Refutation of All Heresies 8.8.1

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.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 412

Ἐπεὶ οἱ πολλοὶ τῇ τοῦ κυρίου συμβουλίᾳ μὴ χρώμενοι, τὴν δοκὸν ἐν τῷ ὀφθαλμῷ ἔχοντες, ὁρᾶν ἐπαγγέλλονται τυφλώττοντες, δοκεῖ ἡμῖν μηδὲ τὰ τούτων δόγματα σιωπᾶν, ὅπως κἂν διὰ τοῦ ὑφʼ ἡμῶν γινομένου ἐλέγχου πρὸς αὐτῶν αἰδεσθέντες ἐπιγνῶσι, πῶς συνεβούλευσεν ὁ σωτὴρ ἐξαιρεῖν τὴν δοκὸν πρῶτον, εἶτα διαβλέπειν τὸ κάρφος τὸ ἐν τῷ ὀφθαλμῷ τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ.

English · Claude translation

Since most people, not following the Lord's counsel and having the beam in their eye, profess to see while they are blind, it seems right to us not to pass over their doctrines in silence either, so that, at least through the refutation made by us, being put to shame, they may recognize how the Savior counseled us first to take out the beam, and then to see clearly the speck that is in the brother's eye.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 412 · 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

Matt 7:3–5 · allusion, high confidence

Topics

Heresy

Notes

Translation notes

The allusion is Matt 7:3–5 (Luke 6:41–42). Hippolytus plays on δοκός, “beam,” and the name of the Docetae in 8.11.1.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 8.8.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/8/8/1/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 8.8.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/8/8/1/).