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The
DaVinci Deception
by Kristopher Manghera
 Since
its release several months ago, The DaVinci Code, by
Dan Brown, has rapidly risen up the bestsellers list and has already
become the center of much controversy. Many Christians, reading
The DaVinci Code, find themselves at a loss of understanding.
Few have ever heard of the Priory of Sion, the Merovingian dynasty,
or the mysterious “bloodline of Christ,” and how all of these
components are somehow related to the Holy Grail or, as some scholars
interpret it, Sangraal.
The Priory of Sion
Though most Christians may not know it, the story
discussed in The DaVinci Code is actually over 20 years
old, beginning with the release of the book, Holy Blood, Holy
Grail, by authors Baigent, Leigh, and Lincoln. Most of The
DaVinci Code is based on this work and its sequel, The
Messianic Legacy. The authors three, initially doing television
projects for the BBC, traveled to France through the period of
the late 1970’s, to the early 1980’s. They came across, in the
French National Archives, some supposedly secret documents, which
they claimed held evidence of an esoteric order that holds the
secret to Christ’s bloodline.
 The
story the three authors relate ran along these lines. Sir Godfroi
de Bouillon, a leading Crusader, founded the Ordre of Sion in
Jerusalem in 1090. The name is allegedly derived from its place
of founding, the Abbey du Notre Dame du Mont de Sion, which is
on Mt. Zion outside Jerusalem. However, even Leigh, Baigent, and
Lincoln admit they only assume this, “Could the occupants of the
abbey indeed have been the Ordre of Sion? It was not unreasonable
to assume so.”1
The Deception Begins
In 1956, a gentleman named Pierre Plantard, who,
as recently as the early 1950’s, had been claiming to be the Merovingian
pretender to the throne of France, registered an organization
with the government of the French Republic. The organization was
chiefly influenced by the work of “Count Isreal” Monti, an esoteric
Mason and an acquaintance of Leon Daudet of the royalist league
Le Action Française. The work of this eccentric esoterist was
to coincide esoteric Freemasonry with Catholicism. Plantard and
Monti also had several front organizations, which promoted esoteric
study and collaborated with the Vichy throughout the war. These
fronts collected genealogical and occult information with the
assistance of Vichy and Nazi insiders. According to Robert Richardson,
in an 1999 article in Gnosis magazine, these documents
were used to create documentation to support the idea that the
Merovingian royal dynasty, which ended with Dagobert II in the
1400’s, had in fact continued and that it is, beyond belief, the
blood result of Jesus Christ and St. Mary Magdalene.
The Deception Deepens
This theory generated a fury among occult royalist
circles, not least of whom Prince Michael of Albany, head of the
Royal House of Stewart, was among when he endorsed Bloodline
of the Holy Grail by Laurence Gardner.2
But is there a bloodline? Did Mary Magdalene really carry Christ’s
children? Let us see.
Richardson noted in his article there are many
huge flaws in the Priory’s bloodline. One is Giselle de Razes,
recorded on the documents as Dagobert II’s wife. However, there
is no record showing this woman ever existed. Also, many of the
documents cited in the records cannot be found or show no traces
of the citations, making it questionable whether the bloodline
can be traced past established genealogies.
There is also no record to the medieval legend,
also claimed by The DaVinci Code, that St. Mary Magdalene
was ever in Provence or anywhere in France. The Butler’s Lives
of the Saints is especially skeptical, citing scholars debunking
the idea as far back as the 1600’s.3
Catholic Byzantines place the end of her life in Ephesus. Regardless,
no early tradition ever mentioned Our Lord and St. Mary being
married and having children. Even the Gnostic propaganda piece,
the Gospel of Thomas, only mentions passing affection between
the two.
 Further,
claims of the quest of the Holy Grail by knights at any time during
the Crusades are also ludicrous, for, according to Joan Carroll
Cruz in her book Relics, recorded history puts the Grail
in Spain as early as the 1200’s and possibly back to the 700’s.4
There is no possibility of a grail quest during the crusades,
for any crusader would have known about the Holy Grail’s location
and therefore, would not have sought it.
Other claims, such as the ludicrous idea that
Christ could somehow survive the crucifixion, are so ridiculous
in the extreme that several more worthy scholars than this author
have refuted DaVinci’s more hilarious claims. St. Thomas
Aquinas tells us that faith can be justified by reason. Let us
not be victims of the Davinci’s deceit, my friends, and
instead turn to God, and ignore the extreme and unfounded lengths
that Christ’s enemies will go to harm His Most Holy Name.
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