Refutation of All Heresies, Book 1, preface 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: The initiate is bound to secrecy by oaths and, still more, by the shame of what he has done.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 4

Καὶ τότε δοκιμάσαντες δέσμιον εἶναι τῆς ἁμαρτίας μυοῦσι τὸ τέλειον τῶν κακῶν παραδιδόντες, ὅρκοις δήσαντες μήτε ἐξειπεῖν μήτε τῷ τυχόντι μεταδοῦναι, εἰ μὴ ὁμοίως δουλωθείη, οὗ μόνον παραδοθέντος οὐκ ἔτι ὅρκος ἀναγκαῖος ἦν. Ὁ γὰρ ὑπομείνας παθεῖν καὶ παραλαβεῖν τὰ τέλεια αὐτῶν μυστήρια ἱκανῶς αὐτῷ τῷ ἔργῳ πρός τε τὴν ἰδίαν συνείδησιν καὶ πρὸς τὸ ἑτέροις μὴ ἐξειπεῖν ἔσται δεδεμένος.

English · Claude translation

And then, when they have tested him and found him a prisoner of sin, they initiate him, handing on the consummation of evils, binding him with oaths neither to tell nor to share it with just anyone, unless he were enslaved in the same way; once this alone has been handed on, an oath would no longer be necessary. For whoever has submitted to undergo and receive their perfect mysteries will be sufficiently bound by the deed itself, both in his own conscience and against telling others.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 4 · 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. 1.0.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/1/0/3/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 1.0.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/1/0/3/).