Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 9.30.3

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: Their laws produce a dignified and temperate life, admirable to any reader.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 490

Ἤθους τε ἀντιποιοῦνται σεμνοῦ καὶ σώφρονος βίου, καθὼς ἔστιν ἐκ τῶν νόμων ἐπιγνῶναι. Ταῦτα δὲ πάλαι ἀκριβαζόμενα ἦν παρʼ αὐτοῖς, ἀρχῆθεν, [οὐ] νεωστὶ τὸν νόμον παρειληφόσιν, ὡς τὸν ἐντυγχάνοντα καταπλαγῆναι ἐπὶ τοσαύτῃ σωφροσύνῃ καὶ ἐπιμελείᾳ τοῦ περὶ τὸν ἄνθρωπον νομοθετουμένου ἤθους.

English · Claude translation

And they lay claim to a character of dignified and temperate life, as can be recognized from their laws. These things were carefully observed among them long ago, from the beginning, since they had received the law [not] recently, so that the reader is amazed at so great temperance and care for the character legislated for human beings.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 490 · 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
Ethics

Notes

Translation notes

  • The bracketed “not” is an editorial supplement required by the sense.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 9.30.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/9/30/3/).

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

Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 9.30.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/9/30/3/).

Download citation:BibTeX ·RIS (Zotero, EndNote)

Whole work:BibTeX ·RIS ·Markdown text

Report an error in this passage