Refutation of All Heresies 5.20.4

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: The Sethian teaching derives from the old poets Musaeus, Linus, and Orpheus.

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Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 208

Ἔστι δὲ αὐτοῖς ἡ πᾶσα διδασκαλία τοῦ λόγου ἀπὸ τῶν παλαιῶν θεολόγων, Μουσαίου καὶ Λίνου καὶ τοῦ τὰς τελετὰς μάλιστα καὶ τὰ μυστήρια καταδείξαντος Ὀρφέως.

English · Claude translation

Their whole teaching of the doctrine comes from the ancient theologians, Musaeus and Linus and Orpheus, who above all revealed the initiations and the mysteries.

About this passage

Source: Duncker–Schneidewin, 208 · 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. 5.20.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/20/4/).

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Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.20.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/20/4/).

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