Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly
is better than not to think at all."

-Hypatia of Alexandria 370?-415 C.E.

SACRED MEMORIAL PAGE FOR HYPATIA OF ALEXANDRIA

Pagan Philosopher, Mathematician, and Free Thinker

Murdered by Christian Zealots in 415 C.E.

HYPATIA, daughter of Theon, lived in the magnificent city of Alexandria during the 4th and 5th centuries of the Common era.


Alexandria was being eclipsed by the political forces of the then-powerful church, which made life for pagans difficult in the city, but the tolerant City of Learning still made allowances, even in those late centuries, for those who taught sciences and philosophy.

Hypatia was a graceful and intelligent woman, a skilled Mathematician, and a Philosopher whose lectures on Neo-Platonism and the Works of Plotinus captivated all of her audiences.

In 412 a cruel man named Cyril (who is today adored by some Christians as "St Cyril") became the Christian patriarch of Alexandria. The Roman prefect of Alexandria was Orestes, and Cyril and Orestes became bitter political rivals as church and state fought for control.

Hypatia was a friend of Orestes and this, together with prejudice against her philosophical views, which (like all scientific thinking) was seen by Christians to be "pagan", led to Hypatia becoming the focal point of riots between Christians and non-Christians. Hypatia, a historian writes,

"... by her eloquence and authority ... attained such influence that Christianity considered itself threatened ... "



Cyril realized the influence that Hypatia had over her admirers and students, and considered her an obstacle to reconciliation (or dominance over) Orestes. Doubtless, the sight of the intelligent, independant, and attractive woman further raised Cyril's jealousy and threatened his dark mindset.

During a riot that Cyril incited, Hypatia was dragged from a classroom by a christian mob, taken into Cyrils' main church-building, where she was stripped, and stabbed to death with pottery shards, and had the flesh flayed from her body with oyster shells. She was then dismembered, and her limbs paraded around the city, before finally being burned.


The identities of the leaders of the Riot were known, but the Christian authorities of the city neither investigated nor prosecuted them. Her murder remains without Justice to this day. After her death, philosophers and other people of learning began to leave Alexandria in fear and disgust. The city never regained its former glory.




HYPATIA achieved many things before her murder at the hands of the Ignorant. She taught at the school in Alexandria, and Letters written and addressed simply 'to the philosopher' were delivered to her. She taught mathematics and natural philosophy. She is credited with the authorship of three major treatises on geometry and algebra and one on astronomy. She invented several tools: an instrument for distilling water, an instrument to measure the specific gravity of water, an astrolabe and a planisphere.


Hypatia was ahead of her time, and possessed of an intellect and spirit that offended the small minds of the religious extremists that were smothering one of the last and greatest holdouts of mysticism, learning, and science in the Ancient Mediterranean World.


She is mourned and honored by us still, and venerated as a symbol of not only the outrages committed against pagans of the past, but of the noble spirit of enlightenment that the Pagan revival promises to all people who choose the path of learning and free thought over submission to dogma, and to all who stand up for what they believe in their hearts, regardless of how others disapprove of them.



"Holy Kore, when the Soul of Noble Hypatia reached the Halls of the Dead 1600 years ago, we know that you offered her your right hand in friendship, and led her into the brightest Elysium that was her due. Please, we pray, see that Fate allows her Psyche to re-join the sun-filled world of Men once more; let her come amongst us now, to shed her light as she did once before, and help us to break our present darkness."

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