Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 7.28.4

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: At death the spark returns above; Saturnilus held that the Savior only appeared to be a man.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 380

Τοῦτον οὖν τὸν σπινθῆρα τῆς ζωῆς μετὰ τὴν τελευτὴν ἀνατρέχειν πρὸς τὰ ὁμόφυλα λέγει, καὶ τὰ λοιπά, ἐξ ὧν ἐγένετο, εἰς ἐκεῖνα ἀναλύεσθαι. Τὸν δὲ σωτῆρα ἀγέννητον ὑπέθετο καὶ ἀσώματον καὶ ἀνείδεον, δοκήσει δὲ ἐπιπεφηνέναι ἄνθρωπον.

English · Claude translation

He says, then, that this spark of life after death runs back to what is akin to it, and the rest is dissolved into the things from which it came. And he supposed the Savior to be unbegotten, bodiless, and formless, and to have appeared as a human being in semblance.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 380 · 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, Christology

Notes

Translation notes

  • “In semblance” (δοκήσει) is the docetic view that Christ's body was only apparent.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 7.28.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/28/4/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 7.28.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/28/4/).

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