Refutation of All Heresies 9.31.2

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: After nine books of refutation, Hippolytus will set out the doctrine of the truth in the tenth, so that readers may be saved.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 494

Διὰ πάντων οὖν διαδραμόντες καὶ μετὰ πολλοῦ πόνου ἐν ταῖς ἐννέα βίβλοις τὰ πάντα δόγματα ἐξειπόντες, πᾶσί τε ἀνθρώποις ἐφόδιον ἐν βίῳ μικρὸν καταλιπόντες, καὶ τοῖς παροῦσιν οὐκ ὀλίγης χαρᾶς καὶ θυμηδίας φιλομάθειαν παρασχόντες, εὔλογον ἡγούμεθα ὥσπερ κορυφὴν τοῦ παντὸς [τὸν] περὶ ἀληθείας λόγον ἐπενέγκαι, καὶ τοῦτον ἐν μιᾷ βίβλῳ τῇ δεκάτῃ περιγράψαι, ὅπως ὁ ἐντυγχάνων μὴ μόνον ἀνατροπὴν τῶν τετολμηκότων αἱρέσεις συστήσασθαι ἐπιγνοὺς καταφρονήσῃ τῶν ματαίων, ἀλλὰ καὶ τὴν τῆς ἀληθείας δύναμιν ἐπιγνοὺς ἀξίως θεῷ πιστεύσας σωθῆναι δυνηθῇ.

English · Claude translation

Having run through them all, then, and with much labor having told all the doctrines in the nine books, and having left to all people a small provision for life, and having given those now living a love of learning that brings no little joy and delight, we think it reasonable to bring on, as the crown of the whole, the account of the truth, and to set it out in one book, the tenth; so that the reader, recognizing not only the overthrow of those who have dared to establish heresies, may despise their vanities, but also, recognizing the power of the truth, may be able to be saved by believing in God worthily.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 494 · 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

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 9.31.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/9/31/2/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 9.31.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/9/31/2/).