In The Da Vinci Code, Brown adopts Arius as his representative for all pre-Nicene Christianity because of his gnostic loyalty, disregarding history. Referring to the Council of Nicaea, Brown claims that “until that moment in history, Jesus was viewed by His followers as a mortal prophet … a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless.”(p.233) “At [the Council of Nicea]…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….” (Da Vinci Code p. 233.)

Brown is irresponsible between distinguishing fact from fiction. The average reader without any knowledge of history can only assume his claims are factual. The council was about one thing, the debate of Arius’ new teaching, that Jesus was created -- not sacraments, Easter or anything else on his list.  

Dan Browne has it backwards. It was not Jesus’ deity that was questioned in the early church ( prior to 200 ad) but His humanity. The Gnostics refused to believe that God could take on human flesh, to them it was too evil. the very sources he refers to hold an opposite position to his theory.

It was around the year 318 A.D. n Alexandria, Egypt that attention was focused on a man named Arius who began teaching in OPPOSITION to the church. Arius insisted that, “there was a time when the Son was not.” (Christ must be numbered among the created beings - highly exalted, to be sure, but a creation). This controversy became very sharp and began dividing the Church. Bishop Alexander was teaching that Jesus, the Son of God, had existed eternally, being “generated” eternally by the Father. Arius wrote to Eusibius “We are persecuted because we say the Son had a beginning, but God is without beginning.” (Letter to Eusibius, 321 A.D). Alexander called a synod in 321 A.D. Constantine did not even attend the council of Nicaea because of his age, (and because he had no theological knowledge), but was represented by two presbyters. Almost all the Council consisted of bishop's (estimations of 300 or more) from the eastern Churches where this heresy was thriving. 

How can Brown be right when so many pastors taught Jesus was God nearly 200 years before Constantine. 100 AD Ignatius of Antioch “I give glory to Jesus Christ the God who bestowed such wisdom upon you" (Letter to the Smyraeans) “Jesus Christ . . . was with the Father before the beginning of time”

Hippolytus “For Christ is the God over all” (Refutation of All Heresies 10.34).

Iranaeus (lived between 120-202 A.D.) “In order that to Christ Jesus, our Lord, and God, and Savior, and King.”

150 AD Justin Martyr “The Father of the universe has a Son, who also being the first begotten Word of God, is even God.” (Justin Martyr, First Apology, ch 63)

Scholar J.N.D. Kelly writes that “the all but universal Christian conviction in the [centuries prior to the Council of Nicaea] had been that Jesus Christ was divine as well as human. The most primitive confession had been ‘Jesus is Lord’ [Rom 10:9; Phil 2:11], and its import had been elaborated and deepened in the apostolic age.” Remember Mt.16 – Peter’s confession of Jesus’ deity “he is the Son of the Living God.Brown is absolutely wrong on this but does he care? I think not.

The Gnostics View

Members of the various gnostic sects had a secret knowledge not available to others; it was given to them by a series of lesser mediating divinities either called Archons or Aeons; they had a dualistic view, an antithesis between matter and spirit, body and soul and a hatred of the physical world that was often believed to have been created not by God but by a lesser, evil demigod to imprison the souls of human beings. None of these beliefs are Christian.

The book claims that the gnostic Jesus is far more human than the divine Jesus of the four canonical Gospels contained in the Christian Bible.  The fact is -- the Gnostics did not believe Jesus was truly human because of their dualistic worldview. Docetism was a form of Gnosticism that rose later in the first century.  (comes from the Greek word dokeo, meaning “to seem” or “appear”). Their philosophy was that matter is inherently evil and that God was not subject to any human experiences or feelings. Jesus only appeared to have flesh, they denied his genuine humanity, and said he was really a (spirit) phantom. In other words he was not human, the very opposite of what Brown claims is the truth. Since this was the held belief of Gnostics it would be impossible to reconcile Jesus was married and went off to have children. Again the sources he used to confirm his theory are actually speaking against it. What Brown quotes say the opposite, they deny he was human not divine. All one has to do is read the Gnostic gospels and the debates that occurred 150 years BEFORE the Nicaean council to find this out.

The Fact is Jesus being BOTH God and man is not an exclusive New Testament idea but an Old Testament one that is spoken of by prophets hundreds of years apart. Isa.9:6 , Jer.25:5-6 the branch who is a man His name is called THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. Zech.12:10 God says they will look upon me and  mourn for son whom they pierced.

