** Caption file: DaVinciESL1.vnl

** Generated 4:16:13 PM on Monday, January 03, 2005

** Using VNLcc 2.2.96

** Copyright ©2005 VITAC Corporation



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What Leonardo da Vinci wanted to tell us was something very basic



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about the Roman Catholic Church.



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And he has coded that

in his paintings.



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Is it more likely that the man should be born of a virgin



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and walk on water

or rise from the dead?



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Or is it more likely

that he should have been born



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as other men are born,

married, and raised a family?



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Of that balance

of probabilities,



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which is more likely?



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It was almost obnoxious to think



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that Jesus

might have been married,



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coming from my background and

my orthodox Catholic position.



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Mary Magdalene

is the most important woman



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in world history.



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Not for what she said or did, particularly,



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but because of the reason

that the Church fathers



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were so afraid of her image.



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When Dan Brown

makes his suggestion



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that this great cover-up

has gone on,



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a lot of people get nervous and become instinctively critical



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of "The Da Vinci Code."



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But I think Dan Brown's on pretty good historical footing



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with some of these suggestions.



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His detail may be wrong



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or may be designed to serve

his fast-paced plot.



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But the big-picture question

of how Constantine



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and subsequent Roman emperors reshaped Christianity



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to serve their own purpose of political theory for the Empire



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is a powerful and, I think, largely valid argument.



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Doubleday published

"The Da Vinci Code"



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six months ago,

and since that moment,



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I have been asked one question over and over and over.



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And that is, "Why does everyone want to talk about this book?"



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And I'd love to say,



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"It's about the storytelling,

and it's about the writing."



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In all fairness,



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it probably has a lot more to do with the subject matter.



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In the following

documentary exploration



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of the fact behind the fiction



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of the best-selling novel

"The Da Vinci Code,"



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the respected authors

and researchers who inspired



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"Da Vinci Code" author

Dan Brown



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will have a chance to speak

at length



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about their discoveries

and theories.



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Henry Lincoln, coauthor

of "Holy Blood, Holy Grail,"



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the uber-source

of "The Da Vinci Code's"



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startling historical

world view.



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Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince, who discovered



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the coded messages

in Leonardo's paintings.



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Margaret Starbird,



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author of "The Woman

with the Alabaster Jar."



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And others.



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Watch each program segment

by itself



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or play all the segments

for a thrilling overview



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of the history and the mystery of "The Da Vinci Code."



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35 years ago, in 1969,



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heading off for holiday

in the Cevennes in France,



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I picked up

this paperback to read



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as a little bit

of holiday relaxation.



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And it was the story,

quite entertaining,



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of a priest of a little

French mountain village



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who had apparently found

a treasure in 1891.



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Certainly he was penniless

when he made his discovery.



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And by the time he died in 1917,



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he had spent

enormous sums of money.



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"The Da Vinci Code"

opens with the murder



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of a fictional character, Jacques Sauniere,



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who is said to be,

in "The Da Vinci Code,"



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the curator

of the Louvre Museum



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and presumed to be,

as you read the novel,



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the current grand master

of the Priory of Sion,



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whose job it apparently

has been...



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In addition to being



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a Leonardo da Vinci-type character,



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left-handed, as Leonardo

was left-handed,



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interested in all sorts

of science and machines,



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as Leonardo was,



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Jacques Sauniere's mission

in life seems to have been,



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according to the novel,

to protect his granddaughter,



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Sophie Neveu, from those associated with the Church,



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or otherwise who wish

to wipe out the family



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who are presumably

the modern descendants



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of Jesus and Mary Magdalene.



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So Jacques Sauniere

raises Sophie Neveu,



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the female protagonist

of "The Da Vinci Code."



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What Dan Brown doesn't tell us is that the name Saunière



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is actually the name

of a French priest



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who had a significant history

in the area in which he lived.



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He was the parish priest

of Rennes-le-Chateau



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in the area of Languedoc

in southern France,



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a very out-of-the-way area



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and in particular

in 19th-century France.



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He was sent there

as a young man with ambition.



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One of the first things

he did when he arrived



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at Rennes-le-Chateau

was to renovate the church.



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When he was renovating

the church,



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he removed the altar stone

from the church



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and found that there was

a pillar that was hollow.



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It was a Visigoth pillar, so it dated back to the 6th century.



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And in this hollowed-out pillar, there were some parchments.



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He took them out,

and what was written on them



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was what appeared to be

parts of the New Testament



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written in Latin.



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And some letters were raised slightly above the others.



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And it's these raised letters which cause the most interest.



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So the general assumption was,



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"What treasure

could he have found?"



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The clues essentially were preserved in some parchments.



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These had passages

from the Gospels in Latin,



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but they concealed

secret messages.



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The author of the paperback



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told us that there were

secret messages,



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but he didn't tell us

what they were.



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And it was while I was staring



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at one of these parchments reproduced in the book



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that I found myself reading off the secret message.



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It was terribly easy to find,



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and it didn't give away

any important information.



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It just said, "This treasure belongs to Dagobert II, king,



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and to Sion,

and he is there dead."



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What a good

and exciting message.



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I always wondered why the author hadn't given us the message.



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And, as a writer for television, it intrigued me.



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King Dagobert was the last



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of the acknowledged

Merovingian kings.



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He was the son of Clovis I.



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Clovis I had made a pact

with the Catholic Church



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that if Clovis increased

his empire, let's call it,



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of his area of France, and dedicated that to Christianity,



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then the Catholic Church would acknowledge the Merovingians



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as being the inheritors

of the throne.



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The Merovingian line is,

we believe,



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a line of direct descendants from Jesus Christ.



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Berenger Sauniere

didn't understand



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what the significance of these parchments was at all,



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and we still don't.



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So the first thing he did



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was go straight

to the Bishop of Carcassonne.



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The bishop had a long, hard look at these parchments



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and sent him straight up to

the ecclesiastical authorities



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in Paris.



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He returned from Paris

a wealthy man.



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He had a tower built on the edge of the mountain,



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which is the mountain where Rennes-le-Chateau was situated.



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He had a large house built

for him and his housekeeper.



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It had five or six bedrooms, and he called it La Villa Bethanie,



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with the obvious

biblical reference.



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And furthermore,

he had the whole road,



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from the base of the mountain,



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on which Rennes-le-Chateau

was situated,



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right up to the top

of the village, paved.



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He was an ordinary, humble country priest.



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And yet, at some point,

he discovered something



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that made him

an extremely wealthy man.



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And he spent a lot of money refurbishing the church,



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the Church of Mary Magdalene, which is the village church.



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A very old church.



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It was practically falling apart when he came.



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He bought up a lot of land

in the village.



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Lived an excessively

lavish lifestyle,



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entertaining visitors

from Toulouse, from Paris



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in very high style.



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During the course of his life,



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or the last 20 years

of his life, certainly,



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he spent something

in the order of,



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the modern equivalent

of about £2 million.



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That's the mystery.



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And there have been

many solutions put forward.



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It started

with the most obvious one.



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That he found a treasure

or a treasure trove.



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But it's developed

over the years to theories



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that he discovered a secret.



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A secret that he was either

paid to reveal



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or paid to keep quiet about.



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There are theories that

he was blackmailing the Vatican,



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'cause he discovered something of great importance



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that would undermine the Church,



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and the Church were paying him to keep quiet.



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The bishop was getting

a little jumpy



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about this huge expenditure

of money.



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In addition to this, he

was throwing wild, vast parties



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for the whole village and spending a great deal of money.



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And the bishop was getting jumpy



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because this was

a simple country priest.



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He had no conception of where

he was getting his money from.



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The only conclusion

he could reach



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was that he was guilty

of simony.



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That is the selling of masses



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in order to make up for sins that are committed.



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So he accused him of that

and suspended him.



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After this, Berenger Sauniere appealed directly to the Vatican



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and was reinstated.



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But shortly afterwards,

he died very suddenly,



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at the beginning of 1917.



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And he died of a stroke.



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But what is significant,

and we don't quite know why,



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is that 10 days

before his death,



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his housekeeper

had already ordered his coffin.



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Nobody's ever come up

with a conclusive answer.



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As much as can be said today, after decades of research,



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the least likely explanation is that he discovered a treasure.



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Our own research

and looking into the mystery,



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and particularly looking

into his cash flow



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and the way

his fortunes changed.



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Because there were times

when he was pretty broke,



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and suddenly another load

of money would come along.



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Lynn and I believe

that the source of his money



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was that he was being paid money



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by people who lived

outside the village.



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And there's some good evidence for that,



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including the fact that when

he had to account for his money



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to the local bishop,

that's actually what he said.



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Many researchers

just ignore his own words



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and think he was hiding

a treasure.



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But it's actually what he said, that he was given donations,



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large donations by people

who lived outside the village.



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But he was given those donations



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under conditions of secrecy

that he couldn't break.



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And he couldn't reveal

who those donors were.



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When you look at his cash flow,



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that is the most plausible explanation.



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It's half an answer



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because the other part

of the answer we want to know



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is why these people gave him huge sums of money.



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What was it about him

or the place he lived



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or whatever he knew

that led to people



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wanting to give him hundreds

of thousands of pounds?



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And that's now the bit

that needs to be answered.



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It's more information he had

or something that he was doing.



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After Berenger Sauniere's death,



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his housekeeper

continued to live in the house



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until her own death.



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When the French

changed currencies



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from the old franc

to the new franc,



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she was found in the garden,

or seen in the garden,



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burning large amounts

of paper money,



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presumably because

she didn't want to claim



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where the money had come from.



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She did actually tell the person who moved into the house



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that she would tell him

the secret of their wealth



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before she died.



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But unfortunately

she also suffered a stroke



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which rendered her speechless,



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and she was never able to say

where the money had come from.



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So the mystery died with her.



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As a writer for television,

I decided it would make



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an interesting subject

for a documentary program.



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And I went to the BBC

and suggested it,



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and they seemed to think

it was a good idea.



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So this was in 1970.



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And I went to meet the author

in Paris



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and discussed the subject

with him.



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And I asked him why he hadn't published the hidden messages.



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And he said,



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"Because we thought it might interest someone like you



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to find it for yourself."



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And that I found a very,

very intriguing response.



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The link between

the Rennes-le-Chateau mystery



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and the Priory of Sion



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is that the Priory of Sion claimed to be...



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They claimed to have been

the people behind Sauniere



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who were giving him money.



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They paid for him

to build his buildings



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and to have his lifestyle.



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And their claim is that

the reason is that Sauniere



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discovered documents

that revealed the truth



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about the survival

of the Merovingian Dynasty.



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The research had gotten vast.



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It was far too much for one man.



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And so I'd assembled

a little team.



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Richard Leigh

and Michael Baigent



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joined me for the research

on the third film.



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And it was while we were working on that third film



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that the hypothesis which became "Holy Blood, Holy Grail"



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suddenly materialized.



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It materialized after

a rather silly conversation



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which we were having.



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Somebody had said,



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"There's something fishy

about these Merovingians."



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A simple little sentence like that, and that was all it took.



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The penny dropped

with a resounding clang.



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Fish.



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Of course, one of the early symbols for Christ.



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And we suddenly wondered

at that moment,



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Richard Leigh and myself,



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whether what was so fishy

about the Merovingians



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was that they could have been descended from Christ.



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That's how the hypothesis

was conjured.



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On this question of the interpretation of evidence.



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People recount the story

of Berenger Sauniere,



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the priest of this village.



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But in fact, we know nothing

of Berenger Sauniere,



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the priest of Rennes-le-Chateau.



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It's all hearsay evidence.



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It wouldn't stand up

in a court of law.



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What we have to do always

is interpret.



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When you are led into the areas which deal with secret societies



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hovering in the background,



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the Priory of Sion,

in this case.



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Well, by their very nature, secret societies are secret.



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The secret that died

with his housekeeper



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seemed to be something

the Catholic Church



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wanted to keep very much

under wraps.



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It could have been

one of several things.



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It could have been the secret

of where the Cathars



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had hidden the treasure

from the Temple of Solomon.



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They are one of the groups suspected of having hidden it,



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because they had a stronghold

in Rennes-le-Chateau, too.



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It could have been the fact that some important religious figure



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is actually buried

in the church.



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And there is a yellow marking on

the outside wall of the church,



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which indicates that somebody royal is buried there.



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It could be a genealogy

of Jesus Christ found there



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or the equivalent

of what we would call



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birth or marriage certificates



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relating to Jesus Christ

and his marriage.



--> Display at 00:18:25:04

We think that his wealth

came directly



--> Display at 00:18:27:17

from the Catholic Church.



--> Display at 00:18:29:17

They were in the unfortunate position of knowing



--> Display at 00:18:32:12

that somebody

who they didn't know



--> Display at 00:18:34:12

whether they could rely upon entirely or not



--> Display at 00:18:36:17

was in possession

of a great secret



--> Display at 00:18:38:12

which could change the whole identity of the Church.



--> Display at 00:18:41:12

For that reason, they would have been willing to keep him quiet.



--> Display at 00:18:44:22

They also had enormous wealth

of their own



--> Display at 00:18:47:17

to give themselves the ability to do this.



--> Display at 00:18:50:10

When it comes

to the Priory of Sion,



--> Display at 00:18:54:02

things do get very complicated and very murky.



--> Display at 00:18:58:00

The known facts

about the Priory of Sion



--> Display at 00:19:00:22

is that it exists.



--> Display at 00:19:03:12

--> Erase at 00:19:05:11

It certainly does.



--> Display at 00:19:07:02

How large an organization it is is another question.



--> Display at 00:19:10:22

And it certainly exists

as a matter of public record



--> Display at 00:19:13:20

since the mid 1950s.



