[In the following excerpt from a work originally published in 1788, Gibbon fixes the responsibility for Hypatia's death on Cyril of Alexandria, charging that the bishop used her as a scapegoat to resolve a breach between church and state.]

… Hypatia, the daughter of Theon the mathematician,²⁵ was initiated in her father's studies; her learned comments have elucidated the geometry of Apollonius and Diophantus; and she publicly taught, both at Athens and Alexandria, the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. In the bloom of beauty, and in the maturity of wisdom, the modest maid refused her lovers and instructed her disciples; the persons most illustrious for their rank or merit were impatient to visit the female philosopher; and Cyril beheld with a jealous eye the gorgeous train of horses and slaves who crowded the door of her academy. A rumour was spread among the Christians that the daughter of Theon was the only obstacle to the reconciliation of the prefect and the archbishop; and that obstacle was speedily removed. On a fatal day, in the holy season of Lent, Hypatia was torn from her chariot, stripped naked, dragged to the church, and inhumanly butchered by the hands of Peter the reader and a troop of savage and merciless fanatics: her flesh was scraped from her bones with sharp oyster-shells,²⁶ and her quivering limbs were delivered to the flames. The just progress of inquiry and punishment was stopped by seasonable gifts; but the murder of Hypatia has imprinted an indelible stain on the character and religion of Cyril of Alexandria. ²⁷

Notes

…²⁵ For Theon and his daughter Hypatia, see Fabricius, Bibliothec. tom. viii. p. 210, 211. Her article in the Lexicon of Suidas is curious and original. Hesychius (Meursii Opera, tom. vii. p. 295, 296) observes that she was persecuted …; and an epigram in the Greek Anthology (1. i. c. 76, p. 159, edit. Brodaei) celebrates her knowledge and eloquence. She is honourably mentioned (Epist. 10, 15, 16, 33-80, 124, 135, 153) by her friend and disciple the philosophic bishop Synesius.

²⁶ … Oyster-shells were plentifully strewed on the sea-beach before the Cæsareum. I may therefore prefer the literal sense without rejecting the metaphorical version of tegulœ, tiles, which is used by M. de Valois. I am ignorant, and the assassins were probably regardless, whether their victim was yet alive.

²⁷ These exploits of St. Cyril are recorded by Socrates (1. vii. c. 13, 14, 15); and the most reluctant bigotry is compelled to copy an historian who coolly styles the murderers of Hypatia … At the mention of that injured name, I am pleased to observe a blush even on the cheek of Baronius.