Agora vs. Fatima: Contending Christianities

The films Agora (2009) and Fatima (2020) contain very different depictions of Christianity. By depictions, I mean ways in which Christianity can be interpreted and lived. This is not to say that all of the interpretations are equally valid, for only those that contain internal contradictions evince hypocrisy. The sheer extent of the distance between the depictions shown in the two films demonstrates not only the huge extent of latitude that religious interpretation can have, but also just how easy it is even for self-identifying Christians, whether of the clergy or the laity, not only to fail to grasp Jesus’ teachings in the Gospels, but also to violate the two commandments even while believing that Jesus Christ is divine (i.e., the Son of God). The human mind, or brain, can have such stunning blind spots (or cognitive dissidence) when it comes to religion that even awareness of this systemic vulnerability and efforts to counter it are typically conveniently ignored or dismissed outright. This is nearly universal, in spite of claims of humility and fallibility more generally, so I contend that the human mind is blind to its own weakness or vulnerability in the religious sphere of thought, sentiment, and action. Augustine’s contention that revelation must pass through a smoky stained window before reaching us is lost on the religious among us who insist that their religious beliefs constitute knowledge. I contend that this fallacy as well as the larger vulnerability to hypocrisy should be a salient part both of Sunday School and adult religious education. For the vulnerability is correctable, but this probably requires ongoing vigilance. That is, the problem is not that the divine goes beyond the limits of human cognition (as well as perception and emotion) as Pseudodionysus pointed out to deaf ears in the 6^th century; the human brain is fully capable of spotting and countering its own lapses in the religious domain. In other words, the problem here is not that of the human mind being able to understand the contents of revelation because must travel through a darkened window before reaching us; rather, the problem lies in grasping what Jesus preaches in the Gospels and putting the spiritual principles into practice, rather than doing the opposite and being completely oblivious to the contradiction, which is otherwise known as cognitive dissidence. The two films provide us with the means both to grasp this problem and realize how much it differs from a healthy faith that has the innocence of a child’s wonder.

Agora is set in Alexandria, Egypt from 390 to 410 CE, while Fatima is set in Fatima, Portugal in 1917. Both are based on historical events. Agora centers around Hypatia, a pagan mathematician and astronomer whom Bishop Cyril had his Christian brotherhood kill for having refused to convert, especially considering that she had considerable political influence locally. Historically, the brotherhood skinned Hypatia alive; in the film, her ex-slave Davus, who loves her, suffocates her before the brotherhood can stone her to death. He who has not sinned throw the first stone apparently does not apply to the members of the Christian brotherhood, who are no strangers to using violence. Earlier in the film, they throw stones at Jews at a music concert for listening to music and eating sweets, according to Cyril, on the Sabbath. This prompts the Jews to retaliate, and the brotherhood in turn with Cyril saying that even women and children should be killed.  Earlier still, the brotherhood is among the Christians who fight the pagans, who start the violence because Theophilus, the Christian bishop (or patriarch) who precedes Cyril encourages the Christian crowd to throw food at a statue of one of the Egyptian deities. Whereas violence used to “answer the insult” is not an inconsistency in the Egyptian religion, such a response contradicts Jesus’ second commandment, which includes serving rather than insulting one’s neighbor. The presence of God is most of all in love that is not convenient, and thus that goes against the human instinctual urge to retaliate.

In the Gospels, Jesus preaches on how a person can enter the Kingdom of God. In Luke (4:43), Jesus says, “It is necessary for me to proclaim the good news about the kingdom of God . . . because I was sent for this purpose.” Jesus attempts to orient his hearers to the Kingdom of God. The latter should be the focus of a Christian. Peace characterizes that kingdom, and the way to peace is through loving one’s enemies. More concretely, this means turning the other cheek, both literally and proverbially, but this is not enough. A person must go further to help, or serve, one’s detractors, which, incidentally, does not mean staying in an abusive relationship. Serving a person who insults Jesus, rather than retaliating, is an excellent way into the Kingdom of God.

In Agora, both Theophilus and Cyril miss an opportunity due to their hatred and prejudice against other religions. A person being served even as that person insults the helpful person’s ideals is more likely to convert to Christianity by grasping the humble strength that lies in voluntarily serving one’s detractors. The way not to convert is to insult, violently attack, and retaliate. The two Christian bishops are far from being able to enter the Kingdom of God. Like the Pharisees in the Gospels, the two patriarchs of Alexandria evince Jesus’ teaching that many who are first, or presume themselves to be first, are actually last—behind even the poor who suffer from illness (presumed even by Jesus to result from sin).

