[1403] Eleutherus is mentioned, III. 3, 3, as then occupying the see of Rome. Lipsius fixes the composition between a.d. 180 and 185, Harvey between 182 and 188 (L.CLVIII).
[1404] On the sources of the history, of heresies see especially the works of Lipsius, and Harnack, quoted on p. 443, and Harvey's Preliminary Observations in vol. I.
[1405] Adv. Haer. III. 7, § 2.
[1406] Peri monarchias he peri tou me heinai ton Theon poieten kakon. Euseb. H. E. V. 20, comp. ch. 15.
[1407] Leimbach and Lightfoot regard the letter as one of the earliest writings of Irenaeus, but Lipsius (p. 263) puts it down to about a.d. 190 or after, on the ground of the Syriac fragment, from a letter of Irenaeus to Victor of Rome (190-202) concerning "Florinus, a presbyter and partisan of the error of Valentinus, who published an abominable book." See the fragment in Harvey, II. 457. Eusebius makes no mention of such a letter, but there is no good reason to doubt its genuineness.
[1408] Peri ogdoados. Euseb. V. 20.
[1409] Peri schismatos. Also mentioned by Euseb. l. c. Comp. V. 14; Pseudo-Tertullian Adv. Haer. 22; and the Syriac fragment in Harvey II. 456; also the critical discussion of the subject and date by Lipsius, 264 sq.
[1410] H E. V. 26.
[1411] biblion dialexeon diaphoron. Harvey and Lipsius make this out to have been a collection of homilies on various texts of scripture.
[1412] Eusebius H. E. V. I and 2; also in Routh's Reliquiae S. 1. 295 sqq., with notes. It has often been translated. Comp. on this document the full discussion of Donaldson, III. 250-2S6, and the striking judgment of Renan (l.c. p. 340), who calls it "un des morceaux les plus extraordinaires que possède aucune litterature," and "la perle de la litterature chrétienne au Ilesiecle." He attributes it to Irenaeus; Harvey denies it to him; Donaldson leaves the authorship in doubt.
[1413] Harvey (I. clxxii) accepts them all as "possessing good external authority, and far more convincing internal proof of genuineness, than can alway s be expected in such brief extracts."
[1414] gnosis alethine perhaps the same treatise as the one mentioned by Eusebius under the title peri tes epistemes
[1415] Discussed in § 69, p. 242.
[1416] This Lipsius (p. 266) considers to be the only one of the four fragments which is undoubtedly genuine.
[1417] See § 157, p. 609, and Stieren's ed. I. 889.
§ 183. Hippolytus.
(I.) S. Hippolyti episcopi et martyris Opera, Graece et Lat. ed. J. Afabricius, Hamb. 1716-18, 2 vols. fol.; ed. Gallandi in "Biblioth. Patrum," Ven. 1760, Vol. II.; Migne: Patr. Gr., vol. x. Col. 583-982. P. Ant. de Lagarde: Hippolyti Romani quae feruntur omnia Graece, Lips. et Lond. 1858 (216 pages). Lagarde has also published some Syriac and Arabic fragments, of Hippol., in his Analecta Syriaca (p. 79-91) and Appendix, Leipz. and Lond. 1858.
Patristic notices of Hippolytus. Euseb.: H. E. VI. 20, 22; Prudentius in the 11th of his Martyr Hymns (per'i stephanon) Hieron De Vir. ill. c. 61; Photius, Cod. 48 and 121. Epiphanius barely mentions Hippol. (Haer. 31). Theodoret quotes several passages and calls him "holy Hippol. bishop and martyr" (Haer. Fab. III. 1 and Dial. I., II. and III.). See Fabricius, Hippol. I. VIII.-XX.
S. Hippolyti EpIs. et Mart. Refutationis omnium haeresium librorum decem quae supersunt, ed. Duncker et Schneidewin. Gött. 1859. The first ed. appeared under the name of Origen: Origenous philosophumena he kata pason haireeon elenchos. Origenis Philosophumena, sive omnium haeresium refutatio. E codice Parisino ninc primum ed. Emmanuel Miller. Oxon. (Clarendon Press), 1851. Another ed. by Abbe Cruice, Par. 1860. An English translation by J. H. Macmahon, in the "Ante-Nicene Christian Library, " Edinb. 1868.
