Dismantling The Da Vinci Code
By Sandra Miesel
“The Grail,” Langdon said, “is symbolic of the lost goddess. When Christianity came along, the old pagan religions did not die easily. Legends of chivalric quests for the Holy Grail were in fact stories of forbidden quests to find the lost sacred feminine. Knights who claimed to be “searching for the chalice” were speaking in code as a way to protect themselves from a Church that had subjugated women, banished the Goddess, burned non-believers, and forbidden the pagan reverence for the sacred feminine.” (The Da Vinci Code, pages 238-239)
The Holy Grail is a favorite metaphor for a desirable but difficult-to-attain goal, from the map of the human genome to Lord Stanley’s Cup. While the original Grail—the cup Jesus allegedly used at the Last Supper—normally inhabits the pages of Arthurian romance, Dan Brown’s recent mega–best-seller, The Da Vinci Code, rips it away to the realm of esoteric history.
But his book is more than just the story of a quest for the Grail—he wholly reinterprets the Grail legend. In doing so, Brown inverts the insight that a woman’s body is symbolically a container and makes a container symbolically a woman’s body. And that container has a name every Christian will recognize, for Brown claims that the Holy Grail was actually Mary Magdalene. She was the vessel that held the blood of Jesus Christ in her womb while bearing his children.
Over the centuries, the Grail-keepers have been guarding the true (and continuing) bloodline of Christ and the relics of the Magdalen, not a material vessel. Therefore Brown claims that “the quest for the Holy Grail is the quest to kneel before the bones of Mary Magdalene,” a conclusion that would surely have surprised Sir Galahad and the other Grail knights who thought they were searching for the Chalice of the Last Supper.
The Da Vinci Code opens with the grisly murder of the Louvre’s curator inside the museum. The crime enmeshes hero Robert Langdon, a tweedy professor of symbolism from Harvard, and the victim’s granddaughter, burgundy-haired cryptologist Sophie Nevue. Together with crippled millionaire historian Leigh Teabing, they flee Paris for London one step ahead of the police and a mad albino Opus Dei “monk” named Silas who will stop at nothing to prevent them from finding the “Grail.”
But despite the frenetic pacing, at no point is action allowed to interfere with a good lecture. Before the story comes full circle back to the Louvre, readers face a barrage of codes, puzzles, mysteries, and conspiracies.
With his twice-stated principle, “Everybody loves a conspiracy,” Brown is reminiscent of the famous author who crafted her product by studying the features of ten earlier best-sellers. It would be too easy to criticize him for characters thin as plastic wrap, undistinguished prose, and improbable action. But Brown isn’t so much writing badly as writing in a particular way best calculated to attract a female audience. (Women, after all, buy most of the nation’s books.) He has married a thriller plot to a romance-novel technique. Notice how each character is an extreme type…effortlessly brilliant, smarmy, sinister, or psychotic as needed, moving against luxurious but curiously flat backdrops. Avoiding gore and bedroom gymnastics, he shows only one brief kiss and a sexual ritual performed by a married couple. The risqué allusions are fleeting although the text lingers over some bloody Opus Dei mortifications. In short, Brown has fabricated a novel perfect for a ladies’ book club.
Brown’s lack of seriousness shows in the games he plays with his character names—Robert Langdon, “bright fame long don” (distinguished and virile); Sophie Nevue, “wisdom New Eve”; the irascible taurine detective Bezu Fache, “zebu anger.” The servant who leads the police to them is Legaludec, “legal duce.” The murdered curator takes his surname, Saunière, from a real Catholic priest whose occult antics sparked interest in the Grail secret. As an inside joke, Brown even writes in his real-life editor (Faukman is Kaufman).
While his extensive use of fictional formulas may be the secret to Brown’s stardom, his anti-Christian message can’t have hurt him in publishing circles: The Da Vinci Code debuted atop the New York Times best-seller list. By manipulating his audience through the conventions of romance-writing, Brown invites readers to identify with his smart, glamorous characters who’ve seen through the impostures of the clerics who hide the “truth” about Jesus and his wife. Blasphemy is delivered in a soft voice with a knowing chuckle: “[E]very faith in the world is based on fabrication.”
But even Brown has his limits. To dodge charges of outright bigotry, he includes a climactic twist in the story that absolves the Church of assassination. And although he presents Christianity as a false root and branch, he’s willing to tolerate it for its charitable works.
(Of course, Catholic Christianity will become even more tolerable once the new liberal pope elected in Brown’s previous Langdon novel, Angels & Demons, abandons outmoded teachings. “Third-century laws cannot be applied to the modern followers of Christ,” says one of the book’s progressive cardinals.)
Where Is He Getting All of This?
Brown actually cites his principal sources within the text of his novel. One is a specimen of academic feminist scholarship: The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels. The others are popular esoteric histories: The Templar Revelation: Secret Guardians of the True Identity of Christ by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince; Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln; The Goddess in the Gospels: Reclaiming the Sacred Feminine and The Woman with the Alabaster Jar: Mary Magdalen and the Holy Grail, both by Margaret Starbird. (Starbird, a self-identified Catholic, has her books published by Matthew Fox’s outfit, Bear & Co.) Another influence, at least at second remove, is The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets by Barbara G. Walker.
The use of such unreliable sources belies Brown’s pretensions to intellectuality. But the act has apparently fooled at least some of his readers—the New York Daily News book reviewer trumpeted, “His research is impeccable.”
But despite Brown’s scholarly airs, a writer who thinks the Merovingians founded Paris and forgets that the popes once lived in Avignon is hardly a model researcher. And for him to state that the Church burned five million women as witches shows a willful—and malicious—ignorance of the historical record. The latest figures for deaths during the European witch craze are between 30,000 to 50,000 victims. Not all were executed by the Church, not all were women, and not all were burned. Brown’s claim that educated women, priestesses, and midwives were singled out by witch-hunters is not only false, it betrays his goddess-friendly sources.
A Multitude of Errors
So error-laden is The Da Vinci Code that the educated reader actually applauds those rare occasions where Brown stumbles (despite himself) into the truth. A few examples of his “impeccable” research: He claims that the motions of the planet Venus trace a pentacle (the so-called Ishtar pentagram) symbolizing the goddess. But it isn’t a perfect figure and has nothing to do with the length of the Olympiad. The ancient Olympic games were celebrated in honor of Zeus Olympias, not Aphrodite, and occurred every four years.
Brown’s contention that the five linked rings of the modern Olympic Games are a secret tribute to the goddess is also wrong—each set of games was supposed to add a ring to the design but the organizers stopped at five. And his efforts to read goddess propaganda into art, literature, and even Disney cartoons are simply ridiculous.
No datum is too dubious for inclusion, and reality falls quickly by the wayside. For instance, the Opus Dei bishop encourages his albino assassin by telling him that Noah was also an albino (a notion drawn from the non-canonical 1 Enoch 106:2). Yet albinism somehow fails to interfere with the man’s eyesight as it physiologically would.
But a far more important example is Brown’s treatment of Gothic architecture as a style full of goddess-worshipping symbols and coded messages to confound the uninitiated. Building on Barbara Walker’s claim that “like a pagan temple, the Gothic cathedral represented the body of the Goddess,” The Templar Revelation asserts: “Sexual symbolism is found in the great Gothic cathedrals which were masterminded by the Knights Templar...both of which represent intimate female anatomy: the arch, which draws the worshipper into the body of Mother Church, evokes the vulva.” In The Da Vinci Code, these sentiments are transformed into a character’s description of “a cathedral’s long hollow nave as a secret tribute to a woman’s womb...complete with receding labial ridges and a nice little cinquefoil clitoris above the doorway.”
These remarks cannot be brushed aside as opinions of the villain; Langdon, the book’s hero, refers to his own lectures about goddess-symbolism at Chartres.
These bizarre interpretations betray no acquaintance with the actual development or construction of Gothic architecture, and correcting the countless errors becomes a tiresome exercise: The Templars had nothing to do with the cathedrals of their time, which were commissioned by bishops and their canons throughout Europe. They were unlettered men with no arcane knowledge of “sacred geometry” passed down from the pyramid builders. They did not wield tools themselves on their own projects, nor did they found masons’ guilds to build for others. Not all their churches were round, nor was roundness a defiant insult to the Church. Rather than being a tribute to the divine feminine, their round churches honored the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Actually looking at Gothic churches and their predecessors deflates the idea of female symbolism. Large medieval churches typically had three front doors on the west plus triple entrances to their transepts on the north and south. (What part of a woman’s anatomy does a transept represent? Or the kink in Chartres’s main aisle?) Romanesque churches—including ones that predate the founding of the Templars—have similar bands of decoration arching over their entrances. Both Gothic and Romanesque churches have the long, rectangular nave inherited from Late Antique basilicas, ultimately derived from Roman public buildings. Neither Brown nor his sources consider what symbolism medieval churchmen such as Suger of St.-Denis or William Durandus read in church design. It certainly wasn’t goddess-worship.
False Claims
If the above seems like a pile driver applied to a gnat, the blows are necessary to demonstrate the utter falseness of Brown’s material. His willful distortions of documented history are more than matched by his outlandish claims about controversial subjects. But to a postmodernist, one construct of reality is as good as any other.
Brown’s approach seems to consist of grabbing large chunks of his stated sources and tossing them together in a salad of a story. From Holy Blood, Holy Grail, Brown lifts the concept of the Grail as a metaphor for a sacred lineage by arbitrarily breaking a medieval French term, Sangraal (Holy Grail), into sang (blood) and raal (royal). This holy blood, according to Brown, descended from Jesus and his wife, Mary Magdalene, to the Merovingian dynasty in Dark Ages France, surviving its fall to persist in several modern French families, including that of Pierre Plantard, a leader of the mysterious Priory of Sion. The Priory—an actual organization officially registered with the French government in 1956—makes extraordinary claims of antiquity as the “real” power behind the Knights Templar. It most likely originated after World War II and was first brought to public notice in 1962. With the exception of filmmaker Jean Cocteau, its illustrious list of Grand Masters—which include Leonardo da Vinci, Issac Newton, and Victor Hugo—is not credible, although it’s presented as true by Brown.
Brown doesn’t accept a political motivation for the Priory’s activities. Instead he picks up The Templar Revelation’s view of the organization as a cult of secret goddess-worshippers who have preserved ancient Gnostic wisdom and records of Christ’s true mission, which would completely overturn Christianity if released. Significantly, Brown omits the rest of the book’s thesis that makes Christ and Mary Magdalene unmarried sex partners performing the erotic mysteries of Isis. Perhaps even a gullible mass-market audience has its limits.
From both Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The Templar Revelation, Brown takes a negative view of the Bible and a grossly distorted image of Jesus. He’s neither the Messiah nor a humble carpenter but a wealthy, trained religious teacher bent on regaining the throne of David. His credentials are amplified by his relationship with the rich Magdalen who carries the royal blood of Benjamin: “Almost everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false,” laments one of Brown’s characters.
Yet it’s Brown’s Christology that’s false—and blindingly so. He requires the present New Testament to be a post-Constantinian fabrication that displaced true accounts now represented only by surviving Gnostic texts. He claims that Christ wasn’t considered divine until the Council of Nicea voted him so in 325 at the behest of the emperor. Then Constantine—a lifelong sun worshipper—ordered all older scriptural texts destroyed, which is why no complete set of Gospels predates the fourth century. Christians somehow failed to notice the sudden and drastic change in their doctrine.
But by Brown’s specious reasoning, the Old Testament can’t be authentic either because complete Hebrew Scriptures are no more than a thousand years old. And yet the texts were transmitted so accurately that they do match well with the Dead Sea Scrolls from a thousand years earlier. Analysis of textual families, comparison with fragments and quotations, plus historical correlations securely date the orthodox Gospels to the first century and indicate that they’re earlier than the Gnostic forgeries. (The Epistles of St. Paul are, of course, even earlier than the Gospels.)
Primitive Church documents and the testimony of the ante-Nicean Fathers confirm that Christians have always believed Jesus to be Lord, God, and Savior—even when that faith meant death. The earliest partial canon of Scripture dates from the late second century and already rejected Gnostic writings. For Brown, it isn’t enough to credit Constantine with the divinization of Jesus. The emperor’s old adherence to the cult of the Invincible Sun also meant repackaging sun worship as the new faith. Brown drags out old (and long-discredited) charges by virulent anti-Catholics like Alexander Hislop who accused the Church of perpetuating Babylonian mysteries, as well as 19th-century rationalists who regarded Christ as just another dying savior-god.
Unsurprisingly, Brown misses no opportunity to criticize Christianity and its pitiable adherents. (The church in question is always the Catholic Church, though his villain does sneer once at Anglicans—for their grimness, of all things.) He routinely and anachronistically refers to the Church as “the Vatican,” even when popes weren’t in residence there. He systematically portrays it throughout history as deceitful, power-crazed, crafty, and murderous: “The Church may no longer employ crusades to slaughter, but their influence is no less persuasive. No less insidious.”
Goddess Worship and the Magdalen
Worst of all, in Brown’s eyes, is the fact that the pleasure-hating, sex-hating, woman-hating Church suppressed goddess worship and eliminated the divine feminine. He claims that goddess worship universally dominated pre-Christian paganism with the hieros gamos (sacred marriage) as its central rite. His enthusiasm for fertility rites is enthusiasm for sexuality, not procreation. What else would one expect of a Cathar sympathizer?
Astonishingly, Brown claims that Jews in Solomon’s Temple adored Yahweh and his feminine counterpart, the Shekinah, via the services of sacred prostitutes—possibly a twisted version of the Temple’s corruption after Solomon (1 Kings 14:24 and 2 Kings 23:4-15). Moreover, he says that the tetragrammaton YHWH derives from “Jehovah, an androgynous physical union between the masculine Jah and the pre-Hebraic name for Eve, Havah.”
But as any first-year Scripture student could tell you, Jehovah is actually a 16th-century rendering of Yahweh using the vowels of Adonai (“Lord”). In fact, goddesses did not dominate the pre-Christian world—not in the religions of Rome, her barbarian subjects, Egypt, or even Semitic lands where the hieros gamos was an ancient practice. Nor did the Hellenized cult of Isis appear to have included sex in its secret rites.
Contrary to yet another of Brown’s claims, Tarot cards do not teach goddess doctrine. They were invented for innocent gaming purposes in the 15th century and didn’t acquire occult associations until the late 18th. Playing-card suites carry no Grail symbolism. The notion of diamonds symbolizing pentacles is a deliberate misrepresentation by British occultist A. E. Waite. And the number five—so crucial to Brown’s puzzles—has some connections with the protective goddess but myriad others besides, including human life, the five senses, and the Five Wounds of Christ.
Brown’s treatment of Mary Magdalene is sheer delusion. In The Da Vinci Code, she’s no penitent whore but Christ’s royal consort and the intended head of His Church, supplanted by Peter and defamed by churchmen. She fled west with her offspring to Provence, where medieval Cathars would keep the original teachings of Jesus alive. The Priory of Sion still guards her relics and records, excavated by the Templars from the subterranean Holy of Holies. It also protects her descendants—including Brown’s heroine.
Although many people still picture the Magdalen as a sinful woman who anointed Jesus and equate her with Mary of Bethany, that conflation is actually the later work of Pope St. Gregory the Great. The East has always kept them separate and said that the Magdalen, “apostle to the apostles,” died in Ephesus. The legend of her voyage to Provence is no earlier than the ninth century, and her relics weren’t reported there until the 13th. Catholic critics, including the Bollandists, have been debunking the legend and distinguishing the three ladies since the 17th century.
Brown uses two Gnostic documents, the Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Mary, to prove that the Magdalen was Christ’s “companion,” meaning sexual partner. The apostles were jealous that Jesus used to “kiss her on the mouth” and favored her over them. He cites exactly the same passages quoted in Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The Templar Revelation and even picks up the latter’s reference to The Last Temptation of Christ. What these books neglect to mention is the infamous final verse of the Gospel of Thomas. When Peter sneers that “women are not worthy of Life,” Jesus responds, “I myself shall lead her in order to make her male.... For every woman who will make herself male will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”
That’s certainly an odd way to “honor” one’s spouse or exalt the status of women.
The Knights Templar
Brown likewise misrepresents the history of the Knights Templar. The oldest of the military-religious orders, the Knights were founded in 1118 to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land. Their rule, attributed to St. Bernard of Clairvaux, was approved in 1128 and generous donors granted them numerous properties in Europe for support. Rendered redundant after the last Crusader stronghold fell in 1291, the Templars’ pride and wealth—they were also bankers—earned them keen hostility.
Brown maliciously ascribes the suppression of the Templars to “Machiavellian” Pope Clement V, whom they were blackmailing with the Grail secret. His “ingeniously planned sting operation” had his soldiers suddenly arrest all Templars. Charged with Satanism, sodomy, and blasphemy, they were tortured into confessing and burned as heretics, their ashes “tossed unceremoniously into the Tiber.”
But in reality, the initiative for crushing the Templars came from King Philip the Fair of France, whose royal officials did the arresting in 1307. About 120 Templars were burned by local Inquisitorial courts in France for not confessing or retracting a confession, as happened with Grand Master Jacques de Molay. Few Templars suffered death elsewhere although their order was abolished in 1312. Clement, a weak, sickly Frenchman manipulated by his king, burned no one in Rome inasmuch as he was the first pope to reign from Avignon (so much for the ashes in the Tiber).
Moreover, the mysterious stone idol that the Templars were accused of worshiping is associated with fertility in only one of more than a hundred confessions. Sodomy was the scandalous—and possibly true—charge against the order, not ritual fornication. The Templars have been darlings of occultism since their myth as masters of secret wisdom and fabulous treasure began to coalesce in the late 18th century. Freemasons and even Nazis have hailed them as brothers. Now it’s the turn of neo-Gnostics.
Twisting da Vinci
Brown’s revisionist interpretations of da Vinci are as distorted as the rest of his information. He claims to have first run across these views “while I was studying art history in Seville,” but they correspond point for point to material in The Templar Revelation. A writer who sees a pointed finger as a throat-cutting gesture, who says the Madonna of the Rocks was painted for nuns instead of a lay confraternity of men, who claims that da Vinci received “hundreds of lucrative Vatican commissions” (actually, it was just one…and it was never executed) is simply unreliable.
Brown’s analysis of da Vinci’s work is just as ridiculous. He presents the Mona Lisa as an androgynous self-portrait when it’s widely known to portray a real woman, Madonna Lisa, wife of Francesco di Bartolomeo del Giocondo. The name is certainly not—as Brown claims—a mocking anagram of two Egyptian fertility deities Amon and L’Isa (Italian for Isis). How did he miss the theory, propounded by the authors of The Templar Revelation, that the Shroud of Turin is a photographed self-portrait of da Vinci?
