Chapter VI: Part IV

35. ¹Let all the faithful, whether men or women, when early in
the morning they rise from their sleep and before they
undertake any tasks, wash their hands and pray to God; and so
they may go to their duties. ²But if any instruction in God’s
word is held [that day], everyone ought to attend it
willingly,[136] recollecting that he will hear God speaking
through the instructor and[137] that prayer in the church
enables him to avoid the day’s evil; any godly man ought to
count it a great loss if he does not attend the place of
instruction, especially if he can read.

³If a [specially gifted][138] teacher should come, let none of
you delay[139] to attend the place where the instruction is
given, for grace will be given to the speaker to utter things
profitable to all, and thou wilt hear new things,[140] and
thou wilt be profited by what the Holy Spirit will give thee
through the instructor; so thy faith will be strengthened by
what thou hearest, and in that place thou wilt learn thy
duties at home; therefore let everyone be zealous to go to the
church, the place where the Holy Spirit abounds.[141]

36. ¹But if on any day there is no instruction, let everyone
at home take the Bible and read sufficiently in passages that
he finds profitable.

²If at the third hour thou art at home, pray then and give
thanks to God; but if thou chance to be abroad at that hour,
make thy prayer to God in thy heart. ³For at that hour Christ
was nailed to the tree; therefore in the old [covenant] the
law commanded the showbread to be offered continually for a
type of the body and blood of Christ, and commanded the
sacrifice of the dumb lamb, which was a type of the perfect
Lamb; for Christ is the Shepherd, and he is also the Bread
that came down from heaven.

⁴At the sixth hour likewise pray also, for, after Christ was
nailed to the wood of the cross, the day was divided and there
was a great darkness; wherefore let [the faithful] pray at
that hour with an effectual prayer, likening themselves to the
voice of him who prayed [and] caused all creation to become
dark for the unbelieving Jews.

⁵And at the ninth hour let a great prayer and a great
thanksgiving be made, such as made[142] the souls of the
righteous ones, blessing the Lord,
LAT the God who does not lie, who was mindful of his saints and
sent forth his Word to enlighten them. ⁶At that hour,
therefore, Christ poured forth from his pierced side water and
blood, and brought the rest of the time of that day with light
to evening; so, when he fell asleep, by making the beginning
of another day he completed the pattern of his resurrection.

⁷Pray again before thy body rests on thy bed.

⁸At midnight arise, wash thy hands with water and pray. ⁹And
if thy wife is with thee, pray ye both together; but if she is
not yet a believer, go into another room and pray, and again
return to thy bed; be not slothful in prayer.

¹⁰He who has used the marriage bed is not defiled; for they
who are bathed have no need to wash again, for they are clean.
¹¹By signing thyself with thy moist breath, and so spreading
spittle[143] on thy body with thy hand, thou art sanctified to
thy feet; for the gift of the Spirit and the sprinkling with
water, when it is brought with a believing heart as it were
from a fountain, sanctifies him who believes.

¹²It is needful to pray at this hour; for those very elders
who gave us the tradition taught us that at this hour all
creation rests for a certain moment, that all creatures may
praise the Lord: stars and trees and waters stand still with
one accord, and all the angelic host does service to God by
praising Him, together with the souls of the righteous. ¹³For
this cause believers should be zealous to pray at this hour;
for the Lord, testifying to this, says: “Behold at midnight is
a cry, Behold the Bridegroom cometh! Rise up to meet him!”;
and he adds insistently: “Watch ye therefore, for ye know not
at what hour he cometh”.

¹⁴And at cockcrow rise up and pray likewise, for at that hour
of cockcrow the children of Israel denied Christ, whom we have
known by faith; by which faith, in the hope of eternal life at
the resurrection of the dead, we look for his Day.

¹⁵And so, all ye faithful, if ye thus act, and are mindful of
these things, and teach them to one another, and cause the
catechumens to be zealous, ye can neither be tempted nor can
ye perish, since ye have Christ always in your minds.

