Refutation of All Heresies 10.20.1

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: Summary of Apelles: four gods, the good God, the creator, the fiery one, and an evil one, with Christ as a fifth.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 524

Ἀπελλῆς δὲ ὁ τούτου μαθητὴς ἀπαρεσθεὶς τοῖς ὑπὸ τοῦ διδασκάλου εἰρημένοις, καθὰ προείπομεν, ἄλλῳ λόγῳ ὑπέθετο τέσσαρας εἶναι θεούς, ὧν ἕνα φάσκει [ἀγαθόν], ὃν οὔτε οἱ προφῆται ἔγνωσαν, οὗ εἶναι υἱὸν τὸν Χριστόν· ἕτερον δὲ τὸν δημιουργὸν τοῦ παντός, ὃν οὐ θεὸν εἶναι θέλει, ἕτερον δὲ πύρινον τὸν φανέντα, ἕτερον δὲ πονηρόν, οὓς ἀγγέλους καλεῖ, προσθεὶς δὲ τὸν Χριστὸν καὶ πέμπτον ἐρεῖ.

English · Claude translation

Apelles, his disciple, displeased with what his teacher said, as we said before, supposed on another account that there are four gods: one of whom he claims is [good], whom not even the prophets knew, whose son is Christ; another the Demiurge of the universe, whom he holds not to be God; another the fiery one who appeared; and another evil; these he calls angels; and adding Christ, he will speak of a fifth.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 524 · 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. 10.20.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/10/20/1/).

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Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 10.20.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/10/20/1/).