Church Father Hippolytus: A Liar, Mistaken or Correct?

We have already evidenced some of the dishonest shenanigans of Christian Bible scribes (and translators), and a tacit admission from a Christian apologist that the author of the Gospel of John was a liar but what about the church fathers?

Hippolytus of Rome (170 – 235) was the most important 3rd-century theologian in the Christian Church in Rome,[2] where he was probably born.[3] Photios I of Constantinople describes him in his Bibliotheca (cod. 121) as a disciple of Irenaeus, who was said to be a disciple of Polycarp, and from the context of this passage it is supposed that he suggested that Hippolytus himself so styled himself [1]

Geza Vermes sheds some light on Hippolytus’ (inaccurate?) portrayal of the Essenes

The stand taken by the Essenes on resurrection is more difficult to establish. Josephus, who claims to have experienced the life of this sect and studies their philosophy (Life 10), reports that the kind of afterlife they envisaged was different from resurrection. His final word on the subject in Jewish Antiquities (end of the first century AD) was that the Essenes believed in spiritual survival, the immortality of the soul (Ant 18:18). In the earlier account of the Jewish War, Josephus, like Philo and Hellenistic Judaism, paints a detailed canvas that after death incorruptible souls receive eternal reward or punishment.


For it is a fixed belief of theirs that the body is corruptible and its constituent matter impermanent, but that the soul is immortal and imperishable. Emanating from the finest ether, these souls become entangled, as it were, in the prison-house of the body, to which they are dragged down by a sort of natural spell; but when once they are released from the bonds of the flesh, then, as though liberated from a long servitude, they rejoice and are borne aloft. Sharing the beliefs of the sons of Greece, they maintain that for the various soils there is reserved an abode beyond the ocean, a place which is not oppressed by rain or snow or heat, but is refreshed by the ever gentle breath of the west wind coming in from the ocean; while they relegate base souls to a murky and tempestuous dungeon, big with never-ending punishment…Their aim was first to establish the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and secondly to promote virtue and to deter from vice; for the good are made better in their lifetime by the hope of a reward after death, and the passions of the wicked are restrained by the fear that, even though they escape detection while alive, they will undergo never-ending punishment after their decease (War 2:154-157).


If this was a true picture of the Essene representation of afterlife, a message centred on a risen Messiah (like a Jesus preached by Christians) would not have had much hope of success among them. However, for whatever it’s worth, the Church father Hippolytus has left us a second version, purported to be Josephus’ account, in which a very different picture is sketched:


The doctrine of the resurrection also is firmly held among them. For they confess that the flesh also will rise and be immortal as the soul is already immortal, which they now say, when separated from the body, enters a place of flagrant air and light, to rest until judgment…(Refutation of All Heresies 9:27)


Is the difference due to the pen of Hippolytus, wishing to portray the Essenes as proto-Christians, or was Josephus guilty of twisting the evidence in order to make the Essene teaching palatable to his Greek readers? While the first view is more commonly held, there are defenders of the second, too. [2]

Conclusion

The Essene’ lack of belief in a dying and rising Messiah further militates against Trinitarian Christianity. One can certainly imagine why Hippolytus would resort to fudging matters – if that was the case.

In the interest of fairness, we cannot be sure who – if any one – is guilty of dishonesty though the finger of suspicion is more widely held against the Church father, Hippolytus, rather than Josephus. Who is right and who is wrong?

[1] Hippolytus of Rome on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippolytus_of_Rome

[2] The Resurrection, Geza Vermes, Penguin Books, 2008, pg. 48-50

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