A Martyr To Philosophy
Who was the great Hellenist thinker Hypatia?
Hypatia of Alexandria was a Neoplatonist philosopher, astronomer and mathematician who is hailed as the first female mathematician whose life is reasonably well-recorded. She was beloved by the people of Alexandria and she advised and taught the city’s elite, earning a reputation unheard of for women at the time. Yet this popular and intelligent philosopher would lose her life at the hands of a bloodthirsty mob, and her horrific death has continued to fascinate the world ever since.
It has been estimated that Hypatia was born around 350-370 CE (although recent scholars have typically settled on the year 355 CE) in Alexandria, Egypt, in the Eastern Roman Empire. While we do not know who Hypatia’s mother was, we know that her father was Theon of Alexandria, an accomplished mathematician and astronomer who was the last attested member of the Alexandrian Museum.
Theon gave his daughter an education that was usually reserved for sons, teaching Hypatia all about philosophy, mathematics and astronomy — in his Historia Ecclesiastica, Greek historian Philostorgius said that Hypatia “was so well educated in mathematics by her father that she far surpassed her teacher, and especially in astronomy”.
Considering this, it’s hardly a surprise that Hypatia rose to become the city’s foremost scholar, delivering lectures in both her home and in public lecture halls, with listeners travelling from all over the eastern Mediterranean to hear her speak. Like Theon, Hypatia was a Neoplatonist who drew from the teachings of Plato, Aristotle and Plotinus. According to the philosopher Damascius, Hypatia would wear a scholar’s cloak (traditionally worn by men) and stop in the middle of the street to explain about philosophers to anyone who asked her.
Thanks to Socrates, who wrote about Hypatia in his Historia Ecclesiastica, we also know that she held political influence and frequently addressed assemblies of men who sought her guidance. Writing around 25 years after her death, sometime between 439-450 CE, Socrates states “she not infrequently appeared in public in the presence of the magistrates, without ever losing... that dignified modesty of deportment for which she was conspicuous, and which gained for her universal respect and admiration”.
Even though Hypatia was frequently in the company of men, she never married and likely remained celibate, choosing to dedicate herself to her studies. When one of her students became enamoured with her and refused to be dissuaded, Hypatia resorted to throwing her menstrual rags at him, supposedly declaring, “This is what you love, young man, and it isn’t beautiful.”
Hypatia also collaborated with her father and provided a commentary on the third book of Ptolemy’s Almagest, in which Theon wrote the following inscription: “The edition having been prepared by the philosopher, my daughter Hypatia.” (Although what she did specifically remains unknown.) According
to the Suda Lexicon, a 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia, she also wrote commentaries on Diophantus’ Arithmetica, the Astronomical Canon and on the Conics of Apollonius.
Sadly, none of Hypatia’s own writings have survived and we cannot be sure which contributions to mathematics or astronomy were definitely hers, but recent research has suggested that extant versions of these works possibly reflect the commentaries she made. However, the accounts of her life and work that we do have, written by her students and contemporaries, all highlight just how widely respected she was in Alexandria. Her most famous and faithful student was Synesius of Cyrene, the future bishop of Ptolemais, who described his tutor as “the legitimate mistress of the mysteries of philosophy”.
In fact, it is thanks to Synesius’ surviving letters that we have some insight into Hypatia and her teachings. His letters prove that he was well-versed in the works of Plato and Aristotle, evidently because he learnt about them from Hypatia, but unfortunately he pays more attention to Hypatia’s philosophy than her mathematical contributions.
However, we have learnt from Synesius that he asked her to build a hydroscope, a device that allows you to see objects below the water surface, and he also sought her contribution for an astrolabe, a twodimensional model of the celestial sphere that he sent as a gift to an official named Paeonius. It’s not specified what Hypatia did but it has been assumed that she at least helped to refine or improve these scientific instruments.
