Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 1.2.6

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: In Pythagorean teaching the first monad is male and fathers the numbers; the dyad is female and even.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 10

Ἀριθμὸς γέγονε πρῶτος ἀρχή, ὅπερ ἐστὶν ἀόριστον, ἀκατάληπτον, ἔχων ἐν ἑαυτῷ πάντας τοὺς ἐπʼ ἄπειρον δυναμένους ἐλθεῖν ἀριθμοὺς κατὰ τὸ πλῆθος. Τῶν δὲ ἀριθμῶν ἀρχὴ γέγονε καθʼ ὑπόστασιν ἡ πρώτη μονάς, ἥτις ἐστὶ μονὰς ἄρσην γεννῶσα πατρικῶς πάντας τοὺς ἄλλους ἀριθμούς. Δεύτερον ἡ δυὰς θῆλυς ἀριθμός, ὁ δὲ αὐτὸς καὶ ἄρτιος ὑπὸ τῶν ἀριθμητικῶν καλεῖται.

English · Claude translation

Number came into being as the first principle, which is indefinite, incomprehensible, containing in itself all the numbers that can go on to infinity in multitude. The principle of numbers in substance came to be the first monad, which is a male monad, begetting all the other numbers after the manner of a father. Second is the dyad, a female number, which is also called even by the arithmeticians.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 10 · 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 (missing accent in the digital text): ὁ δὲ αὐτος → ὁ δὲ αὐτὸς.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 1.2.6 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/1/2/6/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 1.2.6 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/1/2/6/).

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