Refutation of All Heresies 5.17.1

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: Hippolytus summarizes the Peratic system: the universe consists of Father, Son, and Matter.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 194–196

Αὕτη ἡ παμποίκιλος σοφία τῆς Περατικῆς αἱρέσεως, ἣν ἐξειπεῖν πᾶσαν δυσχερές, οὕτως οὖσαν σκολιὰν διὰ τὸ ἐκ τῆς ἀστρολογικῆς δοκεῖν συνεστάναι. Καθὸ οὖν δυνατὸν ἦν, διʼ ὀλίγων πᾶσαν αὐτῆς τὴν δύναμιν ἐκτεθείμεθα. Ἵνα δὲ διʼ ἐπιτομῆς τὴν πᾶσαν αὐτῶν γνώμην ἐκθώμεθα, δοκεῖ προσθεῖναι ταῦτα. Ἔστι κατʼ αὐτοὺς τὸ πᾶν πατήρ, υἱός, ὕλη· τούτων τῶν τριῶν ἕκαστον ἀπείρους ἔχει δυνάμεις ἐν ἑαυτῷ.

English · Claude translation

This is the all-various wisdom of the Peratic heresy, which it is hard to set out entire, so tortuous is it, because it seems to have been compounded out of astrology. As far as was possible, then, we have set out its whole import in few words. But so that we may set out their whole opinion in summary, it seems good to add the following. According to them the universe is Father, Son, Matter; and each of these three has infinite powers in itself.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 194–196 · 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

Heresy

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.17.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/17/1/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.17.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/17/1/).