Studious Babes

Heidi J Torres hjt at tenet.edu
Thu May 8 16:56:55 PDT 1997


I think you've got your Scholarly Babes of Antiquity mixed up, Gio....

On Thu, 8 May 1997 njones at ix.netcom.com wrote:

> I want to say that Catherine of Alexandria was the Libriarian
> of Alexandria and was devoutly pagan until converted by 
> some Bishop.  And she was martyred by being tied to chariots 
> and pulled to itty bitty pieces.  Thus we get her symbol of
> the Catherine Wheel.

Actually, S. Catherine refused to marry the pagan emperor Maxentius.  To 
convince her otherwise, he called in 50 magi to debate her.  She 
converted them all.  He had them all thrown off cliffs or something.  He 
ordered Catherine to be tortured on the wheel -- which has something to 
do with being lashed to same and spun about a bunch -- but it broke 
before she could be put on it (it refused to be the instrument of her 
martyrdom).  So they cut off her head with a sword.

The woman you're thinking of in the post above is probably Hypatia of 
Alexandria, a scholar and teacher who held the chair of Platonic 
Philosophy at Alexandria.  Tho she was pagan, one of her students was 
Synesius of Cyrene, a Christian.  Synesius became a bishop and continued 
to write "affectionate and admiring" letters to his teacher -- showing 
the tolerance that Alexandria could foster between members of rival 
religions.  Hypatia, however, was pulled from her chariot in 415 AD and 
pulled limb from limb by a Christian mob during a riot (showing another 
side of the coin.)  Hypatia was a venerable lady of 60 at the time.  She 
was never made a saint.  The guy leading the Christian mob who murdered 
her was.  (S. Cyrus?  I think it's something with a "C".  I can't find my 
lives of the saints either.)

As for S. Catherine not being well known in the Middle Ages, I know I've 
read she was pretty popular.  Along with S. Michael and S. Margaret, she 
appeared to Joan of Arc.  Considering that she was patron saint of 
scholars, young women, wheelwrights and lawyers, among many others, I'm 
willign to wager she was pretty popular.  I'm willing to research this if 
anyone would like.

> Of course, I could be (and probably am) wrong.

I forgive you.

Mari




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