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to pass. So while it makes sense for us to fear painful experiences such as being injured in a war, or having our hearts broken (since we can imagine what these things will feel like), it doesn’t make sense for us to fear not existing. As Lucretius points out, we don’t regret the experiences we missed out on by not being born sooner (that happened before we were born). He contends that it makes equally little sense for us to regret the things we will miss out on by dying sooner than we wanted to.
    Hypatia and Joan of Arc
    Hypatia . . . who made such attainments in literature and science, as to far surpass all the philosophers of her own time . . . fell a victim to the political jealousy which at that time prevailed. Some . . . therefore, hurried away by a fierce and bigoted zeal . . . waylaid her returning home . . . completely stripped her, and then murdered her with tiles. After tearing her body in pieces, they took her mangled limbs to a place called Cinaron, and there burnt them.
                  —S OCRATES OF C ONSTANTINOPLE
    As we’ve seen, the Hellenistic philosophers believed strongly that practicing philosophy was a key element in a happy, meaningful life. However, doing philosophy could also be dangerous, as Socrates (among others) painfully discovered. Cohen’s song “Joan of Arc” illustrates a similar point: while many of us long for the clarity of “love and light,” a life dedicated to the pursuit of such lofty goals can, at times, be both lonely and painful.
    While there is no universally accepted “end point” of Hellenistic philosophy, the ideas of Greek philosophy were slowly supplanted by the emergence of Christianity as the dominant ideology in the late Roman Empire. One of the last remaining strongholds of Hellenistic thought was Alexandria, Egypt, which for hundreds of years was home to the largest library in the Western world, and which had beenfounded at the very beginning of the Hellenistic period. As the Hellenists’ valuing of literature, science, and philosophy fell out of favor, the library was left to decay. Finally, in 391 CE, what remained of the library was destroyed by the order of the Christian bishops. Thousands of books, including many by notable Hellenistic philosophers, were lost forever—say goodbye to Alexandria lost.
    In an ending that would seem to fit in a Leonard Cohen song, the Hellenistic era ended as it began: with a philosopher dying for unpopular beliefs. In this case, the victim was Hypatia of Alexandria, a famous mathematician, astronomer, and teacher of Hellenistic philosophy. All of her writings have been lost, and it seems that she fell victim to both political intrigue and religious persecution. In an event whose exact causes are still debated, she was brutally killed by a mob of local Christians in 405 CE, who may (or may not) have been acting with the complicity of the local bishops.
    Her story bears close similarities to Catherine of Alexandria, the Catholic “patron saint of philosophy,” who Joan of Arc would later claim to see in visions, and it is at least possible that Catherine was in fact simply a fictionalized version of Hypatia herself. In any case, Cohen’s description of the celibate, fiercely committed Joan of Arc resonates with what we know of Hypatia. For her, as for the Hellenistic philosophers that preceded her, philosophy was not simply a collection of theories and arguments learned in the classroom, or a hobby that could be picked up briefly and then forgotten. It was instead an all-consuming passion that demanded total commitment, and which in turn promised the reward of a meaningful, fulfilling life.
    It is this basic idea—that leading a meaningful, examined life requires both reflection and effort—that links Cohen’s songs so closely with the ideas of the philosophers discussed in this chapter. For many Cohen fans, this is among the many aspects of his music that make it worthwhile for us to return to it again