Refutation of All Heresies 7.25.3

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, 370

Μέχρι μὲν οὖν Μωσέως ἀπὸ Ἀδὰμ ἐβασίλευσεν ἡ ἁμαρτία, καθὼς γέγραπται· ἐβασίλευσε γὰρ ὁ μέγας ἄρχων ὁ ἔχων τὸ τέλος αὐτοῦ μέχρι στερεώματος, νομίζων αὐτὸς εἶναι θεὸς μόνος, καὶ ὑπὲρ αὐτὸν εἶναι μηδέν, πάντα γὰρ ἦν φυλασσόμενα ἀποκρύφῳ σιωπῇ. Τοῦτο, φησίν, ἐστὶ τὸ μυστήριον, ὃ ταῖς προτέραις γενεαῖς οὐκ ἐγνωρίσθη, ἀλλὰ ἦν ἐν ἐκείνοις τοῖς χρόνοις βασιλεὺς καὶ κύριος ὡς ἐδόκει τῶν ὅλων ὁ μέγας ἄρχων, ἡ ὀγδοάς.

English · Claude translation

Until Moses, then, from Adam, sin reigned, as it is written; for the great Archon reigned, whose limit extends to the firmament, thinking himself to be the only God and that there was nothing above him; for all things were guarded in hidden silence. This, he says, is the mystery which was not made known to former generations; but in those times the great Archon, the Ogdoad, was, as it seemed, king and lord of all things.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 370 · 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

Rom 5:14 · allusion, high confidence
Col 1:26 · allusion, medium confidence
Eph 3:5 · allusion, medium confidence

Topics

Heresy

Notes

Translation notes

The allusions are Rom 5:14 and Col 1:26 (compare Eph 3:5).

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (wrong accent: οὖν): μὲν οὗν → μὲν οὖν.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 7.25.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/25/3/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 7.25.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/25/3/).