I know this movie and review is laughable.. there were no pasty ppl running around in Egypt Hypatia was a black woman, & a jealous mob (angry she was a woman & wealthy), pulled her down from her carriage and attempted to skin her alive w/ jagged shells, they finished her off w/ stones. Her political & religious leanings had nothing to do w/ it, this chit was personal.
@@thegrandcanyonisegypt2489 She was Greek. Did you not listen to the review? Plus Alexandria was not just Egyptians (something you would have also picked up from the review)
The film contains numerous historical inaccuracies:[10][254][256] It inflates Hypatia's achievements[149][256] and incorrectly portrays her as having discovered proof to support Aristarchus of Samos's heliocentric model of the universe, which there is no evidence that Hypatia ever even studied.[149] It also contains a scene based on the final episode from Carl Sagan's Cosmos in which a mob of Christians raid the Serapeum and burn all of the scrolls in it, but leave the building itself largely intact, aside from knocking over a few statues. In historical reality, the Serapeum probably did not have any scrolls in it at the time of its destruction[c] and the Christians completely demolished the building to the ground.[10] The film also strongly implies that Hypatia is an atheist, a notion directly contradictory to the surviving sources, which all portray her as a devoted follower of the teachings of Plotinus, who taught that the goal of philosophy was "a mystical union with the divine."[
what's worse, the fundamentalist rarely even read that one book. Instead, they've picked a few phrases that they already agreed with and therefore the rest of the book must be true and thusly all its claims.
So many could scenes in this film: Hypatia’s linking of Euclid’s First Common Notion to human equality (there’s a similar scene in Spielberg’s “Lincoln”) Orestes’ defending the Christians during the siege, for Hypatia’s sake The story of Aristarchus inspiring Hypatia to study the heliocentric model
Well this montage is already implied during the movie, the suggestion of that is a different feeling then just hit over head like a caveman i.e. hence why the destruction of the library was in slow mo, the loss of potential for humanity with losing the antiquity philosophers/scientists. Even moreso of that idea, is the fact that they had hypatia working on the heliocentric model (she was more mathematician than astronomer), and she just discovered the answer literal moments before her death with being unable to speak of the discovery by being mercy choked (an answer that was discovered a millenium later with renaissance scientists).
Breaking roman cable news, gaius on the scene, roman soldiers bring back home syphillis from the americas, but these sweetus potatus are too damn good, so it's an even day. This is gaius, I'll be seeing YOU, at the bath house. Back to you, karenius.
I like how out of all the possible nations that formed throughout the centuries, you still chose Japan as the one being at the receiving end of a nuke.
@@trueromancat7978 Clearly you are too much of an idiot to see that Islam actually pushed science and knowledge, have you heard of the golden age of Islam? Have you read the scientific and medical advances made during that time? Do you not know that Damascus was the center of science in that time? I don't know what part of dumb hillbilly Alabama you come from but keep your dumb and unfactual opinions to your self.
To some degree it was probably rediscovered. Maybe not everything historical, but I’m decently certain all scientific research and knowledge was at least rediscovered to some degree later on.
Yeah, like the universe is composed of four basic elements; Fire, Water, Earth and Air. Pity that pearl of wisdom didn't survive. Why do we think "lost" wisdom was great if it's lost and cannot be known? Maybe a lot of it was gibberish and superstition that we're better off without. Just sayin'...
I saw this movie a long time ago but no one I knew saw it. I felt so alone but loved it because as a Catholic made me see Christians weren't always the victim. It was a very eye opening experience and taught me a lot. Love your channel!
Yeah It'sa great movie but the problem is they protrayed this event or conflict like a clash between science and faith. Which is not true it was more a political than religious conflict. The new christian power was on the rise and they were opposed to an old elite who wasn't christian , who persecuted them in the past. They were doomed to clash. And religion has nothing to do with that. Hypatia in real life wasn't neutral. Even if this movie is great they portrayed the christian as one dimensional evil and dumb who were oppose to science. And yet throughout more than 1000 years where the church was the dominant power they encouraged and pursuit scientific knowledge and art. So I think this portrait of christian is not fair they should have bring more nuance.
Dude this is misleading, the library was rebuild by Christians and few centuries later was burned by Muslims under the order of Caliph Omar, the Eastern church co-existed in harmony with the classical legacy, in Constantinople the holy Christian city giant statues of Greek gods and mythical creatures like Hera and Hercules and Helios stood on the main streets next statues of Christian saints and they were destroyed only by the Latins I the 4rth crusade only the quadriga was spared and rebranded the horses of saint Marc and now they are standing in Venice. And when the city was burned the local poets used Helene of Troy as a name for the burning city in their poems lamenting its bloody Sombre fate. There was no dark ages nor a schism between the church and classical legacy. This is just a western centric view of the medieval times.
I would be careful about how you view this film. It is a good rough historical fiction and it touches on some interesting themes; but the writers actually seemed to only use an account by a neo-platonist historian named Damascius (Hypatia was also a neo-platonist, if that tells you anything). A good chunk of modern scholars have concluded that this was not a religious issue like how Damascius gives the account, but rather more related to a political struggle between Christian leadership or secular roman leadership (not to say the roman leaders weren't Christian).
Alexandria was having conflicts even before Christianity arrived between Jews and pagans. And most of the library was burned by Cesar even before Christianity arrived.
3:27 shows a picture with Alexander and Diogenes and doesn't mention him despite the fact that Alexander deeply admired Diogenes. "But truly, if I were not Alexander, I wish I were Diogenes." and Diogenes replied "If I wasn't Diogenes, I would be wishing to be Diogenes too."
@@brendancoulter5761 The Bagdad House of Wisdom was were the Islamic scholars got many of their ideas and innovations, it was destroyed by the mongols sadly...
@@victorconway444 I don't mean to be the smartass, but the difference between a "rocket" and a "missile" is simple: When the controller/person has no control of the projectile after it leaves the weapon platform, it's a rocket. You simply aim at the target, the projectile leaves the platform and moves on a more-or-less straight line towards the target. When the controller/person does have control of the projectile after it leaves the weapon platform, whether through laser-guided systems, on-board cameras, or even wires hanging from the projectile connecting to the controller (known as wire-guided systems), it's a missile. So in essence, an ICBM is a missile (that's what the M stands for), because we can control its trajectory and course after it leaves the missile silo.
Um, no. That's what makes it a _guided_ missile. The term "rocket" refers to the means of propulsion. A "missile" is any projected weapon - yes, including thrown rocks.
I am from Alexandria Egypt Thank you for this video I have walked across that place a lot but never really understood what happened there now that i know I will be visiting what is left of the Serapeum soon
A question since i found an Egyptian from Alexandria. How do you see us Greeks in Egypt. Do you think that our civilizations are combined and if yes,did Islam change,as Christianity did in Greece? Greetings from Athens.
@@nickpaschentis5284 half Egyptian here ( I guess that counts ?) Most of my Egyptian family members consider Greece the ancient sister country from Europe with so much shared history and mutual influence , but then again they are really into history so perhaps the common man thinks Greece is just another European country . As for the religion stuff , I think it changed mentalities A LOT , and it has definitely left a marked influence . Oh by the way you guys in Greece have the best islands in the world .
@@ahmadtarek7763 Thanks mate,I appreciate your reply. If you ever come to Greece,and don't want to go to usual places. Go to Lepanto (Naupaktos),Corcyra (Corfu),Rodos(Rhodes)or Syros,I promise you won't regret it. And so you know,if we take Religion out,we Greeks consider Egyptians and Romans(Italians) Brothers,and many Egyptians live in Greece. Oh,and Egyptian girls are Pretty.
@@danielmandor483 The whole building was razed to the ground by the mob, contrary to the film. It also no longer contained any scrolls from the Great Library, since sources before 391 refer to the collection in the past tense. There probably wasn't much left of the Great Library by Hypatia's time. Also, astrolabes were used 5 centuries earlier, so she definitely didn't invent them.
@@nickpaschentis5284 I was born and raised in Greece and I've never heard someone say "thanks mate" unless they were imitating someone else. XD And what does the appearance of Egyptian girls have to do with anything?
Not all Christian response to this movie was bad. Rev. Philip Grey wrote this in his review of the movie. "Christians who see themselves in the fanatic, murderous monks of the film and feel offended need to do some serious soul-searching.(...) Hypatia as depicted in the film is firmly opposed to what, in her time and at her city, is offered-or rather, imposed by brute force-under the name of 'Christianity'. Nevertheless, she seems to me far more a follower of the precepts of Christianity than are her persecutors and tormentors.(...) In particular, in watching the deeply moving final scene, her going calmly to her death amidst the jeering mob, I could not help but strongly recall Jesus Christ on His own way to Golgotha"
That's the point of the whole film, thanks for putting it clear. Those who think it's anti-christian biassed haven't seen how pagans killed christians in riots or how jews killed christians in the Church....They oddly blame they are victims for being portrayed as anti-scientific, as if they didn't condemned efectively a good part of the ancient knowledge (as every one religion) just because it wasn't part of their ideology. Answering that some Fathers of the Curch knew about pagan world and they preserved it just for love of knowledge it's bullshit...It was preserved just for practical reasons cause could be used to defend Christianity rationally (that's the way it's used in St Agustin's works, who was half of his life a pagan), the rest of works that couldn't be "diggested" as christian where prohibited or presented as false claims if not destroyed.
@Baron Von Grijffenbourg as a conservative christian I agree with your comments 100%. Those who claimed to follow the teachings of Jesus have always known the duplicity of Churchers that were built to gain power under the banner of Christianity.
I've recently discovered your channel and as someone with a great interest in history and historical films I have to say I love it and have been binge watching your videos. I'd actually never heard of this film before so thanks for bringing it to my attention. It's at the top of my watch list now. Thanks for the great content. Look forward to more of your videos.
Same here gonna find this movie and buy it. I think Amazon has it. It's incredible christians who behave so benevolently have an ignorant and bloody history of zealotry. Christianity to my understanding is a book of stories plagiarized from other religions.
@@MeanOldLady whom ever does it is condemned no matter what was his religion or ethnic or origin, being a muslim doesn't mean that i agree on such act.
The same thing happen in Indian subcontinent some of the famous universities, libraries like Sharda, Nalanda, Taxila were destroyed by the invading religious fanatics.
I don't remember the last time I cried so much during a movie. I was waaaay too emotionally invested in it. The destruction of culture and knowledge at the hands of those barbaric terrorists hit me hard. I was rooting for Hypatia to figure out the way the Sun and Earth are positioned with tears in m eyes when she got the idea for the elliptic orbit. It's so sad that barbarism took root for millennia instead of Hypatia's enlightenment. And both Rachel Weisz and Oscar Isaac were so good in their roles! Damn you man, the end of your video also brought me to tears.
@Uchiha Obito What if I told you that the movie was propaganda and that the real events described in the original sources indicate that the reverse of this presented situation really took place?
@@tdoychev720 You don't have to learn English to be considered educated, you can learn French and have a good company hiring you in France, German can benefit you more in the way of Science because most of it was wrote in German. Even Latin if you feel like wasting your timem
As a Greek who honours ancient Philosophy, and the spiritual and cultural model that philosophy offered to humans I tried 3 times ta watch that movie and I couldn't get to the end of it. The end you made brought me into tears!!!
@@mrpappas10kay54 "Mens sana in corpore sano" Every ancient greek philosopher was trained to be a soldier and got buff at the gym .Also many went to orgies.
There are many things that anger me, I am an angry person, but the purposeful destruction of knowledge and history is at the absolute top. I will never forgive such blatant idiocy, no matter their creed or nationality.
Only for the religious fanatics to burn it down later. EDIT: replaced "Christian" with "religious". Any religious fanaticism, weather it be Christian, Muslim, Pagan, Jewish, etc., is bad. Religion can be good but too much of it, especially its superstitious beliefs or occasional power-hungry leader, can cause problems down the line.
just so i can show off my knowledge: 3:27 is an image of Alexander meeting the homeless and incredibly humble philosopher Diogenes. Alexander said he could ask for literally anything. Diogenes asked for Alexander to fuck off because he was blocking out the sunlight. 😂
@Josel Summerfield Diogenes would be very upset to find out that he had better manners than somebody else. But then again, he was from Athens and not from "F off" country.
I'm glad you covered her. I was introduced to her by the movie. Rachel weiss always does a great performance. Anyway my head almost exploded. You've also flushed out more info than I could find. Thank you for dedicating an episode to quite a woman during a terrible time.
Well, this brought me to tears. How have I not known about her? She’s such an inspiration. Thank you for making this video. Agh, crying right before I go to work, too! How dare you make me feel emotions, you wonderful historian.
you didn't about her beacuse she is minor historical figure of which we know very little about. most of what you see in the movie is product of creative freedom
Not all ancient historians agree that the library was destroyed by Caesar. What did survive was destroyed when Emperor Aurelian (AD 270-275) burnt the royal quarter of the city while crushing a revolt by Queen Zenobia. Around AD 378, Ammianus Marcellinus wrote of the library of the Serapeum as already destroyed. He blames Caesar's fire but most likely it was looted by Aurelian who was building his own library in Constantinople. Of those writing at the time of the Serapeum's destruction none mention a library.Even Eunapius of Antioch, a pagan who tries to show Christians as violent and foolish, only mentions religious objects. The idea that a library still existed comes from Edward Gibbon and his book The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Although not referring to the Serapeum, Paulus Orosius wrote of the looting of book chests from temples, many of these chests were to form the start of monastic libraries.
3 years late but the Library was a shadow of its former self by 378 and other prominent libraries have taken shape centuries earlier in the Mediterranean
@A Moye That's racist, and because white people expanded a lot more and progressed a lot further than most other cultures. They still weren't very nice for most of recorded history but they tried, oh they tried.
@@accomplisheddiplomat4091 I am not white but I agree, with the exception of their acts in the new world, the white man truly brought some great progress and unity in the world, people saying white people fucked up everything are just racist
I need to point this out: The Library of Alexandria was NOT the only Scriptorium or library of significance in the ancient world. Other such facilities existed in other great centres of learning such as Athens (which was THE place that the Roman nobilii would send their children to study when Roman culture itself was experiencing an accelerated period of Hellenisation, this was during the lifetime of the Great Library of Alexandria), similar such centres could also be found in Antioch and Byzantium. Not to mention the libraries and scriptoriums of Rome itself. The real damage to the record of history occured when the practices of scribing and preserving Classical Greek and Latin texts were being conducted by Christian Church monks who had a tendecy to both corrupt and exagerrate records, particularly when it came to Roman Emperors. But also it was not a reliable process as this work was exceptionally tedious and labourious, hence why this process was done selectively and not every work from the ancient world could be preserved reliably, or in their entirety if at all. Not to diminish the significance of the library's destruction, but blaming this phenomenon purely on the destruction of the Library of Alexandria is incredibly irresponsible, as good a story as it makes. Implying that it was the ONLY place where the learned could "get a good book" is nonsense.
The film contains numerous historical inaccuracies:[10][254][256] It inflates Hypatia's achievements[149][256] and incorrectly portrays her as having discovered proof to support Aristarchus of Samos's heliocentric model of the universe, which there is no evidence that Hypatia ever even studied.[149] It also contains a scene based on the final episode from Carl Sagan's Cosmos in which a mob of Christians raid the Serapeum and burn all of the scrolls in it, but leave the building itself largely intact, aside from knocking over a few statues. In historical reality, the Serapeum probably did not have any scrolls in it at the time of its destruction[c] and the Christians completely demolished the building to the ground.[10] The film also strongly implies that Hypatia is an atheist, a notion directly contradictory to the surviving sources, which all portray her as a devoted follower of the teachings of Plotinus, who taught that the goal of philosophy was "a mystical union with the divine."[
Another great inaccuracy is that it failed to acknowledge that the only source of the story Hypatia is from two Christian scholars and it's been written the vast majority of the Christians in the area are horrified at the things that a small Christian sect did. Hypatia's death is more to political wrangling by two ruling governors. Add to that as he briefly touched most of the Library of Alexandria was largely burned and intentionally ransacked by Julius Caesar and his men, who took much of the libraries treasures to Rome and burned the rest, all that is left at the time of the movie is just a small storage room by the temple. So all those books lost to time are all Julius Caesar's fault. The idea that Christianity is against any learning or science or keep records old discoveries is pure bunk. The Christian fathers are well learned of all Hellenistic and Roman teachings, from St Augustine, St. Ambrose and St. Jerome, all are followers of Greek philosophies and all applied it to their theological thinking. During the upheaval of the fall of Rome to the European barbarians, it only the Christian monks and scholars that keep the flame knowledge alive and even added more thoughts and Philosophy than the other religions out there. Science that we have today is based more on the Christian scholastics and Universities developed during the Middle Ages and not the Neo-platonic schools. We should also not forget that the Christian Byzantine empire is thriving at that time is still continuing the it's progress with it's own golden age.
"had a tendecy (sic) to both corrupt and exagerrate (sic) records, particularly when it came to Roman Emperors." You mean like Roman Historians had been doing for centuries? If anything, the monks were more reliable record keepers.
I wish there was a movie about Nalanda which had a similar concept of the Library of Alexandria. It is an ancient university in India, who also had a wealth of knowledge from all over the world.
i vaguely remember hearing about some of your wonders . 'magic pots' those wells, the irrigation and some ancient astronomy towers, not to mention all the spiritual stuff recorded in those 5k yr old texts
That's John Toland's "Hypatia" (one of the four parts of his "Tetradymus" written in 1725). He hated all things Christian with all his heart. But his account, used heavily in this movie, is not confirmed by early sources. The library was rebuilt after the fire and replenished. It's true end was the Arab conquest..
It is fair to say the history behind this movie is highly debatable, which History Buffs accurately states, but he then goes on to lay the blame of the dark ages solely at Christian feet, which I feel is a position he would not defend if pressed on it. In fact his representation of the library of Alexandria was misleading, the majority of the books in the great library had already been moved to other libraries at the time it was burned. The fall of the Roman Empire created the Dark Ages and while Christianities early hostility to the culture that had suppressed them for centuries certainly didnt help, it was Christian scholars who rediscovered the works of ancient scholars and recreated them that we have any knowledge of these events at all. We know and value the works of Aristotle, Plato, and many others because of the thousands of hours spent by monks re-translating and copying them. What standard do we judge ancient people by? Were the Romans monsters for enslaving and conquering so much of the world? Or were they a force for the spreading of education and advanced civilization? Do we judge ancient people by the standards of today? The standards we have thanks in part to the benefit of thousands of years of history? Due we judge them by comparing them to their contemporaries? Does slavery become acceptable when every civilization in the known world practices it? My only point is that it is not easy to make any moral judgments of the ancient world, especially when the historical account has very few sources and what actually happened is up for debate.
Brendan Coulter Simply amazing!! I took a screenshot of your reply - it’s too good not to and I don’t want to forget it 😁! I couldn’t agree with you more!
That doesn't change any of my points. If some one stated that Islam is only ever destroyed ancient knowledge I would attempt to correct the record there as well. If your claim is that Islam saved many ancient works, therefor Christianity is responsible for the fall of the Roman empire and the Dark Ages I would have to disagree.
I would love a Marco Polo review from History Buffs. I'm interested in the show, but with my limited spare time I'm not sure I want to devote what little I have to it. History Buffs has a way of getting me curious and eager about history related things, two feelings which had been thoroughly stomped into the dirt by my middle school and high school history teachers many years ago. Lol.
This film depicted candles at a time lamps were used instead. A polish Historian Maria D has done one of the best biographies. Hypatia was probably in her 60s when she was killed.
This movie ticked me off, I don't like watching a culture destroy itself. That said, a very good film! But be warned if you watch it it will leave you rightly ticked off at the destruction of knowledge...
I saw it when I was quite young with my father. I didn't quite understand what was happening throughout the whole movie, but I remember my dad explaining why they were burning books and why it was such a tragedy and I remember feeling really sad at the enormous waste that fell upon the library.
Knowledge can't be destroy. It's always there waiting for the right seeker. That is why it's called a discovery and not an invention. Everything is impermanent, just hope that distant future, archaeologist find our fossil and know that "we" existed; Like the neanderthal or dinosaurs.
Kyle Ray we do start over and over again though, it is a historical fact, most nations repeat their history every 20 years, as new generations start making decisions. We have gotten better over time, but we might regress in the future, it is uncertain for sure. People like to think that most knowledge from the library of Alexandria was lost, but I do wonder how much we have discovered again over time, and what was actually preserved and not lost.
Hm. I've the deepest respect for your channel Nick, and I agree with many of the points you bring up concerning fanaticism and the stance by the Church to refuse classic philosophy, but I feel as though this idea of the 'Dark Ages' refuting progress as a whole due to the lack of enlightenment from Christian hierarchy is not conducive to what was reality. If anything, I'm a little disappointed in you; a History Buff should if anything refuse and groan at the reference to the Medieval Ages as a 'Dark Age'. Completely contrary to earlier beliefs we KNOW it was a period of progression, trade, and scientific development, often lead by the Church itself, with monasteries preserving ancient writings. The idea that we so drastically slowed our scientific and technological progression in thanks to any sort of Church boogeyman ignores what we understand about the reality of the period. Were certain classical ideas smothered by the Church? Yes, yes they were. Were the writings of known pagans lost to obscurity because Monks preferred to write the teachings of said pagan's period equivalent christian opponents? Yes, yes that did happen and yes, we have lost much history and knowledge because of it. That in and of itself, is a total tragedy. But to suggest that we would be centuries ahead today in our scientific and technological understanding of the world, if not for the Church, is misleading and not in keeping with reality. Reality of the historical Migration Period and the historical periods that follow it, is much, much more complicated than that and doesn't lend itself to simple answers as your suggesting. Love the channel Nick, but I do think you could have presented this better.
