The real question behind both the alleged marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene portrayed in "The Da Vinci Code" and both the relationship of Jesus and Judas claimed in "Gospel of Judas" is, did anybody in the early days of Christianity believe these things?

If so, who and why? And why didn't all this get into the mainstream of Christianity? Did some powerful bad guys take over and try to suppress the truth?

This in turn raises the question of the authenticity of the New Testament in relation to other supposedly suppressed "gospels." How did the writings of the New Testament achieve recognition while the others didn't? Was there some great conspiracy?

All the writings of the New Testament as we know it were preserved precisely because they were widely and publicly proclaimed and kept alive in the celebration of the liturgy. They were recognized as authentic, inspired writings by the ordinary faithful, and shared among Christian communities, laboriously copied by hand.

These communities, which were local churches, also communicated widely and intensely with each other in coming to terms with what was accepted as authentic faith or not. The elaborate system of Roman roads and transportation services, unequaled in history until a century ago, made this communication possible. Trade, commerce and migration meant that common people, not just leaders and authority figures were an integral part of the interaction among Christian communities, just as they were in other facets of life and culture.

Ordinary Christians were neither illiterate nor unsophisticated. They were business and professional people, merchants and government officials, teachers and skilled artisans. At times persecution made their lives precarious, but for the most part they were able openly and freely to exchange among themselves ideas about their faith.

This dynamism of culture and society during the generations in which the infant Christian faith was being lived, celebrated, appropriated and refined helps us to understand what was going on during the first two or three generations of the Church. The job of bishops was not merely to teach and defend the faith; their job was primarily to watch over (which is the meaning of the word "bishop") the handing on of the faith that was already being believed. The faithful themselves were well aware of what they had received from the previous generations.

There were controversies, to be sure. In the process of understanding and articulating the faith, many theories arose trying to explain a faith that was originally expressed in a Jewish mindset using concepts that came from Greek philosophy. That wasn't an easy task.

There were major disputes about who were getting it right and who had deviated from what had been handed down. The former labeled themselves orthodox, and they also labeled the latter heretics. Writings of the early Fathers of the Church indicate that the common people had a vital and active part in this process, even if final decisions were articulated by the leaders.

Compiling the list of "approved" books that eventually came to be the New Testament was not something that the pope, bishops or theologians --- or even councils --- did simply on their own in a vacuum. The unfailing guidance of the Holy Spirit was there, to be sure. But the Holy Spirit acted also through the common sense and acceptance of the ordinary faithful. Their list was the result of several generations of mainstream acceptance and constant use of the books in the liturgy. Nothing secret or conspiratorial here.

In contrast, the purported "other gospels," which provide the fabricated and esoteric lore coming into pop culture now about Mary Magdalene and Judas were written much later than the authentic New Testament writings, around the middle of the second century or later, three or four generations after the events they purport to describe. And their authors had a clear and well-known purpose: to advance the teachings of fringe groups, such as the Gnostics, claiming "secret knowledge."

The "Gospel of Judas," for example, was written in times as far removed from Jesus as we are today from Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. It came from a Gnostic sect, the Cainites, who believed that the God of the Old Testament was evil, and therefore held that the people depicted in the Bible as evil were actually good.

Although the "Gospel of Judas" was well known in the early days of the Church, it simply never achieved, nor deserved, mainstream acceptance. The recent discovery of fragments of its text may help scholars to understand Gnostic teaching, but adds nothing to, nor subtracts from, our understanding of traditional and authentic Christian faith.

Most folks back then were smart enough not to believe such nonsense. Are they today?

Msgr. Thomas Welbers, pastor of Our Lady of the Assumption Church in Claremont, gave a presentation on this subject at his parish May 4, and is leading parishioners on a pilgrimage to Turkey and Greece (May 16 to June 4) to explore the heritage of our Christian faith in the early centuries of the Church. You can listen to his talk and follow the pilgrims' progress on the parish website, www.olaclaremont.org.