Chapter XXX.--The Author's Concluding Address.
Such is the true doctrine in regard of the divine nature, O ye men, Greeks and Barbarians, Chaldeans and Assyrians, Egyptians and Libyans, Indians and Ethiopians, Celts, and ye Latins, who lead armies, and all ye that inhabit Europe, and Asia, and Libya. [1098] And to you I am become an adviser, inasmuch as I am a disciple of the benevolent Logos, and hence humane, in order that you may hasten and by us may be taught who the true God is, and what is His well-ordered creation. Do not devote your attention to the fallacies of artificial discourses, nor the vain promises of plagiarizing heretics, [1099] but to the venerable simplicity of unassuming truth. And by means of this knowledge you shall escape the approaching threat of the fire of judgment, and the rayless scenery of gloomy Tartarus, [1100] where never shines a beam from the irradiating voice of the Word!
You shall escape the boiling flood of hell's [1101] eternal lake of fire and the eye ever fixed in menacing glare of fallen angels chained in Tartarus as punishment for their sins; and you shall escape the worm that ceaselessly coils for food around the body whose scum [1102] has bred it. Now such (torments) as these shalt thou avoid by being instructed in a knowledge of the true God. And thou shalt possess an immortal body, even one placed beyond the possibility of corruption, just like the soul. And thou shalt receive the kingdom of heaven, thou who, whilst thou didst sojourn in this life, didst know the Celestial King. And thou shalt be a companion of the Deity, and a co-heir with Christ, no longer enslaved by lusts or passions, and never again wasted by disease. For thou hast become God: [1103] for whatever sufferings thou didst undergo while being a man, these He gave to thee, because thou wast of mortal mould, but whatever it is consistent with God to impart, these God has promised to bestow upon thee, because thou hast been deified, and begotten unto immortality. [1104] This constitutes the import of the proverb, "Know thyself;" i.e., discover God within thyself, for He has formed thee after His own image. For with the knowledge of self is conjoined the being an object of God's knowledge, for thou art called by the Deity Himself. Be not therefore inflamed, O ye men, with enmity one towards another, nor hesitate to retrace [1105] with all speed your steps. For Christ is the God above all, and He has arranged to wash away sin from human beings, [1106] rendering regenerate the old man. And God called man His likeness from the beginning, and has evinced in a figure His love towards thee. And provided thou obeyest His solemn injunctions, and becomest a faithful follower of Him who is good, thou shalt resemble Him, inasmuch as thou shalt have honour conferred upon thee by Him. For the Deity, (by condescension,) does not diminish aught of the divinity of His divine [1107] perfection; having made thee even God unto His glory! [1108]
[1098] [The translator's excessive interpolations sometimes needlessly dilute the terse characteristics of the author. Thus, with confusing brackets, the Edinburgh reads: "who so often lead your armies to victory." This is not Hippolytus, and, in such instances, I feel bound to reduce a plethoric text.]
[1099] [Here the practical idea of the Philosophumena comes out; and compare vol. iv. pp. 469 and 570.]
[1100] Dr. Wordsworth justifies Hippolytus' use of the pagan word "Tartarus," by citing the passage (2 Pet. ii. 4), "For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness (seirais zophou tartarosas), to be reserved unto judgment," etc. [Elucidation XVII. and vol. iv. 140.]
[1101] Schneidewin suggests a comparison of this passage with Hippolytus' fragment, Against Plato, concerning the Cause of the Universe (p. 220, ed. Fabricii; p. 68, ed. de Lagarde).
[1102] The different renderings of this passage, according to different readings, are as follow: "And the worm the scum of the body, turning to the Body that foamed it forth as to that which nourisheth it" (Wordsworth). "The worm which winds itself without rest round the mouldering body, to feed upon it" (Bunsen and Scott). "The worm wriggling as over the filth of the (putrescent) flesh towards the exhaling body" (Roeper). "The worm turning itself towards the substance of the body, towards, (I say,) the exhalations of the decaying frame, as to food" (Schneidewin). The words chiefly altered are: apousian, into (1) ep' ousian, (2) ep' alousia (3) apaustos; and epistrephomenon into (1) epistrephon, (2) epi trophen.
