Hegesippus

About Hegesippus

Hegesippus was a Christian writer of the second century. His five-book *Memoirs* has not survived intact, but Eusebius preserved passages from it in his *Ecclesiastical History*. These fragments show Hegesippus gathering and interpreting traditions about earlier Christians, their communities, and disputes over teaching. They do not amount to a complete surviving history of the Church.

In an excerpt quoted by Eusebius, Hegesippus says that he spent time with Christians in Corinth on his way to Rome. He then describes the teaching and succession of leaders he encountered. The wording of the Roman succession passage is disputed, so a claim that he made a definitive list of early popes would go beyond secure evidence. What is clear is that his inquiry took him to those communities and that his work later served as a source for Eusebius.

The older Roman Martyrology commemorates Hegesippus on April 7. It says he wrote a church history, a broad description later scholarship qualifies because the surviving passages are fragments of *Memoirs*. The sources reviewed here do not establish his exact birthplace, death place, or death date. His lasting significance rests in the testimony he gathered and the portions preserved by another early historian.