The Use of Paul in Hippolytus's De Antichristo

The study of Paul in the writings of “Hippolytus of Rome” is faced with some particularly difficult methodological challenges. In this chapter, therefore, I wish to do three things. First, I will introduce some of the fundamental problems in Hippolytan research, especially as they relate to the issues of authorship and the nature of the Hippolytan corpus. Second, to mitigate these problems for the time being, I want to focus attention upon a single work—the De Antichristo—which is arguably the most “apologetic” of the Hippolytan writings. Third, I will then consider the use of Paul in De Antichristo specifically, by looking into two aspects of this use: (1) the function of Pauline citations; and (2) closely related, the perception of Paul as a prophetic figure. Exploring both of these aspects from the perspective of Pauline reception will shed some different light on the topic of “Paul as prophet,” which has been a topic of interest for Pauline scholars for quite some time.