The Dark Ages is the name for the early medieval ages. Sorry if the name offends you. And the biggest problem wasn't that the church smothered or suppressed teaching, it was that all the teaching had been lost in the fall of Rome. Society had to completely start over. That's why many of the things that were common knowledge in the ancient era were not figured out until the Renaissance. I don't think Nick is blaming Christianity as much as he is saying how tragic it was that the Roman Empire was destroyed in such a complete and total way.
No, again the Dark Ages is again an archaic term that isn't used by the modern historian. It should be referred to as the Migration Period, which began during the decline of the Western Roman Empire and continued after it, where Germanic Tribes were moving across and settling in its remains, and was a tumultuous time for the European continent. You do make a good point in that with the fall of the WRE there were certain things that were lost to society for a period of time, but to suggest that society had to 'start all over' is completely incorrect. Society continued and flourished, even during the Migration period.
Austin Monreal Society flourishing and society starting over are not two mutually exclusive terms. You know just as well as I do that a lot of the knowledge of the ancients were lost, and was only re-discovered in the Renaissance, 1200 years later.
Let's make sure we're talking about the same thing. When you say, 'society had to start over' I think of the almost apocalyptic sense that historians had in the past concerning the Dark Ages, where society was completely destroyed and they had to start over from the ground up, as if going back a whole age or worse. Is this what you mean, or something else? As to what Nick means, he clearly seems to be blaming the church in the video as the reason for the stagnation of technological and scientific progress, because it was the dominate institution in the west following the fall of the WRE. He was clearly making a parallel between the fanatics of today (ISIS) and the church during the Medieval period.
Austin Monreal I am not talking about the loss of all knowledge, and I am certainly not suggesting its the church faults. I am saying, that because large part of Rome was burnt to the ground, because many historical libraries were destroyed and because many documents were scorched, knowledge was lost, and that is knowledge we did not regain until 1200 years later. And that is the loss. And Nick clearly describes in this video that it was the violent clashes that caused it, and therefore just as much the pagans fault as the Christians. Violence destroyed the libraries. Violence from both sides. And as for your criticism of Nick. I suggest you watch the video again. th-cam.com/video/NwUwjkEveBE/w-d-xo.htmlm42s
just saying it went for like 2 minutes which can really drag when it comes to audience retention. I like nick's videos and what he has to say but the intro need to be snipped down
I vehemently disagree. The new intro is fun, short, snappy and to the point. I ain't got the time or patience, honestly, to watch a 1 minute long intro for a show, over and over again. I've seen it once, I get it. I get the idea behind it, it's good intro. Just not appropriate for youtube and it's community.
Agora was a very beautiful movie of a very sad and dark era in human history. And I agree with you, it's very underestimated and underwatched! My only reservation about it is the "romanticized" way of Hyptia dying at the hands of a self-professed former lover. I do understand that the actual historical event is too gruesome and horrendous to be shown on screen, but people really needed to know about it. It is a real-life reminder of everything that goes wrong when blindness takes hold of the human mind and soul ! Also, your edit at the very end was .... marvelous. 👌
The ending of this movie never fails to make me cry. Starting from when she tells max Cyril has already won. His dogmatic ideas have already taken over. And then Davus showed her mercy, and learned to forgive.
The loss of the library wasn't the end of the world and did not hold us back technologically. Athens, Constantinople, Ctesiphon, etc. All had their own great libraries, and let's not forget that China was equally, if not even more advanced than the Middle East and Greece at the time.
It's what I like to call the "Library of Alexandria Fetish Syndrome", or LAFS. Which basically consists of the argument that 4th century Christians delayed the space age by destroying a temple with no books.
Imperator Caesar Divi Filius Augustus First of all, I am an atheist not a Christian. Second of all I am not trying to justify jack shit, I am merely stating facts. There was most likely no library in Alexandria at all in the 4th century.
The point nick is trying to make is that ideas taken to the extreme is harmful, he's not saying that every religion is bad because it is in the person not the idea who does what is right or wrong, this is not about Christianity or anything but rather about how extremism delays progress
Draco lord Theism leads people to deny or have trouble in new scientific advances, leaders try to squander and suppress advancement to keep their power and so no one questions their beliefs. Theism also makes people more likely to believe in ideas without any backing evidence, this hindering scientific advancement and make the scientific method seem not as necessary. In short theism breeds and supports ignorance, all while dividing us evermore due to religious zealotry.
@ Truth underlies all knowledge. One cannot claim to possess knowledge if it is based on false premises. A true Christian should value truth and not fear it because Christ himself claimed to be "the way, the truth, and the life." If Christ is not the truth and what he taught were lies, then as 1 Corinthians 15:19 surmises, Christians are "of all people most to be pitied." By the same token, if an atheist or a secularist claims that there is no truth or that all truth is relative, how can the same person make a respected "truthful" assertion about a Christian believer's ignorance. Indeed, such an extreme skeptical view of truth seems to originate from the same all-too-human reaction to "dangerous" ideas (truth assertions) that we see in this video - fear.
Wow some people don't get my point, what I said then is about the fact extremism whether it is religious or not is bad its not about religion is bad and science is good but rather not being able to question and challenge your beliefs is something a fanatic/extremist would do, its the person who determines and takes in his ideas, not the ideas itself that is the cause because people have understanding and people who misunderstand, misinterprets things.
Hypatia's father was a great parent! What an awesome Dad who recognized his daughter's passion and intelligence and who decided to encourage her instead of being subject to the prejudices of his time. I think parents today would do well to follow his example to promote critical thinking and challenge the irrational conventions of the day.
I agree I wish I had a father like that. At least we have ppl today that challenge conventional societal non-sense Candace Owens, matt Walsh, Ben Shapiro. Thank God.
if there was any, it was likely that they were mostly destroyed by all the destructions and renovations done for the past centuries, but yeah count me in on reading some grade A philosophy.
If the Library had never been destroyed, can you imagine where we would be today technologically? What a terrible waste. It frustrates and breaks my heart thinking "what if?".
The simplest thing to do is let it go, and accept focusing on the world as it is now and it could be, rather than endlessly theorizing what it could have been. But I understand your frustration, nonetheless.
Even if the library wouldn't been destroyed, christianity would have still oppressed of scientific studies and other beliefs. The correct thing to say is; What it Christianity and any other religion would have never grewn too dominative and aggressive that it would have not dictated people's lifes and beliefs, thus slowing down the scientific progress that humankind could have achieved, driving europe to the section of history named the 'dark ages'. One can still only wander and speculate what would have been the alternative course of history as there are so many affecting factors, but i personaly belief that without christianity ever forcibly rising to such dominative role through history, we'd definitely be living in a different kind of world.
@@Hukkavei yes without one of the absolute cornerstones of western civilization (Christianity) things would be quite different - but in what way - nobody can say
Just because knowledge exists doesn't mean it get accepted. It wasn't just the Christians who had problems with certain knowledge that didn't fit their worldview. Notice that we have large groups of people denying the efficacy of vaccines because it doesn't suit their particular view of science. My point being that was always take a step forward and two steps back as the human race.
Overall, a great review, but I must beg to differ on your opinions on the Dark Ages. A. As other commenters have pointed out, saying that we would be more technologically advanced today if Christianity hadn't hit the scene is simply false. Rome was on its way down due to a wide variety of factors that had little to do with what its state religion was. Not to mention the fact that, following the same logic, there are several other cultures in the world that should have technologically out-grown Europe by a wide margin during the Dark Ages. Which leads into my next point... B. The Dark Ages are not called that because science and technology ground to a complete halt. They're called that because there are very few records that survived the time period, so outside of major events, we don't really know much about what happened. In fact, many historians these days limit their use of the term or avoid using it altogether, specifically to prevent people getting the wrong idea about the time period. The majority of records we have from that time originated from Christian monastaries, which leads into my last point... C. Christians were actually the ones keeping philosophy, learning, and libraries alive during the Dark Ages via their monastaries. Monastic records form most of what we know about that time period, so it's inaccurate to say that Christianity was responsible for and helped maintain the Dark Ages. Furthermore, the actions taken by the Christians in the events of Agora, while reprehensible, do not represent the religion or it's followers as a whole. As other commenters have pointed out, there are several noted Christian scholars from this time period who you seem to have completely ignored. Now, I'm not saying that Christianity or its followers are or ever were perfect, but to suggest that they were almost single-handedly responsible for the Fall of Rome, and that they intentionally held European scientific progress back is patently absurd. Sorry, rant over, I just get really tired of people repeating these same tired old myths about the dark ages over and over. I really did enjoy the review other than that last bit and eagerly look forward to your next one.
I'm not the original author, but let me comment on a few points myself. "A. As other commenters have pointed out, saying that we would be more technologically advanced today if Christianity hadn't hit the scene is simply false. Rome was on its way down due to a wide variety of factors that had little to do with what its state religion was. Not to mention the fact that, following the same logic, there are several other cultures in the world that should have technologically out-grown Europe by a wide margin during the Dark Ages." I don't agree. First, Rome didn't fall suddenly one day, it lasted several centuries after the birth of Christianity: and yet in those four centuries and 3/4 there is not a single Christian scientist, strike that, there is no single Christian scientist for the first _eleven_ centuries of Christian history, why is that? I mean, for 4.75 centuries the Christian live _next_ to Pagan scientist and yet they do not produce a single scientist or discovery, why? Second, nobody ever said that always and everywhere the blame of the decline of science is to be put on Christianity, elsewhere (China, India, Islamic contries) there are other reasons; but as for Europe we _know_ that Christians were not intrested in science and technology, so we must put the blame on it. "B. The Dark Ages are not called that because science and technology ground to a complete halt. They're called that because there are very few records that survived the time period, so outside of major events, we don't really know much about what happened." Wrong, they were called "Dark Ages" because they were "darker" than the splendour of the Classic civilization, from a material and cultural point of view; so much that the little bounce in the age of Charlemagne is called "Carolingian _renaissance_", and not because they had more written records. Furthermore, it's true that we have many fewer records of that period than the previous one, yet we have no clue whatsoever that the material or cultural level of the Dark Ages were on par with those of the Classic period. "In fact, many historians these days limit their use of the term or avoid using it altogether, specifically to prevent people getting the wrong idea about the time period." Because it is an interesting period. But no historian claims that, again, the technological and cultural levels of the Early Middle Ages were on par with those of the Classic period. "C. Christians were actually the ones keeping philosophy, learning, and libraries alive during the Dark Ages via their monastaries. Monastic records form most of what we know about that time period, so it's inaccurate to say that Christianity was responsible for and helped maintain the Dark Ages. Furthermore, the actions taken by the Christians in the events of Agora, while reprehensible, do not represent the religion or it's followers as a whole. As other commenters have pointed out, there are several noted Christian scholars from this time period who you seem to have completely ignored. Now, I'm not saying that Christianity or its followers are or ever were perfect, but to suggest that they were almost single-handedly responsible for the Fall of Rome, and that they intentionally held European scientific progress back is patently absurd." Wrong on several accounts. 1) there is no single Christian scientist in the first eleven centuries of Christian history. Christian "scholars" were interested in theology, not science. That's why Christians preferred killing each other (and the Jews and the Pagans) as shown in Agora, rather than studying science. People like "St." Basil and "St." Augustine preferred the study of theology to that of astronomy and natural philosophy (i.e. science). 2) The vast majority of Ancient books has been lost because the Church was not interested in copying them; so if the Church takes credit for the books the monks preserved, it must also be blamed for the much greater number of books they did not copy because they were busy in copying the thousandth copy of the Bible, or because they were not interested in science. 3) A great number of ancient books we have _today_ comes from Eastern Mediterranean, Islamic or archeological finds; hell, even the original text of the New Testament had been lost by the monks, who kept copying the inferior Latin version! "Sorry, rant over, I just get really tired of people repeating these same tired old myths about the dark ages over and over." I'm sorry too, but even if many people know little about the Dark Ages, that does not mean they did not exist, nor that Christianity had nothing to do with their dislike for science.
I never stated that Rome fell in one day. In fact, I think my saying that it "was on its way down" would insinuate the opposite. The lack of interest in science and technology following the fall of Rome had little to do with Christianity and more to do with the fact that the dominant power in Europe had recently collapsed. In general, people were more focused on survival than the sciences. Those who could afford to explore the sciences had to prioritize pragmatism over the abstract. This lasted until Charlemagne (a Christian) founded the Holy Roman Empire and began the Carlignian Renaissance, during which he worked with Christian monks like Alcuin of York to expand education and the sciences. Also, you're saying there wasn't a single Christian scientist in it's first 1,100 years? In that time, there was Anthemius of Tralles, John Philoponus, Paul of Aegina, and St. Bede, to name a few. In the Dark Ages, there was a substantial movement within the church to learn from the Latin texts of Rome, however, Greek was largely considered the language of academia back in Roman times, and since ancient Greek had more-or-less been forgotten as a language by this point, things were difficult for early medieval scientists and philosophers. And while it is true that monasteries placed a greater emphasis on Christian texts than ancient Roman ones, it's not as if they abhorred the ancient texts or didn't value their wisdom.
"I never stated that Rome fell in one day. In fact, I think my saying that it "was on its way down" would insinuate the opposite. The lack of interest in science and technology following the fall of Rome had little to do with Christianity and more to do with the fact that the dominant power in Europe had recently collapsed." The reason why I underlined Rome did not fall in one day is that in the 450 from the birth of Christianity to the fall of the WRE Christianity gave no contribution to science. In a period in which we have Pagan scientists, we have no Christian ones. What's the reason for this? I say Christian disinterest in science. "In general, people were more focused on survival than the sciences. Those who could afford to explore the sciences had to prioritize pragmatism over the abstract." But when they did not need to focus on survival, they preferred to study a lot of theology and no science at all. Why is that? I say Christian disinterest in science. "This lasted until Charlemagne (a Christian) founded the Holy Roman Empire and began the Carlignian Renaissance, during which he worked with Christian monks like Alcuin of York to expand education and the sciences." Right. And yet the scientific production in the Carolingian Renaissance is close to nihil. Why is that? I say Christian disinterest in science. "Also, you're saying there wasn't a single Christian scientist in it's first 1,100 years? In that time, there was Anthemius of Tralles, John Philoponus, Paul of Aegina, and St. Bede, to name a few." THANK YOU! You are the first who can name a shred of Christian scientist before the 11th century! I've asked that countless times, and nobody could give me a single name! However, Anthemius and John lived before the beginning of the Dark Ages in the Eastern Roman Empire (something that happened a little later w.r.t the WRE), and I am not sure why you consider Paul and Bede scientists "In the Dark Ages, there was a substantial movement within the church to learn from the Latin texts of Rome, however, Greek was largely considered the language of academia back in Roman times, and since ancient Greek had more-or-less been forgotten as a language by this point, things were difficult for early medieval scientists and philosophers." I agree with that. Yet this had not been the case in the first 4.5 centuries of Christian history, and yet no Christian scientist exist from that age (that I know about, at least), why is that? Also, when the knowledge of Greek was fading in the West, people like Jerome did translate religious texts from Greek to Latin, but no scientific ones, why is that? I say Christian disinterest in science. "And while it is true that monasteries placed a greater emphasis on Christian texts than ancient Roman ones, it's not as if they abhorred the ancient texts or didn't value their wisdom." Yet let the majority of the books containing that wisdom to become dust. And don't forget that they even erased scientific books to write religious hymns on them!
A far more likely reason for the lack of contribution to science in the early days of Christianity is due to the fact that it was a relatively small religion (early on, at least) and prioritized defining and propagating itself over scientific pursuits (which are reasonable actions for a nascent religious organization to take). And, even in these early days, most authorities within the church did not have a problem with science and philosophy simply because they had pagan roots. In fact, one of the Church Fathers, Origen, actively promoted the reading of these texts. By the time of the Early Middle Ages, the Church was the primary driving force behind the creation of hospitals and handling medical care in the East, and in the west, clergy and monks constituted the vast majority of educated people. If there was such a disinterest in science, as you claim, then why would the church bother instructing its officials in anything more than reading Latin and knowing how to calculate holy days? Why would it bother trying to learn from ancient Greek and Latin texts? How could any of the scientists I have already mentioned have advanced in their respective fields? Not only did the Church aid in preserving knowledge during the early Middle Ages, but it was, by and large, responsible for the expansion of knowledge in Europe during this time and for much of time afterward. I provided multiple examples of Christians who did focus on science in addition to theology in the early medieval period, in addition to explaining that, while there was an interest within the church in learning from the ancients, the fact that ancient Greek had declined as a language prevented them from making as much headway as we've made in the years since. Given all this, I'm not sure where your arguments for a "Christian disinterest in science" are coming from. I'm also not sure why you describe the Carolignian Renaissance as having next-to-no scientific production, as it directly contributed to the High Middle Ages and subsequent renaissance (unless you're arguing that those would've happened regardless of the CR). I'm not sure what bearing the fact that Anthemius and John lived before the Dark Ages has on anything; you specifically asked for Christian scientists who lived before 1100 AD, not Christian scientists of the Dark Ages. To answer the question of why I included them, Paul of Aegina developed many surgical techniques and authored the Medical Compendium in Seven Books, which was a definitive book on the subject of medicine for hundreds of years. St. Bede focused primarily on the natural world, making discoveries on the nature of mathematics, astronomy, and tides. You're moving the goalposts from 1,100 years to 450 years? Alright, in that case, I would point out that Christianity was an officially persecuted religion until 313 AD, so for most of the time period you mentioned, it's doubtful that any Christian scientists who may have existed would have publicly declared themselves as such. Additionally, Jerome lived long before the time period we're talking about; though if I had to hazard a guess at his intentions, I would assume that he didn't foresee the decline of ancient Greek as a language, and therefore saw no reason to translate other ancient texts. Given the subtle mutability inherent to the nature of language, I don't think this is an outlandish assumption to make. I could only find one instance of Christian monks overwriting ancient texts with hymns and prayers (specifically concerning Archimedes Palimpsest), so I can only assume that this was an extremely rare occurrence. I also found no direct evidence to substantiate your claim that monks "let the majority of the books containing wisdom to become dust." Could you provide some?
". If there was such a disinterest in science, as you claim, then why would the church bother instructing its officials in anything more than reading Latin and knowing how to calculate holy days? Why would it bother trying to learn from ancient Greek and Latin texts? How could any of the scientists I have already mentioned have advanced in their respective fields?" If there was so much interest in science, why so few scientists? If Origen suggested to study science, why not a single Christian scientist in the West and so few and so late (w.r.t. Origen) in the East? "the fact that ancient Greek had declined as a language prevented them from making as much headway as we've made in the years since" The Christian you cited were all Eastern Romans, they actually knew Greek because it was their language. So why so few scholars? "Alright, in that case, I would point out that Christianity was an officially persecuted religion until 313 AD, so for most of the time period you mentioned, it's doubtful that any Christian scientists who may have existed would have publicly declared themselves as such." So you are claiming there were Christian scientists, but we simply don't know they were Christians, right? This position has several problems 1) we know of several Christians, who had no problems to make their faith known, yet _none_ of them is a scientist or shows any interest in science 2) Christianity was persecuted, yes, but persecution wasn't so strong, if it grew to become the religion of 15% of the population by 313 3) once it became a legal religion and then the official religion, we have no news of scientists coming out of the shadows to reveal they were Christians "Jerome lived long before the time period we're talking about; though if I had to hazard a guess at his intentions, I would assume that he didn't foresee the decline of ancient Greek as a language, and therefore saw no reason to translate other ancient texts." Yet he felt the need to translate the Bible, why? Either he perceived that Greek knowledge in the West was not in danger, then why did he translate the Bible, or he thought fewer and fewer people knew that language, then why did he (or other people like him) did not translate scientific books into Latin? "I also found no direct evidence to substantiate your claim that monks "let the majority of the books containing wisdom to become dust." Could you provide some?" Sure. We have the list of the books in the library of Photius, who was a Christian bishop at the beginning of the age in which Christians had the monopoly of culture; and we know he did possess several books we have not (I believe we miss most of his library). So Christian copiers of the age (they must be Christians because there were only Christians at the time) did not copy those books. We have books from late Antiquity(I'm thinking about the Deipnosophistae) which list books from authors that were available at a time in which there were many Christians, yet none of them arrived to our age. We know of Pagan Roman senators producing critical editions of books such as the Stories of Livy, and we know several of those books got lost. We have several books of science of which we have the first volumes but not the last, for example... and so on.
The True Gamer What do you mean by gone? Because the so-called Dark Ages only referred to Western Europe. Eastern Europe was doing alright and Asia was continuing as before. I mean fuck Chinas golden age was taking place then. Unless you think the world is nothing without Europe then there were no years lost technologically.
I think you over estimate how advanced we would be without the dark ages. After all large regions of the world with advanced societies, such as China for an example, were outside of the dark ages but were not centuries ahead of Europe technologically.
Quite right.. and in fact technological and scientific development in Europe continued after the fall of the Western Empire. The moldboard plough for example spread across northern Europe in the 5th or 6th century and three field agriculture developed around this time as well.
