HIPPOLYTUS 



HIPPOPOTAMUS 



721 



iive<l at Home, and took an active part in church 



ail.iirs under ili>- I.Niops /c|>liyrinus and CallUtu*. 

 I>ol linger ioints out that throughout Hippolytun 

 never rccogniM-s Calli-ins as bishop, and treat** him 

 only OH the founder of a school. BeddM he a>-ail- 

 hi moral character and liis antecedents, charging 

 him with dishonesty, with criminal laxity of dis- 

 cipline, and with tin- I'ut riparian heresy; while 

 Callistus again retorted upon his op]>onent with a 

 counter charge of Ditheism. Dollinger held that 

 llippolytus claimed to be the real Hishop of Rome 

 himself, and that he was thus the first antipope in 

 the history of the Roman Church. This would 

 explain tin- circumstance that a writer so learned 

 and outstanding as Hippolytus could he taken by 

 the Eastern Church for the actual Hishop of Rome, 

 while to western writers who did not receive him 

 as such he seemed guilty not only of schism but of 

 heresy. But the grave difficulty remains of being 

 obliged to believe that a schism so serious, headed 

 by the most illustrious theologian of the time, and 

 lasting at the very lowest five or six years, could 

 have occurred without its being known outside 

 of Rome, and still further could be utterly for- 

 gotten for fifteen centuries. Again, if Hippolytus 

 nad headed a party so inimical to the authority 

 of the bishop, how comes it that his name has 

 descended without a stain as that of a saint and 

 a martyr? Dr Salmon suggests the explanation 

 that Hippolytus may have been the head of the 

 Crreek Christians at Rome, and that as such he 

 may have been specially entrusted with some 

 epi-copal functions an anomalous state of matters 

 which would come to an end with the necessity 

 for it. His attacks on Callistus were written in 

 Greek for Greek-speaking people, hence the faint- 

 ness of the impression they made upon the Latin 

 world ; while at the same time most of the recollec- 

 tions of the earlier part of the century were lost in 

 the severity of persecution under Decius and Vale- 

 rian. At any rate the state of the controversy 

 shows that in the 3d century Christians elsewhere 

 than at Rome itself were not much interested in the 

 question who was Bishop of Rome at all. Hippo- 

 lytus seems to have championed the severe and 

 ultra-orthodox party in the Roman Church, and at 

 the least to have been bitter and prejudiced as 

 a controversialist. The ecclesiastical charges 

 brought against Callistus in this famous treatise 

 are his giving easy absolution to sinners excom- 

 municated by Hippolytus and others, admitting 

 digamists and trigamists to the ranks of the clergy, 

 allowing the clergy to marry, and permitting 

 Christian ladies to contract illegal marriages with 

 men of inferior social rank. 



The date of Hippolytus and his importance 

 among his contemporaries are proved further by 

 the statue of him discovered at Rome, on which 

 is engraved the sixteen years' cycle which he 

 invented to find the time or Easter. This cycle is 

 an erroneous one, the error being of such a nature 

 a-^ could not fail to be discovered after a dozen 

 years, hence it follows that the statue in his honour 

 must have l>een inscribed before that discovery 

 occurred, about 240 A.D. 



The extant writings of Hippolytus were first collected 

 by Fabric! us (2 vols. Hamburg, 1716-18), and have since 

 been printed in vol. ii. of Galland, Bibl. Vet, Pat., and 

 vol. x. of Migne's Pair. Or. The most accessible edition 

 is that of Lagarde (1858). English translations of the 

 Refutation, as well as the other extant works and frag- 

 ments, may be found in Clark's ' Ante-Nicene Christian 

 Library.' Bishop Lightfoot thought it more than prob- 

 able Hippolytus was the author of the famous Mura- 

 torian Canon, as there was no other man at that time 

 .at Rome capable of writing it. 



See Bunsen, Hippolytus and his Age (1852; 2d ed. 

 1854); Christopher Wordsworth, St Hippolytus and the 

 Church of Rome (1853 ; 2d ed, 1880) ; DoUinger, Hippo- 

 254 



I i/tut and Kallii'u* (1853; Eng. trail*, by I'lunimer, 

 187H); Volkmar, /{t/>/>/i/tii u. die JUmitehe Zeiiytnouen 

 (IXftft); LipNiiiH, Znr (furllrn kritik det Jpipkanio$ 

 (1865), alHo Itie Quitlm <irr -ilteiten Ketzeryetehiel,U 

 (1875); and Harnack, Z,u- QueUcn-kritit drr UuchichU 

 de (Jtwttizitmui ( 1873-74 ). 



IlippoplinJO'* Hip|M>phiigi (Gr., 'eater* of 

 Inn - lloh ') was a name given l.y the Greek* to a 

 Scsiliian people, living north-east of tin- Caspian 

 Sea, and to a Sarmatian nil..- ninth of tin- Knxine. 

 In some parts of modern Knro|M* horse-flesh is a 

 regular and wholesome article of diet. In France 

 a society of hippophagints was formed under the 

 auspices of Geotlroy St Hilaire ; in 1860 the sale of 

 horse-flesh in the 1'arin markets as an article of food 

 was officially recognised and regulated ; and during 

 the siege of Paris horse-flesh was gladly eaten In- 

 all who could get it. In 1872 about 5000, in 1895 

 over 30,000, horses were eaten in Paris alone. In 

 Britain an act was passed in 1889 regulating the 

 sale of horse-flesh, requiring that all horse-flesh (or 

 flesh of asses and mules) exposed for sale shall he 

 expressly so described in legible and conspicuous 

 characters, and imposing a |>enalty of 20 on any 

 one breaking this rule, or giving anyone horse-flesh 

 who has asked for meat other than horse-flesh. 



Hippopotamus (Gr., 'river-horse'), a genus 

 of artiodactyle ungulate mammals, constituting a 

 family by itself. Till of late only one species was 

 known as now existing, although the fossil remains 

 of others indicate the greater abundance and wider 

 distribution of the form in other periods of the 

 earth's history. The largest and best-Known species, 

 H. amphibim, is or, within historic periods, has 

 been found in almost all parts of Africa, to which 



Hippopotamus auiphibius. 



quarter of the globe it is entirely confined. A 

 smaller species, H. liberiensis (distinguished by 

 some as a distinct genus, Chreropsis), was descried 

 in 1844 as an inhabitant of the rivers of western 

 Africa within the tropics, and differs from the 

 common species, and from all the fossil species, in 

 having only two incisors, instead of four, in the 

 lower jaw. But as the missing teeth occasionally 

 exist there seems no valid reason for separating 

 this form generically. The common bippOfmtamu 

 is one of the largest of existing quadrupeds, the 

 bulk of its Ixxly being little inferior to that of the 

 elephant, although its legs are so short that its 

 belly almost touches the ground, ami its height is 

 not much above live feet. It is extremely aquatic 

 in its habits, living mostly in lakes or rivers, often 

 in tidal estuaries (where the salt ness of the water 

 compels it to resort to springs for the purpose of 

 drinking), and sometimes even in the sea, although 

 it never proceeds to any considerable distance from 

 the shore. Its skin is very thick on the Itack and 

 sides more than two inches : it is dark brown 



