2. Hippolytus is the author of a work called the Little Labyrinth, which, like the recently discovered Philosophumena, attributes to the Roman See anything but the "infallibility" which the quotation from Irenæus is so ingeniously wrested to sustain. [11] How he did not understand the passage is, therefore, sufficiently apparent. Let us next inquire what appears, from his conduct, to be the true understanding of Irenæus.
3. I have shown, in the elucidation already referred to, how Irenæus affirms that Rome is the city which everybody visits from all parts, and that Christians, resorting thither, because it is the Imperial City, carry into it the testimony of all other churches. Thus it becomes a competent witness to the quod ab omnibus, because it cannot be ignorant of what all the churches teach with one accord. This argument, therefore, reverses the modern Roman dogma; primitive Rome received orthodoxy instead of prescribing it. She embosomed the Catholic testimony brought into it from all the churches, and gave it forth as reflected light; not primarily her own, but what she faithfully preserved in coincidence with older and more learned churches than herself. Doubtless she had been planted and watered by St. Paul and St. Peter; but doubtless, also, she had been expressly warned by the former of her liability to error and to final severance [12] from apostolic communion. Hippolytus lived at a critical moment, when this awful admonition seemed about to be realized.
4. Now, then, from Portus and from Lyons, Hippolytus brought into Rome the Catholic doctrine, and convicted two of its bishops of pernicious heresies and evil living. And thus, as Irenæus teaches, the faith was preserved in Rome by the testimony of those from every side resorting thither, not by any prerogative of the See itself. All this will appear clearly enough as the student proceeds in the examination of this volume. But it is now time to avail ourselves of the information given us by the translator in his Introductory Notice, as follows:--
The entire of The Refutation of all Heresies, with the exception of book i., was found in a ms. brought from a convent on Mount Athos so recently as the year 1842. The discoverer of this treasure--for treasure it certainly is--was Minöides Mynas, an erudite Greek, who had visited his native country in search of ancient mss., by direction of M. Abel Villemain, Minister of Public Instruction under Louis Philippe. The French Government have thus the credit of being instrumental in bringing to light this valuable work, while the University of Oxford shares the distinction by being its earliest publishers. The Refutation was printed at the Clarendon Press in 1851, under the editorship of M. Emmanuel Miller, [13] whose labours have proved serviceable to all subsequent commentators. One generally acknowledged mistake was committed by Miller in ascribing the work to Origen. He was right in affirming that the discovered ms. was the continuation of the fragment, The Philosophumena, inserted in the Benedictine copy of Origen's works. In the volume, however, containing the Philosophumena, we have dissertations by Huet, in which he questions Origen's authorship in favour of Epiphanius. Heuman attributed the Philosophumena to Didymus of Alexandria, Gale to Aetius; [14] and it, with the rest of The Refutation, Fessler and Baur ascribed to Caius, but the Abbe Jellabert to Tertullian. The last hypothesis is untenable, if for no other reason, because the work is in Greek. In many respects, Caius, who was a presbyter of Rome in the time of Victor and Zephyrinus, would seem the probable author; but a fatal argument--one applicable to those named above, except Epiphanius--against Caius is his not being, as the author of The Refutation in the Prooemium declares himself to be, a bishop. Epiphanius no doubt filled the episcopal office; but when we have a large work of his on the heresies, with a summary, [15] it would seem scarcely probable that he composed likewise, on the same topic, an extended treatise like the present, with two abridgments. Whatever diversity of opinion, however, existed as to these claimants, most critics, though not all, now agree in denying the authorship of Origen. Neither the style nor tone of The Refutation is Origenian. Its compilatory process is foreign to Origen's plan of composition; while the subject matter itself, for many reasons, would not be likely to have occupied the pen of the Alexandrine Father. It is almost impossible but that Origen would have made some allusions in The Refutation to his other writings, or in them to it. Not only, however, is there no such allusion, but the derivation of the word "Ebionites," in The Refutation, and an expressed belief in the (orthodox) doctrine of eternal punishment, are at variance with Origen's authorship. Again, no work answering the description is awarded to Origen in catalogues of his extant or lost writings. These arguments are strengthened by the facts, that Origen was never a bishop, and that he did not reside for any length of time at Rome. He once paid a hurried visit to the capital of the West, whereas the author of The Refutation asserts his presence at Rome during the occurrence of events which occupied a period of some twenty years. And not only was he a spectator, but took part in these transactions in such an official and authoritative manner as Origen could never have assumed, either at Rome or elsewhere.
