Refutation of All Heresies 5.7.36

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.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 146–148

Ὁ δὲ ἐντασσόμενος ἀδάμας ἐστὶν... ὀδόντες, ὡς Ὅμηρος λέγει ἕρκος ὀδόντων, τουτέστι τεῖχος καὶ χαράκωμα, ἐν ᾧ ἐστὶν ὁ ἔσω ἄνθρωπος, ἐκεῖσε ἀποπεπτωκὼς ἀπὸ τοῦ ἀρχανθρώπου ἄνωθεν Ἀδάμαντος, ὁ τμηθεὶς ἄνευ χειρῶν τεμνουσῶν καὶ κατενηνεγμένος εἰς τὸ πλάσμα τῆς λήθης, τὸ χοϊκόν, τὸ ὀστράκινον·

English · Claude translation

And the adamant that is set in is … the teeth, as Homer says, "the fence of the teeth," that is, a wall and palisade, in which is the inner man, fallen down there from the Primal Man above, Adamas, the one "cut without hands cutting" and brought down into the mold of forgetfulness, the earthly, the earthen.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 146–148 · 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; the problem in this passage is discussed in the notes.

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

Dan 2:34 · allusion, high confidence
Rom 7:22 · echo, medium confidence
2 Cor 4:7 · echo, low confidence

Extrabiblical texts

Homer, Il. 4.350 (Homer, Iliad) · allusion, medium confidence

Topics

Heresy

Notes

Translation notes

The text has a gap, marked "…". "The fence of the teeth" is a Homeric formula (e.g. Iliad 4.350); "cut without hands" alludes to Dan 2:34, 45; "the inner man" to Rom 7:22; "earthen" to 2 Cor 4:7.

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (wrong accent in the digital text): πλάσμα τὴς λήθης → πλάσμα τῆς λήθης.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.7.36 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/7/36/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.7.36 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/7/36/).