Humility, as is present in the willingness to serve even jerks and people whose political, social, or religious ideology contradicts one’s own, is shown by the three children who see and hear the Virgin Mary in Fatima. Those children suffer the hostile disbelief of the mayor and even Maria, the mother of Lucia, one of the children. Maria is a character of irony, as she seems so devoted to the Virgin Mary and yet is so hostile. As Paul wrote, faith without love is for naught. In 1 Corinthians (13:2), Paul writes, “if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.” What sort of love?  Loving your friends and favorable neighbors is not enough. In Matthew (5:43-45), Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.” The presence of the divine can be sensed by both the Christian and one’s detractor as the former helps the latter in spite of attitude of the latter toward the former. The Christian lays that aside and instead feels compassion in helping a fellow creature who is existentially so dependent on God. To view one of God’s creatures as such is to take on God’s perspective, and out of the sense of basic vulnerability comes the motive of compassion. A more basic bond between finite creatures can then be felt by both, and the presence of God is this bond because the dependence is so basic to a person’s being. Bringing this presence of God to humanity is Jesus’ task in preaching how to enter the Kingdom of God by loving one’s enemies.

Devotion to a deity or quasi-deity (for Mary is believed by Catholics to be in heaven in body and soul) is of no value and is even hypocritical if the person is not helping, but rather attacking people deemed as bad or as threats or antagonists. In Agora, Maria is convinced that her daughter Lucia is lying, and thus is needlessly and selfishly putting the family at risk of attack and financial ruin. Mobs are not known for their wisdom. Maria is only superficially a Christian. In actuality, she worships herself, as she presumes to be omniscient in knowing that the Virgin is not really visiting Lucia and the other children. That Maria’s devotion is for naught because she is cold rather than loving even to her daughter can be discerned from the fact that the Virgin is not visible to Maria while she is standing behind Lucia during a visitation. The implication is that believing in the Virgin Mary and even sacrificing to her in the misguided belief that doing so will cause Maria’s son to come back from the war alive are for naught if in heart and deed there is not love even and especially where it is difficult. The faith of the three children that the Virgin really is there and the willingness to pass on the Virgin’s messages even after the children are briefly imprisoned by the mayor evinces love that is difficult, and Lucia’s caring for her sick mother is a case of loving one’s detractors can thus be contrasted with Maria’s harsh mentality that is at best heroine worship. Maria imposes on her daughter a severe religious causality that merely supports Hume’s contention that we really don’t understand causation. Maria is consumed by getting the Virgin to keep Maria’s son alive in war, whereas Lucia resists the pressure of the priest, bishop, and mayor to tell them something that the Virgin said not to tell anyone. Far from insulting the Virgin by betraying her, Lucia protects her.

Whereas in Agora the Christians insult other gods, and then fight rather than serve those whom the Christians have insulted, in Fatima the Virgin Mary tells the children to pass on the message to stop insulting the Abrahamic god by sinning and not being sorry for doing it (i.e., repenting). Even the Christian bishops in Agora not only sin by insulting and attacking their enemies, but also fail to repent. The blind are leading the blind into hypocrisy and sin under the auspices of piety—serving Christ. Contrast the way in which the bishops serve (or defend) Christ with the way in which the three children serve the Virgin.

It is ironic that the Christians in Agora who arrogantly presume to know God’s will even as they violate it destroy the Alexandria’s great library, which a pagan says is “the only thing that remains of the wisdom of man.” Historically, had the Christians not destroyed that library, the world might have not only books written by Aristotle, but also early Christian manuscripts that have been lost. Again, the Christians in Agora are working at cross-purposes—not just given their desire to convert, but also in terms of learning more about Jesus’ preaching on how to enter the Kingdom of God. Pride and prejudice are indeed short-sighted.

Historically, Augustine borrowed from Plato and Aquinas was practically in love with Aristotle, and yet the Christians burned down the library of Alexandria in 410 CE to destroy pagan knowledge—Paul’s “wisdom of Athens.” Similarly, Queen Elizabeth II of Britain forbid her own sister the love of her life because he was divorced, but then allowed her own children to divorce their respective spouses, most notably Princess Diana. Elizabeth refused to give her stamp of approval, which was necessary, on her sister’s marriage to Peter Townsend because one of the queen’s roles is as the head of the Church of England, which did not allow divorces at the time. Where there is no act of love and mercy, however, faith and ecclesiastical position are for naught. In Elizabeth’s son’s coronation, the stultifying arrogance of exclusion evinced in the seating arrangement itself belied the new king’s claim of being a Christian, much less the head of a Christian institution. The invited guests in the farthest pews—those blocked by a screen-wall from being able to see the events in the ritual—sat in humility closer to the Kingdom of God than did the man sitting on King Edward’s throne.