Shipmill was also invent in Western Europe by that time as well. Discovery of how rainbow occurs was noticed by clergymen also. The revival of classical knowledges was very in-vogue for so called 'Dark ages'.
The term "Dark Ages" is one that academics refuse to use. The proper term is "Early Middle Ages". One school of thought says that the period wasn't "dark" at all and cites stuff like Gothic architecture, tapestries, and universities as examples why. Another group says that they were only "dark" when compared to Rome and Greece. Neither side will blame Christianity for any kind of technological slow down. If anything the blame for that rests on the shoulders of the Roman government, who feared new tech falling into the hands of barbarians.
Whilst you are right in your statement. Still a LOT of knowledge was lost in those times with the destruction of those places of learning, so there was some inpact. If Alexandria was still going as strong as in the earlier days. A lot of things could have gone differently. But we can never be sure now.
Yeah, but if we had no dark ages, we would have advanced much further. Think of it this way. Until the dark ages, everyone was pretty much evenly matched, with the West having quite a bit of an advantage. The dark ages were exactly that, stagnation and death. The rest of the world was insulated from that, so they kept going. But even the progress of societies such as early Islam even, are due TO the west because of figures like Aristotle and other greeks whose writings survived.
Also many don't know that The Visigoths that conquered Spain were among the most enlightened Catholics of their time. When they gave up Arian Christianity for Catholicism, despite King Liuvigild and his son Reccared were not very educated, as they were "barbarian" nomads finally settling a region. Taking up old cities and constructing new ones. They cultivated the sciences WITH IN the Church, it's how we got guys like Isidore of Seville writing detailed histories and cultivating academia in the Church academies like the one in Seville that a lot of ancient knowledge was saved and built upon, when the Muslims arrived in Spain they would take this foundation further and build world famous academies and produce some of the most influential thinkers in history such as Averroes. Just interesting how people forget or overlook periods such as the Visigothic rule of Spain yet so much of interest happened there, things that shaped world history happening far from where we might think at that time.
Wasn't Cyril the pope of the Coptic church though, not the Catholic church? Catholicism far as I'm aware, aside from stuff like the Inquisition and their treatment of the Cathars has usually been the more tolerant when it comes to philosophy and science. So that doesn't surprise me. What the movie was trying to get across though is the clash between I guess Religious fundamentalism, and philosophy and science. Least that's what it seemed like to me.
Cordoba at the time of Muslim rule was one of the most educated places in the world. Atleast before the rebellions started that split up the emirate and all the other shit afterwards. I hope someone makes a serie about that time. From the Visigoths, the Muslims, the reconquista. In the hands of a good director it could be so interesting.
The Inquisition was far greater and better behaved that most people believe. At that time there wasn't a Schism between the seets, so they were (and still are) Coptic Catholics. There is not one piece of historical reference to support the idea that Cyril was being inflamatory. On the contrary, he was defending his people from jewish and pagan mobs.
meh, inquisition was one of the plagues made by us, but... to be fair, they saved more "witches" that they burn. Catholic church, with some (big) exceptions has been a force of good
LOVED that movie, it's gorgeous visually, musically, and complex and devoid of hate towards whichever side in its plot. It may be not fully historical regarding Hypatia, but it's still one of the best antique movies ever made in my opinions. And yes, not at all known enough ! Thanks for this beautiful review.
+History Buffs Your end statement makes this one of your poorer reviews, you claim this set human advancement back centuries. What proof do you have? As a history buff you must of realized knowledge and ideas are lost and rediscovered throughout human civilization and know that in the end it is all for naught. Yes the steam engine was invented hundreds of years ago but what use was it to humanity then when slaves were cheap and accessible and such technological advancement were just expensive experiments. Your review becomes more speculation than a look at facts, the reason I subbed to you was to get the facts not what could have been, that's what alternative histories channel is for.
Totally subbed. I always get shifty eyed when a film/show gets released based on "real events". Always doing my own digging to see how accurate it all was? Love knowing there's a channel that not only supports the film's art but points out the blatant inaccuracies made b/c Hollywood =p Interesting stuff and much appreciated, man =D
+Albert Veisman That was highly informative and worries me as I like Nick and his efforts to educate us and correct the mistakes made in his film reviews. Thanks for this informative comment.
@@crassus300 Islam is exception. Can you tell me how Islam vanished science. On the contrary, islam boosted science with several scholars like Biruni in ıts early ages. After the mongol and curasader invasions, scientific studies were diseppeared thanks to christianity again. Who us in charge???
@@mehmetsadinkara705 Islam is not an exception. The "golden" age of islam is extremely overrated. It was also a very brief period of time. Islam has a very bloody and oppressive history
All of them have exceptions Christianity has the renaissance Islam has the Golden Age and Judaism the period before Rome but all have there Dark ages literally Islam has things like Daesh and the Taliban while Christians have fanatics that hate things shown in the movie and the dark ages and Jews hated Early Christians
@@mehmetsadinkara705 What are you on about? The Islamic golden age was only kickstarted by Al-Ma'mun, who translated Anicient Greek philosophy. Only after the Abbasid Caliphate collapsed, all of the progress was reduced to naught after Al-Ghazali started to condemn Aristotle's teachings. Ever since then it has considered any form of science as Haram.
Really happy to see Agora up and running again, so I can enjoy it now as well! Really loved your review. Can I pose a mild point of critique? I'm weary about calling the 800 years after the fall of the Roman Empire the 'Dark Ages'. I could see why the Migration Period would be called such, because of it's destructive impact on established society. But to call all of the European Middle Ages 'Dark Ages' is very ignorant in my opinion. It's true much ancient knowledge was lost with the collapse of the Western Roman Empire (though much more had been lost already before this point), but the Medieval period was not completely backwards. Many important discoveries and inventions were made, and some ancient knowledge was rediscovered, or combined into new concepts. At first this was driven by the flourishing Islamic culture and territories, but later on also in Europe. There were several periods during the Middle Ages who have later been called 'renesainces' and many important inventions and concepts were created which had huge impacts on society (to give one example: the heavy plough). And in fact, what we now call 'The Renesaince' would not have existed the way we know it without the centuries of collective learning of humanity preceding it. Many times I think we call it The Renesaince mainly because the spreading of ideas was quicker because of books becoming cheaper and therewith more knowledge was preserved and collective learning was stimulated that way. But the view that the centuries preceding it were backwards and religion posed a thread to the progress of knowledge is an oversimplification at best. Btw, you are making the point you didn't like the vicar making of Science -vs- Religion here yourself, which weakens your own point against his critique unnecessarily. I agree with your original point against the vicar that the movie isn't about Science -vs- Religion, and similarly you should overall not look at Science and Religion as opposing powers. It's unnecessarily polarizing and almost exclusively leads to destructive discussions. I also don't like the term Dark Ages, because Hollywood has formed it into the dark and gritty, brown, black and grey medieval look most people falsly attach to the Middle Ages. Actually I'm a bit disappointed by your use of the term. Which I say with all due respect, because I really appreciate how sophisticated you often review historically inspired media! Best wishes from The Netherlands!
Interesting all fine points indeed. But you must admit, there were a few centuries (Perhaps not 800) but a few that Western Europe did trail a bit behind in terms of knowledge and such compared to other places at the time. Some members of the Churches' became corrupt and their hold on the many peasants lives a further degradation. Yes indeed from the Rennisances to the few who saw beyond what was and studied and researched more its not as many thing. But Medieval Europe compared to other places was a downgrade after the Fall of Rome.
First off, I really appreciate your input. I hope you don't take my next comment as an attempt to take down yours. I'm passionate about open discussion. Well, you do make the assumption here that paesants' lives were much better in antiquity than in medieval times. I don't want to make that assumption without further reference. There were times during this long period at which life could be tough, but I don't think a loss of ancient knowledge has caused this. In fact it could well be argued that some of the big problems in Medieval Europe were caused by the progression of technology and the increase in agricultural yields and consequental population increase (or decrease when the carrying capacity was reached) which could have profound economical effects affecting standards of living. What I would want to admit is that the Migration Period was very disruptive. And maybe there was some knowledge loss. But my feeling is, from the things I've read, that it wasn't as much a backward place and period as is often portrayed and in the minds of many contemporary people. I think one of the problems is we don't know as much about the period, because source material is rather scarce. This is true for the 500-1000 AD period. And theirafter main sources are often chroniclers, which often made very 'coloured' accounts. We simply don't have the same quality of sources we have for antiquity and this can potentially blur and distort our image to great extents. The scarcity of preserved source material for these centuries often makes people feel like this was an empty or downgrade period. Let me stress I'm no expert. I did a subsidiary subject in my Biology study about Medieval Europe, but besides that I'm an amateur historian at best. Still I know for sure we should be careful to put names on periods that can easily and quickly paint our views on such periods. There is another assumption in your statement of members of Church becoming corrupt. Namely that in other periods the amount of corruption was significantly less and something inherent about the so called 'Dark Ages' caused members of the Clergy to become corrupt. I think corruption is of all ages. I really doubt if any priest in antiquity couldn't be just as corrupt. And I want to stress the Catholic church was not against science in the way we often portray it. Science was in that time not even a concept as we have it today. The whole attitude towards knowledge was incredibly different from ours, and it is hard to empathize. This also makes it incredibly hard to imagine how a time was compared to any other, especially one we are very familiar with (our modern society). I think it's a bit problematic to measure knowledge and what inventions/developments/knowledge is worth more than any other. How do you compare the invention of the movable type (China 1040) with the Allegory of the Cave by Plato? What would the impact have been if certain concepts weren't discovered at a certain time? What other things might be impacted that would have progressed later, or in other ways? Would this possibly have opened a vacuum for other concepts to be explored? How are all of these things painted by what we still use today? What about concepts that we deem less, while maybe it could prove very valuable in ways we cannot imagine? And often the Church was a centerpoint in the gathering of knowledge. Throughout the Middle Ages the copying of books by monks was the main source of information spreading, and this was pivotal in the transgression of Eastern and Arabian knowledge to the west. Furthermore universities are originally institutes of the Church. Yes the Church could be picky, so to say, in some areas of knowledge. But without even noticing, probably so are we today. And the inquisition, oftentimes popping in mind when thinking about the Church being opposed to science somehow, was maybe more a political than a religious or anti-scientific phenomena. The inquisition became what we think of it today at the end of the Middle Ages, as a reaction to the Protestant-Reformation. Before that it was mostly another justice department like any other in that world. Not the fundamentalist institute it would become and what we remember now. The Church did not claim a monopoly to knowledge, it did step forward as an institute to pose and give meaning to certain things. Today we maybe don't have an institute comparable to that. We don't really have any institute actively determining this. We have scientific consensus. But in a time where communication wasn't as quick, it would be highly cumbersome to figure out what the consensus on certain things could be. Imagine we would not be able to communicate as instantly as we can today, how do we give meaning to all the things everybody is shouting into this world? Why would the scientist in your village be less right than the one living on the other side of the sea/mountains? And think about language barriers scattering communication. This is where the Church would play an important role to the society. It would provide an alternative for consensus in determining what to value and what not. Of course the Middle Ages weren't as scientific as our contemporary society. But I honestly think that by using names like Dark Ages, especially when referring to periods multiple times larger as what we now think of as the modern age, is dangerous; because it prevents us to keep an open view and to keep looking and digging deeper.
Western Europe perhaps. Eastern Europe remained virtually the same considering the Roman Empire was still there. Spain and Italy would also have a very good literary culture during the early middle ages. Not to mention the Carolingian Renaissance in the 8th-9th century.
JuanHans Oh do not worry I didn't take your statement that way as all, I am practically breathing a sigh of relief that I can have an actual intellectual discussion without some mouth breathing internet moron yelling about inaccurate and incorrect historical facts that they know nothing about. Yes yes and yes you are very correct on most of your statements. I too believe that catch all phrase the dark ages is not the correct phrase to represent the time period. I believe it gained traction as some historians and some people attempted to show off a "Superiority complex" in how advanced Europe was compared to other groups or religions at the times and some respond by generalizing some instances of the time periods of Medieval Europe. It all came down to accusations and finger pointing that spread from what I saw but it was inaccurate overall. I was mainly saddened by the time Europe was in during the First Crusade and their actions in Jerusalem and Constantinople, the latter being a city filled with universities, museums, and the like and a large portion of the Crusaders having no idea what they even were and destroying them. I get sad I imagine the utter destruction of human knowledge in these pointless conflicts, whether it was the Great Library of Alexandria, the Great Library of Constantinople, and of course the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, the burning of a book intentionally to destroy information should be a crime in my personal opinion. I weep for all of the ancient things getting destroyed by those ISIS bastards. . .
The film contains numerous historical inaccuracies:[10][254][256] It inflates Hypatia's achievements[149][256] and incorrectly portrays her as having discovered proof to support Aristarchus of Samos's heliocentric model of the universe, which there is no evidence that Hypatia ever even studied.[149] It also contains a scene based on the final episode from Carl Sagan's Cosmos in which a mob of Christians raid the Serapeum and burn all of the scrolls in it, but leave the building itself largely intact, aside from knocking over a few statues. In historical reality, the Serapeum probably did not have any scrolls in it at the time of its destruction[c] and the Christians completely demolished the building to the ground.[10] The film also strongly implies that Hypatia is an atheist, a notion directly contradictory to the surviving sources, which all portray her as a devoted follower of the teachings of Plotinus, who taught that the goal of philosophy was "a mystical union with the divine."[
Hi Nick I just want to say that I love your reviews and find them most informative and entertaining. However, while I think you worked really hard and are very passionate on this review, I think that your review misinterprets a few of the facts. For example their were many early Catholic Neapolitans such as Agustin of Hippo who in his writting called Confessions he talked about his love for Roman and Greek Rhetoric and Philosophy and was educated in Carthage. I also want to point out that while their are cases in this time when Early Christians destroyed pagan items and buildings that in this particular case it is debated wether or not the temple of the Serapeum was destroyed by Roman soldiers or Christians. Hahn: Gewalt und religiöser Konflikt. p.82. Again thanks for making these reviews, just trying to give some polite friendly criticism from one passionate history buff to another.
Thank you Thomas, I completely understand your reservations. I also came across the story of the Serapeum being destroyed by either Roman soldiers or by a mob of Christians. Unfortunately I was unable to find more evidence supporting the soldiers attacking but at the end of the day they both seemed to have had the blessing of Theodosius. I made a choice to lean towards the Christian mob account Also another story I came across was that Muslims might have responsible for the destruction of the library or at least an incarnation of it. However I don't believe it. Not because I don't believe they are capable of doing such a thing but from the colorful language they used in the sources. Like the fact the fact the library burned day and night for six months, which sounds like complete rubbish to me. I didn't mention it because of time constraints. If I had any regrets with this review, it was that I didn't go into further detail with my statement of the Dark Ages. Now in my opinion I view the time after the Fall of the Roman Empire a darker age. The standard of living went down as well literacy. The world in the eyes of the common man became smaller and the Church was the dominant institution that regulated what was okay and what was not okay. However that doesn't mean that there was no progress being made at all otherwise we never would have progressed as a civilization. There were monks who preserved ancient text and the Byzantine Empire still kept the tradition of libraries going and etc. Now why did I not go into further detail about this? Because I was wrapping up a review that was long enough as it is and I didn't realize that me calling the middle ages the dark ages would be so controversial. So in future I am going to try and be as specific as possible. In any case this is just my opinion and I would highly encourage any one interested in this period to research more into this and draw your own conclusions. It truly is fascinating stuff. But in any case Thomas thank you very much for criticizing my video in a friendly and polite way. I welcome discussions of this to be made in the comment section in exactly the same manner you executed. Personally I prefer these sort of comments rather than people telling me to change the intro lol :)
Wow I did not expect you to personally respond. (: Thank you for your response it means a lot. It also proves that you really put your money where your mouth is. You are right it is just like Hypatia said in the movie. We have more in common than we have differences. And I think it can also be said that in God's eyes all men are brothers. If you ever get the chance could you do me a favor and review the Scarlett and the Black?
Nick, IMO, you probably would have gotten a bit less flak if you hadn't explicitly claimed that the Dark Ages lasted 800 years. And you also stated things as facts which were at best speculation (that is, that Serapeum still contained a remnant of the library at the time of its destruction).
Actually I think that papyrus would burn very quickly. I am with Nick so far as I agree that the remains of the library was probably gone long before the Islamic conquests.
27:00 The first invention of the steam engine was seen as useless, because it was a labor saving device. What use is there in a labor saving device in a society based on slavery. Those in power have no use for labor saving, as the slaves perform all the labor.
19:30 My god, the way his voice shakes as he says that Ceril won was like reading a story and finding out the villain wins. What an unfair, evil world we make.
@@ASTROPLANET13 THERE was a woman at Alexandria named Hypatia, daughter of the philosopher Theon, who made such attainments in literature and science, as to far surpass all the philosophers of her own time. Having succeeded to the school of Plato and Plotinus, she explained the principles of philosophy to her auditors, many of whom came from a distance to receive her instructions. On account of the self-possession and ease of manner, which she had acquired in consequence of the cultivation of her mind, she not unfrequently appeared in public in presence of the magistrates. Neither did she feel abashed in coming to an assembly of men. For all men on account of her extraordinary dignity and virtue admired her the more. Yet even she fell a victim to the political jealousy which at that time prevailed. For as she had frequent interviews with Orestes, it was calumniously reported among the Christian populace, that it was she who prevented Orestes from being reconciled to the bishop. Some of them therefore, hurried away by a fierce and bigoted zeal, whose ringleader was a reader named Peter, waylaid her returning home, and dragging her from her carriage, they took her to the church called Caesareum, where they completely stripped her, and then murdered her with tiles. After tearing her body in pieces, they took her mangled limbs to a place called Cinaron, and there burnt them. This affair brought not the least opprobrium, not only upon Cyril, but also upon the whole Alexandrian church. And surely nothing can be farther from the spirit of Christianity than the allowance of massacres, fights, and transactions of that sort. This happened in the month of March during Lent, in the fourth year of Cyril's episcopate, under the tenth consulate of Honorius, and the sixth of Theodosius. Translation as in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers From Socrates scholasticus who lived near her
Thanks man. Although I would highly recommend you research more into it. Unfortunately this is a complicated period of history and I had to condense a lot of it within 30minutes. However it is fascinating stuff. Wish you the best of luck 😃
Firstly, I'm thrilled I found your channel! I am certainly looking forward to watching more of your content! Fantastically done video, and I too love this film. I do think it could've been a bit more nuanced tho with regards to the Pagan vs Christian tension, which I found to be very balck-and-white (literally, the Christians almost exclusively wear black). The parabalani were viewed as radicals even by the majority of the Christians at the time, and many Christian aristocrats sent their children to Hypatia to be taught. One thing I think does need to be clarified tho. You cited Tertullian as evidence of the church's apparent disdain for classical philosophy. Tertullian was condemned himself as a heretic by the church, which very much respected classical philosophy, particularly Socrates and Aristotle. That today we still have the records of ancient philosophers is thanks to the Christian monks who transcribed them.
@@Abhishek-sr2pu to a certain extent perhaps but the work done by monks and other Christian scholars over the centuries, including those supposed Dark Ages, is the main reason why these records survived.
@@NorthStar8211 It seems more like most of the records maintained by the Christians had more to do with history and Christian philosophy. The vast majority of classic knowledge was preserved by the Muslim world. It only returned to Europe during the Renaissance - Hence "rebirth".
Good new for you, the internet exists and so does most of that knowledge and more. Keep the soul as i'm afraid it's existence is just as your willingness to learn, is not existent.
As a Christian... this film is entirely valid as a piece against fundamentalism... but I very much feel that the film is NOT about Christianity in the modern world.
When you mentioned the Guy that said that the earth moved around the sun, I spend An hour reading about him. (And plutarch talking about a face on the Moon.)
a TRUELY enlightnening episode...and one I wasn't expecting!....BRAVO for the brainy side!...It's too bad you can't wander in on deeper stuff like this more often Nick....quite refreshing!!!!
I've never seen Agora, but I'm going to say my new headcanon for The Mummy series is that Hypatia is one of Evie's past lives and explains her love of books. I do want to push back against the idea of "the dark ages". Astrolabes, eyeglasses, the compass, mechanical clocks, and tidal mills were all either invented or adopted in Europe during the time that we call the "Dark Ages". Were there issues? Absolutely. But technological, science, advancement didn't stop.
I was rather disappointed with this episode, particularly presenting Tertullian as the sole voice of the Christians and overlooking other prominent christian leaders. It's just not true, and ultimately Tertullian's vision did not win out (at least in Christian groups like Catholic and Orthodox). Augustine of Hippo lived at the same time in North Africa and was himself at one point a pagan who eventually became Christian. His view stands in stark contrast to Tertullian. Platonism was inherent in Christian understanding until Thomas Aquinas introduced Aristotelian thought to the Church in the late middle ages when Islamic texts made their way to Europe. Dark ages is a loaded term. The narrative is so cliche- the Church took control of Europe and suppressed knowledge that didn't conform to it. It's just not true, at least to the extent portrayed. It somehow never gets mentioned that it was monks who continued to write down Plato's works. The Carolingian and Merovingian Renaissance are seldom mentioned. The first Universities in Europe were sponsored by the Church. Incredible works of Philosophy were produced at this time as well from John Duns Scotus, Thomas Aquinas, Anselm of Canterbury, etc. Hardly Dark.
whilst the fall of the Roman empire and the rejection of their learning did affect technology, science still bloomed in Africa and Asia too but they also soon fell to fundamentalism as europe once had
In Timbuktu : They made use of the Julian Calendar. Generally speaking, they had a helio-centric view of the solar system. Diagrams of planets and orbits made use of complex mathematical calculations. Developed algorithm that accurately orient Timbuktu to Mecca. They recorded astronomical events, including a meteor shower in August 1583.
