Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 5.9.20

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: Through the Naassenes, they claim, the blind may see how one water gives each plant its own fruit.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 172–174