St. Hippolytus and the Church of Rome in the Earlier Part of the Third Century; From the Newly-Discovered "Refutation of All Heresies" (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1880 Excerpt: ...Statue of Hippolytus. He then Socrates Scholasticus, Eccl. Hist. iv. 28, who says that he died under Valerian, i. e. not later than A.D. 260. Socrates, even in the time of the younger Theodosius, writes with a favourable bias to the disciplinarian system of Novatian. s Prudent. Peri Steph. xi. 28. Nicephorus, Callisti, iv. 31. adds, that there were "some things in his writings which might be taken hold of as reprehensible (eiriiXtfyfrifia), but that afterwards, being consummated by Martyrdom for Christ, he wiped off the stain of ignorance in these respects." Some persons have been perplexed by the application (in this hymn) of the name "Presbyter" to Hippolytus, who was a Bishop. But there is no difficulty here; though a Presbyter is not called a Bishop by ancient authors, yet a Bishop, especially one who was a learned and eloquent Teacher of the Church, as Hippolytus was, is often called Presbyter;7 and Prudentius declares in this hymn that the Martyr Hippolytus, whose death he describes, was a Bishop, by saying, that he was the Head of a Christian Church (v. 80). A pertinent question has been asked. If St. Hippolytus at his Martyrdom gave a public testimony against Novatianism (as Prudentius affirms that he did), how are we to explain that St. Cyprian in his Epistles never refers to that protest? The answer is, St. Cyprian himself was martyred about the same time, probably about a month after St. Hippolytus. A great man, St. Dionysius, became Bishop of Rome in the following year, A.D. 259, and in his 7 E.g. Irenseus is twice called fiimipios irpeafHrepos in this treatise, pp. 202. 222, and never 'Eir(o-Ko?roj: see also Clem. Alex. Psedag. iii. p. 291, ed. Potter, and Strom, vii. p. 830, notes, where it is shown that in the second centu...