Refutation of All Heresies 9.7.2

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, 440

Ὧι μαθητεύσας Κλεομένης, καὶ βίῳ καὶ τρόπῳ ἀλλότριος τῆς ἐκκλησίας, ἐκράτυνε τὸ δόγμα, κατʼ ἐκεῖνο καιροῦ Ζεφυρίνου διέπειν νομίζοντος τὴν ἐκκλησίαν, ἀνδρὸς ἰδιώτου καὶ αἰσχροκερδοῦς· [ὃς] τῷ κέρδει προσφερομένῳ πειθόμενος συνεχώρει τοῖς προσιοῦσι τῷ Κλεομένει μαθητεύεσθαι, καὶ αὐτὸς ὑποσυρόμενος τῷ χρόνῳ ἐπὶ τὰ αὐτὰ ὥρμητο, συμβούλου καὶ συναγωνιστοῦ τῶν κακῶν ὄντος αὐτῷ Καλλίστου, οὗ τὸν βίον καὶ τὴν ἐφευρεθεῖσαν αἵρεσιν μετʼ οὐ πολὺ ἐκθήσομαι.

English · Claude translation

Cleomenes, who became his disciple, a stranger to the church both in life and in manner, strengthened the doctrine, at the time when Zephyrinus thought he was governing the church, an unlearned man and greedy for gain. [He], being persuaded by the gain offered to him, allowed those who came to Cleomenes to become his disciples; and he himself, being drawn along in time, rushed into the same views, Callistus being his counselor and fellow champion in these evils, whose life and the heresy he invented I shall set out shortly.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 440 · 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, Church office

Notes

Translation notes

This is Hippolytus's own hostile account of Zephyrinus (bishop of Rome ca. 199–217) and Callistus, his rivals in the Roman church; other sources do not confirm his charges. The bracketed word is an editorial supplement.

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (missing accent): ἐπὶ τα αὐτὰ → ἐπὶ τὰ αὐτὰ.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 9.7.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/9/7/2/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 9.7.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/9/7/2/).