Flight of Fancy
Flight of Fancy
June 28, 2004
By Condrado de Quiros
THE ONLY thing to be said for long flights is that you get to finish reading books in them. And, well, you get to have curious conversations.
"I noticed," said a Filipino when we landed in Amsterdam last week, "that you were reading 'The Da Vinci Code'." We were seated beside throughout the flight, and he now introduced himself to me as a doctor who was attending a medical forum in Barcelona. "I started reading the book myself," he went on, "but decided to put it down. I'm a member of Couples for Christ and a good Christian. I was afraid it would damage my faith."
Well, I have no wish to make people feel vulnerable, particularly while out of their comfort zone geographically and psychologically, so I just mumbled some words of sympathy. My first instinct though was to say, "Well, if it's a faith that has strong roots, it shouldn't blow down so easily." I might have added that what does not kill you will make you stronger. But that would have been a quote from someone Christendom also doesn't particularly like- Friedrich Nietzsche - the fellow better known for his aphorism, "God is dead." I wasn't sure modern philosophy wasn't taught at medical school.
The one comment I've been hearing about "The Da Vinci Code" is, "Oh, the attack against Opus Dei." Well, true enough it doesn't have flattering things to say about that group. It pretty much suggests Opus Dei is a direct descendant of the Inquisition, with its intolerant, harsh and self-mortifying ways, which includes our own favorite ritual during Lent, which is self-flagellation. Dan Brown does contrast Opus Dei with the more liberal wing of the papacy, which resulted in the group being (despite its apparent financial generosity, also called bribe, to the Vatican) dropped as a prelature of the Vatican some years ago.
But that is cold comfort to mainstream Christians, who will also have to deal with the book's scathing depiction of the history of Christianity. No, more than that, with the book's depiction of Christian doctrine, as handed down by the Church, which is that of a grand deception. The original Christians, the book asserts, did not believe in a divine Christ. In fact, not until Constantine, a leader driven by imperial ambition, came into the picture did the doctrine of a divine Christ arise. Constantine himself could have chosen another religion to unite the world under him - he had a few good ones arrayed before him - but quite presciently, like an astute stock speculator, picked the one on the rise. A divine Christ stood to command undying loyalty from believers more than a human one.
As it turned out, far more than Constantine reckoned. The Church, which became a pillar of imperium, defended the doctrine to the death - of those who did not believe. It burned heretics at the stake by the millions, which Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose" also chronicles. (One critic calls "The Da Vinci Code" "Eco on speed" and it is so in some ways, it is mind trick after mind trick; "The Name of the Rose" though is vastly superior in sensibility.) Specifically - and this is the point worth noting - it burned women heretics by the millions. In the course of the Inquisition, no less than 5 million of them!
The nature of their heresy was often the mere fact that they showed themselves capable of thought. Christianity, at least after it became a state religion was the first systematic, organized and brutal pogrom of women, the book suggests. The reason for this was that it sought to obliterate all the ancient religions as potential rivals, and most of those "pagan" religions followed the worship of the "sacred feminine." The symbols of those religions, which were also the symbols of the female gods, were transmogrified in Christianity into symbols of the devil. With all its puritanical results: sex, sensuality and, ultimately, women are the source of all evil.
I'll say no more lest I spoil the potential reader's pleasure - never mind the actual believer's beliefs, that's his own lookout. I will just add that you will never look at Leonardo Da Vinci's "The Last Supper" the same way after you've read this book. The book says Da Vinci was one of the keepers of a sect that hewed to the original Christian teachings, and he kept the flame alive by putting all sorts of subliminal messages in his paintings. One of them, the mortal nature of Christ, he depicted by painting his wife beside him in "The Last Supper." I leave the reader to discover the identity of that wife. I must say however that the first thing I did was look up Da Vinci's painting of the "Last Supper" in a book while in Spain, and was bowled over to see that Christ indeed is seated beside a woman! There is absolutely no mistaking it.
Will that shake the faith of those who have it? Well, the book itself isn't against faith, or even the Christian faith itself. It is against faith, or the Christian faith, that has been intolerant, harsh, and truly, well, un-Christian. If I recall right, the Pope himself had occasion a couple of years ago to apologize for the agony and death Christianity wrought upon the world in the course of two millennia. If "The Da Vinci Code" is anything to go by though, I don't know why women shouldn't ask for a special apology while at it.
But the book is not without one final irony. Which is that the one thing that is giving Christian scholars sleepless nights - there's a whole spate of books answering the "Da Vinci Code" today - is, to borrow Quentin Tarantino's title, pulp fiction. That is what the book really is in the end, pulp fiction, though a vastly superior one. The Inquisition is dealt a death blow by commercialization? An irony to please Da Vinci himself.
Read in flight, some things end up being more than flights of fancy.