A MS. of this important work from the 14th century was discovered at, Mt. Athos in Greece in 1842, by a learned Greek, Minoïdes Mynas (who had been sent by M. Villemain, minister of public instruction under Louis Philippe, to Greece in search of MSS.), and deposited in the national library at Paris. The first book had been long known among the works of Origen, but had justly been already denied to him by Huet and De la Rue; the second and third, and beginning of the fourth, are still wanting; the tenth lacks the conclusion. This work is now universally ascribed to Hippolytus.
Canones S. Hippolyti Arabice e codicibus Romanis cum versione Latina, ed. D. B. de Haneberg. Monach. 1870. The canons are very rigoristic, but "certain evidence as to their authorship is wanting."
O. Bardenhewer: Des heil. Hippolyt von Rom. Commentar zum B. Daniel. Freib. i. B. 1877,
(II.) E. F. Kimmel: De Hippolyti vita et scriptis. Jen. 1839. Möhler: Patrol. p. 584 sqq. Both are confined to the older confused sources of information.
Since the discovery of the Philosophumena the following books and tracts on Hippolytus have appeared, which present him under a new light.
Bunsen: Hippolytus and his Age. Lond. 1852. 4 vols. (German in 2 vols. Leipz. 1855); 2d ed. with much irrelevant and heterogeneous matter (under the title: Christianity and Mankind). Lond. 1854. 7 vols.
Jacobi in the "Deutsche Zeitschrift," Berl. 1851 and '53; and Art." Hippolytus" in Herzog's Encykl. VI. 131 sqq. (1856), and in Herzog2 VI. 139-149.
Baur, in the "Theol. Jahrb." Tüb. 1853. Volkmar and Ritschl, ibid. 1854,
Gieseler, in the "Stud. u. Krit." for 1853.
Döllinger (R. Cath., but since 1870 an Old Cath.): Hippolytus und Callistus, oder die röm. Kirche in der ersten Haelfte des dritten Jahrh. Regensburg 1853. English translation by Alfred Plummer, Edinb. 1876 (360 pages). The most learned book on the subject. An apology for Callistus and the Roman see, against Hippolytus the supposed first anti-Pope.
Chr. Wordsworth (Anglican): St. Hippolytus and the Church of Rome in the earlier part of the third century. London 1853. Second and greatly enlarged edition, 1880. With the Greek text and an English version of the 9th and 10th books. The counter-part of Döllinger. An apology for Hippolytus against Callistus and the papacy.
L'abbé Cruice (chanoine hon. de Paris): Etudes sur de nouv. doc. hist. des Philosophumena. Paris 1853 (380 p.)
W. Elfe Tayler: Hippol. and the Christ. Ch. of the third century. Lond. 1853. (245 p.)
Le Normant: Controverse sur les Philos. d' Orig. Paris 1853. In "Le Correspondant," Tom. 31 p. 509-550. For Origen as author.
G. Volkmar: Hippolytusund die röm. Zeitgenossen. Zürich 1855. (174 pages.)
Caspari: Quellen zur Gesch. des Taufsymbols und der Glaubensregel. Christiania, vol. III. 349 sqq. and 374-409. On the writings of H.
Lipsius: Quellen der ältesten Ketzergesch. Leipzig 1875.
De Smedt (R.C.): De Auctore Philosophumenon. In "Dissertationes Selectae." Ghent, 1876.