--> Display at 00:19:16:23

What we are led to believe

is that the Priory of Sion



--> Display at 00:19:19:20

had the intention

of re-establishing



--> Display at 00:19:21:22

the Merovingian rulers

of Europe back on the thrones



--> Display at 00:19:26:22

and probably

being in charge again



--> Display at 00:19:29:02

of the Roman Catholic Church.



--> Display at 00:19:30:22

--> Erase at 00:19:33:17

That's what we're led

to believe.



--> Display at 00:19:34:17

There are, according to documents that were later found,



--> Display at 00:19:38:07

several grand masters who were extremely well-known figures



--> Display at 00:19:43:07

in both the artistic

and scientific worlds.



--> Display at 00:19:46:12

And these grand masters

were discovered



--> Display at 00:19:50:22

as a result of Henry Lincoln

and Co.'s investigations



--> Display at 00:19:56:12

at the Bibliothèque Nationale

in Paris.



--> Display at 00:19:59:02

I understand that a great part of the readership



--> Display at 00:20:03:12

of "The Da Vinci Code,"

this thriller,



--> Display at 00:20:09:07

believe that it's based

in fact,



--> Display at 00:20:13:02

because there exists

in the French National Library



--> Display at 00:20:20:22

an assemblage of documents

which are known



--> Display at 00:20:23:02

--> Erase at 00:20:27:00

as the Dossier Secret,

"the Secret Dossier."



--> Display at 00:20:27:22

That because they're there,

they are reliable.



--> Display at 00:20:31:07

They're not.



--> Display at 00:20:32:17

The documents are proof

of absolutely nothing



--> Display at 00:20:36:07

beyond the fact

that they have been written,



--> Display at 00:20:39:22

--> Erase at 00:20:41:20

that they exist.



--> Display at 00:20:43:17

When we were researching

for "Holy Blood, Holy Grail,"



--> Display at 00:20:48:02

we did a lot of checking

on the Dossier Secret



--> Display at 00:20:51:17

and the list of grand masters.



--> Display at 00:20:54:12

--> Erase at 00:20:58:08

And there did appear to be

a certain validity.



--> Display at 00:21:00:17

--> Erase at 00:21:02:13

But that's all.



--> Display at 00:21:05:07

They should not be looked upon as reliable evidence



--> Display at 00:21:10:12

because they just aren't.



--> Display at 00:21:13:02

No document is reliable evidence of anything



--> Display at 00:21:15:12

apart from the fact

that it exists.



--> Display at 00:21:17:22

Anybody can concoct

any sort of document.



--> Display at 00:21:21:22

If you want to believe it,

that depends on the extent



--> Display at 00:21:24:17

of your naivete or the amount

of research which you've done.



--> Display at 00:21:27:15

There had been a number

of alleged grand masters



--> Display at 00:21:31:02

of the Priory of Sion,

such as Jean Cocteau.



--> Display at 00:21:34:12

He was one of the latest.



--> Display at 00:21:36:12

There was also Botticelli,

the painter.



--> Display at 00:21:39:07

Robert Doyle, Sir Isaac Newton,



--> Display at 00:21:41:22

people of great stature

and of great influence.



--> Display at 00:21:44:07

All of which had some interest,

some esoteric interest,



--> Display at 00:21:48:07

in either science or art,



--> Display at 00:21:49:22

and some of which

were connected by blood.



--> Display at 00:21:53:12

In 1956, the Priory of Sion arose again into the public eye,



--> Display at 00:22:00:02

when it was registered

by Pierre Plantard,



--> Display at 00:22:03:22

who was a Frenchman

who claimed descent



--> Display at 00:22:07:02

from the Merovingian line.



--> Display at 00:22:09:22

And he got to know Henry Lincoln and the other writers



--> Display at 00:22:15:07

of "The Holy Blood

and the Holy Grail."



--> Display at 00:22:17:07

And he, in fact, said

that the Priory of Sion



--> Display at 00:22:20:15

were the benefactors

of the treasure



--> Display at 00:22:23:02

which had been plundered

by the Roman emperor Titus



--> Display at 00:22:26:22

in A.D. 66

from the Temple of Solomon.



--> Display at 00:22:30:12

And it was they who were in charge of this immense wealth.



--> Display at 00:22:35:12

He has since been discredited, despite the fact



--> Display at 00:22:38:22

that he was very prominent

in the French Resistance



--> Display at 00:22:42:02

and a close ally

of Charles de Gaulle.



--> Display at 00:22:45:12

He has since been discredited

as being basically a charlatan,



--> Display at 00:22:49:17

somebody who had no connection



--> Display at 00:22:52:22

to the Merovingian family whatsoever.



--> Display at 00:22:55:02

And he disappeared

from the Priory of Sion



--> Display at 00:22:58:12

as grand master in the 1980s.



--> Display at 00:23:01:03

As the person

behind the Priory of Sion



--> Display at 00:23:04:12

and the material that it put out in the 1960s and '70s,



--> Display at 00:23:10:02

Pierre Plantard is obviously

an important figure.



--> Display at 00:23:13:07

A lot of the material

Pierre Plantard



--> Display at 00:23:15:07

is responsible for

is provably false.



--> Display at 00:23:17:17

It is a hoax.



--> Display at 00:23:19:07

But the question

that's never been answered



--> Display at 00:23:23:05

is what his motive

in that hoax has been.



--> Display at 00:23:26:07

No one's ever shown that he's gained anything financially,



--> Display at 00:23:30:17

materially from that.



--> Display at 00:23:32:17

And it was a hoax he maintained



--> Display at 00:23:36:12

for over 20 years,

close to 30 years.



--> Display at 00:23:41:01

We know nothing of them



--> Display at 00:23:43:12

except what little

they choose to tell us.



--> Display at 00:23:47:17

--> Erase at 00:23:51:24

And how reliable

is that going to be?



--> Display at 00:23:53:22

As for those figures



--> Display at 00:23:55:17

which people become interested and excited by,



--> Display at 00:23:59:07

Monsieur Pierre Plantard,

the Priory of Sion grand master,



--> Display at 00:24:03:22

--> Erase at 00:24:05:17

I liked him.



--> Display at 00:24:06:07

--> Erase at 00:24:08:15

He was a charming man.



--> Display at 00:24:09:07

Probably the best poker player on Earth, given the opportunity.



--> Display at 00:24:15:12

I can remember throwing, unexpectedly,



--> Display at 00:24:18:12

some very difficult questions

at him, and he didn't flicker.



--> Display at 00:24:22:20

--> Erase at 00:24:26:09

He always had an answer.



--> Display at 00:24:27:02

But again, those answers are merely what he chose to tell me.



--> Display at 00:24:32:02

So, in fact,

we don't know anything



--> Display at 00:24:33:22

about Berenger Sauniere,

the priest.



--> Display at 00:24:36:02

--> Erase at 00:24:39:00

We don't know anything

about Pierre Plantard.



--> Display at 00:24:39:02

We don't know anything

about the Priory of Sion.



--> Display at 00:24:42:22

--> Erase at 00:24:49:08

We know, and that's the word,

we know almost nothing.



--> Display at 00:24:50:02

The demonstrable and provable facts are very, very few.



--> Display at 00:24:54:17

All the rest

is hearsay evidence,



--> Display at 00:24:58:12

--> Erase at 00:25:02:04

guesswork, and interpretation.



--> Display at 00:25:02:17

None of the books that have been written, including my own,



--> Display at 00:25:06:05

--> Erase at 00:25:09:21

have any validity whatsoever.



--> Display at 00:25:16:17

Leonardo da Vinci is a figure which is familiar



--> Display at 00:25:19:05

to just about everybody

who lives in the West.



--> Display at 00:25:22:00

Most people can name

one of his paintings, at least,



--> Display at 00:25:25:09

probably the "Mona Lisa,"

if not recognize more than one.



--> Display at 00:25:30:02

He's also known

as an inventor and an artist



--> Display at 00:25:33:02

and a student of anatomy.



--> Display at 00:25:36:12

And he was basically a man

who typified the Renaissance.



--> Display at 00:25:40:22

At the same time

as being this kind of genius,



--> Display at 00:25:43:22

a very special type of genius, he also was not in favor



--> Display at 00:25:49:17

--> Erase at 00:25:53:22

of the way that the Roman Catholic Church was progressing.



--> Display at 00:25:54:11

Leonardo was a heretic.



--> Display at 00:25:56:12

He was a rationalist.



--> Display at 00:25:58:12

He was a scientist.



--> Display at 00:26:00:05

I think he was more a scientist than he was a painter.



--> Display at 00:26:04:07

As we now know, he really only completed 20-some paintings



--> Display at 00:26:08:07

in his life, and most of them, actually, are not completed.



--> Display at 00:26:12:22

He loved painting,



--> Display at 00:26:15:02

--> Erase at 00:26:18:13

but he thought of himself

as a scientist and inventor.



--> Display at 00:26:19:12

He left thousands and thousands of pages of secret notebooks



--> Display at 00:26:24:05

with mirror writing,

encoded writing,



--> Display at 00:26:26:07

and obviously had a predilection



--> Display at 00:26:28:17

to keep

important knowledge secret



--> Display at 00:26:31:17

and only known

to a handful of people.



--> Display at 00:26:34:00

And he had a kind of

sneering attitude



--> Display at 00:26:36:07

to the Roman Catholic Church,



--> Display at 00:26:37:22

which he was unable to express openly.



--> Display at 00:26:41:12

The way he did this

was through the codings



--> Display at 00:26:43:17

in some of his paintings.



--> Display at 00:26:45:07

I think if we could figure out



--> Display at 00:26:47:05

what the coded messages

in Leonardo's paintings were,



--> Display at 00:26:51:12

they would be fascinating.



--> Display at 00:26:53:06

The da Vinci code



--> Display at 00:26:56:02

is made up of the symbolism

and other references



--> Display at 00:27:03:22

that Leonardo left

in his artistic works



--> Display at 00:27:08:12

that revealed his own religious beliefs, his own ideas.



--> Display at 00:27:15:12

This is the idea that Dan Brown has taken from our book,



--> Display at 00:27:19:17

"The Templar Revelation."



--> Display at 00:27:21:12

The first chapter of which

is actually called



--> Display at 00:27:23:20

"The Secret Code

of Leonardo da Vinci."



--> Display at 00:27:26:00

Now, Dan Brown's taken that idea



--> Display at 00:27:28:05

of all this symbolism hidden

in Leonardo's paintings,



--> Display at 00:27:32:12

which can be decoded

to give a coherent message.



--> Display at 00:27:36:12

He's taken that and used that

as the basis of his thriller.



--> Display at 00:27:41:13

You know, that's the thing

that actually kicks



--> Display at 00:27:45:07

the whole story off

in his novel.



--> Display at 00:27:47:07

Lynn and I have looked at

and decoded Leonardo's paintings



--> Display at 00:27:52:17

to reveal what we think motivated Leonardo.



--> Display at 00:27:58:22

What his beliefs were, both his beliefs concerning the Church



--> Display at 00:28:05:17

and what he thought about it.



--> Display at 00:28:09:02

Basically, he didn't like

the Church.



--> Display at 00:28:11:07

--> Erase at 00:28:13:10

He was very critical of it.



--> Display at 00:28:14:07

So, in a way, it reveals

what he thought was false.



--> Display at 00:28:17:05

And it also reveals

what he thought was true,



--> Display at 00:28:19:17

the religious ideas,

the heretical ideas



--> Display at 00:28:22:02

--> Erase at 00:28:25:01

that motivated and drove him.



--> Display at 00:28:26:12

And although Dan Brown



--> Display at 00:28:29:17

has used much of our decoding that we came up with,



--> Display at 00:28:34:17

our interpretations

of those paintings,



--> Display at 00:28:37:07

he goes

in a very different direction



--> Display at 00:28:40:02

--> Erase at 00:28:42:13

to the one that we took.



--> Display at 00:28:43:02

Because he then mixes his plot



--> Display at 00:28:45:12

with ideas taken

from other books,



--> Display at 00:28:47:17

primarily

"The Holy Blood and Holy Grail"



--> Display at 00:28:51:07

to come up with

a good rip-roaring plot.



--> Display at 00:28:55:22

The research that Lynn and I did that led us



--> Display at 00:29:00:12

to look at Leonardo's paintings began with the Shroud of Turin,



--> Display at 00:29:04:20

which is where our interest

in Leonardo started from.



--> Display at 00:29:09:02

We wrote a book back in 1994,



--> Display at 00:29:11:12

in which we argued

that the Shroud of Turin



--> Display at 00:29:15:22

is actually the world's least-known Leonardo da Vinci.



--> Display at 00:29:20:17

That he actually created

that great hoax.



--> Display at 00:29:25:00

The Shroud of Turin



--> Display at 00:29:26:05

--> Erase at 00:29:31:14

is a very interesting artwork, if you like.



--> Display at 00:29:32:02

In the 1970s, I think it was,

the 1970s or the 1980s,



--> Display at 00:29:35:22

scientists were allowed

to analyze the Turin Shroud



--> Display at 00:29:39:15

for a very short period of time.



--> Display at 00:29:42:07

And they carbon-dated it, carbon-dated the shroud itself,



--> Display at 00:29:46:17

to a period which dates to

about the 1200s, 1300s,



--> Display at 00:29:51:17

the cloth itself.



--> Display at 00:29:52:22

So it couldn't possibly

have been used to wrap



--> Display at 00:29:55:15

the body of Jesus Christ.



--> Display at 00:29:58:17

Leonardo da Vinci, I feel,



--> Display at 00:30:00:20

is a very strong contender

for being the person



--> Display at 00:30:04:02

who actually created

the Shroud of Turin.



