Saturday, June 23, 2007

"Life is an unfoldment, and the further we travel, the more truth we comprehend. To understand the things that are at our door is the best preparation for understanding those that lie beyond."
-Hypatia

"Whenever I look upon you and your words, I pay reverence,
As I look upon the heavenly home of the virgin.
For your concerns are directed at the heavens,
Revered Hypatia, you who are yourself the beauty of reasoning,
The immaculate star of wise learning."
-Palladas, Hymn for Hypatia

"The Virgin’s starry sign whene’er I see,
Adoring, on thy words I think, and thee,
For all thy virtuous works celestial are,
As are thy learnéd works beyond compare,
Divine Hypatia, who dost far and near
Virtue’s and learning’s spotless star appear."
-Florus, Hypatia's Wake, 6th century

"Yet even she fell a victim to the political jealousy which at that time prevailed. For as she had frequent interviews with Orestes, it was calumniously reported among the Christian populace, that it was she who prevented Orestes from being reconciled to the bishop. Some of them therefore, hurried away by a fierce and bigoted zeal, whose ringleader was a reader named Peter, waylaid her returning home, and dragging her from her carriage, they took her to the church called Caesareum, where they completely stripped her, and then murdered her with tiles. After tearing her body in pieces, they took her mangled limbs to a place called Cinaron, and there burnt them. This affair brought not the least opprobrium, not only upon Cyril, but also upon the whole Alexandrian church. And surely nothing can be farther from the spirit of Christianity than the allowance of massacres, fights, and transactions of that sort. This happened in the month of March during Lent, in the fourth year of Cyril's episcopate, under the tenth consulate of Honorius, and the sixth of Theodosius." (415 CE)
-Socrates, the Death of Hypatia

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