Hypatia of Alexandria (born around 370 AD) was a scientist, teacher, astronomer and philosopher. Daughter of the teacher Theon, she dedicated herself to the study and teaching of mathematics, astronomy and philosophy. In particular, Hypatia was inspired by pagan Neoplatonic philosophy in a context in which Christian fanaticism was constantly on the rise. She had many disciples, including pagans and Christians, such as Synesius of Cyrene, who later became bishop of Ptolemais and who always considered her as a point of reference: “You, mother, sister and teacher, my benefactor in everything and for everything, being and name as honored as any other.”
Hypatia far surpassed many philosophers of her time and became a victim of the jealousies and political dynamics that culminated in her barbaric murder by a mob of Christian fanatics (so-called parabolani), expression of a current that believed itself to be the holder of the only possible truth and that therefore hindered the spread of science and culture. Her writings were lost probably following one of the many fires of the Library of Alexandria. After all, the burning of books (or biblioclasm) has historically been implemented by political and religious authorities to strengthen their dominion.
Hypatia is considered a symbol of freedom of thought and women’s independence and her story has much to teach us.
Personally I have drawn these lessons from it:
1. Intolerance kills freedom
Any form of intolerance destroys the most precious thing we have: freedom. The freedom to believe in what we want, to love whom we want and express our personality. Within the limits in which one does not harm one’s own and others’ rights and dignity, we must honor our freedom and ensure that that of others is honored.
2. The right to be different is freedom
One can learn a lot from those who are different from us. Seeing things from another perspective, confronting other ideas, exchanging points of view is evolution. Diversity is an extraordinary wealth and must be preserved, not suffocated.
3. Fanaticism is the negation of freedom
Every form of fanaticism, religious or political, has been the cause of violence: the most atrocious crimes have been committed and are being committed in the name of doctrines and creeds supported in a fanatical way. Fanaticism implies the negation of free thought and for this reason, it must always be fought.
4. Freedom of thought must be trained
Always keeping one’s mind free from the conditioning and prejudices of the surrounding reality is freedom of thought. And thought must be nourished with reading, with culture, with curiosity, with personal improvement.
5. There is a free woman in each of us
We should ensure that the sacrifice of women like Hypatia has not been in vain and we can do so by remembering that in each of us there is a free woman, who can make her voice heard to teach others something, to fight small and large injustices, to trace a path.
I finally want to leave you with this passage on the spiritual world of Hypatia of Alexandria, taken from a lecture given by an extraordinary woman who, in addition to being my mother, is the one who taught me the wonder of free thought. Hypatia was not far from God, as was contested to her. She was much closer to Him than one might think. (And I, Mom, would never have known how to explain it better than you…):
“Hypatia is a charismatic figure, I would say priestly, with a strong tendency towards Platonic esotericism: the mystery of the supernatural world which for her is the true reality of man. But how to discover this truth? The philosopher then taught that one must set out on a path that allows earthly reality to approach the divine one. And this can only happen if human values are similar to divine ones since only those who are similar to it can enter the world of perfection. She therefore invited to an awakening of consciousness, to the need to look inside oneself, into one’s interiority to flush out any capital vices. “Garments of evil” Aristotle defined them and they are those of Dante’s Divine Comedy such as the lust for power, pride, envy, greed.
Against them, said this great woman, among other things a scientist, it is necessary, once they have been identified, to engage in a hard battle to cure one’s soul.
And this through intellect, logic to orient knowledge towards learning the eternal qualities of the spirit: goodness, justice, freedom, truth, which are proper to the Divine World, precisely, and which imply the good of the other, thus constituting reference parameters based on which one can act correctly. And since the worst evil is to believe one has revealed truth, this sublime teacher pushed to make use of dialectics in order to arrive at common values brought to light through mutual evolution.
In this regard, respectful of all other religious directions, she leaves a substantial intellectual and spiritual legacy, affirming that Faith is not a watershed between saved and unsaved and that intellect is not against it, is not its alternative, but its instrument to understand the meaning of life. Meaning that consists in a cathartic process of the soul, as an incessant path that is of inner purification from one’s passions.
This is the divine mandate for the human being, in the sense that he must carry out a continuous moral evolution projected towards learning good in order to begin to glimpse celestial reality, finally rediscovering the true reality of himself, of being that is of essence similar to God. Knowledge of which reason comes to know and of which it informs the soul at the end of its process of searching for the virtues with which it has progressively nourished it to cure it of its negative aspects. At this point in fact reason has transformed into mystical knowledge, that is “sophia”, and that is at the end of the path that has seen it gradually go beyond itself, grasping the hidden meaning of things. In fact, Plato says that intellect hides within itself the aspiration to the supernatural being a divine principle, so human limits are surmountable. After all, as from the sacred philosophical tradition of Greekness, the human essence, being similar to God, is capable of attaining inner beauty.
It is wonderful and splendid this intellectual and moral world of Hypatia: a woman who, like Socrates in Athens, went through the streets of Alexandria teaching the beauty of dialectics as the greatest good of man and who brought the great light of Greek thought to all indiscriminately, only that they were willing to listen to her, so that they could arrive at knowledge of the universal values of the spirit capable of leading back to the celestial homeland, tracing the road to Heaven. Both killed by the lust for “Power” which used a religion to prevent them from teaching to think, to dialogue.” (Rosa Russo Persichetti, Lecture on Hypatia of Alexandria, Pescara).
Ps. Those “universal values of the spirit” have been the common thread of my growth. If you would like to discover the author who inspired me (and raised me), here you will find one of her books: Letter to Europe
♥
“Towards the sky is turned your every act”
(Palladas of Alexandria)
