BREAKING THE DA VINCI CODE
A Review of the Conspiracy Theory Proposed by Dan
Brown’s Bestseller “The Da Vinci Code”
PART I
The Canon of the
Bible
The Da Vinci Deception
(p. 231)
“The Bible did not arrive by fax from heaven...The Bible is a 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 Bible, as we know it today, was collated by the pagan Roman emperor Constantine the Great.”
The English word “canon” is derived from the Hebrew word “qaneh” which
originally referred to a reed or stalk (cf. Job 40:21- “hidden among the reeds in the
marsh”). The Greek adaptation of this term Semitic term reflected the practical use
of reeds in the ancient world. In their language the word “kanon” came to denote a
rule, a measuring stick, or an instrument used to draw straight lines. In classical
Greek, “kanon” was used to describe any authoritative standard by which behavior
or belief was to be measured. Thus, St. Paul uses the Greek word “kanon” in
Galatians 6:16 to describe those who are faithful to the Christian Gospel as “all who
follow this rule.” Since Holy Scripture is the final standard by which all doctrine and
practice are to be judged, the term “kanon” came to describe the list of books which
met the standard of divine inspiration and were acknowledged as the Word of God.
The Da Vinci Code limits its attack upon the integrity of the Biblical Canon to the
New Testament, despite a few confusing references to the Dead Sea Scrolls which are
Old Testament manuscripts. This is no doubt because the standards (or canons!) of
modern political correctness permit and encourage attacks upon historic Christianity
while criticism of Jews or Judaism is discouraged as anti-Semitic. The history of the
formation of the Old Testament canon, however is not without controversy of its own.
The Hebrew Old Testament, called the “Tanak” was divided into three sections, the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings (Hebrew - “Torah - Naviim - Kethubim”). Jesus reflects this historic division in His identification of Old Testament Scripture: “Everything must be fulfilled that is written about Me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms.” (Luke 24:44) In the Hebrew Bible, these three sections were subdivided into 24 books which included all of the 39 books of the modern Old Testament. The standard of canonicity for the books of the Old Testament prophetic authorship: that is to say, for a book to have been included it must indisputably have been written by a prophet, one who spoke the Word of God by divine inspiration - a man called to proclaim “Thus saith the Lord.” Josephus, the 1st Century Jewish historian, emphasized the Jews’ unique devotion to their Bible as the defining characteristic of the nation:
“For we do not have an innumerable multitude of books among us,
disagreeing from and contradicting one another as the Greeks have, but
only 24 books which contain the records of all the past times; which are
justly believed to be divine...and how firmly we have given credit to
those books of our own nation is evident by what we do; for during so
many ages as have already passed, no one has been so bold as either to
add anything to them or take anything from them or to make any change
in them; but it becomes natural for all Jews, immediately and from their
very birth, to esteem those books to contain divine doctrines, and to
persist in them, and if occasion be, willingly to die for them.”
(Josephus, “Contra Apion,” 1,8)
The consensus among the Jews was that the last of God’s prophets to Israel was the
prophet Malachi c. 400 B.C. The Rabbinic commentaries sadly note: “When the last
prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi died, the Holy Spirit ceased out of
Israel.” (Moore, I, p. 421) The absence of the prophetic witness during the 400
years of the Inter-Testamental period was viewed by Israel as a sign of God’s
judgment upon the nation. For example, 1 Maccabees 9:27 notes: “Thus, there was
great distress in Israel, such as had not been since the time that prophets ceased to
appear among them.” The official canon of the Old Testament was formalized at the
Rabbinical Council of Jamnia in A.D. 90.
