The Priory of Sion in the Da Vinci Code
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Dan Brown's best-selling 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code, as well as the 2006 movie version made from it, has triggered a new level of public interest in the supposed organization known as the Priory of Sion. The Priory is portrayed in the book as an ancient, powerful organization guarding a historical secret of immense importance.
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[edit] Fact or Fiction?
In a short preface, Brown lists a series of "facts" underlying the fiction of his novel. He declares that the "Priory of Sion, a European secret society founded in 1099, is a real organization. In 1975, Paris's Bibliothèque Nationale discovered parchments known as "Les Dossiers Secrets", identifying numerous members of the Priory of Sion, including Sir Isaac Newton, Sandro Botticelli, Victor Hugo and Leonardo da Vinci."
This statement of "fact", itself inaccurate, has apparently led many readers to believe that most of what the book says about the Priory is based on sound research. The author has created the same impression in other media. In a TV interview now transcribed on his own web pages, Brown was asked regarding his novel: "How much of this is based on reality in terms of things that actually occurred?" Brown responded: "Absolutely all of it." He added that his protagonist Robert Langdon "is fictional, but all of the art, architecture, secret rituals, secret societies, all of that is historical fact." The reference to "secret societies" would include Brown's portrayal of the Priory of Sion. However, Brown also mentions the secret ( the marriage union of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalane and the blood line of Jesus Christ) which the Priory of Sion had allegedly been protecting over centuries. In support of his point, Brown also refers to several unpublished versions of the Bible which were written by few disciples like Phillips and Mary Magdalane herself. There are evidences of such unpublished gospels by Phillips and Mary Magdalane. Therefore, often skeptics seem to wonder why the Bible only contains the gospels of five disciples of Jesus Christ rather than twelve.
In reality, Dan Brown's depiction of the Priory is based on selected elements from the works of various conspiracy theorists. This blurring of fact and fiction is among the Criticisms of The Da Vinci Code.
As detailed in the general Priory of Sion article, the virtually universal conclusion of serious investigators is that the Priory was invented (and repeatedly re-invented) by French hoaxer Pierre Plantard. Eventually he used this near-fictional organization to create a special aura around himself as its "Grand Master" -- all of this to boost his claims of being the legitimate King of France. Plantard's co-conspirator Gérard de Sède also contributed to the mythology that was developed around the Priory.
[edit] The Age and Pedigree of the Priory
As is generally recognized, one of the prime inspirations for The Da Vinci Code is the book Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Henry Lincoln, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh. In the French National Library, Lincoln discovered the Dossiers Secrets, supposedly records of the Priory of Sion. According to these documents, the Priory was founded as early as AD 1099. Over the centuries, the Priory supposedly had many illustrious Grand Masters, including Leonardo Da Vinci, Isaac Newton and Botticelli.
In The Da Vinci Code, this age and pedigree of the Priory are treated as incontrovertible facts. Thus Brown lets his "Harvard professor" protagonist, Robert Langdon, relate much of the lore relating to the Priory. In chapter 48, it is said that "the Dossiers Secrets had been authenticated by many specialists and incontrovertibly confirmed" that the famous people listed were indeed former Priory leaders �" something "historians had suspected for a long time."
It should be understood that this fictionalized treatment completely reverses the judgment of real-world researchers. Except for dedicated conspiracy theorists, investigators have dismissed the Dossiers Secrets as obvious forgeries, planted in the library by Plantard and his companions. Furthermore, no "historians" had ever suspected that Newton, Botticelli etc. were members of any "Priory of Sion"; this claim first appeared in the Dossiers themselves.
For his novel, Dan Brown unreservedly adopts the mythical version of the Priory's history. Most of what he writes about it is based directly or indirectly on Holy Blood, Holy Grail, which in turn is based on the forged "Dossiers." Most investigators have concluded that the "real" Priory of Sion does not predate the 1950s.
[edit] Size and Organization of the Priory
Following the lead of Holy Blood, Holy Grail and thus indirectly the Dossiers Secrets, Brown presents the Priory of Sion as a widespread and influential organization: "They are based...in France and attract powerful members from all over Europe. In fact, they are one of the oldest surviving secret societies on earth" (chapter 23). When Priory members gather for a secret ceremony, the driveway outside the house is full of expensive cars: "from the looks of the automobiles, some of Paris's most influential people were in attendance" (chapter 32).
The organizational structure of Brown's version of the Priory is as described in the Dossiers: it has a Nautonnier or Grand Master who has three Sénéchaux below him. (As part of the plot of the novel, all four are murdered.)
While Brown's general description sounds much like the organization Pierre Plantard wanted people to believe in, available evidence indicates that the organization outlined in the Dossiers Secrets mostly only existed on paper. Again, see the general Priory of Sion article for a full discussion.
