The life of Hippolytus of Rome and Companions
He would not, confessing himself a soldier of Christ. His household was put to death before his eyes, his nurse Concordia was beaten, and he himself was dragged to his death behind wild horses, not long after Laurence had gone to his own martyrdom. A priest named Justin buried the dead by night, but Concordia's body had been thrown into an unclean place; two other Christians, Irenaeus and Abundius, learned where it lay and recovered it so that Justin could bury it beside Hippolytus, and were themselves put to death for it. In time the faithful gathered up all their remains and laid them near the relics of Laurence.
The Church keeps this Hippolytus as distinct from the better known priest and theologian of the same name and city, who died decades earlier in exile in Sardinia. Western scholarship has long regarded the story told here as legendary, and some hold the jailer of this account to be a later, embellished doubling of that same historical priest rather than a separate man.
