HYPATIA,
the accomplish’d Lady.
Parr Sculp
HYPATIA:
OR, THE
HISTORY
OF A
Most beautiful, most vertuous, most learned,
and every way accomplish’d
LADY;
WHO
Was torn to Pieces by the Clergy of Alexandria, to gratify the Pride, Emulation, and Cruelty of their Archbishop, commonly but undeservedly stiled
St. CYRIL.
Magnum aliquid instat, efferum, immane, impium.
Sen. Medea, Act. 3. Scen. 1. lin. 16.
LONDON:
Printed for M. Cooper, in Pater-noster-Row; W. Reeve, in Fleet-street; and C. Sympson, in Chancery-lane. 1753. [Price 6d.]
HYPATIA.
CHAP. I.
A general Character of the Lady; the Contriversand Executioners of the Barbaritieswhich she suffered; and the Authorities fromwhence this Story is extracted.
I am going to give a short Account, but asfull as antient Books afford us Materials, ofthe Life and Death of Hypatia; who willever continue the Glory of her own Sex, and theDisgrace of ours: For the Women have no lessReason to value themselves, that there existed aLady of such rare Accomplishments, without theleast Blemish, even as a Foil to her numberlessPerfections; than the Men to be ashamed, thatany could be found among them of so brutal andsavage a Disposition, as, far from being struckwith Admiration at so much Beauty, Innocence,and Knowledge, to stain their barbarous Handswith her Blood, and their impious Souls with theindelible Character of sacrilegious Murderers. ABishop, a Patriarch, nay, a Saint, was the Contriverof so horrid a Deed, and his Clergy the Executionersof his implacable Fury. The Authorsout of whom I collect my Account (and I omitnone that has come to my Knowledge) were eitherher Contemporaries, or lived near that Age. Oneof them was her School-fellow, another her Scholar.4But they who relate the most odious and flagitiousCircumstances, are Ecclesiastical Historians;counted orthodox in their own Time, as well aseminently so by most in ours. Nor ought we toforget that several of them were Priests. To everyone of them we shall do the Justice that their Sincerityor Prevarication deserves, though little remainsto do in this respect; all being agreed aboutthe principal Facts, and some differing only inPoints of no great Importance. They are suchThings, as, taken either Way, neither serve muchto alleviate a very bad Cause, nor to aggravatewhat cannot be possibly made worse.
CHAP. II.
Alexandria, famous for Learning and Merchandize,but particularly for a School or Academy,of which Theon, the Father of Hypatia, wasMaster.
After Alexander the Great had foundedAlexandria in Egypt, as the Center of Commercein the Empire he was projecting, this Ci