Much of Brown’s argument centers around da Vinci’s Last Supper, a painting the author considers a coded message that reveals the truth about Jesus and the Grail. Brown points to the lack of a central chalice on the table as proof that the Grail isn’t a material vessel. But da Vinci’s painting specifically dramatizes the moment when Jesus warns, “One of you will betray me” (John 13:21). There is no Institution Narrative in St. John’s Gospel. The Eucharist is not shown there. And the person sitting next to Jesus is not Mary Magdalene (as Brown claims) but St. John, portrayed as the usual effeminate da Vinci youth, comparable to his St. John the Baptist. Jesus is in the exact center of the painting, with two pyramidal groups of three apostles on each side. Although da Vinci was a spiritually troubled homosexual, Brown’s contention that he coded his paintings with anti-Christian messages simply can’t be sustained.
Brown’s Mess
In the end, Dan Brown has penned a poorly written, atrociously researched mess. So, why bother with such a close reading of a worthless novel? The answer is simple: The Da Vinci Code takes esoterica mainstream. It may well do for Gnosticism what The Mists of Avalon did for paganism—gain it popular acceptance. After all, how many lay readers will see the blazing inaccuracies put forward as buried truths?
What’s more, in making phony claims of scholarship, Brown’s book infects readers with a virulent hostility toward Catholicism. Dozens of occult history books, conveniently cross-linked by Amazon.com, are following in its wake. And booksellers’ shelves now bulge with falsehoods few would be buying without The Da Vinci Code connection. While Brown’s assault on the Catholic Church may be a backhanded compliment, it’s one we would have happily done without.
Sandra Miesel is a veteran Catholic journalist.
http://www.crisismagazine.com/september2003/feature1.htm
lunedì 28 gennaio 2008
WHAT DID LUTHER SAY?JESUS AND MARY MAGDALENE
What did Luther say? Jesus and Mary Magdalene.("Mary Magdalene: A Biography")
From: The Christian Century | Date: 5/16/2006 | Author: Becker, Matthew
A recent New Yorker article on Mary Magdalene, obviously written with an eye on her role as Jesus' paramour in Dan Brown's best-selling The Da Vinci Code, began by noting that "Brown is by no means the first to have suggested that Christ had a sex life--Martin Luther said it" (February 13-20). Bruce Chilton, an Episcopal scholar from Bard College, also makes this claim about Luther in Mary Magdalene: A Biography (2005). And a 2003 story in Time magazine declared that "Martin Luther believed that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married."
Did Luther really make these assertions? An electronic search of the digital edition of Luther's works, the massive Weimar Ausgabe (WA), uncovers no evidence that he did. Only two statements come even close to suggesting these unorthodoxies.
The first is a comment on Psalm 119:145 in which Luther interprets Mary Magdalene's actions at the tomb of Christ as an example of loving devotion. Mary "came beforehand at the dawn and with untimely haste and cried and called for her betrothed [sponsum] much more wonderfully in spirit than in the body. But I think that she alone might easily explain the Song of Songs."
Luther's Works: American Edition (LW) unfortunately mistranslates sponsum as "husband." In Luther's medieval monastic context, the word meant something different. The verb spondeo means "to pledge oneself to" or "to promise oneself to someone," as in "to pledge in the vow of marriage." The male form of the noun is "fiance" and the female form is "bride."
The full context of Luther's remark indicates that he was thinking allegorically. Influenced by mainstream allegorical interpretations of the Song of Songs, Luther viewed Mary as the prototypical disciple (a celibate nun?), the first "bride of Christ," who had made her vow of unconditional love and obedience to her sponsum ("betrothed," "groom"). Even today Roman Catholic nuns wear a ring to symbolize their betrothal to Christ. On another occasion Luther argued that all Christians are "brides of Christ" (LW 28:48). He certainly did not think Jesus and Mary were actually husband and wife. Several unambiguous statements in his writings clearly indicate that he held the traditional view that Jesus, like Paul, was celibate and chaste.
Seemingly more problematic is a small notation from John Schlagenhaufen, one of Luther's close friends, which contains a recollection of something Luther supposedly said informally at his Wittenberg dinner table in 1532:
Christ [as] adulterer. In the first instance
Jesus became an adulterer
with the woman at the well in John
4, because they say (no one understands),
"What is he doing with
her?" In the same way with Magdalena;
in the same way with the
adulteress of John 8, whom he let
off so easily. In that way the godly
Christ first of all must also become
an adulterer before he died. (WA
TR 6, 107, sec. 1472; cf. LW 54:154)
No one knows if Luther actually said this. The critical apparatus in the Weimar Ausgabe reveals the textual and grammatical problems in this supposed quotation. Schlagenhaufen recorded only a portion of what he remembered Luther to have said that day (and after how many beers?). No context is given.
Scholars know how difficult, if not impossible, it is to link the lapidary "table notations" of Luther's friends to Luther's own views. The editors of the American Edition speculate in a footnote that the "probable context is suggested in a sermon of 1536 (WA 41, 647) in which Luther asserted that Christ was reproached by the world as a glutton, a winebibber, and even an adulterer" (LW 54:154).
A more probable context is Luther's account of the atonement. One of his basic assertions is that our sins become Christ's and Christ's perfect righteousness becomes ours by faith. This idea of "the happy exchange" is found in many Luther texts. Given his central soteriological and christological concern, the theological irony in Schlagenhaufen's remembered notation becomes clearer: The "godly" Christ becomes or is made a sinner through his solidarity with sinners, even to the point of dying as a God-forsaken criminal on the cross. This is how Luther understood Paul's statement, "God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Cor. 5:21).
So Christ "becomes" an adulterer, though he does not actually commit adultery with Mary or anyone else. He puts mercy front and center, and rejects the legalism which demanded that the woman caught in adultery be killed and the woman at the well and Mary Magdalene be shunned. The holy one becomes the sinner by putting himself into the situation of sinners, by loving and forgiving them, and ultimately by taking their sins on himself. For this gospel reason, Luther could also remark that God made Jesus "the worst sinner of the whole world," even though he also acknowledged that the sinless, righteous Christ actually committed no sin himself.
Trapped in a literalistic approach to Schlagenhaufen's contextless note, some readers have missed the metaphorical character of the remark, which Luther may have made, if he made it at all, with a twinkle in his eye. I'm confident that Luther would not be a fan of The Da Vinci Code--except perhaps with a beer in hand and that twinkle in his eye.
Matthew Becker teaches theology at Valparaiso University.
COPYRIGHT 2006 The Christian Century Foundation
For permission to reuse this article, contact Copyright Clearance Center.
http://www.encyclopedia.com/printable.aspx?id=1G1:146175208
From: The Christian Century | Date: 5/16/2006 | Author: Becker, Matthew
A recent New Yorker article on Mary Magdalene, obviously written with an eye on her role as Jesus' paramour in Dan Brown's best-selling The Da Vinci Code, began by noting that "Brown is by no means the first to have suggested that Christ had a sex life--Martin Luther said it" (February 13-20). Bruce Chilton, an Episcopal scholar from Bard College, also makes this claim about Luther in Mary Magdalene: A Biography (2005). And a 2003 story in Time magazine declared that "Martin Luther believed that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married."
Did Luther really make these assertions? An electronic search of the digital edition of Luther's works, the massive Weimar Ausgabe (WA), uncovers no evidence that he did. Only two statements come even close to suggesting these unorthodoxies.
The first is a comment on Psalm 119:145 in which Luther interprets Mary Magdalene's actions at the tomb of Christ as an example of loving devotion. Mary "came beforehand at the dawn and with untimely haste and cried and called for her betrothed [sponsum] much more wonderfully in spirit than in the body. But I think that she alone might easily explain the Song of Songs."
Luther's Works: American Edition (LW) unfortunately mistranslates sponsum as "husband." In Luther's medieval monastic context, the word meant something different. The verb spondeo means "to pledge oneself to" or "to promise oneself to someone," as in "to pledge in the vow of marriage." The male form of the noun is "fiance" and the female form is "bride."
The full context of Luther's remark indicates that he was thinking allegorically. Influenced by mainstream allegorical interpretations of the Song of Songs, Luther viewed Mary as the prototypical disciple (a celibate nun?), the first "bride of Christ," who had made her vow of unconditional love and obedience to her sponsum ("betrothed," "groom"). Even today Roman Catholic nuns wear a ring to symbolize their betrothal to Christ. On another occasion Luther argued that all Christians are "brides of Christ" (LW 28:48). He certainly did not think Jesus and Mary were actually husband and wife. Several unambiguous statements in his writings clearly indicate that he held the traditional view that Jesus, like Paul, was celibate and chaste.
Seemingly more problematic is a small notation from John Schlagenhaufen, one of Luther's close friends, which contains a recollection of something Luther supposedly said informally at his Wittenberg dinner table in 1532:
Christ [as] adulterer. In the first instance
Jesus became an adulterer
with the woman at the well in John
4, because they say (no one understands),
"What is he doing with
her?" In the same way with Magdalena;
in the same way with the
adulteress of John 8, whom he let
off so easily. In that way the godly
Christ first of all must also become
an adulterer before he died. (WA
TR 6, 107, sec. 1472; cf. LW 54:154)
No one knows if Luther actually said this. The critical apparatus in the Weimar Ausgabe reveals the textual and grammatical problems in this supposed quotation. Schlagenhaufen recorded only a portion of what he remembered Luther to have said that day (and after how many beers?). No context is given.
Scholars know how difficult, if not impossible, it is to link the lapidary "table notations" of Luther's friends to Luther's own views. The editors of the American Edition speculate in a footnote that the "probable context is suggested in a sermon of 1536 (WA 41, 647) in which Luther asserted that Christ was reproached by the world as a glutton, a winebibber, and even an adulterer" (LW 54:154).
A more probable context is Luther's account of the atonement. One of his basic assertions is that our sins become Christ's and Christ's perfect righteousness becomes ours by faith. This idea of "the happy exchange" is found in many Luther texts. Given his central soteriological and christological concern, the theological irony in Schlagenhaufen's remembered notation becomes clearer: The "godly" Christ becomes or is made a sinner through his solidarity with sinners, even to the point of dying as a God-forsaken criminal on the cross. This is how Luther understood Paul's statement, "God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Cor. 5:21).
So Christ "becomes" an adulterer, though he does not actually commit adultery with Mary or anyone else. He puts mercy front and center, and rejects the legalism which demanded that the woman caught in adultery be killed and the woman at the well and Mary Magdalene be shunned. The holy one becomes the sinner by putting himself into the situation of sinners, by loving and forgiving them, and ultimately by taking their sins on himself. For this gospel reason, Luther could also remark that God made Jesus "the worst sinner of the whole world," even though he also acknowledged that the sinless, righteous Christ actually committed no sin himself.
Trapped in a literalistic approach to Schlagenhaufen's contextless note, some readers have missed the metaphorical character of the remark, which Luther may have made, if he made it at all, with a twinkle in his eye. I'm confident that Luther would not be a fan of The Da Vinci Code--except perhaps with a beer in hand and that twinkle in his eye.
Matthew Becker teaches theology at Valparaiso University.
COPYRIGHT 2006 The Christian Century Foundation
For permission to reuse this article, contact Copyright Clearance Center.
http://www.encyclopedia.com/printable.aspx?id=1G1:146175208
THE MAGDALENE LEGACY
A review of Laurence Gardner's The Magdalene Legacy
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
by
"Punkish"
|http://www.tektonics.org/books/maglegrvw.html
I don't need to say much about this one, which is mostly a rewrite of Gardner's previous book Bloodline of the Holy Grail. If you own that, I don't advise you part with your money on this as well. It also explores the same premise: it supposes Jesus was married - to Mary Magdalene of course.
A quick look at the bibliography is quite revealing: John Allegro, Baigent and Leigh, Rudolph Bultmann, Dupont-Sommer, Robert Eisenman, Riane Eisler, Knight and Lomas(!), G.R.S. Mead, Ahmed Osman, Morton Smith's Secret Mark, Barbara G. Walker(!!) and some of Gardner's previous books and other oddball or outdated works for sources. To be sure there are gems of scholarship as well, such as Michael Grant, but the combination is hardly satisfactory.
No Laurence Gardner book would be complete without the obligatory uncritical overuse of Barbara Thiering (whose work Jesus the Man is described as "the finest work for describing precisely how the Essene scribal codes work in practice"!, 315) or mention of the pretender Michael of Albany. Basically this is a compendium of Gardner's bad methodology and argumentation from his previous books stuffed into a single volume. Actually the book deals more with art and allegory than hard data.
There are some real howlers in this book - two examples should suffice:
He has Mary Magdalene performing something related to a pagan rite with Jesus! [158] Why would Jesus, a Jew, submit to such a thing?? This is not explained. (His sources for this claim: Margaret Starbird, who uses sculptor and art-history professor Merlin Stone; and Barbara G Walker, whose source dates from 1901!)
If you thought that was bad; try this, it is just amazing how Gardner can so misread a passage and interprets it exactly the opposite way as presented in the book. The passage reads:
And if a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day. (Qumran Temple Scroll) [127]
Gardner applies this to the events of the Crucifixion (may we ask what sin Jesus committed?) - even having Joseph of Arimathea supposedly getting Pilate to change how Christ is being executed to fit with the law in Deuteronomy 21:22-23 [126], as if Pilate would allow such a thing) and - this is the amazing part - interprets the scroll's last phrase as meaning "the alternate Jewish custom of burial alive"! Burial alive? The text's second line says "put to death", does it not? Further, Pilate, in Mark 15:42-45 asks for the centurion's confirmation that Jesus was dead. This is either a bizarre misreading or a deliberate attempt to push through a theory regardless of contrary data! (The theory being the vastly outdated swoon theory refuted by D F Strauss in the 1830s!)
He then goes on to claim the old canard that the accounts of the Resurrection are "very confusing". All miraculous gospel events are interpreted as non-supernatural in some way or other. Quoting a Dominican friar who thinks faith and evidence are two separate things. Uncritical use of Gnostic texts. The "Son of man" title means "a human being" [345 and he doesn't deal with Daniel 7 at all]. The usual stuff. The usual place for storage: the round filing basket.
Gardner also demonstrates he cannot do mathematics. [365] The circle-ratio constant pi is not equal to 3.1416! Nor is it constructed out of formulae using rational fractions. (That one was disproven in 1761!) I realise this is non-central to the book's thesis but if he cannot present indisputable facts properly why should his theories be believed?
Despite these errors in scholarship the book does have one interesting feature: its criticisms of Dan Brown's fictional novel, The Da Vinci Code. Now Gardner, before he turned his hand to writing the Holy Bloodline series, was an art restorer; hence he is qualified to discuss the da Vinci painting of the Last Supper, indeed showing Brown's book to be incorrect by relying on outdated information about the painting; information which was available at the time Brown wrote his novel! [266] There's also a chapter on the Priory of Sion, in which Gardner pegs Brown for more errors despite acknowledging the Da Vinci Code is a work of fiction.
And so, again, Laurence Gardner's conspiracy-based work is to be considered a waste of time - except for the novel entrance of some critical thinking which is to be encouraged; whether this will be applied by Gardner in future works (or even by fellow bloodline theorists) - instead of the par-for-the-course uncritical lunacy - remains to be seen.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
by
"Punkish"
|http://www.tektonics.org/books/maglegrvw.html
I don't need to say much about this one, which is mostly a rewrite of Gardner's previous book Bloodline of the Holy Grail. If you own that, I don't advise you part with your money on this as well. It also explores the same premise: it supposes Jesus was married - to Mary Magdalene of course.
A quick look at the bibliography is quite revealing: John Allegro, Baigent and Leigh, Rudolph Bultmann, Dupont-Sommer, Robert Eisenman, Riane Eisler, Knight and Lomas(!), G.R.S. Mead, Ahmed Osman, Morton Smith's Secret Mark, Barbara G. Walker(!!) and some of Gardner's previous books and other oddball or outdated works for sources. To be sure there are gems of scholarship as well, such as Michael Grant, but the combination is hardly satisfactory.
No Laurence Gardner book would be complete without the obligatory uncritical overuse of Barbara Thiering (whose work Jesus the Man is described as "the finest work for describing precisely how the Essene scribal codes work in practice"!, 315) or mention of the pretender Michael of Albany. Basically this is a compendium of Gardner's bad methodology and argumentation from his previous books stuffed into a single volume. Actually the book deals more with art and allegory than hard data.
There are some real howlers in this book - two examples should suffice:
He has Mary Magdalene performing something related to a pagan rite with Jesus! [158] Why would Jesus, a Jew, submit to such a thing?? This is not explained. (His sources for this claim: Margaret Starbird, who uses sculptor and art-history professor Merlin Stone; and Barbara G Walker, whose source dates from 1901!)
If you thought that was bad; try this, it is just amazing how Gardner can so misread a passage and interprets it exactly the opposite way as presented in the book. The passage reads:
And if a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day. (Qumran Temple Scroll) [127]
Gardner applies this to the events of the Crucifixion (may we ask what sin Jesus committed?) - even having Joseph of Arimathea supposedly getting Pilate to change how Christ is being executed to fit with the law in Deuteronomy 21:22-23 [126], as if Pilate would allow such a thing) and - this is the amazing part - interprets the scroll's last phrase as meaning "the alternate Jewish custom of burial alive"! Burial alive? The text's second line says "put to death", does it not? Further, Pilate, in Mark 15:42-45 asks for the centurion's confirmation that Jesus was dead. This is either a bizarre misreading or a deliberate attempt to push through a theory regardless of contrary data! (The theory being the vastly outdated swoon theory refuted by D F Strauss in the 1830s!)
He then goes on to claim the old canard that the accounts of the Resurrection are "very confusing". All miraculous gospel events are interpreted as non-supernatural in some way or other. Quoting a Dominican friar who thinks faith and evidence are two separate things. Uncritical use of Gnostic texts. The "Son of man" title means "a human being" [345 and he doesn't deal with Daniel 7 at all]. The usual stuff. The usual place for storage: the round filing basket.
Gardner also demonstrates he cannot do mathematics. [365] The circle-ratio constant pi is not equal to 3.1416! Nor is it constructed out of formulae using rational fractions. (That one was disproven in 1761!) I realise this is non-central to the book's thesis but if he cannot present indisputable facts properly why should his theories be believed?
Despite these errors in scholarship the book does have one interesting feature: its criticisms of Dan Brown's fictional novel, The Da Vinci Code. Now Gardner, before he turned his hand to writing the Holy Bloodline series, was an art restorer; hence he is qualified to discuss the da Vinci painting of the Last Supper, indeed showing Brown's book to be incorrect by relying on outdated information about the painting; information which was available at the time Brown wrote his novel! [266] There's also a chapter on the Priory of Sion, in which Gardner pegs Brown for more errors despite acknowledging the Da Vinci Code is a work of fiction.
And so, again, Laurence Gardner's conspiracy-based work is to be considered a waste of time - except for the novel entrance of some critical thinking which is to be encouraged; whether this will be applied by Gardner in future works (or even by fellow bloodline theorists) - instead of the par-for-the-course uncritical lunacy - remains to be seen.
