Refutation of All Heresies 7.27.2

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.

Summary: Souls below will know nothing higher, so that they are not tormented by impossible longings, like a fish wanting to graze with sheep.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 374–376

Ἀλλὰ γὰρ πᾶσαι αἱ ψυχαὶ τούτου τοῦ διαστήματος, ὅσαι φύσιν ἔχουσιν ἐν τούτῳ ἀθάνατοι διαμένειν μόνῳ, μενοῦσιν οὐδὲν ἐπιστάμεναι τούτου τοῦ διαστήματος διάφορον οὐδὲ βέλτιον, οὐδὲ ἀκοή τις ἔσται τῶν ὑπερκειμένων ἐν τοῖς ὑποκειμένοις οὐδὲ γνῶσις, ἵνα μὴ τῶν ἀδυνάτων αἱ ὑποκείμεναι ψυχαὶ ὀρεγόμεναι βασανίζωνται, καθάπερ ἰχθὺς ἐπιθυμήσας ἐν τοῖς ὄρεσι μετὰ τῶν προβάτων νέμεσθαι· ἐγένετο [γὰρ] ἄν, φησίν, αὐτοῖς ἡ τοιαύτη ἐπιθυμία φθορά.

English · Claude translation

But all the souls of this interval, as many as have a nature to remain immortal in this interval alone, will remain knowing nothing different from or better than this interval; nor will there be any report or knowledge among those beneath of those above, so that the souls beneath may not be tormented by longing for impossible things, like a fish that desired to graze on the mountains with the sheep; [for] such a desire, he says, would be destruction to them.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 374–376 · 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, Eschatology

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 7.27.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/27/2/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 7.27.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/27/2/).