Comments on: Hypatia

By: Cameron

Cameron — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:25:41 +0000

Thank you Hraf, for this!
There is a popular myth associated with Hypatia and the Library of Alexandria – that she died defending the library when it was burned by a mob of Christians. I heard this years ago in High School and it produced what amounted to almost a crisis of faith for me, in that one, the burning of any library fills my soul with horror, and that Christians could have been responsible for such a heinious act of murder and vandalism. This was years before the internet existed or I might have found my way to all sorts of better truths! I went to my youth minister like any good little Christian teenager disturbed over something and he evidently knew SOMETHING, because he told me that Hypatia had died years before the burning of the Library and that this was a deliberate pagan slander to discredit Christians. He implied she died a natural death and neglected to mention that Hypatia WAS murdered horribly by Christians. He also did not address that the library was destroyed piecemeal over a period of centuries from 48 BC to 642 AD in several periods of unrest – some of it related to Christians, but that the final destruction and burning was under the Muslim Arab invasion Amr ibn al-Ās – scrolls were burned to heat the baths. Argh! (this is disputed back and forth historically. What is truth…)
What fascinates me about what you have written here is that you show that there was great tolerance between Christians and Pagans until individuals stirred up violence against both pagans and their own that they deemed lacking as Christians…
So…are we back to extremism as the root of all evil? I think we are. Does this all sound horribly familiar in light of today? Oh, yes! "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose"(Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr)

By: Hrafnkell Haraldsson

Hrafnkell Haraldsson — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 11:49:05 +0000

Thanks, Indrani and Selkie. I've always been fascinated by Hypatia and I hope the film does her justice.

By: N. V. Andersen

N. V. Andersen — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 14:52:09 +0000

I enjoyed this post immensely. What a fascinating history, and one that I was unaware of until now. Thanks, Hrafnkell!

By: Cheeks

Cheeks — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 00:33:49 +0000

A special thank you for making this post. Hypatia is, and will always be, one of Hellenism's favourite heroes.

There is some debate over her exact age at the time of her murder. Some sources say she was in her late 20s, some say she was in her early 40s and yet others believe that she was well into her 60s at the time.

It is interesting, that she had a number of achievements, and yet, some of the later Church fathers chose to overlook all of these, just to concentrate on her single status and admire her!! LOL. She never married and this was something the Church would later call an "achievement".

After her murder, Cyril was raised to the postion of "Archbishop". From the sources who have informed me about the life of Hypatia, I have learnt that Cyril indeed was directly responsible in plotting her murder. She was first attacked on the head, then torn from limb to limb, and finally burned. Hellenes say, that Christianity always looked askance at educated women, and the sight of a woman of letters, who was highly popular with both Christians and pagans and who had tutored many of them, was something Cyril couldn't stomach, and hence the motivation of the assassination.

We are told by ancient sources, that Hypatia was a woman of great beauty, aside from her intellectualism and possessed of resilience and courage.