Hippolytus of Rome, Saint, Martyr

HIPPOLYTUS OF ROME, Saint, Martyr. - Distinguished writer of the Roman Church of the 3rd century and first antipope, of whom only a few fragmentary biographical notices survive. Even his works, written in Greek at a moment when the Church of Rome was about to abandon that language, were little read or used in the West, while they enjoyed a notable diffusion in the East, where they were also translated into several languages.

I. LIFE

The principal source of information on H. consists of the autobiographical remarks contained in the Refutatio omnium haeresium, improperly called *Philosophumena**, which criticism has restored to him. His literary output is listed on one side of his chair discovered in 1551, in the area above the cemetery of H., and by various authors among whom chiefly: Eusebius of Caesarea (Hist. eccl., VI, 20, 22, 46); St. Jerome (De viris illustribus, 61); Photius (Bibliotheca, cod. 48, 121-202, 232); Ebediesu, a Nestorian of the end of the 13th century (G. S. Assemani, Bibliotheca Orientalis, III, II, Rome 1728, p. 15), and Nicephorus Callistus in the 14th century (Hist. eccl. IV, 31; PG 145, 1052). His exile in Sardinia is attested by the Liberian Catalogue (ed. Duchesne, Lib. Pont., I, p. 5) and his cult, as a martyr, by the Depositio Martyrum ("idus Aug.: Ypoliti in Tiburtina et Pontiani in Callisti") and by the cemetery sanctuary on the Via Tiburtina, restored by the popes Damasus and Vigilius. The poem of Damasus attests that toward the end of the 4th century, in Rome, the historical figure of the Roman writer was becoming obscured: he makes of him, albeit with a "fertur", a priest sympathetic to Novatian who publicly reconciles himself with the Church (cf. A. Ferrua, Epigrammata Damasiana, Vatican City 1942, pp. 169-73). A few decades later, Prudentius in the Peristephanon (XI: PL 60, 530-36) will add to the Damasan poem, known to him, the description of the martyrdom of H., which took place at the mouths of the Tiber, dragged like his namesake, the fabulous son of Theseus, by furious horses. With the legendary Passio Polychronii, which probably dates to the end of the 5th century or the beginning of the 6th, H. enters the hagiographic cycle of Sts. Sixtus and Lawrence (BHL, 3962; cf. H. Delehaye, Recherches sur le légendier romain. La passion de St Polychronius, in Anal. Boll., 51 (1933), pp. 34-98, see in particular pp. 59-68, 93-97), becoming a soldier who is converted by the deacon Lawrence and who dies dragged by horses. Thus transformed, H., a doctor, will pass into the present-day Roman liturgical books, the Breviary and the Martyrology (H. is here particularly disfigured: cf. also 30 January and 22 August). The confusion about H. will be further complicated when Rufinus (Hist. eccl., VI, 20), misinterpreting Eusebius (Hist. eccl., VI, 20), makes him a bishop of Bostra in Arabia, and the Chronicon Paschale, at the beginning of the 7th century (ed. L. Dindorf, Bonn 1832, p. 12), of Porto at the mouths of the Tiber.

According to the most reliable data, sifted by modern criticism, the priest H., a disciple of St. Irenaeus, appears from the pontificate of Victor (189-99) as a leading personality among the clergy of Rome, on account of his vast learning, of which he himself is the first to be aware (cf. his commentary on Daniel, III, 16; ed. M. Lefèvre, Paris 1947, p. 233). Unfortunately his haughty character will soon make him overstep the proper limits of polemic and transform him into a libelist. To H., who ca. 212 would have preached in the presence of Origen, belongs however the merit of having polemicized successfully against all heresies, especially those of his time, and of having championed the theology of the "Logos" against the adoptionist (v. ADOPTIONISM) and monarchian (v. MONARCHIANISM) doctrines which, from the pontificate of Pope Victor, disturbed the community of Rome. It is precisely in this polemic for the "logos" and, after the accession of Callistus to the pontificate, in disciplinary questions, that he was unable to remain within proper limits: according to him Pope Zephyrinus should have acted energetically against the innovators, but the latter did not think it opportune to take the measures invoked. H. then became embittered against the adviser of Zephyrinus, the deacon Callistus who accused him of ditheism, and, stung to the quick, on seeing his rival take the succession of Zephyrinus (217), he separated from his communion, giving rise to a schismatic conventicle, of which he was the head with episcopal character; indeed he himself declares in the proem to the Refutatio that he is "a successor of the Apostles, and a partaker of the same grace of the supreme priesthood and of the magisterium". H. thus became the first antipope and persisted in his rebellious attitude also under the pontificates of Urban and of Pontian. The episcopal dignity that a good number of authors, from the 4th century onward, recognize in him, indeed the very Roman see assigned to him by Apollinaris of Laodicea (cf. A. Mai, Script. veterum nova collectio, I, II, Rome 1881, p. 173), is the echo of his activity as antipope, to which the edict of persecution of the emperor Maximinus the Thracian, which struck chiefly the heads of the Churches, put an end. Indeed the Liberian Catalogue attests that both Pontian and H. were deported to the "noxious" island, Sardinia; united in misfortune, they were reconciled and both died for the faith. Of this reconciliation there is an echo in the Damasan poem and in the Peristephanon of Prudentius. From the Lib. Pont. (I, p. 145) it is known that Pope Fabian, once the persecution had ceased, had the body of Pontian transported to Rome; it is probable that at the same time provision was also made for the transport of that of H., since the Depositio Martyrum assigns the deposition of both to 13 August.

