How could the Church work freely and healthily while she was crushed and fettered by the rulers of this world?
And how could they be anything but the tyrants and antichrists they were, while they were menaced and deluded by heathen philosophy, and vain systems of human wisdom?
If Orestes was the curse of the Alexandrian Church, then Hypatia was the curse of Orestes.
On her head the true blame lay.

She was the root of the evil.

Who would extirpate it ?....
Why should not he?
It might be dangerous; yet, successful or unsuccessful, it must be glorious.

The course of Christianity wanted great examples.

Might he not-and his young heart beat high at the thought--might he not, by some great act of daring, self-sacrifice, divine madness of faith, like David's of old, when he went out against the giant--awaken selfish and luxurious souls to a noble emulation, and recall to their minds, perhaps to their lives, the patterns of those martyrs who were the pride, the glory, the heirloom of Egypt?
And as figure after figure rose before his imagination, of simple men and weak women who had conquered temptation and shame, torture and death, to live for ever on the lips of men, and take their seats among the patricians of the heavenly court, with brows glittering through all eternities with the martyr's crown, his heart beat thick and fast, and he longed only for an opportunity to dare and die.
And the longing begot the opportunity.