Hypatia of Alexandria, a philosophy professor to be killed

2024-03-27T04:10:14.727Z

Highlights: Hypatia of Alexandria, a philosophy professor to be killed. Pagan, she will pay for her influence in the city with her life, victim of Christian fanatics. Virginie Girod tells you the tragic fate of an intellectual who marked her time. Ancient Alexandria is the third most populous city in the Mediterranean basin and a major cultural center. Themes covered: philosophy, antiquity, fanaticism, religion, Alexandria and more. “At the Heart of History’ is a Europe 1 Studio podcast.

At the end of Antiquity, in the eastern Mediterranean, when people wanted to compliment a woman for her intelligence, they told her that she was “wise as Hypatia”. Brilliant philosopher, Hypatia of Alexandria educated the eastern elite in a Roman empire in decline. Pagan, she will pay for her influence in the city with her life, victim of Christian fanatics. Virginie Girod tells you the tragic fate of an intellectual who marked her time. Ancient Alexandria is the third most populous city in the Mediterranean basin and a major cultural center. The Muséion, better known as the Library of Alexandria, is the largest in the ancient world. Hypatia is the daughter of a mathematician and astronomer, Théon. He offers something rare and precious to his daughter, for the time: the opportunity to train in science and literature. Hypatia is gifted, to the point of opening her own academy in the 380s CE. At the time, these establishments were reserved for the elite and women teachers were extremely rare. Mathematics, astronomy, philosophy... the professor teaches all subjects, which she masters perfectly, to pagans and Christians, without distinction. The latter are more and more numerous, including among the elites since the conversion of Emperor Constantine at the beginning of the 4th century. Religious tensions in Alexandria increase. Patriarch Cyril and his supporters had a fierce hatred of the Jews and were opposed to the moderate policy of the prefect Orestes, close to Hypatia. This proximity is viewed with a negative eye and the patriarch Cyril ends up designating the philosopher as the cause of all the evils of Alexandria. This is a call for murder. Hypatia is brutally murdered in a church by parabolans, a Christian brotherhood in charge of caring for the sick and burials. Much later, in the Age of Enlightenment, Voltaire himself made her an icon of reason! Themes covered: philosophy, antiquity, fanaticism, religion, Alexandria