The New Testament gives clear evidence of Jesus being viewed as divine throughout the New Testament. Numerous passages affirm the absolute deity of Christ, such as John 1:1 (“the Word was God” and became flesh), Mt.1:23) “God with us fulfilling Isa.7:14. John 5:18 (“calling God His own Father, making himself equal with God”), John 20:28 (Thomas saying “[you are] my Lord and my God”), “Titus 2:13 (our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ”), Romans 9:5 (“God over all, blessed forever”), and Colossians 2:9 (“within Him dwells all the fullness of being God in bodily form”), and many others attribute the Son of God being the creator. He is called the Lord from heaven in 1 Cor.15:47.

 In fact, one would have to remove passages from almost every book of the New Testament to not have it teach he was divine.

The debate at Niacea was about whether Christ was a created being, which Arius of Alexander was promoting, or that he was the same substance (homoousia as God, being God) as Bishop Alexander proposed.  Both sides argued in the council from the Scriptures, expounding with language and logic. It was a young deacon name Athanasius who joined in the debate and shined in his biblical expertise and settled the issue.  Arius was pronounced as teaching heresy and deposed from teaching by an overwhelming vote in the council who were present at the debate.

 In Brown’s book Teabing states  “The word heretic derives from that moment in history” (p. 234)  (the time of Constantine, in the early fourth century). If so, how did New Testament authors in the first century refer to “heresies” 2 Peter 2:1 and “a man that is a heretic” Titus 3:10 hundreds of years before. Even Irenaeus in the second-century was able to write a book entitled “Against Heresies”100 years before this council.  Hippolytus in his “Refutation of All Heresies” 7:22 written in 230 AD. Again Brown is wrong on his facts, by this time in the book it matters little as he is on a roll with one wrong assumption built upon another.

Teabing states that Constantine “was a lifelong pagan who was baptized on his deathbed, too weak to protest.” (p. 232)

This is about as close to the truth on church history that Brown gets. Constantine at first settled the issue of the deity of Christ by banishing Arius who opposed it, but it only proved temporary.  Constantine received Arius' friend Eusebius of Nicodemia on his deathbed, and was baptized an Arian willingly (337 A.D.). Supporting Arius' view, the Roman church then rejected the Trinitarian view, and his son who took his fathers place disposed Athanasius and his followers. For the next 50 years Arianism was supported and became a major movement inside the Church of Rome. So it is nothing like what Brown writes in his book that the church made Jesus into deity, the people he cites actually denied it.

 According to Browns book “Almost everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false,” laments one of Brown’s characters. The real truth was rejected. The word Everything is the fuel that makes his theory run. Brown takes a negative view of the Bible and promotes a distorted image of Jesus. He’s neither the Messiah or a humble carpenter but a wealthy, trained religious teacher bent on regaining the throne. He makes him into what the Pharisees were like.  

The Dead Sea Scrolls

The character Teabing referring to Nicaea council states that the Dead Sea Scrolls confirm that “the modern Bible was compiled and edited by men who possessed a political agenda ….” (p. 234)

The Qumran society was monastic community within Judaism that produced the Dead Sea Scrolls.  The Da Vinci Code claims they are part of the “earliest Christian records.”   But they contain no “Christian teachings” whatsoever, they predate Christianity by at least 100 years. They are also the products of an ancient Jewish community that was separated from the Judaism of their day. They contain – among other things – some of the oldest known manuscripts of the Old Testament. The Dead Sea Scrolls actually confirm that the Old Testament we have today has not changed and affirms it being accurate. Which does the ultimate damage to Brown’s theory of the Bible being drastically changed by unscrupulous men. Instead it confirms the accuracy of the text being intact for thousands of years.

What Dan Brown's character goes on to say about the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Library intentionally misleads the reader. He says: Fortunately for historians, some of the gospels that Constantine attempted to eradicate managed to survive. The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in the 1950s (sic) hidden in a cave near Qumran in the Judean desert. And, of course, the Coptic Scrolls (sic) in 1945 at Nag Hammadi. In addition to telling the true Grail story, these documents speak of Christ's ministry in very human terms.  (The Da Vinci Code, p.234).

The Nag Hammadi texts are incorrectly called “scrolls” in this book when they are codices. In the Nag Hammadi library contains 13 codices 52 tractates (6 which are duplicates). And the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947 (not the 1950’s). If the author can get something this elementary wrong, we must question the other historical “facts” presented elsewhere to see if they too are wrong. This Coptic codex was acquired in Cairo in 1896 by Dr. Rheinhardt, it was not published until 1955. It is missing pages 1 to 6,  pages 11 to 14 -- these included sections of the text up to chapter 4, and portions of chapter 5 to 8.

