Humanist Martyr | Hypatia of Alexandria

?350 - 415: Age 65?

"Fables should be taught as fables, myths as myths, and miracles as poetic fancies. To teach superstitions as truths is a most terrible thing. The child mind accepts and believes them, and only through great pain and perhaps tragedy can he be in after years relieved of them. In fact, men will fight for a superstition quite as quickly as for a living truth — often more so, since a superstition is so intangible you cannot get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so is changeable." — Hypatia of Alexandria

Hypatia was a mathematician, philosopher, and astronomer. Despite the intense misogyny of the times, she rose to prominence on the basis of her intellect and her excellent teaching, attracting students from all over the civilized world. At a time of intense religious sectarianism, she was a humanist, studying everything with equanimity, believe fervently in — and preaching — the importance of freedom of thought.

She had friends in powerful places, and this certainly protected her but also made her a target. The Christian Archbishop was a fanatic, and believed that her influence over the city's leaders was blocking the proper flourishing of Christianity. He and his supporters spread rumours about her, claiming she was involved in black magic and an instrument of the devil — all the usual things. Bishop John of Niku, writing two centuries later, claimed that "She was devoted at all times to magic, astrolabes and instruments of music, and she beguiled many people through her Satanic wiles." Yup, if anyone comes at you with an astrolabe, it's a safe bet they're using their Satanic wiles.

During Lent in 415 Hypatia was in her carriage on her way home from teaching when she was waylaid by a mob of Christian zealots. They dragged her from her carriage into a local church, where they tore off her clothes and attacked her with sharp shards of pottery and shells. They literally scraped and tore her skin off, eventually pulling her apart limb from limb and then burning her body.

Nobody was ever arrested for the crime, and no charges were every laid. The Archbishop, who was widely believed to have been behind the murder, was canonized after his death by the Catholic Church. He was praised three centuries later by Bishop John of Niku for "he had destroyed the last remains of idolatry in the city."

Hypatia is the only female included in Raphael's famous painting The School of Athens.

Three more quotes by Hypatia, who really was extraordinary:

"Life is an unfoldment, and the further we travel the more truth we can comprehend. To understand the things that are at our door is the best preparation for understanding those that lie beyond."

"All formal dogmatic religions are fallacious and must never be accepted by self-respecting persons as final."

"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all."

Sources: Skyscript, The Life and Legacy of Hypatia

December 6 | Saint Nicholas

270? - December 6, 343: Age 73?

Yes! It's true! Santa Claus died on this day!

Nicholas' parents were were affluent Christians in what is now Turkey in a Greek city, Patara. Nicholas himself was an extremely pious infant. Legend has it that he carefully observed canonical feasts by abstaining from his mother's breasts on the appropriate days.

His parents died when he was quite young, and he devoted his inheritance to charitable works. The most famous story has it that he heard of an affluent man who had lost all of his money, including the dowry for his three daughters. The daughters had no prospects of marriage, and were facing life working in a brothel if something didn't change in the family fortunes. When Nicholas heard of this, he took a bag of gold, snuck up to the man's house at night, and threw it in the window. The man used the gold as a dowry, and married off his eldest daughter. Later, Nicholas returned and threw a second bag of gold into the house. Finally, with the third daughter, the father secretly kept watch, caught Nicholas in the act, showered him with thanks, and told the world what a great guy he was. This act of secret giving, combined with the proximity of his Saint-Day to Christmas has, through a complex series of transformations, given rise to the modern-day stories of Santa Claus as a bringer of gifts on Christmas Eve.

For his help to the poor, Nicholas became the patron saint of pawnbrokers. These three bags of gold morphed into the three golden balls that you see hanging outside pawnbrokers' shops in pre-literate days. He is also the saint of sailors and all things nautical, the patron saint of Greece, and the patron of children and students.

This latter association is probably because of another story: during a famine, an innkeeper caught and killed three children, pickling them in a tub of brine with the intention of selling them as ham. Nicholas found the three children and brought them back to life: this is seen in some of his statues showing three infants in a tub at his feet. Another version of the story has the three victims as adults, possibly the origin of the English legend of Sweeney Todd, the barber who murdered his customers and gave them to his girlfriend to bake into pies for her shop. Anyway, these three lucky people, whatever age they were, were revived by St. Nicholas.

