Even using material from sixteen different sources, I find it difficult to do justice to Hypatia, one of the forgotten heroines of civilization. Her birthplace, Alexandria, was three times the size of Athens and sparkled with marble- lined streets, colleges and a library of some 500,000 volumes containing all the known history of the time. Alexandria had been a gathering place for the best scholars, thinkers, scientists and historians. In the first century B.C. Egypt had become a thriving Roman province, but by the fifth century A.D. Alexandria's last glory was extinguished by the Christian bishops and monks (The Epic of Universal History). Hypatia was a mathematician, philosopher and one of the martyrs of paganism. She became a splendid lecturer on philosophy, and was ultimately recognized as head of the "Neo-Platonic" school. Her eloquence, charm and intellectual gifts attracted and influenced many disciples (Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. XII, p. 596). She was the recipient of pure Pagan Greek philosophy — the lover of wisdom, not of faith or godliness — but of mind and the "Supreme Good" — the noblest rules of human conduct and happiness. This "heathenism" didn't sit well with the Christian leaders. St. Cyril of Alexandria, patriarch of the city, soon made himself known by his violent action toward Jews, pagans and heretics. Making use of earlier laws, he issued a series of fierce and oppressive decrees. It was he who initiated the destruction of old temples and their works of art by mob-led priests and monks. The great college and library of Alexandria, the lastrefuges of Greek culture, were burned — more than 500,000 volumes. Theodosius, a vigorous soldier appointed to rule the eastern empire, together with the bishops, now demanded the suppression of all non-Christians, and opened the final stage of the campaign. Socrates, the Scholastic (lawyer), describes the armed regiments of ignorant and fiery monks who assisted in the destruction of paganism, and the triumph of the religion of the Galilean. He describes the events which led to the murder of the last venerable figure of the great schools of Alexandria — the aged and learned Hypatia in 415 A.D.
After the murder and dismemberment of Hypatia they fell upon other heretics and schismatics. The murder of the noble Hypatia was the death of philosophy in Alexandria and of the growing recognition of women's dignity. Her murder by Christian monks is a fitting allegory of the murder of any hope for women by the new religion. Ironically, about the time of Hypatia's death, the cult of Mary, replacing that of Isis and Cybele, was beginning to take hold. The story of Hypatia did not end with her death. She is disguised and recognizable in the legend of St. Catherine as recorded in the Roman Breviary (Nov. 25) and more fully in the Martyrologies. Emperor Maxentius had Catherine put to death because she reduced his and other learned men's arguments on religion to silence. One obviously became the pattern for the other, and Hypatia was now dressed up as a "Christian saint" of philosophy. When I was seminarian nearly sixty years ago, we students had a day off (conge) from school in honor of St. Catherine, patroness of philoso phy. This beloved pagan martyr, Hypatia, was turned into one of the first Catholic saints. Time to make the church have some regard for truth.
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