Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 9.14.1

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: The Elchasaites require circumcision and the law, and teach that Christ is an ordinary man reborn many times.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 464

Οὗτος νόμου πολιτείαν προβάλλεται δελεάσματος δίκην, φάσκων δεῖν περιτέμνεσθαι καὶ κατὰ νόμον ζῆν τοὺς πεπιστευκότας, ἀποσπῶν τινα τῶν προειρημένων αἱρέσεων. Τὸν Χριστὸν δὲ λέγει ἄνθρωπον κοινῶς πᾶσι γεγονέναι, τοῦτον δὲ οὐ νῦν πρώτως ἐκ παρθένου γεγεννῆσθαι, ἀλλὰ καὶ πρότερον, καὶ αὖθις πολλάκις γεννηθέντα καὶ γεννώμενον πεφηνέναι καὶ φύεσθαι, ἀλλάσσοντα γενέσεις καὶ μετενσωματούμενον, ἐκείνῳ τῷ Πυθαγορείῳ δόγματι χρώμενος.

English · Claude translation

This man puts forward the way of life of the law like a bait, claiming that believers must be circumcised and live according to the law, tearing some away from the heresies mentioned before. And he says that Christ became a man in common with all, and that he was not now for the first time born of a virgin, but also before, and again many times, having been born and being born, has appeared and grows, exchanging births and passing from body to body, using that Pythagorean doctrine.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 464 · 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, Christology

Notes

Notes on the original text

  • Digital text corrected (wrong accent: αὖθις): αὗθις → αὖθις.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 9.14.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/9/14/1/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 9.14.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/9/14/1/).

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