Page:The Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, Volume 1, 1854.djvu/205

On the Martyrdom and Commemorations of St Hippolytus. 195 Aug. (6th Aug.) This of course is little to the purpose, and he is compelled to infer from it " an earlier deposition in the cata- cumba3 or coemetery of Callistus on the Appian Way." (3) " The deposition in Ag. Ver. is attested 50 years before Prudentius in Cal. Liber." as above. (4) " The prayers relating to St Hippolytus not only in the Gregorian Sacramentary, but also in those of Gelasius, and Leo (Felix III.) are all for the Ides of August." From these statements two conclusions are drawn. I. " The date now fixed for the festival of St Hippolytus by the Roman Catholic Church, the 21st of August, (xi Kal. Sept.) is consequently quite arbitrary. Indeed it is of very late date, and perhaps supported only by the authority of Baronius." II. " It is therefore quite accurate that the day of com- memoration ought to be the 13th of August." I shall attempt to shew I. That the 21st of August, the day fixed for St Hippolytus of Portus, does not rest at all upon the authority of Baronius, but is of very early date, and no more arbitrary than any other immoveable feast. II. That it is most inaccurate to commemorate him on the 13th of August, inasmuch as that day has long been appropriated, and in all probability always was appropriated to another St Hippolytus. We must preface our argument with a bare outline of the story of St Laurence 15 , though we have not space to allude to its most beautiful and touching details. St Laurentius was chief of the deacons of the city of Rome : St Sixtus, then Bishop, his beloved friend and father in the faith. In the persecution of Valerian Sixtus suffered death, and three days afterwards Laurentius was seized. He was committed to the custody of Hippolytus a soldier of rank. In his brief impri- sonment he converted his jailor and baptized him with all his house. He suffered death without the walls in the Ager Veranus, and was buried near the place by Hippolytus and a presbyter Justinus. Hippolytus soon made confession of his faith 16 , and was martyred with his family; Concordia his aged nurse was 13 Bunsen by some oversight calls the question which Ado relates as put this saint "Rome's protomartyr," (Vol. by the prefect to Hippolytus : "Num- I. p. 015), and again, " the western pro- quid et tu magus effectus es quia corpus tomartyr." (Vol. 1. p. 223). Laurenti abstulisse diceris." 16 There is a tone of genuineness in 13-