There's no doubt that Dan Brown studied ancient Christian materials as far back as the Gnostics and the early church of Constantine's time. However, the ideas that developed into the "Da Vinci's Code" seemed to be taken from 20th century books.
Christ married Mary Magdaline so everything had to revolve around that "coded secret". The Opus Dei were the bad guys so every conspiracy and any shocking secret had to come from them.
So what? As a mystery, it fails because everyone seems to know it. All that's left is a controversy and I think the entertainment value in that is waning.
Lets get real. The first schism in the church occurred between the Catholics and the Gnostics, probably because the Gnostics wouldn't turn over secret materials on Jesus Christ.
Jesus, supposedly, had a body that was different from other humans. The God of the Old Testament wasn't the God of the New Testament. There were mysteries here that the Catholic Church wasn't privy to, so they tried to illegitimize the Gnostics existence with "The Creed Of Nicene" and "The Apostles Creed."
The Gnostics probably became part of the "Illuminati" movement which reunited with "The Knights Templar" and "The Freemasons". Do they have secrets with regards to Jesus Christ and Christianity? Of course, they do.
Brown followed up on this research in his book called "Angels and Demons", but little of this relates to the inner secrets of the Gnostic elite.
The opportunity to go into the myths and hidden mysteries of Christ never happened.
This story needs to be told, but I don't think Dan Brown is going to tell it.
The Gnostic Church Today
The Illuminati Connections
What Is Gnosticism?
Search For The Holy Grail
Posted by qualteam
at 10:42 PM EDT
Updated: Thursday, 18 May 2006 10:48 PM EDT
St Johns