Hippolytus of Rome

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For other uses, see Hippolytus the soldier.
Hippolytus of Rome
Martyr
Born Unknown
Died 235, Sardinia
Venerated in Eastern Orthodox Church
Feast August 13, January 30 (martyrdom)
Patronage Bibbiena, Italy; horses; prison guards; prison officers; prison workers
Saints Portal

Saint Hippolytus of Rome (sometimes Ypolitus; (Italian) Ippolito; in Middle English, Ippolitt; (German) Pilt; (Spanish) Ipolito) was one of the most prolific writers of the early Church. Hippolytus must have been born in the second half of the 2nd 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.

Contents

[edit] 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.[1]

It was probably not long before questions of theology and church discipline brought him into direct conflict with Zephyrinus, or at any rate with his successor Calixtus I. He accused the bishop of favouring 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 offences. The result was a schism, and for perhaps over ten years Hippolytus stood at the head of a separate congregation.

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.

From the so-called chronography of the year 354 (more precisely, the Catalogus Liberianus, or Liberian Catalogue) we learn that on August 13, probably in 236, the bodies of the exiles were interred in Rome, and that of Hippolytus in the cemetery on the Via Tiburtina; so we must suppose that before his death the schismatic was received again into the bosom of the Church, and 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)
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 certainly purely legendary: the myth of Hippolytus the son of Theseus was 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 became 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[2] nor Jerome[3] 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. The notice in the Chronicon Paschale preserves one slight reminiscence of the historical facts, namely, that Hippolytus's episcopal see was situated at Portus near Rome.

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.
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.

[edit] Writings

Wikisource
Wikisource has original works written by or about:

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.[4]

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 Eastern Orthodox Church also celebrates the feast of St. Hippolytus Pope of Rome on January 30, who may or may not be the same individual.

The Roman Catholic Church celebrates St Hippolytus jointly with St Pontian on 13 August.

[edit] Prophetic exegesis

In the fragments from his Commentary on the Prophet Daniel, and also in his monumental Treatise on Christ and Antichrist, Hippolytus gives an exposition of Daniel's paralleling prophecies of chapters 2, 7, and 8, which he, in common with other Church fathers, asserts pertain to the Babylonians, Medo-Persians, Greeks, and Romans.[5]

"The golden head of the image is identical with the lioness, by which the Babylonians were represented.
The golden shoulders and the arms of silver are the same with the bear, by which the Persians and Medes are meant.
The belly and thighs of brass are the leopard, by which the Greeks who ruled from Alexander onwards are intended.
The legs of iron are the dreadful and terrible beast, by which the Romans who hold the empire now are meant.
The toes of clay and iron are the ten horns which are to be.
The one other little horn springing up in their midst is the Antichrist.
The stone that smites the image and breaks it in pieces, and that filled the whole earth, is Christ, who comes from heaven and brings judgment on the world."[6]

[edit] Antichrist

Hippolytus considered it important to discover who Antichrist is to be.

"It is proper that we take the Holy Scriptures themselves in hand, and find out from them what, and of what manner, the coming of Antichrist is; on what occasion and at what time the impious pious one shall be revealed; and whence and from what tribe (he shall come); and what his name is, which indicated by the number in the Scripture; and how he shall work error among the people, gathering them from the ends of the earth; and (how) he shall stir up tribulation and persecution against the saints; and how he shall glorify himself as God; and what his end shall be; and how the sudden appearing of the Lord shall be revealed from heaven; and what the conflagration of the whole world shall be; and what the glorious and heavenly kingdom of the saints is to be, when they reign together with Christ; and what the punishment of the wicked by fire."[7]

[edit] 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).

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Jerome's De Viris Illustribus # 61; cp. Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica vi. 14, 10.
  2. ^ Historia Ecclesiae vi. 20, 2
  3. ^ Vir. ill. 61
  4. ^ Allen Brent, though, in his Hippolytus and the Roman Church in the Third Century: Communities in Tension before the Emergence of a Monarch-Bishop (Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 31; Leiden: E.J. Brill), chs 2 and 3, distinguishes the author of Refutation of all Heresies from the author of all the other works attributed to Hippolytus of Rome, referring to the otherwise unknown author of the Refutation as Pseudo-Hippolytus.
  5. ^ Froom, LeRoy Edwin, 1948, The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, Vol. 1, p. 268-279
  6. ^ Hyppolytus, 170-236 AD, Commentary on Daniel [translated], "The Ante-Nicene Fathers", Volume 5, p. 178, 179
  7. ^ Hippolytus, Treatise on Christ and Antichrist, chap. 2, in ANF, vol. 5, p. 205; see also chap. 65, p. 218.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] References

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Antipopes of the Roman Catholic Church
Hippolytus · Novatian · Felix II · Ursicinus · Eulalius · Laurentius · Dioscorus · Theodore · Paschal · Constantine II · Philip · John VIII · Anastasius · Christopher · Boniface VII · John XVI · Gregory VI · Sylvester III · Benedict X · Honorius II · Clement III · Theodoric · Adalbert · Sylvester IV · Gregory VIII · Celestine II · Anacletus II · Victor IV (1138) · Victor IV (1159–1164) · Paschal III · Callixtus III · Innocent III · Nicholas V · Clement VII · Benedict XIII · Alexander V · John XXIII · Clement VIII · Benedict XIV · Felix V
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