[1103] [This startling expression is justified by such texts as 2 Pet. i. 4 compared with John xvii. 22, 23, and Rev. iii. 21. Thus, Christ overrules the Tempter (Gen. iii. 5), and gives more than was offered by the "Father of Lies."]
[1104] [Compare John x. 34 with Rev. v. 10. Kings of the earth may be called "gods," in a sense; ergo, etc.]
[1105] Bunsen translates thus: "Doubt not that you will exist again," a rendering which Dr. Wordsworth controverts in favour of the one adopted above.
[1106] Bunsen translates thus: "For Christ is He whom the God of all has ordered to wash away the sins," etc. Dr. Wordsworth severely censures this rendering in a lengthened note.
[1107] ptocheuei. Bunsen translates, "for God acts the beggar towards thee," which is literal, though rather unintelligible. Dr. Wordsworth renders the word thus: "God has a longing for thee."
[1108] Hippolytus, by his argument, recognises the duty not merely of overthrowing error but substantiating truth, or in other words, the negative and positive aspect of theology. His brief statement (chap. xxviii.-xxx.) in the latter department, along with being eminently reflective, constitutes a noble specimen of patristic eloquence. [This is most just: and it must be observed, that having summed up his argument against the heresies derived from carnal and inferior sources, and shown the primal truth, he advances (in chap. xxviii.) to the Nicene position, and proves himself one of the witnesses on whose traditive testimony that sublime formulary was given to the whole Church as the ktema es aei of Christendom,--a formal countersign of apostolic doctrine.]
Elucidations.
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I.
(Who first propounded these heresies, p. 11.)
Hippolytus seems to me to have felt the perils to the pure Gospel of many admissions made by Clement and other Alexandrian doctors as to the merits of some of the philosophers of the Gentiles. Very gently, but with prescient genius, he adopts this plan of tracing the origin and all the force of heresies to "philosophy falsely so called." The existence of this "cloud of locusts" is (1) evidence of the antagonism of Satan; (2) of the prophetic spirit of the apostles; (3) of the tremendous ferment produced by the Gospel leaven as soon as it was hid in the "three measures of meal" by "the Elect Lady," the Ecclesia Dei; (4) of the fidelity of the witnesses,--that grand, heroic glory of the Ante-Nicene Fathers,--who never suffered these heresies to be mistaken for the faith, or to corrupt the Scriptures; and (5) finally of the power of the Holy Spirit, who gave them victory over errors, and enabled them to define truth in all the crystalline beauty of that "Mountain of Light," that true Koh-i-noor, the Nicene Symbol. Thus, also, Christ's promises were fulfilled.
II.
(Caulacau, p. 52.)
See Irenæus, p. 350, vol. i., this series, where I have explained this jargon of heresy. But I think it worth while to make use here of two notes on the subject, which I made in 1845, [1109] with little foresight of these tasks in 1885.
Fleury (tom. ii.) makes this statement: "Les Nicolaites donnaient une infinité de noms barbares aux princes et aux puissances qu'ils mettaient en chaque ciel. Ils en nommaient un caulaucauch, abusant d'un passage d'Isaie, où se lisent ces mots hebreux: cau-la-cau, cau-la-cau, pour representer l'insolence avec laquelle les impies se moquaient du prophète, en répétant plusieurs fois quelques-unes de ses paroles." Compare Guerricus, thus: "Vox illa tædii et desperationis, quæ apud Isaiam (xxviii. 13) legitur, quia, viz., moram faciente Domino, frequentibus nuntiis ejus increduli et illusores insultare videntur: manda remanda," etc. See the spurious Bernardina, "de Adventu Dom., serm. i.," S. Bernard., opp. Paris (ed. Mabillon), vol. ii. p. 1799.
III.
(The Phrygians call Papa, p. 54.)
