Hypatia (born c. 350-370; died 415 AD) was a Hellenistic Neoplatonist philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician, who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, then part of the Eastern Roman Empire. She was the head of the Neoplatonic school at Alexandria, where she taught philosophy and astronomy. She is the first female mathematician whose life is reasonably well recorded.
Hypatia was renowned in her own lifetime as a great teacher and a wise counselor. Although no writings directly written by her have survived, it is thought that she may have edited the surviving texts of Euclid's Elements and Ptolemy's Almagest and possibly co-written some of the commentaries attributed to her father, Theon of Alexandria. She also wrote a thirteen-volume commentary on Diophantus's Arithmetica, which may survive in part, having been interpolated into Diophantus's original text, and an eight-volume popularization of Apollonius of Perga's treatise on conic sections, which has not survived. She is known to have constructed astrolabes and hydrometers, but did not invent either of these, which were both in use long before she was born. Although she herself was a pagan, she was tolerant towards Christians and taught many Christian students, including Synesius, the future bishop of Ptolemais. Towards the end of her life, Hypatia advised Orestes, the Roman prefect of Alexandria, who was in the midst of a feud with Cyril, the bishop of Alexandria. Rumors spread accusing her of preventing Orestes from reconciling with Cyril and, in March 415 AD, she was murdered by a mob of Christian monks known as the parabalani under the leadership of a lector named Peter.
Hypatia's death shocked the empire and transformed her into a "martyr for philosophy", leading future Neoplatonists such as Damascius to become increasingly fervent in their opposition to Christianity. During the Middle Ages, Hypatia was co-opted as a symbol of Christian virtue and scholars believe she was part of the basis for the legend of Saint Catherine of Alexandria. During the Age of Enlightenment, she became a symbol of opposition to Catholicism. In the nineteenth century, European literature, especially Charles Kingsley's 1853 novel Hypatia, romanticized her as "the last of the Hellenes". In the twentieth century, Hypatia became seen as an icon for women's rights and a precursor to the feminist movement. Since the late twentieth century, some portrayals have associated Hypatia's death with the burning of the Library of Alexandria, despite the historical fact that the library no longer existed during Hypatia's lifetime.
Video Hypatia
Life
Upbringing
Hypatia was the daughter of the mathematician Theon of Alexandria (c. 335 - c. 405 AD). Nothing whatsoever is known about Hypatia's mother, who is never mentioned in any of the extant sources. Theon dedicates his commentary on Book IV of Ptolemy's Almagest to an individual named Epiphanius, addressing him as "my dear son", indicating that he may have been Hypatia's brother, but the Greek word Theon uses (teknon) does not always mean "son" in the biological sense and was often used merely to signal strong feelings of paternal connection.
Hypatia's exact year of birth is still under debate, with suggested dates ranging from 350 to 370 AD. Many scholars have followed Richard Hoche in inferring that Hypatia was born around 370. According to the Suda, she flourished in the reign of Arcadius; Hoche reasoned that Damascius's description of her physical beauty would imply that she was at most 30 at that time, and the year 370 was 30 years prior to the midpoint of Arcadius's reign. In contrast, theories that she was born as early as 350 are based on the wording of John Malalas, who calls her old at the time of her death in 415. Robert Penella argues that both theories are weakly based, and that her birth date should be left unspecified.
Theon was the head of a school called the "Mouseion", which was named in emulation of the Hellenistic Mouseion, whose membership had ceased in the 260s AD. Theon's school was exclusive, highly prestigious, and doctrinally conservative. Theon rejected the teachings of Iamblichus and may have taken pride in teaching a pure, Plotinian Neoplatonism. He wanted his daughter to be a "perfect human being"; he taught Hypatia mathematics, philosophy, and astronomy, trained her in the art of rhetoric, had her read classical literature, and devised a physical exercise routine involving running, hiking, horseback riding, rowing, and swimming to keep her physically fit. For further study, he sent her to Italy and Athens. In Athens, she studied under Plutarch of Athens and his daughter Asclepigenia.
