Refutation of All Heresies 5.16.2

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: The Peratae identify corruption with water and with Kronos, whom nothing born can escape.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 190

Ἔστι δὲ ἡ φθορὰ, φησί, τὸ ὕδωρ, οὐδὲ ἄλλῳ τινὶ, φησίν, ἐφθάρη τάχιον ὁ κόσμος ἢ ὕδατι. Τὸ δὲ ὕδωρ ἐστὶ τὸ περιεσφαιρωκὸς ἐν τοῖς προαστείοις, λέγουσιν, ὁ Κρόνος· δύναμις γάρ, φησίν, ὑδατόχρους, ἥντινα δύναμιν, φησί, τουτέστι τὸν Κρόνον, οὐδεὶς τῶν ἐν γενέσει καθεστώτων διαφυγεῖν δύναται·

English · Claude translation

“And corruption,” he says, “is water; and by nothing else,” he says, “was the world destroyed more swiftly than by water. And the water is that which encircles among the suburbans,” they say, “Kronos. For it is a water-colored power,” he says, “which power,” he says, “that is, Kronos, none of those established in generation can escape;

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 190 · 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

Gen 7:21 · echo, low confidence

Topics

Heresy

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.16.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/16/2/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.16.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/16/2/).