The cult of H., besides by the aforementioned Depositio, and by the cemetery sanctuary, is attested in Rome also by the erection, at the end of the 4th century, of an oratory on the Vicus Patricius, by the priest Ilicius (cf. C. Huelsen, Le Chiese di Roma nel Medio evo, Florence 1927, p. 263). H. and Pontian are remembered in the Jeronymian Martyrology and have in the so-called Leonine Sacramentary two Masses: the preface recalls only the martyrdom of H. In the other sacramentaries, the Gelasian, the Gregorian and the Gelasian of the 8th century, as indeed in the present-day Roman Breviary and Missal, Pontian disappears and H. remains alone (in the prayers he is called simply martyr). Moreover already in the calendar of Carthage of the 6th century H. appears alone (ed. H. Lietzmann, in Kleine Texte, Bonn 1911, p. 5), as likewise in the Visigothic Orazionale, on 11 August (ed. J. Vives, Barcelona 1946, pp. 370-72, prayers to be attributed to Eugenius of Toledo). In the 5th and 6th centuries, H. is often remembered or depicted with the martyrs Sixtus and Lawrence; as in the Ambrosian Canon (cf. F. Savio, Gli antichi vescovi d'Italia. La Lombardia, I. Milan, Florence 1913, pp. 922, 930; a chapel contiguous to S. Lorenzo was dedicated to H. in the 5th century: ibid., pp. 185, 200), in some gilded glasses (Florence: Vatican Library), in the mosaic of S. Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, in that of S. Lorenzo al Verano in Rome, and in the sarcophagus of Apt, in catalogues of relics, even in Africa, and in the dedication of the church of Fossombrone, remembered in the Jeronymian Martyrology on 2 February, 6 August and 2 November (cf. H. Delehaye, La dédicace de la basilique de Fossombrone, in Rendiconti Pont. accad. rom. di arch., 6 [1930], pp. 102-11). It is probable that also in Porto there was a basilica dedicated to our H. In the Synaxaria, H. "πέπας Ῥώμης" is remembered on 30 January.

A. Pietro Fruta

II. WORKS

I. was above all an exegete. His exegetical writings are preserved in fragments and to a very small extent in the original Greek language, and for the rest in translations into Slavonic, Georgian, etc., which, like all the works of I., soon forgotten in the West, were read and circulated in the East. There survives, partly in the Greek text, partly in Slavonic translation, the Commentary on the Book of Daniel, and, partly in Greek and entirely in Georgian, the one On the Song of Songs, and, likewise in Greek and in Georgian, the one On the Blessings of Jacob, and in Georgian the one On the Blessings of Moses - perhaps, originally, a single work - and the one On David and Goliath. The most important among these are the commentaries on Daniel and the one on the Song of Songs: from the latter especially one can gain an idea of I.'s exegetical method, concerned with the typological sense of the Scriptures (the bridegroom is for him a figure of Christ, the bride is the Synagogue from which the Church must come forth, the leaps of the bridegroom represent the Incarnation, the Crucifixion, the descent into hell, the Resurrection and the Ascension: the title is explained as the song in which is received the essence of all the songs composed by Solomon). In the commentary on Daniel certain historical questions about the family of Susanna and of Joachim are resolved and certain allegorical interpretations are given: Susanna is the Church, the two elders are the two enemies of the faith, the Jewish people and the Gentile, in Daniel in the lions' den is seen the condition of Christians before persecutions, the fourth beast of the vision is the Roman people. The other exegetical works, of which little or nothing survives, are the commentaries on the Hexaemeron, on Exodus, on the Fragments of Ezekiel, on Genesis, on Zechariah, on the Psalms, on Isaiah, on the Apocalypse, on Proverbs, on Ecclesiastes, on Saul and the Pythoness, mentioned by Eusebius and by St. Jerome, and on Daniel the Less and Susanna, mentioned by Ebediesu.

