Hippolytus (d. 236)

Critical Editions

Hippolytus.  "Fragmenta in Psalmos. [Sp.]" In Hippolyt's kleinere exegetische und homiletische Schriften.  Edited by H. Achelis.  GCS 1.2, pp. 131-153.  Leipzig, Germany: Hinrichs, 1897. [TLG 2115.012]

Modern Translations

Hippolytus. "On the Psalms."  Pages 175-182 in On the Apostolic Tradition.  Translated by Alistair Stewart-Sykes.  Popular Patristic Series.  Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2001.  Note: uses the below edition by Nautin as the base text.

Hippolytus.  "L'homilie d'Hippolyte sur les Psaumes."  In Le dossier d'Hippolyte et de Méliton dans les florileges dogmatiques et chez les historiens moderns, pp. 161-183.  Translated by Pierre Nautin.  Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1953.

An older translation can be found in ANF 5: 170-172.

References to the Psalms in other works

The Refutation of All Heresies

Books I-IV – no mention of the Psalms

Book V - shows how others reinterpret the psalms with their mythologies

• Ch 2 - Ps 2:9; 118:22; 82:6
• Ch 3 - Ps 29:3, 10; Ps 22:20, 21; Ps 35:17; Ps 24:7-9; 22:6; 24:8
• Ch 4 - Ps 19:3
• Ch 14 - Ps 29:3
• Ch 19 - Ps 110:4
• Ch 21 - Ps 117:19; 118:20; 110:1
• Ch 22 - Ps 110:4

Book VI - shows how others reinterpret the psalms with their mythologies

• Ch 27 - Ps 111:10; Ps 50:3
• Ch 43 - Ps 8:2; Ps 19:1

Book VII - shows how others reinterpret the psalms with their mythologies

• Ch 10 - Ps 133:2
• Ch 14 - Ps 32:5; 51:3

Book VIII - shows how others reinterpret the psalms with their mythologies

• Ch 10 - Ps 19:4-5

Book IX – no mention of the Psalms

Book X

• Ch 7 - Ps 29:3 – recap of views of Sethians
• Ch 29 - Ps 32:9; Ps 110:3 – the nature of laws and of Christ

On the Hexaemeron

• Gen 49:5 – Ps 2:2 – understands Gen 49:5 to predict the conspiracy against the Lord; uses Ps 2:2 to bolster views, “for the blessed David sings”
• Gen 49:16-20 – Ps 44[45]:17[16] – “for thus did God speak with regard to the mother of the Jews—that is to say, Jerusalem—by the voice of the Psalmist”
• Gen 49:21-26 – Ps 110:1 – “for though He endured the cross, yet as God He returned to life, having trampled upon death, as His God and Father addresses Him, and says”
• Gen 49:21-26 – Ps 45:11 – “I mean, of course, spiritual beauty, so that to us too it may be said hereafter”

On Proverbs 9:1 – Ps 45:2

On Daniel, §4 – Ps 90:4

Treatise on Christ and Antichrist

• §8 – Ps 3:5; “First he takes Jacob’s words in Gen 29:8-12 as referring to the three days of Christ’s death, also intimated by Isaiah (1:21) and David (3:5) – this is the resurrection from the dead (‘rouse up!’)
• §61 – Ps 110:1 – “even as David also declared of old when he said”
• §64 – Ps 19:6 – “And David also, in announcing prophetically the judgment and coming of the Lord, says”

Expository Treatise Against the Jews

• §2-8 - a long commentary-like treatment of Ps 69
• “Let him be then be introduced before us who speaketh by the Holy Spirit, and saith truth – David the son of Jesse. He, singing a certain strain with prophetic reference to the true Christ, celebrated our God by the Holy Spirit, (and) declared clearly all that befell Him by the hands of the Jews in His passion; in which (strain) the Christ who humbled himself and took unto himself the form of the servant Adam, calls upon God the Father in heaven as it were in our person, and speaks thus in the sixty-ninth psalm”
• “Now Christ prayed all this economically (οικονομικως) as man; however, true God. But, as I have already said, it was the ‘form of a servant’ that spake and suffered these things. Wherefore he added…”
• “What sayest thou to this, O Jew? It is neither Matthew or Paul that saith these things, but David, thine anointed, who awards and declares these terrible sentences on account of Christ”
• §10 - Ps 2:5 – “And again David, in the Psalms, says with respect to the future age”

Against the Heresy of Noetus

• §12 – Ps 33:6 – “according to the word of the prophet” the world was made by the Word
• §16 – Ps 110:3 – “just as, speaking by the prophet of the generation of the Word, He shows the fact that He is begotten, but reserves the question of the manner and means, to reveal it only in the time determined by Himself. For He speaks thus”

Discourse on the Holy Theophany

• §1 – Ps 148:4, “and the prophet himself is a witness, when he exclaims”
• §2 – Ps 46:4; Ps 77:16; Ps 114:5 – about the seas
• §6 – Ps 24:7 - “For when Christ the Bridegroom was baptized, it was meet that the bridal-chamber of heaven should open its brilliant gates. And in like manner also, when the Spirit descended in the form of a dove, and the Father’s voice spread everywhere, it was meet that ‘the gates of heaven should be lifted up.’”
• §7 – Ps 29:3 – about the faithfulness of the Father’s voice
• §9 – Ps 51:10 – “this is the Spirit that David sought when he said, …”