For all thy vertuous Works celestial are,
As are thy learned Words beyond compare,
Divine Hypatia, who dost far and near
Virtue’s and Learning’s spotless Star appear.
The Allusion, I say, to the Constellation Virgo, and the Epithet of Spotless, would induce me to believe that the Writer reckoned her a Virgin as well as Suidas; but I shall conclude nothing from so slender a Conjecture, besides that her Character is no way concerned in this Particular, tho’ as a Historian I would omit nothing that might illustrate my Subject. For this Reason it is, that I cannot pass over uncensured a Reflection of Damascius, who gravely says, that Isidorus was far superior to Hypatia, not only as a Man to a Woman, but as a Philosopher to a Geometrician. Good and egregious Reasoning! as if her Skill in Geometry or Astronomy, had been any Hindrance to her Improvement in every Part of Philosophy, wherein she is by so many confessed to surpass those of her own, if not of former Time; or as if we in England, for Example, did reckon King James superior to Queen Elizabeth; because the first, forsooth, was a Man, and the last a Woman. But I observed before that Damascius was a sad Visionary.
CHAP. XV.
Hypatia’s Lovers, one of whom she cured of his Passion, in a very particular Manner.
A Lady of such uncommon Merit and Accomplishments as Hypatia, daily surround with a Circle of young Gentelmen, many of them distinguished by their Fortune or Quality; besides her frequently appearing in publick Assemblies, and receiving Visits from Persons of the first Rank, could not possibly fail being sometimes importuned with Addresses of Gallantry. Such Attempts the severest Virtue cannot avoid, tho’ it can deny Incouragement, and make Success to be despaired. How many Trials of this kind Hypatia may have overcome, we are left to imagine rather than to know, thro’ the Silence of Historians, who either thought it below their Gravity to record such Things, or that the Works of those who descended to Particulars are lost. One Instance however has escaped the common Wreck of good Books; nor can I doubt but several others might be contained in the Life of Isidorus, out of which there is Reason to believe, that Suidas picked what I am going to relate. He acquaints us therefore, that one of her own Scholars made warm Love to her, whom she endeavoured to cure of his Passion by the precepts of Philosophy; and that some reported she actually reclaimed him by Musick, which he judiciously explodes; Musick having ever been deemed rather an Incentive to Love, than an Antidote against it. But he says, with much greater Probability, that the Spark vehemently soliciting her (not to be sure without pleading the irresistible Power of her Beauty) at a Time when she happened to be under an Indisposition ordinary to her Sex; she took a Handkerchief, of which she had been making some Use on that Occasion, and throwing it in his Face, said; This is what you love, young Fool, and not any Thing that is beautiful. For the Platonic Philosophers held Goodness, Wisdom, Virtue, and such other Things, as by Reason of their intrinsick Worth are desirable for their own Sakes, to be the only real Beauties, of whose divine Symmetry, Charms, and Perfection, the most superlative that appear in Bodies are but faint Resemblances. This is the right Notion of Platonic Love. Wherefore Hypatia’s Procedure might very well put a Student of Philosophy at Alexandria to the Blush, and quite cure him too (which Suidas assures us was the Effect) but would never rebute a Beau in St. James’s Park, nor perhaps some Batchelors of Divinity at our modern Universities.
CHAP. XVI.
The close Intimacy between Hypatia and Orestes the Governor of Alexandria, very displeasing to Cyril the Bishop.