Dr. Reid's Reflections on Christianity and Ideology

Last week, St. Thomas More Society and Christian Legal Society hosted a discussion entitled "Does Christ Make Me Islamophobic? Christianity and Ideology." Dr. Charles Reid, a legal historian and professor at UST Law, began the discussion with a reflection from history as portrayed by the film, Agora... with minor corrections. For the discussion, ideology was defined as it is on the first page of Luigi Giussani's The Religious Sense, "in fact, ours... is an age of ideologies, in which, instead of learning from reality in all its aspects and building on it, man seeks to manipulate reality according to coherent schemes fabricated by the intellect..."

Here are Dr. Reid's remarks:

I have been asked to reflect on religion and ideology today. As my students know, I am by training and inclination a legal historian. And both callings -- that of lawyer and that of historian -- demand attention to facts, to stories, to narratives, to the complex weave of the personal, the idiosyncratic, and the principled, the ideal, the abstract. History -- like the practice of law -- is always a blend of "one-time-oneliness" and foundational principles and axioms.

Perhaps the best place to start my reflection is with the word "ideology." It has, it seems, two primary meanings in common speech today. The first is a fairly innocuous, fairly benign understanding -- the motivations, the mainsprings, the ideas and ideals that give rise to political action. But there is also a second, less benign, more ominous definition -- the manipulation of reality to fit personal ends, a quest for power, a misguided effort to blend together belief and the desire to have control over others, whether on a small-scale, or in society, writ large.

It is the second meaning that lies behind my reflection this afternoon. I have little desire to dwell upon the definitional or the abstract. I'd like to get down to cases and see what we can learn about Christianity and ideology through a case study. The case study I shall consider is the situation that prevailed in Alexandria, around the year 400 AD. The story I am about to tell concerns the violent confrontation that occurred in that city between Christians and pagans. It is a story that was recently captured in an artistically well-done movie, Agora, a film that kept remarkably close to the facts.

There are four main characters, all accurately portrayed. There is Hypatia, who is the daughter of Theon, the Director of the great Library at Alexandria. The Library is itself a center -- perhaps the most important center -- of pagan worship and learning in the Eastern Mediterranean, probably in the entire Roman Empire. It was a repository of all the works of classical civilization -- those that survive from the ancient world, as well as the many more that have been lost.

The pagans feared the Christians, for many reasons. There was the reason of belief, of course. Pagans had persecuted Christians very harshly for centuries. Hundreds of thousands of Christians had been executed in many, extremely gruesome ways. All sorts of inventive new methods had been discovered for burning people alive. The pagans clearly feared the old maxim, "turnabout is fair play."

But the pagans feared the Christians for another reason also -- economic class. The pagans were wealthy, they were privileged. The Christians were poor, destitute. Many were recent arrivals in Alexandria, brought in from the countryside by the promise of generous acts of charity done in their behalf.

And now for the characters in this drama. Let us discuss Hypatia first. She filled a nearly unique role in the ancient world. She was a female philosopher who taught regular classes at the Library at Alexandria; she was well-known, well-regarded, for her work on mathematics, astronomy, and geography. She was the inventor of the hydrometer, used for measuring the density of liquids. And she considered herself first and foremost a philosopher. She saw her calling as the pursuit of truth. She refused allegiance either to paganism or to Christianity, preferring above all else the life of the mind.

Her opposite number might be seen as Cyril of Alexandria. Cyril had relatives who were well-connected within the Church. But he hailed from a small Egyptian town and brought with him provincial behaviors and expectations. He took on the trappings of an austere, almost commanding desert monk.

This persona served Cyril well. Monks from the Egyptian desert had descended upon Alexandria in great numbers at this time. And Cyril was physically powerful, a forceful personality, an articulate spokesman for an ascetical form of Christianity. He could be a force for good. He organized charitable works in Alexandria. But he was single-minded in the way he pressed home his advantages.

And Cyril had a great political advantage. Even after becoming Bishop Cyril, he still had command of a small legion of monks. These were not monks on the Western style -- men who had taken vows to a particular community and were bound by rules governing the minute conduct of their lives. These were rather, monks on the eastern style. Men of zealous habits and extreme behaviors. They could be molded into a kind of informal army, and Cyril did precisely that. They became enforcers of virtue -- filling the same role in Alexandrian life now filled in a very different society by the Iranian guardians of morality.

