Hypatia of Alexandria
Maria Dzielska
Number of quotes: 39
Book ID: 112 Page: 53
Section: 3A2A
In truth, Hypatia set the highest requirements for the cleansing of the soul through the practice of moral virtue only for herself. Only her sophrosyne manifested itself in complete sexual continence, in her famous virtue of chastity which, to be sure, strengthened her reputation for holiness spread by her disciples. She remained a virgin to the end of her life, always behaved moderately, practiced asceticism in everyday life (for instance, by wearing the philosophic tribon), and observed restraint and decency in every situation. {68}
Quote ID: 2668
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 112 Page: 84
Section: 3A2A
These circumstances began to change when Theophilus’ nephew Cyril was elected to the bishopric of St. Mark’s. It soon became clear that Hypatia would enjoy no accord with the patriarch.
Quote ID: 2670
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 112 Page: 84
Section: 3A2A
After three days of fighting, Cyril, the victor in the contest, was installed as bishop, on October 17, 412.
Quote ID: 2671
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 112 Page: 85
Section: 3A2A
He [PJ: Cyril] began with a battle for the purity of the faith by moving against groups that did not hold orthodox beliefs. He expelled the Novatians from the city, closing their churches, confiscating their liturgical objects, and depriving their bishop of all rights. {92}
Quote ID: 2672
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 112 Page: 85
Section: 3A2A
Next he turned against the Jews. Socrates relates that in his action against them, Cyril took advantage of events initiated by the Jews themselves. {93}
Quote ID: 2673
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 112 Page: 85/86
Section: 3A2A
One night, some of them raised an alarm that the church of St. Alexander was on fire. When the Christians ran to save their church, the Jews attacked them, killing many. In response Cyril rushed with a large crowd to the Jewish district, surrounded the synagogue, permitted the plunder of Jewish property, and started chasing the Jews out of the city.
Quote ID: 2674
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 112 Page: 86
Section: 3A2A
Cyril felt powerless, and people from various religious groups associated with him began to contemplate other methods of applying pressure on the prefect.Among the first to come openly to his aid (and surely with his encouragement) were 500 monks who left their hermetic lairs in Nitria and entered the city in force. Theophilus had already used them in fights against pagans as well as in doctrinal conflicts. {96} One day they confronted Orestes as he was riding through the city, insulted him, and accused him of paganism. The prefect’s protestations that he was a Christian baptized by the bishop of Constantinople had no effect. {97} One of the monks - Ammonius - hit him in the head with a stone.
Quote ID: 2675
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 112 Page: 87
Section: 3A2A
After all, he was a recent arrival in Alexandria, little known, and from the beginning of his tenure an object of attacks by the church and the groups associated with it. Clearly, Orestes’ unyielding position toward the patriarch’s actions had strong backing from influential people, members of the ruling class in the city and its environs. One of the notables who supported him was Hypatia - a friend from the beginning of his term in office in Alexandria.
Quote ID: 2677
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 112 Page: 87/88
Section: 3A2A
She [PJ: Hypatia] had associated herself with the old structure of the civitas based on a secular civil government and on discourse, not violence, in politics. She undoubtedly shared with Orestes the conviction that the authority of the bishops should not extend to areas meant for the imperial and municipal administration.
Quote ID: 2678
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 112 Page: 88
Section: 3A2A
Her political independence, which manifested itself openly in public places, was respected. People knew that her wisdom, erudition, and ethical authority induced rulers to seek her counsel.
Quote ID: 2679
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 112 Page: 88
Section: 3A2A
Owing to her support, in the years 414-415 Orestes was able to forge a kind of political party. {101}. . . .
We may therefore assume that Hypatia, too, encouraged him to defend the Jews. She would have seen them as a group long notable for its economic and cultural contribution to the life of the city.
Quote ID: 2680
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 112 Page: 89
Section: 3A2A
Socrates also revealingly describes the mood, while Damascius, we remember, writes about Cyril’s envy of Hypatia’s success, . . .
