Hypatia ?-415 A.D. (Hi-pat-cha)
***
Her exact date
of birth is not known but Hypatia was
believed to be between
40 and 60 years old when she was martyred by zealous Christians
in 415 A.D.
History reveals ancient popes and bishops tortured
to death at least as many innocent
martyrs
as "heathen" Pagans did.
***
Hypatia was a
Greek Neo-Platonist philosopher who
was the first
full-documented
woman in mathematics. She was also an
astronomer, teacher, editor, inventor, and
musician.
She became head
of the Platonist school at Alexandria and
taught philosophy and astronomy there. She was of the
intellectual school of the 3rd century thinker Plotinus, which
encouraged logic and mathematical study in place of empirical enquiry
(experiment instead of theory), and strongly encouraged law in place of nature.
She was educated at Athens. She
imparted the knowledge of Plato and Aristotle to any
student interested; her pupils included pagans, Christians,
and foreigners. Because of self-assurance and ease of manner which
she had acquired in consequence of the cultivation of her mind, she frequently
appeared in public in
the presence of the magistrates. She evidently felt neither abashed or
inhibited going to an assembly of men only.
It is disputed
if she ever married. I found it noted, that like many geniuses, Hypatia likely had a
"prickly" personality. That "historian" used as evidence the only anecdote that offers
an insight into her personal life, which has her hurling her "menstrual
rags" at a lovesick student and saying, "They demonstrate nothing beautiful about carnal desire."
That little temper fit response lends itself to all kinds of interpretation, but I'll refrain from a "thorny" feminine opinion. I have had experience with and totally comprehend PMS.
No written
work, widely recognized by scholars as Hypatia's own has survived to the
present time. Many of the works commonly attributed to her are believed to have
been collaborative works with her father, Theon Alexandricus. This kind of
authorial uncertainty is, unfortunately, typical for female philosophers in
Antiquity.
It still makes me wonder why we seem to have so many more details about the way back B.C. Pharaoh's of Ancient Egypt than we
do about the early Christian centuries including the life of Jesus. We
allegedly know of all the Pharaoh's dalliances, especially the last,
Cleopatra....names, dates, mistakes, places and "affairs."
Hypatia is
known with certainty to have edited a number of works in collaboration with her
father, who was the last director of the Museion that was the center
of scholarship in the classical world...kinda like Harvard and Oxford are today I suppose. Among those
works were a commentary on the 13-volume Arithmetica by
Diophantus. She also edited Theon’s commentary on Euclid's Elements, which was
likely the basis for every geometry text for the next fifteen centuries.
Contemporary
5th-century sources do identify Hypatia of Alexandria as a practitioner and
teacher of the philosophy of Plato and Plotinus, but, two hundred years later,
the 7th-century Egyptian Coptic bishop, John of Nikiu, identified her as a
Hellenistic pagan and alleged that she was devoted at all
times to magic,astrolabes,(early sextants) and instruments of music,
and beguiled many people through her Satanic "devotion." Not
all Christians were as hostile towards her as John of Nikiu or the monks who
killed her: Some early Christians used Hypatia as symbolic of Virtue,
somewhat similar to the way they venerate the "Virgin" Mary
today.
Since she was
trained in the philosophical schools of Plato and Plotinus, she
was admired by most of her contemporary scholars for her dignity,virtue, and
wisdom. Of the anger she provoked among Christians, Scholasticus, a Greek
Christian church historian of the times, wrote, "Hypatia ultimately fell
victim to the political jealousy which at the time prevailed.The Roman
Governor, Orestes, was known to seek her counsel, and a rumor spread among the
Christian community of Alexandria in which she
was blamed for his unwillingness to reconcile a disagreement with Bishop
Cyril."
A mob of
Christians gathered, led by a minor cleric named Peter, whom
Scholasticus described as a fanatic. They kidnapped Hypatia on her way home and
took her to a Church called Caesareum.The Caesareum in Alexandria was
a temple conceived by Cleopatra to honor her lover, Mark Antony, and
believed to be where she committed suicide. It was converted to a Christian
church in the late 4th century and was the headquarters of Bishop Cyril. The angry mob stripped her naked and murdered her. Scholasticus is interpreted
as saying that, while she was still alive, Hypatia's flesh was torn off using
oyster shells, the Greek word is "ostrakois," also used to
describe brick tiles on the roofs of houses as well as to denote pottery
shards. Afterward, the men proceeded to mutilate her, and finally burn
her limbs. When news broke of Hypatia's murder, it provoked great public
denouncement, not only against Bishop Cyril, but against the whole Alexandrian
Christian community. The sins of a few indeed can affect all.
Scholasticus closed his account of what happened to
Hypatia with this lament:
"Surely
nothing can be farther from the spirit of Christianity
than the
allowance of massacres,fights, and transactions of that sort."
