Refutation of All Heresies 5.16.1

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.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 188–190

Καλοῦσι δὲ αὑτοὺς Περάτας, μηδὲν δύνασθαι νομίζοντες τῶν ἐν γενέσει καθεστηκότων διαφυγεῖν τὴν ἀπὸ τῆς γενέσεως τοῖς γεγενημένοις ὡρισμένην μοῖραν. Εἰ γάρ τι, φησί, γεννητόν, ὅλως καὶ φθείρεται, καθάπερ καὶ Σιβύλλῃ δοκεῖ, μόνοι δέ, φησίν, ἡμεῖς οἱ τὴν ἀνάγκην τῆς γενέσεως ἐγνωκότες καὶ τὰς ὁδούς, διʼ ὧν εἰσελήλυθεν ὁ ἄνθρωπος εἰς τὸν κόσμον, ἀκριβῶς δεδιδαγμένοι διελθεῖν καὶ περᾶσαι τὴν φθορὰν μόνοι δυνάμεθα.

English · Claude translation

They call themselves Peratae, because they think that nothing established in generation can escape the fate appointed by generation for the things that have come to be. “For if anything is begotten,” he says, “it also wholly perishes, as the Sibyl also holds. But we alone,” he says, “who have known the necessity of generation and have been accurately taught the ways by which man has entered the world, are alone able to pass through and cross over corruption.”

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 188–190 · 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

Sib. Or. (Sibylline Oracles) · allusion, medium confidence

Topics

Heresy

Notes

Translation notes

The name Peratae is explained from περᾶσαι, “to cross over.” The words attributed to the Sibyl match a Sibylline fragment also quoted by Theophilus (To Autolycus 2.36).

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.16.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/16/1/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.16.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/16/1/).