Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 9.11.3

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: Callistus had Zephyrinus make ambiguous public statements; when Hippolytus resisted, Callistus called his party “worshippers of two gods.”

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 450–452

Αὐτὸν δὲ τὸν Ζεφυρῖνον προάγων δημοσίᾳ ἔπειθε λέγειν· Ἐγὼ οἶδα ἕνα θεὸν Χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν, καὶ πλὴν αὐτοῦ ἕτερον οὐδένα γενητὸν καὶ παθητόν· ποτὲ δὲ λέγων· Οὐχ ὁ πατὴρ ἀπέθανεν, ἀλλὰ ὁ υἱός· οὕτως ἄπαυστον τὴν στάσιν ἐν τῷ λαῷ διετήρησεν· οὗ τὰ νοήματα γνόντες ἡμεῖς οὐ συνεχωροῦμεν, ἐλέγχοντες καὶ ἀντικαθιστάμενοι ὑπὲρ τῆς ἀληθείας· ὃς εἰς ἀπόνοιαν χωρῶν διὰ τὸ πάντας αὐτοῦ τῇ ὑποκρίσει συντρέχειν, ἡμᾶς δὲ οὔ, ἀπεκάλει ἡμᾶς διθέους, ἐξεμῶν παρὰ βίαν τὸν ἐνδομυχοῦντα αὐτῷ ἰόν.

English · Claude translation

And bringing forward Zephyrinus himself in public, he persuaded him to say: “I know one God, Christ Jesus, and besides him no other who was begotten and suffered”; and at other times saying, “It was not the Father who died, but the Son.” In this way he kept the faction among the people unceasing. We, knowing his thoughts, did not give way, but refuted him and stood against him on behalf of the truth. And he, driven to madness because all ran along with his hypocrisy but we did not, called us ditheists, forcibly vomiting out the poison that lurked within him.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 450–452 · 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, Church office

Notes

Translation notes

  • Zephyrinus's two statements as reported by Hippolytus. “Ditheists” (δίθεοι) means those who believe in two gods.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 9.11.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/9/11/3/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 9.11.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/9/11/3/).

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