Hippolytus of Rome

Hippolytus wrote and taught somewhere in the Christian world around 165–235 AD, producing biblical commentaries and theological works that reached readers from Rome to Egypt. Photios later suggested he was a disciple of Irenaeus, linking him to the apostolic line through Polycarp, though the claim is shaky. An older theory holds that he broke with the Roman bishops over their loosening of penance rules for new converts, leading a breakaway faction as a rival pope. Legends that sprouted in the fourth century variously cast him as a Novatianist priest or a soldier converted by Saint Lawrence; Po…