Refutation of All Heresies 9.17.2

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 mocks the book's wisdom as greater than anything the Greek sages learned in Egypt.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 470

Ταῦτα δὲ οὐδὲ Αἰγυπτίων σοφοὶ ἐν ἀδύτοις ἐχώρησαν, οὐδὲ ὁ σοφὸς Ἑλλήνων Πυθαγόρας ἐχώρησεν. Εἰ γὰρ τετυχήκει κατʼ ἐκεῖνο καιροῦ Ἠλχασαΐ, τίς ἀνάγκη Πυθαγόραν ἢ Θαλῆν ἢ Σόλωνα ἢ τὸν σοφὸν Πλάτωνα ἢ καὶ τοὺς λοιποὺς Ἑλλήνων σοφοὺς μαθητεύειν Αἰγυπτίων ἱερεῦσιν ἔχουσι τὴν τοιαύτην καὶ τοσαύτην σοφίαν παρὰ Ἀλκιβιάδῃ, ἃ τῷ θαυμασιωτάτῳ ἑρμηνεῖ τοῦ δυστήνου Ἠλχασαΐ;

English · Claude translation

Such things not even the wise men of the Egyptians contained in their sanctuaries, nor did Pythagoras, the wise man of the Greeks, contain them. For if Elchasai had happened to be around at that time, what need would there have been for Pythagoras or Thales or Solon or the wise Plato, or the rest of the wise men of the Greeks, to become disciples of the Egyptian priests, when they could have such and so great wisdom from Alcibiades, the most wonderful interpreter of the wretched Elchasai?

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 470 · 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

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 9.17.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/9/17/2/).

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Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 9.17.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/9/17/2/).

Refutation of All Heresies 9.17.2

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 470

English · Claude translation

About this passage

Notes

Translation notes

Notes on the original text

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