Ibrahim Hirsi you made me smile. Thanks. I'm very happy that you are a proud African as every black man and woman should be. Africans were builders of great and greater civilizations and builders of ancient monuments that modern science can't even reproduce. I honestly have no idea how for so long in our modern world people even begin to question if Africa had ancient civilizations and wealth and believe it to be a backwards place. I would go as far as to say Ancient Africans were civilized to the marrow of their bones and as modern Africans we should aspire to reach that height as the ancients did
Well according to historical sources, the Serapis statue in Serapeum of Alexandria was made of wood, not bronze. Tyrannius Rufinus in his work "Historia ecclesiastica", 2: 23 says: "One of the soldiers, better protected by faith than by his weapon, grabs a double-edged axe, steadies himself and, with all his might, hits the jaw of the old statue. Hitting the worm-eaten wood, blackened by the sacrificial smoke, many times again, he brings it down piece by piece, and each is carried to the fire that someone else has already started, where the dry wood vanishes in flames."
The fire didn't reach the Library in 46 BCE, that didn't happen. Historia Civilis has proof that proves otherwise, watch his video on the Siege of Alexandria
This is the first episode where I've found myself significantly disagreeing with the opinion, and this is an anticlerical atheist speaking. The view reflected in this movie and developed in this video is an extremely outdated and reductive one. Blaming the very real and catastrophic loss of knowledge of the ancient world on fanatic early Christians hostile to culture is a staple of Enlightenment-era and 19th-century anticlericalism, and this modern rerun of that ideology is more due to the current obscurantism of jihadi groups than any academic research. So let me go on a rant about 6 years too late: The destruction of knowledge and artefacts of worship was part of the long and difficult process that was the transition between Greco-Roman polytheism and Christianity within the crisis of the end of the ancient world and the beginning of the Middle Ages. Pagans and Christians, as depicted in the movie, both committed acts of destruction against the other faith's culture. There is some evidence that early Church figure chose not to preserve some pagan texts they deemed irreconcilable with the faith. However, the violence wasn't permanent or a staple of Christian doctrine throughout the period, and the fact that some upper-class Christian authors or bishops legitimized and encouraged those practices in some texts should not be understood to be the attitude of all Christians. In fact, it can be argued that a great deal of knowledge was preserved by Christian scribes and monks transcribing ancient texts or elites collecting books and artifacts. Most Christian clerics were classically trained and were imbued with this Greco-Roman culture, and a great deal wanted to preserve it. However, the shifting times and political instability of the late Roman world made it difficult to maintain the institutions and methods charged with preserving the fragile materials that made up books and papyri. From invasion to civil war to economic crises, the late Antiquity and early Middle Ages lost the centrality of power and surplus of wealth necessary to devote an entire class of people to the preservation of things that weren't either materially useful or relevant to current religious affairs. Once again, as an anticlerical AND a student of history, I believe it is wrong to perpetuate a myth about what happened back then that is more based on our current demons than actual historical truths.
Perhaps as a myth then, it helps us address these demons we are currently facing? On the face of that alone, I can forgive the errors here. Especially as a member of a minority religion who has been threatened with physical violence before.
@@NorthForkFisherman I will always be reluctant with a piece of media or art that alters history in a significant way (I don't have a problem if there's no exact recreation of Napoleon's battle tactics to be honest) to serve a certain worldview, even if I'm partial to it, as I am here. Because if a movie can say early Christians were knowledge-destroying fanatics to parallel with modern Islamists and condemn obscurantism (which I agree with), then what's to stop religious cineasts from making a movie about how the French Revolution's leaders ALL were bloodthirsty atheists who wanted to erase religion from existence and killed hundreds of thousands of priests? See, again, exaggerating and altering historical fact to serve a political agenda.
@@samrevlej9331 But the acts of vandalism in this move did actually happen, did they not? You seem well educated on this subject and I believe what you said, but even though many elites may have sought to preserve Greco-Roman knowledge, is it not true that among the uneducated masses, the Christians of the time were far more hostile to the existence or tolerance of other religions and any ideas associated with them than were the Pagans? After all the Roman pagans lived in peace with a variety of peoples worshipping multiple different pantheons for centuries.
Here’s a summary of the violence that early Christians directed towards various sects and groups, including specific instances and evidence: ### **1. Gnostics** - **Persecution by Early Orthodox Christians**: Early Church Fathers like Irenaeus and Hippolytus wrote extensively against Gnostic sects such as the Valentinians and Sethians. They accused Gnostics of heresy and deceit. While much of this was through theological dispute, there are records of physical violence as well. For instance, the “Clementine Recognitions” describes the violent suppression of Gnostic practices in the early 3rd century. ### **2. Montanists** - **Suppression and Excommunication**: The Montanists faced significant hostility from mainstream Christians. The orthodox Church denounced Montanist practices as heretical. Tertullian, initially a supporter, was later excommunicated from the mainstream Church. This excommunication reflects the broader trend of marginalization and potential violence against Montanists, although direct evidence of physical violence is less documented. ### **3. Manichaeans** - **Persecution by Roman Authorities**: Manichaeism faced persecution not only from Christian authorities but also from the Roman Empire. Emperor Diocletian and later Constantine targeted Manichaeans as part of their broader campaign against non-orthodox religions. In the 4th century, Manichaean texts were burned and adherents were punished, reflecting state-sanctioned violence against them. ### **4. Novatians** - **Violence and Suppression**: Novatianism was considered a schism from the mainstream Church. As such, Novatians faced repression from the established Church. In the mid-3rd century, the Church’s efforts to suppress Novatianists included excommunication and social ostracism. While direct violence is less recorded, the ecclesiastical and social pressure exerted was significant. ### **Interactions with Romans and Egyptians** 1. **Destruction of Pagan Temples**: - **Serapeum in Alexandria**: In 391 CE, Christian mobs, incited by Bishop Theophilus, destroyed the Serapeum, a major pagan temple in Alexandria. This act of violence was both religiously and politically motivated, reflecting the intense conflict between Christians and pagans in Egypt. 2. **Conflict with Egyptian Pagans**: - **Theophilus’s Actions**: Theophilus of Alexandria led efforts to suppress pagan practices, which included violent actions against temples and pagan rituals. His efforts were part of a broader campaign to enforce Christian orthodoxy and were accompanied by physical violence against pagan worshippers. 3. **Persecution of Heretical Groups**: - **Theodosius I and Heretics**: Emperor Theodosius I (reigned 379-395 CE) enforced Nicene orthodoxy through laws that persecuted groups like the Arians. Theodosius's edicts led to the suppression and marginalization of non-Nicene Christians, often involving violence and property destruction. These examples illustrate how early Christians, especially as they gained power and institutional authority, often resorted to violence against those they deemed heretical or opposed. The evidence for these actions comes from historical accounts, Church writings, and records of imperial edicts.
That montage at the end, especially that conclusion, it genuinely put a tear in my eye. I feel ashamed that I had the chance to see this film when it came out and didn’t take the chance.
While the movie does depict most things accurately, I do think that the afterword founded on Tertullian is rather unwarranted, especially since Tertullian believed in fideism, namely that one should not use reason to make conclusions, a position that the majority of theologians rejected. Also, the idea that science and religion were incompatible throughout the "dark ages" is false. Modern historians such as James Hannam, Philip Jenkins and Rodney Stark, not to mention a slew of lesser known ones have done much to point this out in very readable works. Also, let's not forget the later attempts by sensitive monks to preserve ancient knowledge by translating not only Greek and Roman texts, but Eastern ones as well. It is far too easy to paint history in broad brushstrokes.
The greek and roman texts that were preserved by the christians, were those that did not contradict much their own teachings. Thus about 3% of ancient books and works survived.....not a good score indeed...
The irrational belief in imaginary supernatural beings is what makes religion incompatible with science. And that isn't the fault of science. While the scraps of knowledge that survived the Christian and Islamic purges persisted DESPITE religion and not BECAUSE of it.
@@takispapas9887 Stop regurgitating lies. The reason why lots of texts haven’t survived for over 1500 years is because it is extremely time consuming and extremely expensive to preserve all texts. They could only persevere ones that were the most popular like Homer, Plato and Virgil. Obviously they couldn’t preserve everything for over a thousand years! 90% of old films that were made haven’t survived for even more than a century. Why do you think that is? *Martin Scorsese's Film Foundation claims that "half of all American films made before 1950 and over 90% of films made before 1929 are lost forever." Deutsche Kinemathek estimates that 80-90% of silent films are gone; the film archive's own list contains over 3,500 lost films.*
@@joellaz9836 False assumption due to ignorance. It is well known that most of ancient texts, were easily preserved throughout antiquity, that is from around 700 BCE to roughly 500 CE. For about 1200 years. Because ancient scholars wanted to preserve them. That was not the case after christianity took over. The lack of preservation was intended. For example, we do have quite many works by Plato, who was considered by christians somewhat close to their beliefs and way of thinking. We have less than 3% of Aristotle's works today, because christians considered his works "dangerous". He used logic and reason you see. They just didn't dare, despite their medieval fanatism, to scrap all ancient wisdom. They saved the most "helpful" works. In fact , the dark middle ages era, was a consequence of christianity. And it , very slowly, gave way exactly when it was forced to stop its despotism over people, thinkers and scientists. The films analogy is just stupid.
@@takispapas9887 Also I don’t see how you can say Christians thought Aristotle was evil. And you also know nothing about the Middle Ages, which is typical. Middle Ages Europe preferred Aristotle over Plato and nearly all medieval universities were based on studying him. Thomas Acquinas, who is one of the most revered Christian philosophers was influenced by Aristotle above all else. Plato wasn’t even reintroduced into Europe until the near fall of Constantinople by the Greeks. I think you must be a very ignorant person when it comes to history, especially since you just called all of the Middle Ages ‘the dark ages’ which is very wrong. Did you know the first structure to surpass the pyramid of Giza in height was the Lincoln cathedral, which was completed in 1300AD. Yes the first structure to surpass the pyramid of Giza in height, which was created in 4500 years ago, was not Greek or Roman structure but a medieval cathedral. How can you call such people who built such magnificent architecture (even more advanced than what the Geeks and Romans ever built) to be living in the dark ages? You are very ignorant indeed. Learn more about the Middle Ages and you will realise just how much we out to them. From universities to parliamentary democracies to the greatest architecture in history to great advancement in agriculture and metallurgy and ship building.
- Tertullian is to be taken with a grain of salt: he was never declared a saint, for many reasons. - Christians from this time period read and valued the Classics; read St. Basil's "ADDRESS TO YOUNG MEN ON THE RIGHT USE OF GREEK LITERATURE" (for free online). - The "dark ages" has largely been debunked, but certainly *never* happened in Christian Constantinople. Young men there memorized the Iliad, among other Classical works.
Christian Constantinople even had a woman (Anna Komnena) write her own Iliad-like book about the history of her family's lineage and father's reign, and really the "Dark Ages" was always pejorative since that's how Plutarch, who essentially popularised the idea, intended it
I love this movie - especially as I live in Egypt teaching history ... but it is also hard to watch .. Rachel. Weisz is one of my favourites she did a great job.
Honestly, your video had me tearing up : not only for Hypatia's both incredible and tragic life which definitely deserves recognition but also for what you mentionned at the end, the potential that humanity could have achieved earlier if it hadn't been for religious obscurantism
Most people didn’t know how to read so it was easy to convince them that Hypatia was a witch and burn all the scrolls because they don’t seem that important
what would he have achieved earlier? the earlier complete destruction of the earth? the earlier mechanized warfare? earlier mechanized genocide? an earlier exploitation of labor by corporations? the earlier massive rise in mental health issues stemming from the hell that is modern life?
@@God-mb8wi Well if religion was just a footnote and that studying the great mysteries of the universe was valued, we probably wouldn't have half as many wars. :S
In the movie I have to say that the pagans decided to attack the Christians in the town centre and what came after is kind of their own fault or at least the fault of their leaders. Cause and effect. The pagans started a genocide and when people started fighting back they were now on the recieving end of what they had been doing to others. Just a thought there. At the end of the day people are fucked in the head and religion is also a tool which fear can be used to control people, how much of religion is true - well u need to find out yourself.
@@SwedishDoomGoblin people like to throw out genocide too often. Why should they (back in the day) think about it as cause-and-effect when it's their fundamentalism that caused this shit? I would say it's more about a battle of truth. Their truths tho (so anything which goes against their narrative gets blamed as sins and get burnt.)
As I type a response on my magic board to send to magic land so you guys (other magicians) can respond. Later I'll Take a magic bus to the magic screening of The avengers. A tale as classic as our own existence just with different names and more magic. Idk If I'm agreeing or disagreeing with you.
Learning is a process. And every time a life enters the world, they must undergo the same process their predecessors did in hopes of achieving their same enlightenment. My great grandmother always said, “Live and learn, die and forget it all.”
If modern day extremist Islam is its "purest form," then modern day western Christianity is the twisted interpretation. Luckily for us the Christian world grew wealthy and educated off the backs of the industrial revolution, and people started ignoring the nastier parts of their religion.
The wikipedia article for the Library of Alexandria contradicts some of what is said here about the destruction of the Sarapeum library. "None of the accounts of the Serapeum's destruction mention anything about it having a library and sources written before its destruction speak of its collection of books in the past tense, indicating that it probably did not have any significant collection of scrolls in it at the time of its destruction."
Yeah, keep finding excuses. How about you answer for the death of Hypatia? Or maybe not. Human lives have never been religion's forte, when it's not of their own.
if history teaches one thing, it is: Book Burning is never a good sign
I know this movie and review is laughable..
there were no pasty ppl running around in Egypt
Hypatia was a black woman, & a jealous mob
(angry she was a woman & wealthy), pulled her down from her carriage
and attempted to skin her alive w/ jagged shells, they finished her off w/ stones.
Her political & religious leanings had nothing to do w/ it, this chit was personal.
@@thegrandcanyonisegypt2489 Uh what?
@@thegrandcanyonisegypt2489
She was of Greek origin
@@crassus300 We wuz Keengz 'n' sheez
@@thegrandcanyonisegypt2489 She was Greek. Did you not listen to the review? Plus Alexandria was not just Egyptians (something you would have also picked up from the review)
I cry inside whenever I see historical sites being destroyed.
When I saw this movie I got really upset, and cried a little I won't deny it
+ANGRYmuffin9000 no shame no shame
+ANGRYmuffin9000 Same thing happened when I heard that ISIS destroyed Palmyra. Such a damn shame. /:
When I see the video of the Buddhas being destroyed in Afghanistan I lose faith in humanity
You and me both...
A true scholar has read a thousand books and is still full of doubt. A fundamentalist has only read one book but is convinced to possess the truth.
Dallas Barr fact
@@charleBerglund Yes, bankrupting business after business. And doing the 'impossible'. Bankrupting a casino...
Well said.
The film contains numerous historical inaccuracies:[10][254][256] It inflates Hypatia's achievements[149][256] and incorrectly portrays her as having discovered proof to support Aristarchus of Samos's heliocentric model of the universe, which there is no evidence that Hypatia ever even studied.[149] It also contains a scene based on the final episode from Carl Sagan's Cosmos in which a mob of Christians raid the Serapeum and burn all of the scrolls in it, but leave the building itself largely intact, aside from knocking over a few statues. In historical reality, the Serapeum probably did not have any scrolls in it at the time of its destruction[c] and the Christians completely demolished the building to the ground.[10] The film also strongly implies that Hypatia is an atheist, a notion directly contradictory to the surviving sources, which all portray her as a devoted follower of the teachings of Plotinus, who taught that the goal of philosophy was "a mystical union with the divine."[
what's worse, the fundamentalist rarely even read that one book. Instead, they've picked a few phrases that they already agreed with and therefore the rest of the book must be true and thusly all its claims.
27:25 That brief montage actually moved me to tears, even more than the actual ending of the film.
So many could scenes in this film:
Hypatia’s linking of Euclid’s First Common Notion to human equality (there’s a similar scene in Spielberg’s “Lincoln”)
Orestes’ defending the Christians during the siege, for Hypatia’s sake
The story of Aristarchus inspiring Hypatia to study the heliocentric model
Well this montage is already implied during the movie, the suggestion of that is a different feeling then just hit over head like a caveman
i.e. hence why the destruction of the library was in slow mo, the loss of potential for humanity with losing the antiquity philosophers/scientists. Even moreso of that idea, is the fact that they had hypatia working on the heliocentric model (she was more mathematician than astronomer), and she just discovered the answer literal moments before her death with being unable to speak of the discovery by being mercy choked (an answer that was discovered a millenium later with renaissance scientists).
“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does ryhme”
-mark twain
wtf you using that quote
Pretty sure it was George Lucas.
Wait! Why do I feel like I've made this joke before....?
And of course he's old and dead so therefore everything he says is true.
Are you screaming colonial oppression or some shit?
it's hilarious how offended the snowflakes are by this.
If Alexandria wasn't destroyed:
*Roman Imperial Air Force drops nukes on Japanese Shogunate, 1317, colorized*
FEGELEIN!
Breaking roman cable news, gaius on the scene, roman soldiers bring back home syphillis from the americas, but these sweetus potatus are too damn good, so it's an even day. This is gaius, I'll be seeing YOU, at the bath house. Back to you, karenius.
@@jacobashurov3476 Funny, but realistically the names of places, deceases and food would be different.
that'd be a wild alternate history story
I like how out of all the possible nations that formed throughout the centuries, you still chose Japan as the one being at the receiving end of a nuke.
I can't even fathom the depth of knowledge lost during the fire
It's probably found now.
Christianity, Islam and all fundamentalism in the world set the science light years back.
@@trueromancat7978 Clearly you are too much of an idiot to see that Islam actually pushed science and knowledge, have you heard of the golden age of Islam? Have you read the scientific and medical advances made during that time? Do you not know that Damascus was the center of science in that time? I don't know what part of dumb hillbilly Alabama you come from but keep your dumb and unfactual opinions to your self.
To some degree it was probably rediscovered. Maybe not everything historical, but I’m decently certain all scientific research and knowledge was at least rediscovered to some degree later on.
Yeah, like the universe is composed of four basic elements; Fire, Water, Earth and Air. Pity that pearl of wisdom didn't survive. Why do we think "lost" wisdom was great if it's lost and cannot be known? Maybe a lot of it was gibberish and superstition that we're better off without. Just sayin'...
I saw this movie a long time ago but no one I knew saw it. I felt so alone but loved it because as a Catholic made me see Christians weren't always the victim. It was a very eye opening experience and taught me a lot. Love your channel!
Yeah It'sa great movie but the problem is they protrayed this event or conflict like a clash between science and faith. Which is not true it was more a political than religious conflict. The new christian power was on the rise and they were opposed to an old elite who wasn't christian , who persecuted them in the past. They were doomed to clash. And religion has nothing to do with that. Hypatia in real life wasn't neutral. Even if this movie is great they portrayed the christian as one dimensional evil and dumb who were oppose to science. And yet throughout more than 1000 years where the church was the dominant power they encouraged and pursuit scientific knowledge and art. So I think this portrait of christian is not fair they should have bring more nuance.
Dude this is misleading, the library was rebuild by Christians and few centuries later was burned by Muslims under the order of Caliph Omar, the Eastern church co-existed in harmony with the classical legacy, in Constantinople the holy Christian city giant statues of Greek gods and mythical creatures like Hera and Hercules and Helios stood on the main streets next statues of Christian saints and they were destroyed only by the Latins I the 4rth crusade only the quadriga was spared and rebranded the horses of saint Marc and now they are standing in Venice. And when the city was burned the local poets used Helene of Troy as a name for the burning city in their poems lamenting its bloody Sombre fate. There was no dark ages nor a schism between the church and classical legacy. This is just a western centric view of the medieval times.
I would be careful about how you view this film. It is a good rough historical fiction and it touches on some interesting themes; but the writers actually seemed to only use an account by a neo-platonist historian named Damascius (Hypatia was also a neo-platonist, if that tells you anything). A good chunk of modern scholars have concluded that this was not a religious issue like how Damascius gives the account, but rather more related to a political struggle between Christian leadership or secular roman leadership (not to say the roman leaders weren't Christian).
Alexandria was having conflicts even before Christianity arrived between Jews and pagans. And most of the library was burned by Cesar even before Christianity arrived.
Man I was getting mad as a Catholic but then when I read the comments I realized that this movie portrayed the Christians really badly
it was very hard for me to watch this movie. the collective loss of knowledge first to a dictator and afterward to a mob is heartbreaking
It always is
dont say "isis", they are called Daesh.
+opsimathics ISIS is used more.
Parts of the library were destroyed during the destruction of the Temple there but the rest was burned during the Muslim conquest of Egypt.
ignorance it always start with dictators, ignorant follower is the perfect follower you need.
3:27 shows a picture with Alexander and Diogenes and doesn't mention him despite the fact that Alexander deeply admired Diogenes.
"But truly, if I were not Alexander, I wish I were Diogenes." and Diogenes replied "If I wasn't Diogenes, I would be wishing to be Diogenes too."
Not necessarily relevent.
@@jacobstaten2366 : "Relevant."
