Help Needed: Finding Citation

In Michael Gorman's book, Abortion and the Early Church, pg. 17 fn. 19, he cites "Origen Against Heresies 9". But I cannot find a work by Origen called Against Heresies, and I have all of Logos' works by Origen. I tried looking it up online, but no success either. I checked Against Celsus in case they are the same works, but there are only 8 books, and chapter 9 in the first book can't be right either.

Any suggestions?

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

John Fidel

I think it is Irenaeus... try here if you have ECF, ANF 01 page 315.

logosres:anf01;ref=Irenaeus.Adv._Haer.

You can run a basic search on the ECF series for "against heresies" in quotes and see if you find anything different.

Not sure why the link is not working...

Jordan Litchfield

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1022133#Comment_1022133

No, it doesn't seem to be Irenaeus either.

Levi Durfey

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1022198#Comment_1022198

Could we see the text Gorman quoted?

SineNomine

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1022204#Comment_1022204

Could we see the text Gorman quoted?

It's not a quote. The citation theoretically references a passage supporting the following idea: "Rich women did not want to share their wealth with lower-class children fathered illegitimately" (pg 15).

HJ. van der Wal

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1022208#Comment_1022208

The following text is from book IX of the Philosophumena or the Refutation of All Heresies by Hippolytus of Rome:

[quote]

For [Callistus] has also permitted women, if they, being unmarried and in the prime of life, turned towards some one unworthy of their station, or did not wish to lessen it by [marriage], to hold any bedfellow they might choose as lawfully married to them, whether he was a house slave or free, and to consider this person although not married by law as in the place of a husband. From this the so-called faithful women began to make attempts with abortifacient drugs and to gird themselves tightly so that they might cast out what they had conceived, through their not wishing on account of their family or superabundant wealth to have a child by a slave or some mean person.

SineNomine

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1022208#Comment_1022208

Found it. Gorman's mistaken citation derives from a paper from 1975 that makes the same mistake. In something else I found online, Gorman cites the right work by the right author, but the wrong spot.

It's in Hippolytus's Refutation of All Heresies, 9.2.

"For [Callistus] has also permitted women, if they, being unmarried and in the prime of life, turned towards some one unworthy of their station, or did not wish to lessen it by [marriage], to hold any bedfellow they might choose as lawfully married to them, whether he was a house slave or free, and to consider this person although not married by law as in the place of a husband. From this the so-called faithful women began to make attempts with abortifacient drugs and to gird themselves tightly so that they might cast out what they had conceived, through their not wishing on account of their family or superabundant wealth to have a child by a slave or some mean person. See now what impiety the lawless one has reached when he teaches adultery and murder at the same time! And in the face of these audacities the shameless ones attempt to call themselves a Catholic Church, and some think that they do well to join with them."

Hippolytus of Rome, Philosophumena or the Refutation of All Heresies, ed. W. J. Sparrow-Simpson and W. K. Lowther Clarke, trans. F. Legge, vol. 2, Translations of Christian Literature, Series I: Greek Texts (London; New York: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; The Macmillan Company, 1921), 131–132.

Justin Gatlin

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1022204#Comment_1022204

Although all Christian writers opposed abortion, pagan influence on the church was unavoidable, and abortion was not unknown among “so-called Christians” (the term is Origen’s).

Origen Against Heresies 9; cf. Hippolytus Refutation of All Heresies 9. 7; Cyprian Letter 48.

Michael J. Gorman, Abortion & the Early Church: Christian, Jewish & Pagan Attitudes in the Greco-Roman World (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1998), 59.

I cannot find what he is citing either.

Edit: Sorry, I left this open without posting it when someone came in the office and posted too little too late.

SineNomine

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1022216#Comment_1022216

Origen Against Heresies 9; cf. Hippolytus Refutation of All Heresies 9. 7; Cyprian Letter 48.

For greater clarity, Origen did not write a work called "Against Heresies." Fr. John A. Hardon, SJ, got his citation wrong in 1975 in the Human Life Review. He meant to cite Hippolytus's Refutation of All Heresies 9(.2), which is what Fr Hardon quotes in said article, which Gorman notes he is relying on.

SineNomine

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1022220#Comment_1022220

I must correct myself. In Schaff, the passage from 9.2 in the translation I gave above is numbered as 9.7.

Jordan Litchfield

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1022222#Comment_1022222

Guys, thanks for engaging this question. However, I am not yet convinced that Gorman meant to cite Hippolytus here.

Page 59 fn. 45, Gorman cites both Origen's Against Heresies and Hippolytus' Refutation of All Heresies in the same footnote. It seems to me that the way he writes in the footnote he is thinking of two distinct and separate works.

"Origen Against Heresies 9; cf. Hippolytus Refutation of All Heresies 9. 7; Cyprian Letter 48."

Obviously, this doesn't solve the issue. It does seem likely that Gorman has made a mistake here. (Although, it is interesting that in the index under Origen's name Gorman again makes reference to an Against Heresies.) I'm just not sure that it was Hippolytus he had in mind.

It may remain a mystery for the time being.