--> Display at 00:30:07:17

He is unique

among artists of his day



--> Display at 00:30:11:17

in never having produced

a crucifixion.



--> Display at 00:30:15:02

He had a total of probably

17 paintings



--> Display at 00:30:18:07

which were attributed to him,



--> Display at 00:30:20:00

but none of them

was a crucifixion.



--> Display at 00:30:21:22

And that is not only unusual, it's unique.



--> Display at 00:30:25:02

What he may have been doing

by creating the Shroud of Turin



--> Display at 00:30:29:07

was putting this up as a kind of crucifixion substitution.



--> Display at 00:30:36:17

And the analysis

that some people



--> Display at 00:30:39:10

have put upon the image itself



--> Display at 00:30:42:17

is that it is actually

burnt on top,



--> Display at 00:30:45:12

on the top layer of the fibers of the material.



--> Display at 00:30:50:17

And this could be done



--> Display at 00:30:51:22

by using what is known

as a camera obscura,



--> Display at 00:30:54:22

which actually takes light

and burns onto a material.



--> Display at 00:30:59:12

That is one explanation.



--> Display at 00:31:01:11

He used a very primitive photographic technique



--> Display at 00:31:06:17

--> Erase at 00:31:09:03

to get the image on there.



--> Display at 00:31:09:17

And even more outrageously,



--> Display at 00:31:11:22

he actually used his own face

as the image on there.



--> Display at 00:31:15:22

Because that would have appealed



--> Display at 00:31:17:17

--> Erase at 00:31:21:21

to his sense of humor,

sense of irony.



--> Display at 00:31:22:22

Now, put like that, it all sounds pretty much outrageous



--> Display at 00:31:27:12

and certainly more outrageous than the Dan Brown plot.



--> Display at 00:31:30:20

Leonardo da Vinci had a habit

of painting himself



--> Display at 00:31:35:03

in a lot of his paintings.



--> Display at 00:31:36:22

In the same way Alfred Hitchcock

appears in a lot of his films,



--> Display at 00:31:39:22

Leonardo da Vinci liked to play a cameo role in his own works.



--> Display at 00:31:44:02

At the beginning

of "The Da Vinci Code,"



--> Display at 00:31:45:24

Dan Brown has a murder

of Saunière in the Louvre.



--> Display at 00:31:50:00

The Vitruvian Man

is a depiction of man



--> Display at 00:31:55:02

and the sacred geometry

the parts make of the whole.



--> Display at 00:31:59:02

It is used by Dan Brown

as the way in which



--> Display at 00:32:03:07

the murdered man

at the beginning is discovered.



--> Display at 00:32:06:02

But Dan Brown has him

actually stretched out



--> Display at 00:32:09:00

in the form of a pentangle,



--> Display at 00:32:11:07

which is, as we can see,

what the Vitruvian Man is.



--> Display at 00:32:14:14

The image of the Vitruvian Man is also one



--> Display at 00:32:17:02

of the most recognized images

in the western world today,



--> Display at 00:32:20:22

similar to Che Guevara

or the "Mona Lisa."



--> Display at 00:32:23:17

And its last outing

as an image occurred



--> Display at 00:32:26:02

on the one euro coin in Italy.



--> Display at 00:32:28:06

The other most instantly recognizable of Leonardo's works



--> Display at 00:32:33:17

is "The Last Supper,"



--> Display at 00:32:36:12

giant fresco

from a church in Italy.



--> Display at 00:32:41:07

Which, I mean, now you see reproductions of it everywhere,



--> Display at 00:32:44:12

--> Erase at 00:32:50:08

on everything from sort of table mats to you name it, really.



--> Display at 00:32:51:22

And yet everybody recognizes it.



--> Display at 00:32:54:17

And art historians

have restored it.



--> Display at 00:32:58:17

They've been over it

with a fine-tooth comb.



--> Display at 00:33:02:17

But nobody seems to have noticed



--> Display at 00:33:04:22

--> Erase at 00:33:08:21

certain interesting facts

about it.



--> Display at 00:33:09:17

Which, in "The Da Vinci Code,"



--> Display at 00:33:11:12

--> Erase at 00:33:16:18

and Dan Brown very kindly brings to people's attention.



--> Display at 00:33:18:02

For example,



--> Display at 00:33:20:05

Jesus is sitting at the center of the table, of course.



--> Display at 00:33:26:17

But leaning away from,

almost as if joined at the hip,



--> Display at 00:33:31:12

is this character



--> Display at 00:33:34:10

who is supposed to be

the young Saint John.



--> Display at 00:33:37:07

But in the New Testament,

the young Saint John



--> Display at 00:33:39:17

is described

as leaning against Jesus.



--> Display at 00:33:42:12

This is a little odd.



--> Display at 00:33:44:12

And if you look

at this young Saint John,



--> Display at 00:33:46:17

he's effeminate to the point

of femininity.



--> Display at 00:33:50:07

And you begin to look

a little more closely.



--> Display at 00:33:54:02

And I can't remember exactly

which way around it is,



--> Display at 00:33:57:12

but Jesus is wearing a red robe and a blue cloak,



--> Display at 00:34:05:12

and this character

is wearing the opposite,



--> Display at 00:34:08:02

like his other half.



--> Display at 00:34:10:07

And so what with one thing

and another.



--> Display at 00:34:12:02

And the fact that

their two figures together



--> Display at 00:34:15:07

form a giant

spread-eagle "M" shape.



--> Display at 00:34:18:20

This indicated to us

when we discovered this,



--> Display at 00:34:24:07

and not Mr. Dan Brown,



--> Display at 00:34:26:15

that it would suggest

that Leonardo is trying to say



--> Display at 00:34:30:07

that Mary Magdalene,

the giant "M" woman,



--> Display at 00:34:33:12

the lady "M," was at the last supper sitting next to Jesus



--> Display at 00:34:39:00

in a position of some status

and also as his other half,



--> Display at 00:34:45:11

which is quite a big statement.



--> Display at 00:34:47:07

I think very interesting things



--> Display at 00:34:49:12

are going on

in "The Last Supper,"



--> Display at 00:34:52:02

although I would caution

that "The Last Supper"



--> Display at 00:34:54:17

has been restored so many times,



--> Display at 00:34:56:17

including as far back

as the 1700s,



--> Display at 00:34:59:22

that we're not sure when we look at "The Last Supper" today



--> Display at 00:35:02:17

that we're looking at the painting that Leonardo painted.



--> Display at 00:35:05:20

But there is a very threatening face on the face of Peter.



--> Display at 00:35:13:02

There is a very unexplained extra hand in the painting.



--> Display at 00:35:17:12

There is a very threatening knife in the painting.



--> Display at 00:35:20:02

We know there is no chalice

or Holy Grail



--> Display at 00:35:23:15

in the center of the painting.



--> Display at 00:35:25:10

Leonardo is

a master psychologist.



--> Display at 00:35:29:00

He understood that people only see what they expect to see



--> Display at 00:35:34:22

or are told to expect to see.



--> Display at 00:35:38:02

You don't really expect to see disembodied hands doing things.



--> Display at 00:35:42:04

When we wrote

"The Templar Revelation,"



--> Display at 00:35:44:17

we said,

rather pompously, perhaps,



--> Display at 00:35:48:07

that Leonardo's symbolism

in his paintings



--> Display at 00:35:51:02

was always serious

and always subtle.



--> Display at 00:35:54:22

And there was never anything that was the equivalent



--> Display at 00:35:59:17

of sticking a red nose

on Saint Peter.



--> Display at 00:36:02:17

Since that book came out,



--> Display at 00:36:04:02

we've made at least

one major discovery



--> Display at 00:36:06:22

which shows he was willing to do something much worse than that.



--> Display at 00:36:10:12

But first, the serious stuff.



--> Display at 00:36:12:05

I mean, Leonardo's symbolism

for posterity.



--> Display at 00:36:16:20

This was his only crack at it,

let's be honest, in those days.



--> Display at 00:36:20:17

To hand a message

down to us today,



--> Display at 00:36:23:07

all he had was his paintbrush, basically.



--> Display at 00:36:26:07

So go for it,

and he went for it.



--> Display at 00:36:29:08

There are two versions

of the "Madonna of the Rocks."



--> Display at 00:36:31:10

One is in the Louvre, and one is in the National Gallery.



--> Display at 00:36:34:12

The first one that

Leonardo da Vinci painted



--> Display at 00:36:37:12

was unaccepted by the monks

of the church



--> Display at 00:36:41:20

that had commissioned it.



--> Display at 00:36:43:07

And it was not accepted because he hadn't painted halos



--> Display at 00:36:46:05

on the figures.



--> Display at 00:36:47:17

The actual painting depicts

the flight



--> Display at 00:36:50:02

of Jesus Christ

and John the Baptist



--> Display at 00:36:53:22

from Herod during

the Massacre of the Innocents.



--> Display at 00:36:56:22

And Jesus Christ

is with his mother, Mary,



--> Display at 00:36:59:07

and the angel Uriel

is looking over them.



--> Display at 00:37:02:22

Some people say

that it is unaccepted



--> Display at 00:37:05:22

by the Catholic Church

because of the juxtaposition



--> Display at 00:37:08:12

of John the Baptist

and Jesus Christ.



--> Display at 00:37:10:22

John the Baptist

being the person



--> Display at 00:37:13:05

who was actually older

than Jesus Christ.



--> Display at 00:37:15:22

He was a descendant

of the Aaron line,



--> Display at 00:37:18:12

which made him a Priest Messiah.



--> Display at 00:37:20:17

Jesus Christ was a descendant



--> Display at 00:37:22:10

of both the Aaron line

and the Davidic line,



--> Display at 00:37:25:02

which made him not only

a Priest Messiah



--> Display at 00:37:28:00

in the same way

John the Baptist was,



--> Display at 00:37:29:22

but also a King Messiah.



--> Display at 00:37:33:17

And the fact John the Baptist

baptized Jesus Christ.



--> Display at 00:37:37:07

As the Son of God,

the Roman Catholic Church



--> Display at 00:37:40:02

would prefer us to believe

that Jesus Christ



--> Display at 00:37:42:15

was doing all the baptizing,



--> Display at 00:37:44:07

and therefore who on Earth does John the Baptist think he is



--> Display at 00:37:48:07

baptizing the Son of God?



--> Display at 00:37:50:07

It doesn't quite add up.



--> Display at 00:37:52:22

If you look at the genealogies of the family,



--> Display at 00:37:55:02

it adds up perfectly correctly.



--> Display at 00:37:57:07

That is something

the Catholic Church



--> Display at 00:37:59:07

would like to sideline.



--> Display at 00:38:00:20

So the whole juxtaposition



--> Display at 00:38:02:11

of Jesus Christ

and John the Baptist



--> Display at 00:38:05:04

is awkward at best

for the Catholic Church.



--> Display at 00:38:08:01

The serious stuff

in the "Madonna of the Rocks."



--> Display at 00:38:10:05

First of all,

there are two versions.



--> Display at 00:38:12:12

There's one in the Louvre,



--> Display at 00:38:15:12

--> Erase at 00:38:21:24

which figures largely

in "The Da Vinci Code."



--> Display at 00:38:22:12

And that's really

the truly heretical one.



--> Display at 00:38:25:02

And there's one

in London's National Gallery,



--> Display at 00:38:27:00

which is another version,

a toned-down version,



--> Display at 00:38:29:12

although there still

are certain features in it



--> Display at 00:38:32:02

--> Erase at 00:38:34:03

which are a bit naughty.



--> Display at 00:38:35:17

The serious stuff is connected



--> Display at 00:38:40:17

--> Erase at 00:38:47:04

with his elevation

of John the Baptist over Jesus.



--> Display at 00:38:49:00

And it's in all his works, as far as he can get away with it.



--> Display at 00:38:54:17

A lot of people think

Leonardo was an atheist.



--> Display at 00:38:57:10

He was a scientist,

that sort of glib thinking.



--> Display at 00:39:00:17

But he was a heretic.



--> Display at 00:39:02:07

He had very, very specific

and very passionate beliefs



--> Display at 00:39:05:12

which come over quite clearly

in his work.



--> Display at 00:39:07:22

But they're absolutely nothing



--> Display at 00:39:09:22

like the normal Christianity which he despised.



--> Display at 00:39:13:07

In the "Madonna of the Rocks,"



--> Display at 00:39:17:12

the Louvre version,

the heretical version,



--> Display at 00:39:20:12

you have a very beautiful but slightly distracted Virgin Mary



--> Display at 00:39:28:07

with her arm around a child

who is kneeling.



--> Display at 00:39:34:22

You have another little boy who looks almost exactly the same



--> Display at 00:39:42:02

who is sitting there basically blessing the other child.



--> Display at 00:39:46:07

And with his or her or its arm around him is an angel.



--> Display at 00:39:51:02

And it's the angel Uriel.



--> Display at 00:39:53:02

Now, this scene, actually,

is not from the New Testament.



--> Display at 00:39:57:12

It's actually from...



--> Display at 00:40:01:02

It's a Church tradition.



--> Display at 00:40:03:02

It was invented to cover up the deep embarrassment of the idea



--> Display at 00:40:07:07

that in later life

John the Baptist



--> Display at 00:40:09:02

would actually have

the authority



--> Display at 00:40:11:00

to perform a ritual on Jesus.



--> Display at 00:40:12:22

So they invented this idea

that in Egypt,



--> Display at 00:40:15:22

they all got together

as children,



--> Display at 00:40:18:12

and Jesus bestowed the authority on him later in life



--> Display at 00:40:22:07

to have the authority

to baptize him.



--> Display at 00:40:24:22

It was convoluted.



--> Display at 00:40:26:02

That's what this commissioned work purports to show.



