SOURCE: "A Christian Martyr in Reverse," Hypatia, Vol. 4, No. 1, Spring, 1989, pp. 6-8.

[In the prose poem reprinted below, Molinaro recreates the life and death of Hypatia from the perspective of a feminist poet and novelist.]

The torture killing of the noted philosopher Hypatia by a mob of Christians in Alexandria in 415 A.D. marks the end of a time when women were still appreciated for the brain under their hair.

The screams of a 45-year-old Greek philosopher being dismembered¹ by early-5th-century Christians, in their early-5th-century church of Caesareum, in Alexandria, center of early-5th-century civilization, reverberated between the moon gate & the sun gate of that civilized Egyptian city.

Before the philosopher's broken body was thrown into the civilized Alexandrian gutter, for public burning.

& smoke signals rose from the disorderly chunks of her charring flesh, warning future centuries of reformers & healers that they must hush their knowledge if they wished to avoid burning as heretics, or witches. If they wished to stay alive.

In a world run by a new brand of Christians, politicians of faith, who out-lawed independent thought. Especially when thought by women. Whom they offered a new role model of depleasurized submission as they converted the great & lusty earthmother goddess into a chaste mother of a martyred god.

Whose teachings they converted into an orthodox church.

Which converted heresy—a word that used to mean: choice; of a view of life other than the norm—into the crime of otherness. Punishable by torture.

—The sudden heresy of astrology.

Which St. Augustine repudiated together with the, suddenly heretic Christianity of the Manichees, & the pagan philosophy of the Greeks after the repudiated stars warned him of the sudden heresy of all his former beliefs. & sources of knowledge.

As they warned Theron, Alexandria's foremost Greek astrologer & mathematician, of the impending martyrdom of his only daughter. The 45-year-old Greek philosopher Hypatia.

Whose chart Theron had cast at the moment of her birth. Taking pride in her strong Mercury that promised eloquent intelligence in fortunate aspect to her Jupiter. That gave her early recognition; a renown greater than his own. Rejoicing at her Moon exalted in the sign of the Bull, that made her clear strong voice turn logic into music. Shaking his head at her Venus in the sign of the Ram, which made her willful in matters of emotion & aesthetics.

Although he had to smile when he recognized that willful Venus in his 4-year-old daughter's request to wear golden sandals on her feet.

& when the 12-year-old started to bind her thick red hair in golden nets.

He was still smiling though with thinner lips when the already renowned young philosopher started to have lovers.

Whose charts he also cast.

& when she married the philosopher Isidore. Whose charted philosophical acquiescence to his willful wife's many amorous friendships made Theron shake his head. & wonder if his brilliant daughter was perhaps abusing the power over men seemingly granted to her by the stars.

Which seemed to turn against her, suddenly, as she approached her 45th year. When the lined-up planets foreshadowed an event of such horror that Theron's civilized early-5th-century mind refused to believe what he saw in her progressions.

Which he recast & recast, until belief in his science outweighed his belief in civilized early-5th-century humanity. & he warned his daughter. Urging her to slip out of the city. To travel to Sicily, perhaps, where earlier Greek philosophers had lived out disgraced lives in quiet meditation, & discreet teaching.

But Hypatia refused to listen to her father.

Or perhaps she did listen, but refused to leave a city that used to sit at her feet, listening to her learning. That seemed to be the only city in her civilized world. Where her current lover lived also.

Or perhaps Hypatia was sensing the end of an era, beyond which she had no desire to live.

Her era, that had allowed her to be learned. More learned than her learned astrologer/mathematician father Theron. Than her philosopher husband Isidore.

& to share her learning. With students as illustrious as Synesius of Cyrene. The only Christian she knew to laugh a hearty laugh. Who had just recently become Bishop of Ptolomais. Who was writing her many affectionate, admiring letters.

An era that had allowed a woman to think. & to become known because of her thoughts.

That allowed the known thinking woman to have lovers, besides having a philosophical philosopher husband.

Powerful lovers, like Orestes, the pagan prefect of Egypt. Her current lover, whom she refused to leave behind in Alexandria.

Whom the Christian gossip of that city had taking orders from his known philosopher-mistress. Whom gossip suspected of being behind the pagan prefect's opposition to Alexandria's Christian patriarch St. Cyril.

Who denied having expressed the unchristian wish to see the accursed woman dead. To his reader Peter.

Who denied having repeated the Christian patriarch's unexpressed unchristian wish casually, after a mass to a group of lingering clergy.

Who denied having mentioned the known 45-year-old philosopher by name, in various exhortations

—about the adulterous conduct of pagan wives the insidious influence of adulterous sex on the minds of pagan politicians; which had led to the martyrdom of earlier Christians in the past—

addressed to various gatherings of their faithful.

Who stopped the unmentioned known 45-year-old philosopher's carriage on its way to her lecture hall. & forced it to go instead to their Christian church of Caesareum.

Where the gathered faithful pulled the philosopher from her carriage.

By the long red hair. In its habitual net of fine gold, that instantly disappeared beneath a faithful cloak.

& by the feet with their polished toe nails in their habitual golden leather sandals. That instantly disappeared.

& by her tunic. Which tore. & left her nude.

Standing for another instant staring wide-eyed across a sea of bodies that were pausing briefly, getting ready to charge into the new Christian era in which she had no desire to live.

Until she realized how long it took a healthy 45-yearold woman's body to be torn fingers from hands from wrists from elbows from shoulders toes from feet from ankles from knees from thighs. For the 45-year-old heart to stop beating. For her brain to lose its exceptional consciousness.

Note

¹ According to The Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets (1983): the martyring Christians scraped the flesh off Hypatia's bones with oyster shells.

References

Walker, Barbara. 1983. The woman's encyclopedia of myths and secrets. New York: Harper & Row.