28
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Hippolytus, Antipope and Easton, Burton Scott
Hippolytus, like Didache 13. 3, regards the law of Deuteronomy 18. 4 as binding on Christians; he says nothing, however, of an obligation to tithe. The Jewish background of his prayer is evident; compare particularly Berakhoth vi. 2 “through whose word all things come to pass”, and Rabbi Jehudah’s formula in vi. 1 “who hast created divers fruits”. The only Christian touch is at the end, and the rest of the prayer may have been taken bodily from a Jewish source.
102
The reasons for the distinctions in 6-7 are probably irrecoverable, but vegetables of the gourd family were favoured food among ascetics of the gnostic type. Perhaps Canticles 2. 1 gave the lily and the rose their privileged status.
In Hippolytus’s day these first-fruits constituted the chief source of support for the clergy. A writer—probably Hippolytus himself—in Eusebius V, 28. 10-12 speaks with detestation of the payment of money salaries by heretics to their leaders.