Refutation of All Heresies 10.32.2

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: God first made the elements, fire, air, water, earth, and composed creatures from one or more of them.

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Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 536

Διαφόρους δὲ τοῖς ἐσομένοις ἀρχὰς πρότερον ἐδημιούργει, πῦρ καὶ πνεῦμα, ὕδωρ καὶ γῆν, ἐξ ὧν διαφόρων τὴν ἑαυτοῦ κτίσιν ἐποίει, καὶ τὰ μὲν μονοούσια, τὰ δὲ ἐκ δύο, τὰ δὲ ἐκ τριῶν, τὰ δὲ ἐκ τεσσάρων συνεδέσμει.

English · Claude translation

And he first fashioned different principles for the things that were to be: fire and spirit, water and earth; from these different ones he made his own creation, binding some things of one substance, others of two, others of three, others of four.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 536 · 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

Translation notes

  • πνεῦμα here means “air” or “wind” as an element.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 10.32.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/10/32/2/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 10.32.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/10/32/2/).

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