Mrs.JESUS
Mrs. Jesus
The juiciest part of the Da Vinci conspiracy is the assertion that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had a secret marriage that produced a child, perpetuating his bloodline. Furthermore, Mary Magdalene's womb, carrying Jesus' offspring, is presented in the book as the legendary Holy Grail, a secret closely held by a Catholic organization called the Priory of Sion. Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Leonardo Da Vinci were all cited as members.
Romance. Scandal. Intrigue. Great stuff for a conspiracy theory. But is it true? Let's look at what scholars say.
A Newsweek magazine article, that summarized leading scholars' opinions, concluded that the theory that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were secretly married has no historical basis.15 The proposal set forth in The Da Vinci Code is built primarily upon one solitary verse in the Gospel of Philip that indicates Jesus and Mary were companions. In the book, Teabing tries to build a case that the word for companion (koinonos) could mean spouse. But Teabing's theory is not accepted by scholars.
There is also a single verse in the Gospel of Philip that says Jesus kissed Mary. Greeting friends with a kiss was common in the first century, and had no sexual connotation. But even if The Da Vinci Code interpretation is correct, there is no other historical document to confirm its theory. And since the Gospel of Philip is a forged document written 150-220 years after Christ by an unknown author, its statement about Jesus isn't historically reliable.
Perhaps the Gnostics felt the New Testament was a bit shy on romance and decided to sauce it up a little. Whatever the reason, this isolated and obscure verse written two centuries after Christ isn't much to base a conspiracy theory upon. Interesting reading perhaps, but definitely not history.
As to the Holy Grail and the Priory of Sion, Brown's fictional account again distorts history. The legendary Holy Grail was supposedly Jesus' cup at his last supper, and had nothing to do with Mary Magdalene. And Leonardo da Vinci never could have known about the Priory of Sion, since it wasn't founded until 1956, 437 years after his death. Again, interesting fiction, but phony history.
The "Secret" Documents
But what about Teabing's disclosure that "thousands of secret documents" prove that Christianity is a hoax? Could this be true?
If there were such documents, scholars opposed to Christianity would have a field day with them. Fraudulent writings that were rejected by the early church for heretical views are not secret, having been known about for centuries. No surprise there. They have never been considered part of the authentic writings of the apostles.
And if Brown (Teabing) is referring to the apocryphal, or infancy Gospels, that cat is also out of the bag. They are not secret, nor do they disprove Christianity. New Testament scholar Raymond Brown has said of the Gnostic gospels, "We learn not a single verifiable new fact about the historical Jesus' ministry, and only a few new sayings that might possibly have been his."18
Unlike the Gnostic gospels, whose authors are unknown and who were not eyewitnesses, the New Testament we have today has passed numerous tests for authenticity. (Click to read Jesus.doc) The contrast is devastating to those pushing conspiracy theories. New Testament historian F. F. Bruce wrote, "There is no body of ancient literature in the world which enjoys such a wealth of good textual attestation as the New Testament."19
New Testament scholar Bruce Metzger revealed why the Gospel of Thomas was not accepted by the early church: "It is not right to say that the Gospel of Thomas was excluded by some fiat on the part of a council: the right way to put it is, the Gospel of Thomas excluded itself! It did not harmonize with other testimony about Jesus that early Christians accepted as trustworthy."17
The juiciest part of the Da Vinci conspiracy is the assertion that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had a secret marriage that produced a child, perpetuating his bloodline. Furthermore, Mary Magdalene's womb, carrying Jesus' offspring, is presented in the book as the legendary Holy Grail, a secret closely held by a Catholic organization called the Priory of Sion. Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Leonardo Da Vinci were all cited as members.
Romance. Scandal. Intrigue. Great stuff for a conspiracy theory. But is it true? Let's look at what scholars say.
A Newsweek magazine article, that summarized leading scholars' opinions, concluded that the theory that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were secretly married has no historical basis.15 The proposal set forth in The Da Vinci Code is built primarily upon one solitary verse in the Gospel of Philip that indicates Jesus and Mary were companions. In the book, Teabing tries to build a case that the word for companion (koinonos) could mean spouse. But Teabing's theory is not accepted by scholars.
There is also a single verse in the Gospel of Philip that says Jesus kissed Mary. Greeting friends with a kiss was common in the first century, and had no sexual connotation. But even if The Da Vinci Code interpretation is correct, there is no other historical document to confirm its theory. And since the Gospel of Philip is a forged document written 150-220 years after Christ by an unknown author, its statement about Jesus isn't historically reliable.
Perhaps the Gnostics felt the New Testament was a bit shy on romance and decided to sauce it up a little. Whatever the reason, this isolated and obscure verse written two centuries after Christ isn't much to base a conspiracy theory upon. Interesting reading perhaps, but definitely not history.
As to the Holy Grail and the Priory of Sion, Brown's fictional account again distorts history. The legendary Holy Grail was supposedly Jesus' cup at his last supper, and had nothing to do with Mary Magdalene. And Leonardo da Vinci never could have known about the Priory of Sion, since it wasn't founded until 1956, 437 years after his death. Again, interesting fiction, but phony history.
The "Secret" Documents
But what about Teabing's disclosure that "thousands of secret documents" prove that Christianity is a hoax? Could this be true?
If there were such documents, scholars opposed to Christianity would have a field day with them. Fraudulent writings that were rejected by the early church for heretical views are not secret, having been known about for centuries. No surprise there. They have never been considered part of the authentic writings of the apostles.
And if Brown (Teabing) is referring to the apocryphal, or infancy Gospels, that cat is also out of the bag. They are not secret, nor do they disprove Christianity. New Testament scholar Raymond Brown has said of the Gnostic gospels, "We learn not a single verifiable new fact about the historical Jesus' ministry, and only a few new sayings that might possibly have been his."18
Unlike the Gnostic gospels, whose authors are unknown and who were not eyewitnesses, the New Testament we have today has passed numerous tests for authenticity. (Click to read Jesus.doc) The contrast is devastating to those pushing conspiracy theories. New Testament historian F. F. Bruce wrote, "There is no body of ancient literature in the world which enjoys such a wealth of good textual attestation as the New Testament."19
New Testament scholar Bruce Metzger revealed why the Gospel of Thomas was not accepted by the early church: "It is not right to say that the Gospel of Thomas was excluded by some fiat on the part of a council: the right way to put it is, the Gospel of Thomas excluded itself! It did not harmonize with other testimony about Jesus that early Christians accepted as trustworthy."17
THE JESUS CONSPIRACY
The Jesus Conspiracy
The Da Vinci Code begins with the murder of a French museum curator named Jacques Sauniere. A scholarly Harvard professor and a beautiful French cryptologist are commissioned to decipher a message left by the curator before his death. The message turns out to reveal the most profound conspiracy in the history of humankind: a cover-up of the true message of Jesus Christ by a secret arm of the Roman Catholic Church called Opus Dei.
Before his death, the curator had evidence that could disprove the deity of Christ. Although (according to the plot) the church tried for centuries to suppress the evidence, great thinkers and artists have planted clues everywhere: in paintings such as the Mona Lisa and Last Supper by da Vinci, in the architecture of cathedrals, even in Disney cartoons. The book’s main claims are these:
The Roman emperor Constantine conspired to deify Jesus Christ.
Constantine personally selected the books of the New Testament.
The Gnostic gospels were banned by men to suppress women.
Jesus and Mary Magdalene were secretly married and had a child.
Thousands of secret documents disprove key points of Christianity.
Brown reveals his conspiracy through the book’s fictional expert, British royal historian Sir Leigh Teabing. Presented as a wise old scholar, Teabing reveals to cryptologist Sophie Neveu that at the Council of Nicaea in a.d. 325 “many aspects of Christianity were debated and voted upon,” including the divinity of Jesus.
“Until that moment in history,” he says, “Jesus was viewed by His followers as a mortal prophet … a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless.”
Neveu is shocked. “Not the Son of God?” she asks.
Teabing explains: “Jesus’ establishment as ‘the Son of God’ was officially proposed and voted on by the Council of Nicaea.”
“Hold on. You’re saying Jesus’ divinity was the result of a vote?”
“A relatively close vote at that,” Teabing tells the stunned cryptologist.2
So, according to Teabing, Jesus was not regarded as God until the Council of Nicaea in a.d. 325, when the real records of Jesus were allegedly banned and destroyed. Thus, according to the theory, the entire foundation of Christianity rests upon a lie.
The Da Vinci Code has sold its story well, drawing comments from readers such as “If it were not true it could not have been published!” Another said he would “never set foot in a church again.” A reviewer of the book praised it for its “impeccable research.”3 Pretty convincing for a fictional work.
http://y-jesus.com/monalisa_2.php
The Da Vinci Code begins with the murder of a French museum curator named Jacques Sauniere. A scholarly Harvard professor and a beautiful French cryptologist are commissioned to decipher a message left by the curator before his death. The message turns out to reveal the most profound conspiracy in the history of humankind: a cover-up of the true message of Jesus Christ by a secret arm of the Roman Catholic Church called Opus Dei.
Before his death, the curator had evidence that could disprove the deity of Christ. Although (according to the plot) the church tried for centuries to suppress the evidence, great thinkers and artists have planted clues everywhere: in paintings such as the Mona Lisa and Last Supper by da Vinci, in the architecture of cathedrals, even in Disney cartoons. The book’s main claims are these:
The Roman emperor Constantine conspired to deify Jesus Christ.
Constantine personally selected the books of the New Testament.
The Gnostic gospels were banned by men to suppress women.
Jesus and Mary Magdalene were secretly married and had a child.
Thousands of secret documents disprove key points of Christianity.
Brown reveals his conspiracy through the book’s fictional expert, British royal historian Sir Leigh Teabing. Presented as a wise old scholar, Teabing reveals to cryptologist Sophie Neveu that at the Council of Nicaea in a.d. 325 “many aspects of Christianity were debated and voted upon,” including the divinity of Jesus.
“Until that moment in history,” he says, “Jesus was viewed by His followers as a mortal prophet … a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless.”
Neveu is shocked. “Not the Son of God?” she asks.
Teabing explains: “Jesus’ establishment as ‘the Son of God’ was officially proposed and voted on by the Council of Nicaea.”
“Hold on. You’re saying Jesus’ divinity was the result of a vote?”
“A relatively close vote at that,” Teabing tells the stunned cryptologist.2
So, according to Teabing, Jesus was not regarded as God until the Council of Nicaea in a.d. 325, when the real records of Jesus were allegedly banned and destroyed. Thus, according to the theory, the entire foundation of Christianity rests upon a lie.
The Da Vinci Code has sold its story well, drawing comments from readers such as “If it were not true it could not have been published!” Another said he would “never set foot in a church again.” A reviewer of the book praised it for its “impeccable research.”3 Pretty convincing for a fictional work.
http://y-jesus.com/monalisa_2.php
THE TRUTH BEHIND THE DA VINCI CONSPIRACY
Mona Lisa's Smirk
The Truth Behind the Da Vinci Conspiracy
The Da Vinci Code is not to be ignored as a fictional plot. Its premise, that Jesus Christ has been reinvented for political purposes, attacks the very foundation of Christianity. Its author, Dan Brown, has stated on national TV that, even though the plot is fictional, he believes its account of Jesus' identity is true. So what is the truth? Let's take a look.
Did Jesus have a secret marriage with Mary Magdalene?
Was Jesus' divinity invented by Constantine and the church?
Were the original records of Jesus destroyed?
Do recently discovered manuscripts tell the truth about Jesus?
Has a gigantic conspiracy resulted in the reinvention of Jesus? According to the book and movie, The Da Vinci Code, that is exactly what happened. Several of the book's assertions regarding Jesus smack of conspiracy. For example, the book states:
Nobody is saying Christ was a fraud, or denying that He walked the earth and inspired millions to better lives. All we are saying is that Constantine took advantage of Christ's substantial influence and importance. And in doing so, he shaped the face of Christianity as we know it today.1
Could this shocking assertion from Dan Brown's best-selling book be true? Or is the premise behind it just the stuff of a good conspiracy novel--on a par with a belief that aliens crash-landed at Roswell, New Mexico, or that there was a second gunman on the grassy knoll in Dallas when JFK was assassinated?
Either way, the story is compelling. No wonder Brown's book has become one of the best-selling stories of the decade and is predicted to become one of the top movies of all time.
http://y-jesus.com/monalisa.php
The Truth Behind the Da Vinci Conspiracy
The Da Vinci Code is not to be ignored as a fictional plot. Its premise, that Jesus Christ has been reinvented for political purposes, attacks the very foundation of Christianity. Its author, Dan Brown, has stated on national TV that, even though the plot is fictional, he believes its account of Jesus' identity is true. So what is the truth? Let's take a look.
Did Jesus have a secret marriage with Mary Magdalene?
Was Jesus' divinity invented by Constantine and the church?
Were the original records of Jesus destroyed?
Do recently discovered manuscripts tell the truth about Jesus?
Has a gigantic conspiracy resulted in the reinvention of Jesus? According to the book and movie, The Da Vinci Code, that is exactly what happened. Several of the book's assertions regarding Jesus smack of conspiracy. For example, the book states:
Nobody is saying Christ was a fraud, or denying that He walked the earth and inspired millions to better lives. All we are saying is that Constantine took advantage of Christ's substantial influence and importance. And in doing so, he shaped the face of Christianity as we know it today.1
Could this shocking assertion from Dan Brown's best-selling book be true? Or is the premise behind it just the stuff of a good conspiracy novel--on a par with a belief that aliens crash-landed at Roswell, New Mexico, or that there was a second gunman on the grassy knoll in Dallas when JFK was assassinated?
Either way, the story is compelling. No wonder Brown's book has become one of the best-selling stories of the decade and is predicted to become one of the top movies of all time.
http://y-jesus.com/monalisa.php
WAS JESUS MARRIED?
Was Jesus Married?
Did Jesus have a secret marriage with Mary Magdalene?
Mrs. Jesus
Has history been wrong for 2000 years---was there a Mrs. Jesus Christ? In, “The Jesus Family Tomb,” (The Discovery Channel’s TV documentary) director Simcha Jacobovici claims there is “evidence” that Jesus and Mary Magdalene indeed were married and had a son named Judah (To see what scholars say about Jacobovici’s “evidence” see, "The Jesus Family Tomb" article ). Jacobovici is not the first to postulate a possible romantic relationship between Jesus and Mary. The movie, The Last Temptation of Christ, and books such as Holy Blood, Holy Grail, and The Da Vinci Code, made a secret relationship between Jesus and Mary central to their themes.
The Da Vinci Code begins with a page of facts that makes the fictional novel appear to be true in all its assertions. The book has broken all records on the New York Times best-sellers list, and has been followed by a blockbuster movie. Author Dan Brown’s clever weaving of fact with fiction has convinced many readers that Jesus and Mary Magdalene really were married and had a child (see “Mona Lisa’s Smirk”). But is this romantic assertion just hype to sell books and movies, or is it supported by historical evidence.
Mysterious Mary
Before we examine the evidence for any possible romance between Jesus and Mary Magdalene, let’s look into this person of Mary from the little Galilean town of Magdala. To begin we ask the question, what ancient documents shed light upon her character and her relationship with Jesus of Nazareth?
The New Testament gospels are the oldest written records of Mary of Magdala. In the gospels Mary is depicted as a woman who Jesus healed of demon possession. The gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, & John) present Mary as a follower of Jesus who listened to his teaching, provided for his financial needs, witnessed his crucifixion, and three days later was first to see him alive.
Some have said Mary Magdalene was a prostitute, but neither the apostles nor the early church speak of her as more than one of Jesus’ close disciples. The idea that she was a prostitute originated in the sixth century, when Pope Gregory I identified her as both the woman spoken of in Luke 7:37, and the woman who washed Jesus’ feet with her hair.
Although the pope’s view was probably influenced by the fact that Jesus had cast seven demons out of her, no biblical scholar is able to make the connection of Mary Magdalene with the woman in Luke’s passage. Additionally, the New Testament gospels don’t even hint of anything romantic or sexual between Jesus and Mary.
So where do conspiracy theorists get the idea? Why all the speculation? For that we turn to documents written 100-200 years after the New Testament gospels by a non-Christian cult called the Gnostics [see Gnostic Gospels]. These writings are not part of the New Testament, and were rejected by early Christians as heretical. Those who write of a romantic relationship between Jesus and Mary cite a few passages from two of those writings, the Gospel of Mary and the Gospel of Philip. Let’s look at those passages.
The Gospel of Mary (Magdalene)
The notion that Mary Magdalene was special to Jesus is taken primarily from the Gospel of Mary. This Gnostic gospel is not part of the New Testament, and was written by an unknown author in the last half of the second century, or about one hundred fifty years after Jesus’ death. No eyewitnesses, including Mary, would have been alive at the time it was written (about 150 A. D.). Such a late date means the Gospel of Mary could not have been written by an eyewitness of Jesus, and no one knows who wrote it.
One verse in the Gospel of Mary refers to Mary Magdalene as Jesus’ favorite disciple, saying he loved Mary “more than us (meaning his disciples).” In another verse Peter supposedly told Mary, “Sister, we know the savior loved you more than any other woman.” Yet nothing written in The Gospel of Mary speaks of a romance or sexual relationship between Mary Magdalene and Jesus.
The Gospel of Philip
The Da Vinci Code bases its claim that Jesus and Mary were married and had a child primarily upon one solitary verse in the Gnostic Gospel of Philip that indicates Jesus and Mary were “companions”. This verse reads: (Brackets appear where words of the document are missing or illegible)
Three women always walked with the master: Mary his mother, [] sister, and Mary of Magdala, who is called his companion (koinonos). For “Mary” is the name of his sister, his mother and his companion (koinonos).
In The Da Vinci Code, fictional expert Sir Leigh Teabing proffers that the word for companion (koinonos) could mean spouse. But according to scholars, that is an unlikely interpretation. To begin, the word generally used for wife in New Testament Greek is “gune”, not “koinonos.” Ben Witherington III, writing in Biblical Archaeological Review, addressed this very point:
There was another Greek word, gune, which would have made this clear. It is much more likely that koinonos here means “sister” in the spiritual sense since that is how it is used elsewhere in this sort of literature. In any case, this text does not clearly say or even suggest that Jesus was married, much less married to Mary Magdalene.1
There is also a single verse in the Gospel of Philip that says Jesus kissed Mary.
The companion of the [] is Mary of Magdala. The [] her more than [] the disciples, [] kissed her often on her []. The other []...said to him, “Why do you love her more than all of us?”
Greeting friends with a kiss was common in the first century, and had no sexual connotation. Professor Karen King explains in her book The Gospel of Mary Magdala, that the kiss in Philip most likely was a chaste kiss of fellowship.
But perhaps more important is the fact that the Gospel of Philip was written by an unknown author about 200 years after the New Testament eyewitness accounts (see “Is the New Testament Reliable” and “Mona Lisa’s Smirk”).
It is also important to note that, aside from these few questionable passages, there is no other historical document that even insinuates Jesus and Mary had a romantic relationship. No secular historian, Jewish historian, or early Christian historian writes even one iota about such a relationship. And since both the Gospel of Mary and the Gospel of Philip were written 100-220 years after Christ by unknown authors, their statements about Jesus and Mary need to be evaluated in context of both contemporary history and the much earlier New Testament documents.
