Medicine and Sophistry in Hippolytus' Refutatio

Abstract

The Refutatio attributed to Hippolytus contains numerous signs that Christians of the second and early third centuries were aware of the public displays performed by sophists and doctors. Hippolytus himself demonstrates his familiarity with the tropes of sophistic performance by depicting heretics, particularly his nemesis Callistus, as if they were just as inconsistent and devious as extemporizing sophists. Hippolytus also provides indications that some groups of heretics, particularly the Peratae, had active and technical interests in the mechanics of human anatomy and physiology, and that these groups are likely to have witnessed the public demonstrations and dissections commonly performed by doctors in the second century.