Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 5.7.21

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: Hippolytus traces the saying to Hippocrates, not Christ.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 142

Τοῦτο δὲ οὐκ ἔστι Χριστοῦ, ἀλλὰ Ἱπποκράτους λέγοντος· ἑπτὰ ἐτῶν παῖς πατρὸς ἥμισυ· ὅθεν οὗτοι τὴν ἀρχέγονον φύσιν τῶν ὅλων ἐν ἀρχεγόνῳ τιθέμενοι σπέρματι, τὸ Ἱπποκράτειον ἀκηκοότες, ὅτι ἔστιν ἥμισυ πατρὸς παιδίον ἑπτὰ ἐτῶν, ἐν τοῖς τέσσαρσι [καὶ δέκα] φασὶν ἔτεσι, κατὰ τὸν Θωμᾶν, εἶναι φανερούμενον.

English · Claude translation

But this is not Christ's saying but that of Hippocrates, who says: "A child of seven years is half a father." Hence these men, placing the primal nature of all things in the primal seed, having heard the Hippocratic saying that a child of seven years is half a father, say that in the fourteen years, according to Thomas, it is revealed.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 142 · 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.
Extrabiblical texts
  • Hippocrates (Hippocrates, Hippocratic Corpus) · quotation, high confidence
Topics
Heresy

Notes

Translation notes

  • The saying is from the Hippocratic treatise On the Sevens (De hebdomadibus).

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.7.21 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/7/21/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 5.7.21 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/7/21/).

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