Many books were written within Judaism during the Inter-Testamental Period,
particularly among groups like the Essenes of Qumram, whose extensive library
comprises the majority of the famous Dead Sea Scrolls, but none of these books were
ever acknowledged as inspired Scripture by the Jews. That which is now called the
“Old Testament Apocrypha” (Greek - “Hidden Things”) is a collection of 15 of
these books. Neither Judaism nor Christianity considered them to be a part of the Old
Testament although they have enjoyed widespread popularity among Christians as an
intriguing source of historical information. They were not a part of the Hebrew Bible
but they were added to “The Septuagint,” a Greek translation of the Old Testament
prepared at the end of the Inter-Testamental Period. When St. Jerome translated the
Bible into Latin late in the 4th Century AD (“The Vulgate”) he also translated the
Apocrypha because of the widespread popularity of these books but careful
distinguished them from the Bible, noting that they could be read for edification but
“not for confirming the authority of church dogmas.” Martin Luther also included
them in his German translation of the Bible with this note: “Apocrypha - These
books are not held equal to Sacred Scriptures and yet are good and useful for
reading.” Hard pressed by Reformation era debates to provide a
Biblical basis for a number of its doctrines and practices, the Roman Catholic
Church broke with both Jewish and early Christian precedent by declaring the
Apocrypha to be an official part of the canon of Scripture at the Council of
Trent in 1546. The Catholic Church remains the only denomination in either
Judaism or Christianity which considers the Apocrypha to be a part of the Bible.
The Canon of the New Testament includes 27 books. The books of the New Testament were written during the second half of the 1st Century by various apostles, the 14 men directly commissioned by Jesus Christ to be His authoritative spokesmen to the first generation of the Christian Church. The books were composed as the apostles went about their mission of establishing churches across the ancient world. The following list provides the estimated dates for the composition of the books of the New Testament:
A.D. 45 James
A.D. 48 Galatians
A.D. 50 1 & 2 Thessalonians
A.D. 55 1 & 2 Corinthians
A.D. 56 Romans
A.D. 59-61 Colossians, Philemon, Ephesians, Philippians
A.D. 50-60 Matthew
A.D. 60 Mark
A.D. 61-62 1 Peter
A.D. 62-63 1 Timothy
A.D. 62 2 Peter
A.D. 63 Titus
A.D. 65-67 2 Timothy
A.D. 65-69 Luke, Acts
A.D. 65-70 Hebrews
A.D. 60-70 Jude
A.D. 90-100 John, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John
A.D. 95 Revelation
The New Testament books themselves
are unequivocal in asserting their
inherent authority as the Word of God.
It is evident from the outset that the
epistles of the New Testament were
intended for a broader audience than
the individuals or congregations to
which they were addressed. For
example, at the conclusion of 1
Thessalonians, one of his earliest
letters (c.. A.D. 50), St. Paul
commands: “I charge you before the
Lord to have this letter read to all the
brothers.” (1 Thessalonians 5:27) He
issues similar instructions for the
widespread distribution of his letter to
the Colossians: “After this letter has
been read to you, see to it that it is
also read in the church of the
Laodiceans and that you in turn read
the letter from Laodicea.”
