Thoughts on Agora

The movie Agora is worth seeing just for the beautiful recreation of ancient Alexandria alone. The sets are stunning.

The story likewise is worth seeing, although not if one is going to make the mistake of thinking that there is historical evidence for all of its details. The movie is based on a real historical figure – Hypatia of Alexandria – and actual events surrounding her. But a lot of it is fictional, including the suggestion that Hypatia might have had inklings more than a millenium before Kepler that the planets moved around the sun in elliptical orbits.

But perhaps that is the point. For all we know, she could have been thinking those things, or might have one day, had she lived. And so the message, however much license it is taking with historical evidence, is that when a great thinker’s life is cut short, we’ll never know for certain what was lost as a result.

I worry, however, that the movie may play into the hands of those who are already inclined to believe the myth of the eternal warfare between religion and science, and treat this as yet another piece of evidence for it. But the evidence is contrived, here are in most other cases – even that of Galileo. One only has to look at actual texts from these periods, or historical writings about them, to learn that the reality was very different, not to mention much more complex.

Another key message of the movie is that Christianity is run by the mob, by crowds that get hyped up about matters they don’t understand, and by powerful individuals who are able to manipulate such mobs. The film makes a powerful point about religious bullying. When the prefect of Alexandria objects to bishop Cyril’s use of Scripture against him, he objects that he too is a Christian. And so he should have. If Cyril could quote a letter written in Paul’s name to speak against a woman as a teacher, others could have quoted “Blessed are the peacemakers” against those who were using violence to accomplish their ends. But as so often in real history, so too in this fictional episode, the Bible serves as a symbol and selective quotations serve as a rallying cry.

And so, however much I am concerned that historical fiction may be mistaken by viewers for historical fact, the movie has a powerful message. Churches have something in common with schoolyards, governments, and pretty much any other place that people (or toys) gather. There will be bullies. And unless we figure out constructive ways of dealing with and countering the influence of such individuals, they will twist religious, political, educational and other institutions into instruments of violence and oppression. And that’s a nugget of historical truth in the movie, as well as ongoing relevance. The parabalani, a group begun to care for the poor and dying, are indeed the ones who murdered Hypatia. And that such things can happen is a warning that all religious believers – and all human beings – should take to heart.