@@raydavison4288 "spell check" fucks up. You fat finger a word one time and it wants to use that spelling.
@@jacobstaten2366 : My apologies, Jason. Your mistake was a minor one & I shouldn't be such a prick.
@@jacobstaten2366 Maybe its cause he didn't really learn under him?
library of Alexandria and Baghdad House of Wisdom, two great institutes lost to ignorance. A shame is putting it lightly.
Im unfamiliar with the Bagdad House of Wisdom but the the magority of the works created in Alexandria were no longer there when it burned.
@@brendancoulter5761 The Bagdad House of Wisdom was were the Islamic scholars got many of their ideas and innovations, it was destroyed by the mongols sadly...
effawefweafawefwefwfqwWQEWEFEYHTYKJYUKUT brute on brute combat
The only ignorance is in the film itself.
Indian libraries also were burnt 🔥 by Abrahamic religious.. They were oldest library.. In earth..
I saw Agora a few years ago. The true brilliance of Hypatia & her appalling death has had a lasting effect on me. Thank you for this wonderful story..
The story told in the movie has exactly nothing to do with the historical facts.
I saw agora Like 15years ago, and Anger caused by propaganda and false historic image of facts and times, almost drived me to madness
The last scene where Hypatia sees the rocket launch is breathtaking.
i LOL'd
Rocket? That's no rocket! That's an ICBM with a nuclear warhead! Where it's going, nobody knows~
@@applemauzel An ICBM is a rocket.
@@victorconway444 I don't mean to be the smartass, but the difference between a "rocket" and a "missile" is simple:
When the controller/person has no control of the projectile after it leaves the weapon platform, it's a rocket. You simply aim at the target, the projectile leaves the platform and moves on a more-or-less straight line towards the target.
When the controller/person does have control of the projectile after it leaves the weapon platform, whether through laser-guided systems, on-board cameras, or even wires hanging from the projectile connecting to the controller (known as wire-guided systems), it's a missile.
So in essence, an ICBM is a missile (that's what the M stands for), because we can control its trajectory and course after it leaves the missile silo.
Um, no. That's what makes it a _guided_ missile. The term "rocket" refers to the means of propulsion. A "missile" is any projected weapon - yes, including thrown rocks.
I am from Alexandria Egypt
Thank you for this video
I have walked across that place a lot but never really understood what happened there now that i know
I will be visiting what is left of the Serapeum soon
A question since i found an Egyptian from Alexandria.
How do you see us Greeks in Egypt.
Do you think that our civilizations are combined and if yes,did Islam change,as Christianity did in Greece?
Greetings from Athens.
@@nickpaschentis5284 half Egyptian here ( I guess that counts ?) Most of my Egyptian family members consider Greece the ancient sister country from Europe with so much shared history and mutual influence , but then again they are really into history so perhaps the common man thinks Greece is just another European country .
As for the religion stuff , I think it changed mentalities A LOT , and it has definitely left a marked influence .
Oh by the way you guys in Greece have the best islands in the world .
@@ahmadtarek7763 Thanks mate,I appreciate your reply.
If you ever come to Greece,and don't want to go to usual places.
Go to Lepanto (Naupaktos),Corcyra (Corfu),Rodos(Rhodes)or Syros,I promise you won't regret it.
And so you know,if we take Religion out,we Greeks consider Egyptians and Romans(Italians) Brothers,and many Egyptians live in Greece.
Oh,and Egyptian girls are Pretty.
@@danielmandor483 The whole building was razed to the ground by the mob, contrary to the film. It also no longer contained any scrolls from the Great Library, since sources before 391 refer to the collection in the past tense. There probably wasn't much left of the Great Library by Hypatia's time. Also, astrolabes were used 5 centuries earlier, so she definitely didn't invent them.
@@nickpaschentis5284 I was born and raised in Greece and I've never heard someone say "thanks mate" unless they were imitating someone else. XD And what does the appearance of Egyptian girls have to do with anything?
Not all Christian response to this movie was bad. Rev. Philip Grey wrote this in his review of the movie. "Christians who see themselves in the fanatic, murderous monks of the film and feel offended need to do some serious soul-searching.(...) Hypatia as depicted in the film is firmly opposed to what, in her time and at her city, is offered-or rather, imposed by brute force-under the name of 'Christianity'. Nevertheless, she seems to me far more a follower of the precepts of Christianity than are her persecutors and tormentors.(...) In particular, in watching the deeply moving final scene, her going calmly to her death amidst the jeering mob, I could not help but strongly recall Jesus Christ on His own way to Golgotha"
That's the point of the whole film, thanks for putting it clear. Those who think it's anti-christian biassed haven't seen how pagans killed christians in riots or how jews killed christians in the Church....They oddly blame they are victims for being portrayed as anti-scientific, as if they didn't condemned efectively a good part of the ancient knowledge (as every one religion) just because it wasn't part of their ideology. Answering that some Fathers of the Curch knew about pagan world and they preserved it just for love of knowledge it's bullshit...It was preserved just for practical reasons cause could be used to defend Christianity rationally (that's the way it's used in St Agustin's works, who was half of his life a pagan), the rest of works that couldn't be "diggested" as christian where prohibited or presented as false claims if not destroyed.
I know. Paganism and Christianity both gave birth to the modern day Christmas holiday.
People was ofended because this film is portrayed as history and it is everything but such.
I very much agree, godzillavick. Very good observation.
@Baron Von Grijffenbourg as a conservative christian I agree with your comments 100%. Those who claimed to follow the teachings of Jesus have always known the duplicity of Churchers that were built to gain power under the banner of Christianity.
I've recently discovered your channel and as someone with a great interest in history and historical films I have to say I love it and have been binge watching your videos. I'd actually never heard of this film before so thanks for bringing it to my attention. It's at the top of my watch list now. Thanks for the great content. Look forward to more of your videos.
Same here gonna find this movie and buy it. I think Amazon has it. It's incredible christians who behave so benevolently have an ignorant and bloody history of zealotry. Christianity to my understanding is a book of stories plagiarized from other religions.
You better not take this seriously - Agora is full of inaccuracies and downright propaganda.
and the same thing happened to the great library of Tripoli (Lebanon), and the library of Baghdad the Wisdom House "Darul Hikma"
@@MeanOldLady
whom ever does it is condemned no matter what was his religion or ethnic or origin, being a muslim doesn't mean that i agree on such act.
Dar al hikma wasent destroyed by Muslims it was destroyed by Turks and mongols
The same thing happen in Indian subcontinent some of the famous universities, libraries like Sharda, Nalanda, Taxila were destroyed by the invading religious fanatics.
@@antonk1524
Darul Hikma was Destroyed by Mongols correct
@@rationalmind3567
Please refer to mean old lady's comment and my answer to it,
" Them that begin by burning books, end by burning men. "
H. Heine
Hypatia Rightfully titled the martyr of science.
She wasn't a scientist. She didn't even teach science.
@@roboarcado5552 the sciences encompass many fields
@@doubtful_seer And neoplatonist voodoo isn't one of them.
First they change the meaning of the words and then try to take away your voice.
@@roboarcado5552 Much better than Christian voodoo that worships a corpse on a cross.
I don't remember the last time I cried so much during a movie. I was waaaay too emotionally invested in it. The destruction of culture and knowledge at the hands of those barbaric terrorists hit me hard. I was rooting for Hypatia to figure out the way the Sun and Earth are positioned with tears in m eyes when she got the idea for the elliptic orbit. It's so sad that barbarism took root for millennia instead of Hypatia's enlightenment. And both Rachel Weisz and Oscar Isaac were so good in their roles! Damn you man, the end of your video also brought me to tears.
@Uchiha Obito
What if I told you that the movie was propaganda and that the real events described in the original sources indicate that the reverse of this presented situation really took place?
@Karna What if someone eliminated you first?
@Karna you need to retake your English courses again or something, you are truly nearly illiterate
Paul Mayson
Then you’d be incorrect.
@@tdoychev720 You don't have to learn English to be considered educated, you can learn French and have a good company hiring you in France, German can benefit you more in the way of Science because most of it was wrote in German. Even Latin if you feel like wasting your timem
As a Greek who honours ancient Philosophy, and the spiritual and cultural model that philosophy offered to humans I tried 3 times ta watch that movie and I couldn't get to the end of it.
The end you made brought me into tears!!!
You must be ripped
@@lupohutchington269 … hahaha! Not when I watch movies mate!
@@mrpappas10kay54 "Mens sana in corpore sano" Every ancient greek philosopher was trained to be a soldier and got buff at the gym .Also many went to orgies.
@@lupohutchington269 They were also drinking wine ‘cause “In vino veritas” (latin) or ΕΝ ΤΩ ΟΙΝΩ Η ΑΛΗΘΕΙΑ (Greek).
What’s your point mate?
@@lupohutchington269 by the way is “animus” not “mens”!
There are many things that anger me, I am an angry person, but the purposeful destruction of knowledge and history is at the absolute top.
I will never forgive such blatant idiocy, no matter their creed or nationality.
And if this destruction of knowledge and history never happened, Nick would be able to tell us how accurate or inaccurate the movie was.
leftists love doing this
Perky Bellsprout #TheLeftDestroysNeverBuilds
Pete W. that’s funny
Okay, who invited the clowns to this comment section?
If we ever figure out how to travel back in time, I would have to save the library of Alexandria.
Only for the religious fanatics to burn it down later.
EDIT: replaced "Christian" with "religious". Any religious fanaticism, weather it be Christian, Muslim, Pagan, Jewish, etc., is bad. Religion can be good but too much of it, especially its superstitious beliefs or occasional power-hungry leader, can cause problems down the line.
@@clinton8421 cHrIsTiAnS bAd
Keyboarding all these comments
That would be very interesting.
@@keyboarding5593 Yeah Edward Gibbon's viewpoint has been pretty much debunked.
just so i can show off my knowledge: 3:27 is an image of Alexander meeting the homeless and incredibly humble philosopher Diogenes. Alexander said he could ask for literally anything. Diogenes asked for Alexander to fuck off because he was blocking out the sunlight. 😂
And Alexander said ' if I were not Alexander I would be Diogenes' I too have knowledge.
😂
Diogenes was a hobo ultra stoic Philosopher
@Josel Summerfield
Diogenes would be very upset to find out that he had better manners than somebody else. But then again, he was from Athens and not from "F off" country.
I'm glad you covered her. I was introduced to her by the movie. Rachel weiss always does a great performance.
Anyway my head almost exploded. You've also flushed out more info than I could find. Thank you for dedicating an episode to quite a woman during a terrible time.
Well, this brought me to tears. How have I not known about her? She’s such an inspiration. Thank you for making this video.
Agh, crying right before I go to work, too! How dare you make me feel emotions, you wonderful historian.
Toughen up
ur a pussy
*hugs*
I CRY EVERY TIME I HEAR ABOUT HER i'm crying right now her story was too inspirational and her death was too tragic
you didn't about her beacuse she is minor historical figure of which we know very little about. most of what you see in the movie is product of creative freedom
Not all ancient historians agree that the library was destroyed by Caesar. What did survive was destroyed when Emperor Aurelian (AD 270-275) burnt the royal quarter of the city while crushing a revolt by Queen Zenobia. Around AD 378, Ammianus Marcellinus wrote of the library of the Serapeum as already destroyed. He blames Caesar's fire but most likely it was looted by Aurelian who was building his own library in Constantinople. Of those writing at the time of the Serapeum's destruction none mention a library.Even Eunapius of Antioch, a pagan who tries to show Christians as violent and foolish, only mentions religious objects. The idea that a library still existed comes from Edward Gibbon and his book The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Although not referring to the Serapeum, Paulus Orosius wrote of the looting of book chests from temples, many of these chests were to form the start of monastic libraries.
3 years late but the Library was a shadow of its former self by 378 and other prominent libraries have taken shape centuries earlier in the Mediterranean
6 years late but Constantinople didn't exist when Aurelian was around...
I love history but boy do I hate some of the events in it. Such an unfortunate loss of knowledge and information. A true shame.
Yeah there are tons of awful people and shitty things
@A Moye That's racist, and because white people expanded a lot more and progressed a lot further than most other cultures. They still weren't very nice for most of recorded history but they tried, oh they tried.
@@accomplisheddiplomat4091 I am not white but I agree, with the exception of their acts in the new world, the white man truly brought some great progress and unity in the world, people saying white people fucked up everything are just racist
Accomplished Diplomacy um expanded yeah they sure did into territories that weren’t there’s and started wars and plagues and most bad parts of history
Chidera Nkameme And also white people did sort of ruin a most of history
I need to point this out: The Library of Alexandria was NOT the only Scriptorium or library of significance in the ancient world. Other such facilities existed in other great centres of learning such as Athens (which was THE place that the Roman nobilii would send their children to study when Roman culture itself was experiencing an accelerated period of Hellenisation, this was during the lifetime of the Great Library of Alexandria), similar such centres could also be found in Antioch and Byzantium. Not to mention the libraries and scriptoriums of Rome itself.
The real damage to the record of history occured when the practices of scribing and preserving Classical Greek and Latin texts were being conducted by Christian Church monks who had a tendecy to both corrupt and exagerrate records, particularly when it came to Roman Emperors. But also it was not a reliable process as this work was exceptionally tedious and labourious, hence why this process was done selectively and not every work from the ancient world could be preserved reliably, or in their entirety if at all.
Not to diminish the significance of the library's destruction, but blaming this phenomenon purely on the destruction of the Library of Alexandria is incredibly irresponsible, as good a story as it makes. Implying that it was the ONLY place where the learned could "get a good book" is nonsense.
The film contains numerous historical inaccuracies:[10][254][256] It inflates Hypatia's achievements[149][256] and incorrectly portrays her as having discovered proof to support Aristarchus of Samos's heliocentric model of the universe, which there is no evidence that Hypatia ever even studied.[149] It also contains a scene based on the final episode from Carl Sagan's Cosmos in which a mob of Christians raid the Serapeum and burn all of the scrolls in it, but leave the building itself largely intact, aside from knocking over a few statues. In historical reality, the Serapeum probably did not have any scrolls in it at the time of its destruction[c] and the Christians completely demolished the building to the ground.[10] The film also strongly implies that Hypatia is an atheist, a notion directly contradictory to the surviving sources, which all portray her as a devoted follower of the teachings of Plotinus, who taught that the goal of philosophy was "a mystical union with the divine."[
Another great inaccuracy is that it failed to acknowledge that the only source of the story Hypatia is from two Christian scholars and it's been written the vast majority of the Christians in the area are horrified at the things that a small Christian sect did. Hypatia's death is more to political wrangling by two ruling governors. Add to that as he briefly touched most of the Library of Alexandria was largely burned and intentionally ransacked by Julius Caesar and his men, who took much of the libraries treasures to Rome and burned the rest, all that is left at the time of the movie is just a small storage room by the temple. So all those books lost to time are all Julius Caesar's fault.
The idea that Christianity is against any learning or science or keep records old discoveries is pure bunk. The Christian fathers are well learned of all Hellenistic and Roman teachings, from St Augustine, St. Ambrose and St. Jerome, all are followers of Greek philosophies and all applied it to their theological thinking. During the upheaval of the fall of Rome to the European barbarians, it only the Christian monks and scholars that keep the flame knowledge alive and even added more thoughts and Philosophy than the other religions out there. Science that we have today is based more on the Christian scholastics and Universities developed during the Middle Ages and not the Neo-platonic schools. We should also not forget that the Christian Byzantine empire is thriving at that time is still continuing the it's progress with it's own golden age.
"had a tendecy (sic) to both corrupt and exagerrate (sic) records, particularly when it came to Roman Emperors."
You mean like Roman Historians had been doing for centuries? If anything, the monks were more reliable record keepers.
Do you have any examples of monks corrupting or exaggerating Roman records? Sounds like more nonsense.
I wish there was a movie about Nalanda which had a similar concept of the Library of Alexandria. It is an ancient university in India, who also had a wealth of knowledge from all over the world.
YEA NICE! Zuper-COOL Heir! NARMASTE:})
i vaguely remember hearing about some of your wonders . 'magic pots' those wells, the irrigation and some ancient astronomy towers, not to mention all the spiritual stuff recorded in those 5k yr old texts
- slaughters women and children
- schemes to usurp power
- becomes a saint
That's John Toland's "Hypatia" (one of the four parts of his "Tetradymus" written in 1725). He hated all things Christian with all his heart. But his account, used heavily in this movie, is not confirmed by early sources. The library was rebuilt after the fire and replenished. It's true end was the Arab conquest..
It is fair to say the history behind this movie is highly debatable, which History Buffs accurately states, but he then goes on to lay the blame of the dark ages solely at Christian feet, which I feel is a position he would not defend if pressed on it. In fact his representation of the library of Alexandria was misleading, the majority of the books in the great library had already been moved to other libraries at the time it was burned. The fall of the Roman Empire created the Dark Ages and while Christianities early hostility to the culture that had suppressed them for centuries certainly didnt help, it was Christian scholars who rediscovered the works of ancient scholars and recreated them that we have any knowledge of these events at all. We know and value the works of Aristotle, Plato, and many others because of the thousands of hours spent by monks re-translating and copying them.
What standard do we judge ancient people by? Were the Romans monsters for enslaving and conquering so much of the world? Or were they a force for the spreading of education and advanced civilization? Do we judge ancient people by the standards of today? The standards we have thanks in part to the benefit of thousands of years of history? Due we judge them by comparing them to their contemporaries? Does slavery become acceptable when every civilization in the known world practices it?
My only point is that it is not easy to make any moral judgments of the ancient world, especially when the historical account has very few sources and what actually happened is up for debate.
Brendan Coulter applause all around, reply of the year
Brendan Coulter Simply amazing!! I took a screenshot of your reply - it’s too good not to and I don’t want to forget it 😁! I couldn’t agree with you more!
That doesn't change any of my points. If some one stated that Islam is only ever destroyed ancient knowledge I would attempt to correct the record there as well. If your claim is that Islam saved many ancient works, therefor Christianity is responsible for the fall of the Roman empire and the Dark Ages I would have to disagree.
I like how you now recommend less popular movies so that more people watch them.
this movie is brilliant though
I know right! In the span of a half hour I went to not knowing this movie existed, to trying to find it on Netflix
Speaking if Netflix, anyone wanna want to see Marco Polo review? XD
For which he gets sued. Nice one, Egeda
I would love a Marco Polo review from History Buffs. I'm interested in the show, but with my limited spare time I'm not sure I want to devote what little I have to it. History Buffs has a way of getting me curious and eager about history related things, two feelings which had been thoroughly stomped into the dirt by my middle school and high school history teachers many years ago. Lol.
This film depicted candles at a time lamps were used instead. A polish Historian Maria D has done one of the best biographies. Hypatia was probably in her 60s when she was killed.
Do you have a link for that work? I'd love to read it.
This movie ticked me off, I don't like watching a culture destroy itself. That said, a very good film! But be warned if you watch it it will leave you rightly ticked off at the destruction of knowledge...
I saw it when I was quite young with my father. I didn't quite understand what was happening throughout the whole movie, but I remember my dad explaining why they were burning books and why it was such a tragedy and I remember feeling really sad at the enormous waste that fell upon the library.
Knowledge can't be destroy. It's always there waiting for the right seeker. That is why it's called a discovery and not an invention. Everything is impermanent, just hope that distant future, archaeologist find our fossil and know that "we" existed; Like the neanderthal or dinosaurs.
@@RmcBlueSky
Right. But starting over and over again, however adventurous and time consuming, would be frustrating. Just like kicking over an anthill.
All I had to see was the one scene with the library and I already am
Kyle Ray we do start over and over again though, it is a historical fact, most nations repeat their history every 20 years, as new generations start making decisions. We have gotten better over time, but we might regress in the future, it is uncertain for sure. People like to think that most knowledge from the library of Alexandria was lost, but I do wonder how much we have discovered again over time, and what was actually preserved and not lost.
Hm. I've the deepest respect for your channel Nick, and I agree with many of the points you bring up concerning fanaticism and the stance by the Church to refuse classic philosophy, but I feel as though this idea of the 'Dark Ages' refuting progress as a whole due to the lack of enlightenment from Christian hierarchy is not conducive to what was reality. If anything, I'm a little disappointed in you; a History Buff should if anything refuse and groan at the reference to the Medieval Ages as a 'Dark Age'. Completely contrary to earlier beliefs we KNOW it was a period of progression, trade, and scientific development, often lead by the Church itself, with monasteries preserving ancient writings.
The idea that we so drastically slowed our scientific and technological progression in thanks to any sort of Church boogeyman ignores what we understand about the reality of the period. Were certain classical ideas smothered by the Church? Yes, yes they were. Were the writings of known pagans lost to obscurity because Monks preferred to write the teachings of said pagan's period equivalent christian opponents? Yes, yes that did happen and yes, we have lost much history and knowledge because of it. That in and of itself, is a total tragedy. But to suggest that we would be centuries ahead today in our scientific and technological understanding of the world, if not for the Church, is misleading and not in keeping with reality. Reality of the historical Migration Period and the historical periods that follow it, is much, much more complicated than that and doesn't lend itself to simple answers as your suggesting.
Love the channel Nick, but I do think you could have presented this better.
The Dark Ages is the name for the early medieval ages. Sorry if the name offends you. And the biggest problem wasn't that the church smothered or suppressed teaching, it was that all the teaching had been lost in the fall of Rome. Society had to completely start over. That's why many of the things that were common knowledge in the ancient era were not figured out until the Renaissance. I don't think Nick is blaming Christianity as much as he is saying how tragic it was that the Roman Empire was destroyed in such a complete and total way.
