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St. Hippolytus of Rome

Martyr, presbyter and antipope; date of
birth unknown; d. about 236. Until the publication in 1851 of the recently
discovered "Philosophumena", it was impossible to obtain any definite
authentic facts concerning Hippolytus of Rome and his life from the
conflicting statements about him, as follows:

Eusebius
says that he was bishop of a church somewhere and enumerates several of
his writings (Hist. eccl., VI, xx, 22).

St. Jerome likewise describes him as the bishop of an unknown see,
gives a longer list of his writings, and says of one of his homilies
that he delivered it in the presence of Origen, to whom he made direct
reference (De viris illustribus, cap. 1xi).

The Chronography of 354, in the list of popes, mentions Bishop
Pontianus and the presbyter Hippolytus as being banished to the island
of Sardinia in the year 235; the Roman Calendar in the same collection
records under 13 August the feast of Hippolytus on the Via Tiburtina and
Pontianus in the catacomb of Callistus (ed. Mommsen in "Mon. Germ.
Hist.: auctores antiquissimi", IX, 72, 74).

According to the inscription over the grave of Hippolytus composed
by Pope Damasus, he was a follower of the Novatian schism while a
presbyter, but before his death exhorted his followers to become
reconciled with the Catholic Church (Ihm, "Damasi epigrammata", Leipzig,
1895, 42, n.37).

Prudentius wrote a hymn on the martyr Hippolytus ("Peristephanon",
hymn XI, in P.L., LX, 530 sqq.), in which he places the scene of the
martyrdom at Ostia or Porto, and describes Hippolytus as being torn to
pieces by wild horses, evidently a reminiscence of the ancient
Hippolytus, son of Theseus.

Later Greek authors (e. g. Georgius Syncellus., ed. Bonn, 1829, 674
sqq.; Nicephorus Callistus, "Hist. eccl.", IV, xxxi) do not give much
more information than Eusebius and
Jerome; some of them call him Bishop of Rome, others Bishop of Porto.
According to Photius (Bibliotheca, codex 121), he was a disciple of St.
Irenaeus. Oriental writers, as well as Pope Gelasius, place the See of
Hippolytus at Bostra, the chief city of the Arabs.

Several later legends of martyrs speak of Hippolytus in various
connections. That of St. Laurence refers to him as the officer appointed
to guard the blessed deacon, who was converted, together with his entire
household, and killed by wild horses (Acta SS., August, III, 13-14;
Surius, "De probatis Sanctorum historiis", IV, Cologne, 1573, 581 sqq.).
A legend of Porto identifies him with the martyr Nonnus and gives an
account of his martyrdom with others of the same city (Acta SS., August,
IV, 506; P.G., X, 545-48).

A monument of importance is the large fragment of a marble statue of
the saint discovered in 1551 which underwent restoration (the upper part
of the body and the head being new), and is now preserved in the Lateran
museum; the paschal cycle computed by Hippolytus and a list of his
writings are engraved on the sides of the chair on which the figure of
Hippolytus is seated; the monument dates from the third century (Kraus,
"Realencyklopädie der christlichen Altertumer", 661 sqq.).

The topographies of the graves of the Roman martyrs place the grave
of Hippolytus in the cemetery on the Via Tiburtina named after him,
mention the basilica erected there, and give some legendary details
concerning him. (De Rossi, "Roma sotterranea", I, 178-79); the burial
vault of the sainted confessor was unearthed by De Rossi (Bullettino di
archeologia cristiana, 1882, 9-76).

The discovery of the "Philosophumean" has now made it possible to clear
up the most important period of the life of St. Hippolytus through his own
evidence, and at the same time to test and correct the conflicting
accounts contained in the old authorities. We proceed on the assumption
that Hippolytus was really the author of the aforesaid work, an hypothesis
almost universally accepted by investigators to-day.