The Kingdom of God is conceptualized differently in the two films. The Christians in Agora are oriented to a political Christendom without pagans, whereas the Virgin and the three children—and the children shall lead them—view the kingdom as a matter of not insulting God (i.e., not sinning). Whereas the former conception is externally oriented, against the pagans and Jews, and thus is earthly, the latter notion is of the interior, of the heart, within a person. The Kingdom of God is within. There’s no need to wait until the Son of Man comes on clouds.  Christendom viewed as a kingdom on earth led to the Crusades in which four popes raised armies to kill rather than love enemies. Alternatively, the popes could have sent Christians to serve the Muslims in the Holy Land. The land would then have been truly holy rather than the site of Christian hypocrisy.

In his tome, Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes’s “Kingdom of Darkness” is none other than the Roman Catholic Church on earth—the same institution that has protected priests who have raped children and the bishops such as Cardinal Law who enabled the criminals rather than held them accountable. In doing so, those clerics, whether directly or, as in the case of Joe Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), by knowingly transferring a rapist papist priest to avoid scandal for the universal church, can be viewed as vicariously stomping out the innocent faith of the three children in Fatima. I believe there is a special place in hell for adults who snuff out the innocence of a child, whether or not those adults believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. In The Da Vinci Code (2006), the last living descendent of Jesus tells a monk who murders for God: “Your God burns murderers.” Doubtless the descendent distancing the Christian god from herself is due to all the hypocrisy that often occurs because so many Christians erroneously believe that accepting Jesus as one’s personal lord and savior is sufficient. The Kingdom of Darkness has much to atone for, and transferring accessories to crimes of violence against children to posh Vatican positions (e.g. Cardinal Law) rather than having the corrupt clerics serve the victims who would permit it speaks volumes concerning convenience versus inconvenient love.

Bishop Cyril in Agora believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God; this belief works against the bishop, as it had for Theophilus, as both characters use it to justify defending Jesus by violence against the non-Christians who are critical of the insulting Christians. Cyril preaches that Hypatia is a witch, which in turn sets brotherhood on a quest to kill her. It is ironic that the brotherhood had been set up to “safeguard Christian morality,” which ostensibly was needed because the splitting of the Roman Empire in two meant that that the end of the world was nigh. Cyril reads a passage from Paul that woman should keep silent. Hypatia has definitely not been silent; in fact, she has considerable influence on her former student Orestes, who is now the Roman prefect who governs the city. How dare a woman, and a pagan no less, have such influence!, Cyril not doubt feels as he characterizes Paul’s opinion women as “the word of God.” A human opinion in a letter no less is the Word of the living God. To regard an opinion as such is to reckon it as infallible truth. Such truth is immutable, and the role and status of women deemed proper in Paul’s world have changed over time and from place to place. In utter contrast to Cyril in Agora, the three children in Fatima listen to the Virgin’s messages rather than give their own opinions. The children regard the messages as different in kind. Indeed, the children resist considerable pressure in not revealing the Virgin’s message not to tell anyone something about the future. Unfortunately, the human mind has a proclivity to emblazon opinion with the veneer of truth, and then to seek to enforce such truth by imposing it on other people. The arrogance of self-entitlement can be guarded against by keeping in mind that the fallible and limited human mind should not be so sure of itself on religious matters as to regard itself as infallible.

The two films also differ on how the Christians approach forgiveness. Astonishingly, Ammonius, a leader of the brotherhood in Agora, rebuffs Davus, Hypatia’s the ex-slave who suggests that they should forgive rather than retaliate against the Jews. Ammonius declares, “Only Jesus can forgive the Jews.” Wrong! In Matthew (18:21-22), “Peter came up and said to him [i.e., Jesus], ‘Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.’” Neither Patriarch, Theophilus or Cyril, are in the business of forgiveness, especially to the enemy.

