In what Sense it might be said, that tho’ Hypatia was married, yet she died a Maid.

Suidas likewise makes her the Wife of the same Isidorus, tho’ he be the very Man who tells us she died a Virgin. That Matter, considering the great Uncertainty in which we are left by the meditated Destruction or casual Decay of authentick Writers, I conceive to stand thus. Damascius says, that Isidorus had another Wife, whose Name was Domna, by which he had a Son call’d Proclus. She died the fifth Day after her Delivery, and, according to his Panegyrist, she rid the Philosopher of an evil Beast and a bitter Wedlock. Now supposing this to happen some Time before the tragical End of Hypatia, and that the latter was betrothed to Isidorus, it might very well be said that she was his Wife, and yet that she died a Maid. The Author of an Epigram, that was made upon her, seems to have been of the same Opinion.

The Allusion, I say, to the Constellation Virgo, and the Epithet of Spotless, would induce me to believe that the Writer reckoned her a Virgin as well as Suidas; but I shall conclude nothing from so slender a Conjecture, besides that her Character is no way concerned in this Particular, tho’ as a Historian I would omit nothing that might illustrate my Subject. For this Reason it is, that I cannot pass over uncensured a Reflection of Damascius, who gravely says, that Isidorus was far superior to Hypatia, not only as a Man to a Woman, but as a Philosopher to a Geometrician. Good and egregious Reasoning! as if her Skill in Geometry or Astronomy, had been any Hindrance to her Improvement in every Part of Philosophy, wherein she is by so many confessed to surpass those of her own, if not of former Time; or as if we in England, for Example, did reckon King James superior to Queen Elizabeth; because the first, forsooth, was a Man, and the last a Woman. But I observed before that Damascius was a sad Visionary.