Hypatia of Alexandria (c. 370 - 415) was a neo-Platonic philosopher and mathematician, who was murdered by Christian monks. Several works are attributed to her by later sources, including commentaries on Diophantus's Arithmetica, on Apollonius's Conics and on Ptolemy's works, but none have survived.
She was the daughter of Theon, the last fellow of the Museum of Alexandria, which was adjacent to or included the main Library of Alexandria. Hypatia did not teach in the Museum, but received her pupils in her own private home. Theophilus, the patriarch of Alexandria, had destroyed all "pagan temples" in the city in 391 (as requested by a decree of the Emperor Theodosius), which may have included the Museum and certainly included the Serapeum (a temple and "daughter library" to the Great Library). The Museum was the "Temple of the Muses", so it was a temple according to Theodosius' decree.
Hypatia clearly lived during a power struggle between pagans and tolerant Christians on the one side, and dogmatic Christians who demanded the final destruction of paganism on the other. Hypatia herself was a pagan, but was respected by many Christians, and exalted by some (though by no means all) later Christian authors as a symbol of virtue, often portrayed as a life-long virgin. These later accounts should not be seen as strict historical records, though, as they often contradict each other.
Her contemporary Socrates Scholasticus in his Ecclesiastical History portrays her as a follows:
- "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 going to an assembly of men. For all men on account of her extraordinary dignity and virtue admired her the more."
The possibility of forged documents is important, as it makes it hard to get accurate information about Hypatia's later murder. Theories range from a local, spontaneous Christian uprising tolerated by the Christian patriarch Cyril over a conflict between Cyril and the more tolerant prefect Orestes to a conspiracy supported by the Emperor himself. Another point of view holds that Hypatia was part of a "rebellion" and her murder unfortunate, but inevitable. John, Bishop of Nikiu, a 7th century author, described her death as follows [2]:
Hypatia's death
Socrates Scholasticus complements this account by stating that, while she was still alive, Hypatia's flesh was torn off using oyster shells. This is notable, because John of Nikiu also portrays Hypatia as a witch:
The punishment of witchraft had been determined decades earlier by Emperor Constantius, as noted in Soldan's and Heppe's Geschichte der Hexenprozesse [3, p.82]:
With no iron hooks available, Hypatia's death seems to match the prescribed punishment for witchraft precisely. She may have been the first famous "witch", as was noted by many church-critical authors. In spite of Cyril's involvement in her murder, he was later declared a saint.
Some authors have used Hypatia's death as a symbol of the repression of reasoned paganism by irrational religion. Included among these authors was the astronomer Carl Sagan, who provided a vivid account of her death and the burning of the Library of Alexandria in his popular science book Cosmos. Earlier writers with that perspective include Voltaire and historian Edward Gibbon. A recent work by the Polish historian Maria Dzielska explains Hypatia's death as the result of a struggle between two Christian factions, the moderate Orestes, supported by Hypatia, and the more rigid Cyril.
[1] Letter 154 of Synesius of Cyrene to Hypatia (online version).
[2] John, Bishop of Nikiu: The Life of Hypatia. Chronicle 84.87-103 (online version).
[3] Soldan, W.G. und Heppe, H., Geschichte der Hexenprozesse, Essen 1990. (English translation by Erik Möller.)
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