Refutation of All Heresies 6.8.1

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.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 234

Ἄψεθος ὁ Λίβυς ἐπεθύμησε θεὸς γενέσθαι· ὡς δὲ πολυπραγμονῶν πάνυ ἀπετύγχανε τῆς ἐπιθυμίας, ἠθέλησε κἂν δοκεῖν γεγονέναι, καὶ ἔδοξέ γε ὡς ἀληθῶς χρόνῳ πλείονι γεγονέναι θεός. Ἔθυον γὰρ οἱ ἀνόητοι Λίβυες αὐτῷ ὡς θείᾳ τινὶ δυνάμει, νομίζοντες ἄνωθεν ἐξ οὐρανοῦ πεπιστευκέναι φωνῇ.

English · Claude translation

Apsethus the Libyan desired to become a god; but when, for all his efforts, he completely failed in his desire, he wished at least to seem to have become one; and indeed for a long time he did seem to have become a god. For the foolish Libyans sacrificed to him as to some divine power, thinking that they were trusting a voice from heaven above.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 234 · 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.

Notes

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (misread letter in the digital text): Ἄψεθος ὁ Αίβυς → Ἄψεθος ὁ Λίβυς; ἀνόητοι Αίβυες → ἀνόητοι Λίβυες.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.8.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/8/1/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.8.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/8/1/).