Antiquity Neoplatonism and paganism both survived for centuries after Hypatia's death, and new academic lecture halls continued to be built in Alexandria after her death. Over the next 200 years, Neoplatonist philosophers such as
Hierocles of Alexandria,
John Philoponus,
Simplicius of Cilicia, and
Olympiodorus the Younger made astronomical observations, taught mathematics, and wrote lengthy commentaries on the works of Plato and Aristotle. Hypatia was not the last female Neoplatonist philosopher; later ones include
Aedesia,
Asclepigenia, and
Theodora of Emesa. The
Greek Anthology includes an epigram praising Hypatia. According to Watts, however, Hypatia had no appointed successor, no spouse, and no offspring and her sudden death not only left her legacy unprotected, but also triggered a backlash against her entire ideology. Hypatia, with her tolerance toward Christian students and her willingness to cooperate with Christian leaders, had hoped to establish a precedent that Neoplatonism and Christianity could coexist peacefully and cooperatively. Instead, her death and the subsequent failure by the Christian government to impose justice on her killers destroyed that notion entirely and led future Neoplatonists such as Damascius to consider Christian bishops as "dangerous, jealous figures who were also utterly unphilosophical." Hypatia became seen as a "martyr for philosophy", and her murder led philosophers to adopt attitudes that increasingly emphasized the pagan aspects of their beliefs system and helped create a sense of identity for philosophers as pagan traditionalists set apart from the Christian masses. Thus, while Hypatia's death did not bring an end to Neoplatonist philosophy as a whole, Watts argues that it did bring an end to her particular variety of it. Shortly after Hypatia's murder, a
forged anti-Christian letter appeared under her name. Damascius was "anxious to exploit the scandal of Hypatia's death", and attributed responsibility for her murder to Bishop Cyril and his Christian followers. A passage from Damascius's
Life of Isidore, preserved in the
Suda, concludes that Hypatia's murder was due to Cyril's envy over "her wisdom exceeding all bounds and especially in the things concerning astronomy". Damascius's account of the Christian murder of Hypatia is the sole historical source attributing direct responsibility to Bishop Cyril. At the same time, Damascius was not entirely kind to Hypatia either; he characterizes her as nothing more than a wandering
Cynic, and compares her unfavorably with his own teacher
Isidore of Alexandria, remarking that "Isidorus greatly outshone Hypatia, not just as a man does over a woman, but in the way a genuine philosopher will over a mere geometer."
Middle Ages from
Saint Catherine's Monastery in
Sinai, Egypt. The legend of Saint Catherine is thought to have been at least partially inspired by Hypatia. Hypatia's death was similar to those of
Christian martyrs in Alexandria, who had been dragged through the streets during the
Decian persecution in 250. Other aspects of Hypatia's life also fit the mold for a Christian martyr, especially her lifelong virginity. In the
Early Middle Ages, Christians conflated Hypatia's death with stories of the Decian martyrs and she became part of the basis for the legend of
Saint Catherine of Alexandria, a virgin martyr said to have been exceedingly wise and well-educated. The earliest attestation for the cult of Saint Catherine comes from the eighth century, around three hundred years after Hypatia's death. One story tells of Saint Catherine being confronted by fifty pagan philosophers seeking to convert her, but instead converting all of them to Christianity through her eloquence. Another legend put forth that Saint Catherine had been a student of
Athanasius of Alexandria. In the Laodikeia of Asia Minor (today
Denizli in Turkey) until late 19th century Hypatia was venerated as identical to St. Catherine. The Byzantine
Suda encyclopedia contains a very long entry about Hypatia, which summarizes two different accounts of her life. The first eleven lines come from one source and the rest of the entry comes from Damascius's
Life of Isidore. Most of the first eleven lines of the entry probably come from
Hesychius's
Onomatologos, but some parts are of unknown origin, including a statement that she was "the wife of Isidore the Philosopher" (apparently
Isidore of Alexandria). Watts describes this as puzzling, not only because Isidore of Alexandria was not born until long after Hypatia's death, and no other philosopher of that name contemporary with Hypatia is known, but also because it contradicts Damascius's own statement quoted in the same entry about Hypatia being a lifelong virgin. Watts suggests that someone probably misunderstood the meaning of the word
gynē used by Damascius to describe Hypatia in his
Life of Isidore, since the same word can mean either "woman" or "wife". Hypatia and her death are briefly mentioned in the Chronography of
John Malalas, within his narrative of the reign of
Theodosius II. The Byzantine and Christian intellectual
Photios ( 810/820–893) includes both Damascius's account of Hypatia and Socrates Scholasticus's in his
Bibliotheke. In his own comments, Photios remarks on Hypatia's great fame as a scholar, but does not mention her death, perhaps indicating that he saw her scholarly work as more significant. The intellectual
Eudokia Makrembolitissa (1021–1096), the second wife of Byzantine emperor
Constantine X Doukas, was described by the historian
Nicephorus Gregoras as a "second Hypatia".
