Chapters 4
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1 01 - Chapters 1-6 16:01
I.
I am going to give a short account. But as full as Antean books afford us materials of the life and death of Hypatia, who will ever continue the glory of her own sex, and the disgrace of ours, for the women have no less reason to value themselves, that there existed a lady of such rare accomplishments, without the least blemish, even as a foil to her numberless perfections, Than the men to be ashamed that any could be found among them of so brutal and savage a disposition, as, far from being struck with admiration at so much beauty, innocence, and knowledge, to stain their barbarous hands with her blood, and their impious souls with the indelible character of sacrilegious murderers, A bishop, a patriarch, nay, a saint, was the contriver of so hard a deed, and his clergy the executioners of his implacable fury.
The authors, out of whom I collect my account, and, I omit none that has come to my knowledge, were either her contemporaries or lived near that age. One of them was her schoolfellow, another her scholar. But they who relate the most odious and flagitious circumstances are ecclesiastical historians, counted orthodox in their own time, as well as eminently so by most in ours. Nor ought we to forget that several of them were priests. To every one of them we shall do the justice that their sincerity or prevarication deserves, though little remains to do in this respect, all being agreed about the principal facts, and some differing only in points of no great importance. They are such things as, taken either way, neither serve much to alleviate a very bad cause, nor to aggravate what cannot be possibly made worse.
Chapter Two. After Alexander the Great had founded Alexandria in Egypt as the center of commerce in the empire he was projecting, this city soon became a flourishing mart for learning as well as for merchandise. The fame of the Alexandrian school and of the Alexandrian library reached much further than the name of Alexander himself, or at least they carried it whither it could never have reached without their means. This was the most proper tribute that could in gratitude be paid to the memory of a prince so ambitious of glory. As, indeed, no private persons, no more than potentates, will ever do anything praiseworthy without the prospect of a long-lived reputation, the most effectual spur to laudable and arduous undertakings.
The succession of the great men that presided in this school may be learnt out of the works of those who have purposely written on such subjects. My design, however, obliges me here to mention one of them, namely Theon, who governed that academy with much applause in the latter part of the fourth century. He was particularly famous for his extensive knowledge in astronomy, as the catalogues, made of such who excelled in this science, abundantly show. But what has contributed to render him more illustrious to all posterity is that he was father to the incomparable Hypatia, whom, according to the custom of those times, or rather prompted by the encouragement he received from her own promising genius, he educated not only in all the qualifications belonging to her sex, but caused her likewise to be instructed in the most Extrude sciences, which are reputed the proper occupation of men, as requiring too much labour and application for the delicate constitution of women.
Chapter Three. That this notion is a vulgar prejudice, the vast number of ladies who have in every age distinguished themselves by their professions, or performances in learning, furnishes an unanswerable argument. Whole volumes have been written containing nothing else but the lives of such women as became eminent in all kinds of literature, especially in philosophy, which, as it is the highest perfection, so it demands the utmost effort of human nature. But leaving those heroines to the search of the curious, I shall confine myself at present to one object worthy all admiration, in doing justice to whom I may be deemed to write the panegyric of the whole sex, We have the unanimous consent of Senecius, Socrates, and Philostorgius, her contemporaries, as likewise of Damascus, Nesephorus Gregoris, Nesephorus Callistus, Photius, Suides, Hesius Illustris, and others, touching the prodigious learning and other excellent accomplishments of Hypatia.
What is still a greater proof of the fact, no one person, or through ignorance or through envy, has ever as much as insinuated the contrary. Socrates, the ecclesiastical historian, an unsuspected witness, says, that she arrived to such a pitch of learning as very far to exceed all the philosophers of her time, to which Nisephorus, Also an ecclesiastical historian adds, those of other times. Philistorgius affirms that she was much superior to her father and master Theon in what regards astronomy. And Suedus, who mentions two books of her writing, one on the astronomical canon of Diophantus, and another on the conix of Apollonius, avers that she not only exceeded her father in astronomy, but further that she understood all the other parts of philosophy, a thing that will be easily credited by those who shall peruse the sequel of this story, wherein nothing is advanced.
without competent vouchers. Chapter Four. And truly were not this matter so well attested by those writers we have just named, and by others we shall presently have occasion to allege, Yet no body could any longer doubt of it, after being informed by the very same persons that Hypatia succeeded in the government of the Platonic school at Alexandria, the place of her birth and education. This was another guess-thing, God knows, than taking the degree of doctor in any of the faculties, which one or two women have not long since done. For which they have been loaded with fulsome elegies, though producing no effects suitable to the titles they have so much ambitioned. But what greater glory for a woman, what greater honor redounding to all women, than to see a lady teaching in that chair, where Ammonius and Heracles, To name no more, for tis a mistake in Socrates or his transcriber to make Plotinus one of them, where so many professors, I say, uttered the oracles of learning rather as divine intelligences than mortal men.