Career
After returning to Alexandria, Hypatia lectured and wrote about mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, and mechanics. She was a Neoplatonist, but, like her father, she rejected the teachings of Iamblichus and instead embraced the original Neoplatonism formulated by Plotinus. She was a mathematics and philosophy instructor at the Neoplatonist school in Alexandria and, in around 400, she became the director of the school. The Alexandrian school was renowned at the time for its philosophy and Alexandria was regarded as second only to Athens as the philosophical capital of the Greco-Roman world. Hypatia taught students from all over the Mediterranean. According to the Neoplatonist historian Damascius (c. 458 - c. 538), she lectured on the writings of Plato and Aristotle. He also states that she walked through Alexandria in a philosopher's cloak, giving impromptu public lectures.
Damascius writes that Hypatia was "exceedingly beautiful and fair of form", but nothing else is known regarding her physical appearance and no ancient depictions of her have survived. The Christian historian Socrates of Constantinople, a contemporary of Hypatia, describes her in his Ecclesiastical History, focusing on her personality rather than her appearance:
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 infrequently appeared in public in the 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.
Damascius states that Hypatia remained a lifelong virgin and that, when one of the men who came to her lectures tried to court her, she tried to sooth his lust by playing the lyre. When he refused to abandon his pursuit, she rejected him outright, displaying her bloody menstrual rags and declaring "This is what you really love, my young man, but you do not love beauty for its own sake." Damascius further relates that the young man was so traumatized that he abandoned his desires for her immediately. Michael A. B. Deakin argues that Hypatia's menstruation was proof of her celibacy, since, in ancient times, menarche generally occurred around the time a woman reached marriageable age, much later than in developed countries today, and, since no reliable methods of birth control existed, menstruation would have actually been a relatively rare occurrence for any woman who was not devoted to a life of celibacy.
Two main varieties of Neoplatonism were taught in Alexandria during the late fourth century. The first was the overtly pagan religious Neoplatonism taught at the Serapeum, which was greatly influenced by the teachings of Iamblichus. The second variety was the more moderate and less polemical variety championed by Hypatia and her father Theon, which was based on the teachings of Plotinus. Although Hypatia herself was a pagan, she was tolerant of Christians. In fact, every one of her known students was Christian. One of her most prominent pupils was Synesius of Cyrene, who went on to become a bishop of Ptolemais (now in eastern Libya) in 410. Afterward, he continued to exchange letters with Hypatia and his extant letters are the main sources of information about her career. Seven letters by Synesius to Hypatia have survived, but none from her addressed to him are extant.
Death
Background
From 382 - 412, the bishop of Alexandria was Theophilus. Theophilus was militantly opposed to Iamblichean Neoplatonism and, in 391, he demolished the Serapeum. Despite this, Theophilus tolerated Hypatia's school and seems to have regarded Hypatia as his ally. Theophilus supported the bishopric of Hypatia's pupil Synesius, who describes Theophilus in his letters with love and admiration. Theophilus also permitted Hypatia herself to establish close relationships with the Roman prefects and other prominent political leaders. Partly as a result of Theophilus's tolerance, Hypatia became extremely popular with the people of Alexandria and exerted profound political influence.
Theophilus died unexpectedly in 412. He had been training his nephew Cyril, but had not officially named him as his successor. A violent power struggle over the diocese broke out between Cyril and his rival Timothy. Cyril won and immediately began to punish those who had supported Timothy; he closed the churches of Timothy's supporters, the Novatianists, and confiscated their property. Hypatia's school seems to have immediately taken a strong distrust towards the new bishop, as evidenced by the fact that, in all his vast correspondences, Synesius only ever wrote one letter to Cyril, in which he treats the younger bishop as inexperienced and misguided. In a letter written to Hypatia in 413, Synesius requests her to intercede on behalf of two individuals impacted by the ongoing civil strife in Alexandria, insisting, "You always have power, and you can bring about good by using that power." He also reminds her that she had taught him that a Neoplatonic philosopher must introduce the highest moral standards to political life and act for the benefit of his or her fellow citizens.
