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HYPATIA, BEAUTY AND WISDOM ANGAINST FANATISM AND VIOLENCE (1)

In this month's delivery we continue exploring the theme of women empowering themselves; we intend to explore the archetypes that are activated in a woman's psyche when she has to take the challenge to emancipate herself from a male dominant society. We are actually digging into the animus, the masculine dimension in a woman's unconcious.

Although the intention of this research is directed towards women coming to relevant positions in modern society, I have chosen to talk, first, about remarkable women from the past. The reason is we can follow the line of their lives from beginning to end; we can appreciate their achievements and their mistakes, and find out about the price a stronghead woman battling against prejudices had (or still has) to pay.

Lately, I was very curious about the last movie of Chilean Spanish film director Alejandro Amenabar; he had become very famous some years ago when he made 'The Others', a horror movie starring Nichole Kidman. The most intriguing was the theme of his new feature, the life of a woman who was a teacher of phylosophy in Alexandria in Late Antiquity, born around 370 AD and killed by a group of Christian fanatics in the year 415 AD.



Amenabar's choice was a daring one, he is an Aries born on March/ 31/1972 (Imdb data) in Santiago de Chile; only scholars or people interested in Greek and Latin Antiquity know about Hypatia. Moreover, the choice imposed on him to make a 'peplum movie' or 'sword and sandal movie' as Hollywood likes to call films related to the Roman Empire.

But Hypatia was not a warrior, so no big battles to seduce film producers; and presenting a heroine, whose mainly qualities were only beauty and wisdom, fighting alone against prejudice was not a likable subject to money oriented producers.

Notwithstanding, fiery Amenabar had his way; producers trusted his huge success in previous features as 'The Others' or 'The Sea Inside' (Mar adentro). 'Agora' was far from being a blockbuster hit, many critics, especially American ones, could not appreciate the movie; but those who liked 'Agora' celebrated it as a brilliant achievement.

My personal opinion is that there is a common believe that heroes have to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the community; so many people are biassed against heroes or heroines who defend their own right to be an individual in spite of the prevailing tendency, in the case of Hypatia, the assumption that everybody had to submit to the new Christian rules when christianity took control of every institution.

Not very much is known about Hypatia, bigots and Christian fanatics tried to delete her traces, none of the many books she wrote about Astronomy, Mathematics and Philosophy survived. Some philosophers mention her; only some of the letters she exchanged with a Christian bishop, Synesius, a friend and former disciple of hers, survived. But the little we know casts her as an emblem of wisdom against prejudice, knowledge against ignorance, personal choice angainst submission to the law of the stronger, light against darkness, and moreover, the end of an Era of true knowledge: the Greek and Egyptian Mysteries.

Alexandria, where Hypatia lived and died, was the most outstanding city in the Mediterranean during the Late Roman Empire; the Ptolomies kings, heirs of Alexander the Great's legacy of education according to the Greek ideal for mankind, had created the biggest Library in the Mediterranean world. It contained more than five hundred thousand books or papyrus (many contained two or more works), the stock was not only in Greek and Latin, but also in Sanskrit and Egyptian.

The Library of Alexandria was also a Museum and an Academy, a sort of university where Hypatia used to teach science and phylosophy; in those times, the term 'museum' meant not only items to be exposed to the public, it was, actually, the place of the Muses; so, there were many artistics activities going on in this Museum where Hypatia's father, Theon, was the director. The Christian mob destroyed the Library in AD 395 with the compliance of the Christian Emperor, Theodosius I. A huge legacy for mankind was inevitably lost, forever.

Soon after that, the pagants, meaning the non Christians, were forbidden to teach. Hypatia was reduced to keep her studies and researches by herself, she kept the respect and friendship of several high positioned men in the government who admired her beauty and her brilliant mind, among them, Orestes, the prefect of Alexandria. But when Cyril, a zealot of the Christian faith, was elected bishop (or patriach) of Alexandria, he started attacking the status of Hypatia as a pagan as well as an independent woman.

Cyril's prerogatives clashed against the prefect's authority, but since the bishop had the support of the Emperor and the mob, Orestes had to summit himself and abandoned Hypatia; thus, she became the casualty of a struggle of power between two ambicious men. The religious fanatics killed her and torn her into pieces in front of a Christian shrine.

The case of Hypatia helps us to understand one of the reasons why a woman, once she acquiers power, tends to become authoritarian and domineering, especially when men attack or disobey her authority. If, according to Jung's theory, the collective unconscious keeps a record of all significant experiences of mankind, then maybe the ordeal or deals and the injustice many women have suffered under men's rage throughout thousands of years have shaped and programmed the animus for survival against men's selfishness and lack of understanding.

That is why some women can react so radically and irrationally when it comes to defending their own rights, or what they think their appanage is, as was the case of Elisabeth I by the end of her life.(To be continued..)

In Japanese...

by xavier_astro | 2010-11-01 00:00 | 人物  

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