What infinite merit must she have possessed? Who could be preferred to that conspicuous station? At a time when men of immense learning abounded both at Alexandria and in many other parts of the Roman Empire. Wherefore, the novelty of the thing considered, and Hypatia's worth being universally acknowledged, tis no wonder that she soon had a crowded auditory. She explained to her hearers, says Socrates, the several sciences that go under the general name of philosophy. For which reason, continues he, there was a confluence to her from all parts of those who made philosophy their delight or study. To the same purpose speak others, and Suedus adds that she explained all the philosophers, that is, all the several sects, with the particular tenets of their founders, which shows an inexpressible elevation and capacity, each of these separately being thought a sufficient province to exercise the diligence of any one man consummate in letters.
Chapter V. Now I cannot but here represent to myself with pleasure, let, who will censure me for it, the flower of all the youth in Europe, Asia, and Africa, sitting at the feet of a most beautiful lady, for such we are assured Hypatia was, all greedily swallowing instruction from her mouth, and many of em love from her eyes. How she served one of this last sort shall be told in its due place. It was doubtless a thing impossible not to improve under such a teacher, as one must be equally stupid and insensible that could not be powerfully affected by a charming mind in a charming body. I am sure this reflection is very agreeable to that philosophy she peculiarly professed. And accordingly, the Alexandrian school never flourished more.
Her disciples entered into a strict tie of intimacy with one another, styling themselves companions, or, as in our college's, fellows, which was likewise the custom at Athens, and in other famous seminaries of learning, This commonly begot effects of benevolence through the whole course of their lives, and sometimes acts of friendship very extraordinary. Hypatia was, by way of excellence, named the Philosopher, altogether as much on account of her profound knowledge as for her public profession of teaching. Nor was any professor ever more admired by the world, or more dear to his own scholars. Hers were as remarkable as numerous. Chapter Six One of these, who has preserved to us the names of several others, is the celebrated Cinesias.
He was a native of Cyrene in Africa. On the borders of Egypt, a very ancient Greek colony, the birthplace of Aristopos and Carnades, which Cinesias forgets not to mention in his writings. He traveled for improvement to his neighboring country of Egypt, the undoubted mother of the sciences, where he happily succeeded in his studies at Alexandria under Hypatia. This personage alone may suffice for a specimen of the extraordinary spirits that she formed. If we may rely on the judgment of no less a man than Nicephorus Gregorus, Patriarch of Constantinople, who wrote elaborate annotations on his Treatise of Dreams, a piece fraught with uncommon learning, he says, There was nothing he did not know, no science wherein he did not excel, no mystery in which he was not initiated or skilled with a great deal more to this purpose.
And it must be owned that to all the vivacity natural to his country there was joined the most profound knowledge and solid judgment. His works are every one highly commended, but his epistles are admirable, as Suedus very truly remarks, and in the opinion of Proteus as well as of Evagrius they are elegant, agreeable, sententious, and learned. He was a man of noble birth, which added no less weight to his learning than this relieved lustre on his quality, as both together procured him credit with his superiors. Authority over his inferiors, and admiration from his equals, He went upon an embassy which lasted three years to the Emperor Arcadius at Constantinople on the behalf of his country, which was miserably harassed by the auxiliary Goths and other barbarians, but which received considerable relief from his solicitations.
It was then that, with greater boldness than any of the Grecians, as he tells us himself, he pronounced before the Emperor that extremely fine oration concerning government, which, in a country so justly fond of liberty as ours, I wonder, has never been translated. This defect I have supplied, and will impart it to the public on a proper occasion. As for Synesius's being consecrated bishop of Ptolemais, Notwithstanding his protestation, that he disbelieved some of the most essential articles of the Christian religion, we spoke enough to that point at the latter end of Clidophorus. Only we shall observe in this place how Petavius, the editor of his works, affirms that in some of the books written after his profession of Christianity, he appears as very a heathen as ever.
But this, being no prejudice to his parts, however it may affect his salvation, is none of our present business to examine, much less to adopt the pitiful excuses, or rather prevarications, invented by some learned men, to defend him from this imputation. The principle is baromius.
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2 02 - Chapters 7-12 17:01
The thing which our design obliges us not to pass over slightly is the grateful testimony he everywhere bears to the learning and virtue of Hypatia. Whom he never mentions without the profoundest respect, and sometimes in terms of affection, coming little short of adoration. In a letter to his brother, Euoptius, Salute, says he, the most honored and the most beloved of God, the philosopher, and that happy sodality or fellowship which enjoys the blessing of her divine voice. In another, to his said brother, he mentions one Egyptus, who sucked in the seeds of wisdom from Hypatia. And thus he expresses himself writing to Olympias. I suppose these letters will be delivered by Peter, which he will receive from that sacred hand, I send them from Pentopolis to our common Instructress, and she will entrust them with whom she thinks fit, which I am sure will be to one that is well known to her.
