De sancto Hyppolito >et sociis ejus
The Name and Witness of Hippolytus
The name Hippolytus is interpreted through his spiritual foundation, heavenly longing, and refined suffering.
The name Hippolytus comes from 'hyper', which means 'above'. It also comes from 'litos', meaning 'stone'—as if he were founded upon the stone, that is, Christ—or from 'in' and 'polis', which means 'city', or perhaps Hippolytus as if he were 'well polished'. For he was well founded upon the stone, Christ, through his constancy and firmness; he was in the heavenly city through his longing and eagerness; and he was well polished through the bitterness of his torments. .
The Martyrdom of Hippolytus and His Household
Hippolytus is arrested for his faith and, along with his nurse Concordia and his household, suffers a glorious martyrdom.
After Hippolytus had buried the body of blessed Lawrence, he returned to his own house and, giving peace to his servants and handmaids, shared with them all the Sacrament of the altar that Justin the priest had offered; then, having set the table, before he could take any food, soldiers arrived, seized him, and led him to Caesar. When Caesar Decius saw him, he smiled and said, "Have you become a magician too, you who carried off Lawrence's body?" Hippolytus replied, "I didn't do this as a magician, but as a Christian." Then Decius, filled with rage, ordered that he be stripped of his Christian habit and that his face be beaten with stones. Hippolytus replied, "You haven't stripped me, but rather clothed me." Decius said to him, "How have you become so foolish that you aren't ashamed of your nakedness!" "Now then, offer sacrifice and you shall live, lest you perish along with your Lawrence." Hippolytus replied, "May I be worthy to become an example of blessed Lawrence, whom you have dared to name with your polluted mouth." When it was discovered that his household was Christian, they were brought before him; and when they were forced to offer sacrifice, Concordia, Hippolytus’s nurse, answered for them all: "We would rather die with our Lord in purity than live in impurity." Valerian said to her, "Servants are only corrected by punishment." Then, with Hippolytus present and rejoicing, he ordered her to be beaten with leaded whips until she gave up her spirit; and Hippolytus said, "I give you thanks, Lord, because you have sent my nurse ahead of me into the sight of your saints." Then Valerian had Hippolytus led out beyond the Tiburtine Gate with his household, and Hippolytus, comforting them all, said, "Brothers, do not be afraid, for I and you have one God." Valerian ordered that all of them be beheaded in Hippolytus’s sight, and he had Hippolytus’s feet tied to the necks of unbroken horses and dragged through rough terrain and thorns until he breathed his last, around the year of the Lord 256. Justinus the priest took their bodies and buried them near the body of Saint Lawrence; however, the body of Saint Concordia could not be found, because it had been thrown into a sewer. A soldier named Porphyrius, believing that blessed Concordia had gold and gems in her clothing, went to a sewer-worker named Irenaeus, who was secretly a Christian, and said, "Keep this secret and pull out Concordia, for I hope she had gold or gems in her clothes." He replied, "Show me the place; I'll keep it secret, and whatever I find, I'll report to you." When, therefore, she had been pulled out and they found nothing, that soldier immediately fled, and Irenaeus, having called a certain Christian named... Abundus brought the body to Saint Justinus, who received it with devotion and buried it near the body of Saint Hippolytus and the others.
The Judgment of the Persecutors
The persecutors Decius and Valerian meet a miserable end, while the queen and others are converted to the faith.
