Refutation of All Heresies 5.23.2

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: Justin sweetens his long books with myths, then binds his followers by dreadful oaths before handing on his mysteries.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 214–216

Ἔπειτα τοὺς μύθους παρατίθησι ψυχαγωγίας χάριν, ὅπως οἱ ἐντυγχάνοντες τῇ τῶν βίβλων ἀναρίθμῳ φλυαρίᾳ παραμύθιον ἔχωσι τὰ μυθευόμενα (ὃν τρόπον εἴ τις ὁδὸν μακρὰν βαδίζων, παρατυχὼν καταλύματι ἀναπαύεσθαι δοκεῖ), καὶ οὕτως πάλιν ἐπὶ τὴν τῶν ἀναγνωσμάτων τραπέντες πολυμάθειαν μὴ μισήσωσιν, ἕως ἐπὶ τὸ ὑπʼ αὐτοῦ τεχναζόμενον ἀνόμημα διὰ πλειόνων ἐξηχηθέντες ὁρμήσωσι τετυφωμένοι, οὓς φρικτοῖς καταδήσας πρότερον ὅρκοις μήτε ἐξειπεῖν μήτε ἀποστῆναι ὁμολογεῖν ἀναγκάσας, οὕτω παραδίδωσι τὰ ὑπʼ αὐτοῦ ἐφευρημένα μετὰ ἀσεβείας μυστήρια, πῇ μέν, καθὰ προείπομεν, μύθοις Ἑλληνικοῖς χρησάμενος, πῇ δὲ παραπεποιημένοις βιβλίοις κατά τι παρεμφαίνουσι ταῖς προειρημέναις αἱρέσεσιν.

English · Claude translation

Then he sets out the myths for entertainment, so that those reading the countless drivel of his books may have the myths as a relief (as when someone walking a long road comes upon an inn and decides to rest), and so, turning again to the great mass of learning in the readings, they may not come to hate it, until, having been dinned through by more and more of it, they rush, befogged, into the lawless thing he has contrived. Having first bound them with dreadful oaths and forced them to agree neither to divulge nor to depart, he then hands on the mysteries he has devised in impiety, at times, as we said before, using Greek myths, at times forged books that in some respect resemble the heresies mentioned before.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 214–216 · 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. 5.23.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/23/2/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.23.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/23/2/).