[edit] Nature and Purpose of the Priory
Regarding the exact purpose of the Priory, Dan Brown to some extent departs from the conclusions presented in Holy Blood, Holy Grail. In this otherwise important "source-book" for Brown's novel, authors Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln concluded that the Priory works behind the scenes to restore a descendant of the Merovingians to the throne of France (the exact impression Plantard wanted to convey). The three authors also reached the remarkable conclusion that the Merovingian line was so important because the Merovingians were descendants of Jesus and his supposed wife Mary Magdalene. The authors speculated that the Priory wants to create a United States of Europe ruled by a Messianic King descended from Jesus.
Brown did work into his plot Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln's theories regarding the ultimate "secret" of the Priory (Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married, producing a sacred bloodline that survives into modern times). The involvement of the Merovingian dynasty is also mentioned, but the notion that the Priory is scheming to unite Europe under a Messianic King is notably missing from Brown's novel. It may be that the novelist deemed this would be of less interest to the American audience he primarily had in mind.
Instead Brown found further inspiration in other works of the "genre" spawned by Holy Blood, Holy Grail, primarily The Templar Revelation by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince, as well as the mystical feminism of Margaret Starbird. Selecting and fusing together certain elements of their theories, Brown came up with a version of the Priory that is greatly concerned with the "sacred feminine" supposedly suppressed by traditional Christianity: "The Priory has a well-documented history of reverence for the sacred feminine...[they are] the pagan goddess worship cult" (chapter 23 of the novel).
Since "Jesus was the original feminist" (chapter 58), it follows that the Church has distorted his "true" message, now only preserved by the Priory of Sion. Moreover, Jesus wanted his "wife" Mary Magdalene rather than St. Peter to be the head of the Church. Ousted by the emerging patriarchy, the Magdalene took the child she had with Jesus and escaped to France, where she lived out her days. One of her descendants founded the Priory, that still guards her earthly remains and a set of ancient documents setting out Jesus' original, uncorrupted doctrine: This is the real Holy Grail, which must be kept forever hidden from the patriarchal Church seeking to destroy it.
In Brown's novel, members of the Priory practice "sacred sexuality" in the form of Hieros Gamos (in chapter 74 described as "a two-thousand-year-old sacred ceremony", with the apparent implication that this is part of the tradition handed down from Jesus and Mary Magdalene). Since Brown on his initial "Fact" page not only claims that the Priory is a real ancient order, but also assures that "all descriptions of...secret rituals in this novel are accurate", readers may be left with the impression that all of this is fact-based.
Actually, very little of it can be traced back to Pierre Plantard's original Priory. While the Dossiers Secrets do make certain vague references to Isis, Plantard apparently had no particular interest in goddesses or the "sacred feminine" as such. Much less is there any indication that the original (near-fictional) version of the Priory was supposed to practice ritual sex. The notion that the Priory guards the bloodline of Jesus and Mary Magdalene seems to have originated with Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln rather than Plantard himself.
[edit] Made-up Mythology
Certain elements of Dan Brown's version of the Priory appear to be pure invention by the novelist, quite unconnected to the pre-existing Priory lore he otherwise draws on (and presents as "fact" in his preface). In particular, Brown seems to have invented the legend of the "keystone", supposedly an encoded map created by the Priory to point the way to the hiding-place of the Holy Grail. Indeed the main part of Brown's story has to do with the quest to find and then unlock this keystone (which turns out to be a so-called cryptex).
In the novel, the legend of the keystone is presented as an integral part of Priory lore (Leigh Teabing, Brown's "Royal Historian" character, has written books about it and spent years trying to find it). Brown's protagonist explains that whenever one of the Priory's three Sénéchaux passes away, the candidate chosen to replace him must prove he is worthy by unlocking the keystone (chapter 48). No reference to any such ceremony, or indeed any "keystone" at all, appears in the lore of Pierre Plantard's original Priory of Sion. Only the basic concept of the three Sénéchaux can be traced back to Plantard.
Another piece of made-up mythology is the expectation that at some pre-determined date, the Priory of Sion will reveal the Holy Grail and thereby topple the Church. "With the arrival of a specific date in history, the brotherhood plans to break the silence...shouting the true story of Jesus Christ from the mountaintops." This was to coincide with a "transitional period" which "the Church calls...the End of Days" (chapter 62). However, it is finally revealed that Brown's Priory never had any intention of unveiling the Grail after all: "The End of Days is a legend of paranoid minds" (chapter 105).
In reality, it is hardly even that, in the special sense Brown gives to the phrase: No such lore or expectation relates to Plantard's original Priory. To the extent Brown bases these plot elements on anything at all, his "End of Days" has to do with astrologically-inspired ideas of the start of the Age of Aquarius: This event will supposedly coincide with the end of the Christian era (see chapter 62 of the novel). This is primarily a New Age concept, in no way a "transitional period" recognized by any Christian Church.
