Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 5.6.3

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: Hippolytus begins with the Naassenes, named for the Hebrew word for serpent.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 130–132

Τὸ λοιπὸν προκαλεῖται ἡμᾶς ὁ χρόνος ἐπὶ τὴν τῶν προκειμένων πραγματείαν χωρεῖν, ἄρξασθαι δὲ ἀπὸ τῶν τετολμηκότων τὸν αἴτιον τῆς πλάνης γενόμενον ὄφιν ὑμνεῖν διά τινων ἐφηυρημένων κατʼ αὐτοῦ ἐνέργειαν λόγων. Οἱ οὖν ἱερεῖς καὶ προστάται τοῦ δόγματος γεγένηνται πρῶτοι οἱ ἐπικληθέντες Ναασσηνοί, τῇ Ἑβραΐδι φωνῇ οὕτως ὠνομασμένοι· νάας δὲ ὁ ὄφις καλεῖται.

English · Claude translation

For the rest, time summons us to proceed to the treatment of the matters before us, and to begin with those who have dared to hymn the serpent, the cause of the error, through certain words invented at its prompting. The priests and champions of the doctrine, then, were first those called Naassenes, named so from the Hebrew language; for the serpent is called naas.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 130–132 · 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

  • Hebrew נָחָשׁ (naḥash), "serpent".

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.6.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/6/3/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 5.6.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/6/3/).

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