He said that the Word is the Son and is also the Father, being called by
different names, but being one indivisible spirit; and that the Father
is not one and the Son another (person), but that they both are one and
the same.... The Father, having taken human flesh, deified it by uniting
it to Himself,... and so he said that the Father had suffered with the
Son." [348:1]

Though Callistus, as well as Hippolytus, is recognised as a saint in the
Romish Breviary, [348:2] it is thus certain that the bishop of Portus
regarded the bishop of Rome as a schemer and a heretic. It is equally
clear that, at this period, all bishops were on a level of equality, for
Hippolytus, though the pastor of a town in the neighbourhood of the
chief city, did not acknowledge Callistus as his metropolitan. The
bishop of Portus describes himself as one of those who are "successors
of the apostles, partakers with them of the same grace both of principal
priesthood and doctorship, and reckoned among the guardians of the
Church." [348:3] Hippolytus testifies that Callistus was afraid of him,
[348:4] and if both were members of the same synod, [348:5] well might
the heterodox prelate stand in awe of a minister who possessed
co-ordinate authority, with greater honesty and superior erudition. But
still, it is abundantly plain, from the admissions of the
"Philosophumena," that the bishop of Rome, in the time of the author of
this treatise, was beginning to presume upon his position. Hippolytus
complains of his irregularity in receiving into his communion some who
had been "cast out of the Church" of Portus "after judicial sentence."
[348:6] Had the bishop of the harbour of Rome been subject to the bishop
of the capital, he would neither have expressed himself in such a style,
nor preferred such an accusation.

Various circumstances indicate, as has already been suggested, that the
bishop of Rome, in the time of the Antonines, was chosen by lot; but we
may infer from the "Philosophumena" that, early in the third century,
another mode of appointment had been adopted. [349:1] It is obvious that
he now owed his advancement to the suffrages of the Church members, for
Hippolytus hints very broadly that Callistus pursued a particular course
with a view to promote his popularity and secure his election. It is
beyond doubt that, about A.D. 236, Fabian was chosen bishop of Rome by
the votes of the whole brotherhood, and there is on record a minute
account of c