No, again the Dark Ages is again an archaic term that isn't used by the modern historian. It should be referred to as the Migration Period, which began during the decline of the Western Roman Empire and continued after it, where Germanic Tribes were moving across and settling in its remains, and was a tumultuous time for the European continent. You do make a good point in that with the fall of the WRE there were certain things that were lost to society for a period of time, but to suggest that society had to 'start all over' is completely incorrect. Society continued and flourished, even during the Migration period.
Austin Monreal Society flourishing and society starting over are not two mutually exclusive terms. You know just as well as I do that a lot of the knowledge of the ancients were lost, and was only re-discovered in the Renaissance, 1200 years later.
Let's make sure we're talking about the same thing. When you say, 'society had to start over' I think of the almost apocalyptic sense that historians had in the past concerning the Dark Ages, where society was completely destroyed and they had to start over from the ground up, as if going back a whole age or worse. Is this what you mean, or something else?
As to what Nick means, he clearly seems to be blaming the church in the video as the reason for the stagnation of technological and scientific progress, because it was the dominate institution in the west following the fall of the WRE. He was clearly making a parallel between the fanatics of today (ISIS) and the church during the Medieval period.
Austin Monreal I am not talking about the loss of all knowledge, and I am certainly not suggesting its the church faults. I am saying, that because large part of Rome was burnt to the ground, because many historical libraries were destroyed and because many documents were scorched, knowledge was lost, and that is knowledge we did not regain until 1200 years later. And that is the loss.
And Nick clearly describes in this video that it was the violent clashes that caused it, and therefore just as much the pagans fault as the Christians. Violence destroyed the libraries. Violence from both sides.
And as for your criticism of Nick. I suggest you watch the video again.
th-cam.com/video/NwUwjkEveBE/w-d-xo.htmlm42s
the old intro is still better
Yeeeeeee
the one with the horses
just saying it went for like 2 minutes which can really drag when it comes to audience retention. I like nick's videos and what he has to say but the intro need to be snipped down
I vehemently disagree. The new intro is fun, short, snappy and to the point. I ain't got the time or patience, honestly, to watch a 1 minute long intro for a show, over and over again. I've seen it once, I get it. I get the idea behind it, it's good intro. Just not appropriate for youtube and it's community.
+FoggyFogzmeister You say that like you're forced to watch it, You can just move your finger and skip it ..
Agora was a very beautiful movie of a very sad and dark era in human history. And I agree with you, it's very underestimated and underwatched!
My only reservation about it is the "romanticized" way of Hyptia dying at the hands of a self-professed former lover. I do understand that the actual historical event is too gruesome and horrendous to be shown on screen, but people really needed to know about it. It is a real-life reminder of everything that goes wrong when blindness takes hold of the human mind and soul !
Also, your edit at the very end was .... marvelous. 👌
The ending of this movie never fails to make me cry. Starting from when she tells max Cyril has already won. His dogmatic ideas have already taken over. And then Davus showed her mercy, and learned to forgive.
The loss of the library wasn't the end of the world and did not hold us back technologically. Athens, Constantinople, Ctesiphon, etc. All had their own great libraries, and let's not forget that China was equally, if not even more advanced than the Middle East and Greece at the time.
It's what I like to call the "Library of Alexandria Fetish Syndrome", or LAFS. Which basically consists of the argument that 4th century Christians delayed the space age by destroying a temple with no books.
More along the lines of fundamentalists destroying and otherwise prohibiting the scientific method for centuries in an attempt to ensure dominance.
Christians justifying murder and destruction of knowledge, hilarious!
Imperator Caesar Divi Filius Augustus
First of all, I am an atheist not a Christian. Second of all I am not trying to justify jack shit, I am merely stating facts. There was most likely no library in Alexandria at all in the 4th century.
marvelfannumber1 I was talking to Alekzander.
The point nick is trying to make is that ideas taken to the extreme is harmful, he's not saying that every religion is bad because it is in the person not the idea who does what is right or wrong, this is not about Christianity or anything but rather about how extremism delays progress
Indeed.
Draco lord Theism leads people to deny or have trouble in new scientific advances, leaders try to squander and suppress advancement to keep their power and so no one questions their beliefs. Theism also makes people more likely to believe in ideas without any backing evidence, this hindering scientific advancement and make the scientific method seem not as necessary. In short theism breeds and supports ignorance, all while dividing us evermore due to religious zealotry.
@ Truth underlies all knowledge. One cannot claim to possess knowledge if it is based on false premises. A true Christian should value truth and not fear it because Christ himself claimed to be "the way, the truth, and the life." If Christ is not the truth and what he taught were lies, then as 1 Corinthians 15:19 surmises, Christians are "of all people most to be pitied."
By the same token, if an atheist or a secularist claims that there is no truth or that all truth is relative, how can the same person make a respected "truthful" assertion about a Christian believer's ignorance. Indeed, such an extreme skeptical view of truth seems to originate from the same all-too-human reaction to "dangerous" ideas (truth assertions) that we see in this video - fear.
Wow some people don't get my point, what I said then is about the fact extremism whether it is religious or not is bad its not about religion is bad and science is good but rather not being able to question and challenge your beliefs is something a fanatic/extremist would do, its the person who determines and takes in his ideas, not the ideas itself that is the cause because people have understanding and people who misunderstand, misinterprets things.
@Draco lord Like how Cathedrals built greatly increased architectural skills, techniques, and procedures in Europe. You ever heard of Notre Damn?
It boggles my mind how much knowledge and insight into the old world was lost it makes me sad
Hypatia's father was a great parent! What an awesome Dad who recognized his daughter's passion and intelligence and who decided to encourage her instead of being subject to the prejudices of his time. I think parents today would do well to follow his example to promote critical thinking and challenge the irrational conventions of the day.
I agree I wish I had a father like that. At least we have ppl today that challenge conventional societal non-sense Candace Owens, matt Walsh, Ben Shapiro. Thank God.
@@frankdeleon4209 Sure, all of those anti science people are exactly like her father....
Damn, if I could go back in time, I'd go to the Library of Alexandria and study/read the living shit outta the library scrolls.
Aline G wow I didn't know you could read and write Ancient Greek?
***** I can always learn before I go :p
if there was any, it was likely that they were mostly destroyed by all the destructions and renovations done for the past centuries, but yeah count me in on reading some grade A philosophy.
Aline G Do you speak/read Ancient Greek though?
A German U-Boat If you see the comments up above, another lady asked me this question and I said, "I can always learn before I go."
This is the saltiest comment section I've seen on a movie review video since Chris Stuckmann's The Force Awakens review.
Just go to any comments section on a video about Israel or religion (or don't, that's probably the best move). I bet you will be surprised.
ya, it sure did bring out all of the anti-theists and fundamentalist out of the woodworks didn't it?
I think this was one of your best endings ever. Love your work. Keep it up!
If the Library had never been destroyed, can you imagine where we would be today technologically?
What a terrible waste. It frustrates and breaks my heart thinking "what if?".
The simplest thing to do is let it go, and accept focusing on the world as it is now and it could be, rather than endlessly theorizing what it could have been. But I understand your frustration, nonetheless.
People seriously overestimate the importance of the Library in later years
Even if the library wouldn't been destroyed, christianity would have still oppressed of scientific studies and other beliefs.
The correct thing to say is; What it Christianity and any other religion would have never grewn too dominative and aggressive that it would have not dictated people's lifes and beliefs, thus slowing down the scientific progress that humankind could have achieved, driving europe to the section of history named the 'dark ages'.
One can still only wander and speculate what would have been the alternative course of history as there are so many affecting factors, but i personaly belief that without christianity ever forcibly rising to such dominative role through history, we'd definitely be living in a different kind of world.
@@Hukkavei yes without one of the absolute cornerstones of western civilization (Christianity) things would be quite different - but in what way - nobody can say
Just because knowledge exists doesn't mean it get accepted. It wasn't just the Christians who had problems with certain knowledge that didn't fit their worldview. Notice that we have large groups of people denying the efficacy of vaccines because it doesn't suit their particular view of science. My point being that was always take a step forward and two steps back as the human race.
This movie was terrifying for me.
I'm Agora-phobic
Cringe 😬
I can't watch it anymore. A great film, but a terrible one nonetheless.
Boo to those people! This joke is thr essence of genius! Huzzah good sir.. i tip my cap!
I am afraid of some sweaters.. angora phobic. Frightened by West Africa countries. Angola phobic. Jump when I hear a single snort 'A Snore aphobia'
Hahaha
Overall, a great review, but I must beg to differ on your opinions on the Dark Ages.
A. As other commenters have pointed out, saying that we would be more technologically advanced today if Christianity hadn't hit the scene is simply false. Rome was on its way down due to a wide variety of factors that had little to do with what its state religion was. Not to mention the fact that, following the same logic, there are several other cultures in the world that should have technologically out-grown Europe by a wide margin during the Dark Ages. Which leads into my next point...
B. The Dark Ages are not called that because science and technology ground to a complete halt. They're called that because there are very few records that survived the time period, so outside of major events, we don't really know much about what happened. In fact, many historians these days limit their use of the term or avoid using it altogether, specifically to prevent people getting the wrong idea about the time period. The majority of records we have from that time originated from Christian monastaries, which leads into my last point...
C. Christians were actually the ones keeping philosophy, learning, and libraries alive during the Dark Ages via their monastaries. Monastic records form most of what we know about that time period, so it's inaccurate to say that Christianity was responsible for and helped maintain the Dark Ages. Furthermore, the actions taken by the Christians in the events of Agora, while reprehensible, do not represent the religion or it's followers as a whole. As other commenters have pointed out, there are several noted Christian scholars from this time period who you seem to have completely ignored. Now, I'm not saying that Christianity or its followers are or ever were perfect, but to suggest that they were almost single-handedly responsible for the Fall of Rome, and that they intentionally held European scientific progress back is patently absurd.
Sorry, rant over, I just get really tired of people repeating these same tired old myths about the dark ages over and over. I really did enjoy the review other than that last bit and eagerly look forward to your next one.
I'm not the original author, but let me comment on a few points myself.
"A. As other commenters have pointed out, saying that we would be more technologically advanced today if Christianity hadn't hit the scene is simply false. Rome was on its way down due to a wide variety of factors that had little to do with what its state religion was. Not to mention the fact that, following the same logic, there are several other cultures in the world that should have technologically out-grown Europe by a wide margin during the Dark Ages."
I don't agree. First, Rome didn't fall suddenly one day, it lasted several centuries after the birth of Christianity: and yet in those four centuries and 3/4 there is not a single Christian scientist, strike that, there is no single Christian scientist for the first _eleven_ centuries of Christian history, why is that? I mean, for 4.75 centuries the Christian live _next_ to Pagan scientist and yet they do not produce a single scientist or discovery, why? Second, nobody ever said that always and everywhere the blame of the decline of science is to be put on Christianity, elsewhere (China, India, Islamic contries) there are other reasons; but as for Europe we _know_ that Christians were not intrested in science and technology, so we must put the blame on it.
"B. The Dark Ages are not called that because science and technology ground to a complete halt. They're called that because there are very few records that survived the time period, so outside of major events, we don't really know much about what happened."
Wrong, they were called "Dark Ages" because they were "darker" than the splendour of the Classic civilization, from a material and cultural point of view; so much that the little bounce in the age of Charlemagne is called "Carolingian _renaissance_", and not because they had more written records. Furthermore, it's true that we have many fewer records of that period than the previous one, yet we have no clue whatsoever that the material or cultural level of the Dark Ages were on par with those of the Classic period.
"In fact, many historians these days limit their use of the term or avoid using it altogether, specifically to prevent people getting the wrong idea about the time period."
Because it is an interesting period. But no historian claims that, again, the technological and cultural levels of the Early Middle Ages were on par with those of the Classic period.
"C. Christians were actually the ones keeping philosophy, learning, and libraries alive during the Dark Ages via their monastaries. Monastic records form most of what we know about that time period, so it's inaccurate to say that Christianity was responsible for and helped maintain the Dark Ages. Furthermore, the actions taken by the Christians in the events of Agora, while reprehensible, do not represent the religion or it's followers as a whole. As other commenters have pointed out, there are several noted Christian scholars from this time period who you seem to have completely ignored. Now, I'm not saying that Christianity or its followers are or ever were perfect, but to suggest that they were almost single-handedly responsible for the Fall of Rome, and that they intentionally held European scientific progress back is patently absurd."
Wrong on several accounts.
1) there is no single Christian scientist in the first eleven centuries of Christian history. Christian "scholars" were interested in theology, not science. That's why Christians preferred killing each other (and the Jews and the Pagans) as shown in Agora, rather than studying science. People like "St." Basil and "St." Augustine preferred the study of theology to that of astronomy and natural philosophy (i.e. science).
2) The vast majority of Ancient books has been lost because the Church was not interested in copying them; so if the Church takes credit for the books the monks preserved, it must also be blamed for the much greater number of books they did not copy because they were busy in copying the thousandth copy of the Bible, or because they were not interested in science.
3) A great number of ancient books we have _today_ comes from Eastern Mediterranean, Islamic or archeological finds; hell, even the original text of the New Testament had been lost by the monks, who kept copying the inferior Latin version!
"Sorry, rant over, I just get really tired of people repeating these same tired old myths about the dark ages over and over."
I'm sorry too, but even if many people know little about the Dark Ages, that does not mean they did not exist, nor that Christianity had nothing to do with their dislike for science.
I never stated that Rome fell in one day. In fact, I think my saying that it "was on its way down" would insinuate the opposite. The lack of interest in science and technology following the fall of Rome had little to do with Christianity and more to do with the fact that the dominant power in Europe had recently collapsed. In general, people were more focused on survival than the sciences. Those who could afford to explore the sciences had to prioritize pragmatism over the abstract. This lasted until Charlemagne (a Christian) founded the Holy Roman Empire and began the Carlignian Renaissance, during which he worked with Christian monks like Alcuin of York to expand education and the sciences.
Also, you're saying there wasn't a single Christian scientist in it's first 1,100 years? In that time, there was Anthemius of Tralles, John Philoponus, Paul of Aegina, and St. Bede, to name a few. In the Dark Ages, there was a substantial movement within the church to learn from the Latin texts of Rome, however, Greek was largely considered the language of academia back in Roman times, and since ancient Greek had more-or-less been forgotten as a language by this point, things were difficult for early medieval scientists and philosophers. And while it is true that monasteries placed a greater emphasis on Christian texts than ancient Roman ones, it's not as if they abhorred the ancient texts or didn't value their wisdom.
"I never stated that Rome fell in one day. In fact, I think my saying that it "was on its way down" would insinuate the opposite. The lack of interest in science and technology following the fall of Rome had little to do with Christianity and more to do with the fact that the dominant power in Europe had recently collapsed."
The reason why I underlined Rome did not fall in one day is that in the 450 from the birth of Christianity to the fall of the WRE Christianity gave no contribution to science. In a period in which we have Pagan scientists, we have no Christian ones. What's the reason for this? I say Christian disinterest in science.
"In general, people were more focused on survival than the sciences. Those who could afford to explore the sciences had to prioritize pragmatism over the abstract."
But when they did not need to focus on survival, they preferred to study a lot of theology and no science at all. Why is that? I say Christian disinterest in science.
"This lasted until Charlemagne (a Christian) founded the Holy Roman Empire and began the Carlignian Renaissance, during which he worked with Christian monks like Alcuin of York to expand education and the sciences."
Right. And yet the scientific production in the Carolingian Renaissance is close to nihil. Why is that? I say Christian disinterest in science.
"Also, you're saying there wasn't a single Christian scientist in it's first 1,100 years? In that time, there was Anthemius of Tralles, John Philoponus, Paul of Aegina, and St. Bede, to name a few."
THANK YOU! You are the first who can name a shred of Christian scientist before the 11th century! I've asked that countless times, and nobody could give me a single name!
However, Anthemius and John lived before the beginning of the Dark Ages in the Eastern Roman Empire (something that happened a little later w.r.t the WRE), and I am not sure why you consider Paul and Bede scientists
"In the Dark Ages, there was a substantial movement within the church to learn from the Latin texts of Rome, however, Greek was largely considered the language of academia back in Roman times, and since ancient Greek had more-or-less been forgotten as a language by this point, things were difficult for early medieval scientists and philosophers."
I agree with that. Yet this had not been the case in the first 4.5 centuries of Christian history, and yet no Christian scientist exist from that age (that I know about, at least), why is that? Also, when the knowledge of Greek was fading in the West, people like Jerome did translate religious texts from Greek to Latin, but no scientific ones, why is that? I say Christian disinterest in science.
"And while it is true that monasteries placed a greater emphasis on Christian texts than ancient Roman ones, it's not as if they abhorred the ancient texts or didn't value their wisdom."
Yet let the majority of the books containing that wisdom to become dust. And don't forget that they even erased scientific books to write religious hymns on them!
A far more likely reason for the lack of contribution to science in the early days of Christianity is due to the fact that it was a relatively small religion (early on, at least) and prioritized defining and propagating itself over scientific pursuits (which are reasonable actions for a nascent religious organization to take). And, even in these early days, most authorities within the church did not have a problem with science and philosophy simply because they had pagan roots. In fact, one of the Church Fathers, Origen, actively promoted the reading of these texts. By the time of the Early Middle Ages, the Church was the primary driving force behind the creation of hospitals and handling medical care in the East, and in the west, clergy and monks constituted the vast majority of educated people. If there was such a disinterest in science, as you claim, then why would the church bother instructing its officials in anything more than reading Latin and knowing how to calculate holy days? Why would it bother trying to learn from ancient Greek and Latin texts? How could any of the scientists I have already mentioned have advanced in their respective fields? Not only did the Church aid in preserving knowledge during the early Middle Ages, but it was, by and large, responsible for the expansion of knowledge in Europe during this time and for much of time afterward.
I provided multiple examples of Christians who did focus on science in addition to theology in the early medieval period, in addition to explaining that, while there was an interest within the church in learning from the ancients, the fact that ancient Greek had declined as a language prevented them from making as much headway as we've made in the years since. Given all this, I'm not sure where your arguments for a "Christian disinterest in science" are coming from. I'm also not sure why you describe the Carolignian Renaissance as having next-to-no scientific production, as it directly contributed to the High Middle Ages and subsequent renaissance (unless you're arguing that those would've happened regardless of the CR).
I'm not sure what bearing the fact that Anthemius and John lived before the Dark Ages has on anything; you specifically asked for Christian scientists who lived before 1100 AD, not Christian scientists of the Dark Ages. To answer the question of why I included them, Paul of Aegina developed many surgical techniques and authored the Medical Compendium in Seven Books, which was a definitive book on the subject of medicine for hundreds of years. St. Bede focused primarily on the natural world, making discoveries on the nature of mathematics, astronomy, and tides.
You're moving the goalposts from 1,100 years to 450 years? Alright, in that case, I would point out that Christianity was an officially persecuted religion until 313 AD, so for most of the time period you mentioned, it's doubtful that any Christian scientists who may have existed would have publicly declared themselves as such. Additionally, Jerome lived long before the time period we're talking about; though if I had to hazard a guess at his intentions, I would assume that he didn't foresee the decline of ancient Greek as a language, and therefore saw no reason to translate other ancient texts. Given the subtle mutability inherent to the nature of language, I don't think this is an outlandish assumption to make.
I could only find one instance of Christian monks overwriting ancient texts with hymns and prayers (specifically concerning Archimedes Palimpsest), so I can only assume that this was an extremely rare occurrence. I also found no direct evidence to substantiate your claim that monks "let the majority of the books containing wisdom to become dust." Could you provide some?
". If there was such a disinterest in science, as you claim, then why would the church bother instructing its officials in anything more than reading Latin and knowing how to calculate holy days? Why would it bother trying to learn from ancient Greek and Latin texts? How could any of the scientists I have already mentioned have advanced in their respective fields?"
If there was so much interest in science, why so few scientists? If Origen suggested to study science, why not a single Christian scientist in the West and so few and so late (w.r.t. Origen) in the East?
"the fact that ancient Greek had declined as a language prevented them from making as much headway as we've made in the years since"
The Christian you cited were all Eastern Romans, they actually knew Greek because it was their language. So why so few scholars?
"Alright, in that case, I would point out that Christianity was an officially persecuted religion until 313 AD, so for most of the time period you mentioned, it's doubtful that any Christian scientists who may have existed would have publicly declared themselves as such."
So you are claiming there were Christian scientists, but we simply don't know they were Christians, right? This position has several problems
1) we know of several Christians, who had no problems to make their faith known, yet _none_ of them is a scientist or shows any interest in science
2) Christianity was persecuted, yes, but persecution wasn't so strong, if it grew to become the religion of 15% of the population by 313
3) once it became a legal religion and then the official religion, we have no news of scientists coming out of the shadows to reveal they were Christians
"Jerome lived long before the time period we're talking about; though if I had to hazard a guess at his intentions, I would assume that he didn't foresee the decline of ancient Greek as a language, and therefore saw no reason to translate other ancient texts."
Yet he felt the need to translate the Bible, why? Either he perceived that Greek knowledge in the West was not in danger, then why did he translate the Bible, or he thought fewer and fewer people knew that language, then why did he (or other people like him) did not translate scientific books into Latin?