June 28, 2004
By Condrado de Quiros
THE ONLY thing to be said for long flights is that you get to finish reading books in them. And, well, you get to have curious conversations.
"I noticed," said a Filipino when we landed in Amsterdam last week, "that you were reading 'The Da Vinci Code'." We were seated beside throughout the flight, and he now introduced himself to me as a doctor who was attending a medical forum in Barcelona. "I started reading the book myself," he went on, "but decided to put it down. I'm a member of Couples for Christ and a good Christian. I was afraid it would damage my faith."
Well, I have no wish to make people feel vulnerable, particularly while out of their comfort zone geographically and psychologically, so I just mumbled some words of sympathy. My first instinct though was to say, "Well, if it's a faith that has strong roots, it shouldn't blow down so easily." I might have added that what does not kill you will make you stronger. But that would have been a quote from someone Christendom also doesn't particularly like- Friedrich Nietzsche - the fellow better known for his aphorism, "God is dead." I wasn't sure modern philosophy wasn't taught at medical school.
The one comment I've been hearing about "The Da Vinci Code" is, "Oh, the attack against Opus Dei." Well, true enough it doesn't have flattering things to say about that group. It pretty much suggests Opus Dei is a direct descendant of the Inquisition, with its intolerant, harsh and self-mortifying ways, which includes our own favorite ritual during Lent, which is self-flagellation. Dan Brown does contrast Opus Dei with the more liberal wing of the papacy, which resulted in the group being (despite its apparent financial generosity, also called bribe, to the Vatican) dropped as a prelature of the Vatican some years ago.
But that is cold comfort to mainstream Christians, who will also have to deal with the book's scathing depiction of the history of Christianity. No, more than that, with the book's depiction of Christian doctrine, as handed down by the Church, which is that of a grand deception. The original Christians, the book asserts, did not believe in a divine Christ. In fact, not until Constantine, a leader driven by imperial ambition, came into the picture did the doctrine of a divine Christ arise. Constantine himself could have chosen another religion to unite the world under him - he had a few good ones arrayed before him - but quite presciently, like an astute stock speculator, picked the one on the rise. A divine Christ stood to command undying loyalty from believers more than a human one.
As it turned out, far more than Constantine reckoned. The Church, which became a pillar of imperium, defended the doctrine to the death - of those who did not believe. It burned heretics at the stake by the millions, which Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose" also chronicles. (One critic calls "The Da Vinci Code" "Eco on speed" and it is so in some ways, it is mind trick after mind trick; "The Name of the Rose" though is vastly superior in sensibility.) Specifically - and this is the point worth noting - it burned women heretics by the millions. In the course of the Inquisition, no less than 5 million of them!
The nature of their heresy was often the mere fact that they showed themselves capable of thought. Christianity, at least after it became a state religion was the first systematic, organized and brutal pogrom of women, the book suggests. The reason for this was that it sought to obliterate all the ancient religions as potential rivals, and most of those "pagan" religions followed the worship of the "sacred feminine." The symbols of those religions, which were also the symbols of the female gods, were transmogrified in Christianity into symbols of the devil. With all its puritanical results: sex, sensuality and, ultimately, women are the source of all evil.
I'll say no more lest I spoil the potential reader's pleasure - never mind the actual believer's beliefs, that's his own lookout. I will just add that you will never look at Leonardo Da Vinci's "The Last Supper" the same way after you've read this book. The book says Da Vinci was one of the keepers of a sect that hewed to the original Christian teachings, and he kept the flame alive by putting all sorts of subliminal messages in his paintings. One of them, the mortal nature of Christ, he depicted by painting his wife beside him in "The Last Supper." I leave the reader to discover the identity of that wife. I must say however that the first thing I did was look up Da Vinci's painting of the "Last Supper" in a book while in Spain, and was bowled over to see that Christ indeed is seated beside a woman! There is absolutely no mistaking it.
Will that shake the faith of those who have it? Well, the book itself isn't against faith, or even the Christian faith itself. It is against faith, or the Christian faith, that has been intolerant, harsh, and truly, well, un-Christian. If I recall right, the Pope himself had occasion a couple of years ago to apologize for the agony and death Christianity wrought upon the world in the course of two millennia. If "The Da Vinci Code" is anything to go by though, I don't know why women shouldn't ask for a special apology while at it.
But the book is not without one final irony. Which is that the one thing that is giving Christian scholars sleepless nights - there's a whole spate of books answering the "Da Vinci Code" today - is, to borrow Quentin Tarantino's title, pulp fiction. That is what the book really is in the end, pulp fiction, though a vastly superior one. The Inquisition is dealt a death blow by commercialization? An irony to please Da Vinci himself.
Read in flight, some things end up being more than flights of fancy.
posted by Dante at 12:01 AM
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