It seemed at
first as if her efforts would be crowned with success. Her lecture hall
was crowded with the clever and intellectual men of the day, and many
came from distant parts, attracted by the reputation of her beauty and
learning. Hypatia soon surpassed all her contemporaries in wisdom and
influence, and rapidly became the soul of the rather numerous pagan
community at Alexandria. This remarkable maiden was honored with a
devotion which almost bordered on idolatry. Orestes, the prefect of the
city, though professedly a Christian, often came to her for counsel. The
learned and eloquent Synesius of Cyrene, afterward a Church Father, was
one of her devoted followers, and even after his conversion to
Christianity maintained a correspondence with her and showed in manifold
ways his regard for his former teacher. Numerous panegyrics and epigrams
were composed, lauding her in most exalted terms.

Thus Hypatia, by moral suasion and by avoiding all open opposition,
sought to wean the people from Christianity and to revive their faith in
the ancient gods. Her success in attracting to paganism both the
cultured and the plain people naturally caused her to be an object of
hatred and jealousy to those who strove to promote Christianity by
violence and force.

The name of Cyril, among the Church Fathers, is the synonym for
fanaticism and bigotry. Elevated to the archi-episcopal chair of
Alexandria to succeed his uncle, Theophilus, he sought to attain supreme
power in the city and to make the power of the Church dominant in
temporal affairs. He succeeded in expelling the Jews, and then turned
his attention to the extermination of paganism. As Hypatia was the
chief exponent of the old gods, and as her influence extended even to
the palace of the prefect, Cyril hated her with all the zeal of bigotry
and was eager for her downfall. Irreproachable in conduct, beloved of
all, influential with the civil power, she was not subject to attack in
any open manner, and Cyril finally countenanced an inhuman and
disgusting plot of assassination devised by the most violent of his
followers--the deacon Peter.

One day in March of the year 415, Peter secretly gathered in an alley
not far from the lecture hall of Hypatia a band of savage monks from the
Nitrian desert. When the customary lecture hour approached, Hypatia,
unconscious of danger, left her house and entered her chariot to drive
to the lecture hall. Soon the mob of zealots, headed by