Refutation of All Heresies 6.41.3

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.

Summary: They use the promise of a second forgiveness, and further promises, to keep their followers bound to them.

Show

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 300

ἀφέσεως, διὰ τοῦ τοιούτου πανουργήματος συνέχειν δοκοῦσι τοὺς ἀκροατάς, οὓς ἐπὰν νομίσωσι δεδοκιμάσθαι καὶ δύνασθαι φυλάσσειν αὐτοῖς τὰ πιστά, τότε ἐπὶ τοῦτο ἄγουσι μηδὲ τούτῳ μόνῳ ἀρκούμενοι, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἕτερόν τι ἐπαγγελλόμενοι πρὸς τὸ συγκρατεῖν αὐτοὺς τῇ ἐλπίδι, ὅπως ἀχώριστοι ὦσι.

English · Claude translation

forgiveness. By such a trick they think they hold their hearers; and when they think them tested and able to keep faith with them, then they lead them to this; and not content with this alone, they also promise something further, to hold them fast by hope, so that they may never leave.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 300 · 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.
Topics
Heresy, Baptism

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.41.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/41/3/).

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

Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 6.41.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/41/3/).

Download citation:BibTeX ·RIS (Zotero, EndNote)

Whole work:BibTeX ·RIS ·Markdown text

Report an error in this passage