Refutation of All Heresies 10.23.2

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: Theodotus held that the Christ descended at baptism and that Christ is not God.

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Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 526

δὲ ἐπὶ τοῦ βαπτίσματος κατεληλυθέναι τὸν Χριστὸν ἐπὶ τὸν Ἰησοῦν ἐν εἴδει περιστερᾶς, ὅθεν φασὶ μὴ πρότερον τὰς δυνάμεις αὐτῷ ἐνεργηθῆναι. Θεὸν δὲ οὐκ εἶναι τὸν Χριστὸν θέλει. Καὶ τοιαῦτα Θεόδοτος.

English · Claude translation

at the baptism, the Christ came down upon Jesus in the form of a dove; for which reason they say the powers were not at work in him before. And he holds that the Christ is not God. Such are the teachings of Theodotus.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 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.
Scripture
Topics
Heresy, Christology, Baptism

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 10.23.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/10/23/2/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 10.23.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/10/23/2/).

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