Refutation of All Heresies 6.19.8

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: They teach that evil is only a convention of the world-making angels and expect the world's dissolution.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 256

Μηδὲν γὰρ εἶναι αἴτιον δίκης εἰ πράξει τις κακῶς, οὐ γάρ ἐστι φύσει κακὸν ἀλλὰ θέσει. Ἔθεντο γὰρ, φησίν, οἱ ἄγγελοι οἱ τὸν κόσμον ποιήσαντες ὅσα ἐβούλοντο, διὰ τῶν τοιούτων λόγων δουλοῦν νομίζοντες τοὺς αὐτῶν ἀκούοντας. Λύσιν δὲ αὖθις λέγουσι τοῦ κόσμου ἐπὶ λυτρώσει τῶν ἰδίων ἀνθρώπων.

English · Claude translation

For nothing is a ground for punishment if someone acts badly; for evil is not by nature but by convention. “For the angels who made the world,” he says, “laid down whatever they wished, thinking by such words to enslave those who listen to them.” And they speak again of a dissolution of the world for the redemption of their own people.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 256 · 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, Ethics

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.19.8 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/19/8/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.19.8 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/19/8/).