A Christian Response to The Da Vinci Code

Nashotah House Theological Seminary, 2006

 

Lecture 8, Part 1 (21 March 2006):      Prof. Rev. Dr. Tom Holtzen, Nashotah House

 

Sexuality and the Divine

 

1.   The Meta-Narrative: Classical Paganism

  1. The overarching meta-narratives of the Da Vinci Code is classical Paganism.
  2. An ancient fertility rite is described in The Da Vinci Code as “spiritual”and “mystical” act leading to a “gnosis” of the divine.
  3. Classical Paganism is difficult to define because it refers to a variety of different religious practices associated with ancient folk religion.
  4. It referred to anything that was non-Christian.
  5. One of the major tenets of classical paganism is Nature worship.
  6. The object of classical Paganism is manipulation of Nature by appeasement of dualistic good and evil gods.

 

2.   Sexuality in Paganism:

  1. Inanna/Ishtar/Astarte/Aphrodite/Venus all these godesses are associated with the planet Venus.
  2. “This myth became ritualized in an annual ceremony in which the king, representing Dumuzi-Tammuz, entered into a hieros gamos, a sacred marriage, with a sacred temple prostitute, representing Inanna-Ishtar, and thus sympathetically brought regeneration to the land.”
  3. This Pagan myth is followed by The Da Vinci Code. Sophie catches her grandfather in the cultic sex act of hieros gamos or sacred marriage.[1]
  4. The cult of temple prostitution was adopted by the Greeks in worship of the goddess Aphrodite in Old Corinth.
  5. The ancient Greek historian Herodotus (484–42 B.C.) gives an account of temple prostitution as practiced in Babylon, which he attributes to Aphrodite.
  6. Zeus and Leda and Manicheanism.

 

3.   Christianity and Sex:

Paganism offers a distorted and disordered view of human sexuality that ends in idolatry. As St. Paul says in Rom 1:24–25, “God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.”

  1. Christianity offers a different view of human sexuality grounded in God’s purpose in creation.
  2. Human sexuality is both procreative and unitive aspects of sex are affirmed by God: “Be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:28) and “it is better to marry than to burn” (1 Cor 7:9).
  3. The idea that the Church “worked hard to demonize sex and recast it as a disgusting and sinful act”[2] as The Da Vinci Code claims is wholly groundless, despite the efforts of St. Augustine.

 

 

Lecture 8, Part 2

 

A Married Jesus?

 

1.   A Married Jesus?

The Chalcedon Definition states Jesus was fully divine and fully human, two natures in one person.

  1. Jesus had a fully human nature, therefore it was physiologically possible for Jesus to be married. But was it theologically possible for Jesus to be married?

 

2.   Jesus the Bigamist?

      The Gospel of Philip, as cited in The Da Vinci Code, asserts that Jesus was married.

  1. Jesus would be a bigamist if married, because he is the Bridegroom of the Church, and the Church is his Bride.
  2. St. Paul’s language Eph. 5 is ontological language, not metaphorical.

 

3.   Transposition:

C. S. Lewis’ “doctrine of Transposition” wherein there  is the transposition of the higher nature into the lower.

  1. It is exactly the language of transposition that we hear in Epistle to the Hebrews about Christ’s High Priesthood.
  2. In the spiritual marriage of Christ with his Church, the Christian is literally “one flesh” with Christ.
  3. Spiritual union with Christ is effected by faith and the grace of the Holy Spirit in Holy Baptism is ontological.

 

4.   Curs Deus Homo?

      St. Anselm asked, “Curs Deus Homo?” or quite literally,”Why the God-man?”, that is, “Why the incarnation?”

  1. St. Paul, “‘The first man Adam became a living being’; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit” (1 Cor 15:45).
  2. Jesus’ deification of humanity is the ontological root of our new life. That is why he had to become incarnate.
  3. The ontological role of Christ as Bridegroom and Last Adam excludes his marriage.

 

5.   A Quaternity?

The doctrine of the Trinity states that God is one being in three persons.

  1. Trinitarian theology defines a “person” of the Godhead as an eternal relation.
  2. Two natures subsist in the person Jesus Christ. As the Chalcedon Definition says, Jesus is “consubstantial with the Father as regards his divinity, and the same consubstantial with us as regards humanity.”
  3. But the person of the Son existed prior to his incarnation.
  4. The only distinction between the persons of the Trinity are their eternal relations.

 

6.   Personhood and Marriage:

A married Jesus follows Pagan tendencies to introduce sexuality into the Godhead. 

  1. It denies the two natures of Christ by understanding sexuality to be a necessary part of his person, that is, his being as an eternal relation, and not an assumed capacity of his human nature.
  2. A married Jesus theologically mistakes nature for person thereby denying his two natures.
  3. This is exactly what The Da Vinci Code claims, when Teabing says, “many aspects of Christianity were debated and voted upon—the date of Easter, the role of the bishops, the administration of sacraments, and of course, the divinity of Jesus.”

 

7.   Sexuality and Human Nature:

  1. Humanity is created in the image of God.
  2. The human nature of Jesus Christ finds its fulfillment in its divinity. 
  3. “Why procreate when you are divine and will live forever?” and “Why take a wife when you have the perichoresis of the Father and the Spirit? 

 

8.   Conclusion

      While marriage is a physiological possibility, it is a theological impossibility.

  1. Ontological role as High Priest, Bridegroom, Last Adam
  2. The nature of his personhood

1.The fulfillment of his humanity in his divinity.

 

 

 

 

 


[1]  D. Brown, The Da Vinci Code (New York: Doubleday, 2003), 308–12.

[2]  Ibid., 309.