ensued. They held the Serapion as their headquarters. Such were
the disorder and bloodshed that the emperor had to interfere. He
dispatched a rescript to Alexandria, enjoining the bishop,
Theophilus, to destroy the Serapion; and the great library, which
had been collected by the Ptolemies, and had escaped the fire of
Julius Caesar, was by that fanatic dispersed.

THE MURDER OF HYPATIA. The bishopric thus held by Theophilus was
in due time occupied by his nephew St. Cyril, who had commended
himself to the approval of the Alexandrian congregations as a
successful and fashionable preacher. It was he who had so much to
do with the introduction of the worship of the Virgin Mary. His
hold upon the audiences of the giddy city was, however, much
weakened by Hypatia, the daughter of Theon, the mathematician,
who not only distinguished herself by her expositions of the
doctrines of Plato and Aristotle, but also by her comments on the
writings of Apollonius and other geometers. Each day before her
academy stood a long train of chariots; her lecture-room was
crowded with the wealth and fashion of Alexandria. They came to
listen to her discourses on those questions which man in all ages
has asked, but which never yet have been answered: "What am I?
Where am I? What can I know?"

Hypatia and Cyril! Philosophy and bigotry. They cannot exist
together. So Cyril felt, and on that feeling he acted. As Hypatia
repaired to her academy, she was assaulted by Cyril's mob--a mob
of many monks. Stripped naked in the street, she was dragged into
a church, and there killed by the club of Peter the Reader. The
corpse was cut to pieces, the flesh was scraped from the bones
with shells, and the remnants cast into a fire. For this