Hippolytus here described as presbyter is not our Hippolytus, and probably both he and Pontianus gained the title of martyrs by dying in the mines. From the "depositio martyrum" of the Liberian Catalogue it appears that the bodies of Pontianus and Hippolytus were both deposited on the same day (Aug. 13), the former in the cemetery of Callistus, the latter in that on the Via Tiburtina, and it is natural to think that both bodies were brought from Sardinia to Rome. The translation of Pontianus, we are told, was effected by pope Fabianus, probably in 236 or 237. A very different account of the martyrdom of Hippolytus is given by Prudentius (Peristeph. 11), who wrote at the beginning of the 5th cent. His story is that Hippolytus had been a presbyter, who was torn in pieces at Ostia by wild horses, like the Hippolytus of mythology. Prudentius describes the subterranean tomb of the saint and states that he saw on the spot a picture representing this execution, and that this martyrdom was commemorated on Aug. 13. He gives an account of the crowds who flocked to the commemoration and a description of a stately church, with a double row of pillars, which Döllinger considers was the church of St. Laurence († 258), a saint whose cultus attained much greater celebrity, and who was also buried on the Via Tiburtina, his church being adjacent to the tomb of Hippolytus.
The picture which Prudentius saw may well have been originally intended to depict the sufferings of the mythological Hippolytus, and, being inscribed with that name, have been ignorantly copied or transferred by Christians to adorn the resting-place of the martyr of that name. The tale told by Prudentius is plainly the offspring of the picture, and the authentic evidence of the deposition, on Aug. 13, on the Via Tiburtina of the remains of a Hippolytus who is coupled with Pontianus indicates the real owner of the tomb, of whom, in the century and a half which passed before Prudentius visited it, all but his name and the day of his feast had been forgotten.
What light has been cast upon his history by the recovery of the treatise against heresies? The portion previously extant had been known under the name of Origen's Philosophumena. We make no scruple in treating this as the work of Hippolytus, for this is the nearly unanimous opinion of critics, Lipsius alone hesitating and cautiously citing the author as Pseudo-Origenes. From this work it appears that he took an active part in the affairs of the Roman church in the episcopates of Zephyrinus and Callistus. Döllinger has shewn that, without imputing wilful misstatement to Hippolytus, it is possible to put on all that he relates about CALLISTUS a very much more favourable interpretation than he has done; and with regard to the charge that Callistus in trying to steer a middle course between Sabellianism and orthodoxy had invented a new heresy, the retort may be made that it was Hippolytus himself who in his dread of Sabellianism had laid himself open to the charge of Ditheism. But the point to which Döllinger called attention, with which we are most concerned here, is that Hippolytus in this work never recognizes Callistus as bp. of Rome. He says that Callistus had aspired to the episcopal throne and that on the death of Zephyrinus "he supposed himself to have obtained what he had been hunting for." But Hippolytus treats him only as the founder of a school (διδασκαλεῖον) in opposition to the Catholic church, using the same word with regard to Noetus (cont. Haer. Noeti, Lagarde, p. 44), of whom he says that when expelled from the church he had the presumption to set up "a school." Hippolytus says that Callistus and his party claimed to be the Catholic church and gloried in their numbers, though this multitude of adherents had been gained by unworthy means, namely, by improper laxity in receiving offenders. Callistus had received into his communion persons whom Hippolytus had excommunicated. He adds that this school of Callistus still continued when he wrote, which was plainly after the death of Callistus, and he refuses to give its members any name but Callistians. Evidently the breach between Hippolytus and Callistus had proceeded to open schism. But if Hippolytus did not regard Callistus as bp. of Rome, whom did he so regard? To this question it is difficult to give any answer but Döllinger's: Hippolytus claimed to be bp. of Rome himself. In the introduction to his work, Hippolytus claims to hold the episcopal office; he declares that the pains which he took in the confutation of heresy were his duty as successor of the apostles, partaker of the grace of the Holy Spirit that had been given to them and which they transmitted to those of right faith, and as clad with the dignity of the high priesthood and office of teaching and guardian of the church. Afterwards we find him exercising the power of excommunication upon persons, who thereupon joined the school of Callistus. Thus we seem to have a key to the difficulty that Hippolytus is described in the Liberian Catalogue only as presbyter, and yet was known in the East universally as bishop; and very widely as bp. of Rome. His claim to be bishop was not admitted by the church of Rome, but was made in works of his, written in Greek and circulating extensively in the East, either by himself in the works or more probably in titles prefixed to them by his ardent followers. We have also a key to the origin of the tradition that Hippolytus had been a Novatianist. He had been in separation from the church, and the exact cause of difference had been forgotten. Against another hypothesis, that Hippolytus was at the same time bp. of Portus and a leading presbyter of Rome, Döllinger urges, besides the weakness of the proof that Hippolytus was bp. of Portus, that there is no evidence that Portus had then a bishop, and that, according to the then constitution of the church, the offices of presbyter and bishop could not be thus combined. Döllinger contends that the schism could not have occurred immediately on the election of Callistus; but there is exactly the same reason for saying that Hippolytus refused to recognize Zephyrinus as bishop, as that he rejected Callistus; for he speaks of the former also as "imagining" that he governed the church. In consistency, then, Döllinger ought to have made the schism begin in the time of Zephyrinus,