Scholars' Verdict
But could the early church have destroyed the evidence in their attempt to rewrite the history of Jesus? Of course that’s what Jacobovici, Brown, and a host of other sensationalists are saying. But do scholars agree?
A Newsweek magazine article summarizing leading scholars’ opinions, flatly states that the notion Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married has no historical basis.2 Perhaps the Gnostics felt the New Testament was a bit shy on romance and decided to sauce it up a little. Whatever the reason, these isolated and obscure verses written 100-200 years after Christ aren’t much to base a conspiracy theory upon. Interesting reading perhaps, but definitely not history.
But some remain unconvinced. Perhaps they just want to make history more interesting. Award-winning television journalist Frank Sesno asked a panel of historical scholars about the fascination people have with conspiracy theories. Professor Stanley Kutler from the University of Wisconsin replied, “We all love mysteries – but we love conspiracies more.”3
Perhaps all the hype about Jesus and Mary has more to do with antagonists to Christianity trying to humanize the man who Christians from the very beginning have called “God.” (To read more about how the early Christians viewed Jesus see “Mona Lisa’s Smirk”). For example, the apostle Paul said of Jesus Christ,
Though he was God, he did not demand and cling to his rights as God. He made himself nothing; he took the humble position of a slave and appeared in human form” (Philippians 2:6, 7a).
John, an eyewitness, and one of Jesus’ closest disciples, said of him,
In the beginning the word already existed. He was with God, and he was God….He created everything there is….so the Word became human and lived here on earth among us. (portions of John 1:1-3, 14).
The greatest question of our time is not whether Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married, but, who is the real Jesus Christ? Was he just an exceptional man, or was he God in the flesh, as Paul, John, and his other disciples believed? (See “Jesus Complex” for further reading on the identity of Jesus Christ).
Click here to take a look at the evidence for the most fantastic claim ever made---the resurrection of Jesus Christ!
Was there a "Da Vinci" Conspiracy?
“Mona Lisa’s Smirk” investigates the world’s leading conspiracy theory about Jesus Christ. Were Jesus and Mary Magdalene married? Did Constantine order the destruction of the true records of Jesus Christ reinventing him into the God Christians worship today?
Click here to discover the truth about The Da Vinci Code
Can Jesus Bring Meaning to Life?
“Why Jesus” looks at the question of whether or not Jesus is relevant today. Can Jesus answer the big questions of life: “Who am I?” “Why am I here?” And, “Where am I going?” Dead cathedrals and crucifixes have led some to believe that he can’t, and that Jesus has left us to cope with a world out of control. But Jesus made claims about life and our purpose here on earth that need to be examined before we write him off as uncaring or impotent. This article examines the mystery of why Jesus came to earth.
Click here to discover how Jesus can bring meaning to life.
Endnotes
1 Ben Witherington, Biblical Archaeology Review, (2004), "Reviews," 30 [3]:58-61, May/June.
2 Barbara Kantrowitz and Anne Underwood, "Decoding 'The Da Vinci Code,' " Newsweek, December 8, 2003, 54.
3 Stanley Kutler, interview with Frank Sesno, "The Guilty Men: An Historical Review," History Channel, April 6, 2004.
http://y-jesus.com/jesus_married.php?gclid=COWh-6CWmpECFRHyXgodGTGDOw
Did Jesus have a secret marriage with Mary Magdalene?
Mrs. Jesus
Has history been wrong for 2000 years---was there a Mrs. Jesus Christ? In, “The Jesus Family Tomb,” (The Discovery Channel’s TV documentary) director Simcha Jacobovici claims there is “evidence” that Jesus and Mary Magdalene indeed were married and had a son named Judah (To see what scholars say about Jacobovici’s “evidence” see, "The Jesus Family Tomb" article ). Jacobovici is not the first to postulate a possible romantic relationship between Jesus and Mary. The movie, The Last Temptation of Christ, and books such as Holy Blood, Holy Grail, and The Da Vinci Code, made a secret relationship between Jesus and Mary central to their themes.
The Da Vinci Code begins with a page of facts that makes the fictional novel appear to be true in all its assertions. The book has broken all records on the New York Times best-sellers list, and has been followed by a blockbuster movie. Author Dan Brown’s clever weaving of fact with fiction has convinced many readers that Jesus and Mary Magdalene really were married and had a child (see “Mona Lisa’s Smirk”). But is this romantic assertion just hype to sell books and movies, or is it supported by historical evidence.
Mysterious Mary
Before we examine the evidence for any possible romance between Jesus and Mary Magdalene, let’s look into this person of Mary from the little Galilean town of Magdala. To begin we ask the question, what ancient documents shed light upon her character and her relationship with Jesus of Nazareth?
The New Testament gospels are the oldest written records of Mary of Magdala. In the gospels Mary is depicted as a woman who Jesus healed of demon possession. The gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, & John) present Mary as a follower of Jesus who listened to his teaching, provided for his financial needs, witnessed his crucifixion, and three days later was first to see him alive.
Some have said Mary Magdalene was a prostitute, but neither the apostles nor the early church speak of her as more than one of Jesus’ close disciples. The idea that she was a prostitute originated in the sixth century, when Pope Gregory I identified her as both the woman spoken of in Luke 7:37, and the woman who washed Jesus’ feet with her hair.
Although the pope’s view was probably influenced by the fact that Jesus had cast seven demons out of her, no biblical scholar is able to make the connection of Mary Magdalene with the woman in Luke’s passage. Additionally, the New Testament gospels don’t even hint of anything romantic or sexual between Jesus and Mary.
So where do conspiracy theorists get the idea? Why all the speculation? For that we turn to documents written 100-200 years after the New Testament gospels by a non-Christian cult called the Gnostics [see Gnostic Gospels]. These writings are not part of the New Testament, and were rejected by early Christians as heretical. Those who write of a romantic relationship between Jesus and Mary cite a few passages from two of those writings, the Gospel of Mary and the Gospel of Philip. Let’s look at those passages.
The Gospel of Mary (Magdalene)
The notion that Mary Magdalene was special to Jesus is taken primarily from the Gospel of Mary. This Gnostic gospel is not part of the New Testament, and was written by an unknown author in the last half of the second century, or about one hundred fifty years after Jesus’ death. No eyewitnesses, including Mary, would have been alive at the time it was written (about 150 A. D.). Such a late date means the Gospel of Mary could not have been written by an eyewitness of Jesus, and no one knows who wrote it.
One verse in the Gospel of Mary refers to Mary Magdalene as Jesus’ favorite disciple, saying he loved Mary “more than us (meaning his disciples).” In another verse Peter supposedly told Mary, “Sister, we know the savior loved you more than any other woman.” Yet nothing written in The Gospel of Mary speaks of a romance or sexual relationship between Mary Magdalene and Jesus.
The Gospel of Philip
The Da Vinci Code bases its claim that Jesus and Mary were married and had a child primarily upon one solitary verse in the Gnostic Gospel of Philip that indicates Jesus and Mary were “companions”. This verse reads: (Brackets appear where words of the document are missing or illegible)
Three women always walked with the master: Mary his mother, [] sister, and Mary of Magdala, who is called his companion (koinonos). For “Mary” is the name of his sister, his mother and his companion (koinonos).
In The Da Vinci Code, fictional expert Sir Leigh Teabing proffers that the word for companion (koinonos) could mean spouse. But according to scholars, that is an unlikely interpretation. To begin, the word generally used for wife in New Testament Greek is “gune”, not “koinonos.” Ben Witherington III, writing in Biblical Archaeological Review, addressed this very point:
There was another Greek word, gune, which would have made this clear. It is much more likely that koinonos here means “sister” in the spiritual sense since that is how it is used elsewhere in this sort of literature. In any case, this text does not clearly say or even suggest that Jesus was married, much less married to Mary Magdalene.1
There is also a single verse in the Gospel of Philip that says Jesus kissed Mary.
The companion of the [] is Mary of Magdala. The [] her more than [] the disciples, [] kissed her often on her []. The other []...said to him, “Why do you love her more than all of us?”
Greeting friends with a kiss was common in the first century, and had no sexual connotation. Professor Karen King explains in her book The Gospel of Mary Magdala, that the kiss in Philip most likely was a chaste kiss of fellowship.
But perhaps more important is the fact that the Gospel of Philip was written by an unknown author about 200 years after the New Testament eyewitness accounts (see “Is the New Testament Reliable” and “Mona Lisa’s Smirk”).
It is also important to note that, aside from these few questionable passages, there is no other historical document that even insinuates Jesus and Mary had a romantic relationship. No secular historian, Jewish historian, or early Christian historian writes even one iota about such a relationship. And since both the Gospel of Mary and the Gospel of Philip were written 100-220 years after Christ by unknown authors, their statements about Jesus and Mary need to be evaluated in context of both contemporary history and the much earlier New Testament documents.
Scholars' Verdict
But could the early church have destroyed the evidence in their attempt to rewrite the history of Jesus? Of course that’s what Jacobovici, Brown, and a host of other sensationalists are saying. But do scholars agree?
A Newsweek magazine article summarizing leading scholars’ opinions, flatly states that the notion Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married has no historical basis.2 Perhaps the Gnostics felt the New Testament was a bit shy on romance and decided to sauce it up a little. Whatever the reason, these isolated and obscure verses written 100-200 years after Christ aren’t much to base a conspiracy theory upon. Interesting reading perhaps, but definitely not history.
But some remain unconvinced. Perhaps they just want to make history more interesting. Award-winning television journalist Frank Sesno asked a panel of historical scholars about the fascination people have with conspiracy theories. Professor Stanley Kutler from the University of Wisconsin replied, “We all love mysteries – but we love conspiracies more.”3
Perhaps all the hype about Jesus and Mary has more to do with antagonists to Christianity trying to humanize the man who Christians from the very beginning have called “God.” (To read more about how the early Christians viewed Jesus see “Mona Lisa’s Smirk”). For example, the apostle Paul said of Jesus Christ,
Though he was God, he did not demand and cling to his rights as God. He made himself nothing; he took the humble position of a slave and appeared in human form” (Philippians 2:6, 7a).
John, an eyewitness, and one of Jesus’ closest disciples, said of him,
In the beginning the word already existed. He was with God, and he was God….He created everything there is….so the Word became human and lived here on earth among us. (portions of John 1:1-3, 14).
The greatest question of our time is not whether Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married, but, who is the real Jesus Christ? Was he just an exceptional man, or was he God in the flesh, as Paul, John, and his other disciples believed? (See “Jesus Complex” for further reading on the identity of Jesus Christ).
Click here to take a look at the evidence for the most fantastic claim ever made---the resurrection of Jesus Christ!
Was there a "Da Vinci" Conspiracy?
“Mona Lisa’s Smirk” investigates the world’s leading conspiracy theory about Jesus Christ. Were Jesus and Mary Magdalene married? Did Constantine order the destruction of the true records of Jesus Christ reinventing him into the God Christians worship today?
Click here to discover the truth about The Da Vinci Code
Can Jesus Bring Meaning to Life?
“Why Jesus” looks at the question of whether or not Jesus is relevant today. Can Jesus answer the big questions of life: “Who am I?” “Why am I here?” And, “Where am I going?” Dead cathedrals and crucifixes have led some to believe that he can’t, and that Jesus has left us to cope with a world out of control. But Jesus made claims about life and our purpose here on earth that need to be examined before we write him off as uncaring or impotent. This article examines the mystery of why Jesus came to earth.
Click here to discover how Jesus can bring meaning to life.
Endnotes
1 Ben Witherington, Biblical Archaeology Review, (2004), "Reviews," 30 [3]:58-61, May/June.
2 Barbara Kantrowitz and Anne Underwood, "Decoding 'The Da Vinci Code,' " Newsweek, December 8, 2003, 54.
3 Stanley Kutler, interview with Frank Sesno, "The Guilty Men: An Historical Review," History Channel, April 6, 2004.
http://y-jesus.com/jesus_married.php?gclid=COWh-6CWmpECFRHyXgodGTGDOw
L.GARDNER BLOODLINE THEORY IS BASED ON B.THIERING ONE'S
Mary Magdalene
© 2007 Dr. Barbara Thiering
The information about Mary Magdalene has been given in various contexts in other parts of this site, but I have been asked to bring it all together in a biography. It is undoubtedly a matter of the greatest popular interest at the present time. What is given here is the historical evidence, to be distinguished from the myth that is rapidly forming.
To begin at the beginning:
Christianity began in the movement called Essene, one of the major world-views among Jews in the 1st centuries BC and AD. They had been very much influenced by Greek thought, which regarded sexual activity as debasing.
Essenes believed that the holiest kind of life was one that renounced sex and marriage altogether, practiced by monastics and hermits. But they had another purpose also, to preserve the great dynasties of the Zadokite priests and the Davids, who had once ruled the Jerusalem temple but had now lost power. They solved the problem by instituting a second order, one that allowed sex only for the sake of having sons.
The dynasts lived normally in monasteries, but when they reached their late thirties they left temporarily for a marriage, preferably with a young girl in her teens. A first wedding permitted them to live together for a trial marriage, then when the girl was three months pregnant, there was a second wedding from which there could be no divorce. The man returned to the monastery after the birth, to come back to his wife only after intervals of years for further conceptions. The girl lived in a female community, continuing as a nun.
The rigors of the sexual discipline caused occasional breaches. One such lapse gave rise to the story of the Virgin Birth. Joseph was a descendant of the Davids, destined to regain the kingship if the Essenes achieved their aim of returning to power. He had entered the long betrothal period preceding the first wedding, with the young girl Mary. Only a few months before their wedding, during the restrained courtship that was permitted, they had given way to passion, and Jesus was conceived. From the strict Essene viewpoint he was illegitimate, and could not inherit. From a more liberal viewpoint such as was held by some asssociated ascetics, he was legitimate, and their political purposes would be served if he became king. By the use of double meanings, the word Virgin could simply mean a nun, as Mary had been. Popular Greek thought welcomed the story of the Virgin Birth that was composed to cover what had actually happened.
Jesus when he reached maturity was bound by the same rule, and there was no pre-nuptial sex in his case. His bride was Mary Magdalene. Several facts about her become apparent from the pesher, the device for giving yet concealing the actual history. One was that she was 27 years old when she married Jesus, not a young girl, and there is an indication that she had been married previously and was a widow. She had been married to a priest, and so came within the rules for permissible Essene marriages.
The other fact about her, expressed by saying that she had had “seven demons” was that she belonged to the political party of the Magians, and she shared their vigorous militant ideals. Magians were Essenes who had scholarly schools in the Diaspora, but held looser views on morality that earned them the title of “seekers-after-smooth-things”. Its leader in the time of Jesus was Simon Magus, and Jesus and Mary Magdalene were close friends of Simon and his mistress Helena. Helena like Simon appears under many pseudonyms, one of them Martha.
In March 33 AD, the season of the crucifixion, Mary Magdalene was three months pregnant with Jesus’ child. Their second wedding took place on the Wednesday before Good Friday, Mary figuring as the woman with the alabaster cruse of ointment. Jesus underwent crucifixion for the reason that he was a political associate of the anti-Roman militants Simon Magus and Judas Iscariot. Jesus and Simon were rescued by a conspiracy of their friends. From that central experience the story of the Resurrection arose. It had the same character as the Virgin Birth, told in a double way that revealed yet concealed what had actually happened.
A daughter was born to Mary Magdalene in September 33 AD. She was named Tamar, the name of the virgin daughter of King David. In its Greek form it was Damaris. She appeared under that name at a later stage of Acts, at the time of her marriage to Paul, who by then was the closest confidant of Jesus.
Two sons were born next, at the intervals of time required by the Essene rule. Jesus Justus, named after his father with the added title meaning that he was the David crown prince, was born in June, 37 AD, and another son, whose name is not given, was born in March 44 AD.
That same season, March 44 AD, was that of the real climax of the history. It was the season of the assassination of Agrippa I, whose presence during the gospel period had been one of the factors causing Simon Magus and Jesus to be at enmity with him. His young son Agrippa II became his successor. He had been tutored by Paul, with the result that Christianity became established in his court. At the same time, the tolerance of the benign emperor Claudius caused many to change their politics. Jesus with Paul joined the pro-Roman court of Agrippa II, while Simon Magus remained with the militants, operating from their base in Damascus, but working also on the Tiber Island in Rome.
For Mary Magdalene, committed to the military method of spreading Judaism against Roman paganism, Jesus had betrayed all they had worked for. She separated from him and initiated a divorce, soon after the birth of their third child. The legalities of the divorce were carried out by Paul, who as a former Pharisee condoned divorce. He also officiated at the second wedding of Jesus, to Lydia. It took place in Philippi in Macedonia, for the Christian party was by now based in Europe, looking to Rome rather than Jerusalem.
What happened to Mary Magdalene? Since Simon Magus remained active in Rome, in a rival mission to that of the Christians under Peter, it is likely that she took comfort by remaining with Simon, in the form of mission that she believed was the true one. The history of John Mark gives a clue to her movements. He had been the “eunuch” for Jesus’ first marriage, a celibate who acted for both husband and wife during their separations. He departed from the Christians at the time of the schism with Simon Magus, and had no further association with Jesus, his place as “eunuch” being taken by Luke for the second marriage. In 58 AD John Mark under his own name of Eutychus was reconciled with Paul and the Christians, as told in the “miracle” of the “raising from the dead” of Eutychus. It is possible that Mary Magdalene had died, although of course there could be other reasons for the change.
Had she gone to the south of France, as recent writers exploiting their version of the hidden history have claimed? My answer would be No, when the evidenced political history is taken into account.
There would be good reason for believing that the descendants of Jesus were driven from Rome to the south of France at the time of the Diocletian persecutions of the 90’s. Estates of the Herods had been established there, in Lyons and Vienne, by earlier Herods in their banishment. Mission would be continued from there, in the revised form that had been brought about by Jesus and Paul.
But they remained remote mission stations, bases for a further drive into the darkest untamed regions of the world such as France, and that barbaric region at the ends of the earth, England. The great leaders of the ascetic orders did not risk going there themselves, but sent servants using their name because they taught their doctrine. Joseph of Arimathea, who was James the brother of Jesus, did not go to England himself. He died in Jerusalem in 62 AD. But he had sent a servant who formed communities holding a sacred meal, with the revered cup of wine that signified initiation.
Mary Magdalene would have remained the titular head of female ascetic communities in the Magian tradition, stemming from some of the Herodian houses in the south of France. They had been established very early, and would have looked to her as their remote great leader, a visionary figure from whom their inspiration came. That would be the reason for the persistence of the tradition about her in those regions. The slender clues have, however, been built up in the interests of the lucrative tourist trade, a familiar phenomenon in our own times.
With better intentions have been those feminists who have seen reason for a cult of Mary Magdalene, as a corrective to the denigration of women that has always been practiced by the Church. Some gnostic literature upholds her as a teacher, and she would have filled that role because women were appointed as the instructors of Gentiles in their first stages of education towards initiation. Gentiles were called “children”, to whom the women were “Mothers”.
