This work reconstructs Hypatia’s existential and intellectual fortunes and her modern Nachleben through the application of rigorous scholarly documentation (see the appendix “Annotated documentation,” a sort of “work within a work,” equal in breadth to the primary work) in a text addressed to a learned, non-specialist readership, as well as university teachers and students. The intentionally provocative title relates to Canfora’s notion of the “false story,” as does the overall conceptual and methodological treatment. In the first section (Clarifying the facts) the author collates and applies philological analysis to the most important information on Hypatia’s life and death gleaned from all available ancient, Pagan, and Christian sources. Originally, two versions – Pagan and Christian – of Hypatia’s assassination must have co-existed, both available in two variants, one moderate, one radical. In the three centuries between the events and the evolution of the Byzantine historical tradition proper after the Arab conquest, one of the Christian narrations, John of Nikiu’s Chronicle, itself derived from an older, notably pro-Cyril version disseminated within the Coptic church, was lost to the West and preserved only in the Eastern tradition in a late Ethiopic version. The more moderate Christian version, eschewed by dominant Western ecclesiastical opinion, is by Socrates Scholasticus, whose History regarding the case in question probably conforms to the point of view of the central Byzantine church. Suida passed down both of the Pagan narrations - of Hesychius of Miletus and Damascius. In addition, the version by Philostorgius, an Arian and as such anti-Cyril, whose text is preserved in large fragments from Photius’ Library, was appended to Damascius’s variant of the Pagan version from the beginning of the manuscript tradition. From another traditional Byzantine current would seem to be derived, at the time of Justinian, the Chronicle of John Malalas, close to the court clergy but especially to the Church of Antiochia, traditionally at odds with the Church of Alexandria. The account offered by Malalas isolates Cyril, as does Socrates, as prime instigator of and morally responsible for the assassination, but Malalas probably draws on his own sources, in agreement with Socrates on the bishop’s guilt but aware of details lacking in the Socrates as well as the Suida-Damascius accounts. The most well-known version in Byzantium would remain Socrates’s: Orthodox Christian, more cautious than the Pagan and Arian-Christian accounts and slightly different from the one Malalas draws on, but equally anti-Cyril. The same orientation would emanate from subsequent Byzantine sources, which, however, would gradually add useful features from Pagan sources. From 5th and 6th century information, influence, and manuscript tradition, which appears more ramified than generally thought, derives during iconoclasm, the succinct mention of the assassination in Theophanes’s Chronicle; in the 9th century, Photius, clearly believing in Cyril’s guilt, recoups Damascius as well as Philostorgius; in the 10th century, Suida, recoups at least Damascius and Hesychius; in the 14th century, Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos draws directly on Socrates Scholasticus. From examination of these sources, together with other contemporary evidence, as well as Synesius’s Epistolary, a complex picture of the tensions and social and political conflicts in 4th to 5th century Alexandria emerges, which makes it impossible to reduce the issue of Hypatia’s assassination to a clash between Paganism and Christianity. However, precisely this ideological simplification, this polarity between Hypatia “martyr” and Cyril “butcher-bishop,” has dominated European thought for so long. The second section of the work (Undermining the facts) is devoted to the afterlife of the figure of Hypatia, modernised, mystified, in any case transformed, according to the period, cultural and religious currents, sometimes laicist icon, other times romantic heroine, even Christian martyr. But perhaps even more revealing for the history of political thought has been the reception of the figure of Cyril. If his ecclesiastical authority tended to interfere constantly in the