--> Display at 00:40:31:07

--> Erase at 00:40:35:06

But you look at it and think,

"There's something wrong here."



--> Display at 00:40:37:15

You know, because "obviously,"

I say "obviously" in quotes,



--> Display at 00:40:41:22

the child who is kneeling

to receive the blessing



--> Display at 00:40:44:22

has the Virgin Mary's arm

around her shoulders.



--> Display at 00:40:48:07

And in Church iconography

and Church tradition,



--> Display at 00:40:53:17

the archangel Uriel

is John the Baptist's protector.



--> Display at 00:40:58:17

So why are the children apparently



--> Display at 00:41:03:10

with the wrong guardians?



--> Display at 00:41:05:22

--> Erase at 00:41:10:24

Why is the kneeling, submissive child with the Virgin Mary?



--> Display at 00:41:11:12

But if you actually

turn it around,



--> Display at 00:41:13:12

and they're

with their right guardians,



--> Display at 00:41:15:22

you have

the baby John the Baptist



--> Display at 00:41:18:22

being the one in authority



--> Display at 00:41:20:22

--> Erase at 00:41:26:12

and blessing the kneeling Jesus,

who is accepting his authority.



--> Display at 00:41:27:22

I mean, there's lots

of other details,



--> Display at 00:41:29:22

and it's in our book

"The Templar Revelation."



--> Display at 00:41:32:15

And in my book

about Mary Magdalene, too.



--> Display at 00:41:35:05

There is something else which

I would draw attention to



--> Display at 00:41:37:22

which we discovered, and this is the bit that I was talking about



--> Display at 00:41:41:20

that is much worse than sticking a red nose on Saint Peter.



--> Display at 00:41:45:22

And all I will say

is it is connected



--> Display at 00:41:50:10

with the proliferation of rocks in the painting.



--> Display at 00:41:55:17

And it's a shape

formed out of the rocks



--> Display at 00:41:59:17

which grows, as it were,

out of the Virgin Mary's head.



--> Display at 00:42:03:02

It goes right to the skyline.



--> Display at 00:42:06:02

And basically this is Leonardo saying, "She ain't no virgin."



--> Display at 00:42:11:16

Have a look.



--> Display at 00:42:12:17

Once you see it, you will never, ever see Leonardo's work



--> Display at 00:42:16:10

--> Erase at 00:42:18:10

in the same light again.



--> Display at 00:42:19:06

It's pretty clear Leonardo



--> Display at 00:42:22:00

is trying to communicate something there.



--> Display at 00:42:24:17

And the phallic symbols that Lynn Picknett has emphasized



--> Display at 00:42:29:12

are very much in evidence

in the painting.



--> Display at 00:42:32:22

What exactly the message

of that is,



--> Display at 00:42:35:17

I don't have an answer

to that question.



--> Display at 00:42:37:22

I think it would be

quite interesting



--> Display at 00:42:40:12

--> Erase at 00:42:43:08

if we could learn the answer.



--> Display at 00:43:00:17

Like hundreds of thousands, probably millions,



--> Display at 00:43:04:07

of people worldwide,



--> Display at 00:43:07:10

Clive and I read

"Holy Blood, Holy Grail"



--> Display at 00:43:11:07

and found our interests

in these subjects,



--> Display at 00:43:16:07

the true origins

of Christianity, if you like,



--> Display at 00:43:19:17

rekindled and notched up a bit.



--> Display at 00:43:22:12

It's an exciting story.



--> Display at 00:43:25:02

Very soberly told,



--> Display at 00:43:27:10

not sensational

in its presentation at all.



--> Display at 00:43:31:00

And it certainly made us think



--> Display at 00:43:33:10

and inspired us

to take it further.



--> Display at 00:43:36:02

What I want to do now

is to make a clear distinction



--> Display at 00:43:40:02

between the Christ of faith

and the Jesus of history.



--> Display at 00:43:46:17

We're not talking about

a descent from Christ, in fact.



--> Display at 00:43:50:12

Christ, I repeat,

is a figure of faith.



--> Display at 00:43:54:07

But Jesus, the man who walked

on the sands of Palestine,



--> Display at 00:44:00:20

is a real historical figure.



--> Display at 00:44:02:22

And he, we felt,

we could research.



--> Display at 00:44:06:02

It's been said that what we

have written is in some sense



--> Display at 00:44:11:17

an assault on Christianity.



--> Display at 00:44:14:12

And it's also been suggested that some people



--> Display at 00:44:17:05

have been led to turn away

from a faith



--> Display at 00:44:21:07

--> Erase at 00:44:23:15

which they've grown up with.



--> Display at 00:44:24:22

That grieves me



--> Display at 00:44:27:02

because there is nothing in

our work which is in any sense



--> Display at 00:44:30:17

an assault on that figure

of Christ.



--> Display at 00:44:34:00

What we are doing is looking



--> Display at 00:44:35:17

at the man who walked

on the sands of Palestine.



--> Display at 00:44:39:02

If you choose to believe that that Jesus was born of a virgin



--> Display at 00:44:45:17

and walked on water

and rose from the dead,



--> Display at 00:44:50:12

then that is a gift.



--> Display at 00:44:52:17

Your faith is a gift.



--> Display at 00:44:54:22

And nothing

that we can say about Jesus



--> Display at 00:44:58:11

should affect

what you choose to believe.



--> Display at 00:45:02:07

But you must remember



--> Display at 00:45:03:24

that religion is essentially

a matter of opinion.



--> Display at 00:45:08:07

--> Erase at 00:45:14:05

It's a question of faith,

what you choose to believe.



--> Display at 00:45:14:20

And when we were looking

at the possibilities



--> Display at 00:45:18:20

of a blood descent,



--> Display at 00:45:21:12

we were looking at a balance

of probabilities.



--> Display at 00:45:25:22

Is it more likely that the man should be born of a virgin



--> Display at 00:45:32:07

--> Erase at 00:45:36:00

and walk on water

or rise from the dead?



--> Display at 00:45:37:02

Or is it more likely

that he should have been born



--> Display at 00:45:42:18

as other men are born,

married, and raised a family?



--> Display at 00:45:49:22

Of that balance

of probabilities,



--> Display at 00:45:52:07

--> Erase at 00:45:55:10

which is more likely?



--> Display at 00:45:56:07

That's solely the hypothesis which we present



--> Display at 00:46:00:02

--> Erase at 00:46:02:13

in "Holy Blood, Holy Grail."



--> Display at 00:46:04:17

Well, the main thesis

is that Jesus was married.



--> Display at 00:46:07:22

And being raised Roman Catholic,

I thought that was blasphemy.



--> Display at 00:46:11:15

I almost dropped the book.

I fled from the library.



--> Display at 00:46:14:07

I didn't want a thing to do

with this book.



--> Display at 00:46:17:02

It was almost obnoxious to think



--> Display at 00:46:19:22

that Jesus

might have been married,



--> Display at 00:46:23:02

coming from my background and

my orthodox Catholic position.



--> Display at 00:46:28:08

When "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" first appeared,



--> Display at 00:46:33:02

there was a shocked reaction from the general public.



--> Display at 00:46:37:17

We got ourselves onto the

front pages around the world.



--> Display at 00:46:40:22

It was as if this

had never been said before.



--> Display at 00:46:45:02

But, of course, ideas like that have been in the air



--> Display at 00:46:51:07

for centuries, one might say.



--> Display at 00:46:53:07

The only thing original

in "Holy Blood, Holy Grail"



--> Display at 00:46:56:07

was a blood descent from Jesus



--> Display at 00:46:58:22

and that his wife

was Mary Magdalene.



--> Display at 00:47:01:20

Had this been a story

not dealing with Jesus,



--> Display at 00:47:07:22

but let's say

William Shakespeare



--> Display at 00:47:12:07

or Richard the Lionheart,



--> Display at 00:47:14:22

any sort of discoveries

made about him



--> Display at 00:47:17:07

in the sense that we did

and made an hypothesis,



--> Display at 00:47:22:12

anything in association

with ordinary characters



--> Display at 00:47:29:22

would have been taken on board,



--> Display at 00:47:31:22

accepted as part of

the mainstream of scholarship.



--> Display at 00:47:34:17

It's only because the figure that we're dealing with



--> Display at 00:47:39:07

is Jesus, this figure of faith.



--> Display at 00:47:42:10

And that's

what creates the fuss.



--> Display at 00:47:45:12

At first, I didn't know

what to think.



--> Display at 00:47:47:17

And then I thought, "Well,

I'm gonna go investigate this."



--> Display at 00:47:51:07

And as I got into the material,



--> Display at 00:47:53:07

I told a friend of mine

about it.



--> Display at 00:47:55:07

And she said,

"That's ridiculous.



--> Display at 00:47:57:05

The Church would have told us."

I said, "I believe that."



--> Display at 00:48:00:07

So I said, "I'm gonna pray

about this book."



--> Display at 00:48:02:12

And my friend said,

"I think you should."



--> Display at 00:48:04:17

And when I did,

I opened my scripture one day,



--> Display at 00:48:08:02

praying about

"Holy Blood, Holy Grail."



--> Display at 00:48:11:12

And I looked down and saw this passage in my scripture said,



--> Display at 00:48:15:12

"Restore my wife

whom I espouse to me."



--> Display at 00:48:18:17

And I thought that was uncanny that I opened a page



--> Display at 00:48:21:22

that said that in the scripture that I said,



--> Display at 00:48:23:22

"Maybe I should take

this seriously



--> Display at 00:48:25:17

and go see if there's any evidence that could support it."



--> Display at 00:48:28:17

And that's when I launched

on my journey to search



--> Display at 00:48:31:22

for the Holy Grail.



--> Display at 00:48:34:19

--> Erase at 00:48:38:08

Which I believe is the sacred feminine, the lost bride.



--> Display at 00:48:40:17

I was assigned some paper to write for a class I was taking



--> Display at 00:48:46:00

--> Erase at 00:48:49:20

in interpreting the Gospels

at Vanderbilt Divinity School.



--> Display at 00:48:52:17

And when I asked for help finding a passage



--> Display at 00:48:56:05

and opened my scriptures,



--> Display at 00:48:57:12

I was looking

at the passage in Mark



--> Display at 00:48:59:17

from the anointing of Jesus



--> Display at 00:49:02:07

by the woman with the alabaster jar at the banquet in Bethany.



--> Display at 00:49:06:07

I thought, "That's interesting."

So I went investigating.



--> Display at 00:49:09:17

First, I found

that the anointing scene



--> Display at 00:49:11:17

occurs in all four

of the canonical Gospels.



--> Display at 00:49:14:12

There are only four stories

that do.



--> Display at 00:49:16:15

One is the baptism of Jesus,



--> Display at 00:49:18:02

the multiplication

of loaves and fishes,



--> Display at 00:49:20:05

the Crucifixion,

and the anointing by a woman.



--> Display at 00:49:22:24

Which gives you an idea how

very special that passage is.



--> Display at 00:49:26:12

If it was collected in all the communities that wrote Gospels,



--> Display at 00:49:30:07

that story was so powerful

that it made it into all four.



--> Display at 00:49:34:12

I went to investigate anointing and find what I could.



--> Display at 00:49:37:07

And I found that the anointing



--> Display at 00:49:39:02

actually has sexual connotations in the ancient world



--> Display at 00:49:42:07

and that the anointing

by the woman was a nuptial rite



--> Display at 00:49:45:22

in the ancient cultures,

we should say cult,



--> Display at 00:49:49:02

of the sacrificed

bridegroom king.



--> Display at 00:49:51:07

There are many religious leaders who arise in this time period.



--> Display at 00:49:55:02

And Jesus is one,

and he's a rabbi.



--> Display at 00:49:57:02

--> Erase at 00:50:01:17

Everyone in the New Testament is Jewish until proven otherwise.



--> Display at 00:50:02:22

It was commonplace

for Jewish rabbis to be married.



--> Display at 00:50:06:17

In fact, it was a rare exception



--> Display at 00:50:09:12

of a Jewish rabbi of that time

who was not married.



--> Display at 00:50:12:10

Jesus Christ was required



--> Display at 00:50:14:22

as a member of the Davidic line to marry.



--> Display at 00:50:17:22

Not only was

he required to marry,



--> Display at 00:50:19:22

he was required to sire two sons by the age of 40.



--> Display at 00:50:24:04

The feast of Cana is mentioned in the Book of John.



--> Display at 00:50:28:22

He doesn't describe

the actual wedding itself



--> Display at 00:50:31:15

but only the feast.



--> Display at 00:50:33:17

And what jars in this particular story is the fact that Mary,



--> Display at 00:50:39:07

that is, Jesus' mother,

says to the servants



--> Display at 00:50:42:20

that they should do

whatever he tells them to.



--> Display at 00:50:45:22

So when they are told to go

and get more wine,



--> Display at 00:50:48:17

they have to oblige.



--> Display at 00:50:50:17

The only person at a wedding

who would be allowed to do that



--> Display at 00:50:54:02

--> Erase at 00:50:56:12

would be the groom himself.



--> Display at 00:51:01:24

Mary Magdalene is depicted

as anointing Jesus Christ



--> Display at 00:51:05:12

on two occasions with

an ointment called spikenard,



--> Display at 00:51:09:07

which was

only allowed to be used



--> Display at 00:51:11:12

by those of the Davidic line.



--> Display at 00:51:13:09

Then it became a question, "Okay, who was this women?



--> Display at 00:51:16:20

If there is a bride,

who is she?"



--> Display at 00:51:18:17

It has to be the woman

who anoints him.