Early modern period scholar
John Toland used Hypatia's death as the basis for an
anti-Catholic polemic, in which he changed the details of her murder and introduced new elements not found in any of his sources in order to portray Cyril in the worst possible light. Early eighteenth-century
Deist scholar
John Toland used the murder of Hypatia as the basis for an
anti-Catholic tract, portraying Hypatia's death in the worst possible light by changing the story and inventing elements not found in any of the ancient sources. A 1721 response by
Thomas Lewis defended Cyril, rejected Damascius's account as unreliable because its author was "a
heathen" and argued that Socrates Scholasticus was "a
Puritan", who was consistently biased against Cyril.
Voltaire, in his
Examen important de Milord Bolingbroke ou le tombeau de fanatisme (1736) interpreted Hypatia as a believer in "the laws of rational Nature" and "the capacities of the human mind free of
dogmas" and described her death as "a bestial murder perpetrated by Cyril's tonsured hounds, with a fanatical gang at their heels". Later, in an entry for his
Dictionnaire philosophique (1772), Voltaire again portrayed Hypatia as a freethinking deistic genius brutally murdered by ignorant and misunderstanding Christians. Most of the entry ignores Hypatia altogether and instead deals with the controversy over whether or not Cyril was responsible for her death. Voltaire concludes with the snide remark that "When one strips beautiful women naked, it is not to massacre them." In his monumental work
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, the English historian
Edward Gibbon expanded on Toland and Voltaire's misleading portrayals by declaring Cyril as the sole cause of all evil in Alexandria at the beginning of the fifth century and construing Hypatia's murder as evidence to support his thesis that the rise of Christianity hastened the decline of the Roman Empire. He remarks on Cyril's continued veneration as a Christian saint, commenting that "superstition [Christianity] perhaps would more gently expiate the blood of a virgin, than the banishment of a saint." In response to these accusations, Catholic authors, as well as some French Protestants, insisted with increased vehemence that Cyril had absolutely no involvement in Hypatia's murder and that Peter the Lector was solely responsible. In the course of these heated debates, Hypatia tended to be cast aside and ignored, while the debates focused far more intently on the question of whether Peter the Lector had acted alone or under Cyril's orders.
Nineteenth century In the nineteenth century European literary authors spun the legend of Hypatia as part of
neo-Hellenism, a movement that romanticised
ancient Greeks and their values. Interest in the "literary legend of Hypatia" began to rise.
Diodata Saluzzo Roero's 1827
Ipazia ovvero delle Filosofie suggested that Cyril had actually converted Hypatia to Christianity, and that she had been killed by a "treacherous" priest. '' (1885) by
Charles William Mitchell, believed to be a depiction of a scene in
Charles Kingsley's 1853 novel
Hypatia In his 1852
Hypatie and 1857
Hypathie et Cyrille, French poet
Charles Leconte de Lisle portrayed Hypatia as the epitome of "vulnerable truth and beauty". Leconte de Lisle's first poem portrayed Hypatia as a woman born after her time, a victim of the laws of history. His second poem reverted to the eighteenth-century Deistic portrayal of Hypatia as the victim of Christian brutality, but with the twist that Hypatia tries and fails to convince Cyril that Neoplatonism and Christianity are actually fundamentally the same.
