Hippolytus (writer)

Hippolytus was a writer of the early Christian Church. He was apparently elected as the first Antipope in 217, but died reconciled to the Church in 235 as a martyr, so that he is honored as a saint. The mystery which enveloped the person and writings of Hippolytus, one of the most prolific ecclesiastical writers of early times, had some light thrown upon it for the first time about the middle of the 19th century by the discovery of the so-called Philosophumena (see below). Assuming this writing to be the work of Hippolytus, the information given in it as to the author and his times can be combined with other traditional dates to form a tolerably clear picture.

References

• Bunsen, Hippolytus and his Age (1852, 2nd ed., 1854; Ger. ed., 1853)
• Döllinger, Hippolytus und Kallistus (Regensb. 1853; Eng. transl., Edinb., 1876)
• Gerhard Ficker, Studien zur Hippolytfrage (Leipzig, 1893)
• Hans Achelis, Hippolytstudien (Leipzig, 1897)
• Karl Johannes Neumann, Hippolytus von Rom in seiner Stellung zu Staat und Welt, part i. (Leipzig, 1902)
• Adhémar d'Ales, La Theologie de Saint Hippolyte (Paris, 1906). (G.K.)