The church fathers were the cause of her lynching: Who is Hypatia?

It is estimated that Hypatia, whom many of us know after watching the movie Agora, was born in Alexandria in 370 AD (although it is not known exactly). His father, Theon, is a mathematics lecturer and administrator at Alexandria University. Hypatia, a curious person who loves to question and research, grows up in this environment.

Alexandria, founded by the Macedonian king Alexander the Great in 332 BC, was the science center of the era when the Greeks, Egyptians, and Jews lived in peace. Under the guidance of her father, Hypatia grows up flawlessly in different fields such as mathematics, astronomy, geometry, philosophy, handicrafts, poetry, and oratory. Theon also makes her do sports activities such as swimming, rowing, horse riding, and mountain climbing at certain times of the day for her daughter's physical development.

Father Theon, whom the people called Teoteon (Divine Child), was an Aristotelian interested in positive sciences. Although it is not known whether he had a work written on his thoughts and philosophy, it is written that he had knowledge and lectures on these subjects. She wants to make her daughter accept mysticism; but perhaps because of her new Platonist teachers, Proheres and Plutarch, Hypatia turns to Neoplatonism. Hypatia's philosophy, reflecting Neoplatonism in the Alexandrian School, was more investigative and scientific in approach than the Athens School. In addition, it does not have as many mystical thinking tendencies as the Athens School.

Hypatia (born c. 350–370; died 415 AD) was a neoplatonist philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, then part of the Eastern Roman Empire. She was a prominent thinker in Alexandria where she taught philosophy and astronomy. Although preceded by Pandrosion, another Alexandrine female mathematician, she is the first female mathematician whose life is reasonably well recorded. Hypatia was renowned in her own lifetime as a great teacher and a wise counselor. 

When Hypatia completes her education in Athens and returns to Alexandria (although there is not enough evidence), she is greeted with deep respect, love, and admiration. She wanders freely, visits official institutions, and can meet with the authorized and influential people of the period. She is known by the title of "Egyptian wise woman" or "Egyptian female philosopher" in her period. Her beauty, virtue, breadth of knowledge, culture, kindness, and superiority in her speeches immediately bring Hypatia to the fore. The number of those who come to listen to her increases day by day; Her house, which she had furnished according to the fashion of the day, becomes a cultural center.

At this time, there was little to no philosophical study in Alexandria, or it was too obscure and insignificant to draw attention. With the arrival of Hypatia, this learning is suddenly revived. She becomes the director of the Neoplatonic School of Philosophy. Thanks to Hypatia, many students come to school. Among her students was the philosopher Synesios of Cyrene, who later became Bishop of Ptolemais. Many letters written by Synesios to Hypatia have survived to the present day. According to the historian Socrates Scholasticus (not the famous philosopher Socrates), his classroom, and his home is overflowing with students, scholars, and thinkers of the age; A flock of students from many countries would come to Alexandria just to listen to his lectures. Among his disciples is Orestes, who would later become governor of Alexandria, alongside Synesius of Cyrene. Although there are many people who fall in love with this beautiful woman who has become the center of attention of everyone, she turns down all offers made to her by saying "I am married to the truth".

She wrote a commentary on Diophantus's thirteen-volume Arithmetica, which may survive in part, having been interpolated into Diophantus's original text, and another commentary on Apollonius of Perga's treatise on conic sections, which has not survived. Many modern scholars also believe that Hypatia may have edited the surviving text of Ptolemy's Almagest, based on the title of her father Theon's commentary on Book III of the Almagest.

The more scientifically powerful Hypatia is, the more unlucky the attitude of her environment towards her; because Hypatia symbolizes learning and science, which, in the eyes of the Christians of that period, was identified with paganism. Actually, Hypatia has nothing to do with paganism. The incident stems from a religious dispute between Christians and non-Christians in the city of Alexandria. When disparaging propaganda against Hypatia is added to the work, social tension gradually increases; Hypatia's school becomes the focus of Christians.

The Archpriest of Alexandria, Saint Cyrille, was envious when he passed by Hypatia's house one day and saw the excitement, rush, and interest shown by those who came to listen to her lectures and speeches. He himself does not find such an audience at church speeches. The close relationship between Orestes, the city's pagan governor, and Hypatia, makes him a target now. By claiming his closeness with the Nitrician monks and the archpriest Cyrille, the governor Orestes, he agitates the people with the speeches he gave in the church and provokes them against Hypatia. This fanatical mass creates a huge crowd in the streets, it becomes impossible to stop. Hypatia, who was leaving her school and returning home by getting on her carriage, was attacked by this mass, who had been provoked in the church, on a religious feast day in 415. She first gets battered out of the car. She is dragged through the streets tying her to the back of the car, after tearing off her clothes, she is brought to the church called Imperial, naked with wounds. They throw stones and sticks, whatever is there, on Hypatia. Not even his corpse can be recovered from the attackers, as they smash all his limbs. With great torture and torture, they remove its skin with mussel shells, drag the mutilated corpse through the streets, then collect each piece separately and burn it.

Archpriest Cyrille, using his authority in the city, had the Jews expelled, had their property looted, had their synagogues demolished and closed; He sentenced Ammonius Sakkas (founder of the Neoplatonic school) to death and had him tortured. After the murder of Hypatia, the events do not end, and after many researchers leave Alexandria, the great science center of the first age begins to lose its value. Hypatia's school is looted and destroyed. The famous Alexandria Library was burned and destroyed, seeing its first major destruction in its history. As the famous mathematician Godfrey Harold Hardy said, the Greek school ends with the murder of Hypatia. The closure of the Alexandria School, which trained hundreds of scientists up to Hypatia, and the destruction of scientists in this way, leads to an irrecoverable waste of time for humanity and civilization. Along with Hypatia, mathematics died in Alexandria.

Among the teachers who worked in the Alexandria School, which was founded in 300 BC and was the leading learning center of the Hellenistic era and which included the Alexandria Library, included mathematicians named Apollonius of Perge, Euclides, Heron, physicians such as Erasistratus, Eudemus and Herophilus, mathematician, physicist Archimedes. There was also the great astronomer Hipparchus, the geographer and mathematician Eratosthenes, and the great astronomer Hipparchus.