37.[144] ¹But imitate him always, by signing thy forehead
sincerely; for this is the sign of his Passion, manifest and
approved against the devil if so thou makest it from faith;
not that thou mayest appear to men, but knowingly offering it
as a shield. ²For the adversary, seeing its power coming from
the heart, that a man displays the publicly formed image of
baptism,[145] is put to flight; not because thou spittest, but
because the Spirit in thee breathes him away. ³When Moses
formed it by putting the blood of the Paschal lamb that was
slain on the lintel and anointing the side-posts, he signified
the faith which now we have in the perfect Lamb.

38.[146] ¹And so, if these things are accepted with
thanksgiving and right faith, they give edification in the
church and eternal life to believers. ²I counsel that these
things be kept by all who know aright; for over all who hear
the apostolic tra[dition]
SAH and keep it, no heretics or any other man will prevail to lead
them astray. ³For the many heresies have increased because
their leaders would not learn the purpose of the apostles but
acted according to their own wills, following their lusts and
not what was right.

⁴Now, beloved, if we have omitted anything, God will reveal it
to those who are worthy, guiding the holy church to its
mooring in [God’s] quiet haven.

LATER ADDITIONS

ETH 24. ¹On Saturday and Sunday the bishop shall whenever possible
give the people the bread with his own hand, while the deacons
break it. ²The presbyters too shall break the bread to be
delivered; and whenever a deacon approaches a presbyter he
shall hold out his robe,[147] and the presbyter shall take the
bread and deliver it to the people with his hand.

³On other days they shall give the bread as the bishop
determines.

On this section compare p. 31. It may be further observed that
section 2 is pretty clearly an addition.

ETH 26. ¹⁴In time of need the deacon shall be diligent in giving
the blessed bread[148] to the sick. ¹⁵If there is no presbyter
to give out what is to be distributed, the deacon shall
pronounce the thanksgiving and shall supervise[149] those who
carry it away, to make sure that they attend to their duty and
[properly] distribute the blessed food; the distributors must
give it to the widows and the sick. ¹⁶Whoever is entrusted
with the duty by the church[150] must distribute it on the
same day; if he does not, he must [at least] do so on the next
day with the addition of what is then given him. ¹⁷For [it is
not his own property]; it is given him only [in trust] as
bread for the poor.

¹⁸When evening has come and the bishop is present, the deacon
shall bring in a lamp. ¹⁹Then the bishop, standing in the
midst of the believers, before giving thanks shall first give
the salutation:

The Lord be with you all.

²⁰And the people shall say:

[And] with thy spirit.

²¹And the bishop shall say:

Let us give thanks to the Lord.

²²And the people shall say:

It is meet and right:
Majesty, exaltation and glory are due to Him.

²³But they shall not say “Lift up your hearts”, for that
belongs to the oblation. ²⁴And he prays thus, saying:

We give thee thanks, O God, because thou hast enlightened us
by revealing the incorruptible light. ²⁵So we, having finished
the length of a day, and being come to the beginning of the
night, satisfied with the light of the day that thou hast
created for our satisfaction; and now, since by thy grace we
lack not a light for the evening, we sanctify thee and we
glorify thee. ²⁶Through thine only Son our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom be to thee with him glory and might and honour
with [the] Holy Spirit, now, etc.[151]

²⁷And they shall all say: Amen.

²⁸Then, rising up after supper, the children and virgins
having prayed, they shall sing psalms. ²⁹Then the deacon,
holding the mixed cup of the offering, shall say a Hallelujah
Psalm.[152] ³⁰Then, the presbyter having commanded, “And also
such-and-such Psalms”, after the bishop has offered the
cup[153] with the proper thanksgiving, all shall say
“Hallelujah” as the Psalms are sung. ³¹And they shall say:

We praise Him who is God most high;
Glorified and praised is He,
Who founded the world with a single word.[154]

³²Then, when the Psalm is completed, he shall give thanks over
the bread, and shall give the fragments to all the believers.

On these sections compare p. 31. An evening service, that
included bringing in the lamp, is widespread in early
Christianity and is eventually derived from Judaism; the
particular service described here is a prelude to a
congregational agape. There is nothing in sections 18-32 that
necessarily implies a date later than Hippolytus, but the
ceremony is badly placed between the private agapes and the
equally private meals for the widows, and it is followed by a
duplication of 26. 2, 10-12.

