Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 9.10.11

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: Noetus taught that the Father, by being born, became his own Son, so that Father and Son are one person under two names at different times.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 448–450

Λέγει δὲ οὕτως· Ὅτε μὲν οὖν μὴ γεγένητο ὁ πατήρ, δικαίως πατὴρ προσηγόρευτο· ὅτε δὲ ηὐδόκησεν γένεσιν ὑπομεῖναι, γεννηθεὶς ὁ υἱὸς ἐγένετο αὐτὸς ἑαυτοῦ, οὐχ ἑτέρου. Οὕτως γὰρ δοκεῖ μοναρχίαν συνιστᾶν, ἓν καὶ τὸ αὐτὸ φάσκων ὑπάρχειν πατέρα καὶ υἱὸν καλούμενον, οὐχ ἕτερον ἐξ ἑτέρου, ἀλλʼ αὐτὸν ἐξ ἑαυτοῦ, ὀνόματι μὲν πατέρα καὶ υἱὸν καλούμενον κατὰ χρόνων τροπήν, ἕνα δὲ εἶναι τοῦτον τὸν φανέντα καὶ γένεσιν ἐκ παρθένου ὑπομείναντα καὶ ἐν ἀνθρώποις ἄνθρωπον ἀναστραφέντα, υἱὸν μὲν ἑαυτὸν τοῖς ὁρῶσιν ὁμολογοῦντα διὰ τὴν γενομένην γένεσιν, πατέρα δὲ εἶναι καὶ τοῖς χωροῦσιν μὴ ἀποκρύψαντα.

English · Claude translation

And he speaks thus: “When, then, the Father had not been born, he was rightly called Father; but when he was pleased to undergo birth, having been born, he became the Son, himself of himself, not of another.” For in this way he thinks he establishes the monarchy, saying that there is one and the same called Father and Son, not one from another but himself from himself, called by name Father and Son according to the change of times; and that this one is he who appeared and underwent birth from a virgin and lived as a man among men, confessing himself to be Son to those who saw him, because of the birth that had taken place, and not hiding from those who could receive it that he was Father.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 448–450 · 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, Trinity, Christology

Notes

Translation notes

  • “Monarchy” (μοναρχία) means the single rule of God; this view is often called modalism or Patripassianism.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 9.10.11 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/9/10/11/).

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

Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 9.10.11 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/9/10/11/).

Download citation:BibTeX ·RIS (Zotero, EndNote)

Whole work:BibTeX ·RIS ·Markdown text

Report an error in this passage