Hippolytus, (Bishop) of Rome on Hezekiah. - ANF05. Fathers of the Third Century: Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix

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Hippolytus, (Bishop) of Rome on Hezekiah.
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On the Prophet Isaiah.¹²⁷⁵

¹²⁷⁵ In Gallandi, from a codex of the Coislin Library, Num. 193, fol. 36.

I.

Hippolytus, (Bishop) of Rome on Hezekiah.¹²⁷⁶

¹²⁷⁶ [Here we have the blunder (noted supra, p. 175) repeated as to Rome, which must be here taken as meaning the Roman Province, not the See. The word “Bishop,” which avoids the ambiguity above noted, I have therefore put into parenthesis.]

When Hezekiah, king of Judah, was still sick and weeping, there came an angel, and said to him: “I have seen thy tears, and I have heard thy voice. Behold, I add unto thy time fifteen years. And this shall be a sign to thee from the Lord: Behold, I turn back the shadow of the degrees of the house of thy father, by which the sun has gone down, the ten degrees by which the shadow has gone down,”¹²⁷⁷

¹²⁷⁷ Isa. xxxviii. 5, 7, 8.
so that day be a day of thirty-two hours. For when the sun had run its course to the tenth hour, it returned again. And again, when Joshua the son of Nun was fighting against the Amorites, when the sun was now inclining to its setting, and the battle was being pressed closely, Joshua, being anxious lest the heathen host should escape on the descent of night, cried out, saying, “Sun, stand thou still in Gibeon; and thou moon, in the valley of Ajalon,”¹²⁷⁸

¹²⁷⁸ Josh. x. 12.
until I vanquish this people. And the sun stood still, and the moon, in their places, so that day was one of twenty-four hours. And in the time of Hezekiah the moon also turned back along with the sun, that there might be no collision between the two elemental bodies, by their bearing against each other in defiance of law. And Merodach the Chaldean, king of Babylon, being struck with amazement at that time—for he studied the science of astrology, and measured the courses of these bodies carefully—on learning the cause, sent a letter and gifts to Hezekiah, just as also the wise men from the east did to Christ.
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