Therefore, at this Apollonarius the heretic, with his companions, abandoned the glorious illumination of the living words and became blind to the faith like the Jews. He dared to speak, like the Pharisees, that after the resurrection of the dead, we shall live again for a thousand years in Jerusalem with the Messiah, with bodily pleasures, and childish sacrifices, and earthly libations before him [the Messiah?]. After these things are fulfilled, at that time we shall be taken up into heaven. And he was not shamed by the voice of Paul who said, “The kingdom of God is not of eating or drinking. But of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” [Romans 14:17]. Also in like manner Irenaeus bishop of Lyon in Gaul wandered in these matters, which are in the book of Papias as Eusebius narrates.
~John of Dara On the Resurrection of Bodies 2.13

Papias, bishop of Hierapolis in the Asia, who was educated with John the Evangelist, says in the fourth book of “Interpretations of the Lord” that delights shall exist through foods in the resurrection. What is more, Irenaeus says the same in writing “Against Heresies”, from testimony from the book of Papias. Afterwards, he accepted this opinion of Apollonarius.
~John of Dara On the Heavenly and the Earthly Hierarchy

I am posting it here for free.  I would rather have the translation available for everyone than risk having it sit unused and unknown in a few dozen libraries.  I am sure Hippolytus would agree.  For those interested you can make a donation or purchase a printed copy.  Printed copies are available at Amazon.com and at Createspace.com (where I get a significantly higher royalty than on Amazon).  The free PDF is formatted to fit the 5.5×8.5 inch book, which is why its text does not fill the whole pdf page.

I spent the past several months researching two appendixes for the translation.  As some of you are aware, Hippolytus, according to some manuscripts of the Commentary on Daniel, says that Jesus was born on December 25th.  The accuracy of this statement is disputed by scholars, some of whom think that Hippolytus originally did not give this date.  In the first appendix I exhaustively (I hope)  investigate all of the evidence (internal evidence, manuscript evidence, and ancient testimonies) regarding this disputed passage.  The second appendix is a short investigation into Clement of Alexandria’s claims about Jesus’ birth.  These two appendixes are available with the printed edition.  I will post the appendixes online for free at a later time.

Below I have posted the introduction:

We the faithful stand fast unto death.
~Hippolytus Commentary on Daniel 2.19.4

Hippolytus’ Commentary on Daniel is the oldest surviving Christian commentary on Scripture.  It was composed by Hippolytus of Rome most likely between 202 and 211 AD, a time of great persecution.  This is the first complete English translation.

Hippolytus seems to have undertaken this commentary to comfort his fellow Christians, who, like Daniel and his three companions, suffered for their faith.  For Hippolytus, suffering was not something to fear, but something to be gladly embraced.  In his commentary he beseeches Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, “Tell me, you three boys, remember me, I entreat you, that I also may obtain the same lot of martyrdom with you.”  His request was fulfilled; Hippolytus suffered martyrdom in 235 AD after being exiled to Sardinia.

Hippolytus also tries to provide assurance about what is expected in the end times when Christ returns.  While interpreting the visions in the book of Daniel, he makes some prophetic predictions of his own; for example, when interpreting the dream of Nebuchadnezzar he says that after the empire of the Romans, “democracies are shown.”
Additionally Hippolytus gives information on Peter’s and Paul’s deaths, Paul’s encounter with a lion, a short conversation between Judas and Jesus, the birthday of Christ (which he claims is December 25th), and he also provides insight into early Christian eschatology and allegory as well as canonical issues involving apocryphal parts of the book of Daniel.  Of course there are many other pertinent issues present in Hippolytus’ Commentary on Daniel which cannot be discussed here, but these are now easily investigated in English.

To translate this text I read through the Greek text of Marcel Richard’s GCS series Kommentar zu Daniel four times and made a rigid and literal translation.  Afterwards I went through and softened up the translation to better accord with English grammar and style.  The text will still strike many as quite rigid, but this could not easily be avoided unless I reworked the whole volume. Words that are in italics are not present in the Greek but are usually implied and are added for clarity.

