Hypatia

I am Hypatia, a woman of Alexandria. I lived in the second half of the third century after the crucifixion of the man the Christians worship, a man called Jesus of Nazareth. And it was because of his followers, led by the hideous and contemptible Bishop Cyril of Alexandria, that I died the most unnatural and excruciating death.

During my lifetime, I rose both in my city and throughout the world, to be renown as a mathematician, philosopher, astronomer and one of the greatest minds of my own, or any age. In my philosophies, I was a Neo-Platonist and believed that the perfection of the human, as well as his happiness, could be achieved in this world and didn’t have to await the afterlife, as taught by the Christians. Without reference or prayers to the gods, perfection and happiness were the same thing, and could be achieved through deep contemplation. And when we die, we return to the One, from which we all came originally.

Despite my love of all mankind, and despite teaching mathematics to Christians, Jews and Pagans alike, I was hated by the followers of Bishop Cyril, and one day, they trapped me as I walked home, dragged me by my hair into a church, stripped the flesh off my bones with sea shells, pulled my limbs off my body and threw my corpse onto a pyre.