Apparrently, director Antoine Fuqua's 2004 movie King Arthur "goes to great lengths to show a 'Pelagian medallion,' worn by Arthur, and several scenes contain discussion about his allegiance to Pelagianism, and Rome's opposition to it as a heresy. A deleted scene shows Arthur meeting Pelagius." Historically, of course, this is impossible, but according to the article, Was King Arthur really a Pelagian?, there are even better reasons to hope that King Arthur was orthodox:
If Arthur really existed, and if the earliest references to him can be trusted, then it does appear that he was a Christian. The 10th-century Annals of Wales claim that at the battle of Badon in A.D. 516, "Arthur carried the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ for three days and three nights on his shoulders, and the Britons were victorious."Posted by Clifton at January 24, 2005 09:48 AM | TrackBackBy the 11th century, Arthur is a recurring character in hagiographies. He's a scoundrel in the lives of St. Cadoc and St. Padarn, a king seeking a dragonslaying saint in the Life of St. Carannog, and "the king of the whole of Great Britain" by Caradoc's 12th-century Life of St. Gildas. Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain (c. 1136) adds many of the now familiar details of Guinevere, Mordred, and the magician Merlin. But none of the Arthurian texts suggest that Arthur was a follower of the 4th-century heretic Pelagius. This was the British monk who taught that humans could morally perfect themselves—making him persona non grata to the likes of Jerome and Augustine of Hippo. . . .
The corpulent Pelagius was condemned as a heretic in 416, but his ideas lived on. In 429, writes Geoffrey of Monmouth, two bishops were sent "to preach the word of God to the Britons: for their Christian faith had been corrupted by the Pelagian heresy." One of these was Germanus of Auxerre . . . .
Ironically, it is Bishop Germanus, not Arthur, who gives us one of the period's most dramatic and historically credible encounters against the Saxons. As a raiding party approached shortly after Easter, Germanus led a newly baptized army in a bloodless victory by a shout of "Hallelujah!" "The enemy was panic-stricken, fearing not only the neighboring rocks but even the very frame of heaven above them," recounts Bede. "Many of them, flying headlong in their fear, were engulfed by the river."
I just saw this movie last week and found it silly in the extreme. The sad thing is that we have such a religiously illiterate culture that movies such as this one easily perpetuate the conspiracy theories regarding "official" Christianity. In this case, it's that if Pelagius and his notions of "free will" had not been persecuted, there would have been no feudal system. Once again, the Christian Church is on the wrong side of right and can't be trusted to have gotten anything Jesus said correct. I'd yawn, but it's too scary not to take seriously.
Posted by: cparks at January 24, 2005 01:02 PMI just saw the movie in question last night. cparks is spot on. It turned the official Church evil and the heritical tangent into what should have been, but through forces of evil wasn't...I keep waiting to see Authur take out after Saint Augustine of Hippo to do battle with him for his evil notions of Grace...oh well, there is always the sequal.
Posted by: Jeff Reich at January 24, 2005 01:41 PMThank you gentlemen, you have spared me the pain of seeing this film. Sadly typical.
It's sad, because there were some high points, in spite of the fact that it just wasn't a great movie. I thought making Guinevere a barbarian warrior was a creative take and Stellan Skarsgård was fantastic as the Saxon king: a classic Bad Guy.
Posted by: cparks at January 24, 2005 03:19 PMI thought the film was entertaining and somewhat engaging. The elements dealing with religion and Pelagius were minor, and had more to do with Arthur's philosophical insistance on man's God-given right to decide his own destiny in life (free will).
Perhaps in a significant sense the filmmakers were simply equating the heterodox idea of free will with the traditional socio-political mantra of freedom from oppression that is so popular in films of this genre (see also: Braveheart).
The film didn't explicitly portray Arthur himself as holding to heretical theology, at least that I caught; it was more a matter of him having found a religious teacher with theological ideas that lined up with Arthur's own views of physical and spiritual freedom.
Posted by: Darren at January 24, 2005 03:57 PMYeah.
At my most theological I shall say that the movie blew chunks on multiple levels.
Oy! That was a B.A.D. film.
Posted by: AngloBaptist at January 24, 2005 04:32 PMThe elements dealing with religion and Pelagius were minor, and had more to do with Arthur's philosophical insistance on man's God-given right to decide his own destiny in life (free will).
When they talked about Pelagius being killed in Rome, I thought that was pretty explicit, though I could have been reading more into it than was intended. I was pretty annoyed by that point. lol
Posted by: cparks at January 24, 2005 06:06 PM