Charles Kingsley's 1853 novel
Hypatia; Or, New Foes with an Old Face was originally intended as a historical treatise, but instead became a typical mid-
Victorian romance with a militantly anti-Catholic message, portraying Hypatia as a "helpless, pretentious, and erotic heroine" with the "spirit of Plato and the body of
Aphrodite." Kingsley's novel was tremendously popular; it was translated into several European languages and remained continuously in print for the rest of the century. It promoted the romantic vision of Hypatia as "the last of the Hellenes" and was quickly adapted into a broad variety of stage productions, the first of which was a play written by Elizabeth Bowers, performed in
Philadelphia in 1859, starring the writer in the titular role. On 2 January 1893, a much higher-profile stage play adaptation
Hypatia, written by G. Stuart Ogilvie and produced by
Herbert Beerbohm Tree, opened at the
Haymarket Theatre in London. The title role was initially played by
Julia Neilson, and it featured an elaborate musical score written by the composer
Hubert Parry. The novel also spawned works of visual art, including an 1867 image portraying Hypatia as a young woman by the
early photographer Julia Margaret Cameron and an 1885 painting
Hypatia by
Charles William Mitchell showing a nude Hypatia standing before an altar in a church. At the same time, European philosophers and scientists described Hypatia as the last representative of science and free inquiry before a "long
medieval decline". In 1843, German authors Soldan and Heppe argued in their highly influential
History of the Witchcraft Trials that Hypatia may have been, in effect, the first famous "
witch" punished under Christian authority (see
witch-hunt). Hypatia was honored as an astronomer when
238 Hypatia, a
main belt asteroid discovered in 1884, was named for her. The
lunar crater Hypatia was also named for her, in addition to craters named for her father Theon. The 180 km
Rimae Hypatia are located north of the crater, one degree south of the equator, along the
Mare Tranquillitatis.
Twentieth century In 1908, American writer
Elbert Hubbard published a putative biography of Hypatia in his series
Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Teachers. The book is almost entirely a work of fiction. In it, Hubbard writes that Theon established a program of physical exercise for his daughter, involving "fishing, horseback-riding, and rowing". He states that Theon taught Hypatia to "Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than to never think at all." Hubbard also writes that, as a young woman, Hypatia traveled to Athens, where she studied under
Plutarch of Athens. All of this supposed biographical information, however, is completely fictional and is not found in any ancient source. Hubbard even attributes to Hypatia numerous completely fabricated quotations in which she presents modern, rationalist views. The cover illustration for the book, a drawing of Hypatia by artist Jules Maurice Gaspard showing her as a beautiful young woman with her wavy hair tied back in the classical style, has now become the most iconic and widely reproduced image of her. Around the same time, Hypatia was adopted by
feminists, and her life and death began to be viewed in the light of the
women's rights movement. The author Carlo Pascal wrote in 1908 that her murder was an anti-feminist act and brought about a change in the treatment of women, as well as the decline of the
Mediterranean civilization in general.
Dora Russell published a book on the inadequate education of women and inequality with the title
Hypatia or Woman and Knowledge in 1925. The prologue explains why she chose the title: "Hypatia was a university lecturer denounced by Church dignitaries and torn to pieces by Christians. Such will probably be the fate of this book." Hypatia's death became symbolic for some historians. For example, Kathleen Wider proposes that the murder of Hypatia marked the end of
Classical antiquity, and
Stephen Greenblatt writes that her murder "effectively marked the downfall of Alexandrian intellectual life". On the other hand,
Christian Wildberg notes that
Hellenistic philosophy continued to flourish in the 5th and 6th centuries, and perhaps until the age of
Justinian I. Falsehoods and misconceptions about Hypatia continued to proliferate throughout the late twentieth century. Though Hubbard's fictional biography may have been intended for children, Lynn M. Osen relied on it as her main source in her influential 1974 article on Hypatia in her 1974 book
Women in Mathematics.
Fordham University used Hubbard's biography as the main source of information about Hypatia in a medieval history course.
