That the
Roman emperor Constantine had to contend with, between the Pagans and the, let's call them the "Divine Father, and Son" faction of what was probably becoming a majority of the growing Catholic Church of Rome; at least as it is presented by the wonderful movie "The Da Vinci Code."
A lot of what was presented in that movie as supposed expert dialogue between two, old, scholars, was controversial to say the least. Was Constantine a pagan first and a "Catholic of political convenience" second? Was what motivated the war so much related to how the "Patriarchal" view of a higher power saw the other side's idea of "balance between both the supreme Patriarch, and the essence of the feminine as the "ultimate chalise," as not only an attack on whether Christ was divine or not, but also of whether the feminine should be considered at all as a source of divinity in the first place?
What then made a big part of the movie so intriguing was the very idea that Catholicism might, in some way, be a "Fake Church." A fake church hiding what would then be an historic coverup about Christ's own, quite human, mortality; as well as the fact that the church might have been intended to be lead by a woman. Which then, of course, made it an institution capable of horrible atrocities in order to shield the faithful from what the movie suggests quite clearly as a distinct possibility.
From my point of view the notion that this would necessarily make Catholicism fake is absurd. Just as absurd as saying mainstay institutions now are "Fake" because they don't necessarily support one side, or the other's, idea of what should be the dogma of the belief system in question; a dogma unfortunately carved literally in stone of the most intransigent of substances. What it might certainly make it is conflicted, but not Fake in any way, shape or form. But such is the nature of battling for not only ground, and further resources, but for how people are to be allowed to see things.
As such, we are now in a place not so much different than what Constantine faced a great while ago. And what is especially sad here is that, whether it was just pragmatism or not, he let the Divine Patriarchal view have its sway; and whether that actually caused a virtual purge of "Free Thinking Woman" or not, as the movie suggests, we'll all have to just wonder about I guess. The fact remains that a lot of woman did die, and more importantly, that woman were made to be presented not as even possible vessels of divinity, but of satanic corruption through temptation. Something other belief systems have also made terrible choices on.
My bias being what it is, of course, I can't help but feel that this was a huge mistake made by Constantine, if this was indeed the case (even understanding that, mistake or not, it may have just been inevitable given the population mix of Rome at the time). That we could not find a way to negotiate the balance between the two, assumed elementals here, back then, however, should not dissuade us from asking ourselves if now might be a really good time to consider it again. Perhaps with a good deal more wisdom now? Especially if we consider that woman are the base class of our species (based on my contention that the species boots up, if you will, from the X chromosome, and converts to universal socketing after the ninth--if memory serves--initial period of undifferentiated, geometric expansions of cell division; which I think then triggers the Y to do its thing).
Just take a moment, sometime soon here, and watch that movie again. And then ask yourself if it has brought up questions we ought to be considering now. I think it has. What do you think?
