Refutation of All Heresies 1.19.22

Authorship disputed: The work names no author. Book 1 was long printed among Origen's works as the Philosophumena; after books 4–10 were found in a manuscript from Mount Athos (published 1851), it was assigned to Hippolytus, the usual view today, though some scholars ascribe it to another Roman writer of the same circle. Books 2 and 3 are lost, and book 4 lacks its beginning.

Summary: Plato said punishment is good because it purifies the wrongdoer and deters others.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 36

Ἀντιτίθεται δέ τις αὐτῷ πρὸς τοῦτο· διὰ τί οὖν κολάζονται, εἰ ἀκουσίως ἁμαρτάνουσιν; Ὁ δὲ λέγει, ἵνα τε αὐτὸς ὅτι τάχιστα ἀπαλλαγῇ κακίας, καὶ κόλασιν ὑπόσχῃ. Τὸ γὰρ κόλασιν ὑποσχεῖν οὐ κακὸν εἶναι ἀλλὰ ἀγαθόν, εἴπερ μέλλει κάθαρσις τῶν κακῶν γίνεσθαι· καὶ ἵνα μηδὲν ἁμαρτάνωσιν οἱ λοιποὶ ἀκούοντες ἄνθρωποι, ἀλλὰ φυλάσσωνται τὴν τοιαύτην πλάνην.

English · Claude translation

Someone objects to him on this point: why, then, are they punished, if they sin involuntarily? He says: so that the man himself may be rid of vice as quickly as possible, and undergo punishment. For undergoing punishment is not an evil but a good, if it is to become a purification from evils; and so that the rest of mankind, hearing of it, may not sin, but guard against such error.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 36 · Ludwig Duncker and F. G. Schneidewin, eds., S. Hippolyti episcopi et martyris Refutationis omnium haeresium librorum decem quae supersunt (Göttingen: Dieterich, 1859); section divisions from Paul Wendland, ed., Hippolytus Werke 3: Refutatio omnium haeresium, GCS 26 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1916) · Greek text: L. Duncker and F. G. Schneidewin, Refutationis omnium haeresium (Göttingen, 1859), digitized by the Perseus Digital Library; section divisions from P. Wendland (GCS 26, 1916), digitized by the First Thousand Years of Greek project (Open Greek and Latin); both CC BY-SA 4.0

Text

As printed in Duncker–Schneidewin. Manuscript variants and the editor's apparatus are not reproduced; no textual problem is noted in this passage.

Translation

Claude translation (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 · Translated by Claude from the Greek text of Duncker–Schneidewin; made independently of existing English translations.

Compare

Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 5 (1886) (an older public-domain English translation, whole volume at CCEL; checked against ours only after ours was made) · Its chapter numbers differ from the standard (Wendland) numbering used here.

Topics

Ethics

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 1.19.22 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/1/19/22/).

The SBL abbreviation for this work has not been checked yet.

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 1.19.22 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/1/19/22/).