Carl Sagan's 1980
PBS series
Cosmos: A Personal Voyage relates a heavily fictionalized retelling of Hypatia's death, which results in the "
Great Library of Alexandria" being burned by militant Christians. In actuality, though Christians led by Theophilus did destroy the Serapeum in 391 AD, the Library of Alexandria had already ceased to exist in any recognizable form centuries prior to Hypatia's birth. As a female intellectual, Hypatia became a role model for modern intelligent women and two feminist journals were named after her: the Greek journal
Hypatia: Feminist Studies was launched in Athens in 1984, and
Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy in the United States in 1986. In the
United Kingdom, the Hypatia Trust maintains a library and archive of feminine literary, artistic and scientific work; and, sponsors the Hypatia-in-the-Woods women's retreat in
Washington, United States.
Judy Chicago's large-scale art piece
The Dinner Party awards Hypatia a
table setting. The table runner depicts Hellenistic goddesses weeping over her death. Chicago states that the social unrest leading to Hypatia's murder resulted from Roman patriarchy and mistreatment of women and that this ongoing unrest can only be brought to an end through the restoration of an original, primeval matriarchy. She (anachronistically and incorrectly) concludes that Hypatia's writings were burned in the Library of Alexandria when it was destroyed. Major works of twentieth century literature contain references to Hypatia, including
Marcel Proust's volume "Within a Budding Grove" from
In Search of Lost Time, and
Iain Pears's
The Dream of Scipio.
Twenty-first century Hypatia has continued to be a popular subject in both fiction and nonfiction by authors in many countries and languages. In 2015, the planet designated
Iota Draconis b was named after Hypatia. In
Umberto Eco's 2002 novel
Baudolino, the hero's love interest is a half-satyr, half-woman descendant of a female-only community of Hypatia's disciples, collectively known as "hypatias". Charlotte Kramer's 2006 novel
Holy Murder: the Death of Hypatia of Alexandria portrays Cyril as an archetypal villain, while Hypatia is described as brilliant, beloved, and more knowledgeable of scripture than Cyril.
Ki Longfellow's novel
Flow Down Like Silver (2009) invents an elaborate backstory for why Hypatia first started teaching.
Youssef Ziedan's novel
Azazeel (2012) describes Hypatia's murder through the eyes of a witness. Bruce MacLennan's 2013 book
The Wisdom of Hypatia presents Hypatia as a guide who introduces Neoplatonic philosophy and exercises for modern life. In
The Plot to Save Socrates (2006) by
Paul Levinson and its sequels, Hypatia is a time-traveler from the twenty-first century
United States. In the TV series
The Good Place Season 4 Episode 12 "Patty", Hypatia is played by
Lisa Kudrow as one of the few ancient philosophers eligible for heaven, by not having defended slavery. The 2009 film
Agora, directed by
Alejandro Amenábar and starring
Rachel Weisz as Hypatia, is a heavily fictionalized dramatization of Hypatia's final years. The film, which was intended to criticize contemporary
Christian fundamentalism, has had wide-ranging impact on the popular conception of Hypatia. It emphasizes Hypatia's astronomical and mechanical studies rather than her philosophy, portraying her as "less Plato than Copernicus", and emphasizes the restrictions imposed on women by the early Christian church, including depictions of Hypatia being sexually assaulted by one of her father's Christian slaves, and of Cyril reading from forbidding women from teaching. The film contains numerous historical inaccuracies: It inflates Hypatia's achievements and incorrectly portrays her as finding a proof of
Aristarchus of Samos's
heliocentric model of the universe, which there is no evidence that Hypatia ever studied. It also contains a scene based on
Carl Sagan's
Cosmos in which Christians raid the Serapeum and burn all of its scrolls, leaving the building itself largely intact. In reality, the Serapeum probably did not have any scrolls in it at that time, and the building was demolished in 391 AD. The film also implies that Hypatia is an
atheist, directly contradictory to the surviving sources, which all portray her as following the teachings of
Plotinus that the goal of philosophy was "a mystical union with the divine." ==See also==