But have we not moved beyond the cult of human beings, both of Jesus or of any female? Is it not a form of idolatry to worship representatives of ourselves? “God” is far greater than the human. We are now in the midst of one of the major theological crises, the challenging of the notion of “God” that itself is a human construct. It also has its regrettable oversimplifications, but it is timely.
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© 2007 Dr. Barbara Thiering
The information about Mary Magdalene has been given in various contexts in other parts of this site, but I have been asked to bring it all together in a biography. It is undoubtedly a matter of the greatest popular interest at the present time. What is given here is the historical evidence, to be distinguished from the myth that is rapidly forming.
To begin at the beginning:
Christianity began in the movement called Essene, one of the major world-views among Jews in the 1st centuries BC and AD. They had been very much influenced by Greek thought, which regarded sexual activity as debasing.
Essenes believed that the holiest kind of life was one that renounced sex and marriage altogether, practiced by monastics and hermits. But they had another purpose also, to preserve the great dynasties of the Zadokite priests and the Davids, who had once ruled the Jerusalem temple but had now lost power. They solved the problem by instituting a second order, one that allowed sex only for the sake of having sons.
The dynasts lived normally in monasteries, but when they reached their late thirties they left temporarily for a marriage, preferably with a young girl in her teens. A first wedding permitted them to live together for a trial marriage, then when the girl was three months pregnant, there was a second wedding from which there could be no divorce. The man returned to the monastery after the birth, to come back to his wife only after intervals of years for further conceptions. The girl lived in a female community, continuing as a nun.
The rigors of the sexual discipline caused occasional breaches. One such lapse gave rise to the story of the Virgin Birth. Joseph was a descendant of the Davids, destined to regain the kingship if the Essenes achieved their aim of returning to power. He had entered the long betrothal period preceding the first wedding, with the young girl Mary. Only a few months before their wedding, during the restrained courtship that was permitted, they had given way to passion, and Jesus was conceived. From the strict Essene viewpoint he was illegitimate, and could not inherit. From a more liberal viewpoint such as was held by some asssociated ascetics, he was legitimate, and their political purposes would be served if he became king. By the use of double meanings, the word Virgin could simply mean a nun, as Mary had been. Popular Greek thought welcomed the story of the Virgin Birth that was composed to cover what had actually happened.
Jesus when he reached maturity was bound by the same rule, and there was no pre-nuptial sex in his case. His bride was Mary Magdalene. Several facts about her become apparent from the pesher, the device for giving yet concealing the actual history. One was that she was 27 years old when she married Jesus, not a young girl, and there is an indication that she had been married previously and was a widow. She had been married to a priest, and so came within the rules for permissible Essene marriages.
The other fact about her, expressed by saying that she had had “seven demons” was that she belonged to the political party of the Magians, and she shared their vigorous militant ideals. Magians were Essenes who had scholarly schools in the Diaspora, but held looser views on morality that earned them the title of “seekers-after-smooth-things”. Its leader in the time of Jesus was Simon Magus, and Jesus and Mary Magdalene were close friends of Simon and his mistress Helena. Helena like Simon appears under many pseudonyms, one of them Martha.
In March 33 AD, the season of the crucifixion, Mary Magdalene was three months pregnant with Jesus’ child. Their second wedding took place on the Wednesday before Good Friday, Mary figuring as the woman with the alabaster cruse of ointment. Jesus underwent crucifixion for the reason that he was a political associate of the anti-Roman militants Simon Magus and Judas Iscariot. Jesus and Simon were rescued by a conspiracy of their friends. From that central experience the story of the Resurrection arose. It had the same character as the Virgin Birth, told in a double way that revealed yet concealed what had actually happened.
A daughter was born to Mary Magdalene in September 33 AD. She was named Tamar, the name of the virgin daughter of King David. In its Greek form it was Damaris. She appeared under that name at a later stage of Acts, at the time of her marriage to Paul, who by then was the closest confidant of Jesus.
Two sons were born next, at the intervals of time required by the Essene rule. Jesus Justus, named after his father with the added title meaning that he was the David crown prince, was born in June, 37 AD, and another son, whose name is not given, was born in March 44 AD.
That same season, March 44 AD, was that of the real climax of the history. It was the season of the assassination of Agrippa I, whose presence during the gospel period had been one of the factors causing Simon Magus and Jesus to be at enmity with him. His young son Agrippa II became his successor. He had been tutored by Paul, with the result that Christianity became established in his court. At the same time, the tolerance of the benign emperor Claudius caused many to change their politics. Jesus with Paul joined the pro-Roman court of Agrippa II, while Simon Magus remained with the militants, operating from their base in Damascus, but working also on the Tiber Island in Rome.
For Mary Magdalene, committed to the military method of spreading Judaism against Roman paganism, Jesus had betrayed all they had worked for. She separated from him and initiated a divorce, soon after the birth of their third child. The legalities of the divorce were carried out by Paul, who as a former Pharisee condoned divorce. He also officiated at the second wedding of Jesus, to Lydia. It took place in Philippi in Macedonia, for the Christian party was by now based in Europe, looking to Rome rather than Jerusalem.
What happened to Mary Magdalene? Since Simon Magus remained active in Rome, in a rival mission to that of the Christians under Peter, it is likely that she took comfort by remaining with Simon, in the form of mission that she believed was the true one. The history of John Mark gives a clue to her movements. He had been the “eunuch” for Jesus’ first marriage, a celibate who acted for both husband and wife during their separations. He departed from the Christians at the time of the schism with Simon Magus, and had no further association with Jesus, his place as “eunuch” being taken by Luke for the second marriage. In 58 AD John Mark under his own name of Eutychus was reconciled with Paul and the Christians, as told in the “miracle” of the “raising from the dead” of Eutychus. It is possible that Mary Magdalene had died, although of course there could be other reasons for the change.
Had she gone to the south of France, as recent writers exploiting their version of the hidden history have claimed? My answer would be No, when the evidenced political history is taken into account.
There would be good reason for believing that the descendants of Jesus were driven from Rome to the south of France at the time of the Diocletian persecutions of the 90’s. Estates of the Herods had been established there, in Lyons and Vienne, by earlier Herods in their banishment. Mission would be continued from there, in the revised form that had been brought about by Jesus and Paul.
But they remained remote mission stations, bases for a further drive into the darkest untamed regions of the world such as France, and that barbaric region at the ends of the earth, England. The great leaders of the ascetic orders did not risk going there themselves, but sent servants using their name because they taught their doctrine. Joseph of Arimathea, who was James the brother of Jesus, did not go to England himself. He died in Jerusalem in 62 AD. But he had sent a servant who formed communities holding a sacred meal, with the revered cup of wine that signified initiation.
Mary Magdalene would have remained the titular head of female ascetic communities in the Magian tradition, stemming from some of the Herodian houses in the south of France. They had been established very early, and would have looked to her as their remote great leader, a visionary figure from whom their inspiration came. That would be the reason for the persistence of the tradition about her in those regions. The slender clues have, however, been built up in the interests of the lucrative tourist trade, a familiar phenomenon in our own times.
With better intentions have been those feminists who have seen reason for a cult of Mary Magdalene, as a corrective to the denigration of women that has always been practiced by the Church. Some gnostic literature upholds her as a teacher, and she would have filled that role because women were appointed as the instructors of Gentiles in their first stages of education towards initiation. Gentiles were called “children”, to whom the women were “Mothers”.
But have we not moved beyond the cult of human beings, both of Jesus or of any female? Is it not a form of idolatry to worship representatives of ourselves? “God” is far greater than the human. We are now in the midst of one of the major theological crises, the challenging of the notion of “God” that itself is a human construct. It also has its regrettable oversimplifications, but it is timely.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Continue to next entry in Biographies: Agrippa II & Bernice or click title above to return to menu.
(if you are using the "without frames" entry, please return to previous page containing the menu via the "Back" browser button.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Information from this page is subject to copyright at:
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MICHAEL OF ALBANY-HIS TRUE IDENTITY
From: "Guy Stair Sainty"
Subject: RE: michael of albany - his true identity
Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2006 11:00:23 +0200
In-Reply-To: <4989643B-4F2B-4227-9AB1-737A1B6B1548@iinet.net.au>
Oh please... The so-called documents found in the church in the south of
Francwe are all now admitted to be elaborate hoax dreamt up by a journalist
for his amusement along with a well-known fantasist who invented the
farcical story of this descent.
There is not one iota of genuine contemporary documentary evidence to
support any of this nonsense and without exception every single serious
biblical scholar, scholar of the Merovingian period and Middle Ages has
dismissed it without qualification or reservation.
There have always been looney conspiracy theories circulating, with their
proponents claiming there are secret documents trhat have been mysteriously
lost or destroyed by people trying to hide something or other. People used
ot believe the earth was flat and there are still small groups pretending
that NASA faked the moon landings. Nothing will persuade them otherwise.
Historical research proposing new radical theories based on secondary
sources is nearly always completely worthless. Historians are trained to
look at contemporary documents and archaeological records. There is
absolutely nothing credible to support these ideas, and stories about
Rosslyn Church, the Templars, secret descents, etc, are pure invention.
I am not trying to be mean but if you honestly consider yourself a serious
student of genealogy or history, demand to see the documentary evidence.
Otherwise do not waste any more time giving credence to these poor deluded
fantasists.
Guy
-----Original Message-----
From: Trish Lawrence [mailto:charli@iinet.net.au]
Sent: 03 April 2006 02:05
To: GEN-ROYAL-L@rootsweb.com
Subject: Re: michael of albany - his true identity
Guy
I have to say when I first HBHG I was very sceptical, but I didn't
dismiss them outrightly, I went looking for other works that might
support their theories. There is theological work that does so, as
well as genealogical work. So lets not throw out the baby with the
bathwater.
Trish
On 03/04/2006, at 3:57 AM, Guy Stair Sainty wrote:
> I doubt it will be the last we shall hear of the wretched fellow -
> unfortunately the same kind of conspiracy theorists who gave
> credence to the
> harmless ravings of the authors of HBHG and faithfully follow the
> Word of
> Dan Brown are likely to simply believe this is just another
> conspiracy.
>
> Guy Stair sainty
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Leo van de Pas [mailto:leovdpas@netspeed.com.au]
> Sent: 02 April 2006 15:36
> To: GEN-ROYAL-L@rootsweb.com
> Subject: michael of albany - his true identity
>
>
>> Overwhelming evidence against Michael of Albany
>>
>> http://www.sundayherald.com/54904
>>
> Many years ago I corresponded with Laurence Gardner, author of "The
> Holy
> Blood and The Holy Grail", about the genealogical trees, as I
> disagreed with
>
> several details. We had a very interesting and pleasant exchange. He
> accepted some of my remarks but stood firm on those aspects
> relevant to the
> story. After a while he advised me that the corrected trees had
> been passed
> on to Prince Michael of Albany for his "The Forgotten Monarchy of
> Scotland".
>
> As a result I received an acknowledgement in this book.
>
> "The Stuarts last Secret" by Peter Pininski made clear that the
> claims of
> Michael of Albany are spurious and the above newspaper article
> could/should
> be the last we hear of a Prince Michael of Albany.
>
> Best wishes
> Leo van de Pas
> Canberra, Australia
>
>
> ==== GEN-ROYAL Mailing List ====
> For information on subscribing and unsubscribing from GEN-ROYAL,
> see the GEN-ROYAL FAQ at;
>
>
>
> ==== GEN-ROYAL Mailing List ====
> For information on subscribing and unsubscribing from GEN-ROYAL,
> see the GEN-ROYAL FAQ at;
==== GEN-ROYAL Mailing List ====
For information on subscribing and unsubscribing from GEN-ROYAL,
see the GEN-ROYAL FAQ at;
Subject: RE: michael of albany - his true identity
Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2006 11:00:23 +0200
In-Reply-To: <4989643B-4F2B-4227-9AB1-737A1B6B1548@iinet.net.au>
Oh please... The so-called documents found in the church in the south of
Francwe are all now admitted to be elaborate hoax dreamt up by a journalist
for his amusement along with a well-known fantasist who invented the
farcical story of this descent.
There is not one iota of genuine contemporary documentary evidence to
support any of this nonsense and without exception every single serious
biblical scholar, scholar of the Merovingian period and Middle Ages has
dismissed it without qualification or reservation.
There have always been looney conspiracy theories circulating, with their
proponents claiming there are secret documents trhat have been mysteriously
lost or destroyed by people trying to hide something or other. People used
ot believe the earth was flat and there are still small groups pretending
that NASA faked the moon landings. Nothing will persuade them otherwise.
Historical research proposing new radical theories based on secondary
sources is nearly always completely worthless. Historians are trained to
look at contemporary documents and archaeological records. There is
absolutely nothing credible to support these ideas, and stories about
Rosslyn Church, the Templars, secret descents, etc, are pure invention.
I am not trying to be mean but if you honestly consider yourself a serious
student of genealogy or history, demand to see the documentary evidence.
Otherwise do not waste any more time giving credence to these poor deluded
fantasists.
Guy
-----Original Message-----
From: Trish Lawrence [mailto:charli@iinet.net.au]
Sent: 03 April 2006 02:05
To: GEN-ROYAL-L@rootsweb.com
Subject: Re: michael of albany - his true identity
Guy
I have to say when I first HBHG I was very sceptical, but I didn't
dismiss them outrightly, I went looking for other works that might
support their theories. There is theological work that does so, as
well as genealogical work. So lets not throw out the baby with the
bathwater.
Trish
On 03/04/2006, at 3:57 AM, Guy Stair Sainty wrote:
> I doubt it will be the last we shall hear of the wretched fellow -
> unfortunately the same kind of conspiracy theorists who gave
> credence to the
> harmless ravings of the authors of HBHG and faithfully follow the
> Word of
> Dan Brown are likely to simply believe this is just another
> conspiracy.
>
> Guy Stair sainty
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Leo van de Pas [mailto:leovdpas@netspeed.com.au]
> Sent: 02 April 2006 15:36
> To: GEN-ROYAL-L@rootsweb.com
> Subject: michael of albany - his true identity
>
>
>> Overwhelming evidence against Michael of Albany
>>
>> http://www.sundayherald.com/54904
>>
> Many years ago I corresponded with Laurence Gardner, author of "The
> Holy
> Blood and The Holy Grail", about the genealogical trees, as I
> disagreed with
>
> several details. We had a very interesting and pleasant exchange. He
> accepted some of my remarks but stood firm on those aspects
> relevant to the
> story. After a while he advised me that the corrected trees had
> been passed
> on to Prince Michael of Albany for his "The Forgotten Monarchy of
> Scotland".
>
> As a result I received an acknowledgement in this book.
>
> "The Stuarts last Secret" by Peter Pininski made clear that the
> claims of
> Michael of Albany are spurious and the above newspaper article
> could/should
> be the last we hear of a Prince Michael of Albany.
>
> Best wishes
> Leo van de Pas
> Canberra, Australia
>
>
> ==== GEN-ROYAL Mailing List ====
> For information on subscribing and unsubscribing from GEN-ROYAL,
> see the GEN-ROYAL FAQ at
>
>
>
> ==== GEN-ROYAL Mailing List ====
> For information on subscribing and unsubscribing from GEN-ROYAL,
> see the GEN-ROYAL FAQ at
==== GEN-ROYAL Mailing List ====
For information on subscribing and unsubscribing from GEN-ROYAL,
see the GEN-ROYAL FAQ at
THE MAN WHO LIED TO BE KING
The Man who lied to be King..or not a proper Charlie.
Take your pick some of us have known for a very long time that Roger Lafosse's claims were bogus,but,it is good to see that although the wheels of British law move slowly,it is still very efficient and fair.
Below is a report from several interested people who believe in the importance of Scottish History. feel free to add your own comments by leaving a reply...editor
Latest news on the infamous "Prince Michael of Albany" who has made a name for himself by claiming to be descended from bonnie Prince Charlie. (And, FYI, a friend of mine says he also saw "Prince Michael" on a recent Travel Channel show about the _DaVinci Code_ where he makes the incredible claim to be descended from Jesus Christ!).
From this month's Scottish Banner:
"A Belgian who claims to be the king of Scotland is set to be kicked out of the country after losing his British citizenship. Michael Lafosse, who calls himself HRH Prince Michael of Albany, is also facing fraud charges over his application for a British passport in June 2004. Lafosse, 48, who claims he is a direct descendant of Bonnie Prince Charlie, has been under investigation by the Home Office for six months.
"The former gift shop worker and waiter ignored more than 20 letters from investigators to his home in Edinburgh's New Town. They wanted him to explain why he submittted a forged birth certificate in support of his British citizenship application five years ago. The probe was launched after information was given to investigators at the UK passport office in Glasgow in December by a historical researcher.
"A Home Office insider said yesterday 'Lafosse was given every chance possible to plead his case but he just ignored our letters. He has now had his British citizenship revoked and he will also lose his right to a British passport.' Lafosse, whose claims have been labelled totally bogus by experts, is also alleged to have used a fake diplomatic passport to travel. He could not be contacted for comment at his home recently."
--
Matthew A. C. Newsome, FSA Scot
Curator of the Scottish Tartans Museum
Member of the Guild of Tartan Scholars
Homepage: http://www.albanach.org
latest developments
There is an update on Mikey Lafosse in the Sunday Mail at
/
report as follows;-
http://www.edinburghguide.com/edgforum/viewtopic.php?t=3955
Take your pick some of us have known for a very long time that Roger Lafosse's claims were bogus,but,it is good to see that although the wheels of British law move slowly,it is still very efficient and fair.
Below is a report from several interested people who believe in the importance of Scottish History. feel free to add your own comments by leaving a reply...editor
Latest news on the infamous "Prince Michael of Albany" who has made a name for himself by claiming to be descended from bonnie Prince Charlie. (And, FYI, a friend of mine says he also saw "Prince Michael" on a recent Travel Channel show about the _DaVinci Code_ where he makes the incredible claim to be descended from Jesus Christ!).
From this month's Scottish Banner:
"A Belgian who claims to be the king of Scotland is set to be kicked out of the country after losing his British citizenship. Michael Lafosse, who calls himself HRH Prince Michael of Albany, is also facing fraud charges over his application for a British passport in June 2004. Lafosse, 48, who claims he is a direct descendant of Bonnie Prince Charlie, has been under investigation by the Home Office for six months.
"The former gift shop worker and waiter ignored more than 20 letters from investigators to his home in Edinburgh's New Town. They wanted him to explain why he submittted a forged birth certificate in support of his British citizenship application five years ago. The probe was launched after information was given to investigators at the UK passport office in Glasgow in December by a historical researcher.
"A Home Office insider said yesterday 'Lafosse was given every chance possible to plead his case but he just ignored our letters. He has now had his British citizenship revoked and he will also lose his right to a British passport.' Lafosse, whose claims have been labelled totally bogus by experts, is also alleged to have used a fake diplomatic passport to travel. He could not be contacted for comment at his home recently."