jurisdiction of the prefect Oreste and the Roman-Constantinopolitan central government – the very erosion of state power by the Church dreaded by the Alexandrian aristocracy (Pagan as well as moderate Christian) of which Hypatia was a spokesperson - the conviction or exaltation of the belligerent bishop is a litmus test of the position that every historian or literary interpreter assumes with respect to relations between Church and State. This from the first ancient sources and then during Hypatia’s entire historiographical afterlife: from the Counter-Reformation, which would even discredit a primary source like Socrates Scholasticus to save Cyril, up until Masonic and post-Risorgimental literature when the fabrication of Hypatia as a laicist icon would be interwoven with the debate concerning papal temporal authority. The third section (Interpreting the facts) responds to the more or less conscious distortions that have accumulated over the centuries. Hypatia was not a “secular martyr,” nor a “Galileo in a skirt” punished by the Church for her scientific discoveries, let alone a proto-feminist icon. If it is true that the conflict she found herself involved in – eternal, and cutting across the very same Pagan upper classes, in large part Christianised, especially after the Theodosian Decrees - was between fundamentalism and moderation, dogmatism and open-mindedness, it is also true that Hypatia was a charismatic, priestly figure, a mentor of consciences and an “initiator” in the esoteric teachings of Platonism: a “woman-philosopher,” as long as we understand philosophia as that particular relationship between the female and the sphere of the sacred, of the super-rational, that is typical of the spirituality of Late Antiquity. Hypatia is the emblem of the intellectual fervour of the “eclectic” Platonism that dominated 5th century Alexandria and continued after her “martyrdom,” and was indeed the prerequisite and threshold for a flourishing that would continue for the entire Byzantine millennium
Sesta edizione della monografia del 2010 (si veda quest'ultima per il pdf), questo libro ricostruisce la vicenda esistenziale e intellettuale di Ipazia e il suo Nachleben moderno, applicando il rigore documentativo dello studio scientifico (si veda in appendice la “Documentazione ragionata”, di ampiezza pari a quella del testo principale, sorta di “libro nel libro”) a un testo destinato anche a un’utenza colta non specialistica oltre che alla didattica universitaria. Il titolo, volutamente provocatorio, fa riferimento alla “storia falsa” di canforiana memoria, come del resto l’intero impianto concettuale e metodologico della trattazione. Nella prima sezione (Chiarire i fatti) vengono raccolte e filologicamente discusse le più rilevanti notizie sulla vita e sulla morte di Ipazia fornite dalla totalità delle fonti antiche, pagane e cristiane. Dell'assassinio di Ipazia dovevano infatti coesistere in origine due versioni, una pagana e l'altra cristiana, entrambe presenti in duplice variante, più moderata e più radicale. Nei tre secoli che si interpongono tra gli eventi e il formarsi, dopo la conquista araba, della tradizione storica propriamente bizantina, una delle narrazioni cristiane, la Cronaca di Giovanni di Nikiu, a sua volta dipendente da una vulgata più antica interna alla chiesa copta e marcatamente filocirilliana, andò perduta all'occidente per conservarsi solo nella tradizione orientale in una tarda versione etiopica. La versione cristiana più moderata, ma sgradita all’opinione ecclesiastica occidentale dominante, è quella di Socrate Scolastico, la cui Storia nel caso in questione è probabilmente conforme al punto di vista della chiesa centrale bizantina. Si tramandano per mezzo di Suida entrambe le narrazioni pagane, quella di Esichio di Mileto e quella di Damascio. A una delle varianti della versione pagana, quella di Damascio, si connette inoltre, fin nella genesi della tradizione manoscritta, quella di Filostorgio, ariano e in quanto tale anticirilliano, il cui testo è conservato in ampi frammenti dalla Biblioteca di Fozio. Da un ulteriore filone tradizionale bizantino sembra dipendere, al tempo di Giustiniano, la Cronaca di Giovanni Malala, vicina al clero di corte ma soprattutto alla chiesa di Antiochia, abitualmente