LAT 31. ¹The faithful, early in the morning, as soon as they have
awaked and arisen, before they undertake their tasks shall
pray to God and so may then go to their duties. ²But if any
instruction in the word is held, let each give first place to
that, that he may attend and hear the word of God, to his
soul’s comfort; so let each one hasten to the church, where
the Spirit abounds.

32. ¹But let each of the faithful be zealous, before he eats
anything else, to receive the eucharist; for if anyone
receives it with faith, after such a reception he cannot be
harmed even if a deadly poison should be given him. ²But let
each one take care that no unbeliever taste the eucharist, nor
a mouse nor any other animal, and that nothing of it fall or
be lost; for the body of Christ is to be eaten by believers
and must not be despised. ³The cup, when thou hast given
thanks in the name of the Lord, thou hast accepted as the
image of the blood of Christ. ⁴Therefore let none of it be
spilled, so that no alien spirit may lick it up, as if thou
didst despise it; thou shalt be guilty of the blood, as if
thou didst scorn the price with which thou hast been
bought.[155]

In the Oriental versions the position of chapters 31-32
between chapters 30 and 33 is impossible. Chapter 30 addresses
the church’s officers, chapters 31-32 individuals, chapters
33-34 the officers, and chapter 35 individuals again; chapter
31, in addition, is only a condensation of 35. 1-3. But the
Hauler manuscript clears up the difficulty. In it chapter 32
is followed immediately by the Latin A form of 37. 1-38. 2a,
breaking off at the end of a leaf with “apo” (for
“apostolic”). The next leaf begins with “God” in the middle of
36. 5, and the text continues through 36, gives the Latin B
form of 37. 1-38. 2a and breaks off this time with “tra” for
“tradition”. So two versions of the work were current with
different endings; in one chapter 30 was followed by 31-32 and
the A conclusion, in the other it was followed by 33-35 and
the B conclusion. In the Hauler manuscript both endings were
reproduced, although the leaves containing the last two
sentences of the first and a considerable part of the second
have been lost. In the Oriental versions—or the Greek codex
underlying them—the glaring duplication caused by the ending
after 32 was suppressed, although the doubling of 35. 1-3 in
31 remained.

Since chapter 34 is unmistakably Roman and consequently
Hippolytean, the longer ending is original; chapter 33,
moreover, is perfectly in place after chapter 30. So
Schwartz[156] and Jungklaus are correct in holding[157] that
chapter 32 is not by Hippolytus; the only alternative would be
to assume that he issued two versions of his book with
different endings—a difficult supposition that would leave
unexplained why the very important practice stressed in
chapter 32 is omitted in the longer version.

On the other hand it is true, as Connolly argues,[158] that
the rules of chapter 32 are truly third-century. The custom
according to which each Christian kept the consecrated
eucharist in his house and received it each morning is
attested in Tertullian’s _To his Wife_ II, 5, and the reason
given (Mark 16. 18) for receiving fasting is not that of the
later church (compare on chapter 29); Connolly observes
further that the home reservation of consecrated wine as well
as consecrated bread is unknown elsewhere.

Very curious, too, is the phrase “when _thou_ hast given
thanks” in section 3, for the section as a whole is addressed
to the laity. Is there here some reminiscence of earlier
corporately celebrated eucharists, like the agapes in chapter
26? Or are 3-4 a later addition, addressed to the clergy? Or
is there textual confusion?

NOTES

1

Characteristic of Hippolytus’s style are his frequent summaries of the progress of his treatises; compare 16. 25; 23. 13; Philosophumena, Proem.; i, 23. 4, etc.

The opening sentence is obscure, but Connolly’s explanation (pp. 161-162) appears the most likely: Man, made in God’s image, went astray, but through the Incarnation God restored humanity by presenting to Himself Christ, the perfect Man.

2. On the phrase translated “most important theme” compare Connolly, p. 161; the original Greek word was presumably κορυφή.

3. If the “churches” are the different Roman congregations—an unusual sense—Hippolytus speaks simply as a bishop; if the meaning is “at Rome and elsewhere” he speaks not only as a bishop but as a teacher of eminent authority.

4. The “lapse or error” is the Zephyrinus-Callistus “schism”. As Hippolytus speaks of it as a recent event, the date of the treatise cannot be far from 217.