Talk:Hypatia

Her religion

In the upper section of this article it says no documentation records her religion and then in the accounts of her death the 2nd source describes her as a pagan. Shall her religion be listed as pagan then?

Was she really a Greek?

If you checked her father's article on the Wikipedia(Theon) , you'll find that Historians are not sure if he's Greek or Egyptian, so how come her article says she's Greek??!

Yes she was Greek.[1][2][3](Angar432 (talk) 01:19, 26 March 2010 (UTC))

Legacy section

It still reads like a glorified trivia section. From what I can tell, much of it should be merged into other sections. Viriditas (talk) 14:00, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Same thing with "Later references". Somebody was obviously too lazy to turn this into relevant sections (or merge into the body). Viriditas (talk) 21:08, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Same with "partial list of specific accomplishments" in "Works". Convert to prose and expand. Viriditas (talk) 21:43, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Cleanup

I'm starting cleanup, checking references, moving sources out of the lead and into the body, and formatting duplicate sources in the notes. Viriditas (talk) 21:19, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

• Hypatia is portrayed by Rachel Weisz; the film is expected to be released in 2009[41].
  • YouTube video link to trailer isn't the best source. I would prefer a secondary source discussing the upcoming film. Viriditas (talk) 22:33, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Soldan and Heppe

Despite her actual background, authors Soldan and Heppe wrote a text in 1990 arguing that Hypatia may have been the first famous "witch" punished under Christian authority.[27]

This needs to be explained. Dropping this in the article with little or no reason isn't helpful. Viriditas (talk) 21:45, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Anonymous Editor 207.112.74.90

Just FYI for all editors of this article. 207.112.74.90 is a member of the #ChristianDebate channel on DalNet IRC who goes by the nickname "Solice." She was editing the article to agree with her assertions in-chat. Be on the lookout. :-) -- Darius Arcturus (talk) 19:34, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Solice/Anonymous editor: Please stop. If you continue to blank out or delete portions of page content, templates or other materials from Wikipedia, you will be blocked from editing. Triune (talk) 19:58, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Just dropping by to tell you that Solice has changed her IP address and is at it again, doing the exact same thing: Solice <~lady@64.56.230.108> “*******************************" (That's copy/pasted from her on IRC.) If you'll note, they just edited the exact same thing.

Wrong use of the "Hellenistic Age" in the introduction

The traditional, and appropriate, use of that term is for the length of time between classical greece and the roman empire (final 3 centuries BC). I haven't read citations 6 and 7, so I didn't want to immediately change the text, but as it stands now it makes no sense. I also doubt any published book would get that wrong. She was a scholar in Egypt in the 4th century AD. Perhaps her murder marked a figurative end to the Greco-Roman classical world, but I haven't even heard of her getting that much significance. I'm open to suggestions before I attempt a fix. Jtackney (talk) 03:03, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

mob who blamed her for religious turmoil

The citation added by Pollinosisss doesn't support the text "...mob who blamed her for religious turmoil." I have Watt's book. The book (p. 198 as referenced by Pollinosisss) specifically says that Cyril spread lies about Hypatia, essentially calling her a pagan witch, which is part of the reason why they attacked her. We know the decree by Theodosius I is what originally incited the masses. This WP article is still misleading. It still either needs a GOOD citation supporting this ("blamed her for religious turmoil"), or a text change. MithrasPriest (talk) 16:29, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

computer crash caused this to be posted 3 times... fixing... MithrasPriest (talk) 16:35, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

According to Watts (p.202-203), "we know of no other violence directed against pagan intellectuals in Alexandria for the next seventy-two years". If her murder was triggered by the Theodosian decree as you claim, why were no other pagan intellectuals attacked? It seems clear to me that violence against her was instigated by Cyril for getting politically involved with his rival Orestes.

To answer your question: the original 391 CE destruction of the Serapium, Mithraeum, and library with its approx. 1,000,000 scrolls, shortly after the Theodosian decree! They eventually caught up with Hypatia too. The Theodosian decree, along with Papal bulls through the ages, caused oppression of "pagan" (non-Christian) texts of all sorts including technological texts. Seventy two years of "peace" for pagans is not a good record anyway. MithrasPriest (talk) 18:05, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

To quote once more from Watts(p.198), "John, drawing upon Cyril's propaganda, portrayed Hypatia as a magician who put spells upon Orestes and a number of prominent Christians in the city. Using her spells, she caused these Christians to assemble at Orestes' house and, John intimates. her magic then caused the attacks against the Jews that brought Cyril and Orestes into conflict." In other words, she was made to appear to be the source of divisiveness(religious turmoil) between the two.

