Last week, we watched a movie called Agora. The film took place in the late 4th and early 5th centuries C.E., during a time of Roman decline, growing Christian power and a tragic loss of human knowledge.
Agora centers around the great Library at Alexandria, which was already several hundreds of years old by that time. The protagonist is Hypatia – daughter of one of the respected leaders of the university, and herself a successful mathematician, astronomer, philosopher and teacher.
Long and bloody story short, the Jews, Christians and Pagans living in Alexandria with Hyaptia did not get along. As religion so often does, it drew lines, created misconceptions and led to horrible fighting. The library and its scholars came to be seen as protectors of godless activity and witchcraft. Hyaptia especially was targeted as one of the last philosophers, a pagan and a woman. Without giving away the ending, I’ll just say that her treatment, and that of the library itself, at the hands of the Christians is ghastly.