Refutation of All Heresies 6.41.5

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 secret keeps disciples attached to their bishop; Hippolytus withholds it to avoid seeming to slander them.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 300

Καὶ τοῦτο δὲ πανούργημα πρὸς τὸ ἀεὶ παραμένειν τοὺς μαθητὰς τῷ ἐπισκόπῳ, γλιχομένους μαθεῖν τὸ τί ποτε εἴη τοῦτο ἐπʼ ἐσχάτων λεγόμενον, διʼ οὗ [τῶν] τελείων ἔσται ὁ μανθάνων· ἃ τούτου χάριν ἐσιώπησα, μή ποτέ τις κακοηθίζεσθαί με αὐτοὺς νομίσῃ, καὶ γὰρ οὐ τοῦτο ἡμῖν πρόκειται, ἀλλʼ ἢ τὸ δεῖξαι, ὅθεν τὰς ἀφορμὰς λαβόντες αὐτοῖς τὰ δόξαντα ἐνεστήσαντο.

English · Claude translation

And this too is a trick, so that the disciples may always remain with the bishop, longing to learn what it may be that is spoken at the very end, through which the learner will be among the perfect. These things I have kept silent for this reason, lest anyone think I am maligning them; for this is not our purpose, but only to show from what sources they took their starting points and set up their opinions.

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

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.41.5 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/41/5/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.41.5 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/41/5/).