--
Matthew A. C. Newsome, FSA Scot
Curator of the Scottish Tartans Museum
Member of the Guild of Tartan Scholars
Homepage: http://www.albanach.org
latest developments
There is an update on Mikey Lafosse in the Sunday Mail at
report as follows;-
http://www.edinburghguide.com/edgforum/viewtopic.php?t=3955
REPORT ON THE PEDIGREE OF MICHEL LA FOSSE STYLED PRINCE MICHAEL OF ALBANY
Irish Chiefs
Back to Homepage
Report on the Pedigree of Michel Lafosse,
Styled Prince Michael of Albany
Michel Lafosse, also known as Prince Michael of Albany, is not an Irish Chief or Prince, but by virtue of his claim to be the Stuart heir to the Throne of Scotland he does appropriate some Irish lineage and therefore deserves attention. Who is Lafosse and what is the nature of his claim? By his own account, Lafosse was born in Belgium in 1958, has made Scotland his permanent home since 1976, and in addition to being the 7th Count of Albany, he goes by the style of Alexander IV, Head of the Royal House of Stuart (or Stewart) and Prince de jure of Scotland. Other more exotic titles include Titular Prince of France and Poland, Head of the Sacred Kindred of Saint Columba, Archpriest of the Celtic Apostolic Church, President of the European Council of Princes, Knight Grand Commander, The Chivalric Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem, and much more. All laid these claims were laid out on Lafosse's website at http://mediaquestusa.com/Michael/pmintro.htm, and later at http://www.royalhouseofstewart.org.uk/, both of which sites are now removed (some of the older content may be accessed via the Wayback Machine web archive).
One of Lafosse's principal supporters has been the author Laurence Gardner, who styles himself The Chevalier Labhràn de St Germain. Gardner has published a book whose message is clear from its title, Bloodline of the Holy Grail: The Hidden Lineage of Jesus Revealed (Element Books, Shaftesbury, Dorset, and Rockport, Massachussets, 1996). In 400 pages of text and over 50 pages of genealogical charts, Gardner purports to trace a direct line of descent from Jesus Christ and his alleged consort Mary Magdalene to one Lionel, said to be a near contemporary of the fabled King Arthur whose death is placed in 603 AD. Lionel is claimed to be the ancestor of Walter FitzAlan, 1st High Steward of Scotland, who died in 1177 and whose descendant became King Robert II of Scotland in 1371 (Bloodline of the Holy Grail, pages 236-47, 279-80, 424).
The Stuarts of course succeeded to the Throne of England in 1603 following the death of the childless Elizabeth I, when James VI of Scotland became also James I of England. The vicissitudes of the later Stuarts in the wake of the overthrow of James II in 1688 are well known, culminating in the last doomed attempt of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, 'Bonny Prince Charlie', to restore the Dynasty during the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745. Now Lafosse and his supporters declare that Prince Charles contracted a second and hitherto concealed marriage with a Marguerite O'Dea d'Audibert in 1785, from whom Lafosse is allegedly descended in the maternal line. Noel McFerran's critique of these and other claims of Lafosse can be read at http://members.rogers.com/jacobites/essays/lafosse.htm, and there is another critical article by Guy Stair Sainty at http://www.chivalricorders.org/royalty/fantasy/stuart.htm
The royal claims of Michel Lafosse are very similar to the now exploded pretences of Terence MacCarthy, who purported to be 'The MacCarthy Mór, Prince of Desmond'. As with MacCarthy, I decided it would be a good idea to start by checking the most recent vital certificates relating to Lafosse's family, copies of which he had helpfully placed on his website, but which were later removed. The first certificate states that Lafosse was born in Brussels on 21 April 1958 in the Ville de Bruxelles district, and that his parents were Baron Gustave Joseph Fernand Clément Lafosse and Princess Renée Julienne Stewart. The second certificate states that Lafosse's grandparents Prince Julius Joseph Jacques Stewart and Princess Germania Elisa Segers were married in 1932, again in Brussels.
It seemed advisable to verify these documents, and so a letter of enquiry was sent on 12 April 2002 to the Registrar's Office, Boulevard Anspach 6, 1000 Bruxelles, Belgique. A reply was received by e-mail on 19 April, signed by the Conseiller Etat Civil, which stated bluntly that the above birth and marriage certificates were false ('sont des faux'), and furthermore that Michel Lafosse was born elsewhere in Brussels. Gordon MacGregor Comrie kindly supplied the copy of of Lafosse's true birth certificate below, which shows that he was indeed born in Brussels on 21 April 1958 but in the Watermael-Boitsfort district, with recorded first names Michel Roger, and that his parents are named simply as Gustave Joseph Clément Fernand Lafosse, a shopkeeper, and Renée Julienne Dée, a business employee, with no indication of any noble status whatsoever. Again, it was considered necessary to check that this second certificate was definitely in order, so on 25 July 2002 an enquiry was sent to the Etat Civil, Commune de Watermael-Boitsfort, Place Gilson 1, 1170 Bruxelles, Belgique. A reply was received on 9 August confirming that the certificate below was authentic, the words used being, 'Le certificat en question est une copie conforme à l'original'.
At a relatively late stage in research the writer found that a thorough report exposing Michel Lafosse as a fraud had been compiled in Scotland as long ago as 1980 by one Jack S MacDonald, the text of which may be read at http://priory-of-sion.com/posd/lafosse/lafosseoriginals.html. MacDonald established that the birth certificate of 'Prince Michael' was a forgery, that other documentation presented by the claimant was also fabricated, and concluded that he was 'a forger and a fraud'. The latter site provides the interesting information that MacDonald's report was commissioned by 'a group of the Scottish Patriots which included Wendy Wood, A J Stewart, Nigel Tranter and others', and states that being 'told fairy stories by his grandmother is what seems to have inspired Michel Lafosse into becoming the future "Prince Michael of Albany"'. It is remarkable what little effect MacDonald's research appears to have had, although a number of individuals in Scotland and abroad kept the matter in view over the years. Exposing bogus claimants to titles is a complex, time-consuming and often frustrating task, and the writer has found that while a report stating the genealogical facts is an essential element, it is usually not sufficient in itself to settle the issue.
It was noted that in 2001 Lafosse received from the Home Office a certificate of naturalisation as a British citizen, using the name Michael James Alexander Stewart of Albany, which document is reproduced below (copy courtesy of Rafal Heydel-Mankoo at http://www.geocities.com/rafalhm/lafosse.html).
It will be noted firstly that the certificate 'does not certify the accuracy of the personal particulars, which are supplied by the person who made the application'. However, it can be seen that there is a also a section 'Name at birth if different'. It has been demonstrated above that the applicant's name on his authentic birth certificate is Michel Roger Lafosse, and it was a serious omission not to have notified this to the Home Office when applying for naturalisation.
While as indicated above, careful research is required, a definitive media exposure is usually also needed to topple hoaxers such as Terence MacCarthy and Michel Lafosse. While there had been intermittent media coverage over the years, a fairly thorough exposure of the spurious claims of Michel Lafosse aka 'Prince Michael of Albany' appeared in the Scottish Sunday Herald of 2 April 2006: http://www.sundayherald.com/54904 The article deals with the false birth certificate and the irregular naturalisation certificate, mentioning also a passport obtained using questionable documents and a diplomatic passport issued in the name of the 'Sovereign Order of St John of Jerusalem'. It is understood that the Home Office initiated proceedings against Lafosse in relation to the false documentation presented in support of his citizenship application, and that charity regulators were also investigating his fund raising activities. In late July 2006 it was reported that Lafosse had fled Scotland and moved back to Belgium to live with his mother (Sunday Mail, 23 July 2006), and his website was taken down. Thus appears to have ended the remarkable decades-long hoax of Michel Lafosse, the so-called Prince Michael of Albany, although it remains to be seen whether the Belgian authorities will want to take proceedings in relation to forgery of vital certificates issued within their jurisdiction.
Sean Murphy MA
Centre for Irish Genealogical and Historical Studies
1 May 2002, last updated 6 August 2006
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://homepage.eircom.net/%257Eseanjmurphy/chiefs/lafosse.htm
Back to Homepage
Report on the Pedigree of Michel Lafosse,
Styled Prince Michael of Albany
Michel Lafosse, also known as Prince Michael of Albany, is not an Irish Chief or Prince, but by virtue of his claim to be the Stuart heir to the Throne of Scotland he does appropriate some Irish lineage and therefore deserves attention. Who is Lafosse and what is the nature of his claim? By his own account, Lafosse was born in Belgium in 1958, has made Scotland his permanent home since 1976, and in addition to being the 7th Count of Albany, he goes by the style of Alexander IV, Head of the Royal House of Stuart (or Stewart) and Prince de jure of Scotland. Other more exotic titles include Titular Prince of France and Poland, Head of the Sacred Kindred of Saint Columba, Archpriest of the Celtic Apostolic Church, President of the European Council of Princes, Knight Grand Commander, The Chivalric Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem, and much more. All laid these claims were laid out on Lafosse's website at http://mediaquestusa.com/Michael/pmintro.htm, and later at http://www.royalhouseofstewart.org.uk/, both of which sites are now removed (some of the older content may be accessed via the Wayback Machine web archive).
One of Lafosse's principal supporters has been the author Laurence Gardner, who styles himself The Chevalier Labhràn de St Germain. Gardner has published a book whose message is clear from its title, Bloodline of the Holy Grail: The Hidden Lineage of Jesus Revealed (Element Books, Shaftesbury, Dorset, and Rockport, Massachussets, 1996). In 400 pages of text and over 50 pages of genealogical charts, Gardner purports to trace a direct line of descent from Jesus Christ and his alleged consort Mary Magdalene to one Lionel, said to be a near contemporary of the fabled King Arthur whose death is placed in 603 AD. Lionel is claimed to be the ancestor of Walter FitzAlan, 1st High Steward of Scotland, who died in 1177 and whose descendant became King Robert II of Scotland in 1371 (Bloodline of the Holy Grail, pages 236-47, 279-80, 424).
The Stuarts of course succeeded to the Throne of England in 1603 following the death of the childless Elizabeth I, when James VI of Scotland became also James I of England. The vicissitudes of the later Stuarts in the wake of the overthrow of James II in 1688 are well known, culminating in the last doomed attempt of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, 'Bonny Prince Charlie', to restore the Dynasty during the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745. Now Lafosse and his supporters declare that Prince Charles contracted a second and hitherto concealed marriage with a Marguerite O'Dea d'Audibert in 1785, from whom Lafosse is allegedly descended in the maternal line. Noel McFerran's critique of these and other claims of Lafosse can be read at http://members.rogers.com/jacobites/essays/lafosse.htm, and there is another critical article by Guy Stair Sainty at http://www.chivalricorders.org/royalty/fantasy/stuart.htm
The royal claims of Michel Lafosse are very similar to the now exploded pretences of Terence MacCarthy, who purported to be 'The MacCarthy Mór, Prince of Desmond'. As with MacCarthy, I decided it would be a good idea to start by checking the most recent vital certificates relating to Lafosse's family, copies of which he had helpfully placed on his website, but which were later removed. The first certificate states that Lafosse was born in Brussels on 21 April 1958 in the Ville de Bruxelles district, and that his parents were Baron Gustave Joseph Fernand Clément Lafosse and Princess Renée Julienne Stewart. The second certificate states that Lafosse's grandparents Prince Julius Joseph Jacques Stewart and Princess Germania Elisa Segers were married in 1932, again in Brussels.
It seemed advisable to verify these documents, and so a letter of enquiry was sent on 12 April 2002 to the Registrar's Office, Boulevard Anspach 6, 1000 Bruxelles, Belgique. A reply was received by e-mail on 19 April, signed by the Conseiller Etat Civil, which stated bluntly that the above birth and marriage certificates were false ('sont des faux'), and furthermore that Michel Lafosse was born elsewhere in Brussels. Gordon MacGregor Comrie kindly supplied the copy of of Lafosse's true birth certificate below, which shows that he was indeed born in Brussels on 21 April 1958 but in the Watermael-Boitsfort district, with recorded first names Michel Roger, and that his parents are named simply as Gustave Joseph Clément Fernand Lafosse, a shopkeeper, and Renée Julienne Dée, a business employee, with no indication of any noble status whatsoever. Again, it was considered necessary to check that this second certificate was definitely in order, so on 25 July 2002 an enquiry was sent to the Etat Civil, Commune de Watermael-Boitsfort, Place Gilson 1, 1170 Bruxelles, Belgique. A reply was received on 9 August confirming that the certificate below was authentic, the words used being, 'Le certificat en question est une copie conforme à l'original'.
At a relatively late stage in research the writer found that a thorough report exposing Michel Lafosse as a fraud had been compiled in Scotland as long ago as 1980 by one Jack S MacDonald, the text of which may be read at http://priory-of-sion.com/posd/lafosse/lafosseoriginals.html. MacDonald established that the birth certificate of 'Prince Michael' was a forgery, that other documentation presented by the claimant was also fabricated, and concluded that he was 'a forger and a fraud'. The latter site provides the interesting information that MacDonald's report was commissioned by 'a group of the Scottish Patriots which included Wendy Wood, A J Stewart, Nigel Tranter and others', and states that being 'told fairy stories by his grandmother is what seems to have inspired Michel Lafosse into becoming the future "Prince Michael of Albany"'. It is remarkable what little effect MacDonald's research appears to have had, although a number of individuals in Scotland and abroad kept the matter in view over the years. Exposing bogus claimants to titles is a complex, time-consuming and often frustrating task, and the writer has found that while a report stating the genealogical facts is an essential element, it is usually not sufficient in itself to settle the issue.
It was noted that in 2001 Lafosse received from the Home Office a certificate of naturalisation as a British citizen, using the name Michael James Alexander Stewart of Albany, which document is reproduced below (copy courtesy of Rafal Heydel-Mankoo at http://www.geocities.com/rafalhm/lafosse.html).
It will be noted firstly that the certificate 'does not certify the accuracy of the personal particulars, which are supplied by the person who made the application'. However, it can be seen that there is a also a section 'Name at birth if different'. It has been demonstrated above that the applicant's name on his authentic birth certificate is Michel Roger Lafosse, and it was a serious omission not to have notified this to the Home Office when applying for naturalisation.
While as indicated above, careful research is required, a definitive media exposure is usually also needed to topple hoaxers such as Terence MacCarthy and Michel Lafosse. While there had been intermittent media coverage over the years, a fairly thorough exposure of the spurious claims of Michel Lafosse aka 'Prince Michael of Albany' appeared in the Scottish Sunday Herald of 2 April 2006: http://www.sundayherald.com/54904 The article deals with the false birth certificate and the irregular naturalisation certificate, mentioning also a passport obtained using questionable documents and a diplomatic passport issued in the name of the 'Sovereign Order of St John of Jerusalem'. It is understood that the Home Office initiated proceedings against Lafosse in relation to the false documentation presented in support of his citizenship application, and that charity regulators were also investigating his fund raising activities. In late July 2006 it was reported that Lafosse had fled Scotland and moved back to Belgium to live with his mother (Sunday Mail, 23 July 2006), and his website was taken down. Thus appears to have ended the remarkable decades-long hoax of Michel Lafosse, the so-called Prince Michael of Albany, although it remains to be seen whether the Belgian authorities will want to take proceedings in relation to forgery of vital certificates issued within their jurisdiction.
Sean Murphy MA
Centre for Irish Genealogical and Historical Studies
1 May 2002, last updated 6 August 2006
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://homepage.eircom.net/%257Eseanjmurphy/chiefs/lafosse.htm
STUART CLAIMANTS:PRINCE MICHAEL OF ALBANY
"Prince Michael of Albany"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Prince Michael James Alexander Stewart, 7th Count of Albany, Duc d'Aquitaine, Comte de Blois, Head of the Sacred Kindred of St. Columba, Knight Grand Commander of the Order of the Temple of Jerusalem, Patron Grand Officer of the International Society of Commission Officers for the Commonwealth, President of the European Council of Princes," claims descent in the legitimate line from Charles III. The following account of him is based upon Laurence Gardner's Bloodline of the Holy Grail: The Hidden Lineage of Jesus Revealed (Element, 1996), "Prince Michael"'s The Forgotten Monarchy of Scotland (Element, 1998), and the webpage of "Prince Michael" (http://www.mediaquest.co.uk/RHSsite/RHShome.html). My own comments are in italics placed in square brackets.
According to "Prince Michael", on April 3, 1784, Pope Pius VI annulled the marriage of Charles III and his wife Louise of Stolberg-Gedern; the bases for this decree of nullity were purportedly 1. "Louise's inability to produce an heir made her unsuitable for the purpose intended", and 2. "her open involvement with Alfieri rendered her quite unworthy of her marital office."
[Louise seems never to have borne any children; she also clearly was not faithful to her marriage vows. However, anybody familiar with the marriage laws of the Catholic Church will recognise that neither of these would be sufficient cause for a decree of nullity. There is absolutely no evidence for any such annulment ever having been sought or granted. On April 3, 1784, Charles did issue a declaration in which he agreed to his wife Louise maintaining a separate permanent residence. This is altogether different from a divorce, much less an annulment. There are numerous biographies of Louise including at least three in English (by Herbert M. Vaughan, Vernon Lee, and Margaret Crosland); none of these suggest that the marriage of Charles and Louise was annulled.]
The story continues that according to the "Stuart archives in Rome and Brussels" Charles married "Marguerite Marie Therese O'Dea d'Audibert de Lussan, Comtesse de Massillan" in November 1785 in the Church of the Santi Apostoli in Rome.
[There is no collection in Rome called the "Stuart archives". The largest collections of papers of the Stuart kings-in-exile are now in England at Windsor Castle and the British Museum. A number of archival collections in Italy include some papers related to the Stuart kings. Gardner refrains from being any more specific, no doubt because he cannot be.]
[In naming "Marguerite Marie Therese O'Dea d'Audibert de Lussan" as Charles' supposed second wife "Prince Michael" begins a pattern of attributing to people the surnames of their maternal ancestors; Marguerite O'Dea may have been descended in the female line from the families of Audibert and Lussan, but she had no right to use these surnames herself. She was not a member of the great French families of Audibert or Lussan and had no right to the title "comtesse de Massilan".]
As proof of this wedding "Prince Michael" cites a Latin extract purportedly from the marriage registers of the Church of the Santi Apostoli in Rome. On his website and in his book "Prince Michael" reproduces a statement from a Belgian notary confirming the origin of the extract.
[Gardner does not explain how a Belgian notary would be able to authenticate a record supposedly in Rome!]:
Quod Heic XXVI Kal Dec. ANRS MDCCLXXXV Hospes Hospiti Carolus III Rex Mag. Brit. Fran. et Hib. Fid. Def. Porrexerit Dexteram Margaretae Mariae Tereseae Fil. Ferdinandi Dea d'Audibert de Lussan et Francescae d'Audibert de Lussan, Comitessa de Masillan, etc., Eamque, Servatis SRE Ritibus Duxerit in Matrimonium.