In a letter addressed to herself, he desires her to direct a hydroscope to be made and bought for him, which he there describes. Petavius thinks it was a sort of level, and others, an hour measure. That famous silver astrolabe which he presented to Paeoneus, a man equally excelling in philosophy and arms, he owns to have been perfected by the directions of Hypatia. In a long epistle he acquaints her with the reasons of his writing two books, which he thereby censor. The one was his mystical treatise of dreams, and the other his dion. This last is a most ingenious apology for learning against two sorts of men, who, by very opposite lines, tended to the same centre of ignorance. The one, that under pretence of being reserved towards unworthy hearers, concealed their want of real knowledge, did accuse him of being too communicative and of prostituting philosophy.
The others would have him to be eternally prating like themselves, not that they studied more than others, nor yet so much, to be furnished with matter of discourse, but that talking by rote out of certain systems, the truth of which they took for granted, and which no body must contradict, they could tire the patience of their hearers. Without making these or themselves a whit the wiser. Both sorts charged him with studying elegance and oratory in his compositions, for the divines of that time were substituting apace to philosophy and other learning, legends and enthusiasm, fables and fancies, which they sanctified by the name of divine contemplation. Metaphysical distinctions about the Trinity, and extravagant notions about the essence of God, whose majesty they blasphemed by their profane definitions, was all the study then in vogue to the irreparable damage of polite and useful letters.
Chapter Eight. Of his Dion, therefore, he begs Hypatia's judgment, resolving not to publish it without her approbation. He informs her, moreover, that she is the first among the Greeks, or rather the heathens, to whom he communicates his treatise of dreams, and that he might complete, he says, the sacred number three. He adds to these two his account of the astrolabe presented to Paeoneus. It will not be a digression altogether foreign to the subject, as we shall see hereafter, if we insert here part of the fine description which he has given of the second sort of those that censured him. Who, being full of ignorance, says he, yet armed with confidence, are readier than all other men to discourse concerning God.
And if you happen to light upon them, you will straight hear some of their unreasonable reasonings, which they will needs obtrude on such as are desirous of no such matter, because, I suppose, it is for their interest so to do. For on the score of such things they are made preachers in towns, which is the same thing as to enjoy Amalthea's horn, Or, plenty of all things, which these think themselves obliged to use. I fancy by this time you perceive what this forward generation of men may be, that blame my generous purpose. They invite me to come into their discipline, promising that in a short time I shall appear most confident in things relating to God, and ever after be capable to dispute incessantly both night and day.
I believe this race of men is not yet extinct, but another time they may hear of a certain speech addressed to them by the same truth-telling Chapter Nine. On his promotion, or as he accounted it himself, his banishment to the bishopric of Ptolemies, he was forced to quit the fellowship of his condisciples and the presence of his dear Hypatia. As an augmentation of his affliction, he soon lost his wife with his children in a little time after, whom he very tenderly loved, and whose death he did not bear with the same fortitude that is reported of some other philosophers. On this occasion, and a fancied neglect of his friends, he wrote the following letter. To Hypatia, the philosopher, that I may use the very words of the inscription.
I salute you, happy lady, and by your means the most happy companions. I have, of a long time, had an intention to chide, by reason I have received no letters from any of you. But now I perceive that I am neglected by all, not that I have in any thing failed of my duty. But that I am in many respects unfortunate, and indeed as unfortunate as any one can be. Nevertheless could I be thought worthy of receiving your letters, and of being informed how you lead your lives, Being confident, however, it is after the best manner that may be, and that you fail not to exercise a sprightly genius, I should only think myself unhappy by halves, while I enjoyed any happiness on your account. But now I must reckon this also as one of the misfortunes wherein I am involved.
For I am not only deprived of my children, but likewise of my friends, and of everybody's kindness. Nay, what is more than all, of your most divine soul, which only thing I flattered myself would continue steadfast to me, in spite of the injuries of fortune and the storms of fate? One would think that he could not better express, in so few lines, the good opinion he had of his teacher. Yet he's still more pathetical in other letters, which, because serving to give us the fuller view of Hypatia's character, I shall produce as essential to my subject. Chapter X. Continuing, therefore, to grieve for the death of his children, he fell into an ill state of health, which he signifies to his mistress, whom, in all his letters, he styles the philosopher, and, to the beloved companions of his studies, in these words.
Being confined to my bed, I have dictated this letter, which may you receive in good health, my mother, my sister, and my instructress. In all which respects you have been my benefactress, or if there be any other, either name or thing, that is more honorable. The weakness of my body proceeds from the anguish of my soul. The remembrance of my deceased children consumes me by little and little. Sinecius ought only to have lived so long as the evils of life were unknown to him. Afterwards it has happened to him as to a stream that is stopped. It rushes over its dam on a sudden, and forces all the pleasure of life before it. Let me cease to live, or to remember the burial of my children. May you enjoy health yourself, and salute in my name the happy companions, beginning with father Theotchnus, and brother Athanasius, and so proceeding to the rest.