Two former students of Hypatia also play roles in this drama -- Orestes, the Roman prefect of the City of Alexandria -- in essence, the City's chief political agent; and Synesius, Bishop of Cyrene.

Orestes had been a pagan, but personally harbored little in the way of religious commitment, either to paganism or to Christianity. He really wanted to acquire and exercise political power. By birth he had been a pagan. But he was really quite happy to switch to the other side, now that the Roman Emperor had become Christian and Christianity was rapidly gaining preferred status within the Empire. He was a political man, not a religious man, and sought a faith congenial with his ambition.

Synesius, on the other hand, was a man devoted to philosophy, to learning, and towards faith, at least as he understood it. His faith was always of the cerebral kind. As a condition of becoming Bishop he let it be known that he did not hold to the literal word of the Bible. He preferred metaphorical and figurative interpretations instead. And he also made clear that he would not abandon his wife. These preconditions met, he assumed the role of Bishop of Cyrene.

The stage is now set. Cyril wished to become a factor not only in the spiritual life of Alexandria but in its secular governance. And to do that, he needed to take on Orestes. He found his opportunity in Orestes' relationship with Hypatia. They were close friends. Not lovers, no evidence of that, but two like-minded individuals who enjoyed the speculative life. And in the course of their conversations, Hypatia might weigh in on affairs of state, always respectfully, always deferentially, never in obtrusive ways.

Cyril, however, looked for the chance to provoke a confrontation. And he found one -- Christian monks and members of the Jewish community began to quarrel. Some Christian monks stoned members of a Synagogue. The Jewish community retaliated by leading several monks into a trap where they were massacred in turn. Alexandria looked ready to explode.

Cyril sought to pin the blame for this civil discord on Orestes. He led protests against his rule. Synesius was finally called in -- he was asked by all concerned to mediate the dispute. He worked out a public reconciliation -- Orestes and Cyril would meet in church, publicly, where they would swear peace and concord.

The deal, however, did not work out as planned. Cyril surprised both Orestes and Synesius when, during the ceremonial reconciliation, he picked up the Bible, and read the passage from Paul's First Letter to Timothy -- a woman shall not have authority over a man. Having read it, he demanded that Orestes kiss the Book and kneel before him. Everyone assembled knew that Cyril was now using his friendship with Hypatia to attack Orestes' government. The stakes had grown very large.

Orestes refused to do as Cyril had commanded. To kiss the Book and publicly kneel before Cyril would have been to acknowledge his control over the City. And he could not do that. So Cyril retaliated by stirring up hatred against Hypatia.

The movie to this point had kept faith with the essential facts. The film and history parted company, however, in the way Hypatia was killed. The movie portrayed her death as coming at the hands of a devoted follower, a merciful end to her imperilled existence. Reality, however, was less kind. She was killed by a mob of Christian monks who, according to the sources, either stoned her or skinned her alive.

This sequence of events, in my mind, teaches us about the great danger of mixing ideology with faith. To Orestes, all religions were matters of convenience. He was happy to be a pagan. He was happy to be a Christian. Both faiths were means to an end -- political power. He had an intelligent, inquisitive mind. He kept a keen interest in philosophy. But he made sure to separate his intellectual interests from his role as governor, or even from his role as religious believer. These were roles he played, in different aspects of his being. He failed to grasp the interconnectedness.

Cyril, of course, was ideological in a far blunter, more direct way. He wished to use Christianity as a means not only of defeating his opponents, but of destroying them. He had a singular vision. Nothing about him was insincere. But he was willing to deploy any means necessary for achieving the blessed goal of Christian domination over the life of the City.

Synesius, for his part, was not ideological, but neither was he effectual. He failed to understand that he had set the stage -- in a very real sense -- for a theatrical display of power by Cyril. Quite inadvertently, he allowed himself to be manipulated by a shrewder, more driven, and ideological opponent.

Hypatia, finally, is the model I would recommend. She was all about the seeking of truth, not power. And truth begets confidence. The religious believer should feel assurance that, in the end, the truth prevails. Ideology, on the other hand, bespeaks mistrust in one's own beliefs. The ideologue feels the need to use faith, to use the truth, as means of justifying the personal acquisition of domination, of control, over others. We must, I submit, be those who trust in truth. Confidence should govern our affairs.

Dr. Reid's remarks were originally posted at Mirror of Justice. Thank you, Prof. Vischer.