[The date of the document proves it to be a total fabrication. In the Roman calendar "XXVI Kal. Dec." would (if it existed) be the 25th (sic) day before the Kalends of December; this is comparable to saying the 39th of March - there is no such date! "Prince Michael" translates "XXVI Kal. Dec." as "December 26th", and thereby shows his lack of familiarity with how the Roman calendar works. "Kal. Dec.", the Kalends of December is December 1st; "II Kal. Dec." is the day before the Kalends of December, i.e. November 30th; "XVIII Kal. Dec." is the seventeenth day before the Kalends of December, i.e. November 14th. There is no "XIX Kal. Dec." (let alone a "XXVI Kal. Dec.") because the day before "XVIII Kal. Dec." is "Id. Nov.", the Ides of November.]
[The rest of the Latin, however, is accurate - for the reason that it has been copied (with only the names changed) from the inscription recording Charles' marriage to Louise of Stolberg in the Palazzo Marefoschi in Macerata. It is for that reason that the passage begins "Quod heic" (here on account of the fact that). Such an expression makes perfect sense in a monumental inscription, but is meaningless in what purports to be an entry in a marriage register.]
To continue with the story put forward by "Prince Michael": the following November (1786) Marguerite "gave birth to a son, Edouard Jacques Stuardo (Edward James Stuart), who became known as 'Count Stuarton'".
[The mixing of languages in the names and titles (Edouard Jacques - French; Stuardo - Italian; Stuarton - German) seems merely to be a ploy to appear aristocratic and mysterious.]
Gardner says that while the existence of the marriage and birth were "suppressed by the Hanoverian government" and "concealed from the British public", they were "no secret in Europe".
[Gardner provides no evidence of this European knowledge of a second marriage. There are numerous French and German biographies of Charles; none of these mention any second marriage, let alone the birth of a son. Nor is Gardner able to cite any evidence for a European knowledge of anyone entitled "Count Stuarton". The only contemporary evidence of an individual with such a title is to be found not in any European source, but in an English one (and therefore under the influence of the Hanoverian government in Britain).]
[In it's 1807 obituary for the Cardinal called Duke of York, the monthly journal "The Gentleman's Magazine" reports that, "In his will, made in January 1789, he [i.e. the Cardinal called Duke of York] had left the latter [i.e. his library] to his relation Count Stuarton." The obituary does not elaborate on who this "Count Stuarton" was. In fact the obituary in "The Gentleman's Magazine" is totally wrong about any such bequest. In his will the Cardinal called Duke of York left his entire property including his library to Monsignor Angelo Cesarini. It was Cesarini who later distributed the property and gave the library to the Archiepiscopal Seminary in Frascati. In 1944 the books were removed to the Biblioteca Apostolica in the Vatican in order to protect them from the Allied bombing of Frascati (which in fact did destroy the Seminary). Today the books remain in the Vatican.]
[The majority of the obituary in "The Gentleman's Magazine" is given over to the financial difficulties of the Cardinal called Duke of York after 1796 and to the generosity shown by the Elector of Hanover in correcting this situation. The writer is clearly at pains to exalt the House of Hanover and to deny any continued rights to the Jacobite heirs. The final sentence of the obituary is, "The statements in the French Papers, concerning Cardinal York's bequests to the King of Sardinia, are void of all truth," - when in fact they were entirely accurate. In mentioning a "Count Stuarton", either the writer of the obituary is mistaken (as he is in a number of other details) or he is purposefully fabricating a story to make people doubt the fact that the heir of the Cardinal called Duke of York was Charles Emmanuel IV of Sardinia. One searches in vain in both British and European sources for any other contemporary reference to a "Count Stuarton".]
As proof of the birth of "Prince Edward James", "Prince Michael" cites a Latin extract again purportedly from the registers of the Church of the Santi Apostoli in Rome:
Eduardo Jacobi, Dux Kintyriis et Kendalae, Scot., Angl., Franc., Hib., et Pol. Princeps, Fil. Carolus III Stuartus Fid. Def. et Margarita de Masaillanas, Mag. Brit. Franc., et Hibernia Rex et Regina, natus XV Kal. Oct. Anno MDCCLXXXVI.
[There are so many signs that this extract is a forgery:]
[First, Charles is never called "Charles III" or "king" (Rex) by any except his most devoted Jacobite supporters. Charles certainly would not be referred to as king in a baptismal register in the city of Rome where the pope was insistent that he must use an alias; in 1767 the Rectors of the English, Scots, and Irish Colleges had each been dismissed by the pope for publicly praying for Charles as king.]
[Second, the person who created this supposed baptismal record had extremely poor knowledge of Latin grammar and spelling; he was most certainly not a Catholic priest of the eighteenth century. Eduardo Jacobi is in the dative or ablative case, while the titles of duke (Dux) and prince (Princeps) and the word born (natus) are in the nominative case. No legitimate son of Charles would be a prince of Poland (Pol. Princeps); this is another example of "Prince Michael" attaching to persons titles or names held by their maternal ancestors. Edward James is described as the son of Charles and Margaret (Fil. Carolus . . . et Margarita) - but then the names Carolus and Margarita should be in the genitive case and not the nominative case.]
The story continues that in 1788 at the death of Charles, the Hanoverian government and the Cardinal called Duke of York connived to hide the existence of a will recognising as heir "Prince Edward James, Count Stuarton". Similar intrigues followed with Henry's own will. All of this was purportedly done with the support of the pope and Cardinal Consalvi.
[There is of course no evidence for the existence of these other wills of Charles and Henry; one searches in vain for any mention of them before Gardner and "Prince Michael". The Jacobites had no greater hope than for a legitimate son to be born to Charles. It is preposterous to suggest that if such a child had been born, his birth would not have been publicly celebrated. The intrigue of various papal officials and the Hanoverian government make the story very exciting, but do not lend any credence to it.]
"Prince Edward James" died in 1845 and was succeeded by his son, "Prince Henry Edward Benedict", who died in 1869 and was succeeded by his son, "Prince Charles Benedict James". In 1888 Charles Benedict "was scheduled to attend a grand Stuart Exhibition at the New Gallery, London. But the Exhibition was wholly undermined by Hanoverian agents, and "Prince Charles Benedict" was found dead (presumably murdered) in Italy."
["Prince Michael" names all of these supposed ancestors, but does not provide any evidence for their existence. The Stuart Exhibition organised in London in 1888 under the presidency of Lord Ashburnham is a well-known historical event. There is no evidence for any proposed visit by "Prince Charles Benedict", or for that gentleman's death.]
"Prince Charles Benedict" died in 1887 and was succeeded by his son, "Prince Julius Anthony Henry"; the latter died in 1941 and was succeeded by his son, "Prince Anthony James". "Prince Anthony James" died without issue in 1963. His brother, "Prince Julius Joseph James" married "Germaine Elixa Segers de la Tour d'Auvergne, Princess of Sedan", by whom he had a daughter, "Princess Renee Julienne, Princess Royal of Strathearn, Lady Derneley"; this lady is the mother of "Prince Michael".
[It is always possible that a certain Germaine Seger may have been descended in the female line from the de la Tour d'Auvergne family - although there is no evidence for any such descent. The legitimate male line of that family became extinct in the 1790's. Certainly Germaine Seger had no right to use the surname of de la Tour d'Auvergne nor the title of Princess of Sedan.]
"Prince Julius" died in 1985. According to the website of "Prince Michael", in April 1993 "he celebrated his 30th year as Head of his House".
[No explanation is given as to why "Prince Anthony James" was succeeded in 1963 by his then five year old great nephew "Prince Michael" instead of by his brother "Prince Julius" or by his niece "Princess Renee Julienne" who seems still to be alive.]
"Prince Michael" claims to be "President of the European Council of Princes (Le Conseil Europeen des Princes) - Un Organe Consultatif Constitutionel". He says that this organisation was founded in 1946 (as the "International Council of Government") with Archduke Otto of Austria as its President until 1992 (when "Prince Michael" succeeded). He also says that the heads of all the major European royal houses belong with the exception of the House of Windsor.
[The existence of this body before 1990 cannot be verified. It is not mentioned in any of the biographies of Archduke Otto, nor in the entries about him in any of a number of biographical dictionaries. In 1996 Archduke Otto in correspondence with the noted royal genealogist Daniel Willis (author of "The Descendants of Louis XIII") denied that he had ever been a member or president of any such body - or indeed even heard of it. I have been unable to discover the names of any other purported members of the council. The council is not mentioned in the biographies or in the biographical dictionary entries for any head of a European royal house. The only people who might be members are people who claim legitimate descent from long extinct houses such as Hohenstaufen (i.e. charlatans). "Prince Michael" claims to have connections with many European royal houses; he is, however, never seen at any of their celebrations marking baptisms, marriages, birthdays, or funerals.]
In spite of the fact that the claims of "Prince Michael of Albany" cannot be supported by any historical evidence and that they fly in the face of reason, the "prince" nevertheless has a few adherents who are happy to support someone who makes a public and active claim to the throne. His supporters seem unconcerned that he cannot provide any evidence for his claims.
http://www.jacobite.ca/essays/lafosse.htm
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"Prince Michael James Alexander Stewart, 7th Count of Albany, Duc d'Aquitaine, Comte de Blois, Head of the Sacred Kindred of St. Columba, Knight Grand Commander of the Order of the Temple of Jerusalem, Patron Grand Officer of the International Society of Commission Officers for the Commonwealth, President of the European Council of Princes," claims descent in the legitimate line from Charles III. The following account of him is based upon Laurence Gardner's Bloodline of the Holy Grail: The Hidden Lineage of Jesus Revealed (Element, 1996), "Prince Michael"'s The Forgotten Monarchy of Scotland (Element, 1998), and the webpage of "Prince Michael" (http://www.mediaquest.co.uk/RHSsite/RHShome.html). My own comments are in italics placed in square brackets.
According to "Prince Michael", on April 3, 1784, Pope Pius VI annulled the marriage of Charles III and his wife Louise of Stolberg-Gedern; the bases for this decree of nullity were purportedly 1. "Louise's inability to produce an heir made her unsuitable for the purpose intended", and 2. "her open involvement with Alfieri rendered her quite unworthy of her marital office."
[Louise seems never to have borne any children; she also clearly was not faithful to her marriage vows. However, anybody familiar with the marriage laws of the Catholic Church will recognise that neither of these would be sufficient cause for a decree of nullity. There is absolutely no evidence for any such annulment ever having been sought or granted. On April 3, 1784, Charles did issue a declaration in which he agreed to his wife Louise maintaining a separate permanent residence. This is altogether different from a divorce, much less an annulment. There are numerous biographies of Louise including at least three in English (by Herbert M. Vaughan, Vernon Lee, and Margaret Crosland); none of these suggest that the marriage of Charles and Louise was annulled.]
The story continues that according to the "Stuart archives in Rome and Brussels" Charles married "Marguerite Marie Therese O'Dea d'Audibert de Lussan, Comtesse de Massillan" in November 1785 in the Church of the Santi Apostoli in Rome.
[There is no collection in Rome called the "Stuart archives". The largest collections of papers of the Stuart kings-in-exile are now in England at Windsor Castle and the British Museum. A number of archival collections in Italy include some papers related to the Stuart kings. Gardner refrains from being any more specific, no doubt because he cannot be.]
[In naming "Marguerite Marie Therese O'Dea d'Audibert de Lussan" as Charles' supposed second wife "Prince Michael" begins a pattern of attributing to people the surnames of their maternal ancestors; Marguerite O'Dea may have been descended in the female line from the families of Audibert and Lussan, but she had no right to use these surnames herself. She was not a member of the great French families of Audibert or Lussan and had no right to the title "comtesse de Massilan".]
As proof of this wedding "Prince Michael" cites a Latin extract purportedly from the marriage registers of the Church of the Santi Apostoli in Rome. On his website and in his book "Prince Michael" reproduces a statement from a Belgian notary confirming the origin of the extract.
[Gardner does not explain how a Belgian notary would be able to authenticate a record supposedly in Rome!]:
Quod Heic XXVI Kal Dec. ANRS MDCCLXXXV Hospes Hospiti Carolus III Rex Mag. Brit. Fran. et Hib. Fid. Def. Porrexerit Dexteram Margaretae Mariae Tereseae Fil. Ferdinandi Dea d'Audibert de Lussan et Francescae d'Audibert de Lussan, Comitessa de Masillan, etc., Eamque, Servatis SRE Ritibus Duxerit in Matrimonium.
[The date of the document proves it to be a total fabrication. In the Roman calendar "XXVI Kal. Dec." would (if it existed) be the 25th (sic) day before the Kalends of December; this is comparable to saying the 39th of March - there is no such date! "Prince Michael" translates "XXVI Kal. Dec." as "December 26th", and thereby shows his lack of familiarity with how the Roman calendar works. "Kal. Dec.", the Kalends of December is December 1st; "II Kal. Dec." is the day before the Kalends of December, i.e. November 30th; "XVIII Kal. Dec." is the seventeenth day before the Kalends of December, i.e. November 14th. There is no "XIX Kal. Dec." (let alone a "XXVI Kal. Dec.") because the day before "XVIII Kal. Dec." is "Id. Nov.", the Ides of November.]
[The rest of the Latin, however, is accurate - for the reason that it has been copied (with only the names changed) from the inscription recording Charles' marriage to Louise of Stolberg in the Palazzo Marefoschi in Macerata. It is for that reason that the passage begins "Quod heic" (here on account of the fact that). Such an expression makes perfect sense in a monumental inscription, but is meaningless in what purports to be an entry in a marriage register.]
To continue with the story put forward by "Prince Michael": the following November (1786) Marguerite "gave birth to a son, Edouard Jacques Stuardo (Edward James Stuart), who became known as 'Count Stuarton'".
[The mixing of languages in the names and titles (Edouard Jacques - French; Stuardo - Italian; Stuarton - German) seems merely to be a ploy to appear aristocratic and mysterious.]
Gardner says that while the existence of the marriage and birth were "suppressed by the Hanoverian government" and "concealed from the British public", they were "no secret in Europe".
[Gardner provides no evidence of this European knowledge of a second marriage. There are numerous French and German biographies of Charles; none of these mention any second marriage, let alone the birth of a son. Nor is Gardner able to cite any evidence for a European knowledge of anyone entitled "Count Stuarton". The only contemporary evidence of an individual with such a title is to be found not in any European source, but in an English one (and therefore under the influence of the Hanoverian government in Britain).]
[In it's 1807 obituary for the Cardinal called Duke of York, the monthly journal "The Gentleman's Magazine" reports that, "In his will, made in January 1789, he [i.e. the Cardinal called Duke of York] had left the latter [i.e. his library] to his relation Count Stuarton." The obituary does not elaborate on who this "Count Stuarton" was. In fact the obituary in "The Gentleman's Magazine" is totally wrong about any such bequest. In his will the Cardinal called Duke of York left his entire property including his library to Monsignor Angelo Cesarini. It was Cesarini who later distributed the property and gave the library to the Archiepiscopal Seminary in Frascati. In 1944 the books were removed to the Biblioteca Apostolica in the Vatican in order to protect them from the Allied bombing of Frascati (which in fact did destroy the Seminary). Today the books remain in the Vatican.]
[The majority of the obituary in "The Gentleman's Magazine" is given over to the financial difficulties of the Cardinal called Duke of York after 1796 and to the generosity shown by the Elector of Hanover in correcting this situation. The writer is clearly at pains to exalt the House of Hanover and to deny any continued rights to the Jacobite heirs. The final sentence of the obituary is, "The statements in the French Papers, concerning Cardinal York's bequests to the King of Sardinia, are void of all truth," - when in fact they were entirely accurate. In mentioning a "Count Stuarton", either the writer of the obituary is mistaken (as he is in a number of other details) or he is purposefully fabricating a story to make people doubt the fact that the heir of the Cardinal called Duke of York was Charles Emmanuel IV of Sardinia. One searches in vain in both British and European sources for any other contemporary reference to a "Count Stuarton".]
As proof of the birth of "Prince Edward James", "Prince Michael" cites a Latin extract again purportedly from the registers of the Church of the Santi Apostoli in Rome:
Eduardo Jacobi, Dux Kintyriis et Kendalae, Scot., Angl., Franc., Hib., et Pol. Princeps, Fil. Carolus III Stuartus Fid. Def. et Margarita de Masaillanas, Mag. Brit. Franc., et Hibernia Rex et Regina, natus XV Kal. Oct. Anno MDCCLXXXVI.
[There are so many signs that this extract is a forgery:]
[First, Charles is never called "Charles III" or "king" (Rex) by any except his most devoted Jacobite supporters. Charles certainly would not be referred to as king in a baptismal register in the city of Rome where the pope was insistent that he must use an alias; in 1767 the Rectors of the English, Scots, and Irish Colleges had each been dismissed by the pope for publicly praying for Charles as king.]
[Second, the person who created this supposed baptismal record had extremely poor knowledge of Latin grammar and spelling; he was most certainly not a Catholic priest of the eighteenth century. Eduardo Jacobi is in the dative or ablative case, while the titles of duke (Dux) and prince (Princeps) and the word born (natus) are in the nominative case. No legitimate son of Charles would be a prince of Poland (Pol. Princeps); this is another example of "Prince Michael" attaching to persons titles or names held by their maternal ancestors. Edward James is described as the son of Charles and Margaret (Fil. Carolus . . . et Margarita) - but then the names Carolus and Margarita should be in the genitive case and not the nominative case.]
The story continues that in 1788 at the death of Charles, the Hanoverian government and the Cardinal called Duke of York connived to hide the existence of a will recognising as heir "Prince Edward James, Count Stuarton". Similar intrigues followed with Henry's own will. All of this was purportedly done with the support of the pope and Cardinal Consalvi.
[There is of course no evidence for the existence of these other wills of Charles and Henry; one searches in vain for any mention of them before Gardner and "Prince Michael". The Jacobites had no greater hope than for a legitimate son to be born to Charles. It is preposterous to suggest that if such a child had been born, his birth would not have been publicly celebrated. The intrigue of various papal officials and the Hanoverian government make the story very exciting, but do not lend any credence to it.]
"Prince Edward James" died in 1845 and was succeeded by his son, "Prince Henry Edward Benedict", who died in 1869 and was succeeded by his son, "Prince Charles Benedict James". In 1888 Charles Benedict "was scheduled to attend a grand Stuart Exhibition at the New Gallery, London. But the Exhibition was wholly undermined by Hanoverian agents, and "Prince Charles Benedict" was found dead (presumably murdered) in Italy."
["Prince Michael" names all of these supposed ancestors, but does not provide any evidence for their existence. The Stuart Exhibition organised in London in 1888 under the presidency of Lord Ashburnham is a well-known historical event. There is no evidence for any proposed visit by "Prince Charles Benedict", or for that gentleman's death.]
