J. A. Cerrato: Hippolytus as Homilist: Aspects of Oratory in the Second Century Commentator

The commentaries of Hippolytus, composed in the late second century and early third, show marks suggestive of sermons delivered in congregational settings, as well as evidence of influence by the Second Sophistic. This study examines the loci in which these marks and influences appear, pointing to an author who stood between the classical and biblical worlds of learning as an interpreter, speaker and teacher. Passages from the Daniel Commentary, On the Antichrist, On the Song of Songs and from various authentic extracts and fragments throughout the extant corpus are investigated. Attention is given to the author's standing among contemporaneous homilists and writers, providing a literary-historical context. Included is an assessment of the primary audiences and the occasions on which the original teachings were delivered. These considerations bear on the provenance and identity inquiries which attend the author - the Hippolytus Question - and help to illuminate his overall character as a writer and teacher. Of interest is the query whether any of these indicators are useful in revealing elements of a rhetorical education acquired in Rome, Roman Asia, Egypt or the MidEast. The rhetorical indicators alone do not provide conclusive proof of a western or eastern venue, but when combined with other evidence from the corpus, do not rule out, and in some instances support, a Roman Asian, or generally levantine, provenance.