Scripture quotations are cited in the footnotes as accurately as possible, however Hippolytus does sometimes mix several verses together and the verse numberings of the Greek translation of the Old Testament can be slightly different from the Hebrew, so there are occasional differences between the citations and our English Bibles.  Hippolytus also includes Susannah, the Song of the Three Children, and Bel and the Dragon as part of the canonical text of the book of Daniel.  These are cited as separate works in the footnotes.  Gaps in the Greek text are shown with an ellipsis and a footnote that simply says, “Lacuna.”

The Greek text is quoted in the footnotes when I thought the text was particularly interesting. Some passages are ambiguous and I attempted to preserve this in the translation; at times I cite the Greek text when the translation was also difficult.  Hippolytus cites some verses frequently, but occasionally with differences in the Greek wording, which I attempted to preserve in the translation.  Underlined subtitles are not part of the original text but are placed as a guide for the reader.

At the end of the translation I have included an extensive appendix about the authenticity of Hippolytus’ claim that Jesus was born on December 25th and one smaller appendix about Clement of Alexandria’s dating of Jesus’ birth.

As an amateur, working alone with few resources and limited time, I have done my best, but there is no doubt that I have made mistakes.  I believe, however, that most of my errors are likely editorial mistakes of English spelling, grammar, and formatting and citation errors; I have given all my effort to ensure that the translation itself is faithful.
This translation will eventually be freely available on my website www.chronicon.net and I have kept the copyright.  If you have enjoyed this translation please consider making a donation at my website to help me publish more translations.

I want to thank Roger Pearse and Professor Kathrin Bracht for their encouragement and helpfulness and I also thank my friend Arlo and my father, both of whom made many editorial corrections.  I also am deeply and forever thankful for my patient wife and my little daughter for her cheery and glad smiles.

This work is dedicated to my loving Grandfather and Grandmother Coffman, whose love for scholarship, history, God, and His Church I have inherited.
I love you both.

Thomas Coffman Schmidt

For neither is a mere place able to be a called the Church,
nor a house which is built with stone and clay, nor a man
himself able to call himself the Church. For a house is
destroyed and a man dies. And so, what is the Church?
The community of Saints participating in truth.
~Hippolytus Commentary on Daniel 1.18.5-6

Unfortunately, my translation of Hippolytus’ Commentary on Daniel will be delayed again for a while as it is receiving a thorough editorial scrubbing!  Thanks for your patience.

My translation of Hippolytus’ Commentary on Daniel should be posted in the next 4 weeks (I promise!).

Here is my introduction to the text:

Hippolytus wrote his Chronicon in the year 235AD as he himself tells us.  His goal seems to have been threefold: to make a chronology from the beginning of the world up until his present day, to create a genealogical record of mankind, and to create a geographical record of mankind’s locations on the earth.  For his task Hippolytus seems to have made use of the Old Testament, to research the chronology and genealogies, and a nautical dictionary, to research the distances between locations in and around the Mediterranean Sea.

Though Hippolytus published his Chronicon several years after Julius Africanus published his own Chronicon, Hippolytus does not, as far as I can tell, reference his contemporary’s work nor does he seem to write in response to it.  Despite not gaining the level of prestige as Africanus, Hippolytus’ Chronicon seems to have been fairly successful.  Many historians made use of it, such as the author of the Chronography of 354, Epiphanius of Salamis, the author of the Chronicon Paschal, and George Syncellus.

For this translation the GCS (Die Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller) series number 46 was used.  From lines 1 to 613 the Greek of two manuscripts H1 and H2 were used.  From lines 614-720 the Latin translation from the Liber Generationis 1 of the Chronography of 354 was primarily used.  Whenever this was nonsensical, I attempted to compare it with a German translation of the Armenian or the Liber Generationis 2. From lines 721-741 a Greek fragment was used, and from lines 742-778 the Latin from the Liber Generationis 1 was used again.

The footnotes are not exhaustive, they are meant only to point out difficult readings, suggest possible translations of people groups and locations not found in William Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, and occasionally provide references to other ancient authors.  The maps by Heinrich Kiepert can be used to find many of the people groups and locations mentioned in this work.  These maps are in the public domain can be found on many websites.

