Refutation of All Heresies 7.35.2

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.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 406

καὶ τὸν μὲν Ἰησοῦν εἶναι ἄνθρωπον ἐκ παρθένου γεγενημένον κατὰ βουλὴν τοῦ πατρός, βιώσαντα δὲ κοινῶς πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις καὶ εὐσεβέστατον γεγονότα ὕστερον ἐπὶ τοῦ βαπτίσματος ἐπὶ τῷ Ἰορδάνῃ κεχωρηκέναι τὸν Χριστὸν ἄνωθεν κατεληλυθότα ἐν εἴδει περιστερᾶς, ὅθεν οὐ πρότερον τὰς δυνάμεις ἐν αὐτῷ ἐνηργηκέναι, ἢ ὅτε κατελθὸν ἀνεδείχθη ἐν αὐτῷ τὸ πνεῦμα, ὃ εἶναι τὸν Χριστὸν προσαγορεύει. Θεὸν δὲ οὐδέποτε τοῦτον γεγονέναι οὗτοι θέλουσιν ἐπὶ τῇ καθόδῳ τοῦ πνεύματος, ἕτεροι δὲ μετὰ τὴν ἐκ νεκρῶν ἀνάστασιν.

English · Claude translation

that Jesus was a man born of a virgin according to the will of the Father, and that after living like all human beings and becoming most devout, later, at the baptism at the Jordan, he received the Christ, who came down from above in the form of a dove; so that the powers were not at work in him before the Spirit came down and was shown forth in him, which he calls the Christ. And these men hold that he never became God, even at the descent of the Spirit, while others hold that he did so after the resurrection from the dead.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 406 · 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

Matt 3:16 · allusion, high confidence

Topics

Heresy, Christology, Baptism

Notes

Translation notes

“These men” are the followers of Theodotus; “others” are other adoptionists. The sentence may also be read: these men say he did not become God at the descent of the Spirit, others only after the resurrection.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 7.35.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/35/2/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 7.35.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/35/2/).