In 414, Cyril closed all the synagogues in Alexandria, confiscated all the property belonging to the Jews, and expelled all the Jews from the city. Orestes, the Roman prefect of Alexandria, who was also a close friend of Hypatia and a recent convert to Christianity, was outraged by Cyril's actions and sent a scathing report to the emperor. The conflict escalated and a riot broke out in which the parabalani, a group of monks under Cyril's authority, nearly killed Orestes. As punishment, Orestes had Ammonius, the monk who had started the riot, publicly tortured to death. Cyril tried to proclaim Ammonius a martyr, but Christians in Alexandria were disgusted, since Ammonius had been killed for inciting a riot and attempting to murder the governor, not for his faith. Prominent Alexandrian Christians intervened and forced Orestes and Cyril to come to an uneasy truce. During the negotiations, Orestes frequently consulted Hypatia for advice because she was well-liked among both pagans and Christians alike, she had not been involved in any previous stages of the conflict, and she had an impeccable reputation as a wise counselor.
Despite Hypatia's popularity, Cyril and his allies attempted to discredit her and undermine her reputation. Socrates Scholasticus mentions rumors accusing Hypatia of preventing Orestes from reconciling with Cyril. Traces of other rumors that spread among the Christian populace of Alexandria may be found in the writings of the seventh-century Egyptian Coptic bishop John of Nikiû, who alleges in his Chronicle that Hypatia had engaged in satanic practices and had intentionally hampered the church's influence over Orestes:
And in those days there appeared in Alexandria a female philosopher, a pagan named Hypatia, and she 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. And he ceased attending church as had been his custom... And he not only did this, but he drew many believers to her, and he himself received the unbelievers at his house.
Account from Socrates Scholasticus
During the Christian festival of Lent in March 415, the parabalani under the leadership of a lector named Peter raided Hypatia's carriage as she was travelling home. They dragged her into a nearby church known as the "Caesareum", where they stripped her naked and murdered her using ostraka, which can either be translated as "roof tiles" or "oyster shells". They tore her body into pieces and dragged her mangled limbs through the town to a place called Cinarion, where they set them on fire.
Interpretations
Socrates Scholasticus presents Hypatia's murder as entirely politically motivated and makes no mention of any role that Hypatia's paganism might have played in her death. Instead, he reasons that "she fell a victim to the political jealousy which at that time prevailed. For as she had frequent interviews with Orestes, it was calumniously reported among the Christian populace that it was she who prevented Orestes from being reconciled to the bishop." Socrates Scholasticus condemns the actions of the mob and declares that "Surely nothing can be farther from the spirit of Christianity than the allowance of massacres, fights, and transactions of that sort."
Among modern historians, Hypatia's death is usually either blamed on Cyril of Alexandria's jealousy, cast as a side event in the power struggle between Cyril and Orestes, or interpreted as a violent manifestation of the pre-existing turmoil in Alexandria. Modern historians still debate whether and to what extent Cyril may have been involved in the incident. Many historians consider it likely that Cyril at least had some prior knowledge of the murder, but a minority argue that he was totally uninvolved.
Aftermath
Hypatia's death sent shockwaves throughout the empire; for centuries, philosophers had been seen as effectively untouchable during the displays of public violence that sometimes occurred in Roman cities and the murder of a female philosopher at the hand of a mob was seen as "profoundly dangerous and destabilizing". Although no concrete evidence was ever discovered definitively linking Cyril to the murder of Hypatia, it was widely believed that he had ordered it. Even if Cyril had not directly ordered the murder himself, it was self-evident that his smear campaign against Hypatia had inspired it. The Alexandrian council was alarmed at Cyril's conduct and sent an embassy to the First Council of Constantinople, which appointed Alexandrian patriarchs. Theodosius II's advisors launched an investigation to determine Cyril's role in the murder.
The investigation resulted in the parabalani being removed from Cyril's power and instead placed under the authority of Orestes. Cyril himself allegedly only managed to escape even more serious punishment by bribing one of Theodosius II's officials. Historian Edward J. Watts argues that Hypatia's murder was the turning point in Cyril's fight to gain political control of Alexandria. Hypatia had been the lynchpin holding Orestes's opposition against Cyril together and, without her, the opposition quickly collapsed. Two years later, Cyril overturned the law placing the parabalani under Orestes's control and, by the early 420s, Cyril had come to dominate the Alexandrian council.