"I also found no direct evidence to substantiate your claim that monks "let the majority of the books containing wisdom to become dust." Could you provide some?"
Sure. We have the list of the books in the library of Photius, who was a Christian bishop at the beginning of the age in which Christians had the monopoly of culture; and we know he did possess several books we have not (I believe we miss most of his library). So Christian copiers of the age (they must be Christians because there were only Christians at the time) did not copy those books. We have books from late Antiquity(I'm thinking about the Deipnosophistae) which list books from authors that were available at a time in which there were many Christians, yet none of them arrived to our age. We know of Pagan Roman senators producing critical editions of books such as the Stories of Livy, and we know several of those books got lost. We have several books of science of which we have the first volumes but not the last, for example... and so on.
Heartbreakingly sad when libraries burn. And the way they treated Hypatia just tears streaming😭
This film shows the exact point which, in my opinion, the Dark Ages began.
I wished I lived in ancient times-to be able to witness debates that becomes the cornerstone of human civilizations to come. Would have been wondrous.
It's not like christian Europe had a renaissance between the roman empire falling and the "dark ages". Oh wait, they fucking did in the 12th century.
Not to mention in the 9th and 11th century aswell.
That's still 700 years gone to the dark ages
The True Gamer
What do you mean by gone? Because the so-called Dark Ages only referred to Western Europe. Eastern Europe was doing alright and Asia was continuing as before. I mean fuck Chinas golden age was taking place then. Unless you think the world is nothing without Europe then there were no years lost technologically.
wait i thought china was invented in 1860 or something
Thats the point! The sad truth is centuries occurred where the dark ages in Western Europe were rampant.
I think you over estimate how advanced we would be without the dark ages. After all large regions of the world with advanced societies, such as China for an example, were outside of the dark ages but were not centuries ahead of Europe technologically.
Quite right.. and in fact technological and scientific development in Europe continued after the fall of the Western Empire. The moldboard plough for example spread across northern Europe in the 5th or 6th century and three field agriculture developed around this time as well.
Shipmill was also invent in Western Europe by that time as well. Discovery of how rainbow occurs was noticed by clergymen also.
The revival of classical knowledges was very in-vogue for so called 'Dark ages'.
The term "Dark Ages" is one that academics refuse to use. The proper term is "Early Middle Ages".
One school of thought says that the period wasn't "dark" at all and cites stuff like Gothic architecture, tapestries, and universities as examples why.
Another group says that they were only "dark" when compared to Rome and Greece.
Neither side will blame Christianity for any kind of technological slow down. If anything the blame for that rests on the shoulders of the Roman government, who feared new tech falling into the hands of barbarians.
Whilst you are right in your statement. Still a LOT of knowledge was lost in those times with the destruction of those places of learning, so there was some inpact.
If Alexandria was still going as strong as in the earlier days. A lot of things could have gone differently. But we can never be sure now.
Yeah, but if we had no dark ages, we would have advanced much further. Think of it this way. Until the dark ages, everyone was pretty much evenly matched, with the West having quite a bit of an advantage. The dark ages were exactly that, stagnation and death. The rest of the world was insulated from that, so they kept going. But even the progress of societies such as early Islam even, are due TO the west because of figures like Aristotle and other greeks whose writings survived.
Also many don't know that The Visigoths that conquered Spain were among the most enlightened Catholics of their time. When they gave up Arian Christianity for Catholicism, despite King Liuvigild and his son Reccared were not very educated, as they were "barbarian" nomads finally settling a region. Taking up old cities and constructing new ones. They cultivated the sciences WITH IN the Church, it's how we got guys like Isidore of Seville writing detailed histories and cultivating academia in the Church academies like the one in Seville that a lot of ancient knowledge was saved and built upon, when the Muslims arrived in Spain they would take this foundation further and build world famous academies and produce some of the most influential thinkers in history such as Averroes. Just interesting how people forget or overlook periods such as the Visigothic rule of Spain yet so much of interest happened there, things that shaped world history happening far from where we might think at that time.
Wasn't Cyril the pope of the Coptic church though, not the Catholic church? Catholicism far as I'm aware, aside from stuff like the Inquisition and their treatment of the Cathars has usually been the more tolerant when it comes to philosophy and science. So that doesn't surprise me. What the movie was trying to get across though is the clash between I guess Religious fundamentalism, and philosophy and science. Least that's what it seemed like to me.
Cordoba at the time of Muslim rule was one of the most educated places in the world. Atleast before the rebellions started that split up the emirate and all the other shit afterwards. I hope someone makes a serie about that time. From the Visigoths, the Muslims, the reconquista. In the hands of a good director it could be so interesting.
Emmett Leone-Woods great comment.
The Inquisition was far greater and better behaved that most people believe.
At that time there wasn't a Schism between the seets, so they were (and still are) Coptic Catholics.
There is not one piece of historical reference to support the idea that Cyril was being inflamatory. On the contrary, he was defending his people from jewish and pagan mobs.
meh, inquisition was one of the plagues made by us, but... to be fair, they saved more "witches" that they burn. Catholic church, with some (big) exceptions has been a force of good
LOVED that movie, it's gorgeous visually, musically, and complex and devoid of hate towards whichever side in its plot. It may be not fully historical regarding Hypatia, but it's still one of the best antique movies ever made in my opinions. And yes, not at all known enough ! Thanks for this beautiful review.
dude this is the deepest most thought provoking review yet. whats your next one gonna be?
Saving Private Ryan :)
+History Buffs cool that's my favorite movie on history
+History Buffs Your end statement makes this one of your poorer reviews, you claim this set human advancement back centuries. What proof do you have? As a history buff you must of realized knowledge and ideas are lost and rediscovered throughout human civilization and know that in the end it is all for naught. Yes the steam engine was invented hundreds of years ago but what use was it to humanity then when slaves were cheap and accessible and such technological advancement were just expensive experiments. Your review becomes more speculation than a look at facts, the reason I subbed to you was to get the facts not what could have been, that's what alternative histories channel is for.
Totally subbed. I always get shifty eyed when a film/show gets released based on "real events". Always doing my own digging to see how accurate it all was?
Love knowing there's a channel that not only supports the film's art but points out the blatant inaccuracies made b/c Hollywood =p Interesting stuff and much appreciated, man =D
+Albert Veisman That was highly informative and worries me as I like Nick and his efforts to educate us and correct the mistakes made in his film reviews. Thanks for this informative comment.
Once again fanatics ruins everything.
@@Heidenspross Christians, Judaism, Islam, Catholics.
All those Abrahamic style religions did was fuck over the world.
@@crassus300 Islam is exception. Can you tell me how Islam vanished science. On the contrary, islam boosted science with several scholars like Biruni in ıts early ages. After the mongol and curasader invasions, scientific studies were diseppeared thanks to christianity again. Who us in charge???
@@mehmetsadinkara705 Islam is not an exception. The "golden" age of islam is extremely overrated. It was also a very brief period of time. Islam has a very bloody and oppressive history
All of them have exceptions Christianity has the renaissance Islam has the Golden Age and Judaism the period before Rome but all have there Dark ages literally Islam has things like Daesh and the Taliban while Christians have fanatics that hate things shown in the movie and the dark ages and Jews hated Early Christians
@@mehmetsadinkara705 What are you on about? The Islamic golden age was only kickstarted by Al-Ma'mun, who translated Anicient Greek philosophy. Only after the Abbasid Caliphate collapsed, all of the progress was reduced to naught after Al-Ghazali started to condemn Aristotle's teachings. Ever since then it has considered any form of science as Haram.
Really happy to see Agora up and running again, so I can enjoy it now as well! Really loved your review.
Can I pose a mild point of critique? I'm weary about calling the 800 years after the fall of the Roman Empire the 'Dark Ages'. I could see why the Migration Period would be called such, because of it's destructive impact on established society. But to call all of the European Middle Ages 'Dark Ages' is very ignorant in my opinion. It's true much ancient knowledge was lost with the collapse of the Western Roman Empire (though much more had been lost already before this point), but the Medieval period was not completely backwards. Many important discoveries and inventions were made, and some ancient knowledge was rediscovered, or combined into new concepts. At first this was driven by the flourishing Islamic culture and territories, but later on also in Europe. There were several periods during the Middle Ages who have later been called 'renesainces' and many important inventions and concepts were created which had huge impacts on society (to give one example: the heavy plough). And in fact, what we now call 'The Renesaince' would not have existed the way we know it without the centuries of collective learning of humanity preceding it. Many times I think we call it The Renesaince mainly because the spreading of ideas was quicker because of books becoming cheaper and therewith more knowledge was preserved and collective learning was stimulated that way. But the view that the centuries preceding it were backwards and religion posed a thread to the progress of knowledge is an oversimplification at best. Btw, you are making the point you didn't like the vicar making of Science -vs- Religion here yourself, which weakens your own point against his critique unnecessarily. I agree with your original point against the vicar that the movie isn't about Science -vs- Religion, and similarly you should overall not look at Science and Religion as opposing powers. It's unnecessarily polarizing and almost exclusively leads to destructive discussions.
I also don't like the term Dark Ages, because Hollywood has formed it into the dark and gritty, brown, black and grey medieval look most people falsly attach to the Middle Ages. Actually I'm a bit disappointed by your use of the term. Which I say with all due respect, because I really appreciate how sophisticated you often review historically inspired media!
Best wishes from The Netherlands!
Interesting all fine points indeed. But you must admit, there were a few centuries (Perhaps not 800) but a few that Western Europe did trail a bit behind in terms of knowledge and such compared to other places at the time. Some members of the Churches' became corrupt and their hold on the many peasants lives a further degradation.
Yes indeed from the Rennisances to the few who saw beyond what was and studied and researched more its not as many thing. But Medieval Europe compared to other places was a downgrade after the Fall of Rome.
First off, I really appreciate your input. I hope you don't take my next comment as an attempt to take down yours. I'm passionate about open discussion.
Well, you do make the assumption here that paesants' lives were much better in antiquity than in medieval times. I don't want to make that assumption without further reference.
There were times during this long period at which life could be tough, but I don't think a loss of ancient knowledge has caused this. In fact it could well be argued that some of the big problems in Medieval Europe were caused by the progression of technology and the increase in agricultural yields and consequental population increase (or decrease when the carrying capacity was reached) which could have profound economical effects affecting standards of living.
What I would want to admit is that the Migration Period was very disruptive. And maybe there was some knowledge loss. But my feeling is, from the things I've read, that it wasn't as much a backward place and period as is often portrayed and in the minds of many contemporary people. I think one of the problems is we don't know as much about the period, because source material is rather scarce. This is true for the 500-1000 AD period. And theirafter main sources are often chroniclers, which often made very 'coloured' accounts. We simply don't have the same quality of sources we have for antiquity and this can potentially blur and distort our image to great extents. The scarcity of preserved source material for these centuries often makes people feel like this was an empty or downgrade period.
Let me stress I'm no expert. I did a subsidiary subject in my Biology study about Medieval Europe, but besides that I'm an amateur historian at best. Still I know for sure we should be careful to put names on periods that can easily and quickly paint our views on such periods.
There is another assumption in your statement of members of Church becoming corrupt. Namely that in other periods the amount of corruption was significantly less and something inherent about the so called 'Dark Ages' caused members of the Clergy to become corrupt. I think corruption is of all ages. I really doubt if any priest in antiquity couldn't be just as corrupt. And I want to stress the Catholic church was not against science in the way we often portray it. Science was in that time not even a concept as we have it today. The whole attitude towards knowledge was incredibly different from ours, and it is hard to empathize. This also makes it incredibly hard to imagine how a time was compared to any other, especially one we are very familiar with (our modern society). I think it's a bit problematic to measure knowledge and what inventions/developments/knowledge is worth more than any other. How do you compare the invention of the movable type (China 1040) with the Allegory of the Cave by Plato? What would the impact have been if certain concepts weren't discovered at a certain time? What other things might be impacted that would have progressed later, or in other ways? Would this possibly have opened a vacuum for other concepts to be explored? How are all of these things painted by what we still use today? What about concepts that we deem less, while maybe it could prove very valuable in ways we cannot imagine?
And often the Church was a centerpoint in the gathering of knowledge. Throughout the Middle Ages the copying of books by monks was the main source of information spreading, and this was pivotal in the transgression of Eastern and Arabian knowledge to the west. Furthermore universities are originally institutes of the Church.
Yes the Church could be picky, so to say, in some areas of knowledge. But without even noticing, probably so are we today. And the inquisition, oftentimes popping in mind when thinking about the Church being opposed to science somehow, was maybe more a political than a religious or anti-scientific phenomena. The inquisition became what we think of it today at the end of the Middle Ages, as a reaction to the Protestant-Reformation. Before that it was mostly another justice department like any other in that world. Not the fundamentalist institute it would become and what we remember now. The Church did not claim a monopoly to knowledge, it did step forward as an institute to pose and give meaning to certain things. Today we maybe don't have an institute comparable to that. We don't really have any institute actively determining this. We have scientific consensus. But in a time where communication wasn't as quick, it would be highly cumbersome to figure out what the consensus on certain things could be. Imagine we would not be able to communicate as instantly as we can today, how do we give meaning to all the things everybody is shouting into this world? Why would the scientist in your village be less right than the one living on the other side of the sea/mountains? And think about language barriers scattering communication. This is where the Church would play an important role to the society. It would provide an alternative for consensus in determining what to value and what not.
Of course the Middle Ages weren't as scientific as our contemporary society. But I honestly think that by using names like Dark Ages, especially when referring to periods multiple times larger as what we now think of as the modern age, is dangerous; because it prevents us to keep an open view and to keep looking and digging deeper.
Western Europe perhaps. Eastern Europe remained virtually the same considering the Roman Empire was still there. Spain and Italy would also have a very good literary culture during the early middle ages. Not to mention the Carolingian Renaissance in the 8th-9th century.
Yes, I very much agree with you.
JuanHans Oh do not worry I didn't take your statement that way as all, I am practically breathing a sigh of relief that I can have an actual intellectual discussion without some mouth breathing internet moron yelling about inaccurate and incorrect historical facts that they know nothing about.
Yes yes and yes you are very correct on most of your statements. I too believe that catch all phrase the dark ages is not the correct phrase to represent the time period. I believe it gained traction as some historians and some people attempted to show off a "Superiority complex" in how advanced Europe was compared to other groups or religions at the times and some respond by generalizing some instances of the time periods of Medieval Europe. It all came down to accusations and finger pointing that spread from what I saw but it was inaccurate overall.
I was mainly saddened by the time Europe was in during the First Crusade and their actions in Jerusalem and Constantinople, the latter being a city filled with universities, museums, and the like and a large portion of the Crusaders having no idea what they even were and destroying them. I get sad I imagine the utter destruction of human knowledge in these pointless conflicts, whether it was the Great Library of Alexandria, the Great Library of Constantinople, and of course the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, the burning of a book intentionally to destroy information should be a crime in my personal opinion. I weep for all of the ancient things getting destroyed by those ISIS bastards. . .
When Hypatia's death happened, I was left in a state of horror. Truly disgusting.
The film contains numerous historical inaccuracies:[10][254][256] It inflates Hypatia's achievements[149][256] and incorrectly portrays her as having discovered proof to support Aristarchus of Samos's heliocentric model of the universe, which there is no evidence that Hypatia ever even studied.[149] It also contains a scene based on the final episode from Carl Sagan's Cosmos in which a mob of Christians raid the Serapeum and burn all of the scrolls in it, but leave the building itself largely intact, aside from knocking over a few statues. In historical reality, the Serapeum probably did not have any scrolls in it at the time of its destruction[c] and the Christians completely demolished the building to the ground.[10] The film also strongly implies that Hypatia is an atheist, a notion directly contradictory to the surviving sources, which all portray her as a devoted follower of the teachings of Plotinus, who taught that the goal of philosophy was "a mystical union with the divine."[
@@soheil527 You know your stuff
@@soheil527 , Your name says it all. Ignorant fool
@@Nimmie111 whaaat? dumb beeetch
Hi Nick I just want to say that I love your reviews and find them most informative and entertaining. However, while I think you worked really hard and are very passionate on this review, I think that your review misinterprets a few of the facts. For example their were many early Catholic Neapolitans such as Agustin of Hippo who in his writting called Confessions he talked about his love for Roman and Greek Rhetoric and Philosophy and was educated in Carthage. I also want to point out that while their are cases in this time when Early Christians destroyed pagan items and buildings that in this particular case it is debated wether or not the temple of the Serapeum was destroyed by Roman soldiers or Christians. Hahn: Gewalt und religiöser Konflikt. p.82. Again thanks for making these reviews, just trying to give some polite friendly criticism from one passionate history buff to another.
Thank you Thomas, I completely understand your reservations. I also came across the story of the Serapeum being destroyed by either Roman soldiers or by a mob of Christians. Unfortunately I was unable to find more evidence supporting the soldiers attacking but at the end of the day they both seemed to have had the blessing of Theodosius. I made a choice to lean towards the Christian mob account
Also another story I came across was that Muslims might have responsible for the destruction of the library or at least an incarnation of it. However I don't believe it. Not because I don't believe they are capable of doing such a thing but from the colorful language they used in the sources. Like the fact the fact the library burned day and night for six months, which sounds like complete rubbish to me. I didn't mention it because of time constraints.
If I had any regrets with this review, it was that I didn't go into further detail with my statement of the Dark Ages. Now in my opinion I view the time after the Fall of the Roman Empire a darker age. The standard of living went down as well literacy. The world in the eyes of the common man became smaller and the Church was the dominant institution that regulated what was okay and what was not okay. However that doesn't mean that there was no progress being made at all otherwise we never would have progressed as a civilization. There were monks who preserved ancient text and the Byzantine Empire still kept the tradition of libraries going and etc. Now why did I not go into further detail about this? Because I was wrapping up a review that was long enough as it is and I didn't realize that me calling the middle ages the dark ages would be so controversial. So in future I am going to try and be as specific as possible. In any case this is just my opinion and I would highly encourage any one interested in this period to research more into this and draw your own conclusions. It truly is fascinating stuff.
But in any case Thomas thank you very much for criticizing my video in a friendly and polite way. I welcome discussions of this to be made in the comment section in exactly the same manner you executed. Personally I prefer these sort of comments rather than people telling me to change the intro lol :)
Wow I did not expect you to personally respond. (: Thank you for your response it means a lot. It also proves that you really put your money where your mouth is. You are right it is just like Hypatia said in the movie. We have more in common than we have differences. And I think it can also be said that in God's eyes all men are brothers. If you ever get the chance could you do me a favor and review the Scarlett and the Black?
Nick, IMO, you probably would have gotten a bit less flak if you hadn't explicitly claimed that the Dark Ages lasted 800 years. And you also stated things as facts which were at best speculation (that is, that Serapeum still contained a remnant of the library at the time of its destruction).
Actually I think that papyrus would burn very quickly. I am with Nick so far as I agree that the remains of the library was probably gone long before the Islamic conquests.
Because Reddit is the source for historical knowledge?
27:00 The first invention of the steam engine was seen as useless, because it was a labor saving device. What use is there in a labor saving device in a society based on slavery. Those in power have no use for labor saving, as the slaves perform all the labor.
Sorry guys I tried to convert the empire back to paganism but I got killed by those crafty Persians; mea culpa.
Thanks for trying tho
Sorry, man. We Christians are here to stay.
If only you had succeeded!
Tua culpa.
Paganism is still a form of religion tho
19:30 My god, the way his voice shakes as he says that Ceril won was like reading a story and finding out the villain wins. What an unfair, evil world we make.
Times change but not people sir.
Except Ceril wasn't even there and did not care about her. The movie is just flat wrong
@@saintjames1995I'm asking in good faith, you have some sources to dispute this?
@@ASTROPLANET13
THERE was a woman at Alexandria named Hypatia, daughter of the philosopher Theon, who made such attainments in literature and science, as to far surpass all the philosophers of her own time. Having succeeded to the school of Plato and Plotinus, she explained the principles of philosophy to her auditors, many of whom came from a distance to receive her instructions.
On account of the self-possession and ease of manner, which she had acquired in consequence of the cultivation of her mind, she not unfrequently appeared in public in presence of the magistrates. Neither did she feel abashed in coming to an assembly of men. For all men on account of her extraordinary dignity and virtue admired her the more. Yet even she fell a victim to the political jealousy which at that time prevailed. For as she had frequent interviews with Orestes, it was calumniously reported among the Christian populace, that it was she who prevented Orestes from being reconciled to the bishop. Some of them therefore, hurried away by a fierce and bigoted zeal, whose ringleader was a reader named Peter, waylaid her returning home, and dragging her from her carriage, they took her to the church called Caesareum, where they completely stripped her, and then murdered her with tiles. After tearing her body in pieces, they took her mangled limbs to a place called Cinaron, and there burnt them. This affair brought not the least opprobrium, not only upon Cyril, but also upon the whole Alexandrian church. And surely nothing can be farther from the spirit of Christianity than the allowance of massacres, fights, and transactions of that sort. This happened in the month of March during Lent, in the fourth year of Cyril's episcopate, under the tenth consulate of Honorius, and the sixth of Theodosius.
Translation as in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers
From Socrates scholasticus who lived near her
Rachel Weisz is so talented !
she is in "the lobster" as well with an awesome performance !
I wish more directors utilized her talents in the way these two did. Many times I see her in stuff way beneath her.
Yes.
