Refutation of All Heresies 7.31.6

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, 396–398

Εἰ γὰρ μέσος τίς ἐστιν, ἀπήλλακται, φησί, πάσης τῆς τοῦ κακοῦ φύσεως· κακὸς δʼ ἐστίν, ὡς λέγει, ὁ δημιουργὸς καὶ τούτου τὰ ποιήματα. Διὰ τοῦτο ἀγέννητος κατῆλθεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς, φησίν, ἵνα ᾖ πάσης ἀπηλλαγμένος κακίας. Ἀπήλλακται δέ, φησί, καὶ τῆς τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ φύσεως, ἵνα ᾖ μέσος τις, ὥς φησιν ὁ Παῦλος, καὶ ὡς αὐτὸς ὁμολογεῖ· Τί με λέγετε ἀγαθόν;

English · Claude translation

For if he is someone in the middle, he says, he is freed from the whole nature of evil; and the Demiurge, as he says, is evil, and his works. For this reason Jesus came down unborn, he says, so that he might be free from all evil. And he is free, he says, also from the nature of the good, so that he may be someone in the middle, as Paul says, and as he himself confesses: “Why do you call me good?”

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 396–398 · 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

Mark 10:18 · quotation, high confidence
Luke 18:19 · quotation, high confidence
1 Tim 2:5 · allusion, low confidence

Topics

Heresy, Christology

Notes

Translation notes

The quotation is Mark 10:18 (Luke 18:19). “As Paul says” probably refers to Christ as mediator (1 Tim 2:5 or Gal 3:19–20); uncertain.

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (wrong breathing: ᾖ): ἵνα ᾗ πάσης → ἵνα ᾖ πάσης.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 7.31.6 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/31/6/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 7.31.6 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/31/6/).