(Colossians 4:16) Earlier in the 1
Thessalonians, the apostle had been
unequivocal in asserting the identity of
his message as the Word of God: “And
we also thank God continually
because, when you received the Word
of God, which you heard from us,
you accepted it not as the word of
men, but as it actually is, the Word of
God, which is at work in you who
believe.” (1 Thessalonians 1:13)
Acceptance of the apostolic word as
the Word of God was the basic
standard of membership in the
Christian Church. “If anyone thinks
he is a prophet or spiritually gifted, let
him acknowledge that what I am writing you is the Lord’s command. If he ignores
this, he himself will be ignored.” (1 Corinthians 14:37-38) Peter endorses the letters
of his fellow apostle Paul and equates them with the sacred Scriptures of the Old
Testament:
“Just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that
God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in
them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard
to understand which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do
the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.” (2 Peter 2:13-16)
The same equation of New Testament material with Old Testament Scripture is evident in 1 Timothy 5:18 where Paul quotes the words of Deuteronomy 25:4 and Luke 10:7 with the introduction: “For the Scripture says...” The Apostle emphatically asserts the “plenary verbal inspiration” of “all Scripture:”
“From infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures which are able to
make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All
Scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking,
correcting and training in righteousness.” (2 Timothy 3:15-16)
Peter is equally direct in identifying the unique authority of the word of the prophets and the apostles:
“We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about
the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were
eyewitnesses of His majesty...And we have the word of the prophets
made more certain, and you would do well to pay attention to
it...Above all you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came
about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its
origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were
carried along by the Holy Spirit.” (2 Peter 1:19-21)
It is evident that the formation of the canon of the New Testament was not a process or pattern of human selection. The Word of God is by its very nature self-authenticating. The formation of the canon is merely the record of God’s peoples’ formal recognition of the divine authority inherent in the books which God had inspired. Thus, the church did not create the Bible; the Bible created the church. Another way of expressing this fundamentally important truth is to assert that the 27 books of the New Testament are not authoritative because they are in the canon, they are in the canon because they are authoritative. New Testament scholar Bruce Metzger suggests the crucial significance of this distinction:
“The books within the collection are regarded as possessing an intrinsic worth prior to their having been assembled and their authority is grounded in their nature and source... The authority of the New Testament books resides not in the circumstances of their inclusion within a collection made by the Church but in the source from which they came...The New Testament was in principle complete when the various documents coming from this source had been written.” (Metzger, p. 283)
Given the wide geographic dispersion of the congregations of the early church and the period’s primitive methods of communication, it is remarkable that there was already general acknowledgment of the majority of the books of the New Testament by the end of the 2nd Century, less than 100 years after the death of the last apostle. That undisputed core, included 21 books - the four Gospels, Acts, the 13 Pauline Epistles, 1 Peter, 1 John and Revelation. These books came to be identified with the Greek word “homologoumena,” which literally means “confessed by all.” The remaining six books - James, Hebrews, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 John and 3 John were recognized by a majority of the churches from the beginning but had not yet achieved unanimous recognition. These books were identified as the “antilegomena,” that is, “spoken against.” The “Standards of Canonicity,” that is, the criteria which were used to determine the authenticity any proposed book included the following:
1. Apostolicity - the book in question had to undeniably have been composed by one of the 14 apostles or by someone working under the direct supervision and authority of one of the apostles - i.e. Mark (Peter) & Luke (Paul). This meant, of course, that for a book to be considered for inclusion in the Canon it had to have been written before A.D. 100 and the death of St. John the last apostle.
2. Orthodoxy - the content of the book in question had to have been completely consistent with the historic doctrines of the Christian faith. There was no room whatsoever for innovation or deviation in Christian teaching.
3. Catholicity - the book in question had to have been widely used and
recognized throughout the Church as authoritative. St. Augustine
summarized this concept with these well chosen words: “The Christian
reader will hold fast, therefore, to this measure in the canonical
Scriptures, that he will prefer those that are received by all Catholic
Churches to those which some of them do not receive.” (Metzger, p.
237).
