The Da Vinci Code
29
In Chapter 28, Langdon recalls that by the time of Constantine, “The days of the
goddess were over”; in other words, patriarchal Christianity would henceforth
dominate (125). Sex would be demonized, and the concept of Hieros Gamos
(sacred marriage) with orgasm as a kind of prayer would be lost. Over the
centuries, the Church (or certain members of the Church) sought to contain the
secret of the Holy Grail; in the modem time of the novel and the film Teabing,
Langdon, and Sophie embark on an exciting quest to rediscover the true
meaning of the Grail. Studying the Sangreal documents, Teabing notes in
Chapter 60, helps one understand “the other side of the Christ story”; thus,
personal exploration of these issues helps one decide what to believe (256).
Toward the end of the novel, Marie Chauvel, Sophie’s newly discovered
grandmother, wisely remarks, “there are many ways to see simple things” (447).
In an early scene invented for the film, Langdon promises that his public
lecture on symbology will search for “original truth” wherever it leads and
whatever surprises it offers. Meanwhile, on his private jet, Bishop Aringarosa
upholds orthodoxy when he tells a cleric “we follow doctrine rigorously.” In
several flashback sequences, the audience sees the Knights Templar as they
quest for the Grail and are finally destroyed by the Church; orthodoxy triumphs
over relativistic inquiry. Teabing wants to expose the “dark con” to set people
free, to explode the truth on the world. In the film’s penultimate scene, Langdon
tells Sophie that all that matters is what you believe; he comfortingly reiterates
this relativistic comment with “so I say again. What really matters is what you
believe.” This is their last scene together. In sum, the 149-minute film
emphasizes relativism of belief and the hero’s acceptance of that theory more
than does the 454-page novel, thus making the film’s popular gospel somewhat
different from that of the novel.
Divinity
Third, we turn to the divine-versus-human issue as treated in the novel and
in the film. Brown raises this topic in various places in his work. Early on, we
read about the divine structure of the human body, about the Divine Proportion,
and about Leonardo Da Vinci’s important work with these phenomena. In
Chapter 20, while still in the Grand Gallery of the Louvre, Langdon’s
recollection of these topics coming up in his Harvard “Symbolism in Art” class
provides the reader with knowledge about the professor’s keen interest in the
goddess, the sacred feminine, and Da Vinci’s fresco The Last Supper. As
Langdon once told his class, “There are symbols hidden in places you would
never imagine” (97). Further on, we read about the Catholic Church’s distortion
of Jesus’s true message and his earthly life, about how Sophie’s grandfather was
no orthodox Christian, about how Silas has both angelic and evil characteristics,
about Jesus’s divinity and his humanity, about how the Holy Grail is really a
person, about how Jesus and Mary Magdalene had a female child named Sarah
and left a royal bloodline, and about how Sophie and her brother meet at
Rosslyn Chapel. Finally, we read about how Langdon and Sophie (Jesus’s
descendant) passionately kiss before parting at the end of the novel. As Brown