The form we have the Chronicon in today contains errors and the reader is cautioned against using Hippolytus’ dates, names, and locations without further research. Additionally, this is my first attempt at translating a work from Greek and Latin into English, and no doubt many of the errors are due to my own inattentiveness and not the editors of the GCS or Hippolytus.

This translation needs one more revision using the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG) database to truly ensure a proper translation, but I do not have the time for such a task at the moment.

I would like to thank Nick Nicholas and Yancy Smith for their help and advice, Roger Pearse for his inspiration, which led me to take up this task, and my brother Mike, for recording my dictation.  Lastly, and most of all, I thank my very pregnant wife, who spent countless hours typing up a work that, by any standard, is not a pleasant read!

T.C. Schmidt

-Update-

I am already noticing errors in my text, so I am noting them and then will incorporate corrections into my next edition.  Nick Nicholas also made several good suggestions which I forgot to include and will put these into the next edition as well.  If any of you notice errors please email them to me.  My address can be found here

I am also working on getting Hippolytus’ Chronicon online as well, but I need to check it over one more time.

Next the toes of the feet, so that  in each place democracies may be shown, which are about to be, which are divided into the ten toes of the image, in which the iron will have been been mixed with clay.

Εἶτα δάκτυλοι ποδῶν, ἵνα δειχθῶσιν αἱ κατὰ τόπον δημοκρατίαι αἱ μέλλουσαι γίγνεσθαι, διαιρούμεναι εἰς τοὺς δέκα δακτύλους τῆς εἰκόνος, ἐν οἷς ἔσται ὁ σίδηρος ἀναμεμιγμένος τῷ ὀστράκῳ.

Does anyone know of another church father who talks about future democracies replacing the Roman Empire?  How should we interpret Hippolytus’ seemingly prescient prediction (though it took 300 or so years to be fulfilled after the fall of the Eastern Empire). For that matter does anyone have a better translation that they would like to contribute?

-UPDATE-

Hippolytus says much the same thing in his work On the Antichrist:

As these things, then, are in the future, and as the ten toes of the image are equivalent to (so many) democracies and the ten horns of the fourth beast are distributed over ten kingdoms, let us look at the subject a little more closely, and consider these matters as in the clear light of a personal survey.

τούτων οὖν ἐσομένων καὶ τῶν δέκα δακτύλων τῆς εἰκόνος εἰς δημοκρατίας χωρησάντων, καὶ τῶν δέκα κεράτων τοῦ θηρίου εἰς δέκα βασιλεῖς μερισθέντων, ἴδωμεν σαφέστερον τὰ προκείμενα, καὶ κατανοήσωμεν αὐτὰ ὀφθαλμοφανῶς. -On the Antichrist 27

And so how can we not consider the ancient things which were prophesied by Daniel in Babylon and are now still being fulfilled in the world? For the image which was portrayed according to that time, encompassed the type of the kingdom of all the world. In which time the Babylonians then reigned, as being the golden head of the image. Then after them the Persians ruled for two hundred forty-five years as they are shown to be silver. After them the Greeks ruled, beginning from Alexander of Macedon, for three hundred years, as they are bronze. After them the Romans, who are the iron legs of the image, being strong as iron.

And so the chiefs of the Jews now want to mutilate these things of the book of [Daniel? Susannah?], believing that these things did not happen in Babylon, because they were shamed by the Elders at that time,  failing to recognize the administration of the Spirit.

Next week I’ll start posting excerpts of Hippolytus’ interpretation of Daniel’s apocalyptic dreams.

“For on account of this our Lord Jesus Christ also lived and died and rose again, so that he might reign over the living and the dead”  Long ago Susannah in every way  taught these things to us, foreshadowing  in herself, the mysteries of the Church from which faith and reverence and temperance of the body are preached in all the earth until now. Therefore I exhort all those who read this writing , women and virgins, the small and the great, who have before their eyes the judgment of God, take her as an example to be imitated  and just as Sussanah was justified by God and by the word which was administrated through Daniel, she was able to be delivered from the second death.

