Maria Dzielska

Maria Dzielska is a sober guide to this enigmatic figure and she does a thorough job of outlining the little that is known about Hypatia. She shows how authors and artists, including Edward Gibbon, Bertrand Russell, and Judy Chicago, have embellished Hypatia's story, either to romanticize or to fulfill a didactic agenda.

I wouldn't have minded a bit of speculation in the text, especially about Hypatia's mathematics and philosopy; however, Dzielska makes it clear that any such speculation would be unfounded (we know Hypatia was a respected teacher, but we know nothing of what she taught). What we know comes from fragments in biographies of other figures and passing references in letters exchanged by her pupils (who, surprisingly enough, often became major figures in the Christian church).

Still, this gives as clear a portrait of this intriguing moment in Late Antiquity as possible. The blending of pagan and Christian thought, the mysticism of Neoplatonism, the interconnectedness of the Eastern Mediterranean, the sudden violence of the mob, and the political intrigues of the post-Nicene church are all here and intelligently explained.… (mehr)

Hypatia of Alexandria is one of the guests at Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party, celebrating the famous women of history. The legend is Hypatia’s beauty and intelligence aroused the wrath of the misogynist Patriarch Cyril, who had her torn to pieces by a mob of Christian zealots. According to Maria Dzielska, the myth is exaggerated – but not by too much. Hypatia really was a philosopher and mathematician, and apparently a popular one; Cyril of Alexandria really was a nasty piece of work. As is typical for the age, her biographer is compelled to sift secondary, 3rd hand, and 4th hand sources for the sparse details of her life. The only surviving material, other than later legends and stories, are a few letters from and between her pupils.


Hypatia doesn’t seem to have done any original work as a mathematician; it’s known she wrote commentaries on Diophontanus and Ptolemy, and Dzielska theorized that some of her marginal notes and glosses may have been eventually published as part of the original works. (This was a common problem in copying manuscripts; somebody would write their own notes in the margins, but the next scribe to copy would interpolate them directly in the text). Her credentials as a philosopher are based on admiring letters from former pupils, and letters in her praise from one former pupil to another. They seem to have been very impressed by her; she was apparently a Neoplatonist.


Some of the people attracted to her lectures were Alexandrian government officials, and others were Christians. This seems to be what attracted the unwanted attention of Cyril. Dzielska notes that there was a lot of antagonism between the Christians and the city government; Cyril apparently wanted to set up a theocracy. He may have suspected Hypatia of using her political contacts against him. He also complained that some of his flock were skipping church services to attend Hypatia’s lectures, because she knew mathematics and astronomy she was suspected of being a witch, and finally Cyril may have been scandalized that Hypatia drove her own chariot. Although nominally a pagan, Hypatia doesn’t seem to have practiced any religion; two of her pupils – the ones we have letters from – became bishops and never said anything against her.


Cyril had set up sort of a strong-arm gang; he administered a group that was supposed to search the city for the sick and carry them to hospital. Soon this group became very large and composed mostly of strong young men. There’s no evidence that Cyril directly ordered Hypatia’s murder; it may have been something like “Who will rid me of this troublesome philosopher?”. In any event, a gang showed up outside Hypatia’s house, pulled her out of her chariot, dragged her to a church, and according to which legend you believe stoned her, scraped the flesh off her bones with oyster shells, or dragged her to death. Dzielska makes a fairly convincing argument that she was not a beautiful young girl at her death, but instead about 65 years old. In one of those little historical ironies, some of Hypatia’s character may have been subsumed into St. Catherine of Alexandra; Catherine was supposedly highly intelligent and disputed with philosophers during her trial. There’s ruined church in what is now Turkey dedicated to St. Catherine Hypatia.


The story is interesting; I suspect it suffers a little from being translated from Polish – there are some awkward sentences. Dzielska assumes her readers are familiar with late Roman empire history, so you may have to look up a number of names.… (mehr)

In March AD 415, a Christian mob murdered Hypatia, the renowned Lady Philosopher of Alexandria. The vicious act shocked the city and shamed the early Church. Socrates Scholasticus tells the story in his Historia Ecclesiastica:

"...Hypatia, daughter of the philosopher Theon, who made such attainments in literature and science, as to far surpass all the philosophers of her own time...For all men on account of her extraordinary dignity and virtue admired her the more. Yet even she fell a victim to the political jealousy which at that time prevailed. For as she had frequent interviews with Orestes, it was calumniously reported among the Christian populace, that it was she who prevented Orestes from being reconciled to the bishop. Some of them therefore, hurried away by a fierce and bigoted zeal, whose ringleader was a reader named Peter, waylaid her returning home, and dragging her from her carriage, they took her to the church called Caesareum, where they completely stripped her, and then murdered her with tiles. After tearing her body in pieces, they took her mangled limbs to a place called Cinaron, and there burnt them. This affair brought not the least opprobrium, not only upon Cyril, but also upon the whole Alexandrian church. And surely nothing can be farther from the spirit of Christianity than the allowance of massacres, fights, and transactions of that sort. This happened in the month of March during Lent, in the fourth year of Cyril’s episcopate, under the tenth consulate of Honorius, and the sixth of Theodosius."

