Refutation of All Heresies 1.2.13

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: Zaratas taught that two powers, heavenly fire and earthly water, produce all things.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 12

Εἶναι δὲ τὸν κόσμον φύσιν κατὰ μουσικὴν ἁρμονίαν, διὸ καὶ τὸν ἥλιον ποιεῖσθαι τὴν περίοδον ἐναρμόνιον. Περὶ δὲ τῶν ἐκ γῆς καὶ κόσμου γινομένων τάδε φασὶ λέγειν τὸν Ζαράταν· δύο δαίμονας εἶναι, τὸν μὲν οὐράνιον, τὸν δὲ χθόνιον· καὶ τὸν μὲν χθόνιον ἀνιέναι τὴν γένεσιν ἐκ τῆς γῆς· εἶναι δὲ ὕδωρ· τὸν δὲ οὐράνιον πῦρ μετέχον τοῦ ἀέρος, θερμὸν τοῦ ψυχροῦ· διὸ καὶ τούτων οὐδὲν ἀναιρεῖν οὐδὲ μιαίνειν φησὶ τὴν ψυχήν· ἐστὶ γὰρ ταῦτα οὐσία τῶν πάντων.

English · Claude translation

And the world is a nature according to musical harmony, which is why the sun also makes its circuit harmoniously. Concerning the things that come from the earth and the world, they say Zaratas speaks thus: there are two daemons, one heavenly and the other earthly; the earthly one sends up generation from the earth, and it is water; the heavenly one is fire sharing in air, hot with cold. Wherefore, he says, none of these destroys or defiles the soul, for these are the substance of all things.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 12 · 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.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 1.2.13 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/1/2/13/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 1.2.13 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/1/2/13/).