Maps Hypatia
Works
Writings
Hypatia has been described as a universal genius, but she was probably more of a teacher and commentator than an innovator. No evidence has been found that Hypatia ever published any independent works on philosophy and she does not appear to have made any groundbreaking mathematical discoveries. During Hypatia's time period, scholars preserved classical mathematical works and commented on them to develop their arguments, rather than publishing original works. It has also been suggested that the closure of the Mouseion and the destruction of the Serapeum may have led Hypatia and her father to focus their efforts on preserving seminal mathematical books and making them accessible to their students. The Suda, a tenth-century AD Byzantine encyclopedia, mistakenly states that all of Hypatia's writings have been lost, but modern scholarship has identified several works by her as extant. This kind of authorial uncertainty is typical of female philosophers from antiquity. Hypatia wrote in Greek, which was the language spoken by most educated people in the Eastern Mediterranean at the time. In classical antiquity, astronomy was seen as being essentially mathematical in character. Furthermore, no distinction was made between mathematics and numerology or astronomy and astrology.
Editions of other writers' works
It is possible that Hypatia may have edited her father's commentary on Euclid's Elements. Her father mentions the manuscript as being "the recension of my philosopher-daughter Hypatia", though it is not clear whether she edited or revised her father's work, or indeed authored any part of it. Theon also edited the existing version of Euclid's Elements, correcting scribal errors that had been made over the course of nearly 700 years of copying, and Hypatia is believed to have assisted him. Theon and Hypatia's edition of Euclid's Elements became the most widely-used edition of the textbook for centuries and almost totally supplanted all other editions.
Hypatia may have also edited the existing version of Ptolemy's Almagest. It was once thought that Hypatia had merely revised Theon's commentary on Almagest, based on the title of Theon's commentary on the third book of Almagest, which reads "Commentary by Theon of Alexandria on Book III of Ptolemy's Almagest, edition revised by my daughter Hypatia, the philosopher", but, based on analysis of the titles of Theon's other commentaries and similar titles from the time period, scholars have concluded that Hypatia corrected, not her father's commentary, but the text of Almagest itself. Her contribution is thought to be an improved method for the long division algorithms needed for astronomical computation. The Ptolemaic model of the universe was geocentric, meaning it taught that the sun revolved around the earth. In the Almagest, Ptolemy proposed a division problem for calculating the number of degrees swept out by the sun in a single day as it orbits the earth. In his early commentary, Theon had tried to improve upon Ptolemy's division calculation. In the text edited by Hypatia, a tabular method is detailed. This tabular method might be the "astronomical table" which historic sources attribute to Hypatia.
Independent works
Hypatia wrote a commentary on Diophantus's thirteen-volume Arithmetica, which had been written c. 250. It set out more than 100 mathematical problems, for which solutions are proposed using algebra. It was long believed that this commentary had been lost, but the nineteenth-century scholar Paul Tannery deduced that parts of it had actually survived, interpolated into Diophantus's original text, of which only volumes 1-6 have survived. Sir Thomas Heath published the first English translation of the surviving portion of the Arithmetica in 1885. Heath argued that surviving text of Arithmetica is actually a redaction produced by Hypatia to aid her students. Hypatia used an unusual algorithm for division (in the then-standard sexagesimal numeral system), making it easy for scholars to pick out which parts of the text she had written.
Hypatia also wrote an eight-volume popularization of Apollonius of Perga's work on conic sections, which is no longer extant. She also created an "Astronomical Canon", a set of tables describing the movements of the heavenly bodies. This is believed to have been either a new edition of the Handy Tables by the Alexandrian Ptolemy or the aforementioned commentary on his Almagest. A high degree of mathematical accomplishment would have been needed to comment on Apollonius's advanced mathematics or the astronomical Canon. Because of this, most scholars today recognize that Hypatia must have been among the leading mathematicians of her day.
