Synesius of Cyrene became a bishop on condition he could keep his doubts
Synesius studied philosophy under Hypatia in Alexandria, wrote a playful essay in praise of baldness, and gave the first known description of a hydrometer. When the people of Ptolemais demanded him as their bishop, he agreed only after insisting on keeping both his wife and his private disagreements with church doctrine.
Born to a wealthy family at Balagrae, today's Bayda in Libya, sometime between 370 and 375, he travelled to Alexandria with his brother in 393 and became a devoted Neoplatonist in Hypatia's circle, later spending time in Athens as well. In 398 the cities of the Pentapolis chose him as their envoy to Constantinople, charged with winning tax relief. There he addressed the emperor Arcadius in a speech, On Kingship, urging him to fight corruption and stop barbarians from permeating the army.
The three years at court were tiresome. His patron, the prefect Aurelianus, secured the tax cut, fell from favour, then returned and restored it. Synesius turned the drama into an allegory, The Egyptian Tale, casting Aurelianus as the good Osiris against the Gothic general Gainas as the wicked Typhon while probing why the divine allows evil. He left the capital during an earthquake in 402, married in Alexandria, and was home in Cyrene by 405, busy organising defences against yearly raids by neighbouring tribes.
His Christianity had been lukewarm until 410, when he was popularly chosen bishop. After much hesitation he was consecrated by Theophilus of Alexandria, reserving freedom to dissent on the creation of the soul, a literal resurrection and the end of the world, while agreeing to soften his public teaching. The office brought grief: all three of his sons died between 411 and 413, invaders devastated Cyrenaica, and he excommunicated the governor Andronicus for violating the church's right of asylum.
He probably died in 413, the year he wrote a farewell letter to Hypatia from his sickbed. Surviving work includes 159 letters, nine contemplative hymns and a commentary on alchemy; a book on breeding dogs is lost. Several Christian hymns, among them Lord Jesus, Think On Me, draw on his writing.
Source: Synesius
