Refutation of All Heresies 5.22.1

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, 214

Ἱκανῶς δοκεῖ ἡμῖν σεσαφηνίσθαι ἡ τῶν Σηθιανῶν γνώμη. Εἰ δέ τις ὅλην τὴν κατʼ αὐτοὺς πραγματείαν βούλεται μαθεῖν, ἐντυχέτω βιβλίῳ ἐπιγραφομένῳ Παράφρασις Σήθ· πάντα γὰρ τὰ ἀπόρρητα αὐτῶν ἐκεῖ εὑρήσει ἐγκείμενα. Ἀλλʼ ἐπεὶ τὰ κατὰ τοὺς Σηθιανοὺς ἐξεθέμεθα, ἴδωμεν τίνα ἐστὶ καὶ τὰ Ἰουστίνῳ δοκοῦντα.

English · Claude translation

The Sethians' opinion seems to us to have been made sufficiently clear. If anyone wishes to learn their whole system, let him read the book entitled Paraphrase of Seth; for he will find all their secrets contained there. But since we have set out the doctrines of the Sethians, let us see what the views of Justin are too.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 214 · 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

The Paraphrase of Seth is lost (compare the Paraphrase of Shem found at Nag Hammadi). The Justin discussed next is a Gnostic teacher, not Justin Martyr.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.22.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/22/1/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.22.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/22/1/).