and so de Rossi does, adding a conjecture of his own, that the leader of the schism had been Victor's archdeacon, and had in that capacity obtained his knowledge of the early life of Callistus, and that he was actuated by disappointment at not having been made bishop on Victor's death. On the other hand, to make a schism of which no one in the East seems to have ever heard begin so early ascribes to it such long duration as to be quite incredible. For it continued after the death of Callistus, some time after which the account in the treatise on heresies was plainly written, and Döllinger thinks it even possible that it may have continued up to the time of the deportation of Pontianus and Hippolytus to Sardinia. He regards with some favour the hypothesis that this banishment might have been designed to deliver the city from dissensions and disputes for the possession of churches between the adherents of the rival leaders. It seems to us most likely that Pontianus and Hippolytus were banished early in the reign of Maximin as the two leading members of the Christian community. We find it hard to refuse the explanation of von Döllinger, which makes Hippolytus the first anti-pope; but the difficulties arising from the fact that the existence of so serious a schism has been absolutely unknown to the church from the 4th cent. to the 19th are so great, that if we knew of any other way of satisfactorily explaining the language of Hippolytus we should adopt it in preference. We are not told who consecrated Hippolytus as bishop, but a schism in inaugurating which bishops thus took the lead must have been a serious one: it lasted at least 5 or 6 years, and, if we make it begin in the time of Zephyrinus as we seem bound to do, perhaps 20 years, and it had as its head the most learned man of the Roman church and one whose name was most likely to be known to foreign churches. Yet the existence of this schism was absolutely unknown abroad. All Greek lists of the popes, as well as the Latin, include Callistus, and make no mention of Hippolytus; and the confessed ignorance of Eusebius about the see of Hippolytus is proof enough that he was not in possession of the key to the difficulty. In the Novatianist disputes which commenced about 15 years after the death of Hippolytus, when many would still be alive who could have remembered the controversy between him and Callistus, we find no allusion on either side to any such comparatively recent schism of which a man holding rigorist views resembling those of Novatian was the head. Bearing in mind the excitement caused in the case of Novatian, we ask, Was the question who was bp. of Rome regarded as a matter of such purely local concern that controversy could go on at Rome for years and the outside world know nothing of it, and that although the unsuccessful claimant was a person on other grounds very widely known? Is it conceivable, if Hippolytus really set up a rival chair to Callistus, that he, whose books and letters widely circulated in the East, made no attempt to enlist on his side the bishops of the great Eastern sees? Or is it likely, if Hippolytus had started a long-continued and dangerous schism at Rome, that the predominant party should have completely condoned his offence, that he should have been honoured for centuries as a saint and a martyr, and that his name should have been handed down with no hint of that schism until words of his own came to light to suggest it? These improbabilities in the theory hitherto most generally received, amount almost to impossibilities, though we confess it difficult to find a satisfactory substitute. We can only suggest that if there were at the time, as there are grounds for supposing, a Greek congregation at Rome, the head of it is very likely to have been Hippolytus, and the head of such a congregation might naturally be entrusted with the episcopal power of admitting or excluding members, since doubtful cases could scarcely be investigated by a Latin-speaking pope. The supposition that he may have received episcopal consecration, besides explaining the enigmatical dignity ἐθνῶν ἐπίσκοπος ascribed by Photius to Caius, would give a less violently improbable account of the claim of Hippolytus to episcopal dignity than the theory that he had been consecrated as anti-pope. As he was probably the last holder of his anomalous office, it is not surprising if no remembrance was retained of its exact constitution; but it is in the nature of things probable that the period when the church of Rome was Greek and when it was Latin should be separated by a bilingual period; and it is not unnatural that the arrangements made during that interval should be forgotten when the need for them had passed. The severity of the persecutions at Rome under Decius and Valerian seems to have obliterated much of the recollections of the history of the early part of the century. Whether Hippolytus was bishop or presbyter, he wrote his attacks on Callistus in Greek and addressed them to Greek-speaking people, and there is no evidence that he made any assault on the unity of the Latin-speaking church. This may account for the faintness of the impression which his schismatic language produced and for the facility with which it was pardoned. That the arrogance and intemperance of language which he displayed did not deprive him of permanent honour in the Roman church is to be accounted for by the leniency with which men treat the faults of one who has real claims to respect. Hippolytus was a man of whose learning the whole Roman church must have been proud; he was of undoubted piety, and of courage which he proved in his good confession afterwards. The way of return would not be made difficult for such a man when he really wished all dissension to end.
The preceding discussions have told all that is known of the life of Hippolytus. We now proceed to enumerate his works; acknowledging the great help of the list of Caspari, Taufsymbol und Glaubensregel, iii. 377.
(1) Most completely associated with his name is the 16 years' cycle (mentioned by Eusebius and Jerome, u.s.), and the little treatise in which he explained it. This is among the list of works on the statue, Ἀπόδειξις χρόνων τοῦ πάσχα καὶ τὰ ἐν τῷ πίνακι. That the cycle engraved on the statue is undoubtedly that of Hippolytus is not only proved by facts already pointed out and by its interpre-
