Refutation of All Heresies 10.16.3

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 great light of the Aeons, full of forms, came down on the chaos and impressed the shapes of all things on it.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 520

Ἦν οὖν τὸ μέγα τῶν αἰώνων φῶς ὅλον, οὐδεμίαν ἐπιδεχόμενον κόσμησιν, ἔχον ἐν ἑαυτῷ πάντων τῶν ζῴων ἰδέας· τοῦτο ἐπιφοιτῆσαν εἰς τὸ ὑποκείμενον χάος παρεσχηκέναι αἰτίαν τοῖς γεγονόσι καὶ οὖσι, καταβάν τε ἄνωθεν ἰδεῶν αἰωνίων ἀπεμάξατο κάτω [εἰς]τὸ χάος τὰς μορφάς.

English · Claude translation

The great light of the Aeons, then, was whole, admitting no adornment, having in itself the forms of all living beings. This, coming upon the chaos beneath, provided the cause for the things that have come to be and are; and coming down from above, it impressed the shapes of the eternal forms below [into] the chaos.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 520 · 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

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 10.16.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/10/16/3/).

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Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 10.16.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/10/16/3/).