ostile a quella di Alessandria. Il resoconto offerto da Malala individua in Cirillo, come fa Socrate, il diretto mandante dell'assassinio e il suo responsabile morale, ma attinge probabilmente a fonti sue proprie, concordi con Socrate quanto alla colpevolezza del vescovo ma a conoscenza di dettagli che mancano tanto in Socrate quanto in Suida-Damascio. La versione più diffusa a Bisanzio resterà quella di Socrate: cristiana ortodossa, più cauta nei termini di quelle pagana e cristiano-ariana, lievemente diversa da quella cui attinge Malala, ma ugualmente anticirilliana. Lo stesso orientamento trasparirà dalle testimonianze bizantine successive, che però aggiungeranno via via elementi utili tratti dalle fonti pagane. Dalle notizie del quinto e sesto secolo, dal loro influsso e dalla loro tradizione manoscritta, che appare ramificata più di quanto in genere la si consideri, derivano, durante l'iconoclasmo, la stringata menzione dell’assassinio nella Cronaca di Teofane; nel nono secolo la posizione nettamente colpevolista di Fozio, che recupera Damascio oltreché Filostorgio; nel decimo, Suida, che recupera almeno Damascio ed Esichio; nel quattordicesimo, Niceforo Callisto Xantopulo, che dipende direttamente da Socrate Scolastico. Dall’esame di queste fonti, unito a quello di altre testimonianze contemporanee oltreché dell’Epistolario di Sinesio, emerge un quadro complesso degli equilibri e dei conflitti sociali e politici dell’Alessandria del IV-V secolo, che impedisce di ridurre la vicenda dell’assassinio di Ipazia a uno scontro tra paganesimo e cristianesimo. Tuttavia, proprio questa semplificazione ideologica, questa polarità tra Ipazia “martire” e Cirillo “vescovo-carnefice”, ha dominato a lungo il pensiero europeo. La seconda sezione del libro (Tradire i fatti) è dedicata all’oltrevita della figura di Ipazia, attualizzata, mistificata, comunque trasformata, a seconda delle epoche, delle correnti culturali e religiose, di volta in volta in icona laicista, eroina romantica, addirittura martire cristiana. Ma forse ancora più rivelatrice, per la storia del pensiero politico, è la ricezione della figura di Cirillo. Se il governo ecclesiastico cirilliano tendeva a imporre una continua ingerenza giurisdizionale rispetto al prefetto Oreste e al governo centrale romano-costantinopolitano —un'erosione del potere statale da parte di quello ecclesiastico paventata dalle aristocrazie alessandrine (pagane come cristiano-moderate) di cui era portavoce Ipazia —, la condanna o l'esaltazione del terribile vescovo fanno da cartina tornasole della posizione che ciascuno storico o interprete letterario assume rispetto al rapporto stato-chiesa. Questo fin dalle fonti antiche e poi durante tutto l'oltrevita storiografico di Ipazia: dalla Controriforma, che addirittura, per salvare Cirillo, arriverà a screditare una fonte primaria come Socrate Scolastico, fino alla letteratura postrisorgimentale e massonica, dove il costituirsi di Ipazia quale icona laicista si intreccia strettamente con il dibattito sul papa-re. Alle numerose, più o meno consapevoli deformazioni stratificatesi attraverso i secoli reagisce la terza sezione (Interpretare i fatti). Ipazia non fu una “martire laica”, né un “Galileo in gonnella” punito dalla chiesa per le sue scoperte scientifiche, né tanto meno una protoicona femminista. Se è vero che il conflitto in cui si trovò coinvolta fu quello — eterno, e trasversale alle stesse classi alte pagane, in gran parte cristianizzate soprattutto dopo i decreti teodosiani — fra integralismo e moderazione, dogmatismo e apertura di pensiero, è altrettanto vero che Ipazia fu una figura carismatica, sacerdotale, di orientatrice di coscienze e di “iniziatrice” agli insegnamenti esoterici del platonismo: una “donna-filosofo”, purché per philosophia si intenda quel particolare rapporto tra la donna e la sfera del sacro, del sovrarazionale, che è tipico della spiritualità tardoantica. Ipazia è l'emblema del fervore intellettuale del platonismo “eclettico” che dominava l’Alessandria del V secolo e che non cessò dopo il suo “martirio”, ma anzi fu il presupposto e la soglia di una fioritura che sarebbe durata per tutto il millennio bizantino.
Ronchey, S. (2015). Ipazia. La vera storia. Sesta edizione. Milano : Best bur.
