Refutation of All Heresies 6.35.1

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.

Summary: The Valentinians say the law and prophets came from the foolish Demiurge, citing John 10:8.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 284

Πάντες οὖν οἱ προφῆται καὶ ὁ νόμος ἐλάλησαν ἀπὸ τοῦ δημιουργοῦ, μωροῦ λέγει θεοῦ, μωροὶ οὐδὲν εἰδότες. Διὰ τοῦτο, φησί, λέγει ὁ σωτήρ· Πάντες οἱ πρὸ ἐμοῦ ἐληλυθότες κλέπται καὶ λῃσταὶ εἰσί, καὶ ὁ ἀπόστολος· τὸ μυστήριον ὃ ταῖς προτέραις γενεαῖς οὐκ ἐγνωρίσθη.

English · Claude translation

All the prophets, then, and the law spoke from the Demiurge, a foolish god, he says, and they were fools knowing nothing. “For this reason,” he says, “the Savior says: ‘All who came before me are thieves and robbers’; and the apostle: ‘the mystery which was not made known to former generations.’”

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 284 · 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.

Scripture

John 10:8 · quotation, high confidence
Eph 3:5 · quotation, medium confidence
Col 1:26 · allusion, medium confidence

Topics

Heresy, Scripture and canon

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.35.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/35/1/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.35.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/35/1/).