Refutation of All Heresies 1.19.4

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, 32

Τὴν μὲν οὖν ὕλην ἀρχὴν εἶναι καὶ σύγχρονον τῷ θεῷ, ταύτῃ καὶ ἀγέννητον τὸν κόσμον. Ἐκ γὰρ αὐτῆς συνεστάναι φησὶν αὐτόν. Τῷ δὲ ἀγεννήτῳ ἀκολουθεῖν πάντως καὶ τὸ ἄφθαρτον. Ἦι δὲ σῶμά τε καὶ ἐκ πολλῶν ποιοτήτων καὶ ἰδεῶν συγκείμενον ὑποτίθεται, ταύτῃ καὶ γεννητὸν καὶ φθαρτόν.

English · Claude translation

Matter, then, is a principle and coeval with God, and in this respect the world too is unbegotten; for he says it was composed from matter. And imperishability entirely follows upon being unbegotten. But insofar as he supposes it to be a body composed of many qualities and ideas, in that respect it is begotten and perishable.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 32 · 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.

Notes

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (wrong accent in the digital text): ἀρχὴν εἷναι καὶ σύγχρονον → ἀρχὴν εἶναι καὶ σύγχρονον.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 1.19.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/1/19/4/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 1.19.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/1/19/4/).