Hypatia of Alexandria
An Outspoken Pagan and One of the First Women to Study Mathematics, Astronomy, and Philosophy
Do you think that being a woman and doing something which has never been done by a man is so easy at all?
In the year 415 or 416, a mob of Christian zealots led by Peter the Lector attacked a woman’s carriage on the streets of Alexandria, Egypt, and pulled her from it into a church, where they undressed her and beat her to death with roofing tiles. They then dismembered and burned her body.
What was the nature of this woman’s crime? By the way, who was she?
In a time of religious warfare, Hypatia was an outspoken pagan who was also one of the first women to study math, astronomy, and philosophy. Her life is little remembered, but her tragic death at the hands of Christian fanatics is well-known.
She was the daughter of the mathematician Theon, the University of Alexandria’s last Professor, who trained her in mathematics, astronomy, and the philosophy of the day, which would be termed science in modern times. Her mother is undocumented, and as previously said, there is little information available.
Hypatia’s appointment as head of the Platonist school in Alexandria in 400 AD is notable. She gave lectures on mathematics and philosophy there, specializing in Neoplatonism philosophy. Hypatia’s teachings were based on those of Plotinus, the founder of Neoplatonism, and Iamblichus, a Neoplatonist who lived around 300 AD.
Plotinus claimed that there is an ultimate reality that is beyond thinking or language’s reach. The purpose of existence was to strive for this ultimate reality that could never be fully expressed. People, according to Plotinus, lacked the mental capacity to properly comprehend both the ultimate reality and the repercussions of its existence. In a hierarchy of layers beneath the ultimate reality, Iamblichus separated further levels of reality. Every individual concept that the human mind was capable of had a level of reality matching it. Hypatia put a more scientific focus on these philosophical notions than preceding Neoplatonists.
All commentators describe her as a charismatic teacher.
Hypatia came to represent study and science, which were associated with paganism by the early Christians. However, many renowned Christians were among the students she taught in Alexandria. Synesius of Cyrene, who eventually became Bishop of Ptolemais, is one of the most well-known.
Many of Synesius’ letters to Hypatia have survived, and we can see someone who admired and revered Hypatia’s intelligence and scientific ability.
In a letter written around 395 to his friend Herculianus, Synesius describes Hypatia as “….a person so renowned, her reputation seemed literally incredible. We have seen and heard for ourselves she who honorably presides over the mysteries of philosophy.”
Synesius preserves the legacy of Hypatia’s opinions and teachings, such as the pursuit of “the philosophical state of apatheia — complete liberation from emotions and affections”.
Another Christian historian, Philostorgius, who lived at the same time as Hypatia, claims that she outperformed her father in mathematics, and the lexicographer Hesychius of Alexandria claims that, like her father, she was a gifted astronomer. Hypatia was described as “exceedingly beautiful and fair of the form” by Damascius, but little else is known about her looks, and no ancient images of her have survived. Hypatia remained a virgin for the rest of her life, according to Damascius, and when one of the men who came to her lectures wanted to woo her, she tried to assuage his ardor by playing the lyre.
When he refused to give up, she flatly refused him, exposing her bloody menstruation rags and screaming, “This is what you really love, my young man, but you do not love beauty for its own sake.” Damascius goes on to say that the young man was so traumatized that he instantly abandoned his feelings for her.
Theophilus was the bishop of Alexandria from 382 to 412. Theophilus was a vehement opponent of Iamblichean Neoplatonism, and he demolished the Serapeum in 391. Regardless, Theophilus tolerated Hypatia’s school and appears to treat Hypatia as a friend. Theophilus backed the bishopric of Hypatia’s disciple Synesius, who praises and admires Theophilus in his letters. Hypatia was also allowed by Theophilus to form intimate bonds with the Roman prefects and other powerful political figures. Hypatia became highly popular among the people of Alexandria, thanks in part to Theophilus’ tolerance, and she wielded significant political power.