Or if any other be since associated to them, who is agreeable to you, and to whom, for this very reason of pleasing you, I ought to stand obliged, salute him also from me, as one of my dearest friends. If what relates to me be of any concern to you, tis well done, though even then I shall be insensible to this favour. What can be more affectionate, what can be more tender, what can be more benevolent or candid? The soul speaks here in every line. A while after, the calamities of war being added to all his other sorrows, he writes her this letter, beginning with a couple of lines out of Homer, changing only a word or two. Though among the dead profound oblivion reigns, in there, my dear Hypatia, I'll remember.
I, who am surrounded with the miseries of my country, and who am thoroughly weary of it, since I daily see hostile arms and men slaughtered like beasts, that I breathe air infected with the corruption of dead bodies, and that I hourly expect the light fate myself, for who can hope well where the very face of the sky is most lamentable, being darkened by the shadow of carnivorous Yet, notwithstanding all this, I retain an affection for the country. Nay, how can I do otherwise, being a Libyan by nation, and born in this place, where I behold no ignoble sepulchres of my ancestors? For your sake alone I fancy I can set light by my country, and, as soon as leisure offers, will banish myself out of it.
In Clitophorus I showed the like resolutions out of some of his letters to others, but whether he ever executed them, or how long he lived, or where, or in what manner he died, is not recorded by any author that I remember. Chapter 11. All this, some will say, we readily grant that Hypatia was a lady of most eminent learning, and that Senesius, with probably not a few of her other disciples, esteemed her to be a miracle of virtue and prudence. But what did the rest of the world think of her conduct? What marks of approbation or favour did she receive from the public? To this inquiry, which is very natural in this place, we answer that never woman was more caressed by the public, and yet that never woman had a more unspotted character.
She was held an oracle for her wisdom, which made her be consulted by the magistrates in all important cases, and this frequently drew her among the greatest concourse of men, without the least censure of her manners. The proof of so rare a felicity we choose to give in the words of the historian Socrates. By reason of the confidence and authority, says he, which she had acquired by her learning, she sometimes came to the judges with singular modesty. Nor was she anything abashed to appear thus among a crowd of men, for all persons on the score of her extraordinary discretion did at the same time both reverence and admire her. The same things are confirmed by Nicephorus Callistus, Suedus, Hescius Illustris, and, indeed, by Whom Not.
So far was she from that blamable timidity, which is contracted from a wrong education, or from that conscious backwardness, which is inspired by guilt. That the governors and magistrates of Alexandria regularly visited her, that all the city, as Damascus and Suedus relate, paid court to her, is a distinction with which no woman was ever honored before. And to say all in a word, when Nicephorus Gregorus above quoted intended to pass the highest compliment on the princess Eudocia, he thought he could not better hit than by calling her another Hypatia.
Chapter XII It was during this prosperous gale of public favour that Hypatia's devoted friend, Sinesius, sent her this recommendatory letter on the behalf of two young gentlemen that had a claim depending at Alexandria. Although Fortune cannot take everything from me, yet she has a mind to strip me of all she can. She, that, of many sons and good, has me bereft. But to be ambitious of doing the best things, and to assist the unjustly oppressed, is what she shall never take from me, for far be it from me that she should ever be able to conquer my mind. Therefore I hate injustice, since this I may do still, and am also desirous to repress it, but this is one of the things taken out of my power, and which I lost before my children.
Once the Milesians valiant were. Time also was, when I could be useful to my friends, and when you were wont to call me others good. As turning to the profit of other men, my interest with persons in great authority, whom I made to serve me as so many hands. Now I am left destitute of all, unless you have any power, For you, together with virtue, I reckon a good, of which none will be able to rob me. But you have, and will always have, power, by reason of the excellent use you make of your credit. Wherefore, let Nicias and Philolaus, virtuous youths and relations, return masters of their own, through the care of all who honor you, whether private men or magistrates. Thus, as a necessary part of her history, I have inserted at length all the letters written to Hypatia by Sinicius, except the Fifteenth, whereof I have given the substance, and the Thirty-third in the collection of his letters, which is too short to contain any instruction, as likewise the One Hundred and Fifty-Fourth, which, being too long, I have abridged above.
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3 03 - Chapters 13-17 15:36
It would be as great a prodigy in nature as Hypatia was herself if a lady of such beauty, modesty, wisdom, and virtue were not by many eagerly sought in marriage. And, in effect, we find that she was actually married to the philosopher Isidorus, though Sveta says she died a maid, which is not so irreconcilable a thing as people may be apt to imagine on first thoughts. But, as we shall show very likely to be true, This Isidorus succeeded Marinus in the school, and his life has been written by Damascus, one of Theon's scholars, who therefore had all imaginable opportunities to know whatever regarded Hypatia and Isidorus. His life was abridged by Photius, but we have it not so perfect as he left it, for besides the extreme confusion and incorrectness which appears through the whole, the learned Valessius gave the world expectations that he would, one time or other, publish it twice larger than we read now in Photius, However, in such as it still is, Damascus bestows such elegies on Isidorus as put him almost above humanity.