Inventions and observations
One of Synesius's letters describes Hypatia as having taught him how to construct a silver plane astrolabe as a gift for an official. An astrolabe is a device used to calculate date and time based on the positions of the stars and planets. It can also be used to predict where the stars and planets will be on any given date. A "little astrolabe", or "plane astrolabe", is a kind of astrolabe that used stereographic projection of the celestial sphere to represent the heavens on a plane surface, as opposed to an armillary sphere, which was globe-shaped.
The statement from Synesius's letter has sometimes been wrongly interpreted to mean that Hypatia invented the plane astrolabe herself, but the plane astrolabe is known to have been in use at least 500 years before Hypatia was born. Hypatia probably learned how to construct a plane astrolabe from her father Theon, who had written a treatise on it. Theon's treatise is now lost, but its translations are credited with having transmitted the theoretical concept of plane astrolabes to the Arabic world and parts of it may be preserved in the writings of Severus Sebokht. Synesius's writings reflect the Neoplatonist belief that knowledge of the divine is attainable through observing the heavens.
In another letter, Synesius requests Hypatia to construct him a "hydroscope", a device now known as a hydrometer, to determine the density or specific gravity of liquids. Based on this request, it has been claimed that Hypatia invented the hydrometer herself, but the minute detail in which Synesius describes the instrument indicates that he assumes she has never heard of the device, but trusts she will be able to replicate it based on a verbal description. The invention of other devices, including a device for removing salt from seawater and a device to measure the level of water, have also been attributed to Hypatia. These other attributions may largely be discounted as spurious.
Ari Belenkiy describes Hypatia's astronomical work as pivotal for the politics of the region, focusing on controversies related to observations of the equinox and the timing of festivals, ultimately serving to highlight errors in Ptolemy's work and the need for independent observation. In two consecutive works (2010, 2016) Belenkiy proposed an astronomical-calendrical paradigm for Hypatia's murder. Comparing two principal sources on Hypatia, of Socrates Scholasticus and Philostorgius, Belenkiy suggests that Hypatia carried out equinoctial observations in 414-415, initiated on the request of governor Orestes. This could have been the litmus test of who was right in the conflicts over the 414 Easter day waged by Cyril, the Bishop of the Alexandrian Church, with the local Jewish and Novatian communities. Hypatia's success in establishing the correct day of the vernal equinox could undermine the Alexandrian Church's authority in the timing of Easter, as it used equinoctial computations based on Ptolemy's Syntaxis (Almagest).
Legacy
Antiquity
Hypatia had no appointed successor, no spouse, and no offspring and her sudden death not only left her legacy unprotected, but also triggered a backlash against her entire ideology. Hypatia, with her tolerance towards Christian students and her willingness to cooperate with Christian leaders, had hoped to establish a precedent that Neoplatonism and Christianity could coexist peacefully and cooperatively. Instead, her death and the subsequent failure by the Christian government to impose justice on her killers destroyed that notion entirely and led future Neoplatonists such as Damascius to consider Christian bishops as "dangerous, jealous figures who were also utterly unphilosophical." Hypatia became seen as a "martyr for philosophy" and her murder led philosophers to adopt attitudes that increasingly emphasized the pagan aspects of their beliefs system and helped create a sense of identity for philosophers as pagan traditionalists set apart from the Christian masses.
Shortly after Hypatia's murder, a forged anti-Christian letter appeared under her name. Damascius was "anxious to exploit the scandal of Hypatia's death", and attributed responsibility for her murder to Bishop Cyril and his Christian followers. A passage from Damascius's Life of Isidore, preserved in the Suda, concludes that Hypatia's murder was due to Cyril's envy over "her wisdom exceeding all bounds and especially in the things concerning astronomy". Damascius's account of the Christian murder of Hypatia is the sole historical source attributing direct responsibility to Bishop Cyril. At the same time, Damascius was not entirely kind to Hypatia either; he characterizes her as nothing more than a wandering Cynic, and compares her unfavorably with his own teacher Isidore of Alexandria, remarking that "Isidorus greatly outshone Hypatia, not just as a man does over a woman, but in the way a genuine philosopher will over a mere geometer."