The Dead Sea Scrolls were not in the possession of the Nicene council so how could they prevent them from being part of the Bible? In fact, the Dead Sea Scrolls are not Christian documents, they do not contain any “gospels” nor mention Jesus Christ’s ministry on earth at all. They were Old Testament scrolls prior to his birth. Brown seems to lack integrity in his research everywhere one turns.  And they especially do not mention anything about Jesus and Mary Magdalene having children, or being married.  

Over 60,000 scrolls, fragments and manuscripts were uncovered—of which one-third were Scriptural, mostly copies of Old Testament books including internal documents for the Qumran community. They contain portions of every Old Testament book except Esther.  They predate the New Testament, carbon-dated to the second-century BC. prior to Christ.

We find the Dead Sea Scrolls were produced by a community of mostly male Jewish celibates, precisely the kind of people Langdon in Browns book asserts couldn’t have existed within Judaism at the time of Jesus. Once again this goes against Brown’s theory of Jesus must be married because all Jewish men are married. The very evidence Brown brings forth to undermine the consistent story of the canonical Gospels teach contrary to the “secret Christianity”  Brown says they represent.

The Bible

In chapter 55.  Teabing, answers some questions from the two lead characters about the nature and background of their quest. To begin: “…The Bible did not arrive by fax from heaven… The Bible is the product of man, my dear. Not of God. The Bible did not fall magically from the clouds. Man created it as a historical record of tumultuous times, and it has evolved through countless translations, additions, and revisions. History has never had a definitive version of the book” (The Da Vinci Code p.231).

No, man wrote it ass God spoke to the prophets spanning over 1500 years. The text of the New Testament is comprised of over 24,000 copies or pieces of manuscripts, some dating as early as first century many more from the second and third century. There is no other ancient piece of literature with such manuscript evidence. We have manuscripts dating back to the first century and they are what we hold in our hand today, no changes.  Recently a piece of Matthew was found where Carston Theide dates back into 60 AD.  The Bible has been translated into many languages; our literal English translated Bibles are often translated directly from Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts so the argument over so many translations is moot one. Versions or translations of the New Testament into Syriac, Old Latin,  Egyptian, etc. began far after the completion of the canon of the New Testament was circulated (the later 4th and fifth century).

Teabing in the book goes on with more specific claims: “Jesus Christ was a historical figure of staggering influence, perhaps the most enigmatic and inspirational leader the world has ever seen….Understandably, His life was recorded by thousands of followers across the land…More than eighty gospels were considered for the New Testament, and yet only a relative few were chosen for inclusion – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John among them…The Bible, as we know it today, was collated by the pagan Roman emperor Constantine the Great” (p.231). 

Was Jesus a figure of “staggering influence” did “thousands of followers” write of him? The answers to this is, No. Jesus’ never traveled outside Palestine, he was known among the Jews, especially the poor and hurting. There are only a few first-century works outside the Scripture about Jesus and none compare to the eyewitness accounts in Scripture.

Were there eighty Gospels out of which four were chosen by Constantine? This is a completely unsubstantiated claim from his book and history. again, they weren’t choosing Bible books at Nicaea but debating if Jesus was created by God or is the creator who is God FROM the Bible.

“The Bible, as we know it today, was collated by the pagan Roman emperor Constantine’ (Brown p.231).

Again Browns research of history is failing, Constantine was not the decider of the canon. In fact, he played no role in its assembly; the church at large was responsible. Church History tells us the Church had a near complete New Testament canon of Scripture 170 years before the council of Nicaea. Almost all the New Testament books were written between 45-75 A.D excluding the apostle John’s writings occurred in 80-95 A.D.  From the beginning the church copied and shared the original documents to circulate the apostles writings. These books were read copied and distributed as scripture by individual Christians. We have examples of letters in scripture written by the apostles who said they were to be read to all. “I charge you by the Lord that this epistle be read to all the holy brethren.” 1 Thess.5:27  “to be read to all the church’s” Col.4:16 “read to the church of Colosse and the Laodiceans” Gal.1:21 “to the church’s of Galatia.” Paul in jail asks to bring to him the parchments the scrolls. Peter states of Paul’s letters there are hard things to understand, so it is obvious they were copied and read even by the apostles. Early church leaders considered letters and eyewitness accounts authoritative and binding only if they were written by an apostle or close disciple of an apostle. This way they could be assured of the documents' reliability. As pastors and preachers, they also observed which books did in fact build up the church