In contrast, Lucia in Fatima forgives her mother after the miracle of the Sun moving around in the sky convinces everyone in the crowd, including Maria, that the children were right all along; the Virgin Mary really is there. Lucia still loves her mother in spite of Maria’s chilly hostility and refusal to trust her daughter even though the Virgin obviously trusts Lucia. But the latter’s faith is not perfect. In asking the Virgin to do a miracle so the crowd would believe the children’s claim that the visitation is real, Lucia succumbs to the sensationalistic undercutting of religious meaning or truth by the assumption that the validity of religious preaching relies on something supernatural happening. The innocent faith of the children is nigh eclipsed by the more sensationalistic need for verification of the Christian adults who gather in the field to personally benefit from the visitations. Pray for this, pray for that; this is human, all too human. 

The salience of the need for a supernatural, metaphysical miracle, even for the viewers of the film, to prove that the Virgin is really there in the story world, and, by fallacious implication in 1917 as a historical event apart from the film, almost eclipses importance of the childlike faith of the children in the film. Only after the miracle has occurred can the movie end; the viewers would not be satisfied otherwise. The need of Maria, the bishop, the priest, and even the mayor to know definitively that the Virgin is really there with the three children is a need that the film’s viewers have as well.  Even Lucia wants a miracle; even she lapses in giving the need to convince the crowd any importance, especially relative to the content of the Virgin’s message. The important thing is to stop insulting God. Cyril and his followers in Agora insult God with their hypocrisy in God’s name.

Interestingly, witness accounts in October, 1917 attest to the miracle of the Sun moving around in the sky and even coming closer as a historical event, which could be seen from as far as 40 km away. It is tempting to let the metaphysical or religious actuality of the Virgin Mary (or the historical or risen Jesus) be the focus; to be sure, such a deviation from the children’s faith and the Virgin’s message is much less damaging than is the violence by the Christians in Agora, for that is antipodal to the way into the spiritual space of God’s “kingdom,” or way of being. For it is God’s presence felt within and between people as love especially when such love is not convenient that is of value in itself. Even religious personages pale in comparison. In the Gospels, Jesus sets the Kingdom of God as that for which he is tasked with orienting people. Within that kingdom, the presence of the divine can be sensed, made possible by an inconvenient love that expands human nature itself such that the human instinctual urge for the divine can be more satisfied and perhaps even be fulfilled.

See: God's Gold

Fatima

The film, Fatima (2020), tells the story of the three Roman Catholic children in Fatima, Portugal, who in 2017 claimed to see and hear the Virgin Mary periodically over a period of 6 months. The film centers around Lucia, the oldest of the three children, and, moreover, the question of whether the children really encounter the Virgin, or are lying, hypnotic, or even psychotic. In the film, as well as in “real life,” a miracle is associated with the last visitation. In the story world of the film, the visitation really happens, and the multitudes watching the children come to believe this when the Virgin delivers on a miracle as promised. Historically, believers as well as nonbelievers who were present at the event have testified that the Sun moved around in the sky and even came closer. If this really happened as witnesses have described, then the empirical “proof” in the story world of the film is not the whole story, and the religious truth therein is not limited to the faith narrative, but holds in an empirical, supernatural sense. An implication is that Jesus not only resurrects in the Gospel stories, but also as an empirical event in history. But, then, why have such supernatural events been so rare since the “time” of Jesus?  And, yet, witnesses as far as 40 km away from the visitation of the Virgin reported seeing the miracle of the Sun.

Catholicism is not portrayed in the film without blemish. Lucia’s mother, Maria, which is ironic, believes that if she and Lucia suffer, then Manuel, Maria’s son, will return alive from fighting in World War I. Maria’s assumption that God wants believers to suffer ignores the point of Jesus’ suffering as a vicarious sacrifice to atone for others’ sins and thus close the gap between God and humanity, or at least the House of Israel. Neither the voluntary suffering of Lucia or her mother Maria save souls. Furthermore, Maria’s flawed sense of causation—that if she suffers, then her son will not be killed—demonstrates how superstition can take hold when the human mind enters the religious domain of thought. So in the film, Catholicism is hardly whitewashed. Moreover, the vulnerabilities of the human mind in contemplating religious ideas are not dismissed.

So the need for psychological testing of Lucia and the two other children is presented in the film as reasonable, and indeed it is. The children pass the test, but they could still be lying. So Lucia asks the Virgin to perform a miracle so the bystanders would know that the visitation is real even though only the three children can see the Virgin. The dramatic tension rises as the mayor goes so far as imprison the three children so they would miss a monthly visitation by the Virgin. Lucia’s mother, Maria, goes so far as to repeatedly hit Lucia for lying about the visitations. That a person who presumes to know how to keep her son alive at war—and indeed seems so “religious” in general—would then show her
true colors” in hitting her daughter for having a religious belief (i.e., in the visitations) is not lost on the film’s viewers. And the child shall lead them—not the bishop or the observable “devout.”

