The Death of _Hypatia_ brought an Infamy on _Cyril_ and the Christian
Church: She was no Catholick, but a Heathen.
Thus ended the Life of _Hypatia_, whose Memory will ever last, and whose
Murder happen’d in the fourth Year of _Cyril_’s Episcopate, _Honorius_
being the tenth Time and _Theodosius_ the sixth Time Consuls, in the
Month of _March_, in the Time of _Lent_, and in the Year 415. “That
Action (says _Socrates_) brought no small Infamy not only upon _Cyril_,
but also upon the whole Church of _Alexandria_; for Slaughters, and
Fightings, and such like Things, are quite foreign to the Christian
Institution.” There’s nothing surer, there’s nothing truer; but of
genuine Christianity there remain’d very little at that Time, unless
Christianity be made to consist in the bare Name and Profession; for,
were I disposed to take this Trouble upon me, I should think it no
difficult Task to shew, that neither the Doctrines nor Distinctions then
in Vogue were ever taught by _Christ_ or his Apostles; and that the
Ceremonies injoined or practised were all utterly unknown to them. No,
no, they were no Christians that kill’d _Hypatia_; nor are any Christian
Clergymen now to be attack’d through the Sides of her Murderers, but
those that resemble them; by substituting precarious Traditions,
scholastick Fictions, and an usurped Dominion, to the salutiferous
Institution of the holy _Jesus_. _Photius_ is very angry with
_Philostorgius_, whom he stigmatizes as an _impious Man_, for saying
that the _Homoousians_, or the _Athanasian Trinitarians, tore her to
Pieces_; but is he not an _impudent Man_, or something worse, that dares
to deny this? when none were more remarkable Sticklers for the
_Homoousian_, than _Cyril_ and his Adherents. This only the Truth of
History requires to be specially noted; for with me the _Homoiousion_
and the _Homoousion_ are of no Account, in Comparison of the _Bible_,
where neither of them are to be found. In the mean Time ’twill not be
amiss to hear _Gothofred_ on this Occasion. “Observe here (says he) the
_Arian_ Poison of _Philostorgius_ against the _Homoousians_, or
Catholicks; as if the Murder of _Hypatia_ were the Crime of the
Catholicks, and not of the indiscrete Populace. Thus much however may be
gathered from this Passage, that this same _Hypatia_ was no Catholick.”
Admirable _Gothofred_! Not to say any thing to your _Arian_ Poison, for
which I am not a whit concern’d neither of the People’s Guilt, whom I
have sufficiently clear’d before; nor yet of the nice Distinction
between the Populace and the Catholicks, as if the Bulk of the
Catholicks were not the Populace: Your Conclusion that _Hypatia_ was not
a Catholick is unspeakably acute, when in Reality she was not as much as
a Christian; her Father having been a Heathen Philosopher, and herself
the Wife of one, without the least Appearance that she was ever any
other with regard to her own Persuasion. As for a ridiculous Letter,
pretended to be written by her to _Cyril_, about the Paschal Cycle, ’tis
a manifest Forgery; for she was murdered the sixth Year of _Theodosius_,
and therefore one and twenty Years before the Exile of _Nestorius_, who
yet is mention’d in that Letter under the Epithet of _impious_.