Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 6.33.1

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 Valentinians make the devil and Beelzebul the rulers of matter and demons, and the ignorant Demiurge a tool of Sophia who wrongly claims to be the only God.

Textual problem in this passage: the printed text is uncertain or disputed here. See the notes.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 280–282

Ὥσπερ οὖν τῆς ψυχικῆς οὐσίας ἡ πρώτη καὶ μεγίστη δύναμις γέγονεν..... εἰκὼν διάβολος, ὁ ἄρχων τοῦ κόσμου τούτου· τῆς δὲ τῶν δαιμόνων οὐσίας, ἥτις ἐστὶν ἐκ τῆς ἀπορίας, ὁ Βεελζεβούλ, ἡ σοφία ἄνωθεν ἀπὸ τῆς ὀγδοάδος ἐνεργοῦσα ἕως τῆς ἑβδομάδος. Οὐδὲν οἶδεν, λέγουσιν, ὁ δημιουργὸς ὅλως, ἀλλʼ ἔστιν ἄνους καὶ μωρὸς κατʼ αὐτούς, καὶ τί πράσσει ἢ ἐργάζεται, οὐκ οἶδεν. Ἀγνοοῦντι δὲ αὐτῷ, ὅ, τι δὴ ποιεῖ, ἡ σοφία ἐνήργησε πάντα καὶ ἐνίσχυσε, καὶ ἐκείνης ἐνεργούσης αὐτὸς ᾤετο ἀφʼ ἑαυτοῦ ποιεῖν τὴν κτίσιν τοῦ κόσμου· ὅθεν ἤρξατο λέγειν· Ἐγὼ ὁ θεός, καὶ πλὴν ἐμοῦ ἄλλος οὐκ ἔστιν.

English · Claude translation

As, then, of the psychic substance the first and greatest power has come to be … image, the devil, the ruler of this world; and of the substance of the demons, which is from perplexity, Beelzebul; while Sophia works from above, from the Ogdoad, as far as the Hebdomad. The Demiurge, they say, knows nothing at all, but according to them is mindless and foolish, and does not know what he does or works. But while he was ignorant of what he was doing, Sophia worked all things and gave them strength; and while she was working, he thought that he himself was making the creation of the world from himself; whence he began to say: “I am God, and besides me there is no other.”

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 280–282 · 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.
Scripture
Topics
Heresy

Notes

Translation notes

  • There is a gap in the text; the missing words probably named the Demiurge as the chief psychic power and introduced the material substance.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.33.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/33/1/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 6.33.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/33/1/).

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