The Irish philosopher and freethinker from the Rationalist movement, John Toland, an advocate for victims of religious persecution, interpreted her death in an anti-Catholic spirit in his treatise Hypatia or the History of a most beautiful, most virtuous, most learned and in every way accomplished lady, who was torn to pieces by the clergy of Alexandria to gratify the pride, emulation and cruelty of the archbishop commonly but undeservedly titled St Cyril.
Hypatia was reborn as an icon of the struggle between reason and religion, knowledge and ignorance.