When Valerian heard this, he seized Irenaeus and Abundus and threw them both alive into a sewer; Justin later recovered their bodies and buried them with the others. After this, Decius and Valerian climbed into a golden chariot and headed to the amphitheater to torture the Christians. Seized by a demon, Decius cried out, "Hippolytus, you're holding me bound in harsh chains!" Valerian similarly cried out, "Laurentius, you're dragging me along, tied in fiery chains!" Valerian died that same hour. Decius, however, returned home, and after being tormented by the demon for three days, he cried out, "I adjure you, Laurentius, stop the torture for a little while," and so he died miserably. Seeing that everyone had been dismissed, his wife, the cruel Triphonia, went to the priest Justin with her daughter Cyrilla and had herself baptized by him along with many others. The next day, while Triphonia was praying, she breathed her last; the priest Justin buried her body next to the body of Saint Hippolytus. When forty-seven soldiers heard that the queen and her daughter had become Christians, they came with their wives to the priest Justin to receive baptism, and Dionysius, who had succeeded Saint Sixtus, baptized them all. However, the Emperor Claudius had Cyrilla put to death when she refused to offer sacrifice, and he had the rest of the soldiers beheaded; their bodies are buried in the Verano field with the others. It should be noted that it is explicitly stated here that Claudius succeeded that Decius who martyred Laurentius and Hippolytus. However, Claudius did not succeed the Emperor Decius; rather, according to the chronicles, Volusianus succeeded Decius, Gallienus succeeded Volusianus, and Claudius succeeded Gallienus. It is necessary, therefore, to say (as it seems) that Gallienus was perhaps known by two names and was called both Gallienus and Decius, as Vincentius says in his chronicle and Godofridus in his book, or that Gallienus made a certain Decius Caesar to assist him, though not Emperor, as Richardus says in his chronicle.
The True Treasure of the Martyr
Ambrose reflects on how Hippolytus abandoned earthly leadership to become a soldier of Christ, finding the true treasure in his suffering.
Regarding this martyr, Ambrose says in his preface: the blessed martyr Hippolytus, considering Christ to be the true leader, preferred to be His soldier rather than be proven a leader of soldiers; and he did not persecute the blessed Lawrence, who had been entrusted to his custody, but followed him. When he was examining the treasures of the Church, he found the Treasure. He found the treasure—which no tyrant could snatch away, but which piety could possess—from which true riches are sought; he spurned the tyrant's fury so that, being approved by the grace of the eternal King, he didn't shrink from having his limbs torn apart, lest he be severed from eternal bonds.
Miracles and Spiritual Warfare
A man is miraculously healed by the intercession of the Virgin and Hippolytus, and later overcomes a demonic temptation.
A certain ox-driver named Peter, having hitched up his wagon on the feast of Mary Magdalene, was following his oxen and urging them on with curses, when suddenly the oxen and the plow were struck by lightning, and Peter himself, who had called down this curse, was tormented by a more atrocious punishment; for a fire seized him so intensely that, after the flesh and nerves of his shins and legs were consumed, the bones were laid bare and, in the end, the shin bone itself was completely severed from its joint. Then, approaching a certain church of the Blessed Virgin, he hid the shin bone in a hole in the church wall and begged the Blessed Virgin with tears and prayers for his deliverance; and on a certain pitch-black night, the Blessed Virgin, together with Saint Hippolytus, obtained his request to restore Peter to his former health, and immediately Saint Hippolytus took the shin bone from the hole and inserted it back into its place in an instant, just as one might graft a shoot onto a tree. He felt such pain during this grafting that he woke the whole household with his cries; they got up, lit a lamp, and saw that Peter had two legs and two shins, but thinking they were being deceived, they felt them again and again and saw that he truly had the limbs. They could barely believe it, and they asked him how this had happened to him, but he, thinking they were mocking him, was finally overcome and saw the reality and was astonished; yet the new thigh was softer than the old one and could not be compared to it for supporting the body. Consequently, he limped for a year to make the miracle known, and then the Blessed Virgin appeared to him again and said to Saint Hippolytus that he should supply whatever was still lacking for the healing. Waking up, therefore, and finding himself fully healed, he entered a hermitage, where the devil appeared to him very frequently in the form of a naked woman and, pressing herself naked against him, became all the more shameless the more strongly he resisted her. When she was vexing him greatly, he finally took a priestly stole and wrapped it around her neck, and soon, as the devil departed, a putrid corpse remained there, and such a stench exhaled from it that no one who saw it doubted that it had been the body of some dead woman that the devil had assumed.
Read the original Latin
Hyppolitus dicitur ab hyper, quod est super. ct litos, quod est lapis, quasi super lapidem, id est Christum, fundatus: vel ab in et polis; quod est civitas: vel Hyppolitus quasi valde politus. Fuit enim super lapidem Christum hene fundatus per constantiam et firmitatem, fait in civitate superna per desiderium et aviditatem, bene politus per tormentorum acerbitatem. .