The esoteric messages of the Virgin to the children, rather than to the judgmental multitude ruining the family’s crop, the bishop, the mayor, and Lucia’s mother, is justified. “Some people will never believe," the Virgin tells the children. The mayor in particular is a good example. God is like the breeze passing by the mountain, rather than a great fire or earthquake, and it takes a religious sensibility—a sense of presence—to notice the passing of a breeze, metaphorically speaking. It is because of the hostility of the detractors, those to whom Jesus’ message and example of love and mercy has fallen like on hard stone, or hardness of heart, that Lucia asks the Virgin for a miracle.

Like a quiet breeze, the message of the Virgin, that people should stop insulting God by sinning without repentance, should not be lost as the more sensationalistic miracle gains the headlines, both in the film and after the historical event. The miracle is merely a means by which to aid in the quiet message by giving confidence to believers and convert others to not insulting God, which I contend is more important than the Virgin’s admonition to pray more as that is merely a means to the end, which is love. Even so, the miracle of the Sun, both in the film and as a historical event, arguably has momentous significance. In the film, the miracle means that the visitation was real, so Lucia and the two other children are vindicated. Even Maria comes around, though tellingly the mayor still does not. As a historical event, the movements of the Sun while the last visitation was occurring means that religious truth, or meaning, in faith narratives is not the whole story; those truths in faith narratives refer to spiritual things outside of the story world, in the empirical, historical world. It is thus extremely significant that believers and nonbelievers both testified as witnesses in 1917 to the movements of the Sun. Mass hypnosis can thus be eliminated as a possible explanation. The only alternative left is that of coincidence, or else that the reports are erroneous—that the changed colors and movements of the Sun were optical illusions after the heavy rain. The veracity of religious truth in a faith narrative is not affected either way, so I contend that such truth, like a light breeze, should be the object of faith without raising questions of historicity one way or the other.

That is to say, the veracity of religious truth in a faith narrative can be distinguished from, or even more radically does not depend on, historical events or persons. Even so, the matter of empirical events (e.g., the Resurrection) and persons (e.g., Moses, Jesus, and the Buddha) is not inconsequential, and, if answered even more definitively than either the film or the historical event of the Sun moving in the sky, then the modern conception of religion, which disavows any faith narrative correspondence with empirical or historical events and even persons, would be even more severely uprooted. It may be that the miracle of the Sun has already done that, and the film merely reminds or informs people of that, as well as the possibility that, as the Virgin says in the film, some people will never believe, even in the face of a miraculous empirical (i.e., supernatural) event.

Even so, many spurious miracles have been claimed in the history of Christianity, and so perhaps a miracle less subject to being reckoned as an optical illusion is needed before the question of whether the events and characters in the Christian faith narratives correspond to historical events and actual persons. Nothing in such narratives can confirm such correspondences because a faith narrative is not a historical account even if historical events are used (and modified to serve theological points). Fortunately, the ways to enter the Kingdom of God as described and exemplified in the Gospel faith-narratives do not depend on the question of historical correspondences of events and even characters in those narratives.

The value of helping detractors, such as Lucia tries to help her mother in the film, does not depend on whether Jesus was a historical man or merely a character in the Gospels; the truth wherein human nature is expanded, or turned on its head, does not so depend. Whether or not the correspondence holds, a person applying the example and preaching in the narratives will experience the spiritual dynamic. Faith is ultimately in the value of that dynamic. In the Gospels, Jesus says that he came to preach the mysteries of the Kingdom of God. The astute viewer of the film, Fatima, transcends the sensationalistic leitmotifs of whether the visitations have a reality outside of the children and whether the Sun really moves in the sky and comes closer to discern the innocent faith of Lucia from the dogmatic, hypocritical “faith” of her mother, who ironically has the name, Maria. Entering the Kingdom of God in humility is like the innocent faith of a child. This esoteric message of the film is, I submit, the most important thing about the film, and yet even a believer could be excused for having a burning urge to know whether the miracle (i.e., not of the laws of physics) of the Sun really happened. We are merely human, after all, and so we have an instinctual urge for finality or certainty even though the human mind can transcend the limits of cognition, perception, and sensibility (i.e., emotions). One thing is certain; the religious sphere is not an easy one for the human brain to inhabit.

On transcending even the ethical, see: Spiritual Leadership