Since that time, only fragments about her life have come down to us; allowing poets, novelists, playwrights, scientists, feminists and religionists (both pro and anti) to appropriate her story for themselves. Hypatia’s story has resonated down through the years, touching many people. She’s a major character in my novel "Selene of Alexandria," the subject of the recent movie "Agora" directed by Alejandro Amenabar, and she rated a plate in Judy Chicago’s massive art piece "The Dinner Party." She’s the subject of plays, poetry, propaganda and new age pagan polemics. Her life is represented in art and music. But what do we really know about her? Not much.

In researching my book, I waded through a literary swamp, with no guide, trying to get at some coherent view of Hypatia and her story. She was young/middle aged/older when she died. She was single/married/promiscuous/virginal. She was a pagan/witch/Christian. She was a brilliant mathematician/scientist to some and, according to others, contributed nothing worthwhile in either discipline. I read the few primary sources, but didn’t have the academic background to evaluate their usefulness. Socrates was a contemporary, but a church historian. Damascius was a pagan who wrote a full generation later. John of Nikiu wrote 200 years later. Who had an agenda and what was it?

Two scholars have attempted to pull the pieces together in book form in the last two decades: Maria Dzielska, a Polish classics scholar, with "Hypatia of Alexandria"; and mathematics professor Michael A. B. Deakin with "Hypatia of Alexandria: Mathematician and Martyr." I’ve read both, several times, in my research and wanted to share my thoughts on the anniversary of Hypatia's death.

When I first got this book in 1995, it was a godsend. I finally had a book that cut through the literary myth and put Hypatia’s life in context. Dzielska divides her book into three main sections. The first deals with the literary legend of Hypatia; the second with Hypatia’s students; and the third covers her life and death. I felt she did a Herculean job of sorting through the myths and legends; and showing the political and artistic roots of some of the best known novels and plays. But it was in interpreting the primary sources, and critiquing their veracity and usefulness, that was most helpful to me. Dzielska carefully lays out her theses and backs them up. When she engages in speculation, she makes it clear.

Among the most controversial of her proposals is that Hypatia was older than generally believed. Dzielska puts Hypatia’s birth year at about 355, making her 60 at death. Artists have a stake in her being a young beautiful martyr, but most scholars had put her age at death at about 45 (making her birth year around 370.) Dzielska argues that Hypatia would have been older than 20 or 22 when she was already teaching some of the land’s most elite young men. In the early 390’s Hypatia was a well-established philosopher and mathematician with many students from rich and powerful families. She might have been a math prodigy, but it’s unlikely she had the time to personally study the arcane nature of various philosophies and establish herself as one of the foremost philosophy teachers, much before her late twenties, at the earliest. Put another way, would a rich powerful man in the late 4C send his adult son to study with a twenty-year-old female? Possibly, but unlikely. It made sense to me that she was born before 370. How much before? No one knows. All scholars can do is present their theories and sources. As a novelist, it suited me to have her older in my narrative, so I went with Dzielska’s premise.

Since I’ve been following this stuff for over fifteen years, I also occasionally came across a criticism of Dzielska as a “Christian apologist.” I assume, because she interprets Hypatia’s death as a political act rather than an act of religious persecution. Hypatia wasn't a "pagan" in the sense that she worshiped mulitple gods or engaged in cultic practices. She believed in one god, but wasn't a Christian. However, as the quote from Socrates Scholasticus above indicates, a possible motive for her murder, was her relationship with the governor of Egypt. Bishop Cyril fomented a whispering campaign against a political foe and his followers brutally killed her.

Some commenters fault Dzielska for her conclusion, but I can't help but feel it's for their own political reasons. I personally think the critics are picking nits. It’s hard to separate politics from religion in this time. Until recently, there was no such thing as the separation of Church and State. Rulers claimed divine right to rule and religions of all kinds backed them up. This time period fascinates me precisely because there are such massive sociological shifts. The Christian Church was consolidating and exerting its power over Christians and non-Christians alike. The early Church used violence to suppress "heretical" sects within its own family, depose rival religions, and bully Emperors and Governors into granting it “most favored” status under laws and tax codes. It also set up and maintained schools and hospitals, provided food and shelter for the homeless and poor, and mediated disputes in their own courts. In my book, that’s political power. And Dzielska doesn’t let Bishop Cyril or the Church off the hook for Hypatia’s death:

"Cyril must be held to account for a great deal, even if we assume that the murder was contrived and executed by the parabolans, without his knowledge. For there is no doubt that he was a chief instigator of the campaign of defamation against Hypatia, fomenting prejudice and animosity against the woman philosopher, rousing fear about the consequences of her alleged black-magic spells on the prefect, the faithful of the Christian community, and indeed the whole city.

However directly or indirectly he was involved, Cyril violated the principles of the Christian moral order, which he was bound to nurture and uphold…It is not surprising that the sources on Hypatia are so few and so sparing and generally oblique in their accounts…as early as the fourth century Christian historians had achieved predominance and most likely they were ashamed to write about her fate…A cover-up campaign was orchestrated to protect the perpetrators, affiliated with the church, who murdered a person well-disposed toward Christians."

For those who want to see Hypatia’s life in context, this is a great book. There are many myths about Hypatia. This book pulls back the curtain and lets us see (as clearly as possible with scant resources) the woman behind the legend, presented in lucid prose.

(This is the first part of two-book review posted on my blog as "Hypatia of Alexandria: Two Books." The second book "Hypatia of Alexandria: Mathematician and Martyr" by Michael A. B. Deakin is reviewed under its own name.)… (mehr)