Middle Ages
Hypatia's death was similar to those of Christian martyrs in Alexandria, who had been dragged through the streets during the Decian persecution in 250. Other aspects of Hypatia's life also fit the mold for a Christian martyr, especially her lifelong virginity. In the Early Middle Ages, Christians conflated Hypatia's death with stories of the Decian martyrs and she became part of the basis for the legend of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, a virgin martyr said to have been exceedingly wise and well-educated. The earliest attestation for the cult of Saint Catherine comes from the eighth century, around three hundred years after Hypatia's death. One story tells of Saint Catherine being confronted by fifty pagan philosophers seeking to convert her, but instead converting all of them to Christianity through her eloquence. Another legend claimed that Saint Catherine had been a student of Athanasius of Alexandria.
Legends about Hypatia's possible marriage are discussed in the tenth century Byzantine Suda encyclopedia, which states that Hypatia was "the wife of Isidore the Philosopher" (apparently Isidore of Alexandria); however, Isidore of Alexandria was not born until long after Hypatia's death, and no other philosopher of that name contemporary with Hypatia is known. The intellectual Eudokia Makrembolitissa (1021-1096), the second wife of Byzantine emperor Constantine X Doukas, was described by the historian Nicephorus Gregoras as a "second Hypatia".
Early modern period
The early eighteenth-century Deist scholar John Toland used the murder of Hypatia as the basis for the anti-Catholic tract, Hypatia: Or the History of a most beautiful, most vertuous, most learned, and every way accomplish'd Lady; who was torn to pieces by the Clergy of Alexandria, to gratify the pride, emulation, and cruelty of their Archbishop, commonly, but undeservedly, stil'd St. Cyril. In order to portray Hypatia's death in the worst possible light, Toland changed the story and invented elements not found in any of the ancient sources. In 1721, Thomas Lewis wrote a response defending Cyril entitled The History of Hypatia, a most Impudent School-Mistress of Alexandria: Murder'd and torn to Pieces by the Populace, in Defence of Saint Cyril and the Alexandrian Clergy from the Aspersions of Mr. Toland. Lewis rejected Damascius's account as unreliable out of hand on account of the fact that its author was "a heathen" and then proceeded to argue that Socrates Scholasticus was "a Puritan", who was consistently biased against Cyril.
Voltaire, in his Examen important de Milord Bolingbroke ou le tombeau de fantisme (1736) interpreted Hypatia as a believer in "the laws of rational Nature" and "the capacities of the human mind free of dogmas" and described her death as "a bestial murder perpetrated by Cyril's tonsured hounds, with a fanatical gang at their heels". Later, in an entry for his Dictionnaire philosophique (1772), Voltaire again portrayed Hypatia as a freethinking deistic genius brutally murdered by ignorant and misunderstanding Christians. Most of the entry ignores Hypatia herself altogether and instead deals with the controversy over whether or not Cyril was responsible for her death. Voltaire concludes with the snide remark that "When one strips beautiful women naked, it is not to massacre them."
In his monumental work The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, the English historian Edward Gibbon expanded on Toland and Voltaire's misleading portrayals by declaring Cyril as the sole cause of all evil in Alexandria at the beginning of the fifth century and construing Hypatia's murder as evidence to support his polemical thesis that the rise of Christianity was the sole cause of the Roman Empire's decline. He remarks on Cyril's continued veneration as a Christian saint, commenting that "superstition [Christianity] perhaps would more gently expiate the blood of a virgin, than the banishment of a saint." In response to these accusations, Catholic authors, as well as some French Protestants, insisted with increased vehemence that Cyril had absolutely no involvement in Hypatia's murder and that Peter the Lector was solely responsible. In the course of these heated debates, Hypatia herself tended to be cast aside and ignored, while the debates focused far more intently on the question of whether Peter the Lector had acted alone or under Cyril's orders.
