HYPATIA

, a very learned and beautiful lady, was born at Alexandria, about the end of the 4th century, as she flourished about the year of Christ 430. She was the daughter of Theon, a celebrated philosopher and mathematician, and president of the famous Alexandrian school. Her father, encouraged by her extraordinary genius, had her not only educated in all the ordinary qualifications of her sex, but instructed in the most abstruse sciences. She made such great progress in philosophy, geometry, astronomy, and the mathematics in general, that she passed for the most learned person of her time. She published commentaries on Apollonius's Conics, on Diophantus's Arithmetic, and other works. At length she was thought worthy to succeed her father in that distinguished and important employment, the government of the school of Alexandria; and to deliver instructions out of that chair where Ammonius, Hierocles, and many other great men, had taught before; and this at a time too when men of great learning abounded both at Alexandria and in many other parts of the Roman empire. Her same being so extensive, and her worth so universally acknowledged, it was no wonder that she had a crowded auditory. “She explained to her hearers (says Socrates, an ecclesiastical historian of the 5th century, born at Constantinople) the several sciences that go under the general name of philosophy; for which reason there was a confluence to her, from all parts, of those who made philosophy their delight and study.”

Her scholars were not less eminent than they were numerous. One of them was the celebrated Synesius, who was afterwards bishop of Ptolomais. This ancient Christian Platonist always expresses the strongest, as well as the most grateful, testimony of the virtue of his tutoress; never mentioning her without the most profound respect, and sometimes in terms of affection but| little short of adoration. But it was not Synesius only, and the disciples of the Alexandrian school, who admired Hypatia for her virtue and learning: never was woman more caressed by the public, and yet never had woman a more unspotted character. She was held as an oracle for her wisdom, for which she was consulted by the magistrates in all important cases; a circumstance which often drew her among the greatest concourse of men, without the least censure of her manners. In short, when Nicephorus intended to pass the highest compliment on the princess Eudocia, he thought he could not do it better than by calling her another Hypatia.

While Hypatia thus reigned the brightest ornament of Alexandria, Orestes was governor of that place for the emperor Theodosius, and Cyril was bishop or patriarch. Orestes, having had a liberal education, could not but admire Hypatia; and as a wife governor often consulted her. This, together with an aversion which Cyril had against Orestes, proved fatal to the lady. About 500 monks assembling, attacked the governor one day, and would have killed him, had he not been rescued by the townsmen; and the respect which Orestes had for Hypatia causing her to be traduced among the Christian multitude, they dragged her from her chair, tore her in pieces, and burnt her limbs.

Cyril is strongly suspected of having fomented this tragedy. Cave indeed endeavours to remove the imputation of so horrid an action from the patriarch; and lays it upon the Alexandrian mob in general, whom he calls “a very trifling inconstant people.” But though Cyril should be allowed neither to have been the perpetrator, nor even the contriver, of it, yet it is much to be suspected that he did not discountenance it in the manner he ought to have done: a suspicion which must needs be greatly confirmed by reflecting, that he was so far from blaming the outrage committed by the monks upon Orestes, that he afterwards received the dead body of Ammonius, one of the most forward in that outrage, who had grievously wounded the governor, and who was justly punished with death. Upon this riotous ruffian Cyril made a panegyric in the church where he was laid, in which he extolled his courage and constancy, as one that had contended for the truth; and changing his name to Thaumasius, or the Admirable, ordered him to be considered as a martyr. “However (continues Socrates), the wisest part of Christians did not approve the zeal which Cyril shewed on this man's behalf, being convinced that Ammonius had justly suffered for his desperate attempt.”