Refutation of All Heresies 5.8.28

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, 158–160

Ὃ δεῖ ποιήσαντας, οὐχὶ ἀκούσαντας μόνον, εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν εἰσελθεῖν τῶν οὐρανῶν. Καὶ πάλιν, φησίν, εἴρηκεν· οἱ τελῶναι καὶ αἱ πόρναι προάγουσιν ὑμᾶς εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν τῶν οὐρανῶν. Τελῶναι γάρ, φησίν, εἰσὶν οἱ τὰ τέλη τῶν ὅλων λαμβάνοντες, ἡμεῖς δέ, φησίν, ἐσμὲν οἱ τελῶναι, εἰς οὓς τὰ τέλη τῶν αἰώνων κατήντηκε. Τέλη γάρ, φησίν, εἰσὶ τὰ ἀπὸ τοῦ ἀχαρακτηρίστου εἰς τὸν κόσμον κατεσπαρμένα σπέρματα, διʼ ὧν ὁ πᾶς συντελεῖται κόσμος· διὰ γὰρ αὐτῶν καὶ ἤρξατο γενέσθαι.

English · Claude translation

This one must do, not only hear, to enter the kingdom of heaven. And again, he says, he said: "The tax collectors and the prostitutes go before you into the kingdom of heaven." For the tax collectors (telōnai), he says, are those who receive the ends (telē) of all things; and we, he says, are the tax collectors, "on whom the ends of the ages have come." For the ends, he says, are the seeds sown into the world from the unstamped, through which the whole world is completed; for through them it also began to come into being.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 158–160 · 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 21:31 · quotation, high confidence
1 Cor 10:11 · quotation, high confidence

Topics

Heresy

Notes

Translation notes

The quotations are Matt 21:31 and 1 Cor 10:11. The pun is on τελῶναι "tax collectors" and τέλη "ends" (also "taxes").

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (wrong breathing in the digital text): οἰ τελῶναι → οἱ τελῶναι.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.8.28 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/8/28/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.8.28 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/8/28/).