man we never met.

"In 325 AD, he decided to unify Rome under a single religion: Christianity. Constantine needed to strengthen the new Christian tradition and held a famous gathering known as the Council of Nicea. Until that moment in history, Jesus was viewed by his followers as a mortal prophet….a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless. A mortal."

And on what basis is this assumption made? Got any facts Dan? TeaBAG? Fact is, besides the New Testament, we see TONS of ante-Nicene works which clearly show that Jesus was considered divine prior to this council.

"Jesus’ establishment as the Son of God was officially proposed and voted on by the Council of Nicea. A relatively close vote at that."

Ummm...316 in favor, 2 against. Relatively close, sure.

"Nonetheless, establishing Christ’s divinity was critical to the further unification of the Roman Empire and to the new Vatican power base."

Fr. Steve wisely pointed out, the Vatican didn't exist in 325AD.

"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.”

Yes St. Constantine did MANY things to help the Church, which he had given legal status to and which had until that time been persecuted...sometime brutally. Church Buildings destroyed, copies of the Gospel burned etc. What St. Constantine did was to set these things right by using Imperial funds to give back to the Church what the Empire had destroyed.

The Four gospels were firmly established by this time and this is the "new Bible" that TeaBAG and Brown are talkign about. The implication that St. Constantine funded the mass publication of our modern edition of the Bible while seeking to destroy the gnostic "bibles" is patently false. In fact, in all the history I have read I have never read of an systematic attempt at erradicating by force the many false gospels that circulated...many of which you can find online today.

When we finally did settle the New Testament canon, it was decided in the context of "those books deemed suitable for reading during divine services." As a matter of fact, another important point that Brown and his character TeaBAG miss is that Nicea did not immediately solve the Arian problem, and that through all sorts of intrigue and behind-the-scenes influence, the Arians managed to maintain power for quite sometime.

Seriously, folks, it's time to brush up on your Church History because with the movie coming out you are likely going to have opportunity to speak the truth to people who have a vested interest in the Church being the false product of a conspiracy and in Jesus being a mortal man.

Part 1 of Fr. Steve's Da Vinci Sermon
Part 2