But shes not pretty in the film ( my opinion) , shes mutch prettier in the Mummy 2
yellow masK17 So? Isn’t she supposed to be an average but good looking everyday woman there?
@@alexman378 you should say that about most historical movie character's 🤷♂️
yellow masK17 Sure. Some were almost defined by her looks though, like fair Helen for example.
This was a great review and I can even use it for my history test, thanks Nick!
Thanks man. Although I would highly recommend you research more into it. Unfortunately this is a complicated period of history and I had to condense a lot of it within 30minutes. However it is fascinating stuff. Wish you the best of luck 😃
Thanks man and keep up the good work!
What about making a video dedicated only to the history behind the movie?
how about a review of master and commander?
Agreed! Master & Commander!
Love it when Nick gets editorial on our asses. Plus that last shot of the space shuttle / classical times crossover was DOPE
Firstly, I'm thrilled I found your channel! I am certainly looking forward to watching more of your content! Fantastically done video, and I too love this film. I do think it could've been a bit more nuanced tho with regards to the Pagan vs Christian tension, which I found to be very balck-and-white (literally, the Christians almost exclusively wear black). The parabalani were viewed as radicals even by the majority of the Christians at the time, and many Christian aristocrats sent their children to Hypatia to be taught. One thing I think does need to be clarified tho. You cited Tertullian as evidence of the church's apparent disdain for classical philosophy. Tertullian was condemned himself as a heretic by the church, which very much respected classical philosophy, particularly Socrates and Aristotle. That today we still have the records of ancient philosophers is thanks to the Christian monks who transcribed them.
I thought the Arabs did that?
@@Abhishek-sr2pu to a certain extent perhaps but the work done by monks and other Christian scholars over the centuries, including those supposed Dark Ages, is the main reason why these records survived.
@@NorthStar8211 It seems more like most of the records maintained by the Christians had more to do with history and Christian philosophy. The vast majority of classic knowledge was preserved by the Muslim world. It only returned to Europe during the Renaissance - Hence "rebirth".
Fuck, this one made me even sadder than the one with Columbus :(
You did a beautiful job! The last few minutes made me weep.
Can you do a video about Rome,the HBO series?
Please, listen to this man
Yes please!!!
yes please do
yess
Is it good?
I’d sell my soul to be able to read a quarter of those books and understand them.
Good new for you, the internet exists and so does most of that knowledge and more. Keep the soul as i'm afraid it's existence is just as your willingness to learn, is not existent.
As a Christian... this film is entirely valid as a piece against fundamentalism... but I very much feel that the film is NOT about Christianity in the modern world.
***** The reaction to the Orlando shooting makes it entirely obvious that not everyone agrees with my assessment.
+Judge Fredd
Oh, don't worry. Many Christians hate knowledge now as much as they did back then.
295Phoenix "Many" =/= the very few. However, Islam is a different story.
I never recalled Rachel Weisz played Hypatia--a wonderful choice for such a unique and admirable historical figure,
Is that Poe Dameron?
Yes. Yes it is.
I knew he looked like one hell of a pilot 😂
Poe is love. Poe is life.
Oscar Isaac is the one good thing that came out of the new trilogy.
Well, him and Daisy Ridley.
I just love your channel! You are a gifted storyteller! Thank you for the video! Hugs from the 🇺🇸💜
When you mentioned the Guy that said that the earth moved around the sun, I spend An hour reading about him. (And plutarch talking about a face on the Moon.)
Do "The Great Escape" next!
+gmet12915 this
Bump
***** I second that as well.
a TRUELY enlightnening episode...and one I wasn't expecting!....BRAVO for the brainy side!...It's too bad you can't wander in on deeper stuff like this more often Nick....quite refreshing!!!!
I've never seen Agora, but I'm going to say my new headcanon for The Mummy series is that Hypatia is one of Evie's past lives and explains her love of books.
I do want to push back against the idea of "the dark ages". Astrolabes, eyeglasses, the compass, mechanical clocks, and tidal mills were all either invented or adopted in Europe during the time that we call the "Dark Ages". Were there issues? Absolutely. But technological, science, advancement didn't stop.
I was rather disappointed with this episode, particularly presenting Tertullian as the sole voice of the Christians and overlooking other prominent christian leaders. It's just not true, and ultimately Tertullian's vision did not win out (at least in Christian groups like Catholic and Orthodox). Augustine of Hippo lived at the same time in North Africa and was himself at one point a pagan who eventually became Christian. His view stands in stark contrast to Tertullian. Platonism was inherent in Christian understanding until Thomas Aquinas introduced Aristotelian thought to the Church in the late middle ages when Islamic texts made their way to Europe.
Dark ages is a loaded term. The narrative is so cliche- the Church took control of Europe and suppressed knowledge that didn't conform to it. It's just not true, at least to the extent portrayed. It somehow never gets mentioned that it was monks who continued to write down Plato's works. The Carolingian and Merovingian Renaissance are seldom mentioned. The first Universities in Europe were sponsored by the Church. Incredible works of Philosophy were produced at this time as well from John Duns Scotus, Thomas Aquinas, Anselm of Canterbury, etc. Hardly Dark.
whilst the fall of the Roman empire and the rejection of their learning did affect technology, science still bloomed in Africa and Asia too but they also soon fell to fundamentalism as europe once had
Where in Africa did science bloom? I have not heard this
***** and Ethiopia, Egypt, the northern African countries and along the east coast.
In Timbuktu :
They made use of the Julian Calendar.
Generally speaking, they had a helio-centric view of the solar system.
Diagrams of planets and orbits made use of complex mathematical calculations.
Developed algorithm that accurately orient Timbuktu to Mecca.
They recorded astronomical events, including a meteor shower in August 1583.
Ibrahim Hirsi you know your stuff. I'm impressed where did you learn this?
Ibrahim Hirsi you made me smile. Thanks. I'm very happy that you are a proud African as every black man and woman should be. Africans were builders of great and greater civilizations and builders of ancient monuments that modern science can't even reproduce. I honestly have no idea how for so long in our modern world people even begin to question if Africa had ancient civilizations and wealth and believe it to be a backwards place. I would go as far as to say Ancient Africans were civilized to the marrow of their bones and as modern Africans we should aspire to reach that height as the ancients did
Well according to historical sources, the Serapis statue in Serapeum of Alexandria was made of wood, not bronze. Tyrannius Rufinus in his work "Historia ecclesiastica", 2: 23 says: "One of the soldiers, better protected by faith than by his weapon, grabs a double-edged axe, steadies himself and, with all his might, hits the jaw of the old statue. Hitting the worm-eaten wood, blackened by the sacrificial smoke, many times again, he brings it down piece by piece, and each is carried to the fire that someone else has already started, where the dry wood vanishes in flames."
This video makes discovery channel blush with love. Such inaccuracies are matched only by those things with aliens.
I love how much you love Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. It's one of my favorite movies.
The fire didn't reach the Library in 46 BCE, that didn't happen.
Historia Civilis has proof that proves otherwise, watch his video on the Siege of Alexandria
Yeah this movie, comment section, and review are full of cancerous shit and bad history.
This is the first episode where I've found myself significantly disagreeing with the opinion, and this is an anticlerical atheist speaking. The view reflected in this movie and developed in this video is an extremely outdated and reductive one. Blaming the very real and catastrophic loss of knowledge of the ancient world on fanatic early Christians hostile to culture is a staple of Enlightenment-era and 19th-century anticlericalism, and this modern rerun of that ideology is more due to the current obscurantism of jihadi groups than any academic research. So let me go on a rant about 6 years too late:
The destruction of knowledge and artefacts of worship was part of the long and difficult process that was the transition between Greco-Roman polytheism and Christianity within the crisis of the end of the ancient world and the beginning of the Middle Ages. Pagans and Christians, as depicted in the movie, both committed acts of destruction against the other faith's culture. There is some evidence that early Church figure chose not to preserve some pagan texts they deemed irreconcilable with the faith. However, the violence wasn't permanent or a staple of Christian doctrine throughout the period, and the fact that some upper-class Christian authors or bishops legitimized and encouraged those practices in some texts should not be understood to be the attitude of all Christians.
In fact, it can be argued that a great deal of knowledge was preserved by Christian scribes and monks transcribing ancient texts or elites collecting books and artifacts. Most Christian clerics were classically trained and were imbued with this Greco-Roman culture, and a great deal wanted to preserve it. However, the shifting times and political instability of the late Roman world made it difficult to maintain the institutions and methods charged with preserving the fragile materials that made up books and papyri. From invasion to civil war to economic crises, the late Antiquity and early Middle Ages lost the centrality of power and surplus of wealth necessary to devote an entire class of people to the preservation of things that weren't either materially useful or relevant to current religious affairs.
Once again, as an anticlerical AND a student of history, I believe it is wrong to perpetuate a myth about what happened back then that is more based on our current demons than actual historical truths.
yes your right but still theres facts of christians destroying knowlage which they thought was heretic
Perhaps as a myth then, it helps us address these demons we are currently facing? On the face of that alone, I can forgive the errors here. Especially as a member of a minority religion who has been threatened with physical violence before.
@@NorthForkFisherman I will always be reluctant with a piece of media or art that alters history in a significant way (I don't have a problem if there's no exact recreation of Napoleon's battle tactics to be honest) to serve a certain worldview, even if I'm partial to it, as I am here.
Because if a movie can say early Christians were knowledge-destroying fanatics to parallel with modern Islamists and condemn obscurantism (which I agree with), then what's to stop religious cineasts from making a movie about how the French Revolution's leaders ALL were bloodthirsty atheists who wanted to erase religion from existence and killed hundreds of thousands of priests? See, again, exaggerating and altering historical fact to serve a political agenda.
@@samrevlej9331 But the acts of vandalism in this move did actually happen, did they not?
You seem well educated on this subject and I believe what you said, but even though many elites may have sought to preserve Greco-Roman knowledge, is it not true that among the uneducated masses, the Christians of the time were far more hostile to the existence or tolerance of other religions and any ideas associated with them than were the Pagans?
After all the Roman pagans lived in peace with a variety of peoples worshipping multiple different pantheons for centuries.
Here’s a summary of the violence that early Christians directed towards various sects and groups, including specific instances and evidence:
### **1. Gnostics**
- **Persecution by Early Orthodox Christians**: Early Church Fathers like Irenaeus and Hippolytus wrote extensively against Gnostic sects such as the Valentinians and Sethians. They accused Gnostics of heresy and deceit. While much of this was through theological dispute, there are records of physical violence as well. For instance, the “Clementine Recognitions” describes the violent suppression of Gnostic practices in the early 3rd century.
### **2. Montanists**
- **Suppression and Excommunication**: The Montanists faced significant hostility from mainstream Christians. The orthodox Church denounced Montanist practices as heretical. Tertullian, initially a supporter, was later excommunicated from the mainstream Church. This excommunication reflects the broader trend of marginalization and potential violence against Montanists, although direct evidence of physical violence is less documented.
### **3. Manichaeans**
- **Persecution by Roman Authorities**: Manichaeism faced persecution not only from Christian authorities but also from the Roman Empire. Emperor Diocletian and later Constantine targeted Manichaeans as part of their broader campaign against non-orthodox religions. In the 4th century, Manichaean texts were burned and adherents were punished, reflecting state-sanctioned violence against them.
### **4. Novatians**
- **Violence and Suppression**: Novatianism was considered a schism from the mainstream Church. As such, Novatians faced repression from the established Church. In the mid-3rd century, the Church’s efforts to suppress Novatianists included excommunication and social ostracism. While direct violence is less recorded, the ecclesiastical and social pressure exerted was significant.
### **Interactions with Romans and Egyptians**
1. **Destruction of Pagan Temples**:
- **Serapeum in Alexandria**: In 391 CE, Christian mobs, incited by Bishop Theophilus, destroyed the Serapeum, a major pagan temple in Alexandria. This act of violence was both religiously and politically motivated, reflecting the intense conflict between Christians and pagans in Egypt.
2. **Conflict with Egyptian Pagans**:
- **Theophilus’s Actions**: Theophilus of Alexandria led efforts to suppress pagan practices, which included violent actions against temples and pagan rituals. His efforts were part of a broader campaign to enforce Christian orthodoxy and were accompanied by physical violence against pagan worshippers.
3. **Persecution of Heretical Groups**:
- **Theodosius I and Heretics**: Emperor Theodosius I (reigned 379-395 CE) enforced Nicene orthodoxy through laws that persecuted groups like the Arians. Theodosius's edicts led to the suppression and marginalization of non-Nicene Christians, often involving violence and property destruction.
These examples illustrate how early Christians, especially as they gained power and institutional authority, often resorted to violence against those they deemed heretical or opposed. The evidence for these actions comes from historical accounts, Church writings, and records of imperial edicts.
"You do not question what you believe; you cannot.
...I MUST."
No words.
I really appreciate this review. Great video!
That montage at the end, especially that conclusion, it genuinely put a tear in my eye.
I feel ashamed that I had the chance to see this film when it came out and didn’t take the chance.
While the movie does depict most things accurately, I do think that the afterword founded on Tertullian is rather unwarranted, especially since Tertullian believed in fideism, namely that one should not use reason to make conclusions, a position that the majority of theologians rejected. Also, the idea that science and religion were incompatible throughout the "dark ages" is false. Modern historians such as James Hannam, Philip Jenkins and Rodney Stark, not to mention a slew of lesser known ones have done much to point this out in very readable works. Also, let's not forget the later attempts by sensitive monks to preserve ancient knowledge by translating not only Greek and Roman texts, but Eastern ones as well. It is far too easy to paint history in broad brushstrokes.
The greek and roman texts that were preserved by the christians, were those that did not contradict much their own teachings. Thus about 3% of ancient books and works survived.....not a good score indeed...
The irrational belief in imaginary supernatural beings is what makes religion incompatible with science.
And that isn't the fault of science.
While the scraps of knowledge that survived the Christian and Islamic purges persisted DESPITE religion and not BECAUSE of it.
@@takispapas9887
Stop regurgitating lies. The reason why lots of texts haven’t survived for over 1500 years is because it is extremely time consuming and extremely expensive to preserve all texts. They could only persevere ones that were the most popular like Homer, Plato and Virgil. Obviously they couldn’t preserve everything for over a thousand years!
90% of old films that were made haven’t survived for even more than a century. Why do you think that is?
*Martin Scorsese's Film Foundation claims that "half of all American films made before 1950 and over 90% of films made before 1929 are lost forever." Deutsche Kinemathek estimates that 80-90% of silent films are gone; the film archive's own list contains over 3,500 lost films.*
@@joellaz9836 False assumption due to ignorance. It is well known that most of ancient texts, were easily preserved throughout antiquity, that is from around 700 BCE to roughly 500 CE. For about 1200 years. Because ancient scholars wanted to preserve them. That was not the case after christianity took over. The lack of preservation was intended. For example, we do have quite many works by Plato, who was considered by christians somewhat close to their beliefs and way of thinking. We have less than 3% of Aristotle's works today, because christians considered his works "dangerous". He used logic and reason you see.
They just didn't dare, despite their medieval fanatism, to scrap all ancient wisdom. They saved the most "helpful" works.
In fact , the dark middle ages era, was a consequence of christianity. And it , very slowly, gave way exactly when it was forced to stop its despotism over people, thinkers and scientists.
The films analogy is just stupid.
@@takispapas9887
Also I don’t see how you can say Christians thought Aristotle was evil. And you also know nothing about the Middle Ages, which is typical.
Middle Ages Europe preferred Aristotle over Plato and nearly all medieval universities were based on studying him. Thomas Acquinas, who is one of the most revered Christian philosophers was influenced by Aristotle above all else. Plato wasn’t even reintroduced into Europe until the near fall of Constantinople by the Greeks. I think you must be a very ignorant person when it comes to history, especially since you just called all of the Middle Ages ‘the dark ages’ which is very wrong. Did you know the first structure to surpass the pyramid of Giza in height was the Lincoln cathedral, which was completed in 1300AD. Yes the first structure to surpass the pyramid of Giza in height, which was created in 4500 years ago, was not Greek or Roman structure but a medieval cathedral. How can you call such people who built such magnificent architecture (even more advanced than what the Geeks and Romans ever built) to be living in the dark ages?
You are very ignorant indeed. Learn more about the Middle Ages and you will realise just how much we out to them. From universities to parliamentary democracies to the greatest architecture in history to great advancement in agriculture and metallurgy and ship building.
- Tertullian is to be taken with a grain of salt: he was never declared a saint, for many reasons.
- Christians from this time period read and valued the Classics; read St. Basil's "ADDRESS TO YOUNG MEN ON THE RIGHT USE OF GREEK LITERATURE" (for free online).
- The "dark ages" has largely been debunked, but certainly *never* happened in Christian Constantinople. Young men there memorized the Iliad, among other Classical works.
Christian Constantinople even had a woman (Anna Komnena) write her own Iliad-like book about the history of her family's lineage and father's reign, and really the "Dark Ages" was always pejorative since that's how Plutarch, who essentially popularised the idea, intended it
@@blixer8384 The Latin West forgot Greek, the "Byzantine" East did not--they kept the flame of Classical wisdom alive, and expanded it.
@@blixer8384 TH-cam comment section is among the worst forms of communication.
i refer to the dark ages is the time when western roman falls to the age of charlamagne
Don't do cheri-picking with your saints mate say all the truth about vasil he was hating Greek philosophy
Fantastic video and commentary. Thank you.
Yay, just made the 10,000th like under this video. Well deserved :)
Hey Warhorse Studios! Your game is great.
Tak tu som Warhorse fakt nečakal :-D
34,795 'Likes' now !!! ~~~ I'm # 34,796 !!!
I love this movie - especially as I live in Egypt teaching history ... but it is also hard to watch ..
Rachel. Weisz is one of my favourites she did a great job.
Honestly, your video had me tearing up : not only for Hypatia's both incredible and tragic life which definitely deserves recognition but also for what you mentionned at the end, the potential that humanity could have achieved earlier if it hadn't been for religious obscurantism
Most people didn’t know how to read so it was easy to convince them that Hypatia was a witch and burn all the scrolls because they don’t seem that important
what would he have achieved earlier? the earlier complete destruction of the earth? the earlier mechanized warfare? earlier mechanized genocide? an earlier exploitation of labor by corporations? the earlier massive rise in mental health issues stemming from the hell that is modern life?
@menkrep1337 bot
If you can't communicate in decent English, don't bother trying in the first place.
@@God-mb8wi Well if religion was just a footnote and that studying the great mysteries of the universe was valued, we probably wouldn't have half as many wars. :S
@@michaelblower7363 you do know that only 7 percent of all wars have been religious right..
The other 93 percent have been secular
I cry every time I watch this movie and I cry every time I watch this History Buff.
Every time.
It seems the world doesn’t change very much.
In the movie I have to say that the pagans decided to attack the Christians in the town centre and what came after is kind of their own fault or at least the fault of their leaders. Cause and effect. The pagans started a genocide and when people started fighting back they were now on the recieving end of what they had been doing to others. Just a thought there. At the end of the day people are fucked in the head and religion is also a tool which fear can be used to control people, how much of religion is true - well u need to find out yourself.
@@SwedishDoomGoblin people like to throw out genocide too often. Why should they (back in the day) think about it as cause-and-effect when it's their fundamentalism that caused this shit?
I would say it's more about a battle of truth. Their truths tho (so anything which goes against their narrative gets blamed as sins and get burnt.)
As I type a response on my magic board to send to magic land so you guys (other magicians) can respond. Later I'll Take a magic bus to the magic screening of The avengers. A tale as classic as our own existence just with different names and more magic.
Idk If I'm agreeing or disagreeing with you.
Learning is a process. And every time a life enters the world, they must undergo the same process their predecessors did in hopes of achieving their same enlightenment. My great grandmother always said, “Live and learn, die and forget it all.”
Blame religions. They always seem to slow us down.
Do the Admiral of War: Roaring Currents after Saving Private Ryan
Also, ISIS following a twisted interpretation of Islam? They're following Islam in it's purest form.
Wrong, they are following a twisted interpretation of Islam (even though some of what they do can be found in what ever that Islamic bible is called)
If modern day extremist Islam is its "purest form," then modern day western Christianity is the twisted interpretation. Luckily for us the Christian world grew wealthy and educated off the backs of the industrial revolution, and people started ignoring the nastier parts of their religion.
GoErikTheRed Twisted interpretations of religion are the best interpretations of religion.
No its not. Islam does not permit rebelling against your ruler or going into the street like a vigilante and shooting people, believe it or not.
Nick, I LOVE the build up to "the Two Great Ones" starting at 2:54. It's just one small example of what makes your videos great.
+History Buffs
agora - that's "now" in portuguese, if you want to learn ;)
It's weird
Good to know more brazilians watch History Buffs
Pedro Mattos Ev i'm portuguese...
+André Silva ops... sorry
Pedro Mattos Ev not a problem, but could you not seen the simpsons image with the flag behind?
The wikipedia article for the Library of Alexandria contradicts some of what is said here about the destruction of the Sarapeum library.
"None of the accounts of the Serapeum's destruction mention anything about it having a library and sources written before its destruction speak of its collection of books in the past tense, indicating that it probably did not have any significant collection of scrolls in it at the time of its destruction."
Yeah, keep finding excuses. How about you answer for the death of Hypatia? Or maybe not. Human lives have never been religion's forte, when it's not of their own.
Beautiful video, btw. The conclusion was just gorgeous.
The rocket and the text at the end gave me chills. Very well done!