Seated on the divan beside Langdon, Sophie drank her tea and ate a scone, feeling the welcomeeffects of caffeine and food. Sir Leigh Teabing was beaming as he awkwardly paced before theopen fire, his leg braces clicking on the stone hearth.
"The Holy Grail," Teabing said, his voice sermonic. "Most people ask me only where it is. I fearthat is a question I may never answer." He turned and looked directly at Sophie. "However... the farmore relevant question is this: What is the Holy Grail?"Sophie sensed a rising air of academic anticipation now in both of her male companions.
"To fully understand the Grail," Teabing continued, "we must first understand the Bible. How welldo you know the New Testament?"Sophie shrugged. "Not at all, really. I was raised by a man who worshipped Leonardo da Vinci."Teabing looked both startled and pleased. "An enlightened soul. Superb! Then you must be awarethat Leonardo was one of the keepers of the secret of the Holy Grail. And he hid clues in his art.""Robert told me as much, yes.""And Da Vinci's views on the New Testament?""I have no idea."Teabing's eyes turned mirthful as he motioned to the bookshelf across the room. "Robert, wouldyou mind? On the bottom shelf. La Storia di Leonardo."Langdon went across the room, found a large art book, and brought it back, setting it down on thetable between them. Twisting the book to face Sophie, Teabing flipped open the heavy cover andpointed inside the rear cover to a series of quotations. "From Da Vinci's notebook on polemics andspeculation," Teabing said, indicating one quote in particular. "I think you'll find this relevant toour discussion."Sophie read the words.
Many have made a trade of delusionsand false miracles, deceiving the stupid multitude.
—LEONARDO DA VINCI"Here's another," Teabing said, pointing to a different quote.
Blinding ignorance does mislead us.
O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes!
—LEONARDO DA VINCISophie felt a little chill. "Da Vinci is talking about the Bible?"Teabing nodded. "Leonardo's feelings about the Bible relate directly to the Holy Grail. In fact, DaVinci painted the true Grail, which I will show you momentarily, but first we must speak of theBible." Teabing smiled. "And everything you need to know about the Bible can be summed up bythe great canon doctor Martyn Percy." Teabing cleared his throat and declared, "The Bible did notarrive by fax from heaven.""I beg your pardon?""The Bible is a product of man, my dear. Not of God. The Bible did not fall magically from theclouds. Man created it as a historical record of tumultuous times, and it has evolved throughcountless translations, additions, and revisions. History has never had a definitive version of thebook.""Okay.""Jesus Christ was a historical figure of staggering influence, perhaps the most enigmatic andinspirational leader the world has ever seen. As the prophesied Messiah, Jesus toppled kings,inspired millions, and founded new philosophies. As a descendant of the lines of King Solomonand King David, Jesus possessed a rightful claim to the throne of the King of the Jews.
Understandably, His life was recorded by thousands of followers across the land." Teabing pausedto sip his tea and then placed the cup back on the mantel. "More than eighty gospels wereconsidered for the New Testament, and yet only a relative few were chosen forinclusion—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John among them.
"Who chose which gospels to include?" Sophie asked.
"Aha!" Teabing burst in with enthusiasm. "The fundamental irony of Christianity! The Bible, as weknow it today, was collated by the pagan Roman emperor Constantine the Great.""I thought Constantine was a Christian," Sophie said.
"Hardly," Teabing scoffed. "He was a lifelong pagan who was baptized on his deathbed, too weakto protest. In Constantine's day, Rome's official religion was sun worship—the cult of Sol Invictus,or the Invincible Sun—and Constantine was its head priest. Unfortunately for him, a growingreligious turmoil was gripping Rome. Three centuries after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, Christ'sfollowers had multiplied exponentially. Christians and pagans began warring, and the conflict grewto such proportions that it threatened to rend Rome in two. Constantine decided something had tobe done. In 325 A.D., he decided to unify Rome under a single religion. Christianity."Sophie was surprised. "Why would a pagan emperor choose Christianity as the official religion?"Teabing chuckled. "Constantine was a very good businessman. He could see that Christianity wason the rise, and he simply backed the winning horse. Historians still marvel at the brilliance withwhich Constantine converted the sun-worshipping pagans to Christianity. By fusing pagansymbols, dates, and rituals into the growing Christian tradition, he created a kind of hybrid religionthat was acceptable to both parties.""Transmogrification," Langdon said. "The vestiges of pagan religion in Christian symbology areundeniable. Egyptian sun disks became the halos of Catholic saints. Pictograms of Isis nursing hermiraculously conceived son Horus became the blueprint for our modern images of the Virgin Marynursing Baby Jesus. And virtually all the elements of the Catholic ritual—the miter, the altar, thedoxology, and communion, the act of "God-eating"—were taken directly from earlier paganmystery religions."Teabing groaned. "Don't get a symbologist started on Christian icons. Nothing in Christianity isoriginal. The pre-Christian God Mithras—called the Son of God and the Light of the World—wasborn on December 25, died, was buried in a rock tomb, and then resurrected in three days. By theway, December 25 is also the birthday of Osiris, Adonis, and Dionysus. The newborn Krishna waspresented with gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Even Christianity's weekly holy day was stolen fromthe pagans.""What do you mean?""Originally," Langdon said, "Christianity honored the Jewish Sabbath of Saturday, but Constantineshifted it to coincide with the pagan's veneration day of the sun." He paused, grinning. "To thisday, most churchgoers attend services on Sunday morning with no idea that they are there onaccount of the pagan sun god's weekly tribute—Sunday."Sophie's head was spinning. "And all of this relates to the Grail?""Indeed," Teabing said. "Stay with me. During this fusion of religions, Constantine needed tostrengthen the new Christian tradition, and held a famous ecumenical gathering known as theCouncil of Nicaea."Sophie had heard of it only insofar as its being the birthplace of the Nicene Creed.
"At this gathering," Teabing said, "many aspects of Christianity were debated and voted upon—thedate of Easter, the role of the bishops, the administration of sacraments, and, of course, the divinityof Jesus.""I don't follow. His divinity?""My dear," Teabing declared, "until that moment in history, Jesus was viewed by His followers asa mortal prophet... a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless. A mortal.""Not the Son of God?""Right," Teab............