Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 10.11.4

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: The darkness, a fearful water, strives to keep the captured light and Spirit, knowing it would be powerless without them.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 506–508

Τὸ δὲ σκότος ὕδωρ εἶναι φασὶ φοβερόν, εἰς ὃ κατέσπασται [καὶ] μετενήνεκται εἰς τοιαύτην φύσιν μετὰ τοῦ πνεύματος τὸ φῶς. Φρόνιμον οὖν τὸ σκότος ὂν καὶ γινώσκον, ὅτι, ἂν ἀπαρθῇ ἀπʼ αὐτοῦ τὸ φῶς, μένει τὸ σκότος ἔρημον, ἀφανές, ἀλαμπές, ἀδύναμον, ἄπρακτον, ἀσθενές, τῷδε πάσῃ συνέσει καὶ φρονήσει βιάζεται κατέχειν εἰς ἑαυτὸ τὴν λαμπηδόνα καὶ τὸν σπινθῆρα τοῦ φωτὸς μετὰ τῆς τοῦ πνεύματος εὐωδίας.

English · Claude translation

And the darkness, they say, is a fearful water, into which the light, together with the Spirit, has been dragged down [and] transferred into such a nature. The darkness, then, being intelligent and knowing that if the light is taken away from it, the darkness remains desolate, invisible, without luster, powerless, inactive, and weak, uses all its intelligence and prudence to force itself to hold fast within itself the brightness and spark of the light, together with the fragrance of the Spirit.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 506–508 · 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

Notes

Notes on the original text

  • Digital text corrected (wrong accent: γινώσκον): γινῶσκον → γινώσκον.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 10.11.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/10/11/4/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 10.11.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/10/11/4/).

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