History for Atheists on the Non Sequitur Show 2 – The Great Library and Hypatia
Steve McRae and Kyle Curtis of the Non Sequitur Show were kind enough to have me back, this time to talk about the myths surrounding the Great Library of Alexandria and those associated with Hypatia. In the process we discussed the nature of ancient libraries, Greek proto-science and technology and the influence of neo-Platonism on Christian theology. Most of the audience seemed to enjoy it and felt they had learned something, which is always good to see. It seems they are also keen to have me come back on to talk about the historical Jesus in the context of Second Temple Judaism and the origins of Christianity.
22 thoughts on “History for Atheists on the Non Sequitur Show 2 – The Great Library and Hypatia”
Have you seen the latest atheist press, run by that great scholar David McAfee, http://www.hypatiapress.org/
How cringeworthy
Another fascinating podcast. Thanks.
As an aside, I am pretty sure that some “history” book I read in schoo, long , long, ago, blamed the Muslims during the conquest of Egypt for burning the Great Library.
The idea that the Library was burned by Caliph Omar after he took the city in 640 AD is another myth, though one that is preferred to the “Christian burned the Library” by some. Other find ways to combine the two. Richard Dawkins seems to believe it, since he referred to Muslims destroying the Great Library in one of his ranting tweets about Islam. The problem is that we have just two references to this happening; both of which are highly dubious and date to centuries later. Writing in the late twelfth century, Abd al Latif (d. 1231) made a brief note in his Account of Egypt regarding the ruins of the Serapeum. First he says that “some think that these columns held up the porch of Aristotle, who taught philosophy there”. This is clearly fanciful, since Aristotle never taught in Alexandria (it was only founded ten years before his death and was little more than a military camp for most of that time) and he tells us that this was simply a rumour. Then he says “it contained a library that was burned by ‘Amr on the command of Caliph Omar”, but gives no more details.
A later and longer account can be found in the thirteenth century Chronicum Syriacum by Bishop Gregory Bar Hebraeus/Abu’l Faraj. Gregory tells a story about a Jacobite Chrisitan scholar Yahya al-Nahwi, who is befriended and admired for his learning by the Arab general ‘Amr who controls Alexandria. Gregory requests that ‘Amr give him access to “the books on wisdom and philosophy that are stored in the state library”. ‘Amr says he has to consult with the Caliph Omar as to whether this can be allowed and Omar is reported to have replied “If those books are in agreement with the Quran, we have no need of them; and if these are opposed to the Quran, destroy them.” So ‘Amr obeys and has the books distributed among the bath houses of the city to be burned to heat the baths and “in a period of six months all the books were burnt and destroyed”. Gregory finishes by instructing his readers “believe it and be not amazed”.
The problem is that both these versions of the story are dubious. Al Latif’s is based on rumour and follows a piece of obvious fantasy. Gregory’s is a piece of rhetoric which contrasts the wisdom, open-mindedness, toleration and learning of his hero Yahya with the ignorance and narrow-mindedness of Caliph Omar. It is also not clear what “state library” Gregory’s tale is referring to or what, if anything, it may have had to do with the earlier Great Library or Serapeum library collections, if it existed at all. And both date to over 600 years after the fact about an event that is not mentioned anywhere in the earlier accounts of the Muslim conquest of Alexandria, including John of Nikiu’s contemporary chronicle. Nikiu, as an Egyptian Christian bishop, is unlikely to have missed the chance to paint the Muslim conquerors as unlearned barbarians, so the idea that neither he nor any other Christian source of the time would mention this event is unlikely. This seems to be another myth.
Neoplatonism sounds almost identical to John’s Christianity, father – logos -spirit.
Oh, Christian Neoplatonism is still a thing. Even the daimon-summoning bits, though to a more heterodox degree.
Hi Tim,
What an interesting & fascinating podcast concerning the smear of Christians for burning the Great Library & murdering Hypatia.
I especially liked the details of political intrigue. Good stuff!
Mr. O’Neill –
Please recommend a biography of Hypatia . Have you read the recent book by Edward J. Watts ? Thanks .
Yes, I have read Watts’ book and it is excellent. I recommended it and Maria Dzielska’s books on Hypatia at the end of the show.
I haven’t had the chance to listen to the show yet . I’m really looking forward to it . Thank you .
Hey Tim, how much of this is fact or fiction?