Hippolytus was a presbyter of the Church of Rome at the beginning of
the third century. There is no difficulty in admitting that he could have
been a disciple of St Irenaeus either in Rome or Lyons. It is equally
possible that Origen heard a homily by Hippolytus when he went to Rome
about the year 212. In the reigh of Pope Zephyrinus
(198-217) he came into conflict with that pontiff and with the majority of
the Church of Rome, primarily on account of the christological opinions
which for some time had been causing controversies in Rome. Hippolytus had
combated the heresy of Theodotion and the Alogi; in like fashion he
opposed the false doctrines of Noetus, of Epigonus, of Cleomenes, and of
Sabellius, who emphasized the unity of God too one-sidedly
(Monarchians) and saw in the concepts of the Father and the Son merely
manifestations (modi) of the Divine Nature (Modalism,
Sabellianism). Hippolytus, on the contrary, stood uncompromisingly for a
real difference between the Son (Logos) and the Father, but so as
to represent the Former as a Divine Person almost completely separate from
God (Ditheism)
and at the same time altogether subordinate to the Father
(Subordinationism). As the heresy in the doctrine of the Modalists was not
at first clearly apparent, Pope Zephyrinus
declined to give a decision. For this Hippolytus gravely censured him,
representing him as an incompetent man, unworthy to rule the Church of
Rome and as a tool in the hands of the ambitious and intriguing deacon
Callistus, whose early life is maliciously depicted (Philosophumena, IX,
xi-xii). Consequently when Callistus was elected pope (217-218) on the
death of Zephyrinus,
Hippolytus immediately left the communion of the Roman Church and had
himself elected antipope by his
small band of followers. These he calls the Catholic Church and himself
successor to the Apostles, terming the great majority of Roman Christians the
School of Callistus. He accuses Callistus of having fallen first into the
heresy of Theodotus, then into that of Sabellius; also of having through
avarice degraded ecclesiastical, and especially the penitential,
discipline to a disgraceful laxity. These reproaches were altogether
unjustified. Hippolytus himself advocated an excessive rigorism. He
continued in opposition as antipope throughout
the reigns of the two immediate successors of Callistus, Urban (222 or 223 to
230) and Pontius (230-35), and during this period, probably during the
pontificate of Pontianus, he wrote the "Philosophumena". He was banished
to the unhealthful island (insula nociva) of Sardinia at the same
time as Pontianus; and shortly before this, or soon afterward, he became
reconciled with the legitimate bishop and the Church of Rome. For, after
both exiles had died on the island of Sardinia, their mortal remains were
brought back to Rome on the same day, 13 August (either 236 or one of the
following years), and solemnly interred, Pontianus in the papal vault in
the catacomb of Callistus and Hippolytus in a spot on the Via Tiburtina.
Both were equally revered as martyrs by the Roman Church: certain proof
that Hippolytus had made his peace with that Church before his death. With
his death the schism must have come to a speedy end, which accounts for
its identification with the Novatian schism at the end of the fourth
century, as we learn from the inscription by Damasus.

The fact that Hippolytus was a schismatic Bishop of Rome and yet was
held in high honour afterwards both as martyr and theologian, explains why
as early as the fourth century nothing was known as to his see, for he was
not on the list of the Roman bishops. The theory championed by Lightfoot
(see below), that he was actually Bishop of Porto but with his official
residence in Rome, is untenable.

This statement, made by a few authorities, results from a confusion
with a martyr of Porto, due perhaps to a legendary account of his
martyrdom. Moreover De Rossi's hypothesis, based on the inscription by
Damasus, that Hippolytus returned from exile, and subsequently became an
adherent of Novatian, his reconciliation with the Roman Church not being
effected until just before his martyrdom under the Emperor Valerian
(253-60), is incompatible with the supposition that he is the author of
the "Philosophumena." The feast of St. Hippolytus is kept on 13 August, a
date assigned in accordance with the legend of St. Laurence; that of
Hippolytus of Porto is celebrated on 22 August.

