HIPPOLYTUS (VI. 20, 22). Great Roman theologian and writer, and probably the first anti-pope. We know very little about him, and Eusebius seems to know even less. A man of enormous learning, he wrote extensively against the Gnostics and particularly opposed Sabellianism. He was also a rigorist in the matter of the Church's penitential discipline. Both these seem to have led to his sustained opposition to the popes of his day, and during the reign of Callistus he seems to have become anti-pope (hence (?) Eusebius' ignorance of his see). During the reign of the Emperor Maximin, both he and the pope (Pontian) were exiled to Sardinia, where they were apparently reconciled. In 1551 the torso of a statue was discovered at Rome, the base of which is inscribed with an Easter table and a list of works, much like what we know Hippolytus to have written (not much like Eusebius' admittedly incomplete list). It was taken to be a statue of Hippolytus, and thus restored (it now stands in the entrance-hall of the Vatican Library). It seems, however, to be the statue of a female figure (perhaps representing the Church, and commemorating the achievement of one of her theologians?). Apart from his Scriptural commentaries, his most important work (known to Eusebius) is his Refutation of all Heresies, most of which was discovered in a manuscript on Mount Athos in the last century. The important Apostolic Tradition (in the list on the statue) with its account of the Church's liturgy at the beginning of the third century has also survived (though not in its original form).

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