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Paschal Table

Written in 222, probably in Roma (now Rome, Italy). The date is the usual view of scholars; some doubt it.

A table of Easter dates for 112 years, cut on the side of a statue found at Rome in 1551; the corpus file is the ANF note about it, not the table.

Calendar · first written in Greek

Translated by A. Cleveland Coxe (1886). Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 5 (1886), editor's introductory notice to Hippolytus; an English note, not a translation Public domain. Source and rights

About this text (2 notes)

9. Hippolytus, Paschal tables. ecf:record:1ceccf95-001d-4aa7-afc7-ade8fccae1cd, file ANF5_Introductory_Notice_statue_Paschal_calendar.txt. The file is the ANF note about the statue. It is not the table.

An editor's note in English, not an ancient text.

How we know the date and place
Date written probable
The table starts in year 1 of Severus Alexander, 222 (Eusebius, Church History 6.22; ANF 5 introductory notice; Quasten, Patrology vol. 2)
The statue was carved a little later, about 222-235.
Place written probable
The table is cut on a statue found at Rome on the Via Tiburtina; ANF 5 introductory notice; A. Brent, Hippolytus and the Roman Church (1995)

904 words. 1 section.

Introductory Notice to Hippolytus.

§ introductory-notice-to-hippolytus

[a.d. 170-236.]

The first great Christian Father whose history is Roman is, nevertheless, not a Roman, but a Greek. He is the disciple of Irenæus, and the spirit of his life-work rejects that of his master. In his personal character he so much resembles Irenæus risen again, [4] that the great Bishop of Lyons must be well studied and understood if we would do full justice to the conduct of Hippolytus. Especially did he follow his master's example in withstanding contemporary bishops of Rome, who, like Victor, "deserved to be blamed," but who, much more than any of their predecessors, merited rebuke alike for error in doctrine and viciousness of life.

In the year 1551, while some excavations were in progress near the ancient Church of St. Lawrence at Rome, on the Tiburtine Road, there was found an ancient statue, in marble, of a figure seated in a chair, and wearing over the Roman tunic the pallium of Tertullian's eulogy. It was in 1851, just three hundred years after its discovery, and in the year of the publication of the newly discovered Philosophumena at Oxford, that I saw it in the Vatican. As a specimen of early Christian art it is a most interesting work, and possesses a higher merit than almost any similar production of a period subsequent to that of the Antonines. [5] It represents a grave personage, of noble features and a high, commanding forehead, slightly bearded, his right hand resting over his heart, while under it his left arm crosses the body to reach a book placed at his side. There is no reason to doubt that this is, indeed, the statue of Hippolytus, as is stated in the inscription of Pius IV., who calls him "Saint Hippolytus, Bishop of Portus," and states that he lived in the reign of the Emperor Alexander; i.e., Severus.

Of this there is evidence on the chair itself, which represents his episcopal cathedra, and has a modest symbol of lions at "the stays," as if borrowed from the throne of Solomon. It is a work of later date than the age of Severus, no doubt; but Wordsworth, who admirably illustrates the means by which such a statue may have been provided, gives us good reasons for supposing that it may have been the grateful tribute of contemporaries, and all the more trustworthy as a portrait of the man himself. The chair has carved upon it, no doubt for use in the Church, a calendar indicating the Paschal full moons for seven cycles of sixteen years each; answering, according to the science of the period, to similar tables in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. It indicates the days on which Easter must fall, from a.d. 222 to a.d. 333. On the back of the chair is a list of the author's works. [6]

Not less interesting, and vastly more important, was the discovery, at Mount Athos, in 1842, of the long-lost Philosophumena of this author, concerning which the important facts will appear below. Its learned editor, Emmanuel Miller, published it at Oxford under the name of Origen, which was inscribed on the ms. Like the Epistle of Clement, its composition in the Greek language had given it currency among the Easterns long after it was forgotten in the West; and very naturally they had ascribed to Origen an anonymous treatise containing much in coincidence with his teachings, and supplying the place of one of his works of a similar kind. It is now sufficiently established as the work of Hippolytus, and has been providentially brought to light just when it was most needed. [7] In fact, the statue rose from its grave as if to rebuke the reigning pontiff (Pius IV.), who just then imposed upon the Latin churches the novel "Creed" which bears his name; and now the Philosophumena comes forth as if to breathe a last warning to that namesake of the former Pius who, in the very teeth of its testimony, so recently forged and uttered the dogma of "papal infallibility" conferring this attribute upon himself, and retrospectively upon the very bishops of Rome whom St. Hippolytus resisted as heretics, and has transmitted to posterity, in his writings, branded with the shame alike of false doctrine and of heinous crimes. Dr. Döllinger, who for a time lent his learning and genius to an apologetic effort in behalf of the Papacy, was no doubt prepared, by this very struggle of his heart versus head, for that rejection of the new dogma which overloaded alike his intellect and his conscience, and made it impossible for him any longer to bear the lashes of Rehoboam [8] in communion with modern Rome.

In the biographical data which will be found below, enough is supplied for the needs of the reader of the present series, who, if he wishes further to investigate the subject, will find the fullest information in the works to which reference has been made, or which will be hereafter indicated. [9] But this is the place to recur to the much-abused passage of Irenæus which I have discussed in a former volume. [10] Strange to say, I was forced to correct, from a Roman-Catholic writer, the very unsatisfactory rendering of our

NOTE: This is the ANF description of the statue calendar, NOT a tabular extract of the sixteen-year Paschal cycles carved on the chair. No clean tabular PD extract packed this wave.