Refutation of All Heresies 7.33.1

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: Cerinthus taught that a lower power made the world and that Jesus was the natural son of Joseph and Mary.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 404

Κήρινθος δέ τις, αὐτὸς Αἰγυπτίων παιδείᾳ ἀσκηθείς, ἔλεγεν οὐχ ὑπὸ τοῦ πρώτου θεοῦ γεγονέναι τὸν κόσμον, ἀλλʼ ὑπὸ δυνάμεώς τινος κεχωρισμένης τῆς ὑπὲρ τὰ ὅλα ἐξουσίας καὶ ἀγνοούσης τὸν ὑπὲρ πάντα θεόν. Τὸν δὲ Ἰησοῦν ὑπέθετο μὴ ἐκ παρθένου γεγενῆσθαι, γεγονέναι δὲ αὐτὸν ἐξ Ἰωσὴφ καὶ Μαρίας υἱὸν ὁμοίως τοῖς λοιποῖς ἅπασιν ἀνθρώποις, καὶ δικαιότερον γεγονέναι καὶ σοφώτερον.

English · Claude translation

A certain Cerinthus, himself trained in the learning of the Egyptians, said that the world was not made by the first God but by some power separated from the authority that is above all things and ignorant of the God who is above all. And he supposed that Jesus was not born of a virgin, but was the son of Joseph and Mary like all other human beings, and became more righteous and wiser.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 404 · 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, Christology

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 7.33.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/33/1/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 7.33.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/33/1/).

Refutation of All Heresies 7.33.1

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 404

English · Claude translation

About this passage

Notes

Translation notes

Cite this passage