In 412, Theophilus died suddenly. He had been grooming his nephew Cyril as his successor but had not yet named him. Between Cyril and his adversary Timothy, a violent power struggle over the diocese erupted. Cyril was victorious, and he immediately began punishing those who had backed Timothy; he shut down the Novatianists’ churches and confiscated their possessions. Hypatia’s school appears to have had an early dislike for the new bishop, as indicated by the fact that Synesius only ever wrote one letter to Cyril in all of his extensive correspondences, in which he dismisses the younger bishop as inexperienced and misguided.
Cyril (after St. Cyril) was elected patriarch of Alexandria in 412. However, Orestes was the Roman prefect of Alexandria, and as church and state fought for dominance, Cyril and Orestes became bitter political adversaries. Hypatia was Orestes’ companion, and this, combined with Christian prejudice against her philosophical views, which were considered as heathen by Christians, led to rioting between Christians and non-Christians.
“You always have power, and you may bring about good by exercising that authority,” Synesius writes to Hypatia in 413, pleading with her to intervene on behalf of two individuals affected by the current civil unrest in Alexandria. He also reminds her that a Neoplatonic philosopher must bring the greatest moral standards to political life and act in the best interests of their fellow citizens, as she had taught him.
Following an exchange of hostilities and a Jewish-led massacre in 414, Cyril closed all the synagogues in Alexandria, confiscated all Jewish property, and expelled a number of Jews from the city; Scholasticus claims all Jews were expelled, while John of Nikiu claims only those involved in the massacre were expelled. Cyril’s actions infuriated Orestes, the Roman prefect of Alexandria, who was also a personal friend of Hypatia and a new convert to Christianity, and he filed a harsh report to the emperor.
The conflict erupted into a riot, in which Orestes was nearly slain by the Parabalani, a group of Christian clerics under Cyril’s command. Orestes had Ammonius, the monk who had initiated the riot, publicly tortured to death as a punishment. Ammonius was executed for stirring a disturbance and attempting to assassinate the governor, not for his faith, as Cyril attempted to proclaim. Christians in Alexandria were disgusted.
Cyril was forced to withdraw the matter by prominent Alexandrian Christians who interfered. Regardless, Cyril’s enmity with Orestes raged on. Because Hypatia was well-liked by both pagans and Christians, she had not been involved in any prior stages of the war, and she had an outstanding reputation as a knowledgeable counselor, Orestes sought her guidance frequently.
Despite Hypatia’s popularity, Cyril and his friends tried to defame her and smear her name. Hypatia is accused of stopping Orestes from reconciling with Cyril, according to Socrates Scholasticus.
During the Christian season of Lent in March 415, a mob of Christians led by a lector named Peter stormed Hypatia’s carriage as she was returning home, according to Socrates Scholasticus. They brought her into the Kaisarion, a Christian church that had been transformed from a pagan temple and the heart of the Roman imperial cult in Alexandria. The mob then stripped Hypatia naked and slaughtered her with ostraka, which means “roof tiles” or “oyster shells” in Greek. They also removed her eyeballs, according to Damascius. They ripped her corpse apart and hauled her limbs across the town to Cinarion, where they set fire to them.
Hypatia, on the other hand, was a much easier target. She was a pagan who publicly lectured about Neoplatonism, a non-Christian philosophy, and she was less likely to be safeguarded by guards than Orestes, who was now ready. A story circulated that she was interfering with Orestes and Cyril’s reconciliation. Following that, Peter the Lector and his gang intervened, and Hypatia met her horrible end. Hypatia has since become a feminist icon, a martyr for pagans and atheists, and a fictional figure. She was used by Voltaire to criticize the church and religion.
