Hypatia 希帕提亞 · Ὑπατία

🔊The mathematics of her time was the work of preserving and explaining. The great discoveries of Euclid, Apollonius, and Ptolemy were five to seven hundred years old, and they survived because teachers like Theon and Hypatia corrected the texts, wrote commentaries, and taught them to students. She wrote on Diophantus’s Arithmetic and on Apollonius’s study of conic sections. Neither commentary survives under her name. The heading of her father’s commentary on Book III of Ptolemy’s Almagest says that the text was revised “by my daughter Hypatia, the philosopher,” and many scholars think that the version of that book we read is hers.

她那個時代的數學，是保存與講解的工作。歐幾里得、阿波羅尼奧斯與托勒密的偉大發現，已經是五到七百年前的事了；它們之所以流傳下來，是因為有席昂與希帕提亞這樣的老師校正文本、撰寫註釋，並且把它們教給學生。她為丟番圖的《算術》與阿波羅尼奧斯的圓錐曲線研究寫過註釋。這兩部註釋都沒有以她的名字流傳下來。她父親為托勒密《天文學大成》卷三所寫的註釋，標題說這個文本是「由我的女兒、哲學家希帕提亞」校訂的；許多學者認為，我們今天讀到的那一卷就是她的版本。

🔊By about 390 she was the head of a school of her own. She taught the philosophy of Plato as interpreted by Plotinus, in which the study of mathematics and the heavens is a training of the soul for the knowledge of higher things. The church historian Socrates, a Christian writing about twenty-five years after her death, says that she “made such attainments in literature and science, as to far surpass all the philosophers of her own time,” and that students came to her from a distance. She spoke in public before the magistrates, and “all men on account of her extraordinary dignity and virtue admired her the more.”

到了大約 390 年，她已經主持著自己的學校。她教的是經由普羅提諾詮釋的柏拉圖哲學；在這套哲學裡，研習數學與天體，是訓練靈魂去認識更高的事物。教會史家蘇格拉底是一位基督徒，在她死後大約二十五年寫作；他說，她「在文學與科學上造詣之高，遠遠超過了她那個時代所有的哲學家」，學生從遠方來向她求教。她在官員面前公開發言；而「所有的人都因為她非凡的莊重與德行，而更加敬佩她」。

🔊We know her teaching best from the letters of one student, Synesius of Cyrene, who later became a bishop and went on writing to her as “mother, sister, teacher.” He asks her advice on his books and on a hydrometer he wants made, and tells her that he has designed an astrolabe with her help. Her students included Christians and pagans, and several rose to high office. In a city where the two faiths fought in the streets, her lecture room was one of the few places where they sat together.

我們對她的教學了解得最清楚的來源，是一位學生的書信：昔蘭尼的敘內修斯。他後來成了主教，卻繼續寫信給她，稱她「母親、姊妹、老師」。他向她請教自己的著作，也請教一件他想請人製作的比重計；他還告訴她，他在她的幫助之下設計了一件星盤。她的學生有基督徒，也有異教徒；其中好幾位後來當上了高官。在一座兩種信仰在街頭鬥毆的城市裡，她的講堂是少數幾個他們坐在一起的地方之一。

🔊In 412 Cyril became bishop of Alexandria and set about enlarging the power of his office. He was opposed by Orestes, the imperial governor, who was himself a Christian. Their quarrel turned violent. Monks loyal to the bishop attacked the governor in the street, and one of them was tortured to death on the governor’s order. Hypatia was known to be among the governor’s advisers. A rumor spread among Cyril’s supporters, Socrates says, “that it was she who prevented Orestes from being reconciled to the bishop.”

412 年，區利羅成為亞歷山卓的主教，並且著手擴張這個職位的權力。反對他的是皇帝派來的總督奧瑞斯特斯；總督自己也是基督徒。兩人的爭執演變成了暴力。效忠主教的修士在街上攻擊了總督；其中一人在總督的命令下被拷打至死。人們知道希帕提亞是總督的顧問之一。蘇格拉底說，區利羅的支持者當中流傳著一個謠言：「阻撓奧瑞斯特斯與主教和解的，就是她。」

🔊In March 415, during Lent, a crowd led by a church reader named Peter stopped her carriage as she was returning home. They dragged her to a church, stripped her, and killed her with roof tiles or shards. They tore her body apart and burned the pieces. Socrates, who had no love of pagans, wrote that the act “brought not the least opprobrium” on Cyril and on the whole church of Alexandria, and that “nothing can be farther from the spirit of Christianity.” No one was punished. Orestes disappears from the record soon afterward, and Cyril went on to become one of the most powerful churchmen of the century and, later, a saint.

415 年 3 月，正值大齋期；一群人在一位名叫彼得的教會讀經員帶領之下，攔住了她回家的馬車。他們把她拖到一座教堂，剝光她的衣服，用屋瓦或碎陶片把她殺死。他們撕裂她的屍體，把碎塊燒掉。蘇格拉底對異教徒並無好感；而他寫道，這件事給區利羅與整個亞歷山卓教會「帶來了不小的恥辱」，並且「沒有什麼比這離基督教的精神更遠了」。沒有人受到懲罰。不久之後，奧瑞斯特斯從紀錄裡消失；區利羅後來成為那個世紀最有權勢的教會人物之一，並且在日後被封為聖人。