Ronchey, S. “Hypatia the Intellectual.” Roman Women, Ed. A. Fraschetti. Chicago- London: The University of Chicago Press, 2001. 160-89.

English version of S. Ronchey, Ipazia, l’intellettuale, in A. Fraschetti (a cura di), Roma al femminile, Roma, Laterza, 1994, pp. 213-258

 

This essay is divided into five parts. In the first (Hypatia, or the Partisan Spirit of the Alexandrians), the author reconstructs the circumstances of Hypatia’s life and death from the writings of Suida, Hesychius of Miletus, Damascius, Socrates Scholasticus, John of Nikiu and others in the context of the violent upheavals and ideological and religious strife in 4th and 5th century Egypt.  The second section (The Fortune of Hypatia) analyses the enormous fortune Hypatia’s character and circumstances had in European literature and thought from the 17th to 19th centuries (from Voltaire to Monti, John Toland to Diodata Saluzzo Roero), despite the different perspectives adopted in Protestant and Catholic cultures, Enlightenment circles, and Romantic currents.  In the third part (The Judgment and Prejudice of the Sources), given the existence of two versions of the Hypatia affair - one Christian and one pagan - each then interpreted in a moderate or fundamentalist key, the author highlights the idealising traits attributed to the figure of Hypatia in the sources, and the ideological background of their development.  The fourth section of the essay (Synesius, Hypatis, and “Philosophia”) investigates in more depth Hypatia’s study and teaching, especially through the testimony of her pupil, Synesius.  Hypatia’s interest in "geometry" and astronomy, and the exotericism - along with theurgic elements - of some aspects of her teaching, suggest the attribution of a complementary and dominant priestly charisma to her character as scientist and philosopher.  The genre of philosophia she cultivated must form part of the relationship between women and the sacred, in line with the concept of female pre-eminence within the sphere of the super-rational, which is an legacy of the spirituality of Late Antiquity.  It is in light of these considerations that the author evaluates, in the concluding part of the essay, Hypatia’s “martyrdom.”  Both Christian and pagan accusations, converging on her executioner, Bishop Cyril, confirm, on the one hand, his responsibility in the brutal murder – still unacknowledged by the Catholic Church - and on the other, contribute paradoxically to the Christian transfiguration of Hypatia, cancelling out the concrete political and social connotations of her life and experience.