Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/506

 formed of fire alone) are indissoluble and immortal. Angels also have no female, for from water the generative principle is derived. Man is made of all four elements, his soul being formed of air and called ψυχή, because this element is colder than the other three. The principal extant fragment contains a description of Hades as a place underground where souls are detained until the judgment. The gate is guarded by an archangel. When the angels appointed to that service conduct thither righteous souls, they proceed to the right to a place of light called Abraham's bosom, where they enjoy continued present pleasures with the expectation of still greater happiness in the future. The wicked, on the other hand, are hurried down to the left into a place of darkness where is the lake of fire, into which no one has yet been cast, but which is prepared for the future judgment. There they not only suffer present temporary punishments, but are tormented by the sight and smoke of that: burning lake and the horrible expectation of the punishment to come. The sight of the righteous also punishes them, between whom and them a great gulf is fixed; and while the bodies of the righteous will rise renewed and glorified, theirs will be raised with all their diseases and decay. Bunsen conjectures that Hippolytus may have taken some points for which he has not Scripture authority from the Apoalypse of Peter.

(17) The Demonstration against the Jews.—The Greek text of a fragment of a work bearing this title was first published by Fabricius (vol. ii. 1) from a copy supplied by Montfaucon from a Vatican MS. There is no external evidence to confirm the ascription in the MS. of this work to Hippolytus. The mutilated list on the chair begins -ους; but it is bare conjecture which completes this into πρὸς Ἰουδαίους. There is nothing in the fragment which forbids us to suppose Hippolytus the writer. It shews that the Jews have no reason to glory in the sufferings they inflicted on Jesus of Nazareth, for it had been foretold that the Messiah should so suffer, and these sufferings had been the cause of the misery afterwards endured by the Jewish nation.

(18) We pass now to dogmatic writings. Jerome, in his list of the writings of Hippolytus, gives "Προσομιλία de laude Domini salvatoris." This is the homily delivered in the presence of Origen.

(19) The Work on Antichrist.—Of all the writings of Hippolytus this is the only one extant in a perfect state, or nearly so. It appears in Jerome's list with the title de Antichrista; Photius calls it περὶ Χριστοῦ καὶ ἀντιχρίστου; and the title it bears in the MS. from which the first printed edition was made is περὶ τοῦ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ καὶ περὶ τοῦ ἀντιχρίστου. The work is addressed to one Theophilus, and the author cautions him against communicating to unbelievers what he was about to teach him, quoting Paul's directions to Timothy, "the things thou hast heard of me commit thou to faithful men." The doctrine of the treatise as to the coming overthrow of the Roman power would give good reason for this caution. Jerome's title best describes the treatise, of which, after some introductory remarks on prophetic inspiration, Antichrist is almost exclusively the subject. The later title has some justification in the parallel between Christ and Antichrist, with which he begins, shewing how the deceiver had sought in all things to liken himself to the Son of God. He was to be, like Christ, a lion (Deut. xxxiii. 22), a king, a lamb (Rev. xiii. 11), he was to come in the form of a man, and to be of the circumcision; he was to send out false apostles and gather in a people, and as the Lord had given a seal to those who believe in Him, so should he, etc. The writer then quotes fully all the prophecies of Antichrist, and concludes that he shall be of the tribe of Dan; that Daniel's four kingdoms are the Babylonian, Median, Grecian, and Roman; that the ten toes of the image are ten kings among whom the Roman empire should be divided, that from among these Antichrist should arise and overthrow three of the kings, viz. those of Egypt, Libya, and Ethiopia, and make an expedition against Tyre and Berytus, and then should gain the submission of the Jews, hoping to obtain vengeance by their means; that he should shew himself forth as God, and persecute to the death those who refuse to worship him; that he should reign three years and a half and then that he and his kingdom should be destroyed by Christ's second coming. For the problem of the number of the beast, while other solutions mentioned by Irenaeus are noticed, that of Λατεῖνος is preferred. This is one of many coincidences shewing that Hippolytus used the treatise of Irenaeus against heresies and enumerated (§ iv.) by Overbeck in an able monograph on this tract ''Quaestionum Hippol. specimen''. Overbeck discusses also the points of contact between this tract and Origen, deciding that these may be accounted for without supposing either writer indebted to the other.

(20) The text of a homily on the Holy Theophany was communicated to Fabricius by Gale from a MS. still preserved at Cambridge. There is also extant a Syriac translation of great part of this homily, viz. to the end of c. 7 (Wright, Catal. of Syr. MSS. of Brit. Mus. ii. 842). The ascription of the MSS. is not confirmed by any external evidence, nor is this homily mentioned in any list of the Hippolytine works, nor quoted by any ancient author. We do not, however, see anything in it which Hippolytus might not have written, and Wordsworth has pointed out a remarkable coincidence with the Refutation, viz. that in both man is spoken of as becoming a god by the gift of new birth and immortality.

(21) On the chair is enumerated περὶ χαρισμάτων ἀποστολικὴ παράδοσις. It is doubtful whether this is the title of one work or two. For various speculations see Fabricius, p. 83. The most probable theory is that it treated of Montanist claims to inspiration.

(22) On the chair we have words which have been read ᾠδαὶ εἰς πάσας τὰς γραφάς. If the line describes only a single work it may denote hymns, one in praise of each of the books of Scripture and perhaps giving a poetical account of its contents.

(23) On the Hexaemeron.—We now pass to the exegetical writings. This work is given in the lists of Eusebius and Jerome. The