The Greek Neoplatonist Synesius of Cyrene studied under Hypatia at Alexandria around 393 AD. He kept up a correspondence with her for the rest of his life. He also — late in life and reluctantly — became what?
Synesius was made Bishop of Ptolemais in 410 AD by the Patriarch Theophilus of Alexandria — the same Theophilus who had destroyed the Serapeum nineteen years earlier. He accepted only on the explicit condition that he could keep his wife, his philosophical views (he did not believe in the literal resurrection of the body), and his hunting. He governed the see for three years before dying of an unidentified illness around 413. Hypatia was murdered by an Alexandrian mob two years later, in 415.
Read the full story →Synesius of Cyrene studied Neoplatonism under Hypatia at Alexandria, became a reluctant Christian bishop of a Libyan port that was being raided by camel-mounted nomads, and wrote his old teacher letters about both. He died around 413. Hypatia was murdered two years later.
Related questions
- How was Hypatia of Alexandria killed by the mob in March 415 AD?
- Who ordered the destruction of the Serapeum in Alexandria in 391 AD?
- Cleopatra VII had two famous Roman political alliances, both producing children. The two Romans were?
- Cleopatra ruled Egypt and is on every Egyptian souvenir from Cairo to Aswan. What was her ethnic background, actually?