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Hypatia of Alexandria –
Humanist Martyr by David Godden
John Toland, 1670 – 1722, ‘The Father of Irish Philosophy’ (after
whom the Ulster Humanist Summer Schools, held in Redcastle, Co.
Donegal in the late nineties were
named) in 1720 wrote an historical
essay entitled Hypatia or, the History
of the Most Beautiful, Most Virtuous,
Most Learned and in Every Way Accomplished
Lady; who Was Torn to
Pieces by the Clergy of Alexandria, to
Gratify the Pride, Emulation, and
Cruelty of the Archbishop, Commonly
but Undeservedly Titled St. Cyril.
Toland was the first in more recent
times to revive an interest in Hypatia,
whose story had not received an airing
since the tenth century. Voltaire
in France then took up the cudgel in
1736, and was soon afterwards followed
by Edward Gibbon in his Decline
and Fall of the Roman Empire
in the 1780s.
Voltaire says that Hypatia believed
in the laws of rational Nature, and in
the capacity of the human mind free
of imposed dogma, and that Cyril
“loosed the Christian rabble on her”.
Gibbon used her life and death to
illustrate the difference between the
Classical World and what was replacing
it – reason and spiritual culture
in the case of Hypatia versus barbarism
and dogmatism in the case of
Cyril and Christianity.
In the English-speaking world, the
fictionalised version of Hypatia’s life
by the Rev. Charles Kingsley entitled
Hypatia or the Old Foes with a New
Face (1853) gave the story further
impetus, but put an Anglican slant on
the events.
The city of Alexandria in Egypt,
founded by Alexander the Great in
331 BCE, was by the end of the 4th
century CE, after Rome, the second
city of the Empire, and vied with Athens
as the greatest centre of culture
and learning. Its history is littered
with names such as Euclid, Eratosthenes,
Archimedes, and Ptolemy.
However, with the rise of Christianity,
and its distrust of learning and
knowledge, Alexandria’s eminence
was coming to an end.
The Royal Library, which contained
some 700,000 books, had been accidentally
destroyed by fire during an attack on
the city by Julius Caesar in 48 BCE. This
had held most of the world’s knowledge
up to that time. After this, another library,
known as the Daughter Library,
housed in a building called the Sarapeum,
became the principal library of Alexandria.
This library eventually also reached
a considerable size, but the Sarapeum
with its library was destroyed on the orders
of the Christian Roman Emperor
Theodosius at the request of Bishop Theophilus
of Alexandria in 391CE.
Hypatia appears to have started lecturing,
both at her own house and in public,
in the early 380s on Mathematics, Astronomy,
and Neoplatonist Philosophy, so
she was attempting to function in very
unsettled conditions. She collected a
group of students around her, who were
attracted by her personality and intellect.
Her father, Theon, was an astronomer,
mathematician, and poet of considerable
importance, but Damascius, an historian
and biographer of the 5th century, says
she was “ by nature more refined and talented
than her father.” Hypatia had many
students who were famous, or were to become
famous, both in the political establishment,
and in the Christian Church
within her group. Orestes, a Christian,
had become Prefect of Egypt, and another
student, Synesius of Cyrene, later became
a bishop. Hypatia, however, never became
a Christian, but her students were composed
of both Christians and non-Christians.
Another of her students, Socrates Scholasticus
was an historian, and it is from him
and from Synesius that most knowledge of
Hypatia derives. Synesius was an inveterate
letter-writer, 156 of his letters surviving,
many to Hypatia and to some of her
pupils. Socrates states that although most
of her time was spent in lecturing in philosophy,
she also taught astronomy and
mathematics.
In mathematics, she revised some of her
father’s commentaries on the Amalgest of
Ptolemy, and wrote original commentaries
on The Conic Sections of Apollonius of
Perga (who coined the words Parabola, Hyperbola,
and Ellipse), and on the Arithmetica of Diaphanthus, considered to be the
most difficult mathematician of antiquity.
Many scholars believe that most of
Diaphanthus’ work only survives because
of the quality of Hypatia’s explanations.
In addition to her mathematical achievements,
and her broad intellect, Socrates
Scholasticus praised her accomplishments
as a humanist.
In October 412 CE, Bishop Theophilus
died, and was succeeded by his nephew
Cyril. Theophilus, although never interfering
with Hypatia’s activities, carried out
persecutions elsewhere. With Cyril’s grip
on the bishopric and the city, conditions
for non-Christians deteriorated. Apart
from trying to drive the Jews,of whom there
were many, out of Alexandria, Cyril was extremely
envious of the love and esteem in
which Hypatia was held.
By 415 CE, Cyril’s hatred and jealousy
of Hypatia was out of control. In March of
that year he roused a mob of monks and
other Christians, led by one called Peter the
Reader, who pulled Hypatia from her chariot,
dragged her to a local church, stripped
her, and killed her by cutting the flesh from
her bones with ostraka (pottery shards).
They then burnt some of the remains,
and scattered body parts around the city. There
is some doubt about the year of her birth,
but she was probably between 55 and 60
when she was killed.
