In his book defending Catholic Mariology, Tim Staples wrote:
St. Hippolytus, writing ca. A.D. 190:
Now the Lord was without sin, being in his human nature from
incorruptible wood, that is from the Virgin, and being sheathed, as it were,
with the pure gold of the Word within and of the Spirit without. (Tim Staples, Behold Your Mother: A Biblical
and Historical Defense of the Marian Doctrines [El Cajon, Calif.: Catholic
Answers Press, 2014], 91-92, quoting O’Carroll, Theotokos, 50)
In the Ante Nicene Fathers set, we find the following translation:
And, moreover, the ark made of imperishable wood was the Saviour
Himself. For by this was signified the imperishable and incorruptible
tabernacle of (the Lord) Himself, which gendered no corruption of sin. For the
sinner, indeed, makes this confession: “My wounds stank, and were corrupt,
because of my foolishness. But the Lord was without sin, made of imperishable
wood, as regards His humanity; that is, of the virgin and the Holy Ghost
inwardly, and outwardly of the word of God, like an ark overlaid with purest
gold. ("The Extant Works and Fragments," Part 1.—Exegetical [ANF
5:170])
It should be noted that this work is part of
exegetical fragments attributed to Hippolytus (c. 170-236). It appears in Eranistes,
written in 447, by Theodoret of Cyrus (393-457).
In the Nicene Post-Nicene Fathers series, we find the
following translation in Dialogue 1 of Eranistes:
Testimony of the Holy Hippolytus,
Bishop and Martyr, from his discourse on “The Lord is my shepherd”:—
“And an ark of incorruptible wood was
the Saviour Himself, for the incorruptibility and indestructibility of His
Tabernacle signified its producing no corruption of sin. For the sinner who
confesses his sin says ‘My wounds stink and are corrupt because of my
foolishness.’ But the Lord was without sin, made in His human nature of
incorruptible wood, that is to say, of the Virgin and the Holy Ghost, overlaid
within and without, as it were, by purest gold of the word of God.” (Dialogue
I.—The Immutable [NPNF2 3:177])
A
more recent translation of the passage reads:
[99] Hippolytus, Bishop and Martyr
22. From the discourse on the text,
“The Lord is my shepherd.”
And the savior himself was a chest
made of incorruptible wood. For his incorruptible and imperishable
tabernacle, which engendered no sinful decay, was proclaimed here. For the
one who sinned and confessed says, “My wounds grew foul and rotten because of
my foolishness.” But the Lord was sinless, and his humanity was [formed] of
incorruptible wood, i.e., from the virgin and the Holy Spirit; for he was
clothed within and without by God’s Word as by purest gold. (Theodoret of
Cyrus, "Immutable: Dialogue 1," in Eranistes [trans. Gerard H.
Ettlinger; The Fathers of the Church 106; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University
of America Press, 2003], 71)
The
following is the Greek text thereof:
.jpg)
Source:
Gerard H. Ettlinger, Theodoret of Cyrus, Eranistes: Critical Text and
Prolegomena (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), 99
To
be fair, Ettinger does note that, in spite of some errors or inaccuracies in
patristic citations in Eranistes:
In the absence of positive evidence,
then, there seems to be no compelling reason to reject outright all the titles
which Theodoret attributes to Hippolytus. New editions of the works of
Hippolytus may show otherwise, but in the present state of knowledge of the Eranistes,
it is reasonable to maintain confidence in Theodoret's scholarship and
integrity. (Gerard H. Ettlinger, Theodoret of Cyrus, Eranistes: Critical
Text and Prolegomena [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975], 34-35)
He
also adds that
Apart from the spurious writings,
Theodoret makes one incorrect attribution and five positive errors in titles;
in view of the large number of citations in the Eranistes and the
research problems Theodoret would have faced, this small number of errors seems
to indicate a reasonable level of accuracy. (Ibid., 35)
Notwithstanding, we do not have Hippolytus work directly; we have it in a much later (fifth-century) work composed over two centuries after his death which Theodoret believed to be from Hippolytus and was at that time attributed to Hippolytus. However, one should be very cautious about using this as evidence of a high Mariology in the late 2nd century as Staples does as it is attested much later.
