Hippolytus of Rome

Hippolytus of Rome
Martyr
Born	Unknown
Died	235 in Sardinia
Venerated in	Eastern Orthodox Church
Feast	January 30 (martyrdom), August 13
Patronage	Bibbiena, Italy; horses; prison guards; prison officers; prison workers

Saint Hippolytus of Rome (sometimes Ypolitus; (Italian) Ippolito) was one of the most prolific writers of the early Church. He was born in the second half of the second century, probably in Rome. Photius describes him in his Bibliotheca (cod. 121) as a disciple of Irenaeus, who was said to be a disciple of Polycarp, and from the context of this passage it is supposed that we may conclude that Hippolytus himself so styled himself. He came into conflict with the Popes of his time and for some time headed a separate congregation. Therefore he is sometimes considered the first Antipope. However he died in 235 reconciled to the Church as a martyr, so now he is honored as a saint.

Life

As a presbyter of the church at Rome under Bishop Zephyrinus (199-217), Hippolytus was distinguished for his learning and eloquence. It was at this time that Origen, then a young man, heard him preach. However, questions of theology and church discipline soon brought Hippolytus into direct and bitter conflict with Rome's bishop, Zephyrinus, who had declined to condemn certain doctrines regarding the nature of the Trinity which Hippolytus considered heretical. For this Hippolytus gravely censured him, representing him as an incompetent man, unworthy to rule the Church of Rome. He characterized the pope as a tool in the hands of the ambitious and intriguing deacon Callixtus, whose early life Hippolytus maliciously depicted in his Philosophumena (IX, xi-xii). Consequently when Callixtus was elected pope (217-218) on the death of Zephyrinus, Hippolytus immediately left the communion of the Roman Church.

He accused the new pope of favoring the Christological heresies of the Monarchians, and, further, of subverting the discipline of the Church by his lax action in receiving back into the church those guilty of gross offenses. The result was a schism, and for perhaps over ten years Hippolytus stood at the head of a separate congregation, giving Hippolytus the distinction of being both an anti-pope and later a saint, as well as a martyr.

Under the persecution by Emperor Maximinus Thrax, Hippolytus and Pontian, who was then pope, were transported in 235 to Sardinia, where both of them died.

Probably on August 13, 236, the bodies of the exiles were interred in Rome, and that of Hippolytus in the cemetery on the Via Tiburtina. It therefore seems that before his death the schismatic was reconciled with the main body of the Church. This is confirmed by the fact that his memory was henceforth celebrated in the Church as that of a saint and martyr.

The Martyrdom of Saint Hippolytus (Paris, 14th century)

Pope Damasus I dedicated to him one of his famous epigrams, and Prudentius (Peristephano II) drew a highly colored picture of his gruesome death, the details of which are mostly legendary. The pagan myth of Hippolytus the son of Theseus was apparently transferred to the Christian martyr. The mythological Hippolytus, whose name means "loose horse" in Greek, had been dragged to death by wild horses. This death, according to legend, was the very the method by which the historical Hippolytus became martyred. Hippolytus thus became the patron saint of horses. During the Middle Ages, sick horses were brought to St. Ippolitts, Hertfordshire, where a church was dedicated to him.

Of the historical Hippolytus little remained in the memory of later ages. Neither Eusebius nor Jerome knew that the author so much read in the East and the Roman saint were one and the same person. Some scholars find it unlikely that they were, alleging that differing levels of development of the doctrine of the Trinity indicates differing dates of composition.

In 1551 a marble statue of a seated man was found in the cemetery of the Via Tiburtina: on the sides of the seat were carved a paschal cycle, and on the back the titles of numerous writings. It was the statue of Hippolytus, a work, at any rate, of the 3rd century; at the time of Pius IX, it was placed in the Lateran Museum, a record in stone of a lost tradition.

Saint Hippolytus chapel, in the Basilica di San Lorenzo Maggiore in Milan, Italy, built in the 5th century. Its Ancient Roman decoration is now completely lost, apart for the elegant columns in coloured marbles.

An entry in the Liberian Catalogue of bishops of Rome for the year AD 235 records that Hippolytus the presbyter was transported as an exile to the island of Sardinia where he gained the title of martyr by dying in the mines on 13 August AD 235. The "depositio martyrum" of the Liberian Catalogue further records that the body of Hippolytus was brought to Rome from Sardinia and interred in the Via Tiburtina. [1]

Prudentius, who wrote in the 5th century records (Peristeph. 11) a different story, claiming that Hippolytus the presbyter was torn in pieces at Ostia by wild horses. He describes the subterranean tomb of the saint and states that he saw on the spot a picture representing Hippolytus’ execution, and he confirms the martyrdom was commemorated on 13 August.

Writings

The mystery which enveloped the person and writings of Hippolytus had some light thrown upon it for the first time about the middle of the 19th century by the discovery of the so-called Philosophumena. Assuming this writing to be the work of Hippolytus, the information given in it as to the author and his times can be combined with other traditional dates to form a tolerably clear picture.

Hippolytus's voluminous writings, which for variety of subject can be compared with those of Origen, embrace the spheres of exegesis, homiletics, apologetics and polemic, chronography, and ecclesiastical law.

His works have unfortunately come down to us in such a fragmentary condition that it is difficult to obtain from them any very exact notion of his intellectual and literary importance.

