Refutation of All Heresies 7.30.3

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.

Summary: Marcion's good God is Empedocles' Love, and his ban on marriage and foods is Empedocles' purifications.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 394

Ἀγαθὸν φῂς εἶναι θεὸν καταλύοντα τὰ τοῦ δημιουργοῦ ποιήματα· εἶτʼ οὐ καταφανῶς τὴν Ἐμπεδοκλέους φιλίαν εὐαγγελίζῃ τοῖς ἀκροωμένοις τὸν ἀγαθόν; Κωλύεις γαμεῖν, τεκνοῦν, ἀπέχεσθαι βρωμάτων, ὧν ὁ θεὸς ἔκτισεν εἰς μετάληψιν τοῖς πιστοῖς καὶ ἐπεγνωκόσι τὴν ἀλήθειαν· τοὺς Ἐμπεδοκλέους λανθάνεις διδάσκων καθαρμούς;

English · Claude translation

You say there is a good God who destroys the works of the Demiurge; then are you not plainly preaching Empedocles' Love to your hearers as the Good? You forbid marrying and having children, and you enjoin abstaining from foods which God created to be shared by the faithful and those who know the truth; do you think you escape notice as you teach the purifications of Empedocles?

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 394 · 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

1 Tim 4:3 · allusion, high confidence

Extrabiblical texts

Empedocles (Empedocles (fragments)) · allusion, high confidence

Topics

Heresy, Marriage

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 7.30.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/30/3/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 7.30.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/30/3/).

Refutation of All Heresies 7.30.3

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 394

English · Claude translation

About this passage

Notes

Translation notes

Cite this passage