[1270] Simon de Magistris, in his Acta Martyr. Ostiens., p. 274 adduces the following fragment in Latin and Syriac, from a Vatican codex, and prefaces it with these words: Hippolytus wrote on the Song of Solomon, and showed that thus early did God the Word seek His pleasure in the Church gathered from among the Gentiles, and especially in His most holy mother the Virgin; and thus the Syrians, who boasted that the Virgin was born among them, translated the Commentary of Hippolytus at a very early period from the Greek into their own tongue, of which some fragments still remain,--as, for example, one to this effect on the above words.
[1271] 1 Kings iv. 32.
[1272] adiakritoi, "mixed," or "dark."
[1273] Prov. xxv. 1.
[1274] In Gallandi, from Anastasius Sinaita, quæst. 41, p. 320.
On the Prophet Isaiah. [1275]
I.
Hippolytus, (Bishop) of Rome on Hezekiah. [1276]
When Hezekiah, king of Judah, was still sick and weeping, there came an angel, and said to him: "I have seen thy tears, and I have heard thy voice. Behold, I add unto thy time fifteen years. And this shall be a sign to thee from the Lord: Behold, I turn back the shadow of the degrees of the house of thy father, by which the sun has gone down, the ten degrees by which the shadow has gone down," [1277] so that day be a day of thirty-two hours. For when the sun had run its course to the tenth hour, it returned again. And again, when Joshua the son of Nun was fighting against the Amorites, when the sun was now inclining to its setting, and the battle was being pressed closely, Joshua, being anxious lest the heathen host should escape on the descent of night, cried out, saying, "Sun, stand thou still in Gibeon; and thou moon, in the valley of Ajalon," [1278] until I vanquish this people. And the sun stood still, and the moon, in their places, so that day was one of twenty-four hours. And in the time of Hezekiah the moon also turned back along with the sun, that there might be no collision between the two elemental bodies, by their bearing against each other in defiance of law. And Merodach the Chaldean, king of Babylon, being struck with amazement at that time--for he studied the science of astrology, and measured the courses of these bodies carefully--on learning the cause, sent a letter and gifts to Hezekiah, just as also the wise men from the east did to Christ.
[1275] In Gallandi, from a codex of the Coislin Library, Num. 193, fol. 36.
[1276] [Here we have the blunder (noted supra, p. 175) repeated as to Rome, which must be here taken as meaning the Roman Province, not the See. The word "Bishop," which avoids the ambiguity above noted, I have therefore put into parenthesis.]
[1277] Isa. xxxviii. 5, 7, 8.
[1278] Josh. x. 12.
II.
From the Discourse of St. Hippolytus on the beginning of Isaiah. [1279]
Under Egypt he meant the world, and under things made with hands its idolatry, and under the shaking its subversion and dissolution. [1280] And the Lord, the Word, he represented as upon a light cloud, referring to that most pure tabernacle, in which setting up His throne, our Lord Jesus Christ came into the world to shake error.
[1279] [Theodoret, in his First Dialogue.]
[1280] The text is evidently corrupt: Kurion de ton Logon, nephelen de kouphen to katharotaton skenos, etc. The reference must be to ch. xix. 1.
III.
We find in the commentaries, written by our predecessors, that day had thirty-two hours. For when the sun had run its course, and reached the tenth hour, and the shadow had gone down by the ten degrees in the house of the temple, the sun turned back again by the ten degrees, according to the word of the Lord, and there were thus twenty hours. And again, the sun accomplished its own proper course, according to the common law, and reached its setting. And thus there were thirty-two hours. [1281]
[1281] Hippolytus wrote on Isaiah with the view of making the most of the favourable disposition entertained by the Emperor Alexander Severus towards the Christians, and particularly on that part where the retrogression of the sun is recorded as a sign of an extension of life to Hezekiah.
On Jeremiah and Ezekiel. [1282]
What were the dimensions, then, of the temple of Solomon? Its length was sixty cubits, and its breadth twenty. And it was not turned to the east, that the worshippers might not worship the rising sun, but the Lord of the sun. And let no one marvel if, when the Scripture gives the length at forty cubits, I have said sixty. For a little after it mentions the other twenty, in describing the holy of holies, which it also names Dabir. Thus the holy place was forty cubits, and the holy of holies other twenty. And Josephus says that the temple had two storeys, [1283] and that the whole height was one hundred and twenty cubits. For so also the book of Chronicles indicates, saying, "And Solomon began to build the house of God. In length its first measure was sixty cubits, and its breadth twenty cubits, and its height one hundred and twenty; and he overlaid it within with pure gold." [1284]
[1282] That Hippolytus wrote on Jeremiah is recorded, so far as I know, by none of the ancients; for the quotation given in the Catena of Greek fathers on Jer. xvii. 11 is taken from his book On Antichrist, chap. lv. Rufinus mentions that Hippolytus wrote on a certain part of the prophet Ezekiel, viz., on those chapters which contain the description of the temple of Jerusalem; and of that commentary the following fragments are preserved.--De Magistris.
[1283] diorophon.
[1284] 2 Chron. iii. 1, 3, 4.
On Daniel.
I.