Hypatia, Logos, Rise of Christianity, etc

(First, I’ll point to a good review of Primary Sources on Hypatia, and then there is the "modern" well-structured form Hypatia and her dad Theon apparently put Euclid’s "The Elements" into.

Flattered by SL’s great post on Hypatia/Classicism/Feminism/Christianity/Hellenism ("There’s something about monotheism" 2009-07-28) referencing a few posts of mine, and the resulting traffic, I’ve been thinking about the many interesting issues touched on between us and our commenters.

So… here is a series of related posts here on Balneus (and some pretty good comments by others, and I’ll admit to drawing a longish bow occasionally):

• Mentioned in SL’s post:
  • "Hypatia makes New Scientist most inspirational woman scientist list" (2009-07-25), with a few ‘tubes from the upcoming film about her.
     
  • "Athena, Hypatia, et al" (2008-03-08) talks not only about classical male attitudes to scientific, military and monarchical expertise of females, but wonders why all the decent virtues (including the arts of war in a just cause) were embodied in a female deity, Athena.  LE’s musings on Hildegard of Bingen are great!
     
  • "Roman or Athenian" (2009-07-22) started as a bit of fun, although SL gets into Roman Law and feminism – didn’t expect such erudition in response to such a trivial post!
     
• Similarly themed issues:
  • "Founding Father of Femmo-Bolshevism" (2008-02-09) discusses Aristophanes and his play (admittedly a spoof of Republic by his mate Plato) in which the women vote themselves into power and establish a communist state – with a bawdy twist
     
  • "Hier Stehe Ich" (2007-06-16) goes into non-Abrahamist monotheisms (and the implied authority granted by John 1:1 to secular scientists!)
     
  • "Do the classics created people with progressive politics?" (2007-05-10) and "Do the classics created people with progressive politics? (2)" (2007-05-21) touches on SL’s discussion of classifical thinking and the modern world (Mill, Jefferson), although I’m thinking more about the influence of the classics on ordinary voters.
     
  • "Pell’s QuadRant essay is sooooo wrong!" (2007-09-05) is a review and rebuttal of Archbishop Pell’s praise of Constantine – a key figure in the fall of non-Abhramist civilization in the West.  It also points to the letters between Trajan and Pliny the Younger, as they try to sort out what the secretive Xtians were actually doing, and what the law’s response should be." To paraphrase Trajan: "What’s this I hear about worshipping a child god, and having a baby’s blood and flesh mixed into bread?  That’s awful!" and "Well as long as one of them hasn’t actually been to one of those cannibal feasts, does the incense and ‘God save Me’ thingy, and promises not to go to any more meetings with baby-eaters, then let them go… but you’d better keep a close eye on them!"
     
  • But it’s also worth looking at the dawn of history to see early concepts of justice and duty, a time where there was certainly political conflict between male and female, the palace versus the priestess, as well as an annual public display of intimacy between the two, so I’ll refer to one of my all-time big-hitting posts, "The First Literature – The Must Read" (2007-08-10) which introduces Gilgamesh/Bilgames and has a very short rendering (and I’m still after pointers to the ugliest bits to encourage me to improve scanning).  Its themes are still worthwhile exploring today.  When will they turn this into a good film…. PLEASE!

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By the way, I’d really appreciate any links to similarly themed material in your comments – preferably with a sentence or two about what the link covers.  These topics fascinate me, and I’m sure I can learn a lot from you.

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