coach While the usual expectation is that we are simple-minded enough to be caught up in the mass-me

While the usual expectation is that we are simple-minded enough to be caught up in the mass-media Tsunami created by The Da Vinci Code, now a movie starring Tom Hanks, so that we might all the better assist Hollywood in carting off its share of megabucks from this transient tempest for historical tots, let us explore how we might, instead, observe the refitted ancient frigate pass by on time抯 wide and eternal river, as we lounge on the bank in supine placidity, or, as a generous gesture, consent to turn our eyes toward the flick just for the faux tension of it all.



Since we believe our readers wish us to address every issue that troubles us via the news without flinching, so that we may all find ease in seeing the sanely funny side of it, we assume you抣l allow this attempt to see the book cum movie as, in W. S. Gilbert抯 bouncy phrase, 揳 source of innocent merriment.?br />




First, let抯 consider the tooting of the ship抯 horn in the light of history as it has actually come to be agreed on, to the extent that events 1,700 years or so ago can be rigorously sifted. As a soothing antidote in advance for our faithful readers, we advise that, as the council under consideration occurred in 325 AD, Christ had long since escaped to the realm where modification of his life, as the Gospels present it or as a paragraph in Roman history reputedly refers to it, was beyond the debates of ever-contentious humankind.



When our tidy history is over, we抣l also offer a few suggestions on which we may all pillow our world-thumped heads.



To provide historical solidity as a basis for our determinedly placid outlook, as much as a considerate paragraph or so can, let抯 recount the facts as they have been bruited about now for some centuries.



When Constantine, later, The Great, became Emperor, the Roman Empire was, we are told, in disarray. The old faith, Paganism, had begun to lose its hold as a credible unifying force. The new Emperor noticed that a widespread heresy called Christianity was gaining more and more enthusiasts, who were by previous emperors, particularly Diocletian, later, The Dunce, rather regularly annihilated by being sent to the flames or fed to the lions. The incalculably optimistic idea occurred to the new Emperor, a fierce general now in the uncomfortable role of a make-nice diplomat, that he might unite the faltering Empire anew by making the nascent faith the official religion of the Empire.



Despite catcalls from the nobles who still adhered to the pagan pantheon, he forged ahead, only to discover that, once in open proliferation, many a Christian theologian began to tear at the sanctimonious fabric he had so carefully draped over the fault lines of the quaking Empire. Growing anxious that his grand tarp might be rent irreparably, he called the diverse debaters to gather at the ancient city of Nicaea to hash out their disagreements once and for all time.



So intent was he to wrest unity from the 300 or so colorfully garbed theologians who assembled there that he deigned to sit among them, on his golden throne, where he harkened to their hair splitting and tearing until he grew, as most imperious people are likely to do on such occasions, impatient.