Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 6.34.7

Hippolytus of Rome · Refutation of All Heresies · ca. 222–235 · Rome · Read in context

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 Valentinians read Eph 3 as describing the Father (depth), the Cross (breadth), and the Pleroma (length).

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 284

Τοῦτο ἐστί, φησί, τὸ γεγραμμένον ἐν τῇ γραφῇ· Τούτου χάριν κάμπτω τὰ γόνατά μου πρὸς τὸν θεὸν καὶ πατέρα καὶ κύριον τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ἵνα δῴη ὑμῖν ὁ θεὸς κατοικῆσαι τὸν Χριστὸν εἰς τὸν ἔσω ἄνθρωπον, τουτέστι τὸν ψυχικόν, οὐ τὸν σωματικόν, ἵνα ἐξισχύσητε νοῆσαι, τί τὸ βάθος, ὅπερ ἐστὶν ὁ πατὴρ τῶν ὅλων, καὶ τί τὸ πλάτος, ὅπερ ἐστὶν ὁ σταυρός, ὁ ὅρος τοῦ πληρώματος, ἢ τί τὸ μῆκος, τουτέστι τὸ πλήρωμα τῶν αἰώνων.

English · Claude translation

“This is,” he says, “what is written in Scripture: ‘For this reason I bow my knees to the God and Father and Lord of our Lord Jesus Christ, that God may grant you that Christ may dwell in the inner man,’ that is, the psychic, not the bodily, ‘that you may be able to understand what is the depth,’ which is the Father of all, ‘and what is the breadth,’ which is the Cross, the Boundary of the Pleroma, ‘or what is the length,’ that is, the Pleroma of the Aeons.”

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 284 · 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
Topics
Heresy

Notes

Translation notes

  • The quotation is a free form of Eph 3:14–18.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.34.7 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/34/7/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 6.34.7 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/34/7/).

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