Notes:
Throughout the novel, Robert Langdon teaches Sophie Neveu about the code—
how to find the "true" Holy Grail. We find out that the Grail is not what we thought
it was. The Grail, according to Langdon, is such a great secret that, if it were exposed,
Christianity as we know it today would cease to exist.
But it is not an object that author Dan Brown, through his protagonist Langdon, wants to reveal
to us. And it is not just the secret location of this religious
icon that so many have died to protect. The very substance of the Grail itself
is at the core of this mystery. In the past, we have been led to believe that the
Holy Grail—if it ever existed is the cup Christ drank from at His last supper,
and then was used by Joseph of Arimathea to collect blood from the crucified Christ.
But according to Dan Brown's characters—Langdon and Teabing--the true Grail is
not a thing, it is a person.
The Holy Grail is Mary Magdalene ... the mother of the royal bloodline of
Jesus Christ (253).
Brown asserts that Mary Magdalene and Jesus were sexual partners and had
a child together. When Jesus died, Mary fled from the other disciples,
who were jealous of her relationship with Jesus, and lived in a Jewish
community in France with their child. There is documented proof of this
assertion, according to Brown, proof that has been guarded
since the days of the Crusades by a secret organization known
as the Priory of Sion. Hints of this secret can be found hidden in paintings
and drawings by da Vinci and other artists throughout history,
if only one knows how and where to look.