Refutation of All Heresies 9.12.21

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, 458–460

Οὗ τῷ ὅρῳ ἀρεσκόμενοι πολλοὶ συνείδησιν πεπληγότες ἅμα τε καὶ ὑπὸ πολλῶν αἱρέσεων ἀποβληθέντες, τινὲς δὲ καὶ ἐπὶ καταγνώσει ἔκβλητοι τῆς ἐκκλησίας ὑφʼ ἡμῶν γενόμενοι, προσχωρήσαντες αὐτοῖς ἐπλήθυναν τὸ διδασκαλεῖον αὐτοῦ. Οὗτος ἐδογμάτισεν ὅπως εἰ ἐπίσκοπος ἁμάρτοι τι, εἰ καὶ πρὸς θάνατον, μὴ δεῖν κατατίθεσθαι.

English · Claude translation

Pleased by his rule, many whose consciences were stricken, and at the same time many who had been cast out by many heresies, and some too who had been expelled from the church by us after condemnation, came over to them and filled his school. He laid down that if a bishop sins in anything, even a sin unto death, he need not be deposed.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 458–460 · 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

1 John 5:16 · echo, medium confidence

Topics

Heresy, Church office, Ethics

Notes

Translation notes

“Sin unto death” echoes 1 John 5:16. This is Hippolytus's hostile account.

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (wrong breathing: ὅρῳ (“rule”)): τῷ ὄρῳ → τῷ ὅρῳ.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 9.12.21 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/9/12/21/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 9.12.21 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/9/12/21/).