Pollinosisss (talk) 17:48, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

And Watts gets this information from what primary source? Just because an author states it does not mean it is valid history. Grailknighthero (talk) 16:40, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

source to inlcude?

http://www.cosmopolis.com/alexandria/hypatia-bio-john.html

Page rename

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. Vegaswikian (talk) 09:51, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

---

Would anyone object to having this page renamed from 'Hypatia of Alexandria' to 'Hypatia'? Wikipedia:COMMONNAME#Common_names would seem to favour the latter. - Pollinosisss (talk) 16:48, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Hypatia of Alexandria → Hypatia — - Wikipedia:COMMONNAME#Common_names -Pollinosisss (talk) 23:49, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

• Support. She seems to have no important rival. Flamarande (talk) 23:28, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
• Support per nom. She is clearly the most (or better: only) prominent bearer of the name. Constantine ✍ 09:31, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

More on Hypatia

Hello everyone. I have found more information on Hypatia and I want to include it in the Wikipedia article. It's a bit sarcastic but I think it's worth reading.

"...Up until the Enlightement no one even knew who Hypatia was. Then, Pantheist John Toland in 1720 and Voltaire in 1736 opened the dispute on the liberal Hypatia killed by clerical obscurantism. In 1776 Edward Gibbon reinforced lore in his well-known work dealing with the fall (caused by the Christendom) of the Roman Empire. In the following century it was the turn of Romantics: Hypatia was depicted as a beautiful woman and as the last representative of the ancient world (imagined as an Arcadia with plenty of nymphs, zephyrs, shepherds and satyrs) slaughtered by papist fanaticism. Of course, in the 20th Century Hypatia, a veteran feminist, became a prey to Catholic misogyny. The only slightly discordant voice was Mario Luzi’s who based a play on her life in 1978. And now comes a movie, (and the “total art” of cinema, which can leave a mark in the human mind with a strength that literature cannot even dream to match): science versus religion, tolerance versus fideism. Just guess who the “good guys” and the “bad guys” are. Pure Odifreddi-like stuff. So we have to resign ourselves to the politically correct mumbo jumbo. And don’t count on opposite cinema because it is non-existent: Renzo Martinelli and his "Barbarossa" movie were labeled as “pro-Lega” by all mass-media, so that the public deserted theatres.

With our limited instruments we’ll tell the truth on the “Hypatia case”. First of all, she might have been beautiful in her youth, since in 415 AD she was in her sixties (in an era when very few people could boast any teeth in their mouths by age 40). Hers was a political murder and religion played no part in it. Hypatia, the daughter of a philosopher very familiar with Hermeticism and Orphism – Theon – was a Neo-Platonist philosopher who taught in Alexandria. Hers was just one school among the many populating that capital of ancient culture. However, don’t be fooled by the word “school”: they were circles for highly selected followers. She did not leave any written work behind. Whatever is known about her was transmitted by her disciples, among which there were many Christians. One of them, Synesius of Caesarea, would later become a bishop. According to the Platonic method (which in turn originated from the Pythagorean one) the disciples learned about “mysteries” which did not have to be disclosed to the public, because not everybody would be capable of understanding them. Hypatia was not a “pagan” intended as a worshipper of Jupiter, Juno and Mercury; in fact, as a Neo-Platonist, she was closer to Christendom than to Paganism. Indeed, she praised virtues such as virginity (she never married) and modesty in dress. But like all Neo-Platonists and Pythagoreans she maintained that philosophers, being the wisest among people, had to politicize. As a matter of fact, Orestes, the Christian prefect of Alexandria, frequently relied on her advice.

