There is a widespread assumption that the first Christian Emperor Constantine decided on Jesus’ divinity. The famous example of this sort of thinking comes from the book “Da Vinci Code” where it is stated that Constantine call the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD to decide whether or not Jesus was divine. I remember how I asked a friend of mine who was back then at the end of his master’s degree in history about the claims made in the book. I was just a sophomore and I didn’t know much about early Christian history. He replied with a tone of certainty: “I’m sure that there is a big secret buried under the history of the Catholic Church. That secret may well be about the real influence that Constantine had in the formation of Christian faith.” Almost 10 years later, I’m more than certain that this idea has nothing to do with real history. Yes, the Council of Nicaea did happen in 325 AD, but the issue wasn’t whether or not Jesus was divine. Quite the contrary, everyone at the Council – and in fact, just about every Christian everywhere – already agreed that Jesus was divine, the Son of God. The question being debated was the nature of Jesus’ divinity: whether he was truly the same as God the Father. But, let’s get back to the book mentioned above.

Leigh Teabing (who is portrayed as an “expert” on the history of early Christianity) presents a confusing picture in his discussion of Jesus’ identity as divine. On one hand, he claims that Jesus’ divinity wasn’t accepted until Constantine used his power at the council of Nicaea in the year 325. On the other hand, he indicated that Constantine accepted into his canon of scripture only those Gospels that portrayed Jesus as divine, eliminating all other Gospels that portrayed Jesus as human (one of the claims made in the “Da Vinci Code” is that Constantine chose which books should enter into the Bible – which is also pure nonsense). But, if Jesus’ divinity was not acknowledged by Christians until the council of Nicaea (Teabing’s view), how could the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (written in the 1st century) portray him as divine? But even beyond this inconsistency, the view of Lea Teabing is flat out wrong on all key points. Christians before Nicaea already accept Jesus as divine: all of the sources from the 1st century can verify that. One can open the prologue of John’s Gospel and see quite clearly famous words: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”. And who is that Word? For John, there is no doubt: it’s Jesus. At the end of this introduction, he states: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have beheld his glory, glory as of the unique one before the Father, full of grace and truth… For grace and truth have come to us through Jesus Christ” (1, 14, 17). Or you can go to the earliest Christian documents – epistles written by the apostle Paul in the middle of the 1st century! As he says in one of his earlier letters to the Philippians: “Have this same mind in yourselves which was in Christ Jesus, who although he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped, but he emptied himself and took on the form of a slave, having come in the likeness of a human” (Phil 2,5-7). First words written in the Gospel of Mark leaves no doubt: “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God” (Mk 1,1). This view of Jesus as divine is something one can find across the early Christian sources. Look at the words of Ignatius, bishop of Antioch who died in 110 CE: “There is one physician, bot fleshly and spiritual, born and unborn, God come in the flesh, true life in death, from both Mary and God, first subject to suffering and then beyond suffering, Jesus Christ our Lord” (To the Ephesians, 7.2.).

Historically speaking, there isn’t any doubt: from the very beginning it became commonplace to understand that Jesus was in some sense divine. To be perfectly clear: I’m not trying to convince anybody that Jesus in fact was and is divine – I’m just stating what early Christians believed about him – well before Constantine and the council of Nicaea. But, to be honest, there was always a small problem – Christians claim that Jesus was also human. From this paradox emerged centuries of theological debates about the exact meaning of Jesus’ identity: how to understand his humanity and divinity.  Even the emperor Justinian had to wrestle with these debates in the 6th century! In the end, it seems to me that the main reason why numerous people bought into the claims of the “Da Vinci code” lies in their poor knowledge of Christian history in general. A lot of Christians today belong to the group that famous British sociologist Grace Davie called “believing without belonging” – or to put it more bluntly: these people are more usually called: Cafeteria Christians – they identify themselves as Christians, but they don’t know anything about the history of that religion. It’s funny how they strongly believe (for example) that the Bible is the Word of God but most of them never read any part of it. If you believe that the book is written by the creator of this universe, wouldn’t you be interested in knowing what He has to say? I certainly am!

Speaking as a historian without any theological presumptions, I’m sure that the friend from the beginning of this post (who is now a historian with a master’s degree) was flat out wrong in believing that the “Da Vinci Code” is a source of good historical information. Learning your history from Dan Brown’s novel is something like using Google to diagnose your symptoms – It’s never a good idea!