The letters have also shed light on Hypatia and her religious tolerance because although she was a pagan, she’s known to have taught Christian and Jewish students. Born into a pagan family, Synesius eventually converted to Christianity but remained close with Hypatia, to the point where he describes her as his “mother, sister, teacher, and withal benefactress” in one of his letters. As a result, it is often assumed that Hypatia fostered an accepting and open learning environment.
Hypatia’s ability to carve out a space of openness was even more remarkable considering the political and religious turmoil that engulfed Alexandria at the time. In 313 CE Roman emperor Constantine the Great named Christianity as the new official state religion, and consequently tensions between pagans and Christians in the city increased, with progressively violent riots taking place by Hypatia’s lifetime.
Despite being a pagan, Hypatia had been relatively safe while Theophilus was the archbishop of Alexandria, even though he disliked pagans and suppressed their practices. A pagan riot against Theophilus led to the Serapeum, a pagan temple, being destroyed in 391 CE and the subsequent destruction of all pagan imagery. Nevertheless, he understood that Hypatia was popular and so he tolerated her and her teachings, which never openly clashed with Christianity, a testament to her reputation as a respected figure of the city.
However, this safety net was ripped away when Theophilus died in 412 CE and he was succeeded by his nephew,
Cyril, who envied Hypatia’s popularity and influence. As the new archbishop,
Cyril wasted no time in asserting his newly inherited power, commanding his militia of Christian monks to destroy pagan temples and harass the Novatians (a Christian sect) and the Jewish population, eventually leading to their expulsion
“Hypatia rose to become Alexandria’s foremost scholar, delivering lectures in both her home and in public lecture halls”
from the city. In doing so, Cyril angered Orestes, the Roman prefect of Alexandria, who believed that the archbishop was encroaching on his civil authority.
Orestes was friends with Hypatia and he sought her counsel as his political feud with Cyril worsened. Nevertheless, the situation quickly took a turn for the worst when hundreds of zealous monks from Nitria, loyal to Cyril, arrived in Alexandria and started a riot. They confronted Orestes, who was driving in his chariot, throwing stones at him and accusing him of being a pagan, despite his protestations that he was a Christian and had been baptised by the bishop of Constantinople himself.
During the assault, a monk named Ammonius managed to strike Orestes on the head, leaving the prefect covered in blood. He was soon rescued from the attack and as punishment Orestes had Ammonius tortured and put to death, enraging the monks. In response, Cyril had Ammonius’ body lie in state, honouring him as a Christian martyr.
Soon enough, rumours began to circulate that Hypatia was preventing the two men from reconciling and the monks accused her of using witchcraft to turn Orestes against Christianity. In March 415 CE, Hypatia was travelling through the city on her way home when her carriage was attacked by a Christian mob led by Peter the Lector. She was dragged into a nearby church, stripped of her clothing and beaten to death, before her body was dismembered – either with roof tiles or oyster shells – and then burnt.
Renowned for her wisdom and her efforts to better the lives of those in Alexandria, Hypatia’s brutal murder sent shock waves across the empire and instantly transformed her into a martyr for philosophy. Even so, there is no evidence to suggest that there was ever any retribution for her death and it appears that Orestes left the city soon afterwards. As for Cyril, he continued to suppress and destroy the remnants of paganism in
Alexandria, and for his efforts he was later named a saint by the church.
Nevertheless, the blame for Hypatia’s death has often been placed squarely at Cyril’s feet by her nearest contemporaries. In his Life Of Isidore – which has been reproduced in the Suda Lexicon – Damascius portrayed Cyril as jealous of Hypatia, claiming that “he was so struck with envy that he immediately began plotting her murder, and the most heinous form of murder at that”. For Damascius, Hypatia’s death had ultimately turned her into a martyr for Hellenism (the term for ancient Greek culture).
Likewise, in his aforementioned
Historia Ecclesiastica, Socrates discusses the growing mob violence and volatile atmosphere in Alexandria, inflamed by the rift between Cyril and Orestes, claiming that Hypatia “fell a victim to the political jealousy which at that time prevailed”.
