Refutation of All Heresies 5.17.7

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, 196–198

Ὅταν οὖν, φησί, λέγῃ ὁ σωτήρ· Ὁ πατὴρ ὑμῶν ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς, ἐκεῖνον λέγει, ἀφʼ οὗ ὁ υἱὸς μεταλαβὼν τοὺς χαρακτῆρας μετενήνοχεν ἐνθάδε· ὅταν δὲ λέγῃ· Ὁ ὑμέτερος πατὴρ ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς ἀνθρωποκτόνος ἐστί, τὸν ἄρχοντα καὶ δημιουργὸν τῆς ὕλης λέγει, ὃς ἀναλαβὼν τοὺς διαδοθέντας ἀπὸ τοῦ υἱοῦ χαρακτῆρας ἐγέννησεν ἐνθάδε, ὅς ἐστιν ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς ἀνθρωποκτόνος· τὸ γὰρ ἔργον αὐτοῦ φθορὰν καὶ θάνατον ἐργάζεται.

English · Claude translation

“When, then,” he says, “the Savior says, ‘Your Father who is in heaven,’ he means that one from whom the Son took the characters and carried them here; but when he says, ‘Your father is a murderer from the beginning,’ he means the ruler and demiurge of matter, who took up the characters distributed by the Son and begot here; he is a murderer from the beginning, for his work produces corruption and death.”

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 196–198 · 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

Matt 5:48 · quotation, medium confidence
John 8:44 · quotation, high confidence

Topics

Heresy

Notes

Translation notes

The demiurge (“craftsman”) is the maker of the material world, distinguished in Gnostic systems from the highest God.

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (stray space in the digital text): ὑ μῶν → ὑμῶν.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.17.7 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/17/7/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.17.7 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/17/7/).