I sometimes feel I’ve passed on too much from Pharyngula, but Myers has admitted that his readers tip him off to stories, a luxury I don’t enjoy, so I don’t feel too guilty. I had to comment on this because it involves one of my favorite historical figures.
A Spanish director has made a movie about Hypatia. I first read about her while plowing through Will and Ariel Durant’s Story of Civilization. Believe it or not I read every word of that multi-volume tome, excluding a few footnotes. What can I say? I was young and foolish. In any event, her story stuck with me long after I forgot the details of most of the rest of the history of the world. I’ve since read a biography of her.
Hypatia lived in the fourth century. If memory serves, she was both a philosopher and mathematician, and was roughly equivalent to a university professor. She lived in Alexandria, which was, at the time, perhaps the last bastion of learning in the Empire. To say the least, she did not keep in her place. She even drove her own chariot.
She lived at a time when the Western mind was closing, not to open again for over a thousand years. Christianity had become the official religion. The Christians argued among themselves about esoteric points of doctrine and reason was abandoned by all but the pagans, who experienced persecution far more vicious and pervasive than anything to which the Christians were subjected.
Besides the characteristics I’ve already mentioned, Hypatia was a pagan, which stands to reason because she stood for reason. The combination of all her qualities made her particularly toxic, and she met her rightful fate. A mob of Christians, spurred on by “Saint” Cyril, dragged her naked through the streets until she was dead, to the greater glory of Jesus, Amen.
I have no idea how faithful the movie is to the facts, but it appears from the trailer below that Hypatia is the good guy, meaning the Christians are the baddies, which is definitely in line with the facts. The movie was a blockbuster in Spain, but apparently can’t find a distributor here, though it has all the hallmarks of a hit, including someone Myers characterizes as a star (Rachel Weisz), though I admit I’ve never heard of her, which means nothing, given my knowledge of current film.
What does it say about the decline of this country that a movie like this can be shown in Catholic Spain, the former home of the Inquisition, and more recently of Franco, but it can’t be shown in the United States, the country that practically invented religious freedom (can’t forget Holland) and which was founded on enlightenment principles? But it’s easy to see why there have been no takers so far. Can’t you just imagine Bill Donahue hyperventilating about this one? Hypatia would feel right at home, and not in a good way.
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