Hypatia’s death sent shockwaves throughout the empire; for centuries, philosophers had been seen as effectively untouchable during the occasional outbursts of public violence in Roman cities, and the assassination of a female philosopher by a mob was regarded as “profoundly dangerous and destabilizing.” Although no tangible proof linking Cyril to Hypatia’s death was ever unearthed, it was widely assumed that he had ordered it. Even if Cyril had not personally ordered the murder, it was obvious that his slander campaign against Hypatia had influenced it. Cyril’s behavior worried the Alexandrian council, which dispatched an embassy to Constantinople.
Advisors to Theodosius II initiated an investigation into Cyril’s complicity in the murder. Following the investigation, the emperors Honorius and Theodosius II issued an edict in the autumn of 416, attempting to take the Parabalani from Cyril’s control and bring them under Orestes’ authority. The Parabalani were forbidden from attending “any public spectacle whatever” or entering “the meeting venue of a local council or a courtroom,” according to the injunction. It also severely limited their recruitment by limiting the overall number of Parabalani to only 500.
By bribing one of Theodosius II’s officials, Cyril allegedly only managed to avoid even more severe punishment. According to Watts, Hypatia’s assassination marked a turning point in Cyril’s battle for political control of Alexandria. Orestes’ opposition to Cyril had been held together by Hypatia, and without her, the opposition swiftly disintegrated. Cyril reversed the law placing the Parabalani under Orestes’ supervision two years later, and by the early 420s, Cyril had gained control of the Alexandrian council.
Hypatia is currently thought to have altered the existing text of Ptolemy’s Almagest Book III. 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 corrected by my daughter Hypatia, the philosopher,” it was once considered that Hypatia had simply revised Theon’s commentary on the Almagest. Scholars have concluded that Hypatia edited the text of Almagest rather than her father’s commentary, based on a comparison of the titles of Theon’s other comments and similar titles from the time period.
Her work is regarded to be a better way for long division algorithms, which are required for astronomical calculation. The Ptolemaic world was geocentric, which meant it taught that the sun rotated around the earth. Ptolemy suggested a division problem in the Almagest to calculate the number of degrees fanned forth by the sun in one day as it orbited the earth. Theon attempted to improve on Ptolemy’s division calculation in his early commentary. A tabular procedure is described in the literature edited by Hypatia. This tabular approach could be the “astronomical table” attributed to Hypatia by historical sources.
Hypatia wrote a commentary on Diophantus’ thirteen-volume Arithmetica, which was completed around the year 250 AD. Hypatia also authored a commentary on Apollonius of Perga’s work on conic sections, but it has since vanished. She also produced an “Astronomical Canon,” which is thought to be either a fresh edition of Ptolemy’s Handy Tables or the aforementioned commentary on his Almagest. It outlined over 100 mathematical issues for which algebraic solutions were proposed. According to one of Synesius’ letters, Hypatia showed him how to make a silver plane astrolabe as a gift for an official. An astrolabe is a device that uses the positions of the stars and planets to compute date and time. It can also be used to forecast the positions of the stars and planets on any given day.
Hypatia had no nominated successor, no spouse, and no children, and her untimely death not only left her legacy vulnerable but also sparked a backlash against her entire philosophy. Hypatia intended to set a precedent by tolerating Christian pupils and cooperating with Christian authorities, demonstrating that Neoplatonism and Christianity could coexist happily and constructively. Instead, her assassination and the Christian government’s subsequent reluctance to bring her killers to justice undermined that notion totally, leading Neoplatonists like Damascius to regard Christian bishops as “dangerous, jealous people who were also wholly unphilosophical.”
Hypatia became known as a “martyr for philosophy,” and her assassination prompted philosophers to adopt attitudes that stressed the pagan components of their beliefs system, allowing them to establish a feeling of identity as pagan traditionalists distinct from the Christian masses. While Hypatia’s death did not put an end to Neoplatonist philosophy as a whole, Watts contends that it did put a stop to her particular branch of it.
Despite the fact that she was a victim of religious fanaticism, Hypatia continues to inspire people today.
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