--> Display at 00:51:20:20

And in three Gospels, she's not named, but in John's Gospel,



--> Display at 00:51:24:02

it literally says that the woman who anointed Jesus



--> Display at 00:51:27:22

and wiped his feet with her hair

was Mary, the sister of Lazarus.



--> Display at 00:51:32:17

And she's the same Mary

that shows up



--> Display at 00:51:34:10

in "Holy Blood, Holy Grail"

and the legends



--> Display at 00:51:36:12

they talk about

from the coast of France,



--> Display at 00:51:38:17

where it's Mary,

the sister of Lazarus,



--> Display at 00:51:41:02

who brings the Holy Grail,

the Sangraal, to France.



--> Display at 00:51:45:07

And the way they spell that,

if you divide it after the "G,"



--> Display at 00:51:47:20

it means "the blood royal."



--> Display at 00:51:49:02

The word Sangraal in Old French.



--> Display at 00:51:53:22

If you divide it after the "N,"



--> Display at 00:51:55:20

you have a word

that says "Holy Grail."



--> Display at 00:51:58:07

That would be like dividing the word "Montreal" after the "N."



--> Display at 00:52:02:07

It wouldn't mean

"royal mountain."



--> Display at 00:52:03:17

It would be something unintelligible.



--> Display at 00:52:07:12

But if you divide the same word, Sangraal, after the "G,"



--> Display at 00:52:11:07

it means "blood royal."



--> Display at 00:52:13:02

So the legend says

Mary Magdalene and her friends,



--> Display at 00:52:15:22

traveling in this boat

with no oars,



--> Display at 00:52:17:22

brought the "blood royal"

to the coast of France.



--> Display at 00:52:21:17

And you don't carry the

blood royal in a jar with a lid.



--> Display at 00:52:25:02

It flows in the veins

of a child.



--> Display at 00:52:27:22

So I think the fossil in the legend is the child, actually.



--> Display at 00:52:31:07

What happened to her,

I have no idea.



--> Display at 00:52:33:05

I don't think the genealogies are relevant.



--> Display at 00:52:35:22

I really think the child is there to prove the sacred union



--> Display at 00:52:39:12

of the masculine

and feminine energies,



--> Display at 00:52:41:07

the mythology, if you will,

of the sacred union



--> Display at 00:52:44:02

at the heart

of the Christian story.



--> Display at 00:52:46:07

That the child proves that, rather than anything else



--> Display at 00:52:49:12

that you could think of

that would prove it.



--> Display at 00:52:51:20

We don't have a birth certificate for this girl.



--> Display at 00:52:55:00

If you ask almost anybody

who Mary Magdalene was,



--> Display at 00:52:58:12

they'll say,

"Oh, wasn't she that prostitute



--> Display at 00:53:01:02

who Jesus forgave,

and she sort of tagged along



--> Display at 00:53:03:17

and did the first-century equivalent



--> Display at 00:53:06:12

of making the coffee

for the men?"



--> Display at 00:53:08:17

Sort of hanging around

in the background.



--> Display at 00:53:11:05

Or perhaps if they were familiar



--> Display at 00:53:13:02

with, particularly,

Victorian art,



--> Display at 00:53:15:17

they'd say, "Oh, she's the woman who was forgiven by Jesus,



--> Display at 00:53:19:02

but she still spent the rest of her life blubbing in remorse."



--> Display at 00:53:23:02

Actually,

they always painted her



--> Display at 00:53:25:10

with her clothes hanging off.



--> Display at 00:53:27:07

You can't be remorseful

without being half naked.



--> Display at 00:53:30:17

But the point is that...



--> Display at 00:53:35:02

Well, there's quite

a few points, actually.



--> Display at 00:53:37:17

She's never described in the

New Testament as a prostitute.



--> Display at 00:53:42:22

In fact,

she's rarely described at all.



--> Display at 00:53:45:17

She's only named a few times.



--> Display at 00:53:48:13

The big problem

down through the centuries



--> Display at 00:53:51:05

--> Erase at 00:53:54:19

has been too many Marys.



--> Display at 00:53:56:00

And there

is another Mary of Bethany



--> Display at 00:54:00:12

who washed Jesus' feet

with her hair.



--> Display at 00:54:05:12

And there's another

independent story in Galilee



--> Display at 00:54:08:17

of some prostitute

that washed his feet



--> Display at 00:54:14:07

with her expensive oil and hair.



--> Display at 00:54:19:02

And that anonymous prostitute



--> Display at 00:54:23:15

is identified

with a Mary of Bethany



--> Display at 00:54:25:22

because they both

did the same act,



--> Display at 00:54:27:17

though in different parts

of the country.



--> Display at 00:54:30:12

Mary being Mary, they are identified with Mary Magdalene,



--> Display at 00:54:34:22

about whom there is the record

that Jesus cast



--> Display at 00:54:37:22

six demons from her.



--> Display at 00:54:39:22

And so all of those things

were put together



--> Display at 00:54:42:17

into the medieval identification of Mary Magdalene



--> Display at 00:54:47:02

as the prostitute.



--> Display at 00:54:48:17

There's not a shred

of historical evidence



--> Display at 00:54:52:12

for that false assumption.



--> Display at 00:54:55:02

The Roman Catholic Church,

at the Second Vatican Council,



--> Display at 00:54:59:02

finally renounced

that false idea.



--> Display at 00:55:03:07

The historical evidence for

Mary Magdalene is very small.



--> Display at 00:55:08:02

She's mentioned in all four Gospels with that same epithet,



--> Display at 00:55:12:12

the Magdalene, but there's not

a lot said about her.



--> Display at 00:55:16:07

It said she

was a woman of wealth



--> Display at 00:55:18:07

who supported Jesus by her means



--> Display at 00:55:20:17

with the other women who were supportive of his ministry.



--> Display at 00:55:23:22

And then it says

that she met Jesus at the tomb,



--> Display at 00:55:26:17

resurrected on Easter morning.



--> Display at 00:55:28:22

She also stood at the cross.



--> Display at 00:55:30:22

There are eight lists



--> Display at 00:55:32:22

where several women

are listed in the Gospels.



--> Display at 00:55:35:24

On seven of them, Mary Magdalene is mentioned first.



--> Display at 00:55:40:12

So the scripture never says

this woman was first lady.



--> Display at 00:55:44:02

--> Erase at 00:55:47:14

It just mentions her first

every time except one.



--> Display at 00:55:48:17

I think we can't know exactly anything about her,



--> Display at 00:55:53:22

but what we can see is what

she did by her actions.



--> Display at 00:55:56:15

What did she do?



--> Display at 00:55:57:12

She showed up at the tomb

to mourn her bridegroom



--> Display at 00:56:01:16

and found him resurrected,



--> Display at 00:56:03:07

which in the ancient mythologies is the role of the bride.



--> Display at 00:56:06:22

It's the role

of the bride to anoint



--> Display at 00:56:09:00

and also to meet the risen bridegroom at the tomb.



--> Display at 00:56:12:17

And so, in her role, she lives out the mythology, then,



--> Display at 00:56:17:05

of this sacred union.



--> Display at 00:56:19:12

Historically speaking,

we know little about her,



--> Display at 00:56:21:17

but we know that the mythology is that she was bride.



--> Display at 00:56:25:12

The possibility that Jesus

and Mary Magdalene were married



--> Display at 00:56:31:12

is quite plausible,

rendered more plausible



--> Display at 00:56:35:07

by finding these tantalizing tidbits in the Gnostic Gospels,



--> Display at 00:56:39:12

such as the reference to, Jesus kissed Mary frequently on the,



--> Display at 00:56:44:15

--> Erase at 00:56:48:06

perhaps the word is "mouth"

in Coptic.



--> Display at 00:56:50:07

There's a lot

of interesting hints



--> Display at 00:56:52:17

that this may have been

the case.



--> Display at 00:56:56:02

If the Priory of Sion

is meant to be a metaphor



--> Display at 00:56:59:05

for this important

and powerful secret



--> Display at 00:57:02:07

that Jesus

was really a human being,



--> Display at 00:57:05:07

that he was

a mortal human being,



--> Display at 00:57:06:20

that he was an important historical character,



--> Display at 00:57:10:02

that he came

out of Jewish tradition,



--> Display at 00:57:11:22

that he was probably married,



--> Display at 00:57:13:07

that he, following

the biblical injunction



--> Display at 00:57:17:02

to go forth and be fruitful

and multiply,



--> Display at 00:57:19:17

probably had children,



--> Display at 00:57:23:02

and that some history of those descendants is now lost to us,



--> Display at 00:57:28:22

well, that's

a very interesting story.



--> Display at 00:57:31:02

I don't know of anyone,



--> Display at 00:57:34:20

British nobility,

Japanese nobility,



--> Display at 00:57:40:07

--> Erase at 00:57:44:19

who can actually trace their bloodline back 2,000 years.



--> Display at 00:57:45:12

If Jesus had descendants,



--> Display at 00:57:48:07

I think they

would be untraceable today.



--> Display at 00:57:52:02

--> Erase at 00:57:57:10

They may have been traceable, 200 A.D., 300 A.D.



--> Display at 00:57:58:07

--> Erase at 00:58:01:12

But they

would not be traceable today.



--> Display at 00:58:03:00

I've been told that the authors of "Holy Blood, Holy Grail"



--> Display at 00:58:06:16

didn't know exactly what it was they were looking for,



--> Display at 00:58:10:12

and they weren't sure

that the bloodline



--> Display at 00:58:12:20

existed themselves at first.



--> Display at 00:58:16:02

But I think what happened was they were so steeped



--> Display at 00:58:18:17

in the mythologies

and the legends,



--> Display at 00:58:20:22

in the scriptures

and in the medieval art,



--> Display at 00:58:25:02

that one day they looked

at each other,



--> Display at 00:58:27:02

and it just came to them

in a flash.



--> Display at 00:58:29:05

Like, "Eureka!

We've got it."



--> Display at 00:58:31:07

I think what happened was they're talking



--> Display at 00:58:33:17

about the bloodline of Jesus.



--> Display at 00:58:36:07

And then they wrote their book



--> Display at 00:58:37:22

based on that intuition

that they had,



--> Display at 00:58:40:07

but that it was derived

from their study of the art,



--> Display at 00:58:44:00

the legend, the myths, and

all of their medieval studies,



--> Display at 00:58:48:10

you might say.



--> Display at 00:58:49:12

All gathering momentum

as they went



--> Display at 00:58:52:10

and finally pointing them

to this particular conclusion.



--> Display at 00:58:55:17

I don't think it was made

in a vacuum,



--> Display at 00:58:57:02

and I certainly don't think

it was an accident.



--> Display at 00:58:59:05

I think they

were on to something,



--> Display at 00:59:01:00

but maybe they didn't even know where they got the idea.



--> Display at 00:59:04:03

When they passed it around,

they realized



--> Display at 00:59:06:02

that it fit all the scenarios that they had envisioned here



--> Display at 00:59:09:22

and that they realized

that the key to the whole story



--> Display at 00:59:13:00

was this lost bride thing.



--> Display at 00:59:15:01

But when I read their book,

I said to myself,



--> Display at 00:59:19:07

"Oh, my gosh, this piece

that's been lost all this time



--> Display at 00:59:23:22

is something my prayer community and I have been praying over."



--> Display at 00:59:26:15

We had been shown

there was a missing piece



--> Display at 00:59:28:07

from the foundations

of the Church.



--> Display at 00:59:30:02

We didn't know what it was, but we were told to search for it.



--> Display at 00:59:33:07

And when I realized what

was lost here was the bride,



--> Display at 00:59:36:17

everybody talked about the bridegroom without the bride.



--> Display at 00:59:39:05

What's a bridegroom

without a bride?



--> Display at 00:59:41:05

I went off

searching for the bride



--> Display at 00:59:43:00

and realizing that the key

to the whole thing



--> Display at 00:59:45:17

was the anointing at Bethany

by the woman,



--> Display at 00:59:49:22

who then later

carries the chalice,



--> Display at 00:59:51:22

or what we know

to be the Holy Grail,



--> Display at 00:59:55:02

as a child

to the shores of France.



--> Display at 00:59:57:22

So that connection

came to me out of scripture



--> Display at 01:00:00:15

and out of my prayer community and my own prayer life,



--> Display at 01:00:04:02

connecting to reinforce

what I had discovered



--> Display at 01:00:07:07

in "Holy Blood, Holy Grail,"

which I thought was blasphemous.



--> Display at 01:00:10:10

But when I discovered

that it was tied in



--> Display at 01:00:12:17

with what we'd been shown

was the missing piece,



--> Display at 01:00:15:07

it wasn't blasphemy,

but it was truth.



--> Display at 01:00:17:12

As I say, in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,



--> Display at 01:00:19:22

--> Erase at 01:00:22:13

Mary Magdalene barely exists.



--> Display at 01:00:23:02

In these other Gospels,

she's the star.



--> Display at 01:00:27:02

Apart from Jesus, Mary's there, absolutely dead center.



--> Display at 01:00:32:02

Jesus defers to Mary.



--> Display at 01:00:35:05

She even gets him to change...



--> Display at 01:00:37:02

In one of these other Gospels,



--> Display at 01:00:39:07

--> Erase at 01:00:42:17

she even gets him

to change his teaching.



--> Display at 01:00:43:07

She is feisty.



--> Display at 01:00:45:10

She's assertive.



--> Display at 01:00:47:07

She's certainly not...



--> Display at 01:00:49:17

The Church has used her

over the centuries



--> Display at 01:00:51:20

as a sort of brand name

for female shame.



--> Display at 01:00:54:17

--> Erase at 01:00:58:07

And she's actually the least ashamed woman in history.



--> Display at 01:00:59:02

She actually annoyed

the male disciples very much



--> Display at 01:01:02:00

because she had such power

over Jesus.



