The Portus tradition, however, still lingered on for a time and is accepted in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, both by the original editor J. H. Macmahon (1868) and by the American reviser Bishop A. C. Coxe (1886). Bishop Lightfoot supported a compromise theory that made of Hippolytus a sort of suffragan bishop of Rome with special jurisdiction over Portus.[39] But neither position is now tenable.

For the facts of Hippolytus’s life we have practically only what he himself tells us in scattered allusions; only once (Philosophumena IX, 7) does he relate contemporary events at any length. Since in his later works he speaks of himself as aged, his birth must be placed ca. 160. Tradition makes him a disciple of Irenaeus, a highly probable supposition even though his works are silent on the subject. He became a presbyter of the Roman church under Zephyrinus (198?-217, or perhaps earlier) and won great respect for his learning and eloquence: on one occasion he was deputed to preach in the presence of Origen.[40] But his learning brought him into a mortal conflict with a fellow presbyter, one Callistus.

This Callistus had had in earlier years a career that was at least ambiguous. The servant of a wealthy Christian, he was permitted by his master to undertake in Rome the experiment of a “Christian bank”, in which many of the faithful deposited their savings. As has usually been the case with such experiments, the bank failed, and in this case no assets could be discovered. Callistus fled, but was brought back to Rome and sentenced to the treadmill. After a while he was released and sought to regain favour with the Christians by interrupting a Jewish synagogue service and preaching Christianity to the congregation.[41] For this he was sent to the Sardinian convict mines. All of this appears to have taken place during the ninth decade of the second century; in any case Callistus was still a prisoner when Bishop Victor succeeded in obtaining from the Emperor Commodus the release of many Christian prisoners in the year 190 or thereabouts.[42] The list of names drawn up by Victor and sent to Sardinia did not include Callistus, but he contrived to secure his discharge as well, and he returned to Italy as at least technically a “martyr”.[43] Victor, however, did not permit him to remain in Rome and dismissed him to Antium, where he lived until Victor’s death, receiving from the church’s fund a monthly allowance that enabled him to avoid suffering.

Victor was succeeded by Zephyrinus, an easy-going man of small intelligence, who in past years had conceived an intense admiration for Callistus. He immediately recalled the latter to Rome, ordained him presbyter,[44] and made him his chief lieutenant; during Zephyrinus’s episcopacy Callistus was the real power at Rome. His only significant rival was Hippolytus.

Two more different men can scarcely be imagined. Both were equally determined to have their own way. But Callistus was suave and ingratiating, little concerned with theological speculation, desirous of immediate practical results and none too scrupulous as to ways and means, indifferent to precedents and perfectly willing to try novel experiments. Hippolytus was dour and irascible,[45] convinced that meticulous theology must be maintained though the heavens fell, scandalized at the mere thought of relaxing discipline, a traditionalist to his finger tips, who believed that any new idea was necessarily Satanic. Between such antagonists a relentless war was inevitable.

They appear to have fought on most questions, but one cause of conflict was paramount: Christology. During the second century the church was constantly tormented by the problem of reconciling the rigid monotheism inherited from the Jews with the divine honours that were unquestioningly paid to Christ. The solution that Hippolytus proposed followed in general the doctrine of the Fourth Gospel: God from before creation has begotten[46] from Himself His Logos, itself divine. This doctrine rests on speculative metaphysical premises that are none too easy of comprehension; to many thinkers in the second century it seemed either (a) to subordinate the Son to the Father in such a way as to detract from the Son’s true divinity, or (b) to make of the Son an independent deity and so destroy monotheism. Hippolytus endeavoured to avoid both extremes, but with what success specialists—ancient or modern—are unable to agree; it must be remembered, however, that he wrote as a pioneer in an age when the real questions were not yet clearly stated, let alone answered, and that he employed a philosophy originally devised for a very different purpose. The most popular alternative to his theory was what is rather cumbrously known as “modalistic monarchianism”; this was quite within the grasp of the most unphilosophical, since it disregarded all metaphysical refinements. It argued: “We worship Christ as God, and God is One. Therefore Christ is God and God is Christ; ‘Father’ and ‘Son’ are only titles that describe the same Person in different aspects or ‘modes’”.

Later on this modalism was regarded as heresy of the most extreme type, but even in the late second century it was widely taught and was uncondemned; in part the church authorities wished to preserve peace above all things and in part they were really in doubt as to the points at issue. Many teachers, to be sure, attacked it violently and none with greater passion than Hippolytus, who at the beginning of the third century was making the Roman church hot with his invectives. But, despite him, when Sabellius, the great apostle of modalism, came to Rome he was received cordially by Zephyrinus and Callistus.

