Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 6.36.2

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: Sophia taught the Demiurge that he was not the only God, and he kept the secret, as his words to Moses show.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 286–288

Ἀλλʼ ἐπιλέγει· ὡς διώρθωτο μὲν τὰ κατὰ τοὺς αἰῶνας ἔσω σφάλματα, διώρθωτο δὲ καὶ κατὰ τὴν ὀγδοάδα, τὴν ἔξω σοφίαν, διώρθωτο δὲ καὶ κατὰ τὴν ἑβδομάδα· (ἐδιδάχθη γὰρ ὑπὸ τῆς σοφίας ὁ δημιουργός, ὅτι οὐκ ἔστιν αὐτὸς θεὸς μόνος, ὡς ἐνόμιζε, καὶ πλὴν αὐτοῦ ἕτερος οὐκ ἔστιν, ἀλλʼ ἔγνω διδαχθεὶς ὑπὸ τῆς σοφίας τὸν κρείττονα· κατηχήθη γὰρ ὑπʼ αὐτῆς καὶ ἐμυήθη καὶ ἐδιδάχθη τὸ μέγα τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ τῶν αἰώνων μυστήριον, καὶ ἐξεῖπεν αὐτὸ οὐδενί, τουτέστιν, ὥς φησιν, ὃ λέγει πρὸς Μωϋσῆν· Ἐγὼ ὁ θεὸς Ἁβραὰμ καὶ ὁ θεὸς Ἰσαὰκ καὶ ὁ θεὸς Ἰακώβ, καὶ τὸ ὄνομα θεοῦ οὐκ ἀπήγγειλα αὐτοῖς, τουτέστι τὸ μυστήριον οὐκ εἶπα, οὐδὲ ἐξηγησάμην, τίς ἐστὶν ὁ θεός, ἀλλʼ ἐφύλαξα παρʼ ἐμαυτῷ ἐν ἀποκρύφῳ τὸ μυστήριον, ὃ ἤκουσα παρὰ τῆς σοφίας)· ἔδει

English · Claude translation

But he adds: when the errors among the Aeons within had been corrected, and those in the Ogdoad, the Sophia outside, had been corrected, and those in the Hebdomad too had been corrected (for the Demiurge was taught by Sophia that he is not God alone, as he thought, and that besides him there is no other; but, taught by Sophia, he came to know the greater one; for he was instructed by her and initiated and taught the great mystery of the Father and the Aeons, and he divulged it to no one; that is, as he says, what he says to Moses: “I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, and the name of God I did not declare to them”; that is, I did not tell the mystery, nor explain who God is, but kept by myself in secret the mystery which I heard from Sophia), it was necessary

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 286–288 · 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
Topics
Heresy

Notes

Translation notes

  • The quotation combines Exod 3:6 and 6:3.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.36.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/36/2/).

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

Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 6.36.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/36/2/).

Download citation:BibTeX ·RIS (Zotero, EndNote)

Whole work:BibTeX ·RIS ·Markdown text

Report an error in this passage