--> Display at 01:01:03:23

These other Gospels

make very clear.



--> Display at 01:01:06:07

One thing I want to say for sure in here is that



--> Display at 01:01:09:00

I have twin pillars

for my research.



--> Display at 01:01:11:17

And none of them are

from the Nag Hammadi Gospels.



--> Display at 01:01:14:07

But the Nag Hammadi Gospels state...



--> Display at 01:01:16:07

In the Gospel of Philip, it states that Jesus was married,



--> Display at 01:01:19:17

or that Mary Magdalene was

his intimate partner or consort.



--> Display at 01:01:23:17

That word has sexual overtones.



--> Display at 01:01:26:02

The "koinonos"

that they use there



--> Display at 01:01:28:10

has overtones

of being intimate partnership.



--> Display at 01:01:31:20

It says, "The intimate companion of Jesus is Mary Magdalene."



--> Display at 01:01:36:10

And he used to kiss her often,



--> Display at 01:01:39:00

and the other Apostles

are jealous of their intimacy.



--> Display at 01:01:42:02

It is said that Martin Luther,

at the time of the Reformation,



--> Display at 01:01:47:07

suggested that Jesus and Mary were married.



--> Display at 01:01:50:07

And there's some bits which make it extremely clear



--> Display at 01:01:53:12

as to why the Church

did not want these books



--> Display at 01:01:57:07

in the New Testament.



--> Display at 01:01:58:17

In, I think,

the Gospel of Thomas,



--> Display at 01:02:01:20

disciples go to Jesus,

and they say,



--> Display at 01:02:04:18

"Lord, why do you love her

more than you love us?



--> Display at 01:02:07:17

Why are you always kissing her on the mouth?"



--> Display at 01:02:10:07

--> Erase at 01:02:13:14

And you think,

"Why do you think, you fool?"



--> Display at 01:02:15:12

--> Erase at 01:02:21:01

And there's a lot of this

in these forbidden books.



--> Display at 01:02:21:12

And it made Clive and I realize that there's a lot more



--> Display at 01:02:28:15

to the choosing of these Magdalene-unfriendly Gospels



--> Display at 01:02:33:17

going into the New Testament than you might think.



--> Display at 01:02:37:17

And also, Mary Magdalene is...



--> Display at 01:02:42:00

I actually believe,



--> Display at 01:02:43:12

and I know this is a most

astonishing statement,



--> Display at 01:02:46:22

but I think she's

the most important woman



--> Display at 01:02:49:12

in world history.



--> Display at 01:02:50:22

Not for what she said or did, particularly,



--> Display at 01:02:53:05

but because of the reason

that the Church fathers



--> Display at 01:02:55:22

were so afraid of her image

from these other Gospels,



--> Display at 01:02:59:22

from the forbidden Gospels.



--> Display at 01:03:02:02

They really knew

what she was really like.



--> Display at 01:03:04:17

That she was powerful,

that Jesus loved her,



--> Display at 01:03:07:00

that Jesus almost certainly slept with her,



--> Display at 01:03:09:20

whether it was merely a ritual,

sacred sex thing,



--> Display at 01:03:12:12

--> Erase at 01:03:16:17

or it was the usual passion.



--> Display at 01:03:17:02

But they knew

she had power over him.



--> Display at 01:03:19:07

They didn't want the women

in their churches



--> Display at 01:03:21:17

getting uppity

and acting like her.



--> Display at 01:03:24:02

So the whole of history,



--> Display at 01:03:26:15

the way that the Church

has treated its women



--> Display at 01:03:31:02

--> Erase at 01:03:34:21

is actually because of their terror of Mary Magdalene.



--> Display at 01:03:36:02

In Leonardo's "Last Supper,"



--> Display at 01:03:39:02

this Magdalene figure,

this very feminine figure,



--> Display at 01:03:43:17

is leaning away from Jesus rather pointedly.



--> Display at 01:03:48:02

And Saint Peter, his hand

is slicing across her neck.



--> Display at 01:03:54:02

And he's sort of staring at her or slightly past her



--> Display at 01:03:57:20

in this rather horrible way,



--> Display at 01:03:59:17

which is very interesting because in the lost Gospels,



--> Display at 01:04:05:12

many of which have been recovered and translated,



--> Display at 01:04:08:20

one of the things

that comes out very strongly



--> Display at 01:04:11:10

is that Saint Peter

hated Mary Magdalene.



--> Display at 01:04:14:23

Peter told her to shut up.



--> Display at 01:04:16:05

She didn't have

any special revelation.



--> Display at 01:04:18:07

And then another disciple,

Levi, saying,



--> Display at 01:04:20:15

"If Jesus told her something special, we ought to listen."



--> Display at 01:04:23:12

So that this back and forth is there in the Nag Hammadi text.



--> Display at 01:04:29:07

So that you can sense some restiveness on the part of women



--> Display at 01:04:35:07

over against the male hierarchy.



--> Display at 01:04:37:17

Why would people have made up the rivalry of Peter and Mary?



--> Display at 01:04:44:02

Why would someone

in that time period



--> Display at 01:04:47:15

have written Peter

as a jealous character?



--> Display at 01:04:52:12

Why would someone

who was just writing a story



--> Display at 01:04:56:07

have suggested that Jesus

may have left his ministry



--> Display at 01:05:00:20

and his work to Mary?



--> Display at 01:05:03:12

What about the world view

of that time



--> Display at 01:05:06:22

would lead people to make that up if that was not their belief?



--> Display at 01:05:10:15

Now, I'm not saying

that's what happened,



--> Display at 01:05:13:00

but I do think the people

who wrote these things



--> Display at 01:05:15:15

believed what they wrote.



--> Display at 01:05:17:20

And I find it interesting



--> Display at 01:05:19:04

that we have some of these interesting little tidbits,



--> Display at 01:05:23:02

which I thoroughly emphasize



--> Display at 01:05:25:20

are not contemporaneous historical documents,



--> Display at 01:05:28:17

but are written

several hundred years later.



--> Display at 01:05:31:00

But it's fascinating

to think that people



--> Display at 01:05:33:02

in 300 A.D., 400 A.D.



--> Display at 01:05:35:12

were impugning motives

of jealousy to Peter,



--> Display at 01:05:39:02

were talking about



--> Display at 01:05:41:05

whether the Church

should be left to a woman,



--> Display at 01:05:43:17

were talking about what this kiss is between Jesus and Mary.



--> Display at 01:05:48:01

And there's a lot of debate.



--> Display at 01:05:49:20

In one of the Gospels,

he actually says to Jesus,



--> Display at 01:05:53:07

"Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life."



--> Display at 01:05:58:02

And in a later text, it actually has her going to Jesus



--> Display at 01:06:02:10

and saying,

"Peter has threatened me.



--> Display at 01:06:06:07

He's threatened my life,



--> Display at 01:06:09:22

for he hates me

and all the race of women."



--> Display at 01:06:14:12

And I think

that's so interesting



--> Display at 01:06:16:07

because that clash

of personalities



--> Display at 01:06:21:22

prefigures what actually

was to happen



--> Display at 01:06:25:12

with the hugely misogynist Church of Rome



--> Display at 01:06:28:07

and their notorious attitude

to women.



--> Display at 01:06:31:12

--> Erase at 01:06:34:08

It started with its founder.



--> Display at 01:06:35:17

--> Erase at 01:06:43:12

I think Mary Magdalene was

the outstanding female disciple.



--> Display at 01:06:44:02

And that is very important, particularly in our latter day



--> Display at 01:06:50:02

when women are not supposed

to be ordained



--> Display at 01:06:53:02

because none of the 12 Apostles were female.



--> Display at 01:06:57:02

Well, over against that, there were women in the inner circle,



--> Display at 01:07:02:22

--> Erase at 01:07:06:24

and this is very important.



--> Display at 01:07:07:17

Well, let me put it simply.



--> Display at 01:07:10:12

All of the 12 Apostles

were male.



--> Display at 01:07:14:12

All 12 were Jews.



--> Display at 01:07:17:12

All 12 lived in the Holy Land.



--> Display at 01:07:22:07

There wasn't

a single Gentile Apostle.



--> Display at 01:07:25:12

--> Erase at 01:07:28:01

Nobody from Poland.



--> Display at 01:07:28:12

--> Erase at 01:07:30:11

So what?



--> Display at 01:07:31:17

So that this is just

pure Church propaganda.



--> Display at 01:07:36:22

And over against that,

we ought to emphasize



--> Display at 01:07:42:10

that Jesus gave women a prominent role in his ministry.



--> Display at 01:07:49:10

There are records of women accompanying the male disciples



--> Display at 01:07:57:02

and providing food and funds



--> Display at 01:08:01:02

and performing the rites

that are reserved for women.



--> Display at 01:08:06:12

Mary Magdalene's prominence

is not at all surprising.



--> Display at 01:08:13:12

Dan Brown,

through "The Da Vinci Code,"



--> Display at 01:08:15:12

is calling our attention

to facts



--> Display at 01:08:19:10

like Mary Magdalene

may have been a partner



--> Display at 01:08:25:17

in the creation

of the Christian belief.



--> Display at 01:08:29:07

She may have been

the chosen follower of Jesus



--> Display at 01:08:33:00

to be the Apostle

to the Apostles and so on.



--> Display at 01:08:36:12

It may not have been

so extraordinary



--> Display at 01:08:38:15

in that time period to have had female religious leaders.



--> Display at 01:08:43:10

There's nothing

in the New Testament



--> Display at 01:08:45:22

that says that priests

should be men.



--> Display at 01:08:49:17

There, in fact, is this rather unusual line which,



--> Display at 01:08:52:17

when you think about it,



--> Display at 01:08:54:02

starts to sound like it was inserted in there about Peter,



--> Display at 01:08:57:15

"Upon this rock,

I build my Church."



--> Display at 01:09:00:11

I think maybe

the colleagues of Peter



--> Display at 01:09:04:02

wanted to make sure

that the legitimacy of Peter



--> Display at 01:09:08:00

was put in there, and why

would they need to do that?



--> Display at 01:09:10:17

Because maybe

some people thought



--> Display at 01:09:12:22

that Jesus intended to leave

his following to Mary.



--> Display at 01:09:17:07

Mary Magdalene has,

of course, been a big factor



--> Display at 01:09:22:17

in the feminist movement.



--> Display at 01:09:25:17

The feminists have been eager

to distance her



--> Display at 01:09:29:00

from any taint

as to her morality



--> Display at 01:09:33:10

and to emphasize the importance she had for Jesus



--> Display at 01:09:39:08

in his ministry.



--> Display at 01:09:41:02

Dan Brown does

a very agent provocateur job



--> Display at 01:09:45:17

of presenting the notion that perhaps these antimaterialistic,



--> Display at 01:09:53:22

Jewish, charismatic leaders,



--> Display at 01:09:57:15

Jesus, Mary, and the other

early creators of Christianity,



--> Display at 01:10:03:07

had a very different world view than the Romans of Constantine,



--> Display at 01:10:08:05

basically pagan sun worshippers,



--> Display at 01:10:11:00

who became the editors

of the Christian Bible,



--> Display at 01:10:14:02

who became the decision makers about how Christianity



--> Display at 01:10:17:02

should be practiced

in Roman and medieval Europe,



--> Display at 01:10:21:12

very much divorced from

the culture of the desert people



--> Display at 01:10:26:12

to whom Jesus spoke.



--> Display at 01:10:28:17

So Dan Brown sets us all up

for that discussion and debate,



--> Display at 01:10:33:17

and I think that

people today find that



--> Display at 01:10:36:07

a very interesting debate

to engage in.



--> Display at 01:10:38:18

The other Gospels

that were basically banned



--> Display at 01:10:42:20

in the 4th century

by the emerging church



--> Display at 01:10:47:18

who was trying standardize

its beliefs.



--> Display at 01:10:51:05

These other Gospels were hidden, which actually is interesting,



--> Display at 01:10:55:10

'cause it makes them purer

than the ones that we've had



--> Display at 01:10:58:13

that have been subjected endless editing and changing and so on.



--> Display at 01:11:03:11

In 1958, a letter was discovered in a monastery near Jerusalem



--> Display at 01:11:07:10

which had been written

by Bishop Clement of Alexandria,



--> Display at 01:11:11:20

in which he requested

the receiver of the letter,



--> Display at 01:11:14:13

Theodore, to omit two parts

from the Book of Mark



--> Display at 01:11:19:10

which were inconvenient

to the Roman Catholic Church.



--> Display at 01:11:22:05

The first part was the part which describes Lazarus



--> Display at 01:11:28:00

crying out from the tomb, when, in fact, he was supposed to be,



--> Display at 01:11:33:10

according to our present version of the Bible, dead.



--> Display at 01:11:37:10

If he was dead,

he obviously couldn't cry out.



--> Display at 01:11:39:23

What actually happened

as far as Lazarus was concerned



--> Display at 01:11:43:20

was that he had been excommunicated.



--> Display at 01:11:46:05

The rules

for excommunication were



--> Display at 01:11:48:03

that if you were not delivered within a period of four days,



--> Display at 01:11:52:10

then your soul was banished

to hell forevermore.



--> Display at 01:11:56:10

On the third day, Jesus Christ got to hear about this



--> Display at 01:12:00:00

and was going to release Lazarus from this banishment of his soul



--> Display at 01:12:07:05

and therefore restore him

to life, effectively.



--> Display at 01:12:11:05

The way this story

is depicted in the Bible



--> Display at 01:12:13:10

is that Jesus Christ

actually physically



--> Display at 01:12:17:00

restored life to Lazarus,

his physical body,



--> Display at 01:12:20:15

whereas, in fact,

it was his soul.