Still, even Hippolytus was forced to admit that Sabellius was an honest and open-minded man, and one with whom he could argue so frankly that he had great hopes of converting him. But Callistus interfered. Not that he himself was quite a modalist; his own Christology, while having strong modalistic leanings, was saved from downright modalism by dexterous qualifications. But he regarded Hippolytus’s doctrine—which he probably could not really understand—as the worse of the two evils. So Sabellius, finding the two great Roman leaders at loggerheads, reverted to his former position. To Hippolytus this was the last straw and he publicly denounced Callistus[47] as a heretic. Callistus retorted by hurling at Hippolytus the final insult: “Ditheist!” The result was a schism.

It took place, apparently, in the last years of Zephyrinus,[48] who died in 217. Hippolytus and his disciples fled from the—to them—polluted and heretical communion of the regular bishop and proclaimed that they and they alone were the true church of Rome. They were not numerous but their standing appears to have been high; at any rate they were able to find bishops willing to consecrate their leader to the episcopate. But their withdrawal left the “regular” church completely under Callistus’s control, and at Zephyrinus’s death he was elected to succeed him. This election, of course, Hippolytus treated as wholly null, asserting contemptuously that what Callistus had done was to become the leader of a “school of Callistans”, not of a “church of Christians”.

Callistus disposed of the Christological controversy by excommunicating both Sabellius and Hippolytus, and then turned his attention to the most thorny practical question that perplexed contemporary Christians, the problem of mortal sin after baptism. From the beginning of the post-apostolic age[49] the church almost universally held that such sin could not receive absolution, so that the sinners were permanently excommunicate and without hope of restoration.[50] The only “orthodox” voice in opposition to this rigorism was raised by the Shepherd of Hermas, and even its author dared oppose the universal teaching of his age only because he had received a special revelation from God; nor did he venture to promise more than the remission of one post-baptismal sin for anyone. In many quarters, indeed, even this mild relaxation of the rule was passionately resisted, and the most vigorous religious movement of the second century—Montanism—took as its watchword, “No second remission!”

By the beginning of the third century a final settlement of the question had become a necessity. The Christians had been successful beyond their dreams in attracting converts, but probably the majority possessed only general good moral qualities and lacked the heroic virtues. What was to be done with them? Should the church dismiss them as unworthy and so reduce its numbers drastically? Or should it do what it could for those whose intentions were good, without expecting too much of them? To Hippolytus the church’s constant teaching since the apostles’ time removed the problem from debate: Christians must be saints in the fullest sense of the word. So his flock was constantly purged by excommunications. Callistus, on the contrary, took the bold step of brushing aside tradition altogether and of appealing directly to the New Testament: “Let the tares grow with the wheat until the harvest”,[51] and, “Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant?"[52] Sinners were, of course, put to penance, but if they proved their good faith they could be absolved, no matter what their offence nor how often it had been committed. This decision of Callistus was nothing short of revolutionary, and it was destined to change the ideal of church membership for all time. Naturally it shocked Hippolytus beyond measure—and his horror was intensified when those whom he himself had excommunicated were received into communion by Callistus.

The latter, in fact, went so far in the abolition of the stricter rules that his own successors at Rome withdrew or seriously modified some of his concessions. He pronounced that second and even third marriages constituted no impediment to ordination, and allowed clerics to marry after they had been ordained. And he declined to recognize for Christian marriage the impediment of disparity of status in the Roman civil law; as a result the church permitted marriages that the parties could disown to the state—with some curious consequences.

All of this so incensed Hippolytus and his party that Callistus’s death in 222 did not end the schism; it continued under his successors Urbanus (222-230)—of whom nothing is certainly known—and Pontianus (230-235). But in 235 Maximinus became emperor and he undertook a persecution that singled out the Christian leaders. So in Rome both Pontianus and Hippolytus were arrested and sent to Sardinia, where they shortly afterward succumbed to the hardships of convict life. This healed the breach in the church, and the reunited factions completed the reconciliation by pronouncing both bishops to be saints and martyrs.

This action has been taken by some scholars—arguing from the premises of a later day—as evidence that Hippolytus made a retractation before his death. But Hippolytus was not the man to retract anything. And the Roman church of the next generation would never have allowed the erection of his statue if they had held him to be saved only by a deathbed repentance; still less would they have permitted the public and honourable inscription of the titles of works in which he glories in his conduct.[53] The church really acknowledged that both sides had made mistakes, and that Hippolytus’s errors—whatever they may have been—were due to an excess of zeal for righteousness and were not to be weighed against his consecrated learning and his burning devotion.

