Hypatia
Hypatia[a] (born c. 350–370 - March 415 AD)[1][4] was a Neoplatonist philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician who lived in Alexandria, Egypt: at that time a major city of the Eastern Roman Empire.
Ancient sources record that Hypatia was widely beloved by pagans and Christians alike and that she established great influence with the political elite in Alexandria.
Rumors spread accusing her of preventing Orestes from reconciling with Cyril and, in March 415 AD, she was murdered by a mob of Christians led by a lector named Peter.
[8][9] Hypatia's murder shocked the empire and transformed her into a "martyr for philosophy", leading future Neoplatonists such as the historian Damascius (c. 458 – c. 538) 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.
[18] Although he was widely seen as a great mathematician at the time,[11][13][19] Theon's mathematical work has been deemed by modern standards as essentially "minor",[11] "trivial",[13] and "completely unoriginal".
[77][78][73] Orestes, the Roman prefect of Alexandria, who was also a close friend of Hypatia[21] and a recent convert to Christianity,[21][79][80] was outraged by Cyril's actions and sent a scathing report to the emperor.
[86] Orestes frequently consulted Hypatia for advice[87][88] 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.
[88][91] 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,[40][91] who alleges in his Chronicle that Hypatia had engaged in satanic practices and had intentionally hampered the church's influence over Orestes:[91][92][93][94] 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.
"[95][106] Socrates Scholasticus unequivocally condemns the actions of the mob, declaring, "Surely nothing can be farther from the spirit of Christianity than the allowance of massacres, fights, and transactions of that sort.
"[95][102][107] The Canadian mathematician Ari Belenkiy has argued that Hypatia may have been involved in a controversy over the date of the Christian holiday of Easter 417 and that she was killed on the vernal equinox while making astronomical observations.
[107] The investigation resulted in the emperors Honorius and Theodosius II issuing an edict in autumn of 416, which attempted to remove the parabalani from Cyril's power and instead place them under the authority of Orestes.
[117][121][122] 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.
[138] According to Mary Ellen Waithe, 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.
[156] Booth concludes, "The modern day reputation held by Hypatia as a philosopher, mathematician, astronomer, and mechanical inventor, is disproportionate to the amount of surviving evidence of her life's work.
[163] Over the next 200 years, Neoplatonist philosophers such as Hierocles of Alexandria, John Philoponus, Simplicius of Cilicia, and Olympiodorus the Younger made astronomical observations, taught mathematics, and wrote lengthy commentaries on the works of Plato and Aristotle.
[163] According to Watts, however, Hypatia had no appointed successor, no spouse, and no offspring[107][164] and her sudden death not only left her legacy unprotected, but also triggered a backlash against her entire ideology.
[171][172] 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".
[204] In the nineteenth century European literary authors spun the legend of Hypatia as part of neo-Hellenism, a movement that romanticised ancient Greeks and their values.
[203] 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.
[208] 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".
[221] It promoted the romantic vision of Hypatia as "the last of the Hellenes"[220] 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 in the titular role.
[221] 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.
[232] The cover illustration for the book, a drawing of Hypatia by artist Jules Maurice Gaspard showing her as a beautiful young woman with her wavy hair tied back in the classical style, has now become the most iconic and widely reproduced image of her.
[233] 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 civilization in general.
[231] Though Hubbard's fictional biography may have been intended for children,[229] Lynn M. Osen relied on it as her main source in her influential 1974 article on Hypatia in her 1974 book Women in Mathematics.
[228][231] 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.
[149] In actuality, though Christians led by Theophilus did destroy the Serapeum in 391 AD, the Library of Alexandria had already ceased to exist in any recognizable form centuries prior to Hypatia's birth.
[234] Major works of twentieth century literature contain references to Hypatia,[243] including Marcel Proust's volume "Within a Budding Grove" from In Search of Lost Time, and Iain Pears's The Dream of Scipio.
[10] The film also implies that Hypatia is an atheist, directly contradictory to the surviving sources, which all portray her as following the teachings of Plotinus that the goal of philosophy was "a mystical union with the divine.
