{"id":1405,"date":"2010-06-04T12:10:29","date_gmt":"2010-06-04T16:10:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.therowboat.com\/?p=1405"},"modified":"2022-01-26T16:29:44","modified_gmt":"2022-01-26T20:29:44","slug":"martyr-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nathanschneider.info\/2010\/06\/martyr-city\/","title":{"rendered":"Martyr City"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Hypatia really was, some early sources tell us, quite beautiful.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If you don’t know the name Hypatia, you should. In the grand mythology of the Enlightenment (to which, on optimistic days, I subscribe), her murder at the hands of a Christian mob marks more or less the end of Greek philosophy and the beginning of the Dark Ages. Now, for those of you who don’t know her, there’s a blockbuster historical epic movie about Hypatia (though it has scored only limited distribution in the U.S.). And, for those of you who don’t trust blockbuster historical epic movies, I’ve got a review of it on Religion Dispatches<\/em> today<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Hearing about Agora<\/em>\u2019s success in Spain last year\u2014the highest-grossing film of the year, sweeping up awards\u2014couldn\u2019t help but bring to my mind the empty insides of so many of that country\u2019s churches, still charred after the various anti-clerical mobs of the last few centuries. I wasn\u2019t the only one to make that association. With predictable ressentiment<\/em>, an open letter came to Amen\u00e1bar from the Religious Anti-Defamation Observatory, a Catholic watchdog in Spain, warning him: \u201cYour film is going to awaken hatred against Christians in today\u2019s society.\u201d<\/p>\n

American \u201cCatholic evangelist\u201d Fr. Robert Barron adds in his Catholic New World<\/em> review<\/a>, \u201cI wonder if it ever occurred to Amen\u00e1bar that his movie might incite violence against religious people, especially Christians.\u201d One can only hope that it\u2019s not a good enough movie to drive people to the streets.<\/p>\n

In an interview with the New York Times<\/em>, though, Amen\u00e1bar turned the tables on his pious critics. \u201cFundamentally, this is a very Christian film about the life of a martyr,\u201d he explained. \u201cJesus would not have approved of what happened to Hypatia, which is why I say no good Christian should feel offended by this film.\u201d In this respect, at least, his sentiments have historical basis.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Keep reading<\/a> to find out why.
\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

If you don’t know the name Hypatia, you should. In the grand mythology of the Enlightenment (to which, on optimistic days, I subscribe), her murder at the hands of a Christian mob marks more or less the end of Greek philosophy and the beginning of the Dark Ages. Now, for those of you who don’t know her, there’s a blockbuster historical epic movie about Hypatia (though it has scored only limited distribution in the U.S.). And, for those of you who don’t trust blockbuster historical epic movies, I’ve got a review of it on Religion Dispatches<\/em> today<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Hearing about Agora<\/em>\u2019s success in Spain last year\u2014the highest-grossing film of the year, sweeping up awards\u2014couldn\u2019t help but bring to my mind the empty insides of so many of that country\u2019s churches, still charred after the various anti-clerical mobs of the last few centuries. I wasn\u2019t the only one to make that association. With predictable ressentiment<\/em>, an open letter came to Amen\u00e1bar from the Religious Anti-Defamation Observatory, a Catholic watchdog in Spain, warning him: \u201cYour film is going to awaken hatred against Christians in today\u2019s society.\u201d<\/p>\n

American \u201cCatholic evangelist\u201d Fr. Robert Barron adds in his Catholic New World<\/em> review<\/a>, \u201cI wonder if it ever occurred to Amen\u00e1bar that his movie might incite violence against religious people, especially Christians.\u201d One can only hope that it\u2019s not a good enough movie to drive people to the streets.<\/p>\n

In an interview with the New York Times<\/em>, though, Amen\u00e1bar turned the tables on his pious critics. \u201cFundamentally, this is a very Christian film about the life of a martyr,\u201d he explained. \u201cJesus would not have approved of what happened to Hypatia, which is why I say no good Christian should feel offended by this film.\u201d In this respect, at least, his sentiments have historical basis.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Keep reading<\/a> to find out why.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[72,78,87,20,61,22,103,83],"class_list":["post-1405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-ancients","tag-drama","tag-memory","tag-myth","tag-platonism","tag-saints","tag-science","tag-violence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanschneider.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanschneider.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanschneider.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanschneider.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanschneider.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1405"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/nathanschneider.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5520,"href":"https:\/\/nathanschneider.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1405\/revisions\/5520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanschneider.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanschneider.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanschneider.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}