Ipazia. La vera storia. Sesta edizione
RONCHEY, SILVIA
2015-01-01
Abstract
This work reconstructs Hypatia’s existential and intellectual fortunes and her modern Nachleben through the application of rigorous scholarly documentation (see the appendix “Annotated documentation,” a sort of “work within a work,” equal in breadth to the primary work) in a text addressed to a learned, non-specialist readership, as well as university teachers and students. The intentionally provocative title relates to Canfora’s notion of the “false story,” as does the overall conceptual and methodological treatment. In the first section (Clarifying the facts) the author collates and applies philological analysis to the most important information on Hypatia’s life and death gleaned from all available ancient, Pagan, and Christian sources. Originally, two versions – Pagan and Christian – of Hypatia’s assassination must have co-existed, both available in two variants, one moderate, one radical. In the three centuries between the events and the evolution of the Byzantine historical tradition proper after the Arab conquest, one of the Christian narrations, John of Nikiu’s Chronicle, itself derived from an older, notably pro-Cyril version disseminated within the Coptic church, was lost to the West and preserved only in the Eastern tradition in a late Ethiopic version. The more moderate Christian version, eschewed by dominant Western ecclesiastical opinion, is by Socrates Scholasticus, whose History regarding the case in question probably conforms to the point of view of the central Byzantine church. Suida passed down both of the Pagan narrations - of Hesychius of Miletus and Damascius. In addition, the version by Philostorgius, an Arian and as such anti-Cyril, whose text is preserved in large fragments from Photius’ Library, was appended to Damascius’s variant of the Pagan version from the beginning of the manuscript tradition. From another traditional Byzantine current would seem to be derived, at the time of Justinian, the Chronicle of John Malalas, close to the court clergy but especially to the Church of Antiochia, traditionally at odds with the Church of Alexandria. The account offered by Malalas isolates Cyril, as does Socrates, as prime instigator of and morally responsible for the assassination, but Malalas probably draws on his own sources, in agreement with Socrates on the bishop’s guilt but aware of details lacking in the Socrates as well as the Suida-Damascius accounts. The most well-known version in Byzantium would remain Socrates’s: Orthodox Christian, more cautious than the Pagan and Arian-Christian accounts and slightly different from the one Malalas draws on, but equally anti-Cyril. The same orientation would emanate from subsequent Byzantine sources, which, however, would gradually add useful features from Pagan sources. From 5th and 6th century information, influence, and manuscript tradition, which appears more ramified than generally thought, derives during iconoclasm, the succinct mention of the assassination in Theophanes’s Chronicle; in the 9th century, Photius, clearly believing in Cyril’s guilt, recoups Damascius as well as Philostorgius; in the 10th century, Suida, recoups at least Damascius and Hesychius; in the 14th century, Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos draws directly on Socrates Scholasticus. From examination of these sources, together with other contemporary evidence, as well as Synesius’s Epistolary, a complex picture of the tensions and social and political conflicts in 4th to 5th century Alexandria emerges, which makes it impossible to reduce the issue of Hypatia’s assassination to a clash between Paganism and Christianity. However, precisely this ideological simplification, this polarity between Hypatia “martyr” and Cyril “butcher-bishop,” has dominated European thought for so long. The second section of the work (Undermining the facts) is devoted to the afterlife of the figure of Hypatia, modernised, mystified, in any case transformed, according to the period, cultural and religious currents, sometimes laicist icon, other times romantic heroine, even Christian martyr. But perhaps even more revealing for the history of political thought has been the reception of the figure of Cyril. If his ecclesiastical authority tended to interfere constantly in the jurisdiction of the prefect Oreste and the Roman-Constantinopolitan central government – the very erosion of state power by the Church dreaded by the Alexandrian aristocracy (Pagan as well as moderate Christian) of which Hypatia was a spokesperson - the conviction or exaltation of the belligerent bishop is a litmus test of the position that every historian or literary interpreter assumes with respect to relations between Church and State. This from the first ancient sources and then during Hypatia’s entire historiographical afterlife: from the Counter-Reformation, which would even discredit a primary source like Socrates Scholasticus to save Cyril, up until Masonic and post-Risorgimental literature when the fabrication of Hypatia as a laicist icon would be interwoven with the debate concerning papal temporal authority. The third section (Interpreting the facts) responds to the more or less conscious distortions that have accumulated over the centuries. Hypatia was not a “secular martyr,” nor a “Galileo in a skirt” punished by the Church for her scientific discoveries, let alone a proto-feminist icon. If it is true that the conflict she found herself involved in – eternal, and cutting across the very same Pagan upper classes, in large part Christianised, especially after the Theodosian Decrees - was between fundamentalism and moderation, dogmatism and open-mindedness, it is also true that Hypatia was a charismatic, priestly figure, a mentor of consciences and an “initiator” in the esoteric teachings of Platonism: a “woman-philosopher,” as long as we understand philosophia as that particular relationship between the female and the sphere of the sacred, of the super-rational, that is typical of the spirituality of Late Antiquity. Hypatia is the emblem of the intellectual fervour of the “eclectic” Platonism that dominated 5th century Alexandria and continued after her “martyrdom,” and was indeed the prerequisite and threshold for a flourishing that would continue for the entire Byzantine millenniumI documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.