Only just now heard of and watched this movie, about the destruction of the Library of Alexandria and the death of Hypatia in 415 a.d. I very much recommend it, though it is a rather sad affair, as the events it is based on were sick and sad events.
In a way, the movie has only parenthetically to do with "paganism" - Hypatia appears more scientist and secular philosopher than religious, though of course the whole Hellenistic worldview and all Classical learning was considered by the Christians of the time to be pagan. Her dad was apparently a high-up in the temple of Serapis which was associated with the Library, but in terms of pagan practices we see very little except as it were in the corners of the action and the details of scenes. A majority of the characters in the movie, even the relatively "enlightened" characters, are Christians, though some were Christians of convenience perhaps. Due to the edicts of Emperor Theodosius, who eventually closed the ancient temples and outlawed pagan practices and holy days, anyone who wanted to keep their position in the Empire had to convert. Orestes, who at the beginning of the movie was clearly pagan is later seen as the "Christian" prefect of Alexandria. He tried in vain to resist the advance of the murderous Bishop Cyril and Christian mob rule. Very little time in the movie however was spent directly depicting paganism.
In a way, the movie has only parenthetically to do with "paganism" - Hypatia appears more scientist and secular philosopher than religious, though of course the whole Hellenistic worldview and all Classical learning was considered by the Christians of the time to be pagan. Her dad was apparently a high-up in the temple of Serapis which was associated with the Library, but in terms of pagan practices we see very little except as it were in the corners of the action and the details of scenes. A majority of the characters in the movie, even the relatively "enlightened" characters, are Christians, though some were Christians of convenience perhaps. Due to the edicts of Emperor Theodosius, who eventually closed the ancient temples and outlawed pagan practices and holy days, anyone who wanted to keep their position in the Empire had to convert. Orestes, who at the beginning of the movie was clearly pagan is later seen as the "Christian" prefect of Alexandria. He tried in vain to resist the advance of the murderous Bishop Cyril and Christian mob rule. Very little time in the movie however was spent directly depicting paganism.
And yet I found the images of the desecration of the pagan temples and the destruction of the beautiful artifacts of classical antiquity powerfully moving, almost as if they stirred some sort of race memory of a time when anyone of a "pagan" persuasion was persecuted and killed. I actually stopped in the middle of the movie and lit a candle in my home shrine, which in some respects is a continuation of the Roman lararium, the shrine in every good pagan Roman household to the household spirits. I felt a terrible sense of loss, and of the losses that have only mounted since the time when the last threads connecting the sacred and the natural worlds were violently severed. It was a process that began long before then, began even in the days of the world-denying Plato and his teacher Socrates who turned away from the World and Life and towards words and concepts. Hypatia ironically was a Platonic philosopher. The rise of Christianity didn't happen in a vacuum, pagans themselves contributed some of the ammunition that would be used to destroy them. Paganism had become anemic and weak, divorced from nature, for most people a mere State ritual of the Roman Empire. The reverence of Serapis himself was mostly a State cult invented by an Emperor to weld together his European and African dominions. For Emperors to invent cults is an inherently cynical thing, and shows how little it was taken seriously, and how moribund Paganism had become. However prevalent the causes it all finally came crashing down then, at the end of the Empire and the end of the Classical world.
I use "paganism" in quotes because Paganism is a big tent with many varied and unruly occupants. In the movie, Hypatia appears to have rarely had anything to do with actual pagan religion and was only pagan by exclusion, because she was a Hellenist and a Platonist. I am an animist, so for me the only gods in the classical sense are the Sun and sky spirits and water and Earth spirits, and I am perfectly happy to call them just that. Sun, Sky, Water, Earth. Below, innumerable spirits which might be called gods, spirits or just beings, mortal and perishable gods, but important just as they are. All are mortal gods really, even the Sun dies someday. Other people are adherents to the old Anglo-Saxon or Nordic pantheon, still others the Classical pantheon, and others, most prevalent perhaps, the various goddesses and gods of the witches. We are a varied lot and don't do a very good job of getting along it seems. But whatever we call ourselves, and whatever names we call each other, the Christians all call us one thing:
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| Lararium, household shrine in Herculaneum. Image by Kleuske |
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I use "paganism" in quotes because Paganism is a big tent with many varied and unruly occupants. In the movie, Hypatia appears to have rarely had anything to do with actual pagan religion and was only pagan by exclusion, because she was a Hellenist and a Platonist. I am an animist, so for me the only gods in the classical sense are the Sun and sky spirits and water and Earth spirits, and I am perfectly happy to call them just that. Sun, Sky, Water, Earth. Below, innumerable spirits which might be called gods, spirits or just beings, mortal and perishable gods, but important just as they are. All are mortal gods really, even the Sun dies someday. Other people are adherents to the old Anglo-Saxon or Nordic pantheon, still others the Classical pantheon, and others, most prevalent perhaps, the various goddesses and gods of the witches. We are a varied lot and don't do a very good job of getting along it seems. But whatever we call ourselves, and whatever names we call each other, the Christians all call us one thing:
Pagans.
Perhaps it is well to remember 1600 years of persecution, as a history we all hold in common, and agree to keep on being varied and fractious agreeably. ;)
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