Orestes, as any Byzantine civil servant of the time, had the typical caesaropapist view of relationships with religious authorities, while Cyril the Patriarch strove to safeguard the Church’s independence from the secular power. In 414 AD their confrontation became open: Cyril sought a compromise but Orestes kept his stance. As usual, two parties were formed (something customary in ancient times; St. Ambrose from Milan knew it pretty well). Among the patriarch’s supporters, however, there were the so-called parabolani, Christians whose deeds smacked of heresy because of their fanatical search for martyrdom: they consecrated themselves by oath to undertake the care of the plagued, hoping to die for Christ this way. They were named after the ancient gladiators (abolished by Theodosius) who engaged in lion-fighting in the arena. Cyril tried to keep them under control but the city was in turmoil: in 361 AD a bishop imposed by Constantinople, George of Cappadocia, had been lynched; seven years after Hypatia’s death another bishop appointed by the Emperor, Proterius, was also killed in a popular revolt. In this environment and in this atmosphere, the blame for Orestes’ intransigence was laid on Hypatia and her advice. Rumors were spread that the “mysteries” of her school concerned magic and necromancy. She was assaulted by a mob while her slaves were carrying her on a litter, dragged down and killed. Orestes and Cyril, presented with the fait accompli and shocked by the turn that their controversy had taken, reconciled with one another. The prefect left Alexandria, perhaps to report to the Emperor. Maybe he was replaced. At any rate, he never came back.

One more thing to make clear is that Cyril had nothing against paganism, both because it was being professed by a minority and by then it was practically uninfluential, and because his main concern were Christian heresies which, at the time, sprang up at a ratio of nearly one a day. It was only years later, at the time of the rise of Julian the Apostate into power, that he took up writing again to confront the Emperor’s attempt to reinstate the ancient Roman civil religion. Neo-Platonism, with its desire to reach God through philosophy and the exercise of virtues, continued to have Alexandria as its capital up until the Islamic invasion which, by the way, was made much easier by the resentment that Roman cities in North Africa bore against the Byzantine Empire for their heavy taxation – partially justified by near-continuous wars against Persians, European Avars and Arabs – and their policy to crack down on heresies (which always found a fertile terrain in those areas). Of course all this is of no interest to the heralds of political correctness (which, as we have seen, varies from an era to another). So the pagan world is depicted as a “golden age” of science and tolerance, where people lived in harmony with nature. A world destroyed by monotheistic religions and in particular by the much hated Christendom. [...]

By Rino Cammilleri, in Il Timone, November 2009

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Palladas, INNO A HYPATIA in GREEK ANTHOLOGY, transl. and notes by Mackail, J. ed. Longmans, Green and co., London. 1890.

Sozomenus HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA ed. Migne, J. P., Patrologia Graeca vol. LXVII, Synesius di Cyrene, OPERE a cura di Garzya, Antonio, ed. UTET, Torino, 1989

Toland, John, HYPATIA, in Tetradymus, London, 1720

Wernsdorf, Ernst Friedrich, DISSERTATIO ACADEMICA IV DE HYPATIA, PHILOSOPHA ALEXANDRINA. (Vitembergae, 1747 – 1748) e DISSERTATIO III DE CAUSIS CAEDIS HYPATIAE e DISSERTATIO I DE HYPATIAE VITAE ET STUDIIS

Desmolets, Pierre Nicolas, DISSERTATION SUR HYPACE, Continuation des Memoirs de Literature et d’Histoire par le P. Desmolets. Paris, 1794, pg. 138 – 187. Hoche, Richard, HYPATIA, DIE TOCHTER THEONS, in Philologus. Zeitschrift fur das Classische Altertum. a cura di Ernst von Leutsch, XV Jahrgang, Verlag der Dieterischen Buchhandlung, Gottingen, 1860.

Johannes Nikiu, CHRONICA, Zotenberg Ethiopic Text trad. di R. H. CHARLES, D.Litt, D.D. ed. Williams & Norgate, London, 1916

Nicephorus Callistus, Historia Ecclesiastica, ed. Migne, J. P. Patrologia Graeca voll. CXLV - CXLVI —Preceding unsigned comment added by The Hollow Man2010 (talk • contribs) 22:03, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Are there any books about Hypatia —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.110.45.203 (talk) 21:35, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

When was Hypatia born?

The lede and the infobox don't exactly agree. --Ibn (talk) 19:26, 4 April 2010 (UTC)