Nineteenth century
In nineteenth century European literary authors spun the legend of Hypatia as part of neo-Hellenism, a movement that romanticised ancient Greeks and their values. Interest in the "literary legend of Hypatia" began to rise. Diodata Saluzzo Roero's 1827 Ipazia ovvero delle Filosofie suggested that Cyril had actually converted Hypatia to Christianity, and that she had been killed by a "treacherous" priest.
In his 1852 Hypatie and 1857 Hypathie et Cyrille, French poet Charles Leconte de Lisle portrayed Hypatia as the epitome of "vulnerable truth and beauty". Leconte de Lisle's first poem portrayed Hypatia as a woman born after her time, a victim of the laws of history. His second poem reverted back to the eighteenth-century Deistic portrayal of Hypatia as the victim of Christian brutality, but with the twist that Hypatia tries and fails to convince Cyril that Neoplatonism and Christianity are actually fundamentally the same. Charles Kingsley's 1853 novel Hypatia; Or, New Foes with an Old Face was originally intended as a historical treatise, but instead became a typical mid-Victorian romance with a militantly anti-Catholic message, portraying Hypatia as a "helpless, pretentious, and erotic heroine" with the "spirit of Plato and the body of Aphrodite."
Kingsley's novel was tremendously popular; it was translated into several European languages and remained continuously in print for the rest of the century. It promoted the romantic vision of Hypatia as "the last of the Hellenes" and was quickly adapted into a broad variety of stage productions, the first of which was a play written by Elizabeth Bowers, performed in Philadelphia in 1859, starring the writer herself in the titular role. On 2 January 1893, a much higher-profile stage play adaptation Hypatia, written by G. Stuart Ogilvie and produced by Herbert Beerbohm Tree, opened at the Haymarket Theatre in London. The title role was initially played by Julia Neilson, and it featured an elaborate musical score written by the composer Hubert Parry. The novel also spawned works of visual art, including an 1867 portrait of Hypatia as a young woman by the early photographer Julia Margaret Cameron and an 1885 painting by Charles William Mitchell showing a nude Hypatia standing before an altar in a church.
At the same time, European philosophers and scientists described Hypatia as the last representative of science and free inquiry before a "long medieval decline". In 1843, German authors Soldan and Heppe argued in their highly influential History of the Witchcraft Trials that Hypatia may have been, in effect, the first famous "witch" punished under Christian authority (see witch-hunt).
As an astronomer Hypatia was honoured when 238 Hypatia, a main belt asteroid discovered in 1884, was named for her. The Lunar crater Hypatia was also named for her, in addition to craters named for her father Theon. The 180 km Rimae Hypatia are located north of the crater, one degree south of the equator, along the Mare Tranquillitatis.
Twentieth century
In the twentieth century Hypatia's life and death was cast in the light of women's rights and she was adopted by feminists. The author Carlo Pascal claimed in 1908 that her murder was an anti-feminist act and brought about a change in the treatment of women, as well as the decline of the Mediterranean civilisation in general. Dora Russell, the wife of Bertrand Russell, published a book on the inadequate education of women and inequality with the title Hypatia or Woman and Knowledge in 1925. The prologue explains why she chose the title: "Hypatia was a university lecturer denounced by Church dignitaries and torn to pieces by Christians. Such will probably be the fate of this book."
Hypatia's death became symbolic for some historians. For example, Kathleen Wider proposes that the murder of Hypatia marked the end of Classical antiquity, and Stephen Greenblatt observes that her murder "effectively marked the downfall of Alexandrian intellectual life". On the other hand, Christian Wildberg notes that Hellenistic philosophy continued to flourish in the 5th and 6th centuries, and perhaps until the age of Justinian I.
The thirteenth and final episode of Carl Sagan's 1980 PBS series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage relates a heavily fictionalized retelling of Hypatia's death, which results in the "Great Library of Alexandria" being burned by militant Christians. In actuality, though Christians led by Theophilus did indeed burn the Serapeum in 391 AD, the Library of Alexandria had already ceased to exist in any recognizable form centuries prior to Hypatia's birth.
