Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 10.11.9

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 spark of light, trapped in the body and the waters, strives to escape and cries out, as the Sethians read the Psalms.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 508–510

Τοῦτον δὲ εἶναι πνεῦμα ἀνέμου λέγουσι τέλειον θεὸν ἐκ τῆς τῶν ὑδάτων καὶ τῆς τοῦ πνεύματος εὐωδίας καὶ φωτὸς λαμπηδόνος γεγονέναι, καὶ εἶναι γέννημα θηλείας νοῦν· τὸν ἄνωθεν σπινθῆρα κάτω ἀναμεμιγμένον σὺν τοῖς περισυγκρίτοις σώματος σπεύδειν ἐκφεύγειν, ἐκφυγόντα πορεύεσθαι καὶ τὴν λύσιν οὐχ εὑρίσκειν διὰ τὴν ἐν τοῖς ὕδασι δέσιν. Διὸ ἐβόα ἐκ τῆς τῶν ὑδάτων μίξεως κατὰ τὸν ψαλμῳδόν, ὡς λέγουσι.

English · Claude translation

And they say that this spirit of wind is the perfect God, come into being from the waters and from the fragrance of the Spirit and from the brightness of the light, and that the mind is the offspring of a female; that the spark from above, mingled below with the compounds of the body, hastens to escape, and having escaped travels on and does not find release because of its binding in the waters. Therefore it cried out from the mingling of the waters, according to the psalmist, as they say.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 508–510 · 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.
Scripture
  • Ps 29:3 (28:3 LXX) · allusion, low confidence
Topics
Heresy

Notes

Translation notes

  • The psalm meant is uncertain; in Book 5 the Sethians cite Ps 29:3 (28:3 LXX), “the Lord upon many waters.”

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 10.11.9 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/10/11/9/).

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

Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 10.11.9 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/10/11/9/).

Download citation:BibTeX ·RIS (Zotero, EndNote)

Whole work:BibTeX ·RIS ·Markdown text

Report an error in this passage