Chapter 30 Chapter Twenty Eight

In the national exhibition hall, Langdon stared in surprise at the six words glowing purple on the protective glass.The words seem to float in the sky, casting a faint shadow on the mysterious smile of Mona Lisa. "The Priory," Langdon whispered, "proves that your grandfather was a member of the Priory." Sophie looked at him in bewilderment. "You can understand?" "It's not bad at all," Langdon said, nodding, thoughtful. "This promotes the most basic philosophy of the Priory." Sophie looked at the message scrawled on Mona Lisa's face in confusion.

How dark is the deception of men. Langdon explained: "Sophie, the monastery's illegal worship of the goddess is based on the belief that the powerful men in early Christianity spread rumors that belittled women and instigated the public to favor men." Sophie looked at the words, remain silent. "The Priory believes that Constantine the Great and his male successors succeeded in transforming Christianity into a male-dominated religion through a propaganda campaign that demonized female deities, erasing the goddess from modern religion gone." Sophie was still skeptical. "My grandfather sent me here to discover these texts, and he must have meant more than just to tell me."

Langdon understood what she meant, and she thought it was another cipher.Langdon couldn't immediately tell if there was any other meaning to it; his attention was still on the clear, literal meaning. How dark is a man's deceit, he thought, dark indeed. Admittedly, modern Christianity has done many good things for today's troubled world, but it has a history of deceit and violence.Their brutal jihad against pagan and woman-worshiping religious groups spanned three centuries, using methods that were both inspiring and sensational.The Witch's Hammer, issued by the Catholic Inquisition, is without a doubt the bloodiest publication in human history.It instilled in the people that "free thinking women are a threat to the world" and taught the clergy how to identify, torture and eliminate them.The Church's designation of "witches" includes all women scholars, priestesses, gypsies, witches, nature lovers, herb gatherers, and any woman "who is suspected of being attuned to the natural world."Midwives were also killed because their use of medical knowledge to ease the pain of childbirth was seen as a heretical practice - the Church claimed that the pain of childbirth was God's just punishment for Eve's stealing of the forbidden fruit, so that childbirth and original sin Thoughts are closely linked together.During the three hundred years of the witch hunt, as many as five million women were burned at the stake by the church.Today's world is a living example.

Women, who were once considered to have made an undeniable contribution to civilization and played an equal role to men, have been erased from temples around the world.Judaism, Catholicism, and Islam have no female clergy.Even the sacred wedding of annual spring fertility—the religious ritual of the Tammist sect of the Babylonian fertility god, in which a man and a woman unite physically to achieve spiritual union—was considered shameful.Men who once viewed sexual fusion with women as God's will, now fear it's the work of sexual demons whose best accomplices are...women.Even the "left" orientation associated with women cannot escape the church's slander.French and Italian words for "left"—gauche and sinistra—both carry pejorative connotations, while words for "right" are connotative, suggesting "integrity," "tact," "rightness."To this day, radical thinking is called the left wing, and everything that is evil, insidious, and irrational is associated with the "left".

The age of the Goddess is over.Over time, Mother Earth has become a man's world, and the God of Destruction and war are claiming countless lives.The age of men has continued for more than two thousand years without being hindered by women.The Priory of Sion believes that it is the denial of women's sanctity in modern life that creates "the imbalance of life"—or "koyanisquatsi," as the Hopi Indians call it.The obvious manifestation of this "unbalanced" state is that wars induced by testosterone start from time to time, various mysterious organizations and groups proliferate, and people become more and more disrespectful to Mother Earth.

"Robert!" Sophie's whisper woke Langdon from his contemplation. "someone is coming!" Langdon heard footsteps approaching in the corridor. "Come here!" Sophie extinguished the UV light and disappeared from Langdon's sight. For several seconds, Langdon's eyes were dark.where?After Langdon adjusted to the darkness, he saw Sophie's shadow running toward the center of the hall, hiding behind the octagonal couch.He was about to run over when someone stopped him coldly. "Stop!" cried the man standing in the doorway. Louvre guards entered the National Gallery with their guns pointed at Langdon's chest.

Langdon instinctively raised his hands above his head. "Get down!" the guard ordered. Langdon immediately lay face down on the floor.The guard hurried over and kicked his legs apart, causing Langdon to stretch. "Be honest, Mr. Langdon," he said, pointing the gun to Langdon's back, "be quiet." Langdon lay face down on the floor, sprawled on his stomach, and found the position humorous. The Vitruvian Man, he thought, just face down.