Refutation of All Heresies 6.37.3

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, 288–290

Τοῦ δὲ βασιλέως πέρι [καὶ] ὧν εἶπον οὐδέν ἐστι τοιοῦτον. Τὸ δὲ μετὰ τοῦτο, ἡ ψυχὴ ἐπιζητεῖ μαθεῖν ὁποῖα ἄττα ἐστί, βλέπουσα εἰς τὰ ἑαυτῆς συγγενῆ, ὧν οὐδὲν ἱκανῶς ἔχει. Τουτέστιν, ὦ παῖ Διονυσίου καὶ Δωρίδος, τὸ ἐρώτημα, ὃ πάντων αἴτιόν ἐστι κακῶν· μᾶλλον δὲ ἡ περὶ τούτου φροντὶς ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ ἐγγινομένη, ἣν ἐὰν μή τις ἐξαιρεθῇ, τῆς ἀληθείας ὄντως οὐ μή ποτε τύχῃ. Ὃ δὲ θαυμαστὸν αὐτοῦ γέγονεν, [ἄκουσον].

English · Claude translation

About the king and the things I spoke of there is nothing of that kind. But after this the soul seeks to learn what sort of things they are, looking to things akin to itself, none of which is adequate. This, O son of Dionysius and Doris, is the question which is the cause of all evils; or rather the anxiety about it that arises in the soul, which unless one removes, he will never truly attain the truth. But what is wonderful about it, [hear].

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 288–290 · 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, Ep. 2 312e–313a (Plato (works)) · quotation, high confidence

Notes

Translation notes

Plato, Letter 2, 312e–313a. The bracketed word is the editor's supplement.

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (wrong breathing and accent in the digital text): ὧ παῖ → ὦ παῖ.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.37.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/37/3/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.37.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/37/3/).