Refutation of All Heresies 9.8.1

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.

Summary: Hippolytus will set out Heraclitus's views to show that the Noetians' doctrines are his, not Christ's.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 442

Ἀλλʼ ἐπεὶ τῆς γενεαλογίας αὐτῶν τὴν διαδοχὴν ἐπεδείξαμεν, δοκεῖ λοιπὸν καὶ τῶν δογμάτων τὴν κακοδιδασκαλίαν ἐκθέσθαι, [καὶ] πρότερον τὰ Ἡρακλείτῳ τῷ σκοτεινῷ δόξαντα παραθεμένους, ἔπειτα καὶ τὰ τούτων μέρη Ἡρακλείτεια ὄντα φανερῶσαι, ἃ τυχόντες οἱ νῦν προστάται τῆς αἱρέσεως οὐκ ἴσασιν ὄντα τοῦ σκοτεινοῦ, νομίζοντες εἶναι Χριστοῦ.

English · Claude translation

But since we have shown the succession of their genealogy, it seems right next to set out also the bad teaching of their doctrines, first setting out the opinions of Heraclitus the Obscure, and then making plain that their parts are Heraclitean; which the present leaders of the heresy, having come upon them, do not know to be the Obscure one's, thinking them to be Christ's.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 442 · 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. 9.8.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/9/8/1/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 9.8.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/9/8/1/).