by Maria Dzielska, translated from Polish by F. Lyra
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995)

     "Hypatia, Greek woman philosopher, born about 370, taught in the neo-Platonic school at Alexandria, murdered by fanatical Christians in 415 CE." This much in one of my encyclopedias, others do not mention her at all. Yet, she has become the patron saint of feminism and is regarded as a hero of secular humanism. Romantic novels, plays, and poetry have portrayed her as a virginal young woman with "the spirit of Plato and the body of Aphrodite" (p. 7) murdered by a Christian mob.
     In fact few details of her life are known and perhaps none of her writings have survived. Dzielska examines all that has been written, drawing on voluminous literature in Greek, Latin, English, French, German, and Italian. The book is divided into three parts, the modern literary legend, Hypatia's times and circle of friends and students, and her life and death.
     The legend started in 1720 with an historical essay by John Toland, continued with Voltaire, Gibbon, Leconte de Lisle, Charles Kingsley, and Bertrand Russell. She has been incorporated into Martin Bernal's dubious work about African sources of civilization. Two feminist journals have taken her name, Hypatia: Feminist Studies and Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy. The most recent novels about her were published in 1989, one in French the other in German.
     First off, Dzielska provides persuasive evidence Hypatia was born around 355. Thus, far from a beautiful young Venus, she was a mature woman of about sixty. Hypatia was a well known mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher. She studied under her equally renowned father Theon and was his closest collaborator, so that we can not be sure if some preserved works are his or hers or a collaboration of both. Thus she may have been an editor of Ptolemy's Almagest and Handy Tables. Commentaries on the writings of the mathematician Diophantus are thought to be from her hand.
     In the early fifth century Alexandria was the third largest city of the Roman Empire, a center of learning, in which pagans, Jews and Christians lived in relative harmony. Government was headed by a prefect assisted by the bishop, and depended on careful balance and compromise between these office holders. The appointment of a new bishop in 412, later to be known as Saint Cyril, upset the apple cart. The bishop thought the administrative prefect lax in his Christian duties, arrogated to himself some of the secular power's prerogatives, and drove the Jews out of the city. In the dispute Hypatia, as a member of the elite and leading citizen, sided with the prefect. Cyril's people put it about she was a satanic witch, practiced black magic, tried to mislead innocent Christians, and was the cause of all the trouble in the city. A mob led by a henchman of the bishop pulled her from her chariot, dragged her into a church, tore off her clothes, and murdered her with broken bits of pottery. The conflict between the prefect and the bishop was thus settled by a political murder. The prefect was recalled, and the bishop achieved the top position. Thus are saints made.