The Horrible Murder of Hypatia
HYPATIA was the greatest female philosopher who
ever lived. Being the only child of Theon of Alexandria, a
mathematician of some note, she received an education normally
available only to boys from good homes. Her early interest in
mathematics matured into a devotion to philosophy. So great were
her accomplishments, that she was given the chair of Platonic
philosophy at Alexandria. Indeed, she was the acknowledged
authority on Neo-Platonism, which had a great influence also on
Xian and Jewish intellectuals. One of most devoted pupils was the
rational Xian Synesius of Cyrene (there were a few),
who became bishop of Pitolaïs, c. 411.
Indeed, it is because of Synesius, who wrote
cautiously about his beloved teacher - lest he share her
gruesome fate - that we know anything about Hypatia. This
brilliant woman would have nothing to do with the "circumcised
Apollo," whose cult had been crammed down the throat of the
Empire. Her relationships with honest Xians (like Synesius) were
cordial, but she openly scorned the fantatics: the lice-ridden, filth-covered monks, who rejoiced in "mortification of
the flesh," as the psychopatic Hellenized Jew (Saul of Tarsus,
aka "Saint" Paul) had preached. ("Saint" Jerome, who had
translated the scriptures into Dick-&-Jane Latin [the Vulgate]
referred to body lice as "pearls of God" and boasted he
preserved his chastity, because he stank so badly no woman would
come near him.)
Hypatia extolled the Truth: filth was filth, and those
who wallowed in it weren't "holy"; they were degenerate
swine! This, of course, infuriated the Swine. In c.
415, a pack of these psychotics, egged on by their bishop "Saint"
Cyril, who had become bishop in 412 and was determined to rid
the city of pagans and Jews, attacked Hypatia in the lecture
hall. Using razor-sharp oyster shells, they carved the living
flesh from her bones. Her remains, all her possessions, and all
her writings were burned. Rather than being contrite, Cyril
gloated in a letter "After Hypatia, the 'philosophers' have
learned to keep their mouths shut!" (In 1882, the same Cyril was
declared "a Doctor of the Church"!)
Thus perished the greatest of female philosophers!
Perhaps Goodie-Two-Shoes, the Flying Pontiff, should pass out
condoms as penance for the murder of this magnificent woman.
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