Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 9.15.2

Hippolytus of Rome · Refutation of All Heresies · ca. 222–235 · Rome · Read in context

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 baptized must call seven witnesses, heaven, water, holy spirits, angels of prayer, oil, salt, and earth; Hippolytus mocks these “mysteries.”

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 466

βασιλέως, καὶ καθαρισάτω καὶ ἁγνευσάτω καὶ ἐπιμαρτυρησάσθω ἑαυτῷ τοὺς ἑπτὰ μάρτυρας γεγραμμένους ἐν τῇ βίβλῳ ταύτῃ, τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ τὰ πνεύματα τὰ ἅγια καὶ τοὺς ἀγγέλους τῆς προσευχῆς καὶ τὸ ἔλαιον καὶ τὸ ἅλας καὶ τὴν γῆν. Ταῦτα τὰ θαυμάσια μυστήρια τοῦ Ἠλχασαΐ τὰ ἀπόρρητα καὶ μεγάλα, ἃ παραδίδωσι τοῖς ἀξίοις μαθηταῖς· οἷς οὐκ ἀρκεῖται ὁ ἄνομος, ἀλλʼ ἐπὶ δύο καὶ τριῶν μαρτύρων ἐνσφραγίζει τὰ ἑαυτοῦ κακά, πάλιν οὕτως λέγων·

English · Claude translation

King, and let him cleanse and purify himself and call to witness for himself the seven witnesses written in this book: the heaven, the water, the holy spirits, the angels of prayer, the oil, the salt, and the earth.” These are the wonderful mysteries of Elchasai, secret and great, which he hands on to worthy disciples. The lawless one is not content with these, but seals his evils on two and three witnesses, speaking again thus:

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 466 · 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.
Scripture
Topics
Heresy, Baptism

Notes

Translation notes

  • “Two and three witnesses” echoes Deut 19:15 (compare Matt 18:16).

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 9.15.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/9/15/2/).

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

Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 9.15.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/9/15/2/).

Download citation:BibTeX ·RIS (Zotero, EndNote)

Whole work:BibTeX ·RIS ·Markdown text

Report an error in this passage