Yet, no way concerning Hypatia, I pass them over in silence, I frankly confess that I more than suspect many of the things he reports as knowing that Damascus was a great visionary, and like Philostratus, with respect to Apollonius Tianius, designed to oppose Isidorus to those Christian saints who were celebrated for their miraculous and supernatural attainments. But this ought not to affect his credit in matters of an ordinary nature, and therefore I do not in the least hesitate to believe him when he positively affirms that Hypatia was wife to Isidorus. Chapter 14. Suedas likewise makes her the wife of the same Isidorus, though he be the very man who tells us she died a virgin. That matter, considering the great uncertainty in which we are left by the meditated destruction or casual decay of authentic writers, I conceive to stand thus.
Damascus says that Isidorus had another wife, whose name was Domna, by which he had a son called Proclus. She died the fifth day after her delivery, and, according to his panegyrist, she rid the philosopher of an evil beast and a bitter wedlock. Now, supposing this to happen some time before the tragical end of Hypatia, and that the latter was betrothed to Isidorus, it might very well be said that she was his wife, and yet that she died a maid. The author of an epigram that was made upon her seems to have been of the same opinion. The Virgin's starry sign, whene'er I see, Adoring, on thy words I think, and thee, For all thy virtuous works celestial are, As are thy learned words beyond compare, Divine Hypatia, who dost far and near, Virtues and learning spotless star, appear.
The allusion, I say, to the constellation Virgo, and the epithet of Spotless, would induce me to believe that the writer reckoned her a virgin as well as Sweetus. But I shall conclude nothing from so slender a conjecture. Besides that, her character is no way concerned in this particular, though, as a historian, I would omit nothing that might illustrate my subject. For this reason it is that I cannot pass over uncensured a reflection of Damascus, who gravely says that Isidorus was far superior to Hypatia, not only as a man to a woman, but as a philosopher to a geometrician. Good and egregious reasoning. As if her skill in geometry or astronomy had been any hindrance to her improvement in every part of philosophy, wherein she is by so many confessed to surpass those of her own, if not of former time.
Or, as if we in England, for example, did reckon King James superior to Queen Elizabeth, because the first, forsooth, was a man, and the last a woman. But I observed before that Damascus was a sad visionary. A lady of such uncommon merit and accomplishments as Hypatia, daily surround with a circle of young gentlemen, many of them distinguished by their fortune or quality, Besides, her frequently appearing in public assemblies and receiving visits from persons of the first rank could not possibly fail being sometimes importuned with addresses of gallantry. Such attempts the severest virtue cannot avoid, though it can deny encouragement, and make success to be despaired. How many trials of this kind Hypatia may have overcome we are left to imagine rather than to know, through the silence of historians, who either thought it below their gravity to record such things, or that the works of those who descended to particulars are lost.
One instance, however, has escaped the common wreck of good books, Nor can I doubt but several others might be contained in the life of Isidorus, out of which there is reason to believe that Suedas picked what I am going to relate. He acquaints us, therefore, that one of her own scholars made warm love to her, whom she endeavored to cure of his passion by the precepts of philosophy. And that some reported she actually reclaimed him by music, which he judiciously explodes, music having ever been deemed rather an incentive to love than an antidote against it. But he says with much greater probability that the spark vehemently soliciting her, not to be sure without pleading the irresistible power of her beauty, at a time when she happened to be under an indisposition ordinary to her sex, she took a handkerchief, of which she had been making some use on that occasion, and throwing it in his face, said— This is what you love, young fool, and not anything that is beautiful, for the Platonic philosophers held goodness, wisdom, virtue, and such other things, as by reason of their intrinsic worth, are desirable for their own sakes, to be the only real beauties, of whose divine symmetry, charms, and perfection, the most superlative that appears in bodies, are but faint resemblances.
This is the right notion of platonic love. Wherefore Hypatia's procedure might very well put a student of philosophy at Alexandria to the blush, and quite cure him, too, which Suedus assures us was the effect, but would never rebuke a beau in St. James Park, nor perhaps some bachelors of divinity at our modern universities. Chapter 16. At the time that Hypatia thus reigned, the brightest ornament of Alexandria, Orestes was governor of the same place for the Emperor Theodosius, and Cyril bishop or patriarch. As Orestes was a person educated suitable to his rank, he could not but take notice of those perfections in Hypatia, which all the world admired, and, as he was a wise governor, he would not be so far wanting to his charge as not to ask her advice in matters difficult or dangerous, when everybody else consulted her as an oracle.
