Refutation of All Heresies 1.19.12

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: Some say Plato taught that souls return in new bodies according to their deserts.

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Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 34

Τινὲς μὲν οὖν φασὶν καὶ μετενσωμάτωσιν αὐτὸν ὁμολογεῖν καὶ μεταβαίνειν τὰς ψυχὰς ὡρισμένας οὔσας ἄλλας εἰς ἄλλα σώματα κατʼ ἀξίαν ἑκάστῃ καὶ κατά τινας περιόδους ὡρισμένας ἀναπέμπεσθαι ἐς τοῦτον τὸν κόσμον πάλιν πεῖραν παρεξομένας τῆς ἑαυτῶν προαιρέσεως.

English · Claude translation

Some say that he also accepts transmigration, and that souls, being fixed in number, pass into different bodies, each according to its desert, and at certain fixed periods are sent back into this world again to give proof of their own choice.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 34 · 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.
Extrabiblical texts
  • Plato, Phaedr. 249a (Plato (works)) · allusion, low confidence

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 1.19.12 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/1/19/12/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 1.19.12 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/1/19/12/).

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