Refutation of All Heresies 4.51.8

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 seven kinds of number generate all things.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 126

Ταύτης τῆς δεκάδος, τοῦ τελείου ἀριθμοῦ, τὰ τέσσαρα καλεῖται μέρη· ἀριθμός, μονάς, δύναμις, κύβος, οἷς ἐπιπλοκαὶ καὶ μίξεις πρὸς γένεσιν αὐξήσεως γίνονται, κατὰ φύσιν τὸν γόνιμον ἀριθμὸν ἐπιτελοῦσαι· ὅταν γὰρ δύναμις αὐτὴ ἐφʼ ἑαυτὴν κυβισθήσεται, γέγονε δυναμοδύναμις, ὅταν δὲ δύναμις ἐπὶ κύβον, γέγονε δυναμόκυβος, ὅταν δὲ κύβος ἐπὶ κύβον, γέγονε κυβόκυβος· ὡς γίνεσθαι τοὺς πάντας ἀριθμοὺς ἑπτά, ἵνα ἡ τῶν γενομένων γένεσις γένηται ἐξ ἑβδομάδος, ἥτις ἐστίν· ἀριθμός, μονάς, δύναμις, κύβος, δυναμοδύναμις, δυναμόκυβος, κυβόκυβος.

English · Claude translation

Of this decad, the perfect number, the four parts are called number, monad, power, cube, of which there come interweavings and mixtures for the generation of increase, completing the fruitful number according to nature. For when a power is cubed upon itself, it becomes a power-power; when a power by a cube, a power-cube; when a cube by a cube, a cube-cube; so that all the numbers become seven, so that the generation of things that come to be arises from the hebdomad, which is: number, monad, power, cube, power-power, power-cube, cube-cube.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 126 · 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.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.51.8 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/51/8/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.51.8 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/51/8/).