Of the dogmatic works there survive brief fragments, in Greek and in Syriac, of the treatise On the Resurrection; the treatise On the Antichrist survives entire, in Greek. In this work I. sets out to examine what the Antichrist is, at what time his coming will occur, from which tribe he will come, what name he will have, how he will deceive men, how the return of the Savior and the cosmic conflagration will put an end to his Kingdom, what the heavenly Kingdom that will follow will be, and how the wicked will be punished.

I. also composed works of a disciplinary character. St. Jerome, in Epistle LXXI, 6, says that I. had written "on the Sabbath," whether one ought to fast on that day, and on the Eucharist, "whether one ought to receive it every day." It is not possible to specify in which works I. treated such subjects, even if he did so in special works; in the list of the statue there are mentioned in succession a Περὶ Χαρισμάτων and an Ἀποστολικὴ παράδοσις, which could also be a single work. This Apostolica traditio has been recognized by Connolly in the so-called Egyptian Church Order, which survives only in Coptic, Arabic, Ethiopic and Latin translations (the palimpsest of Verona, which contains various fragments of it). It treats - and from this derives its documentary importance - of the ordination of bishops, of presbyters, of deacons: it treats of confessors, of the lector, of the subdeacon, of widows, of virgins; and it gives a great number of precepts and norms concerning ecclesiastical ritual and the liturgy (Baptism, the agape, fasting, the Eucharist, prayer, the assemblies of the faithful, the catechumenate, the commemoration of the dead, etc.). Against the identification proposed by Connolly objections have been raised by various scholars, but it may be considered on the whole well founded, although the whole problem of defining the relations of dependence among the ancient disciplinary collections is far from having received a decisive solution. The thesis of those who see in the Apostolic Tradition of I. the most ancient constitution of the Church that is known, and the source of Book VIII of the Apostolic Constitutions, of its Epitome, of the Testamentum Domini and of the Canons of I., seems preferable to the opposite thesis.

These Canons of I. (a disciplinary collection of 38 canons, preserved in Arabic and Ethiopic translation, of content for the most part identical with that of the Egyptian Church Order, in comparison with which it presents numerous additions, abbreviations and transpositions) can hardly - although they may contain fairly ancient parts - be considered the work of I. Among other things, the slight value of the Arabic subscription that attributes them to him, the presence in them of elements (though not so explicit and decisive as is held by some) betraying an era later than that of I., and the irreconcilability of the (intransigent) doctrine of I., as it appears in his (or, at least, generally attributed to him) Refutatio, on the reconciliation of penitents, with that set forth in the Canons, prevent one from believing it. It is not possible, moreover, to establish the name of the author of the Canons, although their Western origin appears probable, and their chronology; by various scholars it is made to oscillate between 200 and 250 and the 5th-6th century.

A work of chronology is in all probability the treatise On the Passover, in which, according to what Eusebius says of it, the paschal cycle was established, of which a section, as has been said, relating to the years 222-23, was engraved on the statue found on the Via Tiburtina.

The polemical works represent a notable part of I.'s activity as a writer. A disciple of Irenaeus, he continues the battle engaged by his master against the heresies, with naturally different objectives, as the positions of orthodoxy and heresy were different in his time. The treatise Against Marcion is perhaps to be identified with the treatise On Good and the Origin of Evil (which was one of the most important themes of the Marcionite heresy); of a Demonstration against the Jews a fragment survives, but the authenticity of the work is suspect. In a work entitled Apology of the Apocalypse and of the Gospel of John, against the thesis of a Roman priest, Caius (v.), who attributed the two writings to a heretic, Cerinthus, he defended their authenticity; it is not certain that this work of I. is to be identified with the Chapters against Caius, from which the Syrian Dionysius Bar Salibi, metropolitan of Amida, drew quotations for a commentary of his on the Apocalypse: they could very well be two different works. Doubtful is the attribution to I. of the fragments cited by Eusebius as coming from a treatise Against Artemon, which is perhaps to be identified with the Little Labyrinth cited by Theodoret. Entirely lost is the Treatise against 32 heresies: Συνταγμα κατὰ ἀπέρασον λῶ, thus cited by Photius, who calls it a "little book" (βιβλιδάριον), the confutation of the heresies began with that of Dositheus and ended with that of Noetus; this writing was very probably a source of the Pseudo-Tertullian, in the appendix to the De praescript., of Epiphanius, Panarion, and of the Liber de haeresibus of Philastrius of Brescia, and on the basis of them it is in part reconstructible (this συνταγμα

