Refutation of All Heresies 6.19.5

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.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 254

Οἱ δὲ αὖθις μιμηταὶ τοῦ πλάνου καὶ Σίμωνος μάγου γινόμενοι τὰ ὅμοια δρῶσιν, ἀλογίστως φάσκοντες δεῖν μίγνυσθαι, λέγοντες· πᾶσα γῆ γῆ, καὶ οὐ διαφέρει ποῦ τις σπείρει, πλὴν ἵνα σπείρῃ, ἀλλὰ καὶ μακαρίζουσιν ἑαυτοὺς ἐπὶ τῇ [κοινῇ] μίξει, ταύτην εἶναι λέγοντες τὴν τελείαν ἀγάπην, καὶ τὸ ἅγιος ἁγίων.. λλη. ος ἁγιασθήσεται· οὐ γὰρ μὴ κρατεῖσθαι αὐτοὺς ἐπί τινι νομιζομένῳ κακῷ, λελύτρωνται γάρ. Τὴν δὲ Ἑλένην λυτρωσάμενος οὕτως τοῖς ἀνθρώποις σωτηρίαν παρέσχε διὰ τῆς ἰδίας ἐπιγνώσεως.

English · Claude translation

And those who in turn have become imitators of the deceiver and magician Simon do similar things, saying irrationally that one must have intercourse indiscriminately, and saying: “All earth is earth, and it makes no difference where one sows, so long as one sows.” Indeed they even count themselves blessed for their [promiscuous] intercourse, saying that this is perfect love, and the “holy of holies … shall be sanctified”; for they are not held accountable for any supposed evil, since they have been redeemed. And having thus redeemed Helen, he provided salvation to human beings through his own knowledge.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 254 · 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; the problem in this passage is discussed in the notes.

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, Ethics

Notes

Translation notes

This is Hippolytus's hostile report. The text is damaged after “holy of holies.” The bracketed word is the editor's supplement.

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (wrong accent in the digital text): Οἱ δὲ αὗθις → Οἱ δὲ αὖθις.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.19.5 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/19/5/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.19.5 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/19/5/).