Age of Pisces

The Age of Pisces is an astrological epoch of roughly two thousand years, beginning around the time of Christ's birth, that in the novel's framework is defined by a religious paradigm in which humanity is told what to do by higher powers because it is incapable of thinking for itself. This era, according to the symbologist Robert Langdon and the Grail historian Sir Leigh Teabing, has been a time of fervent religion and the dominance of patriarchal Christianity, which systematically suppressed the sacred feminine and the goddess worship of earlier pagan traditions.

Astrological Transition and the End of Days

The novel posits that the millennium has recently passed, marking the end of the Age of Pisces and the beginning of the Age of Aquarius. This transition is referred to by the Church as the "End of Days," a term that Langdon clarifies does not mean the end of the world but rather the end of the current age. The Age of Aquarius, by contrast, is characterized by the ideal that humanity will learn the truth and be able to think for itself, representing a profound ideological shift. Teabing argues that this astrological prophecy explains why the Church might be motivated to launch a preemptive attack against the Priory of Sion, fearing that the brotherhood would choose this symbolically apt time to release the Sangreal documents and reveal the true story of Jesus Christ.

Connection to the Priory's Plan and the Church's Fear

The Priory of Sion, according to Teabing, had a long-standing plan to unveil the secret of the Holy Grail with the arrival of a specific date in history, which many Grail historians believed would coincide with the millennium. When the millennium passed without any revelation, Teabing concluded that the Priory's Grand Master, Jacques Saunière, had betrayed his sacred charge and decided the time was not right. This perceived betrayal, in Teabing's view, justified his own violent plot to seize the keystone and force the revelation. The Church, aware of the approaching astrological shift and the Priory's potential plans, is portrayed as having a motive to destroy the Sangreal documents before they could be made public, a motive that Teabing uses to explain the murders of Saunière and the three sénéchaux.

Symbolic and Thematic Significance

The Age of Pisces is symbolically linked to the fish, which is also the sign of Jesus, reinforcing the idea of a religious era dominated by the figure of Christ. The novel uses this astrological framework to frame its central conflict: the struggle between a patriarchal, dogmatic religious institution (the Church) and a secret society (the Priory of Sion) that seeks to restore the sacred feminine and reveal a suppressed truth. The transition to the Age of Aquarius represents the potential for a new era of enlightenment and the end of the Church's historical control over the narrative of Christ's life and the role of Mary Magdalene. The pentacle, a symbol of the sacred feminine and the goddess Venus, is presented as a pre-Christian symbol that was demonized by the Church during the Age of Pisces, its true meaning as a representation of female divinity and the Divine Proportion (PHI) being obscured by centuries of patriarchal propaganda.