is probably the same thing as the Πρὸς ἀπάσας τὰς
αἱρέσεις mentioned by Eusebius and the treatise Adversus omnes
haereses mentioned by Jerome. A
substantial fragment of a homily On the Heresy of Noetus survives; it is
probable that it constitutes the end of the σύνταγμα, although
it seems to be consistent with the brevity with which the
treatment of the σύνταγμα had to be conducted. To this list of
works others could be added: those indicated
in the list engraved on the statue (the Chronicle, which exercised a broad
influence on the authors of chronicles in the Middle Ages, the Protrepticus to Severianus, the Πρὸς Ἕλληνας καὶ πρὸς Πλάτωνα
ἢ καὶ περὶ τοῦ παντός; the Ὡδαὶ εἰς πάσας τὰς γραφάς),
and the Refutatio omnium haeresium. Of this work, at first
only Book I was known, under the title Philosophumena, which
was attributed to Origen, until the discovery, made in 1842
by Minoïdes Mynas, of a codex from Mount Athos, which
contains the other books up to Book X, with a lacuna at the
beginning, embracing Books II and III. But to do this one would need
to be truly certain that the statue represents Hippolytus,
and that the Refutatio is by Hippolytus. Both attributions, however,
are conjectural, even if supported by valid reasons.
III. Refutatio omnium haeresium, edited by P. Wendland, ibid.
to Hippolytus is based especially on the fact that the author is a
contemporary and bitter enemy of Callistus, and a schismatic, founder of a Church in opposition to the one governed
by the successors of Callistus, and that this author appears
to be a man of great learning, a famous author of numerous
works: conditions which do not seem to suit
anyone but Hippolytus. Nevertheless this attribution has not been made
without controversy, and even recently, after
Hippolytfrage, Leipzig 1893; K. J. Neumann, Hippolytus von Rom
discordant voices have been raised which have somewhat shaken
confidence in the attribution now generally admitted,
even if the name proposed for the personage represented in the statue and for the author of the Refutatio — a certain
Josipus, indicated by Photius as the author of a Περὶ παντός,
which is Nautin's thesis — is far from being entirely
satisfactory (for, even if the presence of
substantial and formal divergences between the fragment against
Noetus and the Refutatio is taken as demonstrated, one would have to answer this
simple question: how is it that of this Josipus, who
would be the author of the Refutatio, and of the works indicated in the
statue, a personage of great account, a learned man, founder
of a schismatic Church, the name has not survived
except in the questionable attribution of a work). With all
this, it is not believed, for the present, that one can speak of the Refutatio except as of a work attributed to Hippolytus.

The work has a clear line of development in its
purpose of demonstrating that the germ of all heresies was
in the doctrines of the pagan philosophers. Book I is an exposition of the doctrines of the Greek philosophers; in the lacuna of
two books that follows the first, there must have been an exposition of the rites of the mysteries; in Book IV Hippolytus deals with
astrology, geometry, magic; from Book V onward he begins
to expound and criticize the heresies; in Book X there is a recapitulation
of the material treated in the preceding books, and an exposition
of the true doctrine. It is possible that — even without accept-ing the hypothesis of those who consider the author the victim of forgers —
the sources of information are not always reliable, but in the
exposition of the heresies closest to him in time, the
tone becomes more personal and the information richer, even
if not always as objective as it should be: a work,
in conclusion, of scant originality and of no great speculative
vigor, but not devoid of historical interest and of the merit
of clarity, even if at times the author likes to indulge
in the effects of sophistic virtuosity.