This created, of course, an intimacy between them that was highly displeasing to Cyril, who mortally hated Orestes. But because this emulation proved fatal to Hypatia, I shall take the subject a little higher. Tis observed by Socrates, Nicephorus, and others, that Cyril, who was elevated to the sea by sedition and force against one Timothy, an archdeacon of no extraordinary reputation, intermeddled more in temporal or civil matters than his predecessors took upon them to do. And that the example was greedily followed by his successors, who, not keeping within the bounds of their priestly ordination, took upon them an arbitrary kind of principality, and the absolute disposal of affairs, The first act of authority that Cyril exercised was to shut up the churches of the Novatians, from which step he proceeded to seize upon their sacred vessels and church ornaments, till at length he robbed their bishop Theopemptus of all he had.
Yet these Novatians professed the same doctrine to a title that he did, and differed only in some points of discipline. But they must be near novices in ecclesiastical history who know not that discipline has ever been reckoned of greater consequence than doctrine, if one may judge by the commotions that have happened in churches, or the durations of their schisms. The reason is obvious, for if a man believes otherwise than his teacher, and yet prudentially conforms to the public ritual and discipline, or perhaps eagerly stickles for it, as thinking it the most conducing to order, be his speculations what you will, Still, he preserves the unity of the church, or, in other words, he obeys his spiritual governors and teaches others by his example to do the like.
Whereas, if his belief be ever so right, or at least ever so agreeable to that prescribed in the society whereof he is a member, Yet, if he boggles at any part of the public ritual and discipline, he then promotes a spiritual rebellion, and rends the unity of the church—that is, he weakens the government of the clergy, These were the maxims of those times, and hence it sprung that schism is counted so damnable a sin in their writings, a sin more dreadful than any other, that it may the better serve for a scarecrow. Chapter 17. One main reason why Cyril could not bear the governor, as we are told by Socrates, was that Orestes hated the principality of the bishops, as well because they transferred to themselves much of the power belonging to those appointed governors by the emperor, as in particular because Cyril would needs be prying into his actions.
Their enmity became sufficiently known to the public by a sedition raised against Orestes, occasioned by one Hyrax, a pitiful schoolmaster, but a professed admirer of the bishop, and a most diligent attendant at his sermons, where he was sure to clap and reclap, according to the rare custom of those times. The Jews, spying him in the theatre, while the governor was there on some public business, cried out that he came purposely thither to cause mischief. And the uproar whereof the particulars may be read in the just quoted Socrates terminated in this, that Cyril expelled all the Jews out of the city where they had lived in great opulence from the time of Alexander the Great to the no small benefit of the place.
Were I not accustomed to read monstrous lies of this unfortunate nation, especially that threadbare fiction of crucifying a child, objected to them here as a thousand times afterwards, I should think them very rightly served. But even in that case, who can justify Cyril's licensing the multitude to seize on their goods? And yet why do I ask such a question? When this has ever been the true motive of the barbarities to which they have been exposed, though zeal for religion has been as shamelessly as wickedly pretended. Orestes, as became a good governor, being grievously concerned at what had happened, to speak in the words of the historian, and sadly afflicted that so great a city should be so suddenly emptied of such a multitude of inhabitants, gave the emperor an account of the whole matter.
We might be certain, were we not expressly told it, that Cyril was not behind hand on his part, Yet, conscious of his guilt, as every reader may collect, he would fain make up with Orestes, and conjured him by the holy Gospels to be friends, being constrained to this, as Nicephorus observes by the people of Alexandria, who loved their governor. But this last knew him too well to trust him, upon which their difference became irreconcilable. You may therefore expect to hear of vengeance from the priest, whom the same Nicephorus represents, proud, seditious, a butfu, a persecutor, while the emperor might thank himself for the disorders that desolated one of his principal cities. For where was it ever otherwise when the clergy were permitted to share in the government of civil affairs?
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4 04 - Chapters 18-22 17:50
as I have done other passages, in the words of honest Socrates. Certain of the monks, says he, living in the Nitrian mountains, leaving their monasteries to the number of about five hundred, flocked to the city, and spied the governor going abroad in his chariot. Whereupon approaching, they called him by the names of sacrificer and heathen, using many other scandalous words. The governor, therefore suspecting that this was a trick paid him by Cyril, cried out that he was a Christian, and that he was baptized at Constantinople by Bishop Atticus. But the monks, giving no heed to what he said, one of them called Ammonius, threw a stone at Orestes, which struck him on the head, and being all covered with blood from his wound, his guards, a few excepted, fled, some one way, some another, hiding themselves in the crowd, lest they should be stoned to death.
