Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 4.13.1

Hippolytus of Rome · Refutation of All Heresies · ca. 222–235 · Rome · Read in context

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 heretics, like Colarbasus, built their teaching on numbers and measures.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 72

Τούτοις ἐν μέρει ἐπισχόντες τινὲς ὡς μεγάλα κρίναντες καὶ λόγου ἄξια νομίσαντες αἱρέσεις ἀμέτρους καὶ ἀπείρους συνεστήσαντο. Ὧν εἷς μὲν Κολάρβασος, ὃς διὰ μέτρων καὶ ἀριθμῶν ἐκτίθεσθαι θεοσέβειαν ἐπιχειρεῖ· καὶ ἕτεροι δὲ ὁμοίως οὓς ἐπιδείξομεν, ἐπὰν τὰ περὶ αὐτῶν ἀρξώμεθα λέγειν, οἳ Πυθαγορείῳ ψήφῳ ὡς δυνατῇ προσέχουσι καὶ τὴν ἀσφαλῆ φιλοσοφίαν διʼ ἀριθμῶν

English · Claude translation

Some, attending partly to these things, judging them great and thinking them worthy of account, have put together heresies without measure or limit. One of them is Colarbasus, who tries to set out the worship of God through measures and numbers; and others likewise, whom we shall point out when we begin to speak of them, who give heed to the Pythagorean reckoning as powerful, and improvise the secure philosophy through numbers

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 72 · 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

Notes

Translation notes

  • Colarbasus is a figure associated with the Valentinian Marcus; his historical existence is disputed.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.13.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/13/1/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 4.13.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/13/1/).

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