Hippolytus of Rome

Hippolytus was the most learned theologian of the Roman church in the early third century, and the last of its writers to work in Greek. A rigorist by temperament, he quarrelled so bitterly with the popes of his day over the forgiveness of grave sins that he broke away and let himself be set up as a rival bishop of Rome — the first antipope. Yet the story ended in reconciliation: exiled to the mines of Sardinia in the persecution of 235, he was restored to the Church’s communion and died a martyr, honoured ever since alongside Pope Pontian, who was banished with him.