JESUS AND MARY MAGDALENE

                                   JESUS AND MARY MAGDALENE
                                   Abraham Yeshuratnam

The innocuous relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene has been ballooned into a full grown scandal after Dan Brown published his fiction, ‘The Da Vinci Code.’ It is indeed a fiction and not intended as a historical account, and perverts have been attempting to tarnish the squeaky-clean image of Jesus.  Probably, they don’t know the meaning of ‘fiction.’ Fiction means ‘imaginary.’ Dan Brown in his fiction gives an imaginary interpretation of the figure at the right hand of Jesus in Leonardo da Vinci’s painting ‘The Last Supper,’ But we know from  history  that there is no secret code in the paining. Leonardo drew the figure of John and placed him at the right hand of Jesus. Dan Brown claims a secret code in the painting, but any fool will know that there is no secret code. How could there be a secret code?  Jesus and Leonardo da Vinci were not contemporaries and how could he know the secret of Jesus? Jesus was a Palestinian born in 1^st century AD in the village of Bethlehem and Leonardo was an Italian born in 1452 in the village of Vinci. How could he know the secret of Jesus? And what is more, Leonardo was a pious Christian who would never commit the sin of scandalizing an immaculate Jesus. He used to pray at the church of Milan before beginning to paint religious themes. Leonardo wanted to honor and glorify Jesus by producing magnificent and splendid paintings.

Mary Magdalene was miraculously freed by Jesus when He drove seven demons out of her. In modern psychiatry, possession of seven demons is called multiple personality. It may also be classified chronic schizophrenia and only those who suffer from this disorder know the mental torture and pain. No wonder Mary Magdalene thanked Jesus when she was delivered from the agony of this psychotic disorder.

The impeccable life of Jesus demonstrates his purity, chastity and moral uprightness. Jesus said: “I tell you that if anyone looks at a woman and wants to sin sexually with her, in his mind he has already done that sin with the woman. If your right eye causes you to sin, take it out and throw it away. It is better to lose one part of your body than to have your whole body thrown into hell.”

Leonardo’s The Last Supper shows Jesus and His disciples at the dining table.  The Last Supper was a mural (a painting on a wall), done in a monastery in Milan. It was not an oil painting, but was done in tempera, a kind of watercolor. Unlike many of the great paintings of hundreds of years ago, ‘The Last Supper’ has not lasted. It has chipped and faded away, and during World War II the monastery was hit by a bomb. Mussolini was deeply engaged in the war and the painting was left exposed to rain and wind for nearly three years. That was the fate of the original painting. But there is a famous copy of the painting in the Louvre, in Paris. The painting clearly reveals that the person seated next to Jesus is his beloved disciple, John. Anticipating idiots like Dan Brown, da Vinci was wise enough to inscribe the names of the disciples seated with Jesus on the border of the long tablecloth, and the person seated at the right hand of Jesus is shown as JOHN. Is it not foolish to claim a secret code when Leonardo was born after 1452 years after the birth of Jesus? Only lunatics will believe this fabricated story.!