Hyppolitus postquam corpus beati Laurentii sepelivit, venit in domam suam et dans pacem suis servis et ancillis omnes sacramento altaris, quod Justinus pfesbiter obtulerat, communicavit et apposita mensa priusquam cibum sumeret, venientes milites eum rapuerunt et ad Caesarem duxerunt, Quem videns Decius Caesar subridens dixit ei: numquid et tu magus effectus es, qui corpus Laurentii abstulisti? Cui Hyppolitus: hoc feci non quasi magus, sed quasi christianus, Tunc Decius furore repletus praecepit, ut habitu, quo ut christianus utebatur, exspoliaretur et os ejus lapidibus tunderetur. Cui Hyppolitus: non me exspoliasti, sed magis vestiisti. Cui Decius: quomodo insipiens effectus es, ut nuditatem tuam non erübescas! Nunc ergo sacrifica et vives, ne cum Laurentio tuo pereas. Cui Hyppolitus: exemplum fieri merear beati Laurentii, quem tu ore polluto ausus es nominare. Tunc Decius fecit eum fustibus caedi et pectinibus ferreis laniari, ille autem se christianum esse voce clara confitebatur, et cum tormenta hujusmodi derideret, veste militari, qua antea utebatur, eum vestiri fecit hortans, ut amicitiam et pristinam militiam retineret. Cui Hyppolitus cum diceret, se Christo militare, Decius ira repletus Valeriano praefecto eum tradidit, ut omnes facultates ejus acciperet et diris tormentis eum interficeret.
Invento quoque, quod ejus familia christiana esset, adducti sunt ante conspectum ejus, Qui cum ad sacrificia cogerentur, Concordia nutrix Hyppoliti pro omnibus respondit: nos cum demino nostro volumus mori potius pudice, quam impudice vivere. Gui Valerianus: genus servorum nonnisi cum suppliciis emendatur, Tunc praesente Hyppolito et gaudente jussit eam tamdiu plumbatis caedi, quousque emisit spiritum, dixitque Hyppolitus: gratias tibi ago, domine, quia nutricem meam ante conspectum sanctorum tuorum praemisisti. Deinde extra portam Tyburtinam Valerianus Hyppolitum cum familia sua duci fecit, Hyppolitus autem omnes confortans dixit: fratres nolite metuere, quia ego et vos unum Deum habemus. Jussitque Valerianus, ut in conspectu Hyppoliti omnibus capita amputarentur, Hyppoliti vero pedes ad colla indomitorum equorum fecit ligari et perearduos et tribulos trahi tamdiu, donec spiritum exhalaret, eirca annos domini C CLVI. Eorum corpora Justinus presbiter rapuit et juxta corpus sancti Laurentii sepelivit, corpus vero sanctae Goncordiae inveniri non potuit, quia fuerat in eloacam projectum. Miles antem quidam nomine Porphirius credens beatam Concordiam aurum et gemmas in vestimentis habere, ad quendam cloacarium nomine Yreneum, qui erat occulte christianus, accessit et dixit: secretum custodi et extrahe Concordiam, quia spero, quod aurum ant gemmas in vestibus suis habuit, Cui ille: ostende mihi locum et secretum habeo et, quidquid invenero, nuntiabo. Cum ergo extractum fnisset et nihil invenissent, miles ille protinus fagit et Yreneus vocato quodam christiano nomine ? Habundo corpus ad sanctum Justinum detulit, quod ille devote suscipiens juxta corpus sancli Hyppoliti et aliorum sepelivit.
