HIPPOLYTUS, a bishop, saint and martyr, of the first quarter of the third century, who, from circumstances to be presently mentioned, has recently excited great interest amongst scholars and theologians. It was the apparently unquestioned belief among the older Christian writers that an eminent ecclesiastical author, Hippolytus, had resided as bishop at Portus Reim% near Ostia, and that he had there been put to death by the emperor Alexander Severus towards the end of his reign. But certain difficulties in the statement, coupled with the fact of Severus not baring persecuted the Christians, and of Otero being no other instance recorded of a bishop of Portus, as also the occurrence of some points of similarity between this Hippolytus and other Hippolyt1 recorded in the Roman martyrologies, led to attempts to controvert or explain away the difficulties In the common account. Thus Le Moyne sought to show that Hippolytus was bishop of Adana (Aden), then the great emporium of the Roman commerco with the East, and consequently known as the Portus Romanus ; his views found many followers, and though never generally adopted the opinion prevailed that Hippolytus was in fact an Arabian, or at least an Eastern bishop. But whilst there was so much doubt as to the time and place where Hippolytus flourished, there was none as to the eminent position he held as a writer and confessor of the ancient church. Eusebius, Jerome, and other eminent fathers, alike refer to him in terms of profound regard, and the Romish church had long set apart a day (August 21, in later years August 22), in commemoration of St. Hippolytus, bishop and martyr. In 1551 there was discovered at Rome, near a church dedicated to St. Laurence, a statue—the work apparently of an artist of not later than the 6th ceutury—repre sentiog a bishop seated, somewhat above the size of life, having inscribed on it the name of Hippolytus, bishop of Portus, and on the back of the chair the paschal cycle which he introduced at Rome, and a list of his principal writings. His works, or such of them as remained, including some of very doubtful authenticity, were collected and published by Fabricius in 1716-18, and again by Gallaodius in 1766; but some of the most remarkable of those enumerated on the statue had escaped the research of the editors and of later investigators.
Thus remained the information possessed respecting Hippolytus when, in 1842, an agent of the French government, M. Menas, obtained at Mount Athos among other manuscripts one in Greek on the subject of 'Heresies.' It was placed in the Bibliotheque du Roi at Paris, where it remained without attracting any notice till an excellent Greek scholar, M. Emmanuel Miller, in pursuing some researches thcro examined this manuscript, and perceived that it was not only an ancient but an hitherto unpublished work. He at once addressed himself to the laborious task of preparing a copy of it for the press ; and the University of Oxford having undertaken the expense of the publication, it was in 1851 printed at the University press under the superintendence of M. Miller, with the title, ",flpi74vous stnAocro
diatefy excited general interest among the scholars of Germany and France as well as of England, and its great importance in connection with the early history of the church was at once perceived ; but at the same time it became evident that it was incorrectly assigned to Origen, whose known works it in no way resembled, whose opinions it often differed from, and to whom no such work had been by any early author ascribed.
The subject was first brought directly before the English public by Chevalier _Bunsen in 1852, in a most laborious work (embodying the studies in theology and ecclesiastical history of many years), entitled 'Hippolytus and his Age ; or the Doctrine and Practice of the Church of Rome under Commodus and Alexander Severus, and Ancient and Modern Christianity and Divinity compared,' 4 vols. 8vo. In this work M. Bunsen undertook to show that the Refutation of all the Heresies,' ascribed by M. Miller to Origen, was really the lost work of Hippolytus, mentioned under the same title as his by Eusebius, Jerome, Epiphanius, and Peter, bishop of Alexandria, and also inscribed on his statue. This view he supported with great learning and ability, and though other scholars had fixed on Caius, on Ignatius, and even on Tertullian, there appears to be now a pretty general acquiescence in the Chevalier's views as to the writer. We givo the summary of his statement in his own words :—" We may sum up the arguments brought forward in a few words. The book cannot have been written by Origen, nor even by Caius the presbyter, for it is written by a bishop; besides nobody (i.e., no early Christian writer) ever attributed to the Alexandrian or to the Roman presbyter a book with a like title. On the other hand, such a book is ascribed by the highest authorities to Hippolytus, bishop of Portus, presbyter of the Church of Rome, who lived and wrote about 220, as the 'Paschal Cycle' and his statue expressly state." ('Hippol.,' 335.) M. Bunsen's opinions on some other points (chiefly of theology and philology) have however met with much opposition, and he in 1854 replied to his opponents, and re-stated with additional proofs his theory respecting the work on 'Heresies,' in a new and greatly-enlarged edition, in 7 vols. 8vo, of his 'Hippolytus and his Age.' With the theological or general controversy we have here nothing to do. It has in its various sections engaged the pens of many eminent scholars and theologians of all churches and sects in England and on the Continent; and besides several distinct works (of which that of Dr. C. Wordsworth, entitled St. Hippolytus and the Church of Rome in the earlier part of the Third Century,' 8vo, London, 1853, and his 'Remarks on Bunsen,' 8vo, 1855, are perhaps the most important which have been published in London), essays of greater or less learning and acumen have appeared in every review and almost every denominational journal of any cote in the English language, in the 'Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology; and in most of the leading German philological and theo logical magazines. But the investigation which the subject has under gone will enable us to state in a few words what is now known of Hippolytus.