In the meanwhile the people of Alexandria ran to defend their governor against the monks, and putting all the rest to flight, they apprehend Ammonius and brought him before Orestes, who, as the laws prescribed, publicly put him to the torture, and racked him till he expired. Not long after he gave an account of all that was done to the princes. Nor did Cyril fail to give them a contrary information. He received the body of Ammonius, and laying it in one of the churches, he changed his name, calling him Thaumasius, and ordered him to be considered as a martyr, Nay, he made his panegyric in the church, extolling his courage as one that had contended for the truth. But the wiser sort of the Christians themselves did not approve the zeal which Cyril showed on this man's behalf, being convinced that Ammonius had justly suffered for his desperate attempt, but was not forced to deny Christ in his torments.
This account requires no commentary. I shall only observe with a heathen philosopher that, at the time the monks, the fittest executioners of Cyril's cruelty, were men indeed as to their form but swine in their lives, who openly committed thousands of execrable crimes not fit to be named. Whoever, says he, got on a black habit and would make a grotesque figure in public obtained a tyrannical authority, to such a reputation of virtue did that race of men arrive. This picture, though drawn by an enemy's hand, is allowed by all good judges to be done to the life, and we shall presently have reason, more than sufficient, to be of the same opinion. Chapter 19. But Cyril's rage was not yet satiated.
Though Orestes had the good luck to escape being murdered, Hypatia must fall a sacrifice to the prelate's pride, and to the ghost of Ammonius. This lady, as we mentioned above, was profoundly respected by Orestes, who much frequented and consulted her. For which reason, says Socrates, she was not a little traduced among the mob of the Christian Church, as if she obstructed a reconciliation between Bishop Cyril and Orestes? Wherefore, certain hot-brained men, headed by one Peter, a lecturer, entered into a conspiracy against her, and watching their opportunity when she was returning home from some place, they dragged her out of her chair, hurried her to the church called Caesar's, and stripping her stark naked, they killed her with tiles.
Then they tore her to pieces, and, carrying her limbs to a place called Cineron, there they burnt them to ashes. Nothing short of this treatment, not to be paralleled among the most savage nations against woman, and against a woman of such distinction scarce credible, did not two or more of her contemporaries attest it. Nothing, I say, but the blood of Hypatia. Shed in the most inhuman manner could glut the fury of Cyril's clergy, for these were the monsters, that putting off all humanity, committed this barbarous murder. Socrates, tis true, distinctly names but one clergyman, Peter the lecturer, But Nicephorus expressly tells us that the zealots led on by this Peter were Cyril's clergy, who hated her for the credit she had with Orestes, that they were these who imputed to her the misunderstanding between the governor and their bishop, And finally, that they butchered her the time of solemn fasting, which, added to their sanctifying of their villainy by perpetrating it in a church, shows the glorious state of religion in those pure and primitive times, as some, no less hypocritically than falsely, are pleased to style them.
The citizens of Alexandria, on whom certain persons would fain lay this act of popular heat, as they speak by way of extenuation, were too great admirers of Hypatia's virtue, and too much, in the interest of Orestes, to have any hand in so foul a business, however prone to tumults. All the circumstances accompanying the fact clearly prove this, not to repeat the assault so lately made by the Nytrian monks on the governor, whom the people rescued. Though I will not answer for all the mob, especially when the clergy lude them on.
Chapter XX. Be it so that the clergy of Alexandria were the murderers, some may say, and that their affection for Cyril transported them beyond what can be justified, how does it appear that he himself had any hand in this black deed, which, perhaps, he neither knew nor could prevent? For the sake of our common humanity, since true Christianity is not at all concerned, I wish it were so. But there is such evidence as will not let any man, if not wilfully shutting his eyes against truth, to believe it. Damascus, who is the other contemporary witness of her murder, I meant beside Socrates, positively affirms that Cyril vowed Hypatia's destruction, whom he bitterly envied. And Suedus, who writes the same thing, says that this envy was caused by her extraordinary wisdom and skill in astronomy.
As Hescius, when he mentions her limbs being carried all over the city in triumph, writes, that this befell her on the score of her extraordinary wisdom, and especially her skill in astronomy. For Cyril was a mighty pretender to letters, and one of those clergymen who will neither acknowledge nor bear the superiority of any layman in this respect, be it ever so incontestable to others. But some circumstances of Hypatia's death, not mentioned in Socrates, are preserved in the abridgment of Isidorus's life in Photius, such as Valesius had it. And which I here give you reader, though it should cost you the tribute of one tear more to her memory. Upon a time, says Damascus, Cyril, passing by the house of Hypatia, saw a great multitude before the door, both of men on foot and on horseback, whereof some were coming, some going, and others stayed.
When he inquired what that crowd was, and what occasioned so great a concourse, he was answered by such as accompanied him that this was Hypatia, the philosopher's house, and that these came to pay their respects to her. Which, when Cyril understood, he was moved with so great envy that he immediately vowed her destruction, which he accomplished in the most detestable manner. For when Hypatia, as was her custom, went abroad, several men, neither fearing divine vengeance nor human punishment, suddenly rushed upon her and killed her, thus laying their country both under the highest infamy and under the guilt of innocent blood. And indeed the emperor was grievously offended at this matter, and the murderers had been certainly punished, but that Edepheus did corrupt the emperor's friends, so that his majesty, it's true, remitted the punishment, but drew vengeance on himself and his posterity, his nephew paying dear for this action.
