Refutation of All Heresies 7.38.5

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: Apelles said Christ returned his body to the elements and went to the good Father, leaving the seed of life through the disciples.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 410

Σάρκα, φησί, δείξας ἀπέδωκε γῇ, ἐξ ἧς περ ἦν οὐσίας, μηδὲν ἀλλότριον πλεονεκτῶν, ἀλλὰ πρὸς καιρὸν χρησάμενος, ἑκάστοις τὰ ἴδια ἀπέδωκε, λύσας πάλιν τὸν δεσμὸν τοῦ σώματος, θερμῷ τὸ θερμόν, ψυχρῷ τὸ ψυχρόν, ὑγρῷ τὸ ὑγρόν, ξηρῷ τὸ ξηρόν, καὶ οὕτως ἐπορεύθη πρὸς τὸν ἀγαθὸν πατέρα, καταλιπὼν τὸ τῆς ζωῆς σπέρμα εἰς τὸν κόσμον διὰ τῶν μαθητῶν τοῖς πιστεύουσι.

English · Claude translation

Having shown his flesh, he says, he gave it back to the earth, from whose substance it was, taking nothing that belonged to another, but having used it for a time he gave back to each its own, loosing again the bond of the body: hot to hot, cold to cold, wet to wet, dry to dry; and so he went to the good Father, leaving the seed of life in the world for those who believe, through the disciples.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 410 · 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

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 7.38.5 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/38/5/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 7.38.5 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/38/5/).