School of Athens
is an
immense painting in
the Apostolic Palace in Vatican
City, it is one of a series of four frescoes
painted by Raphael, representing branches of knowledge, this
one is dedicated to philosophy as a path to
knowledge and especially relates
to understanding the causes that drive knowledge.
All of the philosophers shown in the fresco traditionally sought
knowledge through an understanding of root causes, tying back to the title and
theme of the fresco. The painting is considered by some to be Raphael's
greatest masterpiece...but he did not leave a description and it is unknown
whether he alone devised who would be included and how they would be portrayed,
or whether Pope Julius II, who commissioned the painting, contributed
his "disputable" input. It's certainly evident in the Vatican
that Julius II commanded the greatest masters of the day to decorate his "private" opulent palace of
"worship" floor to ceiling.
Murky Shades of Egyptian Pharaohs & Roman Caesars!
Those who can be identified with some certainty are: Plato,
Aristotle, Socrates, Pythagoras, Euclid, Ptolemy,
Zoroaster, Raphael, Sodoma and Diogenes. Other identifications are more or less
speculative, including whether the only woman in the group is indeed
Hypatia.
"Stands to reason," I thought when I marveled at that wall
and contemplated the huge fresco in one of the museums in the Vatican, this
one known as Stanze di Raffaello. The
building is in the shape of a Greek cross which some have suggested was
intended to show a harmony between Pagan philosophy and Christian theology. Hum.....
Detail of Hypatia on a fantastic huge wall painting by iconographer, Mark Dukes, located in an Episcopal church in San Francisco
depicting a lot of the never officially proclaimed "saints" line dancing. When I
first viewed it, I thought surely Mark must have had a snappy Texas country tune in his brilliant head while he
worked.
If you want to boggle your mind with master frescoes,
exquisite marble sculptures, and the results of the ultimate egomaniac,
infamous Pope Julius II, nicknamed "The Fearsome Pope" as well as
"II Papa Terribile" ... take a tour of the Vatican museums.
I have not thought the same about dogma ever since I viewed
truths I had not imagined existed prior to that trip to Italy to
critique for myself
some of the greatest artistic creators and thinkers in
history.
There are many interpretations written of who the
ancient philosophers, artists, and astrologers really were, just as there are many
versions of who the Divine Creator really is.We are very fortunate indeed
that most of us are free in this day and time to make up our own
minds...though some are still not allowed to do so...such as the young
girl from Pakistan whose brother recently hacked her with an ax 15 times trying
to kill her as a matter of "honor," as he had slayed the younger man she ran
away with to escape her abusive tyrant old husband her parents had forced her to marry
when she was 14 and he was 60. It is apparent neither her parents nor their religion consider her brother did anything wrong, they still blame her for surviving and not
being willing to conform to their archaic beliefs.
*****
Hypatia Quotes
"All formal dogmatic religions are
fallacious and must never be accepted by self-respecting persons as
final.
"***
"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is
better than not to think at all."
***
"Life is an unfoldment, and the
further we travel the more truth we can comprehend. To understand the
things
that are at our door is the best preparation
for
understanding those that lie beyond."
***
"In fact, men will fight for a superstition quite as quickly
as for a living truth-often more so, since a superstition is so intangible you
cannot get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so is changeable."
***
"Fables should be taught as fables, myths as
myths, and miracles as poetic fantasies. To teach superstitions as truths is a
most terrible thing. The child mind accepts and believes them, and only through
great pain, and perhaps tragedy can he be in after years relieved of
them."
***
In this painting, Philosopher
Of Alexandria, by 15th century Italian Renaissance artist, Masolino da Panicale,
Hypatia is depicted with a halo, implying she was venerated as someone
"special." I surmise she was just
as often misrepresented and defiled by various ancient popes and clergy as Mary
Magdalene was, but I think not by brilliant master artist's, because they almost
always depicted her
beautiful as they did Mary M.
In the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries in countries all over the world,
Hypatia was still portrayed any where from being a satanic evil witch, to
being a loving, saintly, and virtuous teacher.She has remained ever since her martyr the
subject of countless essays, books, plays, and several
movies.
Most 21st century scholars now consider Hypatia to have
been a "Universal Genius" born at a time pagan and any other woman were not believed to be as brilliant as men
were who converted to
Christianity to preach the message they muddled so ignorantly
of Jesus..."The King Of Peace"...who thus became an inspiration for men to commit horrible crimes in his name...just as
Mohammed still is being an inspiration, an ancient concerned Prophet
who initially wanted to escape the condemnation of Jews
and Christians of his era and formed his own opinions and flock, still
misinterpreted horribly by present day terrorists who believe slaying
those who don't agree with you is a matter of "honor."
Oh dear God!...if
there is a Supreme Creator...how “IT” must weep tears of torment at
humanity's continued ignorance!
*****
And so our bloody history goes on...and on...and on...
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