--> Display at 01:12:22:20

But Bishop Clement of Alexandria saw this as being rather



--> Display at 01:12:27:18

out of kilter with the rest

of Christian belief.



--> Display at 01:12:32:15

The other part

of the Gospel of Mark



--> Display at 01:12:34:20

which Bishop Clement

of Alexandria wanted omitted



--> Display at 01:12:38:20

was when Jesus and his disciples



--> Display at 01:12:40:20

visit the house

of Mary and Martha.



--> Display at 01:12:43:15

Mary is depicted as being hesitant in leaving the house.



--> Display at 01:12:48:05

What, in fact, happened was,



--> Display at 01:12:49:23

according to the original

Book of Mark,



--> Display at 01:12:52:05

was that Mary actually

stepped outside of the house



--> Display at 01:12:55:15

when Jesus Christ arrived.



--> Display at 01:12:58:10

The disciples told her

to go back inside



--> Display at 01:13:01:10

because women were only allowed to leave the house



--> Display at 01:13:04:00

when their husbands

gave them permission.



--> Display at 01:13:06:13

So this was another indication



--> Display at 01:13:08:10

that Mary Magdalene

was married to Jesus Christ.



--> Display at 01:13:11:22

So I think that

what we can say is that,



--> Display at 01:13:15:00

although Jesus was a person

of his own day and age



--> Display at 01:13:18:15

and we should not modernize him inappropriately,



--> Display at 01:13:23:10

still he was more open to the role of women in his activity



--> Display at 01:13:32:13

than were his disciples

and the hierarchy



--> Display at 01:13:35:23

that gradually emerged

of an all-male kind.



--> Display at 01:13:40:20

When I went back to investigate the anointing,



--> Display at 01:13:45:05

I found that in the ancient cult it had sexual connotations



--> Display at 01:13:48:15

and that the anointing

by a woman was a marriage rite



--> Display at 01:13:52:05

in the ancient cults of

the sacrificed bridegroom king.



--> Display at 01:13:55:13

And in those cults,

the anointing nuptials occur.



--> Display at 01:13:59:20

The woman actually chooses

her consort, anoints him.



--> Display at 01:14:04:10

They celebrate their union

in the bridal chamber,



--> Display at 01:14:07:05

and their whole realm rejoices



--> Display at 01:14:09:03

because the joy

from the chamber spreads out



--> Display at 01:14:11:05

into the crops and herds.



--> Display at 01:14:12:18

And so the whole nation celebrates



--> Display at 01:14:16:10

with rituals

celebrating this union,



--> Display at 01:14:19:13

which is the life-force

they're celebrating.



--> Display at 01:14:21:23

It's not about male/female.



--> Display at 01:14:23:05

It's about the life-force

and the recycling of the nature,



--> Display at 01:14:29:05

the resurrection and then

the dying off of vegetation.



--> Display at 01:14:32:10

It's a whole vegetation cult,



--> Display at 01:14:34:10

but it's celebrated

in these ancient symbiosis.



--> Display at 01:14:38:20

Celebrated, I guess,

in Osiris and Isis, that cult,



--> Display at 01:14:41:15

also, Tammuz and Ishtar,



--> Display at 01:14:43:10

Dumuzi and Inanna,

way back in Sumer.



--> Display at 01:14:45:15

They had many,

many goddess couples



--> Display at 01:14:48:05

which manifested

this celebration



--> Display at 01:14:51:10

of the recycling of life.



--> Display at 01:14:53:10

So, when I realized that,



--> Display at 01:14:54:18

then I looked

at the later ramifications.



--> Display at 01:14:58:01

In this cult, the bridegroom celebrates with his wife,



--> Display at 01:15:02:05

his bride, his sister bride.



--> Display at 01:15:04:05

And then later he's sacrificed, mutilated, tortured, executed,



--> Display at 01:15:08:10

laid in a tomb.



--> Display at 01:15:10:00

Usually after a pause

of about three days,



--> Display at 01:15:14:20

his bride goes to the tomb to seek him or to mourn his death



--> Display at 01:15:19:10

and finds him resurrected.



--> Display at 01:15:21:20

And when I read about

these goddess cults,



--> Display at 01:15:24:03

I thought, "My goodness.



--> Display at 01:15:25:08

This is the exact same story that we find in the Gospels."



--> Display at 01:15:28:18

And everybody

in Roman times knew it



--> Display at 01:15:31:00

because the Roman Empire

still celebrated these cults



--> Display at 01:15:33:20

in various domains

around the area.



--> Display at 01:15:37:15

And so they were all cognizant and would recognize right away



--> Display at 01:15:43:05

this liturgy, really,

of the sacrificed bridegroom.



--> Display at 01:15:46:10

The nuptials, the anointing,



--> Display at 01:15:48:05

and then later the death

and resurrection.



--> Display at 01:15:50:24

I was terribly shocked

when I first discovered



--> Display at 01:15:54:00

that Jesus was only one

of many dying-and-rising gods



--> Display at 01:16:00:05

that proliferated and had done

for hundreds of years,



--> Display at 01:16:04:05

thousands of years

before he was born



--> Display at 01:16:06:10

in the general area

of the Mediterranean.



--> Display at 01:16:09:00

--> Erase at 01:16:13:22

There was Dionysius,

Thamus, Adonis.



--> Display at 01:16:14:10

There was, of course,

the great Egyptian god Osiris,



--> Display at 01:16:18:00

who most resembles Jesus

in many respects,



--> Display at 01:16:21:03

or it's the other way around, Jesus resembles Osiris.



--> Display at 01:16:25:05

And Osiris was the consort



--> Display at 01:16:28:15

of the beautiful

mother goddess Isis,



--> Display at 01:16:34:15

who was also the goddess

of magic and sexual magic.



--> Display at 01:16:39:15

And the priestesses

of Isis would enact.



--> Display at 01:16:45:20

They would become,

in a holy ritual of sacred sex,



--> Display at 01:16:50:05

they would become the goddess.



--> Display at 01:16:52:10

And some chap off the street would go into the temple



--> Display at 01:16:55:15

--> Erase at 01:16:57:22

and have sex with them.



--> Display at 01:16:58:15

The idea was the men would become spiritually enlightened



--> Display at 01:17:04:15

simply by having sex

with the priestess



--> Display at 01:17:07:00

who temporarily had become possessed by the goddess



--> Display at 01:17:09:18

or became the goddess.



--> Display at 01:17:11:15

The interesting thing

is that the women



--> Display at 01:17:13:18

wouldn't have to do this

because women,



--> Display at 01:17:16:10

according to the Isis religion,



--> Display at 01:17:18:20

were not only

sexually enlightened,



--> Display at 01:17:21:00

but spiritually enlightened just by the nature of being women.



--> Display at 01:17:24:15

--> Erase at 01:17:28:02

Totally the opposite

of Christianity.



--> Display at 01:17:28:20

Now, you have Jesus,

the only dying-and-rising god,



--> Display at 01:17:34:15

who, according

to the Christian Church,



--> Display at 01:17:37:00

who doesn't have a consort,



--> Display at 01:17:39:03

who doesn't have a magical, feminine balancing presence.



--> Display at 01:17:43:10

But if you look at the forbidden Gospels, there she is.



--> Display at 01:17:47:19

And also, very interestingly,

in the story of the risen Jesus,



--> Display at 01:17:52:15

more or less bumping into

Mary Magdalene in the garden,



--> Display at 01:17:56:20

and she doesn't recognize him through her tears,



--> Display at 01:17:59:15

and he says,

"Why are you weeping?"



--> Display at 01:18:01:10

And she says,

"They've taken my Lord,



--> Display at 01:18:03:03

and I don't know

where they put him."



--> Display at 01:18:05:00

And that is actually

the Osirian mystery plays.



--> Display at 01:18:09:20

Every year the worshippers

of Osiris and Isis



--> Display at 01:18:14:15

enacted their mystery play,



--> Display at 01:18:17:05

where the god

had actually been torn to pieces



--> Display at 01:18:19:23

by the wicked god Set.



--> Display at 01:18:22:15

And bits of his body

had been scattered everywhere.



--> Display at 01:18:25:18

Isis goes weeping throughout

the land trying to find them



--> Display at 01:18:29:00

and magically reassemble them.



--> Display at 01:18:31:00

And the priest says,



--> Display at 01:18:33:23

"Woman, what ails thee?

Why are you weeping?"



--> Display at 01:18:36:13

She says,

"They've taken my Lord,



--> Display at 01:18:37:20

and I know not

where they put him."



--> Display at 01:18:39:15

It's Egypt, Egypt, Egypt, dying-and-rising-god myth.



--> Display at 01:18:44:05

And a lot of people have...



--> Display at 01:18:46:15

Several scholars and commentators have thought



--> Display at 01:18:51:03

that there's so much paganism and so much Egyptianism



--> Display at 01:18:56:05

in the New Testament

that it must mean



--> Display at 01:18:59:10

that basically Jesus

never existed,



--> Display at 01:19:01:15

that he was just created

as another dying-and-rising god.



--> Display at 01:19:06:20

But there was absolutely

no need to do that.



--> Display at 01:19:10:10

We think there is

so much more evidence that shows



--> Display at 01:19:14:00

that actually Jesus and Mary were of that religion



--> Display at 01:19:18:13

or an offshoot of that religion,

which may also tie in closely



--> Display at 01:19:23:00

with a very, very ancient form of Judaism,



--> Display at 01:19:25:23

which was goddess worshipping.



--> Display at 01:19:28:01

The whole point to me is that there is only one model for life



--> Display at 01:19:33:20

that really works on

this planet, and that's union.



--> Display at 01:19:36:23

And so,

if you're not teaching that...



--> Display at 01:19:42:10

What we have in Christianity

is a celibate god



--> Display at 01:19:45:03

and a virgin mother

together in the bridal chamber.



--> Display at 01:19:49:05

No wonder we have

a dysfunctional family.



--> Display at 01:19:52:00

It's incredible

that a model like that



--> Display at 01:19:54:15

would not produce

some aberration,



--> Display at 01:19:58:10

and that's because...



--> Display at 01:20:01:05

--> Erase at 01:20:03:20

It's as above, so below.



--> Display at 01:20:10:15

Well, my impression

of Constantine



--> Display at 01:20:13:03

is a fascinating character

in history



--> Display at 01:20:15:05

and one who is not really

very well understood.



--> Display at 01:20:18:20

A general student of the last 2,000 years of history.



--> Display at 01:20:22:20

If you've taken

a world history class,



--> Display at 01:20:25:10

one has the impression that Constantine is this great guy



--> Display at 01:20:28:15

who converts to Christianity,



--> Display at 01:20:31:13

who discovers the importance

of Christianity,



--> Display at 01:20:35:00

and brings Christianity

to the Roman Empire.



--> Display at 01:20:38:08

It's unclear that Constantine ever converted to Christianity,



--> Display at 01:20:42:00

and if he did so, probably

it was on his deathbed.



--> Display at 01:20:45:15

His greatest interest

in Christianity



--> Display at 01:20:48:03

apparently was aroused when he, as a very superstitious pagan,



--> Display at 01:20:53:15

found that some of his soldiers who were Christians,



--> Display at 01:20:56:10

who were carrying a cross

on their shield,



--> Display at 01:20:59:10

didn't die in battle

and weren't wounded,



--> Display at 01:21:02:05

and he became interested

in whether this cross



--> Display at 01:21:04:15

--> Erase at 01:21:08:09

had actually protected them

or not.



--> Display at 01:21:08:20

He set about expanding Roman power in that time period,



--> Display at 01:21:14:15

and I believe he and his advisers saw in Christianity



--> Display at 01:21:18:15

and monotheism, really, a very powerful set of political ideas



--> Display at 01:21:26:05

with which to unite

the disparate Empire.



--> Display at 01:21:30:10

And he saw great potential



--> Display at 01:21:32:18

in bringing together

emperor and pope



--> Display at 01:21:36:05

and being able to control

a world



--> Display at 01:21:39:09

stretching from Ireland

to Turkey and beyond



--> Display at 01:21:45:18

with a single belief system



--> Display at 01:21:48:13

that found resonance

with the populous.



--> Display at 01:21:52:15

And so, finally,

Constantine wised up.



--> Display at 01:21:57:05

He had an army,



--> Display at 01:21:59:10

the majority of whose

foot soldiers were Christians.



--> Display at 01:22:05:05

And they didn't want to fight

a pagan emperor's wars.



--> Display at 01:22:09:10

They didn't want to fight

to start with.



--> Display at 01:22:10:23

They were pacifists.



--> Display at 01:22:12:18

And so he had this convenient vision of a cross in the sky,



--> Display at 01:22:19:00

saying, "This is the sign

in which you will conquer."



--> Display at 01:22:22:10

And he announced that good news to his soldiers,



--> Display at 01:22:26:05

most of whom were Christians, and so they decided to fight.



--> Display at 01:22:31:05

And so Constantine had

a fighting army



--> Display at 01:22:34:13

and won the battle.



--> Display at 01:22:36:20

So that, in a certain sense,



--> Display at 01:22:39:03

there are rather cynical, realistic ways of understanding



--> Display at 01:22:43:18

this whole process.



--> Display at 01:22:45:11

When Constantine was faced

with the possibility



--> Display at 01:22:48:23

of Christianity

increasing its influence,



--> Display at 01:22:52:15

he jumped on the bandwagon.



--> Display at 01:22:55:05

In fact, his father had jumped on the bandwagon



--> Display at 01:22:57:20

as a supporter of Christianity.



