Refutation of All Heresies 5.7.9

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 Naassenes use the Gospel of the Egyptians and Assyrian rites on the threefold soul.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 136–138

Τὰς δὲ ἐξαλλαγὰς ταύτας τὰς ποικίλας ἐν τῷ ἐπιγραφομένῳ κατʼ Αἰγυπτίους εὐαγγελίῳ κειμένας ἔχουσιν. Ἀποροῦσιν οὖν, καθάπερ οἱ ἄλλοι πάντες τῶν ἐθνῶν ἄνθρωποι, πότερόν ποτε ἐκ τοῦ προόντος ἐστίν, [ἢ] ἐκ τοῦ αὐτογενοῦς, ἢ ἐκ τοῦ ἐκκεχυμένου χάους. Καὶ πρῶτον ἐπὶ τὰς Ἀσσυρίων καταφεύγουσι τελετὰς τὴν τριχῆ διαίρεσιν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου κατανοοῦντες· πρῶτοι γὰρ Ἀσσύριοι τὴν ψυχὴν τριμερῆ νομίζουσιν εἶναι καὶ μίαν.

English · Claude translation

These varied changes they have set out in the gospel entitled According to the Egyptians. They are at a loss, then, like all other men of the nations, whether it is from the Preexistent, [or] from the Self-begotten, or from the outpoured Chaos. And first they take refuge in the rites of the Assyrians, considering the threefold division of man; for the Assyrians first thought the soul to be threefold and one.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 136–138 · 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.

Extrabiblical texts

Gos. Eg. (Gospel of the Egyptians) · allusion, high confidence

Topics

Heresy

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.7.9 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/7/9/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.7.9 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/7/9/).