Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 10.32.5

Hippolytus of Rome · Refutation of All Heresies · ca. 222–235 · Rome · Read in context

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: Not knowing these causes, the Greeks worshipped parts of creation instead of the Creator, and the heresiarchs built on their errors.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 536–538

τὸ δὲ νῦν ἱκανὸν εἶναι ἐκθέσθαι τὰς αἰτίας, ἃς οὐ γνόντες Ἕλληνες κομψῷ τῷ λόγῳ τὰ μέρη τῆς κτίσεως ἐδόξασαν τὸν κτίσαντα ἀγνοήσαντες· ὧν ἀφορμὰς σχόντες οἱ αἱρεσιάρχαι ὁμοίοις λόγοις τὰ ὑπʼ ἐκείνων προειρημένα μετασχηματίσαντες, αἱρέσεις καταγελάστους συνεστήσαντο.

English · Claude translation

but for now it is sufficient to set out the causes which the Greeks did not know, and so, with elegant speech, glorified the parts of creation while ignorant of the Creator; taking their starting points from these, the heresiarchs, reshaping in similar words what those had said before, put together ridiculous heresies.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 536–538 · 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.
Scripture
Topics
Heresy

Notes

Translation notes

  • The thought recalls Rom 1:25.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 10.32.5 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/10/32/5/).

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

Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 10.32.5 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/10/32/5/).

Download citation:BibTeX ·RIS (Zotero, EndNote)

Whole work:BibTeX ·RIS ·Markdown text

Report an error in this passage