from her chariot, stripped naked, dragged to the church, and
inhumanly butchered by the hands of Peter the reader, and a troop of
savage and merciless fanatics: her flesh was scraped from her bones with
sharp cyster shells, [26] and her quivering limbs were delivered to
the flames. The just progress of inquiry and punishment was stopped by
seasonable gifts; but the murder of Hypatia has imprinted an indelible
stain on the character and religion of Cyril of Alexandria. [27]

[Footnote 24: The Parabolani of Alexandria were a charitable
corporation, instituted during the plague of Gallienus, to visit the
sick and to bury the dead. They gradually enlarged, abused, and sold the
privileges of their order. Their outrageous conduct during the reign of
Cyril provoked the emperor to deprive the patriarch of their nomination,
and to restrain their number to five or six hundred. But these
restraints were transient and ineffectual. See the Theodosian Code, l.
xvi. tit. ii. and Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xiv. p. 276--278.]

[Footnote 25: For Theon and his daughter Hypatia. see Fabricius,
Bibliothec. tom. viii. p. 210, 211. Her article in the Lexicon of Suidas
is curious and original. Hesychius (Meursii Opera, tom. vii. p. 295,
296) observes, that he was persecuted; and an epigram in the Greek
Anthology (l. i. c. 76, p. 159, edit. Brodaei) celebrates her knowledge
and eloquence. She is honorably mentioned (Epist. 10, 15 16, 33--80,
124, 135, 153) by her friend and disciple the philosophic bishop
Synesius.]

[Footnote 26: Oyster shells were plentifully strewed on the sea-beach
before the Caesareum. I may therefore prefer the literal sense, without
rejecting the metaphorical version of tegulae, tiles, which is used
by M. de Valois ignorant, and the assassins were probably regardless,
whether their victim was yet alive.]

[Footnote 27: These exploits of St. Cyril are recorded by Socrates, (l.
vii. c. 13, 14, 15;) and the most reluctant bigotry is compelled to copy
an historian who coolly styles the murderers of Hypatia. At the mention
of that injured name, I am pleased to observe a blush even on the cheek
of Baronius, (A.D. 415, No. 48.)]

Superstition, perhaps, would more gently expiate the blood of a virgin,
than the banishment of a saint; and Cyril had accompanied his uncle
to the iniquitous synod of the Oak. When the memory of Chrysostom was
restored and consecrated, the nephew of Theophilus, at the head of a
dying faction, s