In this state of the controversy, commentators turned their attention towards Hippolytus, in favour of whose authorship the majority of modern scholars have decided. The arguments that have led to this conclusion, and those alleged by others against it, could not be adequately discussed in a notice like the present. Suffice it to say, that such names as Jacobi, Gieseler, Duncker, Schneidewin, Bernays, Bunsen, Wordsworth, and Döllinger, support the claims of Hippolytus. The testimony of Dr. Döllinger, considering the extent of his theological learning, and in particular his intimate acquaintance with the apostolic period in church history, virtually, we submit, decides the question. [16]
For a biography of Hippolytus we have not much authentic materials. There can be no reasonable doubt but that he was a bishop, and passed the greater portion of his life in Rome and its vicinity. This assertion corresponds with the conclusion adopted by Dr. Döllinger, who, however, refuses to allow that Hippolytus was, as is generally maintained, Bishop of Portus, a harbour of Rome at the northern mouth of the Tiber, opposite Ostia. However, it is satisfactory to establish, and especially upon such eminent authority as that of Dr. Döllinger, the fact of Hippolytus' connection with the Western Church, not only because it bears on the investigation of the authorship of The Refutation, the writer of which affirms his personal observation of what he records as occurring in his own time at Rome, but also because it overthrows the hypothesis of those who contend that there were more Hippolytuses than one--Dr. Döllinger shows that there is only one historical Hippolytus--or that the East, and not Italy, was the sphere of his episcopal labours. Thus Le Moyne, in the seventeenth century, a French writer resident in Leyden, ingeniously argues that Hippolytus was bishop of Portus Romanorum (Aden), in Arabia. Le Moyne's theory was adopted by some celebrities, viz., Dupin, Tillemont, Spanheim, Basnage, and our own Dr. Cave. To this position are opposed, among others, the names of Nicephorus, Syncellus, Baronius, Bellarmine, Dodwell, Beveridge, Bull, and Archbishop Ussher. The judgment and critical accuracy of Ussher is, on a point of this kind, of the highest value. Wherefore the question of Hippolytus being bishop of Portus near Rome would also appear established, for the reasons laid down in Bunsen's Letters to Archdeacon Hare, and Canon Wordsworth's St. Hippolytus. The mind of inquirers appears to have been primarily unsettled in consequence of Eusebius' mentioning Hippolytus (Ecclesiast. Hist., vi. 10) in company with Beryllus (of Bostra), an Arabian, expressing at the same time his uncertainty as to where Hippolytus was bishop. This indecision is easily explained, and cannot invalidate the tradition and historical testimony which assign the bishopric of Portus near Rome to Hippolytus, a saint and martyr of the Church. Of his martyrdom, though the fact itself is certain, the details, furnished in Prudentius' hymn, are not historic. Thus the mode of Hippolytus' death is stated by Prudentius to have been identical with that of Hippolytus the son of Theseus, who was torn limb from limb by being tied to wild horses. St. Hippolytus, however, is known on historical testimony to have been thrown into a canal and drowned; but whether the scene of his martyrdom was Sardinia, to which he was undoubtedly banished along with the Roman bishop Pontianus, or Rome, or Portus, has not as yet been definitively proved. The time of his martyrdom, however, is probably a year or two, perhaps less or more, after the commencement of the reign of Maximin the Thracian, that is, somewhere about a.d. 235-39. This enables us to determine the age of Hippolytus; and as some statements in The Refutation evince the work to be the composition of an old man, and as the work itself was written after the death of Callistus in a.d. 222, this would transfer the period of his birth to not very long after the last half of the second century.