"Prince Charles Benedict" died in 1887 and was succeeded by his son, "Prince Julius Anthony Henry"; the latter died in 1941 and was succeeded by his son, "Prince Anthony James". "Prince Anthony James" died without issue in 1963. His brother, "Prince Julius Joseph James" married "Germaine Elixa Segers de la Tour d'Auvergne, Princess of Sedan", by whom he had a daughter, "Princess Renee Julienne, Princess Royal of Strathearn, Lady Derneley"; this lady is the mother of "Prince Michael".
[It is always possible that a certain Germaine Seger may have been descended in the female line from the de la Tour d'Auvergne family - although there is no evidence for any such descent. The legitimate male line of that family became extinct in the 1790's. Certainly Germaine Seger had no right to use the surname of de la Tour d'Auvergne nor the title of Princess of Sedan.]
"Prince Julius" died in 1985. According to the website of "Prince Michael", in April 1993 "he celebrated his 30th year as Head of his House".
[No explanation is given as to why "Prince Anthony James" was succeeded in 1963 by his then five year old great nephew "Prince Michael" instead of by his brother "Prince Julius" or by his niece "Princess Renee Julienne" who seems still to be alive.]
"Prince Michael" claims to be "President of the European Council of Princes (Le Conseil Europeen des Princes) - Un Organe Consultatif Constitutionel". He says that this organisation was founded in 1946 (as the "International Council of Government") with Archduke Otto of Austria as its President until 1992 (when "Prince Michael" succeeded). He also says that the heads of all the major European royal houses belong with the exception of the House of Windsor.
[The existence of this body before 1990 cannot be verified. It is not mentioned in any of the biographies of Archduke Otto, nor in the entries about him in any of a number of biographical dictionaries. In 1996 Archduke Otto in correspondence with the noted royal genealogist Daniel Willis (author of "The Descendants of Louis XIII") denied that he had ever been a member or president of any such body - or indeed even heard of it. I have been unable to discover the names of any other purported members of the council. The council is not mentioned in the biographies or in the biographical dictionary entries for any head of a European royal house. The only people who might be members are people who claim legitimate descent from long extinct houses such as Hohenstaufen (i.e. charlatans). "Prince Michael" claims to have connections with many European royal houses; he is, however, never seen at any of their celebrations marking baptisms, marriages, birthdays, or funerals.]
In spite of the fact that the claims of "Prince Michael of Albany" cannot be supported by any historical evidence and that they fly in the face of reason, the "prince" nevertheless has a few adherents who are happy to support someone who makes a public and active claim to the throne. His supporters seem unconcerned that he cannot provide any evidence for his claims.
http://www.jacobite.ca/essays/lafosse.htm
PRINCE MICHAEL OF ALBANY
"PRINCE MICHAEL OF ALBANY"
This pretended heir of the male line of the Royal House of Stuart like some other pseudo-princes, has based himself in Belgium, a country which also has an over abundance of self-styled "Orders". The Royal House of Stuart became extinct in the male line with the death of Henry (IX) Stuart, Duke of York, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church and Bishop of Frascati, in 1807. He had succeeded his elder brother, Charles (III) Stuart, sometimes known as "Bonnie Prince Charlie", in 1788, on the latter's death without legitimate issue (he left one illegitimate daughter, Clementina, who also died without issue). Both were the sons of James (III), Prince of Wales, only son of James II, King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, (illegally) deposed as King of England and Scotland on 10 Dec 1688, and as King of Ireland six months later, who died in exile in 1701. With the death of Cardinal Henry of York, representation of the House of Stuart passed to Charles Emmanuel of Savoy, King of Sardinia. The latter's present heir is Franz, Duke of Bavaria.
"Prince" Michael's claim (my thanks to James Dempster)
"In November 1785, at Santi Apostoli in Rome, Prince Charles Edward Stuart married Marguerite O’Dea d’Audibert de Lussan, Comtesse de Massillan (1749-1820). This union produced a son, Prince Edward James Stuart, Count Stuarton, Count of Albany (1786-1845)
In 1809 "Count Stuarton" married Maria Emmanuella Pasquini (1789-1854), the daughter of Eduordo Guiseppe Pasquini and Leonora, Comtessa di Vaglio, producing a son and heir Henry Edward Benedict Stuart (1809-1869)
In 1829 "Prince Henry" married Agnes Beatriz de Pescara (1810-1878), the daughter of Conte Anselmo Bernardo de Pescara and Aliena Garbielle Barberini-Colonna, Principessa de Palestrina, producing a son, Prince Charles Benedict James Stuart (1829-1887).
"Prince Charles", who was apparently murdered by Hanovarian agents in 1887 was married in 1864 to Louise Jeanne Francoise Dalvray (1839-1908), daughter of Jean Francois Louis Dalvray and Jeanne Amelie de Valois. This marriage produced Prince Julius Anthony Henry Stuart (1874-1941) who changed the name back to Stewart in 1892 and very graciously renounced his claim to the English throne in 1913.
"Prince Julius" was married in 1898 to Marie Joanna Vandenbosch (1873-1942), daughter of Claude Philippe Vandenbosch de Monpertigen and Jeanne Philippe, Comtesse de Lannoy. This marriage produced two sons, Prince Anthony James Stewart (1900-1963 dsp) and Julius Joseph James Stewart of Annandale (1906-1985)
"Julius Stewart of Annandale" married - at some time unspecified - Germaine Elize Segers de la Tour d’Auvergne, Princess de Sedan (1908-1992), with issue in 1934 of Renee Julienne Stewart, Princess Royal of Strathearn and Lady Derneley (b 1934).
"Lady Derneley" married Baron Gustave Lafosse de Chatry, Comte de Blois (b 1935) producing as issue Prince Michael James Alexander Stewart (b 1958) who has apparently been de jure King Alexander IV since 1963.
Fascinatingly, Prince Michael brings together four lines of descent from Prince Charles Edward Stuart. His grandmother, the Princess de Sedan, descends from the marriage of Aglae Clementine, daughter of the Duchess of Albany by Ferdinand de Rohan-Guenene (sic, actually Guemenée), whilst his father the Count of Blois has two descents from the other Rohan-Albany daughter, both via Prince Louis Xavier de Bourbon, son of Charles, Duc de Berri, the son of Charles X. His paternal grandfather descending from Prince Louis daughter Victorine, and that grandfather’s wife being a descendant of the Duc d’Aquitaine.
Prince Michael brings together four lines of descent from Prince Charles Edward Stuart. His grandmother, the Princess de Sedan, descends from the marriage of Aglae Clementine, daughter of the Duchess of Albany by Ferdinand de Rohan-Guenene (sic, actually Guemenée), whilst his father the Count of Blois has two descents from the other Rohan-Albany daughter, both via Prince Louis Xavier de Bourbon, son of Charles, Duc de Berri, the son of Charles X. His paternal grandfather descending from Prince Louis' daughter Victorine, and that grandfather’s wife being a descendant of the Duc d’Aquitaine.
"Today, there are several lines descended from Prince Edward James, Second Count of Albany. They include the Counts of Derneley and the Dukes of Coldingham. Foremost, however, in the main line of legitimate descent from Charles Edward Stewart and his son Edward James is the present Seventh Count of Albany: Prince Michael James Alexander Stewart, Duc d’Aquitaine, Comte de Blois, Head of the Sacred Kindred of St Columba, Knight Grand Commander of the Order of the Temple of Jerusalem, Patron Grand officer of the International Society of Comission Officers for the Commonwealth, and President of the European Council of Princes. Prince Michael’s own compelling book "Forgotten Monarchy" (a thoroughly detailed and politically corrected history of the Scots royal descent) is now in the course of preparation.
The senior Stewart line goes all the way back to King Arthur’s father, King Aedan of Scots, on the one hand and to Prince Nascien of the Septimanian Midi on the other. The Scots descent traces further back through King Lucius of Siluria to Bran the Blessed and Joseph of Aramathea (St James the Just), while the Midi succession stems from the Merovingians male ancestral line through the Fisher Kings to Jesus and Mary Magdalene."
This wholly fictional claim may is taken from The Bloodline of the Holy Grail - The Hidden Lineage of Jesus Revealed by Laurence Gardner, The Chevalier Labhran de St Germain, ISBN 1-85230-870-2, and published by Element Books.[1] It is a complete invention, and cannot be supported by any documents or historical sources. The alleged genealogy is filled with falsehoods, the most obvious being that Prince Charles Edward, Charles III, never married "Marguerite O’Dea d’Audibert de Lussan, Comtesse de Massillan" (1749-1820), had he done so he would have been guilty of bigamy since he was already married to Princess Louise of Stolberg, who survived him. Perhaps this name is called into the equation because the Drummond Dukes of Melfort married into this same family and inherited the Lussan title.
The de la Tour d'Auvergne family, Dukes of Bouillon and Princes of Sedan had become extinct in the male line in the 1790s, and their inheritance passed to the Rohan family; "Germaine Elize Segers de la Tour d’Auvergne, Princess de Sedan" (1908-1992), did not exist (at least not as a member of that family with those titles). The fact that he apparently does not even know the alleged date of this fictional marriage - his own grandparents - is an astonishing admission when it is supposedly by virtue of this alliance that he makes his ridiculous claim to the British throne! The fact that a wholly fictional son of the Duke of Berry, "Prince Louis-Xavier de Bourbon" is called into the equation is further evidence of "Prince" Michael's fantastic imagination. He also claims a descent from the Duke of Aquitaine (later Dauphin and then titular Louis XIX), who never actually had any issue by his wife, the only surviving child of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette.
The real identity of "Prince Michael" has now been exposed: he is Michel Lafosse, a Belgian, who has not connection with any royal family and his invented the whole saga.
Like other such claimants he haunts the world of fantasy royalty and self-styled Orders. A document which was recently given to this author announced the marriage of "Christene (sic), Princess of Scots - In Exile - Duchess of Albany, Duchess de Johnstone, to Bernard-Alexis, VI Marquis de Menars, Prince de Bourbon-Vendôme - Jure Sanguinis - Grand Master of the Order of the Grand Occident ~ The witnesses were HIRH Prince Henri III Constanin Paleologue, HRH Princess Lucie J. Shirazee, HE Count Tibor Farkas de Karpathos ~ Gregorian Year 1986 / In Residence: Paris / Cannes / New York City / Stamford, Conn." The real identity of the groom - certainly not a member of the House of Bourbon, is unknown; "Prince Henri" is of course Enrico Vigo (see under self-styled Orders), while nothing is known of the other two witnesses. We can be reassured, however, that they still use the Gregorian Calendar and have not completely lost their senses. The bride, apparently, is "Prince" Michael's mother.
[1] Mr Gardner is "Prior of the Celtic Church’s Sacred Kindred of St Columba" and an "internationally known sovereign and chivalric genealogist". He is also "Presidential Attache to the European Council of Princes - a constitutional advisory body established in 1946. He is formally attached to the Noble Household Guard of the Royal House of Stewart, founded at St Germain en Laye in 1692 and is the Jacobite Historiographer Royal" (from his book).
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http://www.wikio.com/article=35301922
This pretended heir of the male line of the Royal House of Stuart like some other pseudo-princes, has based himself in Belgium, a country which also has an over abundance of self-styled "Orders". The Royal House of Stuart became extinct in the male line with the death of Henry (IX) Stuart, Duke of York, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church and Bishop of Frascati, in 1807. He had succeeded his elder brother, Charles (III) Stuart, sometimes known as "Bonnie Prince Charlie", in 1788, on the latter's death without legitimate issue (he left one illegitimate daughter, Clementina, who also died without issue). Both were the sons of James (III), Prince of Wales, only son of James II, King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, (illegally) deposed as King of England and Scotland on 10 Dec 1688, and as King of Ireland six months later, who died in exile in 1701. With the death of Cardinal Henry of York, representation of the House of Stuart passed to Charles Emmanuel of Savoy, King of Sardinia. The latter's present heir is Franz, Duke of Bavaria.
"Prince" Michael's claim (my thanks to James Dempster)
"In November 1785, at Santi Apostoli in Rome, Prince Charles Edward Stuart married Marguerite O’Dea d’Audibert de Lussan, Comtesse de Massillan (1749-1820). This union produced a son, Prince Edward James Stuart, Count Stuarton, Count of Albany (1786-1845)
In 1809 "Count Stuarton" married Maria Emmanuella Pasquini (1789-1854), the daughter of Eduordo Guiseppe Pasquini and Leonora, Comtessa di Vaglio, producing a son and heir Henry Edward Benedict Stuart (1809-1869)
In 1829 "Prince Henry" married Agnes Beatriz de Pescara (1810-1878), the daughter of Conte Anselmo Bernardo de Pescara and Aliena Garbielle Barberini-Colonna, Principessa de Palestrina, producing a son, Prince Charles Benedict James Stuart (1829-1887).
"Prince Charles", who was apparently murdered by Hanovarian agents in 1887 was married in 1864 to Louise Jeanne Francoise Dalvray (1839-1908), daughter of Jean Francois Louis Dalvray and Jeanne Amelie de Valois. This marriage produced Prince Julius Anthony Henry Stuart (1874-1941) who changed the name back to Stewart in 1892 and very graciously renounced his claim to the English throne in 1913.
"Prince Julius" was married in 1898 to Marie Joanna Vandenbosch (1873-1942), daughter of Claude Philippe Vandenbosch de Monpertigen and Jeanne Philippe, Comtesse de Lannoy. This marriage produced two sons, Prince Anthony James Stewart (1900-1963 dsp) and Julius Joseph James Stewart of Annandale (1906-1985)
"Julius Stewart of Annandale" married - at some time unspecified - Germaine Elize Segers de la Tour d’Auvergne, Princess de Sedan (1908-1992), with issue in 1934 of Renee Julienne Stewart, Princess Royal of Strathearn and Lady Derneley (b 1934).
"Lady Derneley" married Baron Gustave Lafosse de Chatry, Comte de Blois (b 1935) producing as issue Prince Michael James Alexander Stewart (b 1958) who has apparently been de jure King Alexander IV since 1963.
Fascinatingly, Prince Michael brings together four lines of descent from Prince Charles Edward Stuart. His grandmother, the Princess de Sedan, descends from the marriage of Aglae Clementine, daughter of the Duchess of Albany by Ferdinand de Rohan-Guenene (sic, actually Guemenée), whilst his father the Count of Blois has two descents from the other Rohan-Albany daughter, both via Prince Louis Xavier de Bourbon, son of Charles, Duc de Berri, the son of Charles X. His paternal grandfather descending from Prince Louis daughter Victorine, and that grandfather’s wife being a descendant of the Duc d’Aquitaine.
Prince Michael brings together four lines of descent from Prince Charles Edward Stuart. His grandmother, the Princess de Sedan, descends from the marriage of Aglae Clementine, daughter of the Duchess of Albany by Ferdinand de Rohan-Guenene (sic, actually Guemenée), whilst his father the Count of Blois has two descents from the other Rohan-Albany daughter, both via Prince Louis Xavier de Bourbon, son of Charles, Duc de Berri, the son of Charles X. His paternal grandfather descending from Prince Louis' daughter Victorine, and that grandfather’s wife being a descendant of the Duc d’Aquitaine.
"Today, there are several lines descended from Prince Edward James, Second Count of Albany. They include the Counts of Derneley and the Dukes of Coldingham. Foremost, however, in the main line of legitimate descent from Charles Edward Stewart and his son Edward James is the present Seventh Count of Albany: Prince Michael James Alexander Stewart, Duc d’Aquitaine, Comte de Blois, Head of the Sacred Kindred of St Columba, Knight Grand Commander of the Order of the Temple of Jerusalem, Patron Grand officer of the International Society of Comission Officers for the Commonwealth, and President of the European Council of Princes. Prince Michael’s own compelling book "Forgotten Monarchy" (a thoroughly detailed and politically corrected history of the Scots royal descent) is now in the course of preparation.
The senior Stewart line goes all the way back to King Arthur’s father, King Aedan of Scots, on the one hand and to Prince Nascien of the Septimanian Midi on the other. The Scots descent traces further back through King Lucius of Siluria to Bran the Blessed and Joseph of Aramathea (St James the Just), while the Midi succession stems from the Merovingians male ancestral line through the Fisher Kings to Jesus and Mary Magdalene."
This wholly fictional claim may is taken from The Bloodline of the Holy Grail - The Hidden Lineage of Jesus Revealed by Laurence Gardner, The Chevalier Labhran de St Germain, ISBN 1-85230-870-2, and published by Element Books.[1] It is a complete invention, and cannot be supported by any documents or historical sources. The alleged genealogy is filled with falsehoods, the most obvious being that Prince Charles Edward, Charles III, never married "Marguerite O’Dea d’Audibert de Lussan, Comtesse de Massillan" (1749-1820), had he done so he would have been guilty of bigamy since he was already married to Princess Louise of Stolberg, who survived him. Perhaps this name is called into the equation because the Drummond Dukes of Melfort married into this same family and inherited the Lussan title.
The de la Tour d'Auvergne family, Dukes of Bouillon and Princes of Sedan had become extinct in the male line in the 1790s, and their inheritance passed to the Rohan family; "Germaine Elize Segers de la Tour d’Auvergne, Princess de Sedan" (1908-1992), did not exist (at least not as a member of that family with those titles). The fact that he apparently does not even know the alleged date of this fictional marriage - his own grandparents - is an astonishing admission when it is supposedly by virtue of this alliance that he makes his ridiculous claim to the British throne! The fact that a wholly fictional son of the Duke of Berry, "Prince Louis-Xavier de Bourbon" is called into the equation is further evidence of "Prince" Michael's fantastic imagination. He also claims a descent from the Duke of Aquitaine (later Dauphin and then titular Louis XIX), who never actually had any issue by his wife, the only surviving child of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette.
The real identity of "Prince Michael" has now been exposed: he is Michel Lafosse, a Belgian, who has not connection with any royal family and his invented the whole saga.
Like other such claimants he haunts the world of fantasy royalty and self-styled Orders. A document which was recently given to this author announced the marriage of "Christene (sic), Princess of Scots - In Exile - Duchess of Albany, Duchess de Johnstone, to Bernard-Alexis, VI Marquis de Menars, Prince de Bourbon-Vendôme - Jure Sanguinis - Grand Master of the Order of the Grand Occident ~ The witnesses were HIRH Prince Henri III Constanin Paleologue, HRH Princess Lucie J. Shirazee, HE Count Tibor Farkas de Karpathos ~ Gregorian Year 1986 / In Residence: Paris / Cannes / New York City / Stamford, Conn." The real identity of the groom - certainly not a member of the House of Bourbon, is unknown; "Prince Henri" is of course Enrico Vigo (see under self-styled Orders), while nothing is known of the other two witnesses. We can be reassured, however, that they still use the Gregorian Calendar and have not completely lost their senses. The bride, apparently, is "Prince" Michael's mother.
[1] Mr Gardner is "Prior of the Celtic Church’s Sacred Kindred of St Columba" and an "internationally known sovereign and chivalric genealogist". He is also "Presidential Attache to the European Council of Princes - a constitutional advisory body established in 1946. He is formally attached to the Noble Household Guard of the Royal House of Stewart, founded at St Germain en Laye in 1692 and is the Jacobite Historiographer Royal" (from his book).
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