HYPATIA, a learned and beautiful lady of antiquity, the daughter of Theon, a celebrated philosopher and mathematician, and president of the Alexandrian school, was born at Alexandria about the end of the fourth century. Her father, encouraged by her extraordinary genius, had her not only educated in all the ordinary accomplishments of her sex, but instructed in the most abstruse sciences. In philosophy, geometry, and astronomy she made such progress, that she was justly accounted the most learned person of her time. At length she was thought worthy to succeed her father in the government of the school of Alexandria, and to teach from that chair where Ammonius, Hierocles, and many other great men, had taught before; and this at a time too when men of great learning abounded both at Alexandria and in many other parts of the Roman empire. Her fame was so extensive, and her worth so universally acknowledged, that her prelections were attended by a crowded auditory. One cannot represent to himself, without pleasure, the flower of all the youth of Europe, Asia, and Africa, sitting at the feet of a very beautiful woman (for such we are assured Hypatia was), all greedily imbibing instruction from her mouth, and many of them, doubtless, love from her eyes; though we are not sure that she ever listened to any solicitations, since Suidas, who talks of her marriage with Isiodorus, at the same time relates, not very consistently, that she died a maid.

Her scholars were as eminent as they were numerous. One of them was the celebrated Synesius, who afterwards became bishop of Ptolemais. This ancient Christian Platonist everywhere bears the strongest as well as the most grateful testimony to the virtue of his tutoress; and never mentions her without the most profound respect, and sometimes in terms of affection little short of adoration. But it was not Synesius and the disciples of the Alexandrian school alone who admired Hypatia for her virtue and learning. Never was woman more caressed by the public, and yet never woman maintained a more unspotted character. She was held as an oracle for her wisdom, which made her be consulted by the magistrates in all important cases; and this frequently drew her into the greatest intercourse with men, without the least censure of her manners. In a word, when Nicephorus intended to pay the highest compliment to the Princess Eudocia, he thought he could not do it better than by calling her another Hypatia.

Whilst Hypatia thus reigned as the brightest ornament of Alexandria, Orestes governed the same place for the Emperor Theodosius, and Cyril was bishop or patriarch. Orestes having received a liberal education, could not but admire Hypatia; and, as a wise governor, he frequently consulted her. But this, together with an aversion which Cyril entertained to Orestes, proved fatal to the lady. One day about five hundred monks having assembled, attacked the governor, and would have killed him, had he not been rescued by the townsmen; and the respect which Orestes entertained for Hypatia causing her to be traduced amongst the Christian multitude, they dragged her from her chair, tore her in pieces, and burned her limbs. Cyril is more than suspected of having fomented this tragedy. Cave indeed endeavours to remove from the patriarch the imputation of so horrid an action, and lays it upon the Alexandrian mob in general, whom he calls levissimum hominum genus, a very fickle, inconstant race. But though Cyril should be allowed to have been neither the perpetrator, nor even the contriver, of the murder, yet it is strongly suspected that he did not discountenance it in the manner he ought to have done; and this suspicion is greatly confirmed by reflecting that he was so far from blaming the outrage committed by the monks upon Orestes, that he afterwards received the dead body of Ammonius, one of the most forward in that outrage, who had grievously wounded the governor, and who was justly punished with death.