That video is mostly nonsense.
The claim “it was believed to contain over 700,000 parchments” is ridiculous. Leaving aside the weird term “parchments” (the Library’s books were written on papyrus and parchament scrolls are not referred to as “parchments”) this figure is not credible, as I explain in my article “The Great Myths 5: The Destruction of the Great Library of Alexandria”.
“Fires and wars between Christianity and paganism destroyed the Library”.
There were no “wars” between Christianity and paganism and the claim Christians destroyed it is nonsense – it was destroyed in the third century, before Christianity came to dominate the Empire. The photo they show when saying this is one of the facade of the Library of Celsus in Ephesus, not anything from Alexandria.
“As no descriptions are available”
We have a description by Strabo, so “the team” can’t have done much research.
“… inspired by the visuals of the Library of Celsus at Ephesus.”
The exterior they show clearly is. The interior is fantasy. We have no idea what the layout of the interior of the Celsus library looked like, but that kind of layout, with stacks of scrolls and tables for study is a later Roman design and almost certainly wrong. The actual Mouseion library was held in alcoves off the main portico, so nothing like the depiction in the game.
“Both the Mouseion and Library were at the centre of groundbreaking ideas …”
They keep talking about the Mouseion and Library as two separate things. The Library was the book collection OF the Mouseion and was (mostly) held within it.
“Hypatia of Alexandria”
The Library was destroyed by Aurelian’s sack of the city in 372. Hyaptia was born c. 350, so the idea that there would have been a statue to her in the Mouseion is ridiculous. She was not an “inventor”. That is based on a misreading of a letter by her student Synesius where he asks her to have a hydrometer made for him. He has to explain to her what the instrument is, so he’s clearly not talking to its inventor, but for some reason the claim she invented the hydrometer is one of the myths about her that keeps getting repeated.
“Though born in Greece …”
There is no evidence she was born in Greece. This is one of a number of claims made in a crappy 1908 book on Hypatia by an American writer, soap-salesman and eccentric called Elbert Hubbard. Hubbard dealt with the problem that we don’t have much information about Hypatia by just making things up.
“It is there that she became the head of the Neoplatonist School of Alexandria …”
She became head of her own school, which was mainly Neoplatonist in focus. “The Neoplatonist School of Alexandria” makes this sound like some kind of instition, like a modern university, and that her “school” was the only Neoplatonist school in the city. Her “school” was just her personal following of students and it was one of several set up by various Neoplatonists in the city.
“With her death, the age of great scientific discoveries came to an end”
Total nonsense. She was a skilled mathematician and astronomer, but she made no “great scientific discoveries”. And nothing much came to an end with her death – intellectual life in the city continued as it had for centuries.
“Kallimachos”
What they say about Callimachus is more or less correct, though I have no idea why they depict people making offerings to his statue and the statue looks like one of Zeus or Serapis anyway.
“It was in Alexandria that the mathematician Euclid ….”
Whether Euclid studied in the Mouseion or not depends on when it was founded. If he did, it was in the fourth century BC, so the depiction of him teaching there in a building that has a statue of Hypatia makes no sense at all. That would be like showing Isaac Newton teaching in a building with a statue of Barack Obama. Whoever made this video did not have a clue about history.
“compared with the three or four of most other astrolabes”.
This makes no sense. An astrolabe and an amilliary sphere are two completely different instruments and look nothing like each other. Again, whoever wrote this did not have the faintest idea what they were talking about.
“Pythagoras of Samos”
Given that Pythagoras died before the Mouseion was established, a depiction of him teaching there is more fantasy.
“I’m a huge history buff and I just love learning these things”
Then it’s a pity the video contains so much nonsense.
Damn l like your style. Although to be fair, it was more of a museum tour. Would you like to do an analysis of more of these?
Not really. I only commented on this one because it dealt with the Great Library and Hypatia and those topics are relevant to the theme of my blog. Unless any of the others touch on New Atheist bad history, they aren’t going to be relevant.
Is this review by “History Buffs” spot on?
What review?
