HIPPOLYTUS. The name of several saints and martyr; of the early Church. of whom the most interesting flourished in the early part of the third century. Although a very prominent man in his day, the known of his life are few, Ile was of I;reek aneestry and possibly born in Rome, becam• a presbyter of Rome tin der Bishop Zephyrinus 119q-217), and attracted attention by his great learning. the headed a party in imposition to Zephyrimis. and especially to his successor ealixtil.. and was chosen by it their bishop. But a- his opposition was prob ably mostly personal and on opav,tionA of when Urban i. succeeded Calixtus, he was teeoneiled with the Boman Chtireli. However. in 235 he went into exile to Sardinia with Pon tianti:, Urban's successor, and died there. He is a saint in the Roman calendar, and his day is August 13th. He was a voluminous author, but his works are now known only by fragments.
Of these the most interesting is the so-called Philu.suphoutnina, formerly attributed to Origcn, but now thought. to be the first book of a work by Hippolytus, The Refutation of .111 the Ihr(sics, .A manuscript giving books iv.-x.. previously un known. was discovered at Mount Athos in 184•. In them Hippolytus gave personal details which threw new light upon his lite. It was first printed in its entirety by Emmanuel Miller (Ox ford, 1851 , who, however, attributed it to Origen. Baron Bunsen was the first (185'2) to assign it to Hippolytus. Hippolytus's works are given in Nigne, Patrol. GraTa, x., and much better by Bonwetsch and Archelis (Leipzig, 1897 sqq.) : they are translated in Ante-Nicene Fathers, v. Consult Neumann, von Rom in seiner Mcllung zu Stoat untl Welt (Leipzig, 1901).