Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/508

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Catena on the Apocalypse (Lagarde, Anal. Syr. app. pp. 24–27). It appears that Hippolytus (who is described as pope of Rome) interpreted the woman (Rev. xii. 1) to be the church; the sun with which she is clothed, our Lord; the moon, John the Baptist; the twelve stars, the twelve apostles; the two wings on which she was to fly, hope and love. He understood xii. 10 to speak, not of an actual swallowing up by the earth of the hostile armies, but only that they wandered about in despair. He understood by the wound of the beast (xiii. 3) the contempt and refusal of obedience with which Antichrist would be received by many at first; and by the healing of it the subsequent submission of the nations. The two horns (xiii. 11) are the law and the prophets, for this beast will be a lamb outwardly, though inwardly a ravening wolf. Of the number of the beast, beside the Irenaean solutions, Lateinos, Euanthas, and Teitan, he gives one of his own, Dantialos, a name possibly suggested by the theory that Antichrist was to be of the tribe of Dan. The kings of the East (xvi. 12) come to the support of Antichrist. Armageddon is the valley of Jehoshaphat. The five kings (xvii. 13) are Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Darius, Alexander and his four successors. The next is the Roman empire, whose time was not yet completed; the seventh, who had not yet come, was Antichrist.

This enumeration includes all the works for which there is evidence of Hippolytine authorship, unless we add the letters with which it would seem Eusebius was acquainted. The list of genuine writings is quite enough to establish the immense literary activity of Hippolytus, especially as an interpreter of Scripture; and his labours must have given a great impulse to the study of God's word. As a writer he must be pronounced active rather than able or painstaking. Yet he must be admitted to deserve the reverence his literary labours gained from his contemporaries and the honour paid him at his death. For centuries afterwards his name was obscured; but his glory blazed out again when in the time of Charlemagne his relics were transferred to France. For some interesting particulars of this translation see Benson, Journ. of Classical and Sacred Philology, i. 190. We quote his account of the visit of pope Alexander III. to his shrine in the church of St. Denys in 1159. "on the threshold of one of the chapels he paused to ask, ' Whose relics it contained?' 'Those of St. Hippolytus,' was the answer. 'I don't believe it—I don't believe it' ('Non credo—non credo'), replied the infallible authority. 'The bones of St. Hippolytus were never removed from the holy city.' But St. Hippolytus, whose dry bones apparently had as little reverence for the spiritual progeny of Zephyrinus and Callistus as the ancient bishop's tongue and pen had manifested towards these saints themselves, was so very angry that he rumbled his bones inside the reliquary with a noise like thunder ('ut rugitus tonitrui putaretur'). To what lengths he might have gone if rattling had not sufficed we dare not conjecture. But the pope, falling on his knees, exclaimed in terror, 'I believe, O my Lord Hippolytus—I believe; pray be quiet.' And he built an altar of marble there to appease the disquieted saint."

Literature.—Arts. on Hippolytus are to be found in Tillem. vol. iv.; Ceillier, vol. i.; Fabr. Bibl. Gr. vii. 183, ed. Harles, where is the best account of the older bibliography. The discovery of the Refutation made a good deal of the older literature antiquated. We have already referred to some of the more important writings which that discovery elicited. The more important special dissertations on the other works have been referred to under their respective sections. The most important discussion on the life and works of Hippolytus is that in vol. xi. of part i. of Bp. Lightfoot's Apost. Fathers, pp. 137–477.

[G.S.]

Hippolytus (5): Aug. 10 (Bas: Men.), Aug. 13 (Mart. Vet. Rom. Usuard.). An apocryphal martyr, first mentioned in the 5th or 6th cent. His story, as given in the martyrology of Ado, is taken from the spurious acts of St. Laurentius the Roman archdeacon, where we are told that that saint, when arrested, was delivered by the prefect Valerian into the custody of Hippolytus, a high military officer, who was converted and at once baptized by him, and thereupon sentenced to be torn asunder by wild horses. Döllinger, in Hippolytus and Callistus (Plummer's trans.), pp. 28–39 and 51–60, discusses the rise and development of this legend, which has largely helped to confuse the story of the genuine Hippolytus, the Roman presbyter and writer of the 3rd cent. (q.v.) (cf. Bunsen's Christianity and Mankind, i. 426). Döllinger fixes the composition of this story between the time of pope Liberius and that of Leo the Great, a period of about 70 years. The whole subject is in a state of great confusion in the martyrologies, which Döllinger has striven, with his usual critical power and vast knowledge, to arrange in some consistent order. Yet the impartial reader must feel sorely perplexed between the opposing theories of Döllinger and Bunsen. (Cf. for the more modern traditions regarding this martyr, Aug. Hare's Walks in Rome, ii. 139.)

[G.T.S.]

Honorius (1), Flavius Augustus, emperor, b. 384, d. 423. A full account of him is given in the Dict. of Classical Biogr. He was declared emperor of the West in 394 at Milan, where he remained almost uninterruptedly till 399. He and his brother Arcadius seem to have been only ill-informed spectators of the tremendous events passing around them.

There is an important enactment against paganism in the first year of Honorius's reign (Cod. Theod. XVI. x. 13) which forbids all sacrifices and apparently all public assemblage for pagan worship. The legislation against heresy is varied and stringent. In XVI. v. 25 of the Theodosian Code all Theodosius's coercive edicts were re-enacted in their sharpest form and all concessions revoked. The Eunomians in particular were excluded from rights of military service, legal testimony and inheritance, though this special severity was relaxed soon after (v. 27), in accordance with Theodosius's edicts (XVI. v. 22–24). All heretical congregations were forbidden, and their celebration of the holy mysteries, with ordination either of bishops or presbyters, altogether interdicted. Two more of the five