Nicholas became the Bishop of the city of Myra. He was one of the participants in the First Council of Nicaea, a pivotal meeting of the Christian world that resulted in the first uniform Christian doctrine, called the Nicene Creed. The was a great controversy at the time about whether Christ was of the same substance as his Father, or whether he was simply a creation of his Father. Arius, a priest from Alexandria, espoused the latter view, which was voted down, and perhaps Saint Nicholas' contribution to the argument had an influence on that decision: he became so enraged by Arius' views that he rushed over to him and boxed his ears. (I had to look that up: it usually means striking someone on both ears at the same time. I bet it hurts.)

Nicholas' death is unusual in two respects. One, he died an old man in his bed: very unusual for a saint. Most of the early saints died in an untimely way in horrible torment. Two, his body stayed in one piece, we think. Getting the knuckle of a major saint could turn a small cathedral into a place of pilgrimage, bringing in tourists and boosting local trade. Thus most saints' bodies did not stay together, but were distributed/traded/sold for maximum merit/influence/profit. Originally his body was kept at Myra, but when the city was overtaken by Muslims some enterprising Italians "liberated" the remains, taking them to Bari, in Apulia, Italy. They have stayed there every since, oozing an oily substance known as "Manna di S. Nicola". They were examined by scientists in 1950 who concluded that Nicholas was a short man, only about 5 feet tall, and had a broken nose. Maybe Arius hit him back.

If you're wondering how the name "St. Nicholas" morphed into "Santa Claus", it was through the Germanic form of "Nicholas", which is "Klaus" (dropping the first syllable and eliding the second and third). The Dutch tradition of "Sinterklaas", based on St. Nicholas, came to North American through New Amsterdam (now New York) in the 17th century. The gift-giving, child-oriented stories of St. Nicholas are common to all Christian cultures, so the tradition was easily adopted by Christian people as they arrived in the United States.

Sources: Wikipedia, Catholic Online

September 16 | Maria Callas

December 2, 1923 - September 16, 1977: Age 53

One of the greatest opera singers of the 20th century, Maria Callas grew up in America but spent her youth in Greece. She had an unusual voice and a very strong personality, and experienced great success during the 50s and early 60s. Naturally a heavy woman, Callas undertook to lose 80 pounds in 1953-54, and her resulting slim, graceful figure ensured her status as a superstar outside of the opera world as well as within it. It was rumoured that she had lost the weight by use of a tapeworm, but there’s no evidence to support that, and she herself said she lost it through a judicious diet of chicken and salad greens.

It is possible the the large loss of weight led to vocal problems. When the body changes radically, the singer must compensate; because of Callas’ high profile, any difficulties, real or imagined, were made much of in the press. That, combined with personality clashes and accusations (not always justified) of difficult behaviour, led to the decline of her singing career. She lost confidence, and her vocal problems increased. Her last public performance was in 1974 and was described as “an artistic failure”.

She spent her final years a virtual recluse in Paris. On September 16, 1977 she doed, ostensible of heart failure, but there were rumours that her assistant murdered her in order to gain control of her considerable estate (she had no children). Nothing was ever proven, and the assistant did benefit greatly from her death (he was in her will and already had control of her estate before she died). However the accusation of murder was never taken seriously. It is likely that her heart failure was precipitated by overuse of sleeping aids.

Sources: Wikipedia, The Maria Callas Official Web Site

The Liar Paradox | Philetas of Cos

330? BCE - 270? BCE: Age 60?

Philetas of Cos was poet and critic in Alexandria during the 4th century BCE. We don't know much about him, but one story is that he was always getting teased for being thin. He was so thin, people said, that he put lead in his shoes to avoid getting blown away.

According to Athenaeus of Naucratis, Philetas worried so much about the Liar paradox that he died of insomnia. His epitaph was: "Philetas of Cos am I; It was the Liar who made me die, and the bad nights caused thereby." — in Greek, of course.

To understand the Liar Paradox, cast your mind back to the original Star Trek: Captain Kirk and Harry Mudd use the Liar Paradox to defeat Norman the evil android.

Kirk: Everything Harry tells you is a lie — remember that! Everything Harry tells you is a lie!

Mudd: Now listen to me carefully, Norman laddie: I - am - lying!

Norman: You lie, but if everything you say is a lie then you must be telling the truth, but you cannot be telling the truth because everything you say is a lie... you lie, you tell the truth, you– Illogical! Illogical! Please explain! You are human! Only humans can explain their behavior! Please explain!

Sources: Wikipedia, Memory Alpha, the Star Trek Wiki