--> Display at 01:23:00:00

And one of the reasons

was that the existing religions



--> Display at 01:23:04:10

of the time, which

were Sol Invictus and Mithraism,



--> Display at 01:23:07:18

had similarities to Christianity



--> Display at 01:23:09:18

so that all three could blend together into something



--> Display at 01:23:13:00

which he could lead at the same time as satisfying the people.



--> Display at 01:23:17:00

Constantine saw the opportunity



--> Display at 01:23:18:20

to blend all

the religions together.



--> Display at 01:23:21:03

At the same time,

he didn't want to change



--> Display at 01:23:23:10

what had been the holidays

of Mithraism and Sol Invictus



--> Display at 01:23:27:15

to the holidays which existed

in Christianity.



--> Display at 01:23:31:05

Previous to Constantine,



--> Display at 01:23:33:20

the date which celebrated Christ's birth



--> Display at 01:23:37:00

was January the 6th.



--> Display at 01:23:38:20

But in order to pacify,



--> Display at 01:23:41:15

or in order to blend

the religions further,



--> Display at 01:23:44:10

he brought about

Christmas Day occurring



--> Display at 01:23:47:23

on the 25th of December,



--> Display at 01:23:50:05

which was the old Mithraist

and Sol Invictus celebration



--> Display at 01:23:54:03

of the rebirth of the sun.



--> Display at 01:23:56:15

He introduced a version

of Christianity



--> Display at 01:23:59:13

which also played on many

of his pagan beliefs.



--> Display at 01:24:02:20

For example, his thought

that he was a worshipper



--> Display at 01:24:06:05

of the sun god Mithras,

and it is thought that Mithras



--> Display at 01:24:09:20

in that tradition's

belief system



--> Display at 01:24:14:20

has a birthday around the time of the winter solstice,



--> Display at 01:24:19:05

i.e., around December 25th.



--> Display at 01:24:22:15

There's nothing about December 25th in the New Testament.



--> Display at 01:24:25:10

Then the next holiday

he had to deal with was Easter.



--> Display at 01:24:29:00

And, in fact,

there was a celebration held



--> Display at 01:24:32:03

under Mithraism

and Sol Invictus,



--> Display at 01:24:34:05

which was called "Estre."



--> Display at 01:24:36:05

So he basically hijacked

that festival as well



--> Display at 01:24:41:15

and brought about



--> Display at 01:24:43:13

it celebrating the death

and rebirth of Jesus Christ.



--> Display at 01:24:47:20

The actual dating, though, of Easter as a permanent fixture,



--> Display at 01:24:52:13

they tried to sort out

at the Council of Nicaea.



--> Display at 01:24:55:20

They weren't able to come

to an agreement,



--> Display at 01:24:58:00

which is why we now have Easter on the first Sunday



--> Display at 01:25:01:05

after the first full moon

after the vernal equinox.



--> Display at 01:25:04:19

The Roman interpretation

of Christianity



--> Display at 01:25:07:15

merges these ideas

and these traditions,



--> Display at 01:25:10:10

and so we end up sometime



--> Display at 01:25:12:05

in the post-Constantine period of the Church



--> Display at 01:25:15:18

deciding that December 25th



--> Display at 01:25:18:08

is, in effect,

the birthday of Jesus Christ,



--> Display at 01:25:22:05

when there's no suggestion

or hint of that



--> Display at 01:25:25:05

--> Erase at 01:25:28:06

in biblical literature.



--> Display at 01:25:29:00

When Dan Brown

makes his suggestion



--> Display at 01:25:32:15

that this great cover-up

has gone on,



--> Display at 01:25:35:20

that these true early Christian beliefs have been replaced



--> Display at 01:25:39:05

with all these pagan ideas



--> Display at 01:25:41:10

and pagan symbols

and sun-god imagery,



--> Display at 01:25:45:20

a lot of people get nervous



--> Display at 01:25:48:08

and become instinctively critical of "The Da Vinci Code."



--> Display at 01:25:54:08

But I think Dan Brown's on pretty good historical footing



--> Display at 01:25:58:05

with some of these suggestions, at least writ large.



--> Display at 01:26:02:00

His detail may be wrong



--> Display at 01:26:03:20

or may be designed to serve

his fast-paced plot.



--> Display at 01:26:08:00

But the big-picture question

of how Constantine



--> Display at 01:26:12:23

and subsequent Roman emperors

reshaped Christianity



--> Display at 01:26:17:19

to serve their own purpose of political theory for the Empire



--> Display at 01:26:21:14

is a powerful and, I think,

largely valid argument.



--> Display at 01:26:26:05

So he ordered that all documents referring to the Gospels



--> Display at 01:26:30:10

before the 4th century,

the era in which he lived,



--> Display at 01:26:33:10

be destroyed,



--> Display at 01:26:34:15

whether they were written

by pagan writers or whoever.



--> Display at 01:26:37:10

And the Gospels were then rewritten from this point.



--> Display at 01:26:40:15

The four accepted Gospels

that are in the New Testament



--> Display at 01:26:44:18

that everyone agrees are part

of the New Testament heritage.



--> Display at 01:26:51:20

All of the archaeologists,



--> Display at 01:26:55:00

serious, independent

biblical scholars,



--> Display at 01:26:58:20

linguists, et cetera, believe that those four documents



--> Display at 01:27:04:00

were written, at their earliest,



--> Display at 01:27:06:13

30 or 40 years

after the death of Jesus



--> Display at 01:27:10:00

and at their latest,



--> Display at 01:27:11:05

perhaps 100 or 120 years

after the death of Jesus.



--> Display at 01:27:15:05

So the landmark,

bright-line test



--> Display at 01:27:19:18

for whether something is true

by biblical standards.



--> Display at 01:27:23:08

We have to remember when we look at these documents,



--> Display at 01:27:26:00

interesting as they are, powerful as they are,



--> Display at 01:27:29:00

powerful as the story

they tell is,



--> Display at 01:27:32:10

that they were all written

long after the fact.



--> Display at 01:27:36:13

If we think

about our own experience



--> Display at 01:27:38:15

and we think what it would be like for my son or my grandson



--> Display at 01:27:44:05

to describe, for example,

the impeachment of Bill Clinton.



--> Display at 01:27:49:08

When we think how much people have forgotten



--> Display at 01:27:51:10

about the impeachment

of Bill Clinton



--> Display at 01:27:53:00

a few years after the fact.



--> Display at 01:27:55:15

Imagine if that story

were being written



--> Display at 01:27:57:18

as contemporaneous history,

an eyewitness observation



--> Display at 01:28:01:05

--> Erase at 01:28:03:10

70 years from now.



--> Display at 01:28:04:10

So the Gospels are interesting



--> Display at 01:28:07:20

because they clearly

do contain information



--> Display at 01:28:11:15

that appears to be fact.



--> Display at 01:28:13:20

--> Erase at 01:28:17:16

They're at odds with each other on a number of points.



--> Display at 01:28:18:10

And they were clearly,

as Dan Brown suggests,



--> Display at 01:28:21:18

chosen from among

many other accounts.



--> Display at 01:28:24:15

And someone, most likely

in the circle of Constantine,



--> Display at 01:28:30:10

from that time to the time of Pope Gregory, 300 years later,



--> Display at 01:28:34:20

someone or "someones" went through an editing process



--> Display at 01:28:38:15

and said, "These are in.

These are out.



--> Display at 01:28:41:13

These are blasphemous.

These are heretical.



--> Display at 01:28:44:05

We don't want to hear

about this line of reasoning,"



--> Display at 01:28:47:05

and in most cases

destroyed or burned



--> Display at 01:28:49:20

the heretical

alternative scriptures.



--> Display at 01:28:54:17

It was basically

as if the President of America



--> Display at 01:28:57:23

rewrote American history

to make it appear



--> Display at 01:29:01:08

that he was the savior

of America.



--> Display at 01:29:03:15

Constantine came to the conclusion, rightly or wrongly,



--> Display at 01:29:06:20

that the purpose of Jesus Christ



--> Display at 01:29:09:15

was to liberate

the Jewish people



--> Display at 01:29:12:10

from the Roman occupation,

and, in fact, he had failed.



--> Display at 01:29:16:20

And Constantine's rationale



--> Display at 01:29:19:00

was that he had actually saved Christians,



--> Display at 01:29:22:05

who were the descendants

of the Jews, or so he thought,



--> Display at 01:29:26:05

and it was he

who was the new Christ



--> Display at 01:29:28:13

and not Jesus Christ himself.



--> Display at 01:29:30:20

--> Erase at 01:29:35:16

So he basically remodeled

the religion based upon him.



--> Display at 01:29:44:20

The Knights Templar were

a real historical organization.



--> Display at 01:29:48:10

Every medieval historian

will tell you that.



--> Display at 01:29:51:15

They did play a very powerful and important role



--> Display at 01:29:54:18

during the Crusades.



--> Display at 01:29:55:20

They did occupy the Temple Mount in Jerusalem



--> Display at 01:29:58:10

for a period of years.



--> Display at 01:30:00:00

We don't know if they found

the Holy Grail or anything else



--> Display at 01:30:03:08

while they were occupying

the Temple Mount.



--> Display at 01:30:06:15

--> Erase at 01:30:09:13

We do know that they became

very powerful.



--> Display at 01:30:09:15

We do know that they became

the early bankers to the Church,



--> Display at 01:30:13:10

the early ambassadors

of Church power,



--> Display at 01:30:16:10

the early guerrilla warriors

of the Crusades,



--> Display at 01:30:21:00

--> Erase at 01:30:27:07

the special forces,

the elite delta squads.



--> Display at 01:30:28:05

And we do know

they became so powerful



--> Display at 01:30:30:18

that they became a threat

to emperors of France and popes,



--> Display at 01:30:35:23

--> Erase at 01:30:39:14

and eventually many of them

were massacred.



--> Display at 01:30:41:05

The Knights Templar were

the playboys of the Middle Ages.



--> Display at 01:30:45:05

Everybody wanted to be

a Knights Templar.



--> Display at 01:30:47:05

They had a fantastic reputation.



--> Display at 01:30:48:23

They had a lot of money.

They swaggered around.



--> Display at 01:30:52:05

They were able to cut

their hair,



--> Display at 01:30:55:00

but they weren't able to cut their beards.



--> Display at 01:30:57:15

They fought to the last.



--> Display at 01:30:59:03

They were undefeatable

in battle.



--> Display at 01:31:01:13

And they were ostensibly

the people



--> Display at 01:31:03:23

who were supposed to guard

the way to the Holy Land.



--> Display at 01:31:07:10

So pilgrims who were going there



--> Display at 01:31:09:10

were protected

by the Knights Templar.



--> Display at 01:31:12:10

In fact, their agenda,

we are led to believe,



--> Display at 01:31:16:05

or we can believe,

was somewhat different.



--> Display at 01:31:18:20

What they did when they arrived in Jerusalem



--> Display at 01:31:22:05

was basically take over the site of the Temple of Solomon.



--> Display at 01:31:26:20

And their main remit

was to find the treasure



--> Display at 01:31:31:03

--> Erase at 01:31:34:01

that they suspected

had been hidden there.



--> Display at 01:31:34:15

That was their main intention.



--> Display at 01:31:36:13

They were fabulously rich

in their own right.



--> Display at 01:31:39:15

Philippe the Fair of France

was very jealous of their power



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and their wealth, in addition

to being indebted to them



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through vast amounts of money.



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So, on Friday the 13th

of October, 1307,



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he arranged

for all the Knights Templar



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throughout France

to be exterminated



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--> Erase at 01:32:00:11

at exactly the same time.



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The plot against

the Knights Templar



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was probably planned in advance.



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Of course, we know,

mainly orchestrated



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by the King of France,

Philippe IV, and Pope Clement V.



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They were in power at the time.



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And as the Templars were

a religious order, remember,



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the Pope had a lot of say

over their jurisdiction,



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and the king, it is

now believed, resented this.



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And there is a bit

of a severe power struggle,



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as the historical record shows, between the two.



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King Philippe IV

clearly owed the Templars money.



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It is widely believed now

by historians



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he wanted their land and,

of course, significant assets.



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So, therefore, that was

one possible motivation.



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Among others, the threat of the power of the Order of the Temple



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by that time,

which was quite extensive.



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King Philippe

had a bit of a problem



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convincing other kings

in other countries



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about the guilt of the Templars,



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'cause again, they had been viewed as being very pious,



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austere, devout, even fanatical Christian martyrs



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in the Holy Land.



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And no one could simply believe



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that this list of charges

would apply to Templars.



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It was a shock.



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It's as though we wake up today,



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the front page

of the newspaper or tabloid



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goes on about every executive being rounded up



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for an international bank

or organization suddenly,



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--> Erase at 01:33:39:24

without any prior warning.



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We've often heard

of the saying today,



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"Friday the 13th,

unlucky for some."



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This saying is said

to have arrived



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from the original arrest

of the Knights Templar in 1307.



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And, in fact,

on Friday the 13th at dawn,



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there was a very sudden raid

on every known Knight Templar



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in all of Europe,

especially France.



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And this was a shock

to everyone at the time.



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By and large, it was just

found to be rather unbelievable



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that the powerful,

great Knights Templar



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could be guilty of such charges.



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In the 19th century, it was said that the Knights Templar



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worshipped Baphomet,

who was the figure



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who became the icon of

the Christian idea of the devil.



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Whether or not this was true,

we don't know.



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We do know the leader

of the Knights Templar,



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Jacques de Molay,

who was burnt to death,



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he made two statements

as he was being fried on sticks.



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First that all that the

Knights Templar were guilty of



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was lying under torture.



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And secondly

that Philippe the Fair



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and the Pope of the time,

who brought about



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the extermination

of the Knights Templar,



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he would see them in death within the year.



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And, in fact, both of them died before the year was out.