Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 5.12.3

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 Peratae speak of three gods, words, minds, and men, one for each part of the world.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 176–178

Καὶ ἔστι τὸ μὲν πρῶτον ἀγέννητον, ὅπερ ἐστὶν ἀγαθόν· τὸ δὲ δεύτερον ἀγαθὸν αὐτογενές· τὸ τρίτον γεννητόν· ὅθεν διαρρήδην λέγουσι τρεῖς θεούς, τρεῖς λόγους, τρεῖς νοῦς, τρεῖς ἀνθρώπους. Ἑκάστῳ γὰρ μέρει τοῦ κόσμου τῆς διαιρέσεως διακεκριμένης διδόασι καὶ θεοὺς καὶ λόγους καὶ νοῦς καὶ ἀνθρώπους καὶ τὰ λοιπά.

English · Claude translation

The first is unbegotten, which is good; the second is the self-begotten good; the third is begotten. Hence they say explicitly: three gods, three words, three minds, three men. For to each part of the world, when the division has been made, they assign gods and words and minds and men and the rest.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 176–178 · 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

Notes

Notes on the original text

  • Digital text corrected (wrong accent in the digital text): τὸ δέ δεύτερον → τὸ δὲ δεύτερον; Ἑκάστῳ γάρ μέρει → Ἑκάστῳ γὰρ μέρει.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.12.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/12/3/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 5.12.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/12/3/).

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