Of his exegetical works the best preserved are the Commentary on the Prophet Daniel and the Commentary on the Song of Songs.

In spite of many instances of a want of taste in his typology, they are distinguished by a certain sobriety and sense of proportion in his exegesis.

We are unable to form an opinion of Hippolytus as a preacher, for the Homilies on the Feast of Epiphany which go under his name are wrongly attributed to him.

He wrote polemical works directed against the pagans, the Jews and heretics. The most important of these polemical treatises is the Refutation of all Heresies, which has come to be known by the inappropriate title of the Philosophumena. Of its ten books, the second and third are lost; Book I was for a long time printed (with the title Philosopizumena) among the works of Origen; Books IV-X were found in 1842 by the Greek Minoides Mynas, without the name of the author, in an Armenian monastery at the Greek Orthodox monastic republic of Mount Athos.

It is nowadays universally admitted that Hippolytus was the author ^{[citation needed]}, and that Books I and IV-X belong to the same work.

The importance of the work has, however, been much overrated; a close examination of the sources for the exposition of the Gnostic system which is contained in it has proved that the information it gives is not always trustworthy.

Of the dogmatic works, that on Christ and Antichrist survives in a complete state. Among other things it includes a vivid account of the events preceding the end of the world, and it was probably written at the time of the persecution under Septimius Severus, i.e. about 202.

The influence of Hippolytus was felt chiefly through his works on chronography and ecclesiastical law. His chronicle of the world, a compilation embracing the whole period from the creation of the world up to the year 234, formed a basis for many chronographical works both in the East and West. In the great compilations of ecclesiastical law which arose in the East since the 4th century much of the material was taken from the writings of Hippolytus; how much of this is genuinely his, how much of it worked over, and how much of it wrongly attributed to him, can no longer be determined beyond dispute even by the most learned investigation.

In the Eastern Orthodox Church, the feast day of St. Hippolytus falls on August 13, which is also the Apodosis of the Feast of the Transfiguration. Because on the Apodosis the hymns of the Transfiguration are to be repeated, the feast of St. Hippolytus may be transferred to the day before or to some other convenient day. The church also celebrates the feast of St. Hippolytus Pope of Rome on January 30, who may or may not be the same individual.

Bibliography

The edition of JA Fabricius, Hippolyti opera graece et latine (2 vols., Hamburg, 1716–1718), reprinted in Gallandi, Bibliotheca veterum patrum (vol. II, 1766), and Migne, Cursus patrol. ser. Graeca, (vol. X) is out of date. The preparation of a complete critical edition has been undertaken by the Prussian Academy of Sciences; The task is one of extraordinary difficulty, for the textual problems of the various writings are complex and confused: the Greek original is extant in a few cases only (the Commentary on Daniel, the Refutation, on Antichrist, parts of the Chronicle, and some fragments); for the rest we are dependent on fragments of translations, chiefly Slavonic, all of which are not even published (as of 1911).

Of the Academy's edition one volume was published at Berlin in 1897, containing the Commentaries on Daniel and on the Song of Songs, the treatise on Antichrist, and the Lesser Exegetical and Homiletic Works, edited by Georg Nathaniel Bonwetsch and Hans Athelis.

The Commentary on the Song of Songs has also been published by Bonwetsch (Leipzig, 1902) in a German translation based on a Russian translation by Nicholas Marr of the Georgian text, and he added to it (Leipzig, 1904) a translation of various small exegetical pieces, which are preserved in a Georgian version only (The Blessing of Jacob, The Blessing of Moses, The Narrative of David and Goliath)—A great part of the original of the Chronicle has been published by Adolf Bauer (Leipzig, 1905) from the Codex Matritensis Graecus, 221. For the Refutation we are still dependent on the editions of Miller (Oxford, 1851), Duncker and Schneidewin (Göttingen, 1859), and Cruice (Paris, 1860). An English translation is to be found in the Ante-Nicene Christian Library (Edinburgh, 1868–1869).

See also

• Apostolic Tradition
• Epistle to Diognetus
• Canons of Hippolytus
• Josephus's Discourse to the Greeks concerning Hades (actually by Hippolytus)

External links

• Against Noetus
• Refutation of All Heresies
• Catholic Encyclopedia: St. Hippolytus of Rome
• Encyclopaedia Britannica, Hippolytus of Rome
• The Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus of Rome
• Hieromartyr Hippolytus the Pope of Rome (January 30) Orthodox icon and synaxarion
• Martyr Hippolytus of Rome (August 13)
• The Holy Martyr Hippolytus the Prologue from Ochrid by Nikolai Velimirovic

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Bunsen, Hippolytus and his Age (1852, 2nd ed., 1854; Ger. ed., 1853)
• Döllinger, Hippolytus und Kallistus (Regensb. 1853; Eng. transl., Edinb., 1876)
• Gerhard Ficker, Studien zur Hippolytfrage (Leipzig, 1893)
• Hans Achelis, Hippolytstudien (Leipzig, 1897)
• Karl Johannes Neumann, Hippolytus von Rom in seiner Stellung zu Staat und Welt, part i (Leipzig, 1902)
• Adhémar d'Ales, La Theologie de Saint Hippolyte (Paris, 1906). (G.K.)
• J. B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers vol. i, part ii (London, 1889–1890).
• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

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