As an intellectual woman, Hypatia became a role model for modern intelligent women and two feminist journals were named after her: the Greek journal Hypatia: Feminist Studies was launched in Athens in 1984, and Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy was launched in the United States in 1986. In the United Kingdom, the Hypatia Trust has compiled a library and archive of feminine literary, artistic and scientific work since 1996. An extension of the trust has established the Hypatia-in-the-Woods retreat in Washington State, where artistic, business and academic women can spend time to work on projects.
Judy Chicago's large-scale art piece The Dinner Party awards Hypatia a place-setting. Major works of twentieth century literature contain references to Hypatia, including Marcel Proust's stories "Madame Swann At Home" and "Within a Budding Grove" from In Search of Lost Time, and Iain Pears's The Dream of Scipio.
Twenty-first century
Hypatia's life continues to be fictionalized by authors in many countries and languages. In Umberto Eco's 2002 novel Baudolino, the hero falls in love with a half-satyr, half-woman, who is descended from a group of Hypatia's young female disciples, who fled after their teacher's murder. These disciples set up a female-only community who "tried to keep alive what they had learned from their mistress... [living] apart from the world, to rediscover what Hypatia had really said." All the women, who reproduce by "fecundation" with satyrs, are named Hypatia and are collectively known as "hypatias". Charlotte Kramer's 2006 novel Holy Murder: the Death of Hypatia of Alexandria portrays Cyril as an archetypal villain without an ounce of good. Hypatia is repeatedly described as brilliant and beloved and she humiliates Cyril by demonstrating that she knows more about the Christian scriptures than he does. Ki Longfellow's novel Flow Down Like Silver (2009) invents an elaborate backstory for why Hypatia first started teaching. Youssef Ziedan's novel Azazeel (2012) describes Hypatia's brutal murder through the eyes of the monk Hypa, who witnesses the incident. In The Plot to Save Socrates (2006) by Paul Levinson and its sequels Unburning Alexandria (novelette, 2008; novel 2013) and Chronica, Hypatia turns out to have been a time-traveler from the twenty-first century United States.
The 2009 movie Agora, directed by Alejandro Amenábar and starring Rachel Weisz as Hypatia, is a heavily fictionalized dramatization of Hypatia's final years. The film, which was intended to criticize contemporary Christian fundamentalism, has had wide-ranging impact on the popular conception of Hypatia. Unlike previous fictional adaptations, Agora emphasizes Hypatia's astronomical and mechanical studies rather than her philosophy, portraying her as "less Plato than Copernicus". It also, more than any other previous portrayal, emphasizes the restrictions imposed on women by the early Christian church. In one scene, Hypatia is sexually assaulted by one of her father's slaves, who has recently converted to Christianity, and, in another scene, Cyril reads a verse from 1 Timothy 2:8-12 forbidding women from teaching. Near the end of the film, Synesius warns Orestes that he must abandon his friendship with Hypatia in order to retain his faith as a Christian. The film also portrays Cyril and his monks as swarthy, bearded men with covered heads clad in tattered black clothing, resembling media portrayals of the Taliban.
The film, however, also contains numerous historical inaccuracies: It inflates Hypatia's achievements and incorrectly portrays her as having discovered proof to support Aristarchus of Samos's heliocentric model of the universe, for which there is no evidence that Hypatia ever even studied. It also contains a scene based on the final episode from Carl Sagan's Cosmos in which a mob of Christians raid the Serapeum and burn all of the scrolls in it, but leave the building itself largely intact, aside from knocking over a few statues. In historical reality, the Serapeum probably did not have any scrolls in it at the time of its destruction and the Christians completely demolished the building to the ground. The film also strongly implies that Hypatia is an atheist, a notion directly contradictory to the surviving sources, which all portray her as a devoted follower of the teachings of Plotinus, who taught that the goal of philosophy was "a mystical union with the divine."
Notes
References
Bibliography
Attribution:
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1870). "Hypatia". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.
Further reading
External links
- International Society for Neoplatonic Studies
- Socrates of Constantinople, Ecclesiastical History, VII.15, at the Internet Archive
- (in Greek) (in Latin) Socrates of Constantinople, Ecclesiastical History, VII.15 (pp. 760-761), at the Documenta Catholica Omnia
Source of article : Wikipedia
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