Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 5.16.9

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 make the serpent the river of Eden and the mark of Cain, and say that the god of this world prefers bloody sacrifice.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 192

Τοῦτο, φησίν, ἐστὶ μυστήριον Ἐδέμ, τοῦτο ποταμὸς ἐξ Ἐδέμ, τοῦτο σημεῖον τὸ τεθὲν τῷ Κάϊν, ἵνα πᾶς ὁ εὑρίσκων αὐτὸν μὴ ἀποκτείνῃ. Οὗτος, φησίν, ἐστὶ Κάϊν, οὗ τὴν θυσίαν οὐ προσεδέξατο ὁ θεὸς τοῦδε τοῦ κόσμου. Τὴν δὲ ᾑμαγμένην προσήκατο τοῦ Ἄβελ· αἵμασι γὰρ χαίρει ὁ τοῦδε τοῦ κόσμου δεσπότης.

English · Claude translation

“This,” he says, “is the mystery of Eden; this is the river out of Eden; this is the mark set on Cain, so that everyone who found him should not kill him. This,” he says, “is Cain, whose sacrifice the god of this world did not accept; but he accepted Abel's bloody one, for the master of this world delights in blood.”

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 192 · 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

Notes

Notes on the original text

  • Digital text corrected (misread article in the digital text): χαίρει δ τοῦδε → χαίρει ὁ τοῦδε.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.16.9 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/16/9/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 5.16.9 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/16/9/).

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