Oh, forgot to link: https://youtu.be/NwUwjkEveBE
Is this podcast bad history (claiming hypatia was accused of witchcraft):
https://historyofphilosophy.net/last-pagans
John of Nikiu, writing a couple of centuries later, defends Cyril by painting Hypatia as the villain in the story. So he claims she was “devoted at all times to magic, astrolabes and instruments of music”, that she “she beguiled many people through (her) Satanic wiles” and that she “she … beguiled [Orestes] through her magic”. The idea of a “witch” who did evil magic and was in league with Satan did not arise for about another 1000 years, but Nikiu certainly depicts Hypatia as a magician and “Satanic”.
But Nikiu was writing long after the fact and uses Socrates Scholasticus was his main source. So the “magic” and “Satanic” elements are his additions to the story – they are not found in the earlier, more contemporary sources. So did he make them up to put a negative spin on Hypatia’s story and exonerate Cyril? Or do they reflect a much earlier, pro-Cyril version of the events and actual accusations made against Hypatia at the time? It’s impossible to tell. Watts makes it clear that Hypatia did not practice the theurgy of some other schools of neo-Platonism, so if the accusations of “magic” were ever actually made, they are probably false. Then again, it’s unlikely the mob from the lower city were very conversant with the differences between these various esoteric schools of mystical philosophy.
Overall the Nikiu account is too late to carry a lot of weight and the sources from or close to the time put all the emphasis on a purely political dispute, even if it may have been one where slurs about “paganism” and “magic” may have been thrown around.
Hello Tim, I know Im a bit late to the party, this is a video on Hypatia put out by TED-ed Which is usually a reliable source. How much of it do you think is a true reflection of events?
There is a lot wrong with that video:
“It started with a disagreement over the behaviour of a militia of monks …”
It actually began with rising violence by the Jews of the city against Christians, with a militant group of Jews shouting one night that the church of Alexander was on fire and then attacking the Christians who rushed to put it out. This led to retaliation by Bishop Cyril against the Jews and led to him overstepping his authority and expelling the Jews from the city, which inflamed the already existing resentment of the prefect Orestes.
“… and ended with an accusation of witchcraft levelled against [Hypatia]”
The supposed accusation that Hypatia was “devoted at all times to magic, astrolabes and instruments of music, and she beguiled many people through Satanic wiles” is not actually “witchcraft” in the later sense that would arise about 1000 years after her death. And that accusation is not found in any of the sources close to the time of her death and is only found in the much later and heavily biased account of John of Nikiu, writing a whole 200 years later. Nikiu used the work of Socrates Scholasticus as his main source, but unlike Socrates he wanted to exonerate Cyril and besmirch Hypatia. So the supposed accusations against her of “magic” and “Satanic wiles” seem to be his later embellishments, not a reflection of anything that actually happened at the time.
“Hypatia of Alexandria was a prominent mathematician, philosopher and adviser to the city’s leaders”
This is true, but as with most modern retellings of her story this places her mathematics first and does not seem to understand that it was subordinate to and derived from her rather mystical neo Platonic cosmology. She did mathematics because she was a philosopher who believed it gave her insights into the divine. She was nothing like a modern mathematician and very little like a modern philosopher.
” … taking over [her father Theon’s] position as head of the Platonic school – similar to a modern university.”
This is nonsense. The school she took over was the personal salon of Theon’s and it was a semi-secretive neo-Platonic clique that probably met at her home. It was absolutely nothing like a modern university. In fact, it could hardly be less like one.
“She refined scientific instruments …”
There is no evidence she did any such thing.
“For the Neoplatonists, mathematics had a spiritual aspect”
No, the Neoplatonists the “spiritual aspect” was the whole point.
” … she workshipped no particular deity or deities …”
We have no idea what her religious beliefs were other than the belief in a divine “One” implied by her Neoplatonic ideas. Neoplatonists could be and sometimes were devout believers in the gods, though there is no evidence either way with Hypatia.
“Jewish and CHristians as well as pagan students … studied with her”
It’s quote possible she had Jewish students, but I know of no evidence she did.
“Cyril and his followers blamed Hypatia, accusing her of witchcraft …”
See above about how any accusations of “magic” etc were most likely much later embellishments to the story.
“in the wake of her murder, other philosophers in the Greek and Roman tradition fled …”
This is not found in any of the sources.
“… and the city’s role as a centre of learning declined.”
This is contradicted by plenty of evidence of philosophy and learning, by both CHristian and pagan teachers, continuing there for centuries.
“… the spirit of inquisition, openness and fairness she fostered died with her.”
This is more overdramatic nonsense.