MOVIES: Agora

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Ora_et_Labora_1

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Has anyone seen the movie Agora? I went to see it yesterday and came away a bit disappointed. Hypatia is portrayed as an atheist (which is curious, given that she was a Neo-platonist), with the whole “we are all brothers, so why can’t we all just get along” talk. Christians in general, and the Parabolani in particular, are portayed as bloodthirsty and violent, trying to impose “their morality” on everyone else, and always harasing and killing Jews and pagans, as well as being against learning (symolized by the buring of scrolls in the Library). Cyril is portrayed as an arogant, powerhungy man. In the movie, Cyril even "makes " a saint out of a bloodthirsty Parabolani “martyr”. When the movie ends, we are informed that Cyril eventually “came to power” in Alexandria when his opponents “disappeared”, and that such a man later was later made a saint and Doctor of the Church by the Church (this illicited much laughter in the movie theatre).
Something tells me we are coming full circle. It seems to me to be more and more common to deride not just the institutional Church, but Christianity in general (which in the strictest sense is the Church). One ownders how the world ever got along since Christians appeared on the scene…
 
I saw this too. The director Amenobar, also directed the pro-euthanaisa film “mar adentro” so you can probably guess its a pseudo-political statement by the anti-catholic lobby in Europe. That Hypathia was a woman was even more interesting for them so they also built on the story that she was able to prove Heliocentricism.

The destruction of the library of Alexandria was made famous recently by the late Carl Sagan who decried the subsequent loss to science. “If only those christians had not attained and abused Imperial power, we would be half way around the galaxy instead of struggling to reach Mars (sigh)!”
Of course the reality is that Monotheism was a big step towards teh Scientific method, and that pagan “science” had stagnated centuries before.
 
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