THE APOSTOLIC TRADITION

For a list and description of Hippolytus’s works reference must be made to the treatises on patrology; he was a prolific writer on exegetical, doctrinal and practical themes, who published at least fifty books and probably many more. But after he had been consecrated bishop of his separatist congregation, his first task was to provide treatises to perpetuate the principles for which he was contending so bitterly. One of these was Of Gifts, to which he alludes in 1. 1; it has not been preserved, although traces appear to be incorporated in Constitutions VIII, i-ii. And it was followed immediately by the Apostolic Tradition.

Its introduction fixes its date and purpose. A “lapse or error” had “recently occurred” (1. 4), and Hippolytus undertakes to guard against its effects by setting forth the true doctrine “which has continued up to now”. And he recurs to the same theme at the close: “the many heresies have increased because their leaders would not learn the purpose of the apostles”, but “over all who hear the apostolic tradition and keep it, no heretics or any other man will prevail” (38. 2-3). The date accordingly must be close to 217 and the purpose is to cleave to the old ways, rejecting every innovation; the tradition which Hippolytus received from the presbyters before him (36. 12) must be maintained inviolate.

In content the book consists mainly of laws for church organization and the conduct of worship, but these are interspersed freely with comment and explanation. The source of the laws themselves is not doubtful: they represent the normal practices at Rome in Hippolytus’s younger days, and he is quite sincere in believing that they are truly apostolic and therefore unalterable. And that they actually are rules of real antiquity is shown by the corroboration they receive from other early Christian writers, among whom Tertullian in particular describes usages extraordinarily like those expounded by his Roman contemporary. The Apostolic Tradition, consequently, is more than a source for Roman customs at the beginning of the third century; it may with equal safety be invoked for the practice of thirty or even fifty years earlier. In the words of Harnack:[54] “Here is the richest source that we in any form possess for our knowledge of the polity of the Roman church in the oldest time, and this Roman polity may, in many regards, be accepted as the polity held everywhere”.

The same, naturally, cannot always be said of the material in Hippolytus’s comments. Here too, unquestionably, much is inherited; it is for one of his explanations that he appeals to the presbyters in 36. 12. But it is occasionally evident—chapter 9 is an instance—that the ceremonies he faithfully describes do not fully accord with his interpretations, and that he himself does not invariably understand his material. Some of the wording of his prayers, moreover, is unmistakably his own, but in his day (10. 4-6) each Christian leader still felt free to frame prayers as he would.

Hippolytus designed his work for “the churches” (1. 3), a phrase most naturally understood of Christendom at large. His own church of Rome appears to have appreciated his work the least, for the majority of Roman Christians gave their allegiance to his rivals and accepted their legislation; it was the reforms of Callistus and not the conservatism of Hippolytus that directed subsequent Roman polity. Probably, too, despite his canonization, his memory was always slightly suspect; the Roman church certainly managed to forget very quickly who he really was. By the middle of the third century, moreover, his church finally abandoned Greek as its official language and became wholly Latinized, so that his writings were no longer accessible. And what was true of Rome was true of the West in general.

In the East, however, especially in Egypt and Syria, Hippolytus’s work was accepted as possessing high authority. It was of course not treated as infallible, for later legal writers do not hesitate to amend or omit laws disagreeing with local usage. Yet the title Hippolytus chose for his work was taken really seriously,[55] and he, more than any other Church Father, gave the laws and the liturgy of the Eastern Church their permanent form.

The Apostolic Tradition was first made known to the Western world in 1691 by Job Ludolf in Ad suam Historiam Aethiopicam Commentarius; in this he published in incomplete form the Ethiopic work containing it, to which he gave the title—still in use—of Statuta Apostolorum. But he naturally was unable to identify the author. It was not until 1848 that the next contribution was made, Tattam’s The Apostolic Constitutions or Canons of the Apostles in Coptic,[56] which gave the Bohairic text with an English translation. The Sahidic text appeared thirty-five years later on pp. 248-266 of Lagarde’s Aegyptiaca, and this is still the standard edition. A German translation (by Steindorff) was published in 1891 by Achelis in his Die Ältesten Quellen des orientalischen Kirchenrechtes:[57] this monograph opened the really critical study of the material and is not yet wholly obsolete. But Hauler’s discovery of the Latin text was the most important event of all. He published his find in 1900 but did not appreciate the full importance of what he describes only as “Aegyptiorum reliquiae” at the end of his long title.[58] And even such an intensely able scholar as Funk, in making his own Latin version of “The Egyptian Church Order”, still preferred to follow the Sahidic.[59] Horner’s Statutes of the Apostles (1904) finally supplied critical Ethiopic and Arabic texts, with scientifically literal translations of these and of the Sahidic as well.