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Humanism Ireland No 111 July-August 2008

Hypatia of Alexandria
-!Humanist Martyr David Godden

J OHN TOLAND, 1670 1722, The


Father of Irish Philosophy (after
whom the Ulster Humanist Sum-
mer Schools, held in Redcastle, Co.
Donegal in the late nineties were
a Christian, but her students were com-
posed of both Christians and non-Chris-
tians.
Another of her students, Socrates Scho-
lasticus was an historian, and it is from him
named) in 1720 wrote an historical and from Synesius that most knowledge of
essay entitled Hypatia or, the History Hypatia derives. Synesius was an inveter-
of the Most Beautiful, Most Virtuous, ate letter-writer, 156 of his letters surviv-
Most Learned and in Every Way Ac- ing, many to Hypatia and to some of her
complished Lady; who Was Torn to pupils. Socrates states that although most
Pieces by the Clergy of Alexandria, to of her time was spent in lecturing in phi-
Gratify the Pride, Emulation, and losophy, she also taught astronomy and
Cruelty of the Archbishop, Commonly mathematics.
but Undeservedly Titled St. Cyril. In mathematics, she revised some of her
Toland was the first in more recent fathers commentaries on the Amalgest of
times to revive an interest in Hypatia, Ptolemy, and wrote original commentaries
whose story had not received an air- on The Conic Sections of Apollonius of
ing since the tenth century. Voltaire Hypatia, who was killed by stripping the Perga (who coined the words Parabola, Hy-
in France then took up the cudgel in flesh from her bones with pottery perbola, and Ellipse), and on the Arith-
1736, and was soon afterwards fol- shards metica of Diaphanthus, considered to be the
lowed by Edward Gibbon in his De- most difficult mathematician of antiquity.
cline and Fall of the Roman Empire some 700,000 books, had been acciden- Many scholars believe that most of
in the 1780s. tally destroyed by fire during an attack on Diaphanthus work only survives because
Voltaire says that Hypatia believed the city by Julius Caesar in 48 BCE. This of the quality of Hypatias explanations.
in the laws of rational Nature, and in had held most of the worlds knowledge In addition to her mathematical achieve-
the capacity of the human mind free up to that time. After this, another li- ments, and her broad intellect, Socrates
of imposed dogma, and that Cyril brary, known as the Daughter Library, Scholasticus praised her accomplishments
loosed the Christian rabble on her. housed in a building called the Sarapeum, as a humanist.
Gibbon used her life and death to became the principal library of Alexan- In October 412 CE, Bishop Theophilus
illustrate the difference between the dria. This library eventually also reached died, and was succeeded by his nephew
Classical World and what was replac- a considerable size, but the Sarapeum Cyril. Theophilus, although never inter-
ing it reason and spiritual culture with its library was destroyed on the or- fering with Hypatias activities, carried out
in the case of Hypatia versus barba- ders of the Christian Roman Emperor persecutions elsewhere. With Cyrils grip
rism and dogmatism in the case of Theodosius at the request of Bishop The- on the bishopric and the city, conditions
Cyril and Christianity. ophilus of Alexandria in 391CE. for non-Christians deteriorated. Apart
In the English-speaking world, the Hypatia appears to have started lectur- from trying to drive the Jews,of whom there
fictionalised version of Hypatias life ing, both at her own house and in public, were many, out of Alexandria, Cyril was ex-
by the Rev. Charles Kingsley entitled in the early 380s on Mathematics, Astron- tremely envious of the love and esteem in
Hypatia or the Old Foes with a New omy, and Neoplatonist Philosophy, so which Hypatia was held.
Face (1853) gave the story further she was attempting to function in very By 415 CE, Cyrils hatred and jealousy
impetus, but put an Anglican slant on unsettled conditions. She collected a of Hypatia was out of control. In March of
the events. group of students around her, who were that year he roused a mob of monks and
The city of Alexandria in Egypt, attracted by her personality and intellect. other Christians, led by one called Peter the
founded by Alexander the Great in Her father, Theon, was an astronomer, Reader, who pulled Hypatia from her char-
331 BCE, was by the end of the 4th mathematician, and poet of considerable iot, dragged her to a local church, stripped
century CE, after Rome, the second importance, but Damascius, an historian her, and killed her by cutting the flesh from
city of the Empire, and vied with Ath- and biographer of the 5th century, says her bones with ostraka (pottery shards).
ens as the greatest centre of culture she was by nature more refined and tal- They then burnt some of the remains, and
and learning. Its history is littered ented than her father. Hypatia had many scattered body parts around the city. There
with names such as Euclid, Eratos- students who were famous, or were to be- is some doubt about the year of her birth,
thenes, Archimedes, and Ptolemy. come famous, both in the political estab- but she was probably between 55 and 60
However, with the rise of Christian- lishment, and in the Christian Church when she was killed.
ity, and its distrust of learning and within her group. Orestes, a Christian, This barbarous act marks the end of the
knowledge, Alexandrias eminence had become Prefect of Egypt, and another Classical Enlightenment, and the start of
was coming to an end. student, Synesius of Cyrene, later became the Christian Dark Ages. !
The Royal Library, which contained a bishop. Hypatia, however, never became

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