Refutation of All Heresies 10.20.2

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: Apelles followed Philumene's Revelations, said Christ's flesh came from the world's elements, attacked the Law and Prophets, and denied the resurrection of the flesh.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 524–526

Προσέχει δὲ βίβλῳ, ἣν Φανερώσεις καλεῖ Φιλουμένης τινός, ἣν προφῆτιν νομίζει. Τὴν δὲ σάρκα τὸν Χριστὸν οὐκ ἐκ τῆς παρθένου λέγει προσειληφέναι, ἀλλʼ ἐκ τῆς παρακειμένης τοῦ κόσμου οὐσίας. Οὕτως κατὰ τοῦ νόμου καὶ τῶν προφητῶν συντάγματα ἐποίησε, καταλύειν αὐτοὺς ἐπιχειρῶν ὡς ψευδῆ λελαληκότας καὶ θεὸν μὴ ἐγνωκότας· σάρκας τε ἀπόλλυσθαι ὁμοίως Μαρκίωνι λέγει.

English · Claude translation

He gives heed to a book which he calls the Revelations of a certain Philumene, whom he considers a prophetess. And he says that Christ took flesh not from the virgin but from the substance of the world lying near. So he composed treatises against the Law and the Prophets, trying to overthrow them as having spoken falsely and not having known God; and he says, like Marcion, that flesh perishes.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 524–526 · 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, Christology, Scripture and canon

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 10.20.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/10/20/2/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 10.20.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/10/20/2/).