Refutation of All Heresies 7.36.1

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: Theodotus the banker taught that Melchizedek is a great power, greater than Christ, who was made in his image.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 406–408

Διαφόρων δὲ γενομένων ἐν αὐτοῖς ζητήσεων ἐπεχείρησέ τις καὶ αὐτὸς Θεόδοτος καλούμενος, τραπεζίτης τὴν τέχνην, λέγειν δύναμιν τινὰ τὸν Μελχισεδὲκ εἶναι μεγίστην, καὶ τοῦτον εἶναι μείζονα τοῦ Χριστοῦ, οὗ κατʼ εἰκόνα φάσκουσι τὸν Χριστὸν τυγχάνειν, καὶ αὐτοὶ ὁμοίως τοῖς προειρημένοις Θεοδοτιανοῖς ἄνθρωπον εἶναι λέγουσι τὸν Ἰησοῦν, καὶ κατὰ τὸν αὐτὸν λόγον τὸν Χριστὸν εἰς αὐτὸν κατεληλυθέναι.

English · Claude translation

When various questions arose among them, another man, himself also called Theodotus, a banker by trade, undertook to say that Melchizedek is a certain very great power, and that he is greater than Christ, after whose image they say Christ happens to be. And they too, like the Theodotians mentioned before, say that Jesus is a man, and that in the same way the Christ came down on him.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 406–408 · 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

Heb 7:3 · allusion, high confidence
Ps 110:4 (109:4 LXX) · allusion, medium confidence

Topics

Heresy, Christology

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 7.36.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/36/1/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 7.36.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/36/1/).

Refutation of All Heresies 7.36.1

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 406–408

English · Claude translation

About this passage

Notes

Translation notes

Cite this passage