Hippolytus had little idea, when he wrote this, what the word Papa was destined to signify in mediæval Rome. The Abba of Holy Writ has its equivalent in many Oriental languages, as well as in the Greek and Latin, through which it has passed into all the dialects of Europe. It was originally given to all presbyters, as implied in their name of elders, and was a title of humility when it became peculiar to the bishops, as (1 Pet. v. 3) non Domini sed patres. St. Paul (1 Cor. iv. 15) shows that "in Christ"--that is, under Him--we may have such "fathers;" and thus, while he indicates the true sense of the precept, he leads us to recognise a prophetic force and admonition in our Saviour's words (Matt. xxiii.), "Call no man your father upon the earth." Thus interpreted, these words seem to be a warning against the sense to which this name, Papa, became, long afterwards, restricted, in Western Europe: Notre St. Père, le Pape, as they say in France. This was done by the decree of the ambitious Hildebrand, Gregory VII. (who died a.d. 1085), when, in a synod held at Rome, he defined that "the title Pope should be peculiar to one only in the Christian world." The Easterns, of course, never paid any respect to this novelty and dictation, and to this day their patriarchs are popes; and not only so, for the parish priests of the Greek churches are called by the same name. I was once cordially invited to take a repast "with the pope," on visiting a Greek church on the shores of the Adriatic. It is said, however, that a distinction is made between the words papas and papas; the latter being peculiar to inferiors, according to the refinements of Goar, a Western critic. Valeat quantum. But I must here note, that as "words are things," and as infinite damage has been done to history and to Christian truth by tolerating this empiricism of Rome, I have restored scientific accuracy, in this series, whenever reference is made to the primitive bishops of Rome, who were no more "Popes" than Cincinnatus was an emperor. It is time that theological science should accept, like other sciences, the language of truth and the terminology of demonstrated fact. The early bishops of Rome were geographically important, and were honoured as sitting in the only apostolic see of the West; but they were almost inconsiderable in the structural work of the ante-Nicene ages, and have left no appreciable impress on its theology. After the Council of Nice they were recognised as patriarchs, though equals among brethren, and nothing more. The ambition of Boniface III. led him to name himself "universal bishop." This was at first a mere name "of intolerable pride," as his predecessor Gregory had called it, but Nicholas I. (a.d. 858) tried to make it real, and, by means of the false decretals, created himself the first "Pope" in the modern sense, imposing his despotism on the West, and identifying it with the polity of Western churches, which alone submitted to it. Thus, it was never Catholic, and came into existence only by nullifying the Nicene Constitutions, and breaking away from Catholic communion with the parent churches of the East. Compare Casaubon (Exercit., xiv. p. 280, etc.) in his comments on Baronius. I have thus stated with scientific precision what all candid critics and historians, even the Gallicans included, enable us to prove. Why, then, keep up the language of fiction and imposture, [1110] so confusing to young students? I believe the youthful Oxonians whom our modern Tertullian carried with him into the papal schism, could never have been made dupes but for the persistent empiricism of orthodox writers who practically adopt in words what they refute in argument, calling all bishops of Rome "Popes," and even including St. Peter's blessed name in this fallacious designation. [1111] In this series I adhere to the logic of facts, calling (1) all the bishops of Rome from Linus to Sylvester simply bishops; and (2) all their successors to Nicholas I. "patriarchs" under the Nicene Constitutions, which they professed to honour, though, after Gregory the Great, they were ever vying with Constantinople to make themselves greater. (3) Nicholas, who trampled on the Nicene Constitutions, and made the false decretals the canon law of the Western churches, was therefore the first "Pope" who answers to the Tridentine definitions. Even these, however, were never able to make dogmatic [1112] the claim of "supremacy," which was first done by Pius IX. in our days. A canonical Primacy is one thing: a self-asserted Supremacy is quite another, as the French doctors have abundantly demonstrated.
IV.
(Contemporaneous heresy, p. 125.)
Here begins that "duplicating of our knowledge" of primitive Rome of which Bunsen speaks so justly. A thorough mastery of this book will prepare us to understand the great Cyprian in all his relations with the Roman Province, and not less to comprehend the affairs of Novatian.