Hippolytus and Other Greek Writers of the Third Century.

Life.

        Among the young men whom Irenaeus taught, probably in the years he spent at Lyons, was one named Hippolytus, who came to be his great successor as the foremost figure of Greek Christianity in the West. He was born about A.D. 170 (165-75) and spent his mature life in Rome, where he became a presbyter. When Origen visited Rome, about 215, he heard Hippolytus preach. Hippolytus was active in the campaign against the sects and was a prolific writer. He strongly opposed the laxity of Zephyrinus, bishop from 198 to 217, and his assistant Calixtus, regarding them both as mercenary and self-seeking, and upon the election of Calixtus as bishop made such a protest that the Roman church divided into two factions, one of which actually chose) Hippolytus as bishop. He continued to hold this office in opposition to Calixtus and his successors, Urbanus (222-23 to 230) and Pontianus. In fact, in 235, in Maximin's persecution, Hippolytus and Pontianus were sent into exile together to the mines of Sardinia, where Pontianus seems to have died. Whether Hippolytus, too, died there or survived his exile and died in Rome the following year is uncertain. But he was buried on the road to Tivoli (Via Tiburtina) on August 13, probably A.D. 236.