Refutation of All Heresies 9.12.19

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: Hippolytus says Callistus avoids saying the Father suffered but wavers between Sabellius and Theodotus.

Textual problem in this passage: the printed text is uncertain or disputed here. See the notes.

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Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 458

οὐ γὰρ θέλει λέγειν τὸν πατέρα πεπονθέναι καὶ ἓν εἶναι πρόσωπον... ἐκφυγεῖν τὴν εἰς τὸν πατέρα βλασφημίαν ὁ ἀνόητος καὶ ποικίλος, ὁ ἄνω κάτω σκεδάζων βλασφημίας, ἵνα μόνον κατὰ τῆς ἀληθείας λέγειν δοκῇ, ποτὲ μὲν εἰς τὸ Σαβελλίου δόγμα ἐμπίπτων, ποτὲ δὲ εἰς τὸ Θεοδότου οὐκ αἰδεῖται.

English · Claude translation

For he does not wish to say that the Father suffered and is one person … to escape the blasphemy against the Father, the foolish and shifty man, who scatters blasphemies up and down so that he may only seem to speak against the truth, and is not ashamed of falling now into the doctrine of Sabellius, now into that of Theodotus.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 458 · 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; the problem in this passage is discussed in the notes.
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

Notes

Translation notes

  • The printed text marks a gap; the sentence is incomplete.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 9.12.19 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/9/12/19/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 9.12.19 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/9/12/19/).

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