This barbarous act marks the end of the
Classical Enlightenment, and the start of
the Christian Dark Ages. |
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Athens, May 2008
Ann James reports on the European
Humanist Federation
General Assembly, held in Athens in May
THE EUROPEAN Humanist Federation
(EHF) is the organisation
representing Humanist
views at European level, a voice in
the EU. The work of the EHF is most
generously supported by the Belgian
organisation, Centre d’Action Laique
(CAL). The EHF comprises 38 member
organisations, with some countries
having multiple members. The numbers
of organisations each country
has varies considerably, Belgium
having the largest number. The HAI is
a member organisation.
The 2008 EHF general assembly
was held in Athens in May. The President
of the EHF, David Pollock,
opened with a speech concerning human
rights in recognition of the 60th
anniversary of the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights in 1948. David
gave some background on the secular
basis of human rights, reviewing the
input of Hobbes, Rousseau and
Locke. Thomas Paine was quoted as
saying that the ‘sole purpose of the
government is to protect the inalienable
rights inherent to every human
being’, rights being a social arrangement.
David said that no one would
want to deny believers their right to believe
but the thorny issues are about
manifesting those beliefs in shared
public and state places (referring to
Article 9). These rights are conditional
upon being in “the interests of
public safety, for the protection of
public order, health or morals, or for
the protection of the rights and freedoms
of others”.
According to David, “when we
consider bans on religious dress at
school or elsewhere, we need to think
hard about the question: what harm
are we trying to remedy? Does it meet
the criterion of endangering public
safety, or public order, health or morals,
or the rights and freedoms of
others?”
This might be a consideration in
view of the current debate about the
wearing of the hijab in schools in Ireland.
Another consideration in all the
debates about ethics is that religious
arguments are often expressed in
terms that are incomprehensible to
those with no or other beliefs, so if a religious
hierarchy argues for a general law, for
example, against voluntary euthanasia on
the basis of some religious belief, David’s
view is that in secular terms if it’s to be
meaningful to those not of a religion: “They
can address their followers in those terms,
but other people have no need to give their
arguments any weight”.
And in this 60th anniversary year of the
UDHR the foundations of Human Rights are
sadly under attack not just in the form of
abuses by those in power but by insidious
undermining with deceptive arguments calling
the whole concept of human rights into
question.
More importantly, the Holy See last year
aligned itself with the Islamists at the annual
OSCE * human rights meeting, demanding
protection for religious beliefs, not religious
believers.
Dialogue with Churches, non-confessional
and philosophical groups
THERE has been little progress in the EHF
being included in this Dialogue. Despite
supportive noises being made by President
Barroso, it is felt time given by him is
largely symbolic, friendly but lacking serious
attention. As with the meetings by the
HAI and Irish government, while the HAI is
open about its agenda, that doesn’t appear to
be consistent across those involved. Vera
Pegna, VP of EHF and its representative on
the OSCE, said that the Vatican thinks it has
a public function and believes it should be
an equal partner in the EU.
Reports
Vera Pegna
THERE were reports of work in the wider
European context by Vera Pegna, EHF representative
at OSCE, Georges Liénard, General
Secretary on the Council of Europe and David
Pollock, president on the EU (including the
European Parliament). Other reports related
to national issues included Panayote Dimitras
of the Greek Helsinki Monitor, who
spoke about the way the Greek Orthodox
church is integrated into the official structures
and proceedings of the state – the law
courts, the registration of citizens and many
other ways – so that the rights and status of
non-believers (and other-believers) are seriously
curtailed. He described the successful
cases he and colleagues have taken
against their Government to the European
Court of Human Rights, such as a case taken
under Article 9 of the Human Rights Declaration
(freedom of thought, conscience and
religion). His refusal to take a religious
oath in court as a lawyer occasioned his
having to declare his religion or lack of
one, which he claimed discriminated
against his human right. After each court
appearance Panayote was reported incorrectly
as having taken the religious oath. In
fact one’s religious identity is pre-written
on the form as it is assumed to be a religious
court - a court filled with icons! The
case was won. An interesting side note from
Panayote’s talk was that the pagan religions
want the right to practise their religions in
the Acropolis and other ancient sites.
Baard Thalberg from the Norwegian Humanist
Association spoke on their attitude
to marriage laws, and Kristin Mile, general
secretary of the Norwegian Humanist Association,
talked about their victory at the
European Court of Human Rights in a case
involving religious education, Folgera et
al. vs. Norway.
As always it was most interesting to look
at the different problems and successes in
our member states, and to look at our common
causes. There may be difference in
whether groups think, for example, that if
religion is taught in public schools Humanism
and belief systems should be
taught too or whether teaching beliefs
should only ever be as knowledge, but our
aim to protect the rights of the non-religious
is at the core.
One improvement which will be very
welcome is that there will be a new more accessible
web site up and running in the near
future, which will contain a huge amount of
information for those interested in rights
issues in the EU.
*Organisation for Security and Cooperation
in Europe (an organisation concerned with a
broad view of security including human
rights issues) |
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