This nephew, Valetius, believes to have been Valentinian, whose mother, Placidia, was aunt to Theodosius.
Thus ended the life of Hypatia, whose memory will ever last, and whose murder happened in the fourth year of Cyril's Episcopate, Honorius being the tenth time, and Theodosius the sixth time consuls, in the month of March, in the time of Lent, and in the year, Four Fifteen. That action, says Socrates, brought no small infamy not only upon Cyril, but also upon the whole church of Alexandria. For slaughters and fightings and such-like things are quite foreign to the Christian institution. There's nothing surer, there's nothing truer, but of genuine Christianity there remained very little at that time. Unless Christianity be made to consist in the bare name and profession, For, were I disposed to take this trouble upon me, I should think it no difficult task to show that neither the doctrines nor distinctions then in vogue were ever taught by Christ or His apostles, and that the ceremonies enjoined or practised were all utterly unknown to them.
No, no, they were no Christians that killed Hypatia, nor are any Christian clergymen now to be attacked through the sides of her murderers, but those that resemble them. By substituting precarious traditions, scholastic fictions, and a usurped dominion to the salutiferous institution of the Holy Jesus. Photius is very angry with Philostorgius, whom he stigmatizes as an impious man, for saying that the Homusians or the Anathasian trinitarians tore her to pieces. But is he not an impudent man, or something worse that dares to deny this, when none were more remarkable sticklers for the Homusian than Cyril and his adherents? This only— The truth of history requires to be specially noted, for with me the Homoeusian and the Homoeusian are of no account, in comparison of the Bible, where neither of them are to be found.
In the meantime, twill not be amiss to hear Gothifred on this occasion. Observe here, says he, the Arian poison of Philostorgius against the Homoeusians. or Catholics, as if the murder of Hypatia were the crime of the Catholics, and not of the indiscreet populace. Thus much, however, may be gathered from this passage, that this same Hypatia was no Catholic. Admirable Gothafred, not to say anything to your Aryan poison, for which I am not a whit concerned, neither of the people's guilt, whom I have sufficiently cleared before, nor yet of the nice distinction between the populace and the Catholics, as if the bulk of the Catholics were not the populace. Your conclusion that Hypatia was not a Catholic is unspeakably acute.
When in reality she was not as much as a Christian, her father having been a heathen philosopher, and herself the wife of one, without the least appearance that she was ever any other with regard to her own persuasion. As for a ridiculous letter pretended to be written by her to Cyril about the paschal cycle, Tis a manifest forgery, for she was murdered the sixth year of Theodosius, and therefore one and twenty years before the exile of Nestorius, who yet is mentioned in that letter under the epithet of Impius.
Chapter XXII And now that Cyril's name puts me once more in mind of him, how insufferable a burlesquing of God and man is it to revere so ambitious, so turbulent, so perfidious, and so cruel a man as a saint, since history shows that this was his just character. But in good earnest, this same title of saint has not seldom been most wretchedly conferred. For the greatest part of the saints after Constantine's reign, and especially since canonization came in fashion, are made up of three sorts of persons, the least of all others meriting veneration. First, men have been dubbed saints for promoting the grandeur of the church by all their endeavors, especially by their writings, which, instead of employing for the happiness or instruction of their fellow-citizens, they prostituted to magnify spiritual authority to the debasing and enslaving of their spirits.
The second sort that have been honored with saintship were princes and other powerful or rich men, however vicious or tyrannical, who gave large possessions and legacies to the church, or that with incapacity, faggot, gibbet, sword, and proscription, chastised the temerity of such as dared to question her decrees. The third sort were poor, grovelling visionaries boasting of their delirious enthusiasms and ecstasies, or imposing on the ignorant by formal mortifications falsely reputed devotion, and were recompensed with this imaginary reward by those that despised their austerity, at the same time that they mainly thrived by the credit of it. It is no wonder, then, that when the epithet saint, which peculiarly belonged to piety and innocence, was thus pompously bestowed on vice and impiety, there should prevail that deluge of ignorance, superstition and tyranny, which overwhelmed almost the whole Christian world.
All the persecutions that ensued were so many forcible means employed to suppress any efforts that might be used for the restoring of virtue and learning. By that anti-Christian spirit fell Hypatia, to whom the clergy of her time could never forgive, That she was beautiful yet chaste, far more learned than themselves, not to be endured in a laity, and in greater credit with the civil magistrate, whom the clergy of that time would needs drive or lead as their pack-ass.
End of section four. End of Hypatia by John Toland. Recorded by Rita Boutros.