The irony of the times is that what is happening to us in America, is not new. Like the spooky refrain in the Battleship Galactica reboot,
“It has happened before”
The only real difference is that some of us understand what is happening to us.
Hypatia and the Barbarians within
In the movie Agora, Hypatia, then, like now:
“is a 2009 Spanish English-language historical drama film directed by Alejandro Amenábar and written by Amenábar and Mateo Gil. The biopic stars Rachel Weisz as Hypatia, a mathematician, philosopher and astronomer in late 4th-century Roman Egypt, who investigates the flaws of the geocentric Ptolemaic system and the heliocentric model that challenges it.”
The movie Agora is fictional. We don't know for sure how advanced science was in 415 AD, but we do know that much was lost to history during that time. Thus the movie is probably is more accurate than its critics like to admit.
”Surrounded by religious turmoil and social unrest, Hypatia struggles to save the knowledge of classical antiquity from destruction. Max Minghella co-stars as Davus, Hypatia's father's slave, and Oscar Isaac as Hypatia's student, and later prefect of Alexandria, Orestes.”
Powerful Secrets
The secrets of the PaRDeS, religious interpretation, lay behind most of the religious traditions of the Common Era, and those secrets include deep psychological insights into the value and uses of myth, narrative, emotion and belief.
Deep Secrets
A thin elite understood the world, almost as well as educated people understand the world now. Deep understandings buried in myth and fable enabled a thin elite to live lives of value and learning. Mystery religions taught people to understand deep psychological truths within themselves through meditation, study, and parsing out the allegorical meaning within religious text. The myths themselves were of value as entertainment and the fantasies gave comfort to the sick, dying, enslaved and suffering.
The Gnostic bible texts used the power of interpretation to preach equality, make people see nuances of reality and open them up to enlightenment. Such texts are only secret because those reading them don't read past the fictional vehicle to their inner truth.
Manipulating Masses
These Bishops also understood the tools that we know today as propaganda and marketing, and how to use religion to manipulate people. Homilies meant to comfort and sick and dying, could turn people into fanatics, or make them angry at rivals or enemies. Any tool can be used for good or evil purposes and the early church used its power to manipulate people. The early church was, for the well educated bishops and priests who converted to Christianity, in part, to ride its opportunities for wealth and power, such a tool.
Solving a Problem
The Romans had a problem. Religion had been chaotic, paganism was losing its power to motivate people, and the Romans needed to control their empire. Christianity appealed to people who were oppressed, enslaved, and to whom the old Gods were no longer speaking. Ironically this was a mostly urban phenomena, so the Bishops accommodated rural beliefs even as they sought to craft a religion that enhanced their power. In the process they created a bigger problem.
Believing your own Myth
Unfortunately the tools of myth and interpretation were used to turn people into fanatics, demonize rivals and stir up mobs to attack enemies of Christiandom. Those early Christians taught people to be fanatic, and the fanatics burned the books that had made Roman Culture tolerable to the educated. Whether they were sincere, true believers, or simply manipulative sociopaths, but the result was not peace.
The Barbarians inside the Gates
Instead people fought over religious issues. They converted and then fought with "heretics." They attacked fellow citizens as Pagans, Jews, or members of heretical religions. The internal wars were what made Rome weak. Dropping standards of hygeine. Baths shut down as "pagan" followed by plagues caused by parasite vectors and spread due to poor hygeine. The Vandals may have looted and burned Rome, but they were fighting fights motivated as much by their Arianism's conflict with Catholicism as by tribal identity. Religion enhanced tribalism. Tribalism used religion.
A New Civilization?
The replacement of Graeco-Roman culture with Christian culture was led by people who understood secrets and misused them. As a result, the secrets were burned or buried with the books and educated people, like Hypatia, who understood them. The movie depicts the Barbarians at the Gate, as being ordinary Roman Citizens in the Gate. That is all too accurate about now, every bit as much as then. The author Joshua J. Mark in the Ancient History Encyclopedia writes:
“The anti-intellectual stance of the early church is attested to by early Christian writers themselves and so, if the Christians in the film are depicted as ignorant it is because they were so by choice. St. Justin Martyr (c. 100-165 CE) was openly hostile to classical learning and claimed that all the important values and thoughts expressed by writers like Plato were stolen from the Christian Bible’s Old Testament.” [ancient-eu]
Rejecting Civilization
The early Christian apologist Tertullian (c. 160-230 CE) also rejected classical learning and famously stated:
“What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What concord is there between the Academy and the Church? What between heretics and Christians? Our instruction comes from "the porch of Solomon," who had himself taught that "the Lord should be sought in simplicity of heart." Away with all attempts to produce a mottled Christianity of Stoic, Platonic, and dialectic composition! We want no curious disputation after possessing Christ Jesus, no inquisition after enjoying the gospel! With our faith, we desire no further belief.” Tertullian
The Barbarians were inside the gate.
- Hypatia
- https://www.ancient.eu/Hypatia_of_Alexandria/
- https://www.ancient.eu/article/656/historical-accuracy-in-the-film-agora/
- IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1186830/
