Book i

. was for a long time printed (with the title _Philosophumena_) among the works of Origen; Books iv.-x. were found in 1842 by the Greek Minoides Mynas, without the name of the author, in a MS. at Mount Athos. It is nowadays universally admitted that Hippolytus was the author, and that Books i. and iv.-x. belong to the same work. The importance of the work has, however, been much overrated; a close examination of the sources for the exposition of the Gnostic system which is contained in it has proved that the information it gives is not always trustworthy. Of the dogmatic works, that on _Christ and Antichrist_ survives in a complete state. Among other things it includes a vivid account of the events preceding the end of the world, and it was probably written at the time of the persecution under Septimius Severus, i.e. about 202. The influence of Hippolytus was felt chiefly through his works on chronographic and ecclesiastical law. His chronicle of the world, a compilation embracing the whole period from the creation of the world up to the year 234, formed a basis for many chronographical works both in the East and West. In the great compilations of ecclesiastical law which arose in the East since the 4th century (see below: also APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTIONS) much of the material was taken from the writings of Hippolytus; how much of this is genuinely his, how much of it worked over, and how much of it wrongly attributed to him, can no longer be determined beyond dispute even by the most learned investigation.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The edition of J. A. Fabricius, _Hippolyti opera graece et latine_ (2 vols., Hamburg, 1716-1718, reprinted in Gallandi, _Bibliotheca veterum patrum_ (vol. ii., 1766), and Migne, _Cursus patrol. ser. Graeca_, vol. x.) is out of date. The preparation of a complete critical edition has been undertaken by the Prussian Academy of Sciences. The task is one of extraordinary difficulty, for the textual problems of the various writings are complex and confused: the Greek original is extant in a few cases only (the _Commentary on Daniel_, the _Refutation, on Antichrist_, parts of the _Chronicle_, and some fragments); for the rest we are dependent on fragments of translations, chiefly Slavonic, all of which are not even published. Of the Academy's edition one volume was published at Berlin in 1897, containing the _Commentaries on Daniel_ and on the _Song of Songs_, the treatise on _Antichrist_, and the _Lesser Exegetical_ and _Homiletic Works_, edited by Nathanael Bonwetsch and Hans Achelis. The _Commentary on the Song of Songs_ has also been published by Bonwetsch (Leipzig, 1902) in a German translation based on a Russian translation by N. Marr of the Grusian (Georgian) text, and he added to it (Leipzig, 1904) a translation of various small exegetical pieces, which are preserved in a Georgian version only (_The Blessing of Jacob_, _The Blessing of Moses_, _The Narrative of David and Goliath_). A great part of the original of the _Chronicle_ has been published by Adolf Bauer (Leipzig, 1905) from the _Codex Matritensis Graecus_, 221. For the _Refutation_ we are still dependent on the editions of Miller (Oxford, 1851), Duncker and Schneidewin (Gottingen, 1859), and Cruice (Paris, 1860). An English translation is to be found in the _Ante-Nicene Christian Library_ (Edinburgh, 1868-1869).

See Bunsen, _Hippolytus and his Age_ (1852, 2nd ed., 1854; Ger. ed., 1853); Dollinger, _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_,