Refutation of All Heresies 5.23.3

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: All these sects share one spirit and call themselves Gnostics, claiming special knowledge.

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Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 216

Οἱ πάντες γὰρ ἑνὶ πνεύματι συνωθούμενοι εἰς ἕνα βυθὸν ἀμάρας συνάγονται, ἄλλοι ἄλλως τὰ αὐτὰ διηγούμενοι καὶ μυθεύοντες· οὗτοι δὲ ἰδίως οἱ πάντες γνωστικοὺς ἑαυτοὺς ἀποκαλοῦσι, τὴν θαυμασίαν γνῶσιν τοῦ τελείου καὶ ἀγαθοῦ μόνοι καταπεπωκότες.

English · Claude translation

For all of them, driven by one spirit, are gathered into one deep ditch, telling and mythologizing the same things, some in one way and others in another; and all these specially call themselves Gnostics, as if they alone had drunk down the marvelous knowledge of the perfect and good.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 216 · 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. 5.23.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/23/3/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 5.23.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/23/3/).

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