III. JUDGMENT

Even from the works alone that all recognize as authentic, I. appears as a man of wide erudition and varied interests, yet not comparable to Clement of Alexandria and to Origen (of whom he had direct knowledge and was an admirer; the influence of I. on Origen is treated by R. Cadiou, La jeunesse d'Origène, Paris 1935, p. 63 ff.). As an exegete, he is an allegorist, but with moderation: his exegesis is founded on faith in the Incarnation of the Word; in Christ it finds the explanation of what is in the Scriptures; it also gave him occasion for exhortations of a homiletic character. As a theologian, he stands in the line of the apologists of the preceding century and of Irenaeus, against the monarchians, who considered the Son and the Holy Spirit as modes of the Father's activity and thought that the Father had suffered together with the Son, and against the docetists he insists on the affirmation that Christ is at once God and man. His doctrine of the unity of God does not exclude the distinction of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (this one, like the Son, pre-existent). In the Refutatio, on the other hand, only the one God and his Word, the Father and the Son, are mentioned, and distinguished, without mention of the Holy Spirit, whence the accusation of ditheism made by Callistus against its author. Salvation consists for him in divinization: «if God had wished to make of you a God, he could have done so; you have an example, that of the Word»; from which it appears how the anti-monarchian preoccupation led the author of the Refutatio to the danger of appearing subordinationist. The fame of intransigent rigorism in disciplinary matters rests above all on certain passages of the Refutatio. - See pl. XI.

IV. CEMETERY of I

On the Via Tiburtina. Under the date of the ides of Aug. (13) both the Depositio martyrum and the Martyrologium Hieronymianum indicate the dies natalis of I. on the Tiburtina without further indication; it seems therefore that the martyr himself gave his name to the cemetery that extends to the left of the said Via, as the itinerary of Einsiedeln indicates, on a hill shortly after the cemetery and the basilica of St. Lawrence. It is then mentioned in the restoration carried out there by Pope Adrian I. Prudentius visited its crypt and mentions the altar situated near the tomb (Peristephanon, XI, v. 153 ff.). The cemetery and the crypt were devastated in the 6th cent. during the Gothic siege and restored through the care of the presbyter Andrew under Pope Vigilius. The inscription that commemorated this work was found by G. B. De Rossi partly in the crypt itself and partly in the pavement of the titulus of the Sts. Quattro Coronati on the Caelian. Some fragments of the poem placed by Damasus on the tomb of the martyr I. were found by G. B. De Rossi in the pavement of the Lateran Basilica (Elogio damasiano del celebre I. martire sepolto presso la Via Tiburtina, in Bull. di arch. crist., 3rd series, 6 [1881], pp. 26-55). Others were discovered during the redoing of the pavement in 1934-35; all are today in the Lateran Museum (E. Josi, Quattro nuovi frammenti del carme di Damaso in onore di s. I., in Riv. di arch. crist., 13 [1936], pp. 231-36).

G. B. De Rossi also found in the crypt an epigraph that commemorates the works carried out in it at the time of Damasus through the work of a presbyter named Leo.

A. Bosio descended into a region of this cemetery, which he believed to be part of that of St. Lawrence, and there read the graffito: « Refr(i)geri tibi Domnus Ippolitus sid... » (Roma sotterranea, Rome 1632, p. 401); M. Boldetti removed many tombstones (Osservazioni sopra i cimiteri, ibid. 1720, p. 568); in 1779 and 1829 the galleries were much devastated (G. B. De Rossi, Roma sotterranea, I, ibid. 1864, p. 61; III, ibid. 1877, pp. 641-42), other explorations were carried out there in 1843 (G. Marchi, Monumenti primitivi del Cristianesimo. Architettura, ibid. 1844, p. 77), then in 1862 F. Gori, Della porta e basilica di S. Lorenzo... e delle catacombe di S. Ippolito, ibid. 1862); in 1881 M. Armellini and O. Marucchi entered it and read several graffiti of pilgrims and presbyters, among them the invocation «Ippolite in mente (habeas) Petru(m) peccatore(m)». In 1882 the excavations brought to light the apse belonging to the small underground basilica erected over the tomb of the martyr. The cemetery suffered greatly in the aerial bombardment of 19 July 1943.

Among the inscriptions found at that time, mention should be made of those commemorating a presbyter of the title of Prudenziana, a lector of the same title who died in 528; the mention of a presbyter of the title of Prassede; the cemetery therefore depended on these two titles; among the Greek inscriptions, that of a certain Victor, a catechumen and servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, is noteworthy (G. B. De Rossi, Bull. di arch. crist., 2 [1883], p. 83). Besides the cemetery, in Rome itself in the 4th century there existed a memorial of the martyr I. at the vicus Patricius, as can be gathered from an epigraph, today in the Lateran Museum, from which the existence of that memorial is inferred (O. Marucchi, I monumenti del Museo Cristiano Pio Lateranense, Milan 1911, pl. 45).

Enrico Josi