serve Him
(Christ) with fear and all reverence,
as He Himself One of the earliest lists of the books
of the New Testament comes to us in
the fragmentary remains of an ancient
parchment manuscript discovered in
the library of an Italian monastery in
1740. The document is known as the
“Muratorian Canon,” named for its
discoverer, historian Ludvico
Muratori. The original manuscript
was composed between A.D. 180 -
200. Unfortunately, the first few lines
of the canon are missing and the document now begins in the middle of a broken
sentence which evidently refers to the Gospel of Mark. The description of the
Gospels which remains intact reads as follows: “....at which nevertheless he was present so he placed them in his
narrative. The third book of the Gospel is that according to Luke. Luke,
the well-known physician after the ascension of Christ, when Paul had
taken him with him as one zealous for the Law, composed it in his own
name, according to the general belief. Yet, he himself had not seen the
Lord in the flesh; and therefore, as he was able to ascertain events, so
indeed he begins to tell the story from the birth of John. The fourth of the
Gospels is that of John, one of the disciples. To his fellow disciples and
bishops who had been urging him to write he said: ‘Fast with me from
today for three days, and what will be revealed to each one let us tell to
one another.’ In the same night it was revealed to Andrew, one of the
apostles, that John should write down all things in his own name while all
should review it. And so, although various elements may be taught in the
individual books of the Gospels, nevertheless, this makes no difference to
the faith of believers, since by the one sovereign Spirit all things have
been declared in all the Gospels concerning the nativity, concerning the
passion, concerning the resurrection, concerning life with His disciples,
and concerning His twofold coming, the first in lowliness when He was
despised, which has taken place, the second glorious in royal power
which is still in the future.” (Metzger, pp. 305-306) The Canon of Origen, published around A.D. 250 strongly reinforces this view.
Origen was the head of the famous school and library of Alexandria from A.D. 203-230. Thereafter he moved to Caesarea in Palestine where he established another
eminent school and library. Origen lists the four Gospels, Acts, the 13 letters of Paul,
1 Peter, 1 John, and Revelation as the books which had already been accepted
throughout the church without dispute. He adds Hebrews, 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John,
and Jude as books which had been accepted by the majority but which were still
questioned by some. The only book from the present New Testament omitted from
Origen’s Canon was the Epistle of James. It is interesting to note that Origen is also
one of the first among the Church Fathers to specifically refer to the collection of
inspired writings as “the New Testament.” The learned Church Father also included
a representative list of rejected books. “It seemed good to me also, having been urged thereto by true brethren,
and having learned from the beginning, to set before you the books
included in the Canon, and handed down, and accredited as divine; to
the end that anyone who has fallen into error may condemn those who
have led him astray, and that he who has continued steadfast in purity
may again rejoice, having these things brought to his remembrance.”
(NPNF, 4, pp. 551-552)
Athanasius proceeded to list the 39 books of the Old Testament and the 27 books of
the New Testament, concluding with the eloquent summary statement: “These are
the fountains of salvation, that they who thirst may be satisfied with the living words
they contain. In these alone is proclaimed the doctrine of godliness. Let no man add
to these, neither let him take ought from these.” (NPNF, 4, p. 552) This enumeration
of the Canon was formally approved by the Council of Hippo in A.D. 393 and
Carthage in 419. The Da Vinci Code’s assertions in regard to the nature and scope of Holy Scripture
are false and misleading. The governing principle which determines Dan Brown’s
conclusions in this regard is his basic conviction that “The Bible is a product of man,
my dear, not God.” (DVC, p. 231) This is a declaration of faith, not of fact. While
it is certainly the author’s prerogative to believe that the Bible is nothing more than
a human effort, his belief does not establish reality. Mr. Brown’s personal conclusion
in this matter is directly contrary to the Bible’s identification of itself as the Word of
God and nearly 2,000 years of Christian affirmation of that testimony. Furthermore,
as has already been demonstrated, to assert that “history has never had a definitive
version of the book” (DVC, p. 231) is
simply false.
“There is no doubt that Constantine became wholeheartedly converted
to Christianity - and we need not be too meticulous, as some are, to
avoid the word conversion...This Christian God was forever his Lord
and Master...and God had made Constantine His servant forever...He
revered the Christian God, as a God of power, as the God of power.”
(Grant, pp. 146-147)
The Da Vinci Code’s reference to
Constantine’s deathbed baptism is
the book’s only semblance of
accuracy in this area and the
significance of even this detail is
maliciously misconstrued.
Constantine was not baptized
against his will when he was
nearly dead, “too weak to resist.”
(DVC, p. 232). In fact, the
emperor’s baptism occurred at his
own initiative, a few weeks before
his death in A.D. 337. W.H. C.