Quote ID: 2681
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 112 Page: 89
Section: 3A2A
The fact that Orestes and Hypatia’s allies were essentially a Christian group complicated the situation for Cyril and his clergy. {104} After all, Orestes was himself a Christian and the representative of a Christian state; he was backed by members of the city’s Christian elite and a segment of the Christian populace who had defended him from the monks’ assault- . . .
Quote ID: 2682
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 112 Page: 89
Section: 3A2A
Her friendships and influence among imperial functionaries and hieratics of the church would surely have generated anxiety among Cyril’s followers.
Quote ID: 2683
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 112 Page: 90
Section: 3A2A
. . . he states briefly and unequivocally that the whole city “doted on her and worshiped her.” She was also showered with civic honors. {106} Cyril could not even dream of such adulation; he was unwanted and disliked from the moment he ascended to the bishopric.
Quote ID: 2684
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 112 Page: 90
Section: 3A2A
Hypatia was neither popular nor celebrated among the Alexandrian populace at large.
Quote ID: 2685
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 112 Page: 90
Section: 3A2A
Cyril’s people found a way to exploit Hypatia’s detachment from the common people: they devised a subtle scheme of negative propaganda among the urban mob.
Quote ID: 2686
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 112 Page: 91
Section: 3A2A
Rumors of the practice of black magic spawned devastating fear among ordinary people, who were accordingly ever ready to take violent and ruthless action against sorcerers.Pastor John’s Note: see p. 77
Quote ID: 2687
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 112 Page: 92
Section: 3A2A
By means of insidious deceit the Jews assaulted the Christians and massacred a large body of them. In revenge the Christians plundered the synagogues, turned them into churches, and expelled the Jews from the city. In the face of such decisive action, the prefect was unable to protect the Jews.
Quote ID: 2688
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 112 Page: 92
Section: 3A2A
But it is certain that the conflict with the Jews began in 414, if not in the preceding year, . . .
Quote ID: 2689
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 112 Page: 92
Section: 3A2A
That diabole, the ominous and slanderous rumor about Hypatia’s witchcraft and its divisive effect on the city, produced the results desired by the instigators. From that company emerged a group that resolved to kill the woman philosopher. Socrates says that they distinguished themselves by “hot-tempered disposition”; John Of Nikiu calls them “a multitude of believers in God”; and Damascius refers to them as beasts rather than human beings. {110}
Quote ID: 2690
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 112 Page: 93
Section: 3A2A
Led by Peter, a mob executed the deed on a day in March 415, in the tenth consulship of Honorius and the sixth consulship of Theodosius II, during Lent. Hypatia was returning home, through a street whose name is unknown to us, from her customary ride in the city. She was pulled out of the chariot and dragged to the church Caesarion, a former temple of the emperor cult. There they tore off her clothes and killed her with “broken bits of pottery” (ostrakois aneilon).{111} Then they hauled her body outside the city to a place called Kinaron, to burn it on a pyre of sticks. {112}
Quote ID: 2691
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 112 Page: 93
Section: 3A2A
In John of Nikiu’s perspective, the killing of a witch was but the fulfillment of the common will of the Christians and of God himself. A group of the faithful, led by Peter, a “perfect believer in all respects in Jesus Christ,” went out into the city to look for the “pagan woman”; they found her sitting “on a (lofty) chair,” and thus by all appearances conducting a lecture. From here she was dragged to the church and there disgraced and stripped of her robes. Then (in a slightly different version from Socrates’) she was dragged through the streets until she died. Finally, her body was carted to a place called Kinaron, where it was burned.
Quote ID: 2692
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 112 Page: 94
Section: 3A2A
. . . in a manner and for a reason known and used for ages: murder for a political purpose.
Quote ID: 2693
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 112 Page: 94
Section: 3A2A
. . .(John of Nikiu) . . . “all the people surrendered to the patriarch Cyril and named him ‘the new Theophilus’; for he destroyed the last remains of idolatry in the city.”
Quote ID: 2694
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 112 Page: 95/96
Section: 3A2A
After repeated petitions to the court in Constantinople, the city council in Alexandria obtained some measure of punishment for Cyril. On October 5, 416, Aurelian’s successor, the praetorian prefect Monaxius, issued an order that stripped Cyril of his authority over the so-called parabalanai or parabolans and demanded their reorganization. {120} The parabolans were a college of strong young men connected with the Alexandrian church whose task it was to collect the ill, disabled, and homeless in the city and place them in hospitals or church almshouses. {121} But the sources reveal that they also served as a sort of military arm of the Alexandrian patriarch, carrying out actions against his adversaries in various places and situations.
