Christianity Today Slams the code

Christians less than thrilled with the Da Vinci Code, have been having their say for some time now, this article however does raise some valid points that contrdict Mr Brown…..

The Cathars were a religious group who appeared in Europe in the eleventh century, their origin seems to be something of a mystery though there is some evidence that their ideas came from Persia by way of the Byzantine Empire. So they fit in well with the Sauniere Mystery, as yet another mysterious element. Records from the Roman Catholic Church mention them under various names and in various locations. Most details that can be found about them are some what vague and fudged. Catholic theologians debated with themselves for centuries whether Cathars were or a Christian ‘cult’ or heretics. The question is apparently still open to debate. Roman Catholics still refer to Cathar belief as “the Great Heresy” though the current official Catholic position is that Cathars are not in fact Christian. The main sticking point and problem that the Catholic Church seems to have had with them is that they refused to believe in the two fundamental ideas the church held dear, the priesthood and that churches were sacred holy buildings. There is also some evidence that they believed in the equality and parity of men and women- not a popular medieval notion!

Archeologist and Rennes-le-Château researcher Christian Doumergue reports that l’Association Terre de Rhedae has now been brought into orbit in cyberspace. There’s a brandnew and slick looking website where you can become a member of this great research association and receive their much appraised bulletin, which is counted among the most serious. Chairman of the association is Antoine Captier. The website is in French.

Wars have been fought over them, pilgrims trudged thousands of miles just for a glimpse - and millions of Christians believe they have miraculous powers. Every item associated with the very first Easter, when Christ was crucified, has become a holy relic. Here’s a Holy Relic crash-course.

William of Malmesbury, a careful English historian of the early days, has recorded the legend, preserved through the Middle Ages, that Christianity first came to England when Joseph of Arimathaea was sent by the Apostle Philip from Gaul. Bearing in his custody the Holy Grail, Joseph found in the swamps of Somerset a conspicuous Tor that had a startling resemblance to Mount Tabor in the Holy Land. There he hid the Grail, and built the first Christian sanctuary in these islands of ours, in 63 AD. It is here in this legend “all covered over with a luminous mist” that the Gospel story reaches out a long arm across the distance and makes contact with England. There may be little of historical truth in the story, though there seems nothing intrinsically improbable in the suggestion that it was Joseph, or relatives of his, that brought the Gospel to England.

Jesus did not die on the cross. He survived and went to southern France with his wife, Mary. This is the central theme of a book by author Graham Simmans, who died in 2005 and researched Rennes-le-Château for 15 years. He believed that the spread of Christianity beyond Jerusalem was tied to Jesus’s survival of the crucifixion and his subsequent emigration to Europe. Coptic and Jewish sources, including the Talmud, allow a glimpse of the Christian philosophy espoused by Jesus. Simmans contends that true Christianity was brought to France, Britain, and Spain from first-century Egypt and Judea, not fourth- and fifth-century Rome.

The Rennes-le-Château and Languedoc region it has been said, shows evidence of Isis Worship as well as a strange mix of Christian and Occult symbolism in tha area. Even this church in Salza a village in the hills ten miles from Rennes-le-Château has an inverted pentagram at the entrance, and no one seems to have ever objected.

‘Pontils Tomb’, found not too far from Rennes-le-Château, was perhaps once situated beside the river ‘Le Cruce’ which is now a dry river bed. Controversy comes from its comparison with the tomb in the painting ‘The Shepherds of Arcadia’ by Nicolas Poussin and it’s depicted tomb, which he painted between 1638-39. Could he have painted the Pontils Tomb? There is evidence that this tomb may have been built long after Poussin painted his masterpiece. The question is, was the ‘newer tomb’ rebuilt on the site of a previously derelict tomb, or built to look the tomb in the painting for some reason?