»Davinci Code - Seeking the fact behind the fiction«

Dan Brown’s heroes may not have much psychological consistency, but they are formidably persuasive. They use comparative religion to guide us through the maze of the Eternal Mysteries, each using his or her own specialist topic as a starting point. Did you know, for example, that the solar disk of the Ancient Egyptian gods became the halo of the saints? That December 25th was also the birthday of Dionysus? That Snow White, who bit into the poisoned apple, is a ‘reference to the fall of Eve in the Garden of Eden’? That the Pyramid at the Louvre was commissioned by François Mitterrand, who was nicknamed the ‘Sphinx’, an event that, according to ‘The Da Vinci Code’, was certainly no accident? Dan Brown’s novel is like a gigantic funfair in which a merry-go-round of erudition dazzles the eye with the unexpected and with things that are not quite what they seem.

VIRTUALLY EVERYTHING on the Internet about the Priory of Sion can be described as pure hokum that cannot be treated seriously. The various accounts found on all the websites are all similar to each other and are mostly plagiarisms of the accounts found in The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail [1] and in The Messianic Legacy [2], and one is led to believe that the whole world is composed of Flat Earthers who do not want to accept the evidence of the Hubble Telescope (Plantard was a proven charlatan and forger who lived in a world of his own [3]).

References :

[1] First published in 1982, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail contained nothing new about the Priory of Sion that had not been published in France years beforehand – except a new set of alleged 'Statutes of the Priory of Sion signed by Jean Cocteau'. Its account of Bérenger Saunière was debunked in 1974 by René Descadeillas in his Mythologie du Trésor de Rennes.

[2] Published in 1986, The Messianic Legacy contained more Priory of Sion hokum treated seriously, linking it with Guardian Assurance (and capitalising on accounts first started by Louis Vazart in 1983). It omitted the proper conflict between Pierre Plantard and Jean-Luc Chaumeil, and various documentation relating to this conflict found in the 1984 Priory Document L'Affaire Jean-Luc Chaumeil (Rennes-le-Château) by Philippe de Chérisey (BN Code EL 4 Z Piece 245). The book also omitted the Statutes of the Alpha Galates.

[3] Pierre Plantard's re-written history of Bérenger Saunière and Rennes-le-Château as found in the Priory Documents was debunked in Descadeillas' Mythologie du Trésor de Rennes (1974). The fraudulent nature of the "parchments" and Plantard's claim to be descended from Dagobert II was exposed in a 1996 British television documentary, The History of a Mystery, using primary evidence provided by the French author Jean-Luc Chaumeil.

The Da Vinci Code, on page 232: claims: "Nothing in Christianity is original. The pre-Christian god Mithras - called the Son of God and the Light of the World - was born on December 25, died, was buried in a rock tomb, and then resurrected in three days. By the way, December 25 was also the birthday of Osiris, Adonis, and Dionysus. The newborn Krishna was presented with gold, frankincense, and myrrh."

This sequence of claims has puzzled many critics of Brown's book as to their possible origin, if indeed they have an origin outside of the author's imagination.

Serious scholars who have studied the Mithraic traditions, including Franz Cumont, paint a very different portrayal. They don't mention any death of Mithra, and they certainly don't mention any type of resurrection for Mithra.

Some Christians do celebrate Christmas on December 25 as a time of year to commemorate the birth and life of Jesus. But that doesn't mean that they believe that Jesus was born on that particular date. In fact, the Bible does not mention a specific birth date for Jesus.

For comparison, consider the American holiday called "Presidents Day." The holiday occurs on a day in February, but that doesn't mean that Americans believe that all presidents were born on that particular day in February. Of course not. It is simply a day that is set aside to commemorate American presidents.

As for the claim that the myths known as Osiris, Adonis and Dionysus were born on December 25, I have been unable to track down any scholarly source that actually makes that claim.

In regards to some of the other claims involving Mithra and Christianity, consider the following from page 87 of de-coding Da Vinci: The facts behind the fiction of The Da Vinci Code by Amy Welborn:

"Mithras was a god with many forms. By the centuries after Christ, his cult was primarily a mystery religion, popular among men, especially soldiers. Mithraic studies do not find any attribution of the titles 'Son of God' or 'Light of the World,' as Brown claims. There is also no mention of a death-resurrection motif in Mithraic mythology. Brown seems to have picked this up from a discredited nineteenth-century historian, who provided no documentation for his assertion. The same historian is the source for the Krishna connection to which Brown alludes. There is not a single story in actual Hindu mythology of Krishna being presented with gold, frankincense, and myrrh at his birth (see Miesel and Olsen, Cracking the Anti-Catholic Code)."