The extent of Cyril’s involvement with Hypatia’s killing, or whether he was involved at all, still remains unclear to this day but regardless, Socrates commented that “an act so inhuman could not fail to bring the greatest opprobrium, not only upon Cyril, but also upon the whole Alexandrian church”.
Then again, not everybody blamed
Cyril for Hypatia’s gruesome death. John, Bishop of Nikiu in Lower Egypt, attempted to divert the negativity that surrounded Cyril by depicting Hypatia as a pagan philosopher who used occult practices. He stated that Hypatia “was devoted at all times to magic, astrolabes and instruments of music, and she beguiled many people through her Satanic wiles. And the governor of the city honoured her exceedingly, for she had beguiled him through her magic”.
Astonishingly, John continues his defence of the archbishop with a bold statement declaring that with Hypatia’s death, Cyril “had destroyed the last remains of idolatry in the city”.
As horrific as Hypatia’s death was, a question that has often been asked is ‘would we know about her if it wasn’t for her murder?’ With no extant sources from Hypatia herself – we don’t even have a contemporary image of her – the details of her life have been heavily disputed and twisted to suit the agendas of others. Therefore, we have instead been left with an idealised image of Hypatia, a woman essentially of legend, rather than the real person that she was.
Even the accounts of Damascius and Socrates, two of the major contemporary sources that we have about Hypatia, fail to do her extraordinary life justice, concentrating instead on her tragic ending. While Damascius focuses on her murder as a means to criticise the church, Socrates only mentions her life briefly, choosing to present her death as the climax of the religious and political struggle in Alexandria.
This utilising of Hypatia and her murder as a symbol for other causes has continued for centuries, notably in the midst of the Enlightenment. At a time when the leading thinkers of the movement were criticising the Catholic Church, Hypatia was transformed into a figure of opposition against Catholicism, a beautiful and wise philosopher who met an untimely death at the hands of fervent Christians.
English historian Edward Gibbon vilified Cyril in his work The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire, arguing that “the murder of Hypatia has imprinted an indelible stain on the character and religion of Cyril of Alexandria”. His contemporary, French writer Voltaire, depicted Hypatia’s death as the moment when rational thinking in the ancient world was extinguished as a result of ignorance and religious intolerance at the hands of the clergy.
The anti-catholic rhetoric continued with Charles Kingsley, an English clergyman, historian and novelist. In his romantic novel, Hypatia Or New Foes
With An Old Face, which was published in 1853, Kingsley depicts Cyril and the church as corrupt, mirroring his views on the Catholic church in his own time while providing a rather erotic version of Hypatia, emphasising her beauty, helplessness and youth – Kingsley’s Hypatia is only in her twenties when in reality she was at least in her forties when she died. Her death in the novel comes at the hands of a fanatical and ignorant Christian mob, and for Kingsley it signals the end of Hellenism.
As an intellectual woman who lived in a patriarchal society, from the 20th century onwards Hypatia became an icon for the women’s rights movement and a martyr for feminism. She is depicted in various pieces of art, she is the heroine of numerous novels and plays, and the academic journal, Hypatia: A Journal Of Feminist Philosophy, was named after her. There’s even a lunar crater that bears her name. A biopic of Hypatia’s life, Agora, starring Rachel Weisz as the philosopher, was released in 2009 but is full of historical inaccuracies, further perpetuating incorrect details about her extraordinary life.
With all these different depictions of Hypatia, it’s no wonder that we find it difficult to know who she really was. A lack of reliable evidence has meant that many people, such as Socrates, Gibbon and Kingsley, have spoken for her rather than attempting to offer us the true Hypatia.
Her intelligence, reputation and gender not only made Hypatia vulnerable in her own lifetime, but they have also been used to turn her into a martyr for philosophy, paganism, Hellenism, feminism and rational thinking, just to name a few. But she deserves to be more than a symbol and there is one thing that we know for sure – if Cyril did plot her murder then his effort was in vain because Hypatia has completely eclipsed him in history.
“The blame for Hypatia’s death has often been placed squarely at the archbishop Cyril’s feet by her nearest contemporaries”