Hippolytus was the most important theologian and the most prolific
religious writer of the Roman Church in the pre-Constantinian era.
Nevertheless the fate of his copious literary remains has been
unfortunate. Most of his works have been lost or are known only through
scattered fragments, while much has survived only in old translations into
Oriental and Slavic languages; other writings are freely interpolated. The
fact that the author wrote in Greek made it inevitable that later, when
that language was no longer understood in Rome, the Romans lost interest
in his writings, while in the East they were read long after and made the
author famous. His works deal with several branches of theology, as
appears from the aforementioned list on the statue, from Eusebius, St.
Jerome, and from Oriental authors. His exegetical treatises were numerous:
he wrote commentaries on several books of the Old and New Testaments. Most
of these are extant only in fragments. The commentary on the Canticle of
Canticles, however, has probably been preserved in its entirety ("Werke
des Hippolytus", ed. Bonwetsch, 1897, 343 sqq.); likewise the fullest
extant commentary on the Book of Daniel in 4 books (ibid., 2 sqq.). Eight
of his works, known by their titles, dealt with dogmatic and apologetic
subjects, but only one has come down entire in the original Greek. This is
the work on Christ and Antichrist ("De
Antichristo", ed. Achelis, op. cit., I, II, 1 sqq.); fragments of a few
others have been preserved. Of his polemics against heretics the most
important is the "Philosophumena", the original title of which is kata
pason aireseon elegchos (A Refutation of All Heresies). The first book
had long been known; books IV to X, which had been discovered a short time
previously, were published in 1851. But the first chapters of the fourth
and the whole of the second and third books are still missing. The first
four books treat of the Hellenic philosophers; books V to IX are taken up
with the exposition and refutation of Christian heresies,
and the last book contains a recapitulation. The work is one of the most
important sources for the history of the heresies which disturbed the
early Church. Origen is cited in some manuscripts as the author of the
first book. Photius attributes it to the Roman author Caius (q.v.), while
by others it has been ascribed also to Tertullian and
Novatian. But most modern scholars hold for weighty reasons that
Hippolytus is undoubtedly its author. A shorter treatise agains heresies
(Syntagma), and written by Hippolytus at an earlier date, may be restored
in outline from later adaptations (Libellus adversus omnes haereses;
Epiphanius, "Panarion"; Philastrius, "De haeresibus"). He wrote a third
antiheretical work which was universal in character, called the "Small
Labyrinth". Besides these Hippolytus wrote special monographs against
Marcion, the Montanists, the Alogi, and Caius. Of these writings only a
few fragments are extant. Hippolytus also produced an Easter cycle, as
well as a chronicle of the world which was made use of by later
chroniclers. And finally St. Jerome mentions a work by him on Church laws.
Three treatises on canon law have been preserved under the name of
Hippolytus: the "Constitutiones per Hippolytum" (which are parallel with
the eighth book of the Apostolic Constitutions), the Egyptian Church
Ordinance, in Coptic, and the "Canones Hippolyti". Of these works the
first two are spurious beyond doubt, and the last, the authenticity of
which was upheld even by Achelis (Die Canones Hippolyti, Leipzig, 1891),
belongs in all probability to the fifth or sixth century.

The works of Hippolytus have been edited by Fabricius, "S. Hippolyti
episcopi et mart. opera" (2 vols., Hamburg, 1716-18); by Gallandi in
"Bibliotheca veterum patrum", II, 1766; in Migne, P.G., X; by Lagarde
(Leipzig and London, 1858); and by Bonwetsch and Achelis, "Hippolytus" I,
pts. I and II (Leipzig, 1897), in "Die gr. chr. Schriftsteller", a series
published by the Berlin Academy. The "Philosophumena" was edited by
Miller, as the work of Origen (Oxford, 1851); by Duncker and Schneidewin
as the work of Hippolytus (Göttingen, 1859), and in P.G., XVI. The
"Canones Hippolyti" were edited by Haneberg (Munich, 1870); by Achelis,
"Die altesten Quellen des orientalischen Kirchenrechts:, I, in "Texte und
Untersuchungen", VI (Leipzig, 1891), 4.

J.P. KIRSCH
Transcribed by Judy Levandoski

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume
VII
Copyright © 1910 by Robert Appleton Company
Online Edition
Copyright © 2003 by K. Knight
Nihil Obstat, June 1, 1910. Remy
Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley,
Archbishop of New York

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