Quote ID: 2695
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 112 Page: 98
Section: 3A2A
We lack, however, some proof from other sources to confirm the conclusions Damascius draws from the anecdote. For he establishes a strict relation between Cyril’s evil passions and desire for murder and its fulfillment. Damascius is convinced that Cyril contrived Hypatia’s assassination and executed it with the help of his men.
Quote ID: 2696
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 112 Page: 98
Section: 3A2A
Aware of Cyril’s envy of and animosity against Hypatia, Malalas accuses the bishop of inciting the people to the crime.
Quote ID: 2697
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 112 Page: 99
Section: 3A2A
. . .“This affair brought not the least opprobrium, not only upon Cyril, but also upon the whole Alexandrian church.” But he also observes that the Alexandrians were far more inclined toward anarchy and disturbances than the people of any other city. {131}
Quote ID: 2698
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 112 Page: 99
Section: 3A2A
But the murder of Hypatia, a sixty-year-old woman, widely esteemed for her wisdom and ethical virtue, was not only an act of hatred but also a criminal offense warranting a swift and severe response from those charged with upholding the law. As Damascius asserts, that response never came; those who committed the crime went unpunished and brought notable disgrace upon their city. {134}
Quote ID: 2699
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 112 Page: 99
Section: 3A2A
It is not surprising that the sources of Hypatia are so few, and so sparing and generally oblique in their accounts. One reason is surely the esoteric nature of her teaching (cultivated by her disciples). But the most important reason is that as early as the fourth century Christian historians had achieved predominance, and most likely they were ashamed to write about her fate.
Quote ID: 2700
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 112 Page: 102
Section: 3A2A
We have established that Hypatia was born around A.D. 355, and not, as customarily held, around 370. When she died in 415 she was of an advanced age, around sixty years old.
Quote ID: 2701
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 112 Page: 102
Section: 3A2A
She was a resident of Alexandria, from a prominent family.
Quote ID: 2702
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 112 Page: 103
Section: 3A2A
In her home in Alexandria she formed an intellectual circle composed of disciples who came to study privately, some of them for many years.
Quote ID: 2703
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 112 Page: 103
Section: 3A2A
The virtue most honored by her contemporaries was her sophrosyne, which colored both her conduct and her inner qualities; it manifested itself in sexual abstinence (she remained a virgin to the end of her life), in modest dress (philosophical tribon), in moderate living, and in a dignified attitude toward her students as well as men in power.
Quote ID: 2704
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 112 Page: 104
Section: 3A2A
Monks assaulted Orestes, and Cyril’s associates skillfully mounted and spread rumors about Hypatia’s studies of magic and her satanic spell on the prefect, “on God’s people,” and on the entire city.
Quote ID: 2705
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 112 Page: 104
Section: 3A2A
Men in Cyril’s employment assassinated Hypatia. It was a political murder provoked by long-standing conflicts in Alexandria.1 Through this criminal act a powerful supporter of Orestes was eliminated. Orestes himself not only gave up his struggle against the patriarch but left Alexandria for good. The ecclesiastical faction paralyzed his followers with fear and pacified the city; only the city councillors attempted - with meager effect - to intervene with the emperor.
Quote ID: 2706
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 112 Page: 104
Section: 3A2A
Hypatia’s death had no connection with the antipagan policy pursued by Cyril and his church at that time.
Quote ID: 2707
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 112 Page: 105
Section: 3A2A
She did not cultivate Neoplatonic theurgic philosophy, visit temples, or resist their conversion into Christian churches. Indeed, she sympathized with Christianity and protected her Christian students. With her tolerance and consummate grasp of metaphysical questions, she assisted them in achieving spiritual and religious integrity. Two of her students became bishops. Pagans and Christians studying with her congregated in friendship.
Quote ID: 2708
Time Periods: 5
End of quotes