Refutation of All Heresies 6.21.1

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.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 258

Ἔστι μὲν οὖν ἡ Οὐαλεντίνου αἵρεσις Πυθαγορικὴν ἔχουσα καὶ Πλατωνικὴν τὴν ὑπόθεσιν. Καὶ γὰρ Πλάτων ὅλως ἐν τῷ Τιμαίῳ τὸν Πυθαγόραν ἀπεμάξατο· τοιγαροῦν καὶ ὁ Τίμαιος αὐτός ἐστιν αὐτῷ Πυθαγόρειος ξένος. Διὸ δοκεῖ ὀλίγα τῆς Πυθαγορείου καὶ Πλατωνικῆς ὑπομνησθέντας ὑποθέσεως ἄρξασθαι καὶ τὰ Οὐαλεντίνου λέγειν.

English · Claude translation

The heresy of Valentinus, then, has a Pythagorean and Platonic foundation. For Plato in the Timaeus wholly modeled himself on Pythagoras; accordingly Timaeus himself is for him a Pythagorean stranger. Therefore it seems good to begin by recalling a little of the Pythagorean and Platonic foundation, and then to speak of the doctrines of Valentinus.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 258 · 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

Plato (Plato (works)) · allusion, medium confidence

Topics

Heresy

Notes

Translation notes

Valentinus (fl. ca. 135–160) was the founder of the most influential Gnostic school.

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (misspelling in the digital text; wrong accent in the digital text): Ἔστι μὲν οὗν → Ἔστι μὲν οὖν; Πυθογορείου → Πυθαγορείου.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.21.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/21/1/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.21.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/21/1/).