Frend describes the actual
sequence of events in this way:
“At Easter next year the emperor,
robed as a catechumen, was baptized by Eusebius of Nicomedia, now his personal
chaplain. He did not survive long for he died on 22 May, 337.” (Frend, p. 528) The
delay of baptism until shortly before death was a common, although misguided,
practice of the time. The flawed logic which led to this practice reasoned that since
the Sacrament granted full forgiveness of all sins committed up to the moment of
Baptism, it was therefore prudent to delay Baptism as long as possible to derive
maximum benefit from the baptismal remission of sins. This distortion remained
prevalent until nearly A.D. 400. St Augustine reports that his mother considered
having him baptized when he nearly died from a childhood illness. But upon his
recovery “my cleansing was deferred as if it was inevitable that, if I should live, I
would be further polluted; and further, because the guilt contracted by sin after
baptism would be still greater and more perilous.” (Olsen, p. 140)
Dan Brown contends that in order to accomplish his sinister goals Constantine found
it necessary to radically transform Christianity into a patriarchal power religion. To
that end, we are told, the emperor played a crucial role in reshaping the canon and
content of the New Testament. He ruthlessly suppressed and destroyed the thousands
of ancient documents which described the humanity, the sexuality, and the progeny
of Jesus. In their place, the
emperor “collated” (DVC, p.
231) the 27 books of the New
Testament, which he had
“embellished” (DVC, p. 234)
and altered to support his
political need for a Jesus who
was the divine Son of God.
The diabolical means by
which Constantine
accomplished the imposition
of his new gospel canon and
the suppression of all of its
more genuine predecessors
brought about what Brown
grandiosely describes as “the
most profound moment in
Christian history” (DVC, p.
234)! The emperor’s
strategy, we are told, was
simple and direct:
“Constantine commissioned
and financed a new Bible,
which omitted those gospels
which spoke of Christ’s
human traits and embellished
those gospels that made him
godlike. The earlier gospels
were outlawed, gathered up, and burned.” (DVC, p. 234) It is significant to note
that Brown’s attention has now subtly shifted from his starting point with the canon
of the entire Bible to a specific focus on the four Gospels and the divine nature of
Jesus. We will deal with these issues individually in subsequent sections. The
“About the year 332 the Emperor
Constantine, wishing to promote and
organize Christian worship in the
growing number of churches in his
capital city, directed Eusebius to
have fifty copies of the sacred
scriptures made by practiced scribes
and written legibly on prepared
parchment. At the same time, the
emperor informed him, in a letter
still preserved to us, that everything
necessary for doing this was placed
at his command, among other things,
two public carriages for conveying
the completed manuscripts to the
emperor for his personal
inspection.” (Metzger, p. 175) As Dr. Metzger points out, Constantine’s detailed instructions to Eusebius remain
extent today. Unfortunately for Brown’s conspiracy theory, those instructions make
no mention of the canon of the New Testament nor do they give any indication of the
slightest interest on the emperor’s part in altering or editing the books to be included.
This despite the fact that the emperor is very specific in his letter, dealing with minor
details of method and delivery. But he does nothing more than order 50 Bibles with
no specification as to their content. None of the Bibles which the bishop prepared
for the churches of Constantinople have survived. Therefore, we have no way of
knowing specifically which books were included in or excluded from Constantine’s
fifty Bibles. This must be regarded as somewhat ironic in view of the crucial
emphasis which Dan Brown has chosen to place upon this minor incident and the
great mountain of intriguing speculation which he based upon it. It is probably safe to surmise, based on Bishop Eusebius’ definition of the canon in
his classic “The Church History” ( A.D. 324) that the 27 books of our present New
Testament were included. This is how Eusebius described the New Testament canon: “Since we are dealing with this subject, it is proper to sum up the
writings of the New Testament which have already been mentioned.