And we have the evidence of the church as well proving they had the New Testament Bible. Clement of Rome, 95 A.D.  in his Epistle to the Corinthians quotes from Matthew, Luke, Romans, Corinthians, Hebrews, I Timothy, 1 Peter.  Many of the church fathers (bishops) quote the New Testament such as Polycarp (69-155 A.D.) quotes much of the New Testament (Mt., Acts, Hebrews, 1 Pt. And 10 of Paul's letters) to his letter to the Philippians. Justin Martyr (100-160 A.D.) quotes all 4 Gospels, Acts and the epistles of Paul and Revelation. Portions of the gospels were read every Sunday in church. Clement of Alexandria 165-220 names all the books of the New Testament except Philemon, James, 2 Peter and 3 John.  Irenaeus 135-210 quotes from all the New Testament books except Philemon, Jude, James and 3 John. Origen 185-254 names all the books of both the Old and New Testaments. Tertullian 160-240 mentions all the New Testament books minus James, 2 Peter and 2 John.

Tatian, about A.D. 160, made a “Harmony of the Four Gospels called the “Diatessaron,” is an evidence that Four Gospels were generally recognized among the churches.  

When you read the early “church fathers” the one consistent teaching that comes through is that they are completely convinced Jesus is God himself from the Scripture that Brown says they do not have. These are bishops and teachers from the 100 and 200 long before the Nicaean council (Brown claims) enforced on the church the supposedly minority position of Christ's divinity. 

The proof to counter a decidedly modern edition of the Greek New Testament is the manuscript evidence. The quotations of the Greek scriptures by the Greek fathers confirm the authenticity of the original text. Nearly every verse of the New Testament in Greek can be recovered from quotations of the New Testament by the early church pastors (or scholars, apologists) in their writings. In fact all but 11 verses can be put together by collecting the early church writings, it is the same scripture we have today.  

At Council of Nicea in 325 - Athanasius in his debate with Arius quoted from almost all the books of the New Testament, (not from the Gnostic gospels) he said the 27 books are the springs of salvation, do not add or take away from them. So these were already accepted by the Church need no council to affirm them (though the Roman Catholic church did have meetings years after to put closure to the canon it was not necessary).

The early Church did not establish the canon (official set of New Testament writings) at Nicaea. The New Testament writings were long since recognized inspired of god because of their authorship and agreement with what was revealed. We need to understand that the gospels and letters were written in the first generation of the eyewitnesses of the facts.  Other gospels, not by eyewitnesses were rejected in the long history of the church because they did not coincide with what is already written. In the same way today we would reject the new book of Mormon today, because it does not agree but actually opposes what is delivered to us in the Scripture.

By the time of Origen (185-254 A.D.), there was general acceptance on nearly all of the New Testament we have today.  There was a ongoing discussion on only six epistles to be part of the New Testament canon in a certain area of the church (Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, and Jude.)  Nobody questioned which Gospels should be included, they were accepted for along time.  New Testament dates they were written: Matthew, 50-70 AD, Matthew; An eyewitness. Mark, 50-70 AD, Mark; An eyewitness. Luke, 56-60 AD, Luke who compiled the eyewitnesses accounts; John, 85-95AD, John; An eyewitness. These are the dates accepted by conservative scholars who are not liberals. 

The distribution of the Gnostic writings are not proportionate to the acceptance of the Gospels by the apostles throughout the world from Asia to Africa.

Pagan Influences

Peter Jones who written extensively on the Gnostics says of Brown: Brown’s “positive” approach resurrects “pre-Christian” symbols and promotes the ancient spirituality of paganism-the worship of Nature as god. Brown’s hope for the future of the planet in the Age of Aquarius is the all-inclusive circle, “the divine feminine” and the figure of the Goddess. He finds this message encoded in the blocks of the Roslyn Chapel, which he calls “the Cathedral of Codes” (p.432).

“Each block was carved with a symbol…to create a multifaceted surface” (Da Vinci Code p.436)“…Christian cruciforms, Jewish stars, Masonic seals, Templar crosses, cornucopias, pyramids, astrological signs, plants, vegetables, pentacles and roses…Rosslyn Chapel was a shrine to all faiths…to all traditions…and, above all, to nature and the goddess” (p. 434).  

Brown' assumption is that Christianity borrowed ideas from pagan sources. While there may be some surface level similarities of Christianity and other religions beliefs, that doesn't  mean that Christianity borrowed from them.  Similarities do not mean sameness nor prove they come from  a common source. One needs to go under the surface to see how weak brown's arguments are in this matter.