G. Salmon: Hipp. Romanus in Smith and Wace III. 85-105 (very good.)
I. Life Of Hippolytus. This famous person has lived three lives, a real one in the third century as an opponent of the popes of his day, a fictitious one in the middle ages as a canonized saint, and a literary one in the nineteenth century after the discovery of his long lost works against heresies. He was undoubtedly one of the most learned and eminent scholars and theologians of his time. The Roman church placed him in the number of her saints and martyrs, little suspecting that he would come forward in the nineteenth century as an accuser against her. But the statements of the ancients respecting him are very obscure and confused. Certain it is, that he received a thorough Grecian education, and, as he himself says, in a fragment preserved by Photius, heard the discourses of Irenaeus (in Lyons or in Rome). His public life falls in the end of the second century and the first three decennaries of the third (about 198 to 236), and he belongs to the western church, though he may have been, like Irenaeus, of Oriental extraction. At all events he wrote all his books in Greek. [1418] 418
Eusebius is the first who mentions him, and he calls him indefinitely, bishop, and a contemporary of Origen and Beryl of Bostra; he evidently did not know where he was bishop, but he gives a list of his works which he saw (probably in the library of Caesarea). Jerome gives a more complete list of his writings, but no more definite information as to his see, although he was well acquainted with Rome and Pope Damasus. He calls him martyr, and couples him with the Roman senator Apollonius. An old catalogue of the popes, the Catalogus Liberianus (about a.d. 354), states that a "presbyter" Hippolytus was banished, together with the Roman bishop Pontianus, about 235, to the unhealthy island of Sardinia, and that the bodies of both were deposited on the same day (Aug. 13), Pontianus in the cemetery of Callistus, Hippolytus on the Via Tiburtina (where his statue was discovered in 1551). The translation of Pontianus was effected by Pope Fabianus about 236 or 237. From this statement we would infer that Hippolytus died in the mines of Sardinia and was thus counted a martyr, like all those confessors who died in prison. He may, however, have returned and suffered martyrdom elsewhere. The next account we have is from the Spanish poet Prudentius who wrote in the beginning of the fifth century. He represents Hippolytus in poetic description as a Roman presbyter (therein agreeing with the Liberian Catalogue) who belonged to the Novatian party [1419] 419(which, however, arose several years after the death of Hippolytus), but in the prospect of death regretted the schism exhorted his numerous followers to return into the bosom of the catholic church, and then, in bitter allusion to his name and to the mythical Hippolytus, the son of Theseus, was bound by the feet to a team of wild horses and dragged to death over stock and stone. He puts into his mouth his last words: "These steeds drag my limbs after them; drag Thou, O Christ, my soul to Thyself." [1420] 420 He places the scene of his martyrdom at Ostia or Portus where the Prefect of Rome happened to be at that time who condemned him for his Christian profession. Prudentius also saw the subterranean grave-chapel in Rome and a picture which represented his martyrdom (perhaps intended originally for the mythological Hippolytus). [1421] 421 But as no such church is found in the early lists of Roman churches, it may have been the church of St. Lawrence, the famous gridiron-martyr, which adjoined the tomb of Hippolytus. Notwithstanding the chronological error about the Novatian schism and the extreme improbability of such a horrible death under Roman laws and customs, there is an important element of truth in this legend, namely the schismatic position of Hippolytus which suits the Philosophumena, perhaps also his connection with Portus. The later tradition of the catholic church (from the middle of the seventh century) makes him bishop of Portus Romanus (now Porto) which lies at the Northern mouth of the Tiber, opposite Ostia, about fifteen miles from Rome. [1422] 422 The Greek writers, not strictly distinguishing the city from the surrounding country, call him usually bishop of Rome. [1423] 423
These are the vague and conflicting traditions, amounting to this that Hippolytus was an eminent presbyter or bishop in Rome or the vicinity, in the early part of the third century, that he wrote many learned works and died a martyr in Sardinia or Ostia. So the matter stood when a discovery in the sixteenth century shed new light on this mysterious person.
In the year 1551, a much mutilated marble statue, now in the Lateran Museum, was exhumed at Rome near the basilica of St. Lawrence on the Via Tiburtina (the road to Tivoli). This statue is not mentioned indeed by Prudentius, and was perhaps originally designed for an entirely different purpose, possibly for a Roman senator; but it is at all events very ancient, probably from the middle of the third century. [1424] 424 It represents a venerable man clothed with the Greek pallium and Roman toga, seated in a bishop's chair. On the back of the cathedra are engraved in uncial letters the paschal cycle, or easter-table of Hippolytus for seven series of sixteen years, beginning with the first year of Alexander Severus (222), and a list of writings, presumably written by the person whom the statue represents. Among these writings is named a work On the All, which is mentioned in the tenth book of the Philosophumena as a product of the writer. [1425] 425 This furnishes the key to the authorship of that important work.