First then must be put the holy quaternion of the Gospels; following
them the Acts of the Apostles. After this must be reckoned the Epistles
of Paul (This included the 13 letters of Paul and the Letter to the
Hebrews which had been traditionally ascribed to Paul.) Next in order,
the extent former Epistle of John and likewise the Epistle of Peter must
be maintained. After them is to be place, if it really seem proper, the
Apocalypse of John, concerning which we shall give the different
opinions at the proper time. These then belong among the accepted
writings (‘homolegoumenon’). Among the disputed writings
(‘antilegomenon’) which are nevertheless recognized by many, are
extent the so-called Epistle of James, and that of Jude, also the Second
Epistle of Peter, and those that are called the Second and Third of John,
whether they belong to the evangelist or to another person.”
(NPNF,1,p. 155-156) Eusebius goes on to describe a handful of other books which he labels as “the
rejected writings” which are not to be considered part of Scripture but are
nonetheless orthodox in their theology and salutary to the true faith. In this category
he includes “the Acts of Paul, the so-called Shepherd, and the Apocalypse of Peter,
and in addition to these, the extent Epistle of Barnabas and the so-called Teachings
of the Apostles.” (NPNF, 1, p. 156) It is significant to note that in this section on the
rejected writings Eusebius expresses his own personal reservations about the Book
of Revelation. But he does not presume to alter the status of the book because of his
own individual opinion. It was the consensus of the Church that was determinative,
not mere personal preference. The learned bishop’s strongest negative judgement is
reserved for a number of pseudo-apostolic writings which are condemned in a final
category. These books are condemned as “the fictions of heretics” which must
therefore “be cast aside as absurd and impious.” Included in this category are some
of the gnostic writings which Dan Brown holds in such high esteem. These are the
bishop’s stern words: “We have felt compelled to give this catalogue in order that we might
be able to know both these works and those that are cited by the heretics
under the name of the apostles, including, for instance, such books as
the Gospels of Peter, of Thomas, of Matthias, or of any others besides
them, and the acts of Andrew and John, and the other apostles which no
one belonging to the succession of ecclesiastical writers has deemed
worthy of mention in his writings. And further, the character of the style
is at variance with apostolic usage, and both the thoughts and the
purpose of the things that are related in them are so thoroughly out of
accord with true orthodoxy that they clearly show themselves to be the
fictions of heretics. Wherefore they are not to be placed even among the
rejected writings, but are all of them to be cast aside as absurd and
impious.” (NPNF, 1, p. 157) Carl Olsen provides this helpful summary of historical reality in regard to the canon
of the New Testament: “Constantine had nothing to do with the selection of the books within
these editions, or with their collation. He relied on the Church, which
had firmly established the four Gospels and the majority of the New
Testament long before the Fourth Century. The Christian Canon was
largely settled by the late 200's. Different regions had slightly different
lists of books that they used in liturgy, but Christians generally agreed
on what books did or did not belong in the New Testament canon with
the exception of books such as Hebrews and the Apocalypse. Finally,
in the late 300's and early 400's a series of regional councils settled the
issue in the West, while some debate continued in the East.” (Olsen, p.
176)
This unanimity on the identity and authority of the great majority of the books of the
New Testament is reflected by the writings of the Apostolic Fathers, that is, the
leaders of the church in the first generation after the apostles. Their writings clearly
demonstrate that the books of what would come to be called the New Testament were
already widely distributed and acknowledged as authoritative throughout the church
in the early decades of the 2nd Century A.D. For example, in a letter composed at the
end of the 1st Century (A.D.95-96),
Clement, a leader of the congregation
in Rome, quotes freely from Matthew,
Luke, 1 Corinthians, Ephesians, 1
Timothy, Titus, James, and Hebrews.
A few years later, around A.D. 110,
Ignatius, the bishop of Antioch,
composed a series of letters to the other
congregations of the early church.
Ignatius used material from Matthew,
John, Ephesians, 1 Corinthians,
Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and
Philemon. The same pattern of prolific
New Testament citation can be seen in
a letter written by Polycarp, the bishop
of Symrna, around A.D. 115. Polycarp
cites Scripture 112 times in his letter.
