Hippolytus is a unique figure in Christian history, for he, a schismatic bishop of Rome, is honoured by the Roman church as a saint and martyr. This curious combination of qualities made him for centuries a highly enigmatic personality, of whom almost nothing was known. Many of his voluminous works were preserved and studied, and were translated into Syriac, Coptic, Arabic, Armenian and even Old Slavic. But his creation of a schism and his acceptance of its episcopate were acts so contrary to established principles that Eusebius, writing less than a century later, can describe him only as the bishop “of a church somewhere”;[33] to which description Jerome adds: “the name of whose city I have been unable to learn”.[34] That this city was in fact Rome is, to be sure, stated by not a few late patristic and medieval writers, especially in the East, but these do not hint that there was anything irregular about his tenure. Or he is assigned sees in widely different localities, sometimes as far off as Arabia and sometimes as near Rome as Portus: this last place—due, apparently, to confusion with some other martyr—was especially popular. But among Western writers Hippolytus’s episcopal rank is commonly ignored and he appears simply as “a presbyter”: the present Roman Catholic service books[35] do not call him “bishop”. The sole general agreement was as to the date of his death, which the martyrologies and other early testimony place about 235.
In 1551 excavations in Rome brought to light a third-century statue of Hippolytus, now in the Lateran Museum; the upper part of the body has been “restored”. On the sides are inscribed an “Easter Canon” that he computed and a partial list of his works.[36] The posture of the body, which is that of a seated teacher, made episcopal dignity more than probable, so for the official description of the statue Pius IV, the next pope, adopted the Portus tradition. Hence as “Bishop of Portus” the saint was generally known until the middle of the nineteenth century.
In 1701 Jakob Gronov published, in the tenth volume of his Thesaurus Graecarum Antiquitatum, Book I—no more was then known—of a work called “Philosophumena” or “Philosophizings”, that was commonly, although not universally, referred to Origen. Books IV-X of this work were discovered in 1842 and nine years later were published as Origen’s by the editor, B. E. Miller.[37] But the contents of the work were soon proved by competent scholars—notably Döllinger[38]—to make Origen’s authorship impossible; the necessary conditions were fulfilled by Hippolytus alone. This proof established also the Hippolytean authorship of certain other disputed works; and the evidence thus assembled showed that Hippolytus was both a bishop and a Roman. Incidentally, it has been established also that the correct title for the above work is “Refutation of All Heresies”, and that “Philosophumena” was the sub-title of Books I-IV (not as is sometimes stated of Book I alone). But “Philosophumena” is generally accepted by modern writers.
The Portus tradition, however, still lingered on for a time and is accepted in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, both by the original editor J. H. Macmahon (1868) and by the American reviser Bishop A. C. Coxe (1886). Bishop Lightfoot supported a compromise theory that made of Hippolytus a sort of suffragan bishop of Rome with special jurisdiction over Portus.[39] But neither position is now tenable.
For the facts of Hippolytus’s life we have practically only what he himself tells us in scattered allusions; only once (Philosophumena IX, 7) does he relate contemporary events at any length. Since in his later works he speaks of himself as aged, his birth must be placed ca. 160. Tradition makes him a disciple of Irenaeus, a highly probable supposition even though his works are silent on the subject. He became a presbyter of the Roman church under Zephyrinus (198?-217, or perhaps earlier) and won great respect for his learning and eloquence: on one occasion he was deputed to preach in the presence of Origen.[40] But his learning brought him into a mortal conflict with a fellow presbyter, one Callistus.
This Callistus had had in earlier years a career that was at least ambiguous. The servant of a wealthy Christian, he was permitted by his master to undertake in Rome the experiment of a “Christian bank”, in which many of the faithful deposited their savings. As has usually been the case with such experiments, the bank failed, and in this case no assets could be discovered. Callistus fled, but was brought back to Rome and sentenced to the treadmill. After a while he was released and sought to regain favour with the Christians by interrupting a Jewish synagogue service and preaching Christianity to the congregation.[41] For this he was sent to the Sardinian convict mines. All of this appears to have taken place during the ninth decade of the second century; in any case Callistus was still a prisoner when Bishop Victor succeeded in obtaining from the Emperor Commodus the release of many Christian prisoners in the year 190 or thereabouts.[42] The list of names drawn up by Victor and sent to Sardinia did not include Callistus, but he contrived to secure his discharge as well, and he returned to Italy as at least technically a “martyr”.[43] Victor, however, did not permit him to remain in Rome and dismissed him to Antium, where he lived until Victor’s death, receiving from the church’s fund a monthly allowance that enabled him to avoid suffering.
Victor was succeeded by Zephyrinus, an easy-going man of small intelligence, who in past years had conceived an intense admiration for Callistus. He immediately recalled the latter to Rome, ordained him presbyter,[44] and made him his chief lieutenant; during Zephyrinus’s episcopacy Callistus was the real power at Rome. His only significant rival was Hippolytus.
Two more different men can scarcely be imagined. Both were equally determined to have their own way. But Callistus was suave and ingratiating, little concerned with theological speculation, desirous of immediate practical results and none too scrupulous as to ways and means, indifferent to precedents and perfectly willing to try novel experiments. Hippolytus was dour and irascible,[45] convinced that meticulous theology must be maintained though the heavens fell, scandalized at the mere thought of relaxing discipline, a traditionalist to his finger tips, who believed that any new idea was necessarily Satanic. Between such antagonists a relentless war was inevitable.
They appear to have fought on most questions, but one cause of conflict was paramount: Christology. During the second century the church was constantly tormented by the problem of reconciling the rigid monotheism inherited from the Jews with the divine honours that were unquestioningly paid to Christ. The solution that Hippolytus proposed followed in general the doctrine of the Fourth Gospel: God from before creation has begotten[46] from Himself His Logos, itself divine. This doctrine rests on speculative metaphysical premises that are none too easy of comprehension; to many thinkers in the second century it seemed either (a) to subordinate the Son to the Father in such a way as to detract from the Son’s true divinity, or (b) to make of the Son an independent deity and so destroy monotheism. Hippolytus endeavoured to avoid both extremes, but with what success specialists—ancient or modern—are unable to agree; it must be remembered, however, that he wrote as a pioneer in an age when the real questions were not yet clearly stated, let alone answered, and that he employed a philosophy originally devised for a very different purpose. The most popular alternative to his theory was what is rather cumbrously known as “modalistic monarchianism”; this was quite within the grasp of the most unphilosophical, since it disregarded all metaphysical refinements. It argued: “We worship Christ as God, and God is One. Therefore Christ is God and God is Christ; ‘Father’ and ‘Son’ are only titles that describe the same Person in different aspects or ‘modes’”.
Later on this modalism was regarded as heresy of the most extreme type, but even in the late second century it was widely taught and was uncondemned; in part the church authorities wished to preserve peace above all things and in part they were really in doubt as to the points at issue. Many teachers, to be sure, attacked it violently and none with greater passion than Hippolytus, who at the beginning of the third century was making the Roman church hot with his invectives. But, despite him, when Sabellius, the great apostle of modalism, came to Rome he was received cordially by Zephyrinus and Callistus.