The contents of The Refutation, as they originally stood, seem to have been arranged thus: The first book (which we have) contained an account of the different schools of ancient philosophers; the second (which is missing), the doctrines and mysteries of the Egyptians; the third (likewise missing), the Chaldean science and astrology; and the fourth (the beginning of which is missing), the system of the Chaldean horoscope, and the magical rites and incantations of the Babylonian Theurgists. Next came the portion of the work relating more immediately to the heresies of the Church, which is contained in books v.-ix. The tenth book is the résumé of the entire, together with the exposition of the author's own religious opinions. The heresies enumerated by Hippolytus comprehend a period starting from an age prior to the composition of St. John's Gospel, and terminating with the death of Callistus. The heresies are explained according to chronological development, and may be ranged under five leading schools: (1) The Ophites; (2) Simonists; (3) Basilidians; (4) Docetæ; (5) Noetians. Hippolytus ascends to the origin of heresy, not only in assigning heterodoxy a derivative nature from heathenism, but in pointing out in the Gnosis elements of abnormal opinions antecedent to the promulgation of Christianity. We have thus a most interesting account of the early heresies, which in some respects supplies many desiderata in the ecclesiastical history of this epoch.
We can scarcely over-estimate the value of The Refutation, on account of the propinquity of its author to the apostolic age. Hippolytus was a disciple of St. Irenæus, St. Irenæus of St. Polycarp, St. Polycarp of St. John. Indeed, one fact of grave importance connected with the writings of St. John, is elicited from Hippolytus' Refutation. The passage given out of Basilides' work, containing a quotation by the heretic from St. John i. 9, settles the period of the composition of the fourth Gospel, as of greater antiquity by at least thirty years than is allowed to it by the Tübingen school. It is therefore obvious that Basilides formed his system out of the prologue of St. John's Gospel; thus for ever setting at rest the allegation of these critics, that St. John's Gospel was written at a later date, and assigned an apostolic author, in order to silence the Basilidian Gnostics. [17] In the case of Irenæus, too, The Refutation has restored the Greek text of much of his book Against Heresies, hitherto only known to us in a Latin version. Nor is the value of Hippolytus' work seriously impaired, even on the supposition of the authorship not being proved,--a concession, however, in no wise justified by the evidence. Whoever the writer of The Refutation be, he belonged to the early portion of the third century, formed his compilations from primitive sources, made conscientious preparation for his undertaking, delivered statements confirmed by early writers of note, [18] and lastly, in the execution of his task, furnished indubitable marks of information and research, and of having thoroughly mastered the relations and affinities, each to other, of the various heresies of the first two and a quarter centuries. These heresies, whether deducible from attempts to Christianize the philosophy of Paganism, or to interpret the Doctrines and Life of our Lord by the tenets of Gnosticism and Oriental speculation generally, or to create a compromise with the pretensions of Judaism,--these heresies, amid all their complexity and diversity, St. Hippolytus [19] reduces to one common ground of censure--antagonism to Holy Scripture. Heresy, thus branded, he leaves to wither under the condemnatory sentence of the Church.
[4] In pseudo-Chrysost. called glukutatos kai eunoustatos. See Wordsworth, St. Hippolytus, etc., p. 92.
[5] A very good representation of it may be seen in Bunsen's Hippolytus and his Age, as a frontispiece to vol. i. London, 1852.
[6] The learned Dr. Wordsworth deals with all the difficulties of the case with judicial impartiality, but enforces his conclusions with irrefragable cogency. See also Dr. Jarvis, learned Introduction, p. 339.