Silvia Ronchey - Hypatia: The True Story

Silvia Ronchey

Hypatia

Silvia Ronchey

The True Story

ISBN 9783110717570

e-ISBN (PDF) 9783110718454

e-ISBN (EPUB) 9783110718553

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek

The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.

2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Putting together this book would have been immensely more difficult without the knowledge and assistance of Pia Carolla (and not just for her help with the bibliographical update) and without the insightful and thorough contributions of Davide Baldi and Francesco Monticini. I also thank here Sergio Basso and Laura Borghetti for their aid with the bibliography; Silvia Pedone for her precious insights on iconography; Peter Schreiner for reading the new manuscript and providing generous advice. Nicol Sassi, with the collaboration of Giulia Maria Paoletti, did not just translate the majority of the sections written ex novo by the author for the second enlarged edition, but has also reviewed and fundamentally reformulated with invaluable knowledge and patience the previous English translation drafted by Katherine Clifton and Elisabeth Giansiracusa, correcting the rendition of technical vocabulary and concepts. To both translators-reviewers goes my endless gratitude. Finally, I also want to thank Jim Schwarten for his collaboration, and for his help on English style.

The present work reconstructs Hypatias life, intellectual work, and modern Nachleben through a sustained philological and literary analysis. The ultimate goal of this analysis is to bring to light the intrinsically political dimension of Hypatias murder, caused by the phthonos (violent envy) of the Christian bishop Cyril of Alexandria. The book is addressed to a learned, non-specialist readership, as well as research scholars and students, and the intentionally provocative title relates to the contemporary historiographical notion of false or fake history, as does the overall conceptual and methodological treatment.

In the first section (Clarifying the Facts) I compare and apply philological analysis to all extant evidence on Hypatias life and death gleaned from all available ancient sources, both Pagan and Christian. Originally, two versions of Hypatias assassination, one Pagan and one Christian, must have co-existed, each available in two variants, one moderate and one radical.

In the three centuries between the life and death of Hypatia and the evolution of the Byzantine historical tradition after the Arab conquest, one of the Christian narratives, John of Nikius Chronicle, derived from one or more older, possibly vernacular versions produced in favor of Cyril of Alexandria within the Coptic Church, was lost to the West. Nonetheless, this version was preserved in the Eastern tradition in a late Ethiopic version, which appears as the most radically pro-Cyril among ancient Christian sources. The other, more moderate Christian version, eschewed by dominant Western ecclesiastical opinion, is by Socrates Scholasticus, whose narrative regarding the case in question probably conforms to the point of view of the central Byzantine Church.

The Byzantine author Suidas passed down both of the Pagan narratives by Hesychius of Miletus and Damascius. In addition, the version by Philostorgius (an Arian Christian, and as such opponent of Cyril), whose text is preserved in numerous fragments from Photius Library, was appended to Damascius variant of the Pagan version from the beginning of the manuscript tradition. Another source from the time of Justinian, the Chronicle of John Malalas, seems to be derived from another Byzantine tradition close to the court clergy but especially to the Church of Antioch, which was traditionally at odds with the Church of Alexandria. The account offered by Malalas isolates Cyril, as does Socrates, as prime instigator of, and morally responsible for, Hypatias assassination. Malalas probably draws on his own, independent sources, which appear in agreement with Socrates on the bishops guilt but also aware of details lacking in the accounts of Socrates and Suidas-Damascius. The most well-known version in Byzantium would remain Socrates, an Orthodox Christian, more cautious than the Pagan and Arian-Christian accounts and slightly different from the one Malalas draws on, but equally anti-Cyril.

The same orientation would emanate from subsequent Byzantine sources which would gradually add useful features from Pagan sources. From 5th and 6th century information, influence, and manuscript tradition, which appears more ramified than generally thought, derives during iconoclasm the succinct mention of the assassination in Theophanes