In what Sense it might be said, that tho’ _Hypatia_ was married, yet she
died a Maid.
Suidas likewise makes her the Wife of the same _Isidorus_, tho’ he be
the very Man who tells us she died a Virgin. That Matter, considering
the great Uncertainty in which we are left by the meditated Destruction
or casual Decay of authentick Writers, I conceive to stand thus.
_Damascius_ says, that _Isidorus_ had another Wife, whose Name was
_Domna_, by which he had a Son call’d _Proclus_. She died the fifth Day
after her Delivery, and, according to his Panegyrist, _she rid the
Philosopher of an evil Beast and a bitter Wedlock_. Now supposing this
to happen some Time before the tragical End of _Hypatia_, and that the
latter was betrothed to _Isidorus_, it might very well be said that she
was his Wife, and yet that she died a Maid. The Author of an _Epigram_,
that was made upon her, seems to have been of the same Opinion.
_The _Virgin_’s starry Sign when e’er I see,
Adoring, on thy Words I think and thee:
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.