Quod Valerianus andiens Yreneum et Abundum tenuit et ambos in cloacam vivos misit, quorum corpora Justinus rapuit et cum aliis sepelivit. Post hoc Decius cum Valeriano in currum adscendit aureum et pergunt ad amphitheatrum, ut crucient christianos. Arreptus igitur Decius à daemone clamabat: o Hyppolite, catenis asperis vinctum me tenes, Valerianus similiter clamabat: o Laurenti, igneis catenis me ligatum trahis, et eadem hora Valerianus exspiravit, Decius autem domum reversus triduo a daemone vexatus clamabat: adjuro te, Laurenti, modicum cessa a tormentis, et sio miserabiliter mortuus est. Quod uxor ejus Triphonia crudelis videns dimissis omnibus ad sanctum Justinum cum filia sua Cyrilla accessit et ab eo cum multis aliis se baptizari fecit. Alia vero die cum oraret Triphonia, emisit spiritum: eujus corpus Justinus presbiter juxta corpus sancti Hyppoeliti sepelivit. Audientes XLVII milites, quod regina et ejus filia christianae effectae essent, venerunt cum uxoribus suis ad Justinum presbiterum, ut baptisma susciperent, quos omnes Dionysius, qui sancto Sixto successerat, baptizavit, Claudius autem imperator Cyrillam, cum sacrificare nollet, jugulari fecit et caeteros milites decollarl, quorum corpora in agro Verano cum caeteris sepeliuntur. Et advertendum, quod expresse habetur hio, quod illi Decio, qui Laurentium et Hyppolitum martirisavit, successit Claudins. Claudius autem non successit Decio imperatori, imo Decio successit secundum chronicas Volusianus, Volusiano Gallienus, Gallieno Claudius, Oportet ergo dicere (ut videtur), quod ante Gallienus fuerit binomius et quod dictus sit Gallienus et Decius, sicut dicit Vincentius in chronica sua et Godofridus in libro suo, aut quod Gallienus in sui adjutorium quendam nomine Decium fecerit Caesarem, non tamen imperatorem, sicut dicit Richardus in chronica sua.
De hoc martire sic dicit Ambrosius in praefatione: beatus martir Hyppolitus Christum verum ducem considerans miles ejus esse maluit, quam dux militum comprobari beatumque Laurentium suae custodiae mancipatum non persecutus est, sed subsecutus. Qui cum thesauros ecclesiae discuteret, invenit thesaurum, ! quem non tyrannus eriperet, sed quem pietas possideret, invenit thesaurum, unde verae divitiae peterentur, sprevit 7furorem tyranni, ut cum regis perpetui gratia conprobaretur, membris dividi non refugit, ne nexibus divelleretur aeternis;
Bubulcus quidam nomine Petrus cum in festo Mariae Magdalenae plaustrum junxisset et boves sequens ipsos maledictis urgeret, protinus boves et aratrum a fulmine assumuntur et ipse Petrus, qui hoc imprecatus fuerat, supplicio atrociori torquebatur, nam ígnis eum arripuit adeo, quod carnibus et nervis tibiae et cruris consumtis ossa paierent et ipsa tandem tibia a sua compage penitus solveretur. Tunc ille ad quandam ecclesiam beatae virginis accedens tibiam ipsam in quodam foramine ipsius ecclesiae abscondit et beatam virginem lacrymis et precibus pro sua liberatione rogavit et cece nocte quadam beata virgo cum beato Hyppolito, ut Petrum pristinae sanitati restitueret, impetravit statimque sanctus Hyppolitus tibiam de foramine accipiens loco suo quasi sureulum arbori in momento inseruit. In qua insitione tantos dolores sensit, ut suis clamoribus totam familiam excitaret, quia surgentes et lumen accendentes Petrum duo crura et duas tibias habere conspiciunt, sed se deludi putantes ipsum iterum atque ilerum contrectabant et membra vera ipsum habere conspiciebant, Qui vix eum excitanfes, unde sibi hoc acciderit, sciscitantur, sed ille eos ludere existimans tandem victus rem vidit et exstupuit, sed tamen coxa nova mollior quam vetusta ad sustinentiam corporis -non poterat exaequari. Unde ad publicationem miraculi per annum claudicavit et tunc iterum beata virgo ei apparens sancto Hyppolito dixit, nmt, quidquid curationi deesset, supplere deberet. Evigilans igitur et se plene sanatum inveniens reclusorium introivit, cui dyabolus in specie nudae mulieris frequentissime apparebat et nudam ei se ingerens, quanto ille fortius resistebat, tanto illa ei impudentius incambebat. Cum ergo illa eum plurimum vexaret, tandem ille stolam sacerdotalem accipiens collum ejus cinxit et mox dyabolo abscedente cadaver putridum ibi remansit tantusque foetor inde exhalavit, ut nullus, qui hoc vidit, ambigeret, quin corpus alicujus mulieris mortuae fuisset, quod dyabolus assumsit.
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