Archive for December, 2009

Hippolytus Commentary on Daniel Part 8

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

This week Hippolytus turns towards his audience and exhorts us to follow Susannah’s example of faith:

“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.

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Hippolytus and December 25th, the birthday of Christ-Christmas

Tuesday, December 8th, 2009

*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/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.

Posted in Chronology, Hippolytus, Suetonius, Tacitus, Translation | 23 Comments »

Hippolytus Commentary on Daniel Part 7

Monday, December 7th, 2009

After Susannah was threatened with death she cried:

I am in dire straits  for if I would do this now, it is death to me, yet if I would not, I will not escape your hands, but it is better for me, having not done this, to fall into your hands than to sin against the Lord.

In commenting on this Hippolytus firmly declares that it is better to die for God, than to deny Him and live in this world.  From what we know of Hippolytus, he followed his own advice and died as a martyr and witness of Christ.  I am reminded once more of the countless believers who have died and still do die for Christ, surely God Himself will be their blessing.

Behold the words of the temperate woman who heeded God .  She says ‘I am in dire straits,’ for the church is persecuted and oppressed  by the Jews, but also the Gentiles  and by those who falsely call themselves Christians, who always behold the temperance and tranquility of the church and use force to destroy her.  Susannah says “Therefore if I would do this, it is death to me.”  For to disobey God and to obey men is death and makes for eternal chastisement. “Yet if I would not, I will not escape your hands.”  And she has said this truth, for those who are brought forward for the sake of the Name of Christ, if they would do what is commanded by men, they die to God, but live to the world, if they do not do what is commanded, they do not escape the hands of the judges, but being condemned by the same judges, they die.

For it is better for you, having not done what is commanded by men, to fall into their hands, than to sin before the Lord.  For this is more profitable: to die at the hands of unrighteous men, so that we live with God, than, consenting to them and after being ruined by them, to fall into the hands of God. “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”

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Hippolytus’ Commentary on Daniel part 6

Tuesday, December 1st, 2009

This week Hippolytus discusses the passage in the book of Susannah where the two wicked elders trap her in her husband’s garden and try to force her to commit adultery with them.

And as her maidens went out of the garden, the elders rose and said to Susannah “Behold, the doors of the garden are locked and no one can see us and we lust for you.  Therefore consent to use and sleep with us.  But if not, we will testify against you that a young man was with you”

The elders are here essentially threatening Susannah with death if she does not consent to them.  Hippolytus had previously stated that  the two elders represented two people groups, the Gentiles and the Jews, who were persecuting Hippolytus’ fellow Christians.  He further elaborates on this:

For you may now also find these things fulfilled in the Church.  For when the two peoples agree to destroy the lives  of saints, they observe  a fitting day and, after rushing in to the house of God, where people pray and hymn to God, they lay hold of them and drag them off and arrest them saying “Come, consent to us and sacrifice to our gods, but if not we will testify against you.”  Of those not willing to sacrifice, they lead them to the court, charge them as practicing what is contrary to the decree of Caesar and condemn them to death.

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