HERPULUS, one of the disciples of Irenæus, according to Photius, occupied an important place among the ecclesiastical writers belonging to the first half of the third century. But unfortunately, only a few fragments of his works remain. From the list of his writings given by Eusebius and Jerome, it appears that, besides homilies, he composed treatises on a variety of subjects, exegetical, dogmatical, polemical, and chronological. For an account of the later fathers of the church, see articles under their names.
(Neander's General Church History, vol. ii.; Waddington's Church History, vol. i.; Campbell's Lectures on Ecclesiastical History.) (3. 7.—11.)