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ROBIN GRIFFITH-JONES, MASTER OF THE TEMPLE, IN CONVERSATION* WITH GATEWAY

*via e-mail: see below the review

Synopsis: The Temple Church in London, the historic spiritual home of the Knights Templar, and the final resting place of crusading knights, features large in Dan Brown's mega selling, "Da Vinci Code" and also in the forthcoming film with Tom Hanks. Every Friday, the Master of the Temple Church, Robin Griffith Jones gives a talk to up to 200 tourists on the Da Vinci trail. This popular and accessible book is based on this weekly talk. It begins by setting out Dan Brown's understanding of Christianity the role of the Church which, of course, is vastly different from the Church's understanding of these things, and then explores how much of Dan Brown's version is true, how much is plausible and how much is fanciful. Covering all the main elements of the book - the Priory of Sion, Opus Dei, the Knight Templar, Leonardo's "Last Supper", Jesus, Mary Magdalene and more, this is an illuminating companion sets the record straight.

THE DA VINCI CODE AND THE SECRETS OF THE TEMPLE is an essential companion to THE DA VINCI CODE by an authority on the Knights Templar and Mary Magdalene, and is published to coincide with the release of the film THE DA VINCI CODE. It will appeal to conspiracy theorists everywhere - "everyone loves a conspiracy" - as a character in the book obserevs! And it unweaves what is true, what is plausible, and what is fanciful in Dan Brown's story.

Review: it would be tempting to write something about the conspiracy theories and draw some conclusions, but to do that I think I'd have to go into the whole Christian faith thing, and that would be a book rather than a review. Griffith-Jones promises to reveal the truth, and he does this in a carefully structured way, examining each facet of Dan Brown's thinking and either disproving it or offering an alternative "solution". I think it's clear right from the start that he's made his mind up about the Da Vinci Code, and I can respect that. You always knew that the Master of the Temple Church would come down hard on the side of the people who think Brown's theories are either fanciful or just plain wrong, but I got the impression that Robin Griffith-Jones found some of the theories quite attractive, and, to be honest, I wasn't convinced by all of his arguments against Brown. For example, he ignores totally the evidence presented in the gnostic gospels regarding the case for Jesus and Mary Magdalene, and I find it quite believable that the entirely male-dominated church during the first few hundred years after the birth of Christ would band together to deny something as fundamental as Jesus' sexuality and possible marriage. I find Tabor's arguments for a married Jesus far more compelling than Jones' dismissal of it. Having said that, "everyone loves a conspiracy", and this slim volume does contribute a huge amount to the argument. Very readable, but I think the authority that RGJ carries is, at the moment, outweighed by the evidence that is emerging in favour of a human, married Christ. Whether or not his lineage was carried forward to the Merovingians is another matter. This argument will rage on and on. The latest compelling evidence to emerge is the new translation of Judas' gnostic gospel, and Gateway will cover this later in the year. For now, be assured that this book is a worthy companion to anyone fascinated by the conspiracy theories, and presents the case for the Christian Church admirably.

GM: May sees the publication of a number of "conspiracy theory" books, both fiction and non-fiction, including the new translation of the Judas gospel, which apparently vindicates Judas. Where do you stand on the evidence presented in the Gnostic gospels, and are you happy with their provenance?

RGJ: The Gnostic texts (chiefly from Nag Hammadi) are fascinating. Do they offer a variant form of Christianity, long lost from popular view? Yes. Do they offer a variant that we might find attractive? It may seem so. After all, a lot of us distrust the institutional churches and the way they have marshalled and used their power; the Gnostics themselves were victims of that power; not least, it seems, because the Gnostics offered routes towards the individual’s self-knowledge and self-fulfilment which were free from the Churches’ control and which, as a result, the Churches were determined to suppress. But watch the Gnostics more closely:- They despised the material world in which we live; they put no value, it seems, on social life or its ethics; they believed only a small minority were or would ever be “spiritual” – everyone else is doomed to wallow in carnal filth. The most famous of all Gnostic texts (Thomas) has Jesus agree that women are worthy of the kingdom of heaven only if they become male. Judas is the hero of The Gospel of Judas because his betrayal hastened Jesus’ escape from the vile physical body that clothed him. Dark, world-denying, exclusive, misogynist stuff.   

GM: It's easy for "lay readers" to absorb everything the authors make claims for in their various conspiracy theories; unlike you, we don't all have the opportunity to visit the places and see for ourselves the physical evidence – everyone loves a conspiracy. Is there any evidence that clerics down through the ages have covered anything up to either hide or distort the "truth"?

RGJ: No. But that is not to give the Churches a clean bill of health. Far from it. They inherited a male-centred anthropology from the Jewish and pagan worlds, and built on it. They would not foster – nor, if they could prevent it, allow – any scientific exploration which seemed to cast doubt on the truths revealed in scripture. They have tended to see themselves as the sole guardians of truth. They are institutions whose leaders have always been just as liable to being wrong, blind, defensive, self-righteous and arrogant as the leaders of any other ancient, wealthy and powerful institutions. So there is a need for endless argument and self-correction, endless reminders of the wrongs we can do. In the Anglican Church, these arguments are conducted very publicly!

GM: You're asking us to believe the teachings of Jesus as recorded in the authorised edition of the Bible, i.e. that there is one God, not just the God of the Jews, but the Lord of all creation; knowing as we now do the infinite size of the universe in which we live, do you personally believe in a God who has a special responsibility for our corner of the universe, maybe a kind of "Galactic protector", or in an all-encompassing God who created not just our corner, but the entire universe?

