St. Hippolytus was born in Asia Minor about 170 AD and Bishop at Rome from 217-235 AD. The Church at Rome was founded
by St. Paul the Apostle, and the first Bishop of the church was St. Peter. Like the other Apostolic Fathers and the Bishops in Asia Minor,
St. Hippolytus was premillenial and interpreted literal events to take place at the end times previous to the second advent. Afterward, a millenial reign of Christ would be fulfilled on earth for 1,000 years. This 1,000 year reign is not in place of Christ's everlasting reign but a part of it. The kingdom continues beyond 1,000 years as it carries on into a new heaven and new earth when all things are made new and the former things are done away with.
The proper understanding of end times began to go off the rails when the allegorizor, Origen of Alexandria, in the third century, began spiritualizing prophetic scriptures lending to blurred and incongruent interpretations and this was later followed by his student, Dionysius of Alexandria who resisted the church father, Nepos of Arsinoe who had written a tract entitled "Refutation of the Allegorists". Dionysius influenced another allegorizor, Gregory of Thaumaturgus, who erred in his timeline concerning Daniel's 70 weeks* of years using solar years and converting to the Hebrew calendar years and then stating that the entire group of years had already been fulfilled at Christ's first advent* (despite the fact that his calclations did not equate to 490 years). This error was in turn accepted by Augustine of Hippo (Algeria) and by Eusebius of Caesarea , and again later was adopted by the reformed theology of Calvin. Two positions resulted from this type of interpretation, i.e., amillenialism and post-millenialism. Oddly, John Calvin himself criticized allegorizing the bible but at the same time admitted that he did not understand the book of Revelation and thus refrained from writing a commentary on it altogether, though he did on every other book of the bible.
We hold that the Apostles handed down to the episcopate a premillenial view and this was the understanding of the church Bishops of the first two centuries in Asia Minor, Jerusalem, and Rome. Hermas a first century Christian slave, also shared this premillenial view in The Shepherd of Hermas, a very important first century Christian writing which St. Irenaeus considered scripture. Premillenialism continued in the third century and beyond by church fathers such as St. Lactantius, St. Cyril, St. John Chrysostom, St. Cyprian, etc.
Premillenial Early Church Fathers Include: Barnabas, Justin, Papias, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Hyppolytus, Tertullian, Cyril, Lactantius, and no doubt others as well. We have no evidence one way or the other concerning Ignatius or Clement of Rome who did not leave much of anything in their letters concerning end time prophecy. The Shepherd of Hermas and the Didache are important sources for end time prophecy and these are also premillenial.
Asia Minor Premillenial Succession: (We place priority for prophecy on the episcopate from Asia Minor)
St. John the Apostle > St. John the Presbyter > St. Papias
St. John the Apostle > St. Polycarp > St. Irenaeus > St. Hippolytus*
*(St. Hyppolytus was born in Smyrna and of the episcopate of St. John through St. Ireneaus. St. Hippolytus later became Bishop of Rome)
Jerusalem Premillenial Succession:St. Paul the Apostle > St. Barnabas the Apostle
Barnabas in his "Epistle of Barnabas" was affirmatively premillenial.
St. John the Apostle > St. John the Presbyter > St. Justin Martyr
Justin stated that the Apocalypse of John the Apostle was still contemporarily present among the believers in Jerusalem in his own day through Ariston and John the Presbyter. Justin was from Judea and was premillenial.
* For a proper understanding of the 490 years... go here: Daniel's 70 weeks.