*Scroll down for more updates*

Roger Pearse is discussing the dates of the Winter Solstice and “Brumalia” to see if and how they correspond with December 25th.  But why do we think Jesus was born on December 25th?  I thought that I would throw my hat into the ring and give the earliest reference to December 25 as the birthday of Jesus Christ.

Hippolytus in his Commentary on Daniel 4.23.3 says:

For the first advent of our Lord in the flesh, when he was born in Bethlehem, eight days before the kalends of January [December 25th], the 4th day of the week [Wednesday], while Augustus was in his forty-second year, [2 or 3BC] but from Adam five thousand and five hundred years.  He suffered in the thirty third year, 8 days before the kalends of April [March 25th], the Day of Preparation, the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar [29 or 30 AD], while Rufus and Roubellion and Gaius Caesar, for the 4th time, and Gaius Cestius Saturninus were Consuls.

I’m not sure how to calculate the 42nd year of Augustus and the 15th of Tiberius, do we count inclusively or exclusively?  Does a partial year reign count as a full one?  Or does the year begin on the day the man became emperor (March 15th 44bc in the case of Augustus?).  Lastly, don’t we date King Herod’s death to 4BC based only off of Josephus?  As I recall the contemporary historians Tacitus and Suetonius don’t give enough information about his reign.  If so, couldn’t Josephus be a year or two off?   Finally, where is a good source on lists of Consuls?

Thoughts?

-Update-

Peter (in the comments) rightly reminded me that some believe that Hippolytus’ reference to December 25 as the birthday of Christ is a later interpolation.  Quasten says this in his Patrology. The most modern edition of Hippolytus’ commentary GCS (Die Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller) series number NF 7, puts the text in brackets indicating that it is a conjecture (or perhaps an interpolation), as does GCS #1 found here.  However the SC (Source Christianes) Series 13 edition (published in 1947), contains the text as I gave it above above.

Furthermore, the text that the most modern edition gives doesn’t seem to make sense.  It reads as follows:

“For the first advent of our Lord in the flesh, when he was born in Bethlehem, four days before the Nones of April, 8 days before the kalends of January, the 4th day of the week [Wednesday], while Agustus was in his forty-second year, [2 or 3BC] but from Adam five thousand and five hundred years.  He suffered in the thirty third year, 8 days before the kalends of April [March 25th], the Day of Preparation”

Now in my photocopy of the page the German footnotes are partially cut off, making it very difficult to understand what actually is going on here. The older GCS edition seems to contain the same set of footnotes and it seems that there is conflicting manuscript tradition.   Anyone with a better knowledge of German able to sort this out?  You can see the footnotes here

Do scholars label this an interpolation simply because they think that the traditional date of December was not settled on until after Hippolytus?  Or are their more reasons?

-Update-

For those outside the US the GCS #1 volume is now on my website.  Look for page 242 or 295 of the PDF.

http://www.chronicon.net/chroniconfiles/GCS1hippolytusWerke.pdf

-Update-

Hippolytus has this to say in the ancient latin translation of his Chronicon about the birth and death of Christ (No Greek fragments survive from this portion of his Chronicon).  Chronicon Section 687:

And after the transmigration into Babylon until the birth of Christ, there were 14 generations, 660 years, and from the birth of Christ until the Passion there was 30 years and from the Passion up until this year which is the 13th year of the Emperor Alexander, there is 206 years.

The 13th year of Emperor Alexander Severus was 235AD [which makes 29AD for the death of Jesus according to the Latin].  Another Latin manuscript reads that it was 207 years from the passion of Christ until the 13th year of Alexander [28 AD for the death of Jesus].  The Armenian manuscript claims Christ was 32 when he died and that there are 205 years from Christ’s death to the 12th year and 6th month of Emperor Alexander’s reign [3BC].  It  is interesting to note that in his Chronicon Hippolytus claims that Jesus died when he was 30, but in his Commentary on Daniel he says he was 33 years old.  However, if we assume that the Armenian manuscript is more accurate than the Latin (Armenian often is more accurate) in which case what Hippolytus states in his Chronicon agrees pretty well with what he says in his Commentary on Daniel.  Read Hans Dampf’s insightful comments below about Jesus being born in 3BC.