HIPPOLYTUS (d. c. 23o), a writer of the early Church, whose personality was enveloped in mystery before the dis covery in 1851 of the Philosophumena (see below). Assuming the authenticity of this work, and correlating it with tradition, we get a tolerably clear picture. Hippolytus was born in the second half of the 2nd century, probably in Rome. He was learned and eloquent and under Bishop Zephyrinus (199-217) was presbyter of the church at Rome. He accused Zephyrinus's successor, Calixtus I. (q.v.), of favouring the Christological heresies of the Monarchians, and of subverting discipline by receiving back into the Church those guilty of gross offences. The result was a schism, and for some ten years Hippolytus stood as bishop at the head of a separate church. • During the persecution under Maximinus the Thracian, Hippolytus and Pontius, who was then bishop, were transported in 235 to Sardinia, where it would seem that both of them died, the former having been reconciled with the Church.
Hippolytus's voluminous writings, some of which are listed in Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. vi. and in Jerome, De Viris Ill. lxi., exist chiefly in fragments. They embrace the spheres of exegesis, apologetics and polemic, chronography and ecclesiastical law. Of his exegetical works the best preserved are the Commentary on the Prophet Daniel and the Commentary on the Song of Songs, both distinguished by sobriety and sense of proportion. Of his polemical treatises the chief is the Refutation of all Heresies, or Philosophumena. Bk. i. was for a long time printed among the works of Origen ; bks. iv.–x. were found in 1842 by the Greek Minoides Mynas, without the name of the author, in a ms. at Mount Athos, but it is now accepted as a work of Hippolytus; books ii. and iii. are lost. The work has been much overrated, the exposition of the Gnostic system in particular being untrust worthy. Of the dogmatic works, that on Christ and Antichrist which survives in a complete state, gives a vivid account of the events of the beginning of the 3rd century. The chronicle of the world, from the creation to 234, formed a basis for many chrono graphical works both in the East and West. In the great corn pilations of ecclesiastical law which arose in the East since the 4th century (see APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTIONS) much material was taken from Hippolytus.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.—The edition by J. A. Fabricius (2 vols., Hamburg, Bibliography.—The edition by J. A. Fabricius (2 vols., Hamburg, 1716-18, reprinted in Gallandi, Bibliotheca veterum patrum (vol. ii., 1766) , and Migne, patrol. graeca, x.) is out of date. The Commen taries on Daniel and on the Song of Songs, the treatise on Antichrist, and the Lesser Exegetical and Homiletic Works were edited by N. Bonwetsch and H. Achelis in 1897. The Chronicle has been published by A. Bauer (Leipzig, 5905) and the Refutation by Miller (Oxford, 1851), Duncker and Schneidewin (Gottingen, 1859) and Cruice (Paris, 1860). The Philosophumena has been translated by F. Legge (1921) . See Bunsen, Hippolytus and his Age (1852, 2nd ed., 1854) ; Dollinger, Hippolytus and Kallistus (Regensb. 1853 ; Eng. transl., 1876) ; G. Ficker, Studien zur Hippolytfrage (Leipzig, 1893) ; H. Achelis, Hippo lytstudien (Leipzig, 1897) ; K. J. Neumann, Hippolytus von Rom in seiner Stellung zu Staat and Welt, part i. (Leipzig, 1902) ; Adhemar d'Ales, La Theologie de Saint Hippolyte (1906) .