Hippolytus

“ 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. ”

“ It is a work of later date than the age of Severus, no doubt; but Wordsworth, who admirably illustrates the means by which such a statue may have been provided, gives us good reasons for supposing that it may have been the grateful tribute of contemporaries, and all the more trustworthy as a portrait of the man himself. ”

“ The Refutation was printed at the Clarendon Press in 1851, under the editorship of M. Emmanuel Miller, [10] 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. ”

“ In his personal character he so much resembles Irenæus risen again, [1] that the great Bishop of Lyons must be well studied and understood if we would do full justice to the conduct of Hippolytus. Especially did he follow his master’s example in withstanding contemporary bishops of Rome, who, like Victor, “deserved to be blamed,” but who, much more than any of their predecessors, merited rebuke alike for error in doctrine and viciousness of life. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ John’s Gospel thus, “And this,” he says, “is what has been stated in the Gospels: ‘He was the true light, which lighteneth every man that cometh into the world.’” Now this is precisely the mode of reference we should expect that Basilides would employ; whereas, if Hippolytus had either fabricated the passage or adduced it from hearsay, it is almost certain he would have said “in the Gospel of St. ”

“ 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. ”