Refutation of All Heresies 5.8.2

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, 150

Μία γάρ ἐστι, φησίν, ἡ μακαρία φύσις τοῦ μακαρίου ἀνθρώπου τοῦ ἄνω, τοῦ Ἀδάμαντος· μία δὲ ἡ θνητὴ κάτω· μία δὲ ἡ ἀβασίλευτος γενεὰ ἡ ἄνω γενομένη, ὅπου, φησίν, ἐστὶ Μαριὰμ ἡ ζητουμένη καὶ Ἰοθὼρ ὁ μέγας σοφὸς καὶ Σεπφώρα ἡ βλέπουσα καὶ Μωσῆς, οὗ γένεσις οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ· γεγόνασι γὰρ αὐτῷ παῖδες ἐν Μαδιάμ,

English · Claude translation

For one, he says, is the blessed nature of the blessed Man above, Adamas; one is the mortal nature below; and one is the kingless race that has come into being above, where, he says, are Mariam the sought, and Jothor the great sage, and Sepphora the seeing one, and Moses, whose generation is not in Egypt; for his children were born in Midian.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 150 · 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

Exod 2:22 · allusion, medium confidence
Exod 18:3 · allusion, medium confidence

Topics

Heresy

Notes

Translation notes

Jothor is Jethro and Sepphora is Zipporah (Exod 2:21–22; 18:1–6).

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (wrong accent in the digital text): οὖ γένεσις → οὗ γένεσις.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.8.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/8/2/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.8.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/8/2/).