The Word made Flesh
From a treatise On the Refutation of All Heresies by Saint Hippolytus, priest (d. 235)
The Word made flesh makes man divine
Our faith is not founded upon empty words; nor are we carried away by mere caprice or beguiled by specious arguments. On the contrary, we put our faith in words spoken by the power of God, spoken by the Word himself at God’s command. God wished to win men back from disobedience, not by using force to reduce him to slavery but by addressing to his free will a call to liberty.
The Word spoke first of all through the prophets, but because the message was couched in such obscure language that it could be only dimly apprehended, in the last days the Father sent the Word in person, commanding him to show himself openly so that the world could see him and be saved.
We know that by taking a body from the Virgin he refashioned our fallen nature. We know that his manhood was of the same clay as our own; if this were not so, he would hardly have been a teacher who could expect to be imitated. If he were of a different substance from me, he would surely not have ordered me to do as he did, when by my very nature I am so weak. Such a demand could not be reconciled with his goodness and justice.
No. He wanted us to consider him as no different from ourselves, and so he worked, he was hungry and thirsty, he slept. Without protest he endured his passion, he submitted to death and revealed his resurrection. In all these ways he offered his own manhood as the firstfruits of our race to keep us from losing heart when suffering comes our way, and to make us look forward to receiving the same reward as he did, since we know that we possess the same humanity.
When we have come to know the true God, both our bodies and our souls will be immortal and incorruptible. ‘We shall enter the kingdom of heaven, because while we lived on earth we acknowledged heaven’s King. Friends of God and coheirs with Christ, we shall be subject to no evil desires or inclinations, or to any affliction of body or soul, for we shall have become divine. It was because of our human condition that God allowed us to endure these things, but when we have been deified and made immortal, God has promised us a share in his own attributes.
The saying “Know yourself” means therefore that we should recognize and acknowledge in ourselves the God who made us in his own image, for if we do this, we in turn will be recognized and acknowledged by our Maker. So let us not be at enmity with ourselves, but change our way of life without delay. For Christ who is God, exalted above all creation, has taken away man’s sin and has refashioned our fallen nature. In the beginning God made man in his image and so gave proof of his love for us. If we obey his holy commands and learn to imitate his goodness, we shall be like him and he will honor us. God is not beggarly, and for the sake of his own glory he has given us a share in his divinity.
Source: The Liturgy of the Hours – Office of Readings
Saint Hippolytus was a priest at Rome known for his high education and learning. He may have been a disciple of St. Irenaeus and became a major theological writer of the early Church. Yet, he came to denounce many church leaders for their leniency to the Christological heresies found in Rome, especially Modalism and Sabellianism. When Pope St. Callistus I was elected Pope in 217, Hippolytus created a minor schism by allowing himself to be elected antipope by his small band of followers, opposing Callistus and his successors including Popes Urban and Pontian as well.
While Pope Pontian was banished to Sardinia through the persecutions in Rome by the Emperor Maximinus, so also was Hippolytus. It was in this exile that Pope Pontian was able to reconcile Hippolytus back into the Church. He died on Sardinia, a martyr from the sufferings he endured there. His most important work was “A Refutation of All Heresies.” Down through the centuries, the Church has celebrated the feast of St. Pontian, the Pope, and St. Hippolytus, once antipope, on the same day.