The phrase "end of days" (Hebrew, acharith ha-yamim) comes from the Bible and may refer to either a remote future period or the eschatological "End Times" (Genesis 49:1, Ezekiel 38:16; Daniel 2:28). Brown, on the other hand, has his protagonist quickly dismissing the "common misconception" that the phrase has any eschatological reference (again see chapter 62). In real-world terms, this "misconception" is rather the original use of the expression End of Days.
[edit] Academic Acceptance
Dan Brown may be accused of greatly exaggerating the level of academic acceptance for the ideas his novel is based on. The lectures placed in the mouth of "Harvard professor" Robert Langdon and "Royal Historian" Leigh Teabing may leave uninformed readers with a quite inaccurate impression of what real-world historians think about the Priory of Sion. The "Fact" page prefixed to the novel (where Brown presents as non-fiction some of the claims later repeated by his characters) may reinforce such a misimpression.
The characters of The Da Vinci Code seem to live in a world where academics and historians agree with the scenario set out in Holy Blood, Holy Grail, at least in general outline. In their universe, the discovery of the Dossiers Secrets in the French National Library merely confirmed what "historians had suspected for a long time" (chapter 48, cited above). In the world of Robert Langdon, historians apparently find it utterly uncontroversial that the Priory of Sion really was founded in AD 1099, that men like Newton and Leonardo da Vinci were members, and that the Priory protects a bloodline descended from Jesus and Mary Magdalene. This is simply "part of the historical record" (chapter 58). The novel repeatedly refers to "Grail historians", "Priory academics" and the like. Indeed, even "educated Christians know the history of their faith" and apparently do not find this historical scenario very upsetting (chapter 55).
At one point, Brown lets Robert Langdon produce a list of more than fifty titles written by "well-known historians" supporting this view of history (chapter 38; not one of these 50+ titles is actually cited in the text of this chapter). In the same chapter, Langdon explains to a skeptic that it is only the influence of the Bible that keeps the public from realizing these astounding historical facts. The Church is in denial, but academics and even "educated Christians" realize what the Priory has been guarding down the centuries.
Some concrete titles are mentioned elsewhere in the novel. Brown's main sources for conspiracy lore are plainly the works of Baigent/Leigh/Lincoln and (for the mystical feminism) Lynn Picknett, Clive Prince and Margaret Starbird. In chapter 60 of the novel, their books turn up in the library of Brown's character Leigh Teabing. Besides Holy Blood, Holy Grail three more titles are mentioned: The Templar Revelation (Picknett/Prince), plus The Woman with the Alabaster Jar and The Goddess in the Gospels (both of the latter by Starbird). In this context, Teabing (himself a "Royal Historian") casually refers to "scores of historians" who have documented Jesus' sacred bloodline.
Based on the book titles actually provided in Brown's novel, only six authors can be identified (hence neither 50+ nor "scores"). Few of these writers have any academic credentials. From the viewpoint of traditional academia, these authors may be termed conspiracy theorists and fringe researchers, but hardly "historians" in the professional sense of the word. The fact remains that in the real world, no reputable historian accepts the idea that the Priory of Sion is a centuries-old order, much less that it guards an incredible historical secret.
[edit] Debunking, Controversy and Further Claims
In 2005, UK TV channels aired a detailed rebuttal of the main arguments of Dan Brown and those of Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln: "The Real Da Vinci Code", shown on Channel 4. Narrated by well-known amateur TV historian and archaeologist Tony Robinson, the program featured lengthy interviews with many of the main protagonists. Arnaud de Sède, son of Gérard de Sède, stated categorically that his father and Plantard had made up the story of the Priory of Sion. "Frankly", Arnaud de Sède stated in the program, "it was piffle." The program also cast severe doubt on the alleged expatriation of Mary Magdalene to France and any connection between the Merovingians and Jesus.
In early 2006, Baigent and Leigh filed suit against Brown's publishers, Random House. They alleged that significant portions of The Da Vinci Code were plagiarized from Holy Blood, Holy Grail, violating their copyright, but lost the case: Since they had presented their conclusions as historical research, not as fiction, the judge deemed that a novelist must be free to use these ideas in a fictional context.
By mid-2006, Brown's own web pages (under the heading Bizarre True Facts from The Da Vinci Code) continue to present the Priory as an actual ancient order, repeating the claims first appearing in the preface to the novel: "In 1975, Paris's Bibliothèque Nationale discovered parchments known as Les Dossiers Secrets, identifying numerous members of the Priory of Sion, including Sir Isaac Newton, Victor Hugo, Botticelli, and Leonardo da Vinci." This would indicate that Dan Brown still ignores the unanimous conclusion of scholars and serious investigators: that the Priory was a 20th-century hoax, and that the famous people listed never had anything to do with it.
The page further states, "French President, François Mitterrand, is rumored to have been a member, although there exists no proof of this." If this is to imply that there actually is proof that the previous people mentioned were indeed Priory members, well-informed readers may find Brown's statements doubly misleading: The only available "proof" would be the Dossiers Secrets, documents that no real historians will accept as authentic evidence.
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