100 of those references are to material
from the New Testament. The bishop
explicitly equates the authority of the
apostles to that of the Old Testament
prophets as inspired spokesmen for
God. He urges Christians to faithfully
serve the Lord on the basis of His
Word conveyed by His apostles and
prophets: “So then, let us
commanded us, as did
the apostles who preached the gospel
to us, and the prophets who
proclaimed beforehand the coming of
our Lord.” (Metzger, p. 60)
Yet another very influential list of the entire Biblical Canon was published by the
Egyptian Bishop Athanasius in A.D. 367. The Bishop explains that such a list is
necessary to warn “ignorant and simple people” who might otherwise be misled by
the “fabricated books” of false teachers:
Every good conspiracy theory needs
an evil villain. The villain at the core
of Brown’s elaborate web of
conspiracy is “the pagan Roman
emperor Constantine the Great.”
(DVC, p. 231) who, according to The
Da Vinci Code, transformed the man
Jesus into a divine Savior in order to
unite his crumbling empire. World
renown historian Dr. Paul Maier
describes Brown’s depiction of
Constantine as “the most concerted
falsification of a historical personality
that I have ever encountered in either
fiction or non- fiction.” (Maier, p. 13)
Brown characterizes Constantine as
“a lifelong pagan who was baptized
on his deathbed, too weak to protest.”
(DVC, p. 232) The emperor is
presented as a wily politician who
cynically used Christianity for his own
political ends while he himself
maintained his personal allegiance to the pagan gods and goddesses of Rome. This
is yet another distortion of history. The consensus among objective historians of the
period is that Constantine sincerely and conscientiously became an adherent of the
Christian religion. The crucial turning
point was the emperor’s famous
dream/vision and subsequent victory at
the Mulvian Bridge outside of Rome in
A.D. 312. The incident took place in the
midst of a bitter civil war between
Constantine and his rival Maxentius. On
the eve of the climactic confrontation
between the two arch rivals, Constantine
reports that he saw the outline of a cross
in the heavens formed by the
combination of the Greek letters Chi -
Rho, the first two letters in the Greek
spelling of the name of Christ. At the
same time, he heard a voice declare the
Greek words “en toutoi nika” (“In this
sign conquer.”) He immediately created
a new imperial standard with that
emblem and ordered it emblazoned on
the shields of his soldiers. Constantine won a crushing victory that day and went on
to become the undisputed ruler of the Roman Empire. Secular historian Michael
Grant, in his biography “Constantine the Great - The Man and His Times,” offers
this summary of Constantine’s personal religion:
But while the emperor was now a Christian, the overwhelming majority of the
powerful aristocracy and the army were still pagan. And so it was necessary for
Constantine to proceed cautiously and gradually in fostering his new faith within the
empire. He did so with consummate political skill. First he declared that from that
moment forward the official policy of the imperial government would be the
toleration of all religions and the persecution of none. He himself became the
advocate and patron of
Christianity throughout his realm,
compensating Christians for losses
suffered in past persecutions,
building churches, supporting the
clergy, and presiding at the
ecumenical Council of Nicea.
slender shred of actual history which underlies this grand scenario of Christianity’s
“most profound moment” is the fact that after his conversion to Christianity,
Emperor Constantine did commission 50 magnificent leather Bibles for the churches
of his new capital city, Constantinople. His initiative appears to have been nothing
more than an act of patronage linked to the establishment of Christianity in the
Roman Empire’s new capital. Constantine made his request to the most prominent
scholar and church historian of the day, Eusebius, the bishop of Caesarea. Caesarea
was, at that time, the capital of the Roman province of Palestine which meant that
Eusebius was in the ideal place to
produce and prepare the requested
Bibles. Princeton scholar Bruce
Metzger describes the actual history
of this rather mundane event in this
way: