{"id":1125,"date":"2009-02-27T15:31:00","date_gmt":"2009-02-27T15:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1125"},"modified":"2009-02-27T15:31:00","modified_gmt":"2009-02-27T15:31:00","slug":"awaiting-a-movie-about-hypatia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1125","title":{"rendered":"Awaiting a Movie about Hypatia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hypatia of Alexandria, born c. 355 (?) and murdered by a Christian mob in 415, was a Neoplatonic <\/a>philosopher and mathematician\u2014math and philosophy were more intertwined then than they are today.<\/p>\n

Her life and death are part of the plot of Agora<\/em><\/a>, a forthcoming movie directed by Alejandro Amen\u00e1bar<\/a>. You can see a trailer here<\/a> (thanks to Jason Pitzl-Waters<\/a> for the tip).<\/p>\n

Her killers were fired up by one Cyril, a bishop of Alexandria<\/a> and now a saint of the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches. Hypatia, after all, was not a Christian, was upper-class, was an intellectual, and worst of all, was a female intellectual.<\/p>\n

(Patriarch issues fatwa<\/span>, followers riot and kill — the usual pattern.)<\/p>\n

In the movie, a slave falls in love with Hypatia. Not very likely: one of the old stories told about her is that when one of her students was attracted to her, she threw a used menstrual rag in his face<\/a>. It was a philosophical lesson–that he should love eternal beauty, not the beauty of the flesh.<\/p>\n

Hypatia of Alexandria<\/a> is supposed to be a good reconstructed biography. For a shorter discussion of sources about her life, go here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I want to see Agora<\/span> but I am also a little afraid to see it. It might push too many buttons. Sometimes I think the fourth century CE is still with us in the cultural-religious conflicts we see around us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hypatia of Alexandria, born c. 355 (?) and murdered by a Christian mob in 415, was a Neoplatonic philosopher and mathematician\u2014math and philosophy were more intertwined then than they are today. Her life and death are part of the plot of Agora, a forthcoming movie directed by Alejandro Amen\u00e1bar. You can see a trailer here […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[24,36,5],"class_list":["post-1125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-christianity","tag-movies","tag-paganism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-i9","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1432,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1432","url_meta":{"origin":1125,"position":0},"title":"Who Was Hypatia?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 17, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"With the build-up among Pagan moviegoers for a North American release of Alelejandro Amenabar's Agora, here is a quick biography of the philosopher Hypatia herself and the religious conflicts that led to her murder by a Christian mob. (She was a bit older at her death than is Rachel Weisz.)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Christianity\"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=christianity"},"img":{"alt_text":"On the streets of Alexandria, Egypt, a mob led by Peter the Lector brutally murdered Hypatia, one of the last great thinkers of ancient Alexandria. Mary Evans Picture Library \/ Alamy","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/media.smithsonianmag.com\/images\/Hypatia-murdered-388.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1968,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1968","url_meta":{"origin":1125,"position":1},"title":"Agora: It’s a Riot","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 9, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I finally watched Agora on DVD last night. It's one rioting mob after another interspersed with astronomy lessons. You have your Pagan mob, your Jewish mob, your Christian mob(s). A Muslim mob would have fit right in, but had not yet been invented. And did Hypatia really discover that planetary\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Egypt\"","block_context":{"text":"Egypt","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=egypt"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1736,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1736","url_meta":{"origin":1125,"position":2},"title":"“Agora”: Pagans vs. Christians or Atheists vs. Religious?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 3, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Living in the cinematic boonies as I do, I will probably not see Agora until it comes out on DVD. Here is a long dissection of it, from period-incorrect Roman armor to its avoidance of exactly what Hypatia taught: But because the film never bothers to make her neo-Platonist asceticism\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Christianity\"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=christianity"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1000,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1000","url_meta":{"origin":1125,"position":3},"title":"Gallimaufry to Fill Space","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 29, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Back from a week on the road to a full inbox and a desk covered with bills to pay, I offer a few links for your kind attention:\u00b6 Attention Kemetic reconstructionists: Don't let your temple-builders become anemic.\u00b6 A list of things that offend Muslims. Anyone want to try the Pagan\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"blogging\"","block_context":{"text":"blogging","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":821,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=821","url_meta":{"origin":1125,"position":4},"title":"Blog Valhalla, Polytheism, Books and More","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 14, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00b6 Yvonne Aburrow's Pagan theologies wiki has what might be the definitive list of active Pagan blogs. I am adding a link on my sidebar.\u00b6 Speaking of which, this blog now appears on BeliefNet's Blog Heaven page again. Thanks to everyone who made a fuss.\u00b6Bedside reading: I started, put aside,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"blogging\"","block_context":{"text":"blogging","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1098,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1098","url_meta":{"origin":1125,"position":5},"title":"Yes, Hypatia, There is a Santa Claus","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 17, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"This fellow -- Santa Claus, Father Christmas -- has joined the lineup of graven images on our polytheistic\/animistic mantel. That's Hermes' foot at the far left, followed by an ossuary jar of sharp-shinned hawk bones, and Hekate on the right.We all know that Santa's name derives from the Dutch form\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1125\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}