RGJ: Long before Jesus lived, the Jews had come to insist that there is one God: this God had chosen the Jews as his own people to be a blessing to all humankind – but the whole universe was the creation and under the care of God. (There was not one god for each of the natural elements; not one god for Jews, another for gentiles; not one god of the spirit, another of the physical world.) Of course the discovery that the earth is not at the centre of the universe – either literally or in its significance – has made a difference; so has the recognition, how vast the universe is. And it may well be that we have still not taken on board (emotionally, as much as intellectually) just how much difference it makes. But God, in classical Christianity, has never been an object, a thing among other things (just bigger and stronger than other things). Any thought of a galactic protector is a reversion to the cruder forms of ancient paganism. 

GM: Returning to the phrase "everyone loves a conspiracy" – do you enjoy conspiracy theories yourself, or are you increasingly frustrated by them? The Archbishop of Canterbury denounced Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code over Easter – would you agree that it is in a way seditious, or do you see it for what it really is – just a novel based on a precept, that the church decided to hide something two millennia ago to suit their own ends?

RGJ: Well, the Archbishop mentioned The Da Vinci Code twice in the course of a sermon that must have lasted about 15 minutes. He spoke at far greater length about Easter, the first disciples, “The Monastery” and – at greatest length – about modern martyrs in the Solomon Islands. In our generation, yes, “everyone loves a conspiracy.” Why are Syriana and The Constant Gardener so compelling? In part because they seem, fictions though they are, to lift the lid on the conspiracies that inform the oil and pharmaceutical industries. It would seem to me unfortunate if The Da Vinci Code came to provide for a great many people the normative narrative of Christendom, into which they fitted – or against which they judged – everything else they hear or encounter about the Churches. How to re-stir that narrative, before it congeals and sets in people’s minds? Well, I have written my book, as one small attempt to keep the mixture fluid.

GM: Dan Brown uses a device that fantasy-adventure writers have used for generations, Edgar Rice Burroughs, for example. It's called the willing suspension of disbelief, of course. Don't you think it's time for the Church to remind people that's really all Dan Brown has done – employ a well-known literary device, rather than become embroiled in the whole conspiracy theory itself?

RGJ: Dan Brown is clever, to introduce his novel with a page of “Facts” (most of which are not in fact facts at all!), and to have a fictional character designated “British Royal Historian” who refers in the novel to real-life books which purport to record history. Very neat, muddying the waters in this way between apparent fact and fiction. I simply do not know how well the response of how many readers of the novel could be described in terms of Coleridge’s poetic faith. Some readers, I think, find the claims of Dan Brown’s characters refreshing, liberating. Some find the claims unsettling, even frightening. A lot, I think, are curious about them and wonder, Might some of them – about Jesus’ marriage, for instance – be true, and would it matter if they were? Others still, it may well be, are not fussed about the particular claims, but find themselves feeling about Christianity as the readers of Bleak House might feel about lawyers.

GM: Do you think it is dangerous for people to try to uncover these secrets? You yourself give a guided tour of the Temple Church with reference to its appearance in the Da Vinci Code each week – aren't you in a way encouraging people to ask questions?

RGJ: Dangerous? No. We have nothing to hide. The only danger is that we will go defensive and scratchy and angry, and so people will conclude that we have. I suspect – but cannot be sure, of course – that most of the questions I discuss are questions which people have harboured for decades. They have not wanted to ask them, for fear of seeming stupid or disrespectful or offensive to a (generally well-liked) priest or minister. If people have questions, the least we can do is openly and warm-heartedly and courteously address them. 

GM: Homing in on Da Vinci's The Last Supper – I've just read (and reviewed) Javier Sierra's THE SECRET SUPPER, itself a "conspiracy theory" involving the possibility that Da Vinci included a coded message in the painting relating to the idea that the figure on Christ's right was a woman – to be precise, Mary Magdalene. I know that people like Brian Sewell have dismissed out of hand the idea that Da Vinci's James is Mary Magdalene, but looking at the features and the contours of the body, it's very difficult to see anything other than a female (once the idea has been presented to us). In your own book you also say quite categorically that the figure is not a woman (and therefore has to be James). Whilst not subscribing to all the elements in this particular conspiracy theory myself, I am tempted to see a woman's features and body rather than that of a man. How can you convince me once and for all that the figure is James, and therefore a man?

RGJ: Ahah, I am afraid I will have to steer your readers towards my book. In outline:- Dan Brown’s characters simply ignore the biblical story illustrated in the painting and the iconographic traditions which Leonardo very cleverly used and subverted. By the side of Jesus a youth is always shown, The Beloved Disciple (believed to be John, not James); he is always leaning on the breast of Jesus. (As John’s gospel says he was.) Leonardo has him leaning away from Jesus and towards Simon Peter who is (exactly as John’s Gospel tells the story) asking him to find out who is the traitor of whom Jesus has just spoken. And who is the traitor? Judas, sitting (with his moneybag) in between Simon and John. Watch the way in which the novel simply ignores the actual story (which few people now know in detail) and so diverts the reader onto a quite false tack. Clever! Derren Brown would be proud of it! Leonardo had reasons of his own to portray young men as quite epicene; that does not make them into women.

GM: To conclude, I'd like to ask you where you stand on Da Vinci himself. Knowing what a mysterious person he was, with that extraordinary ability to write backwards and to predict so many of the technological advances we've made since his time, do you at least think it feasible that he would have included a message of some sort in this most enigmatic and now most famous of his paintings?

RGJ: Yes – the code is in his subversion of all the conventions familiar to the Dominicans who would see his painting! It is immensely poignant; but nothing to do with Mary Magdalene.

GM: Robin, Thank you for giving me the opportunity to review your book, which I have said adds a balanced view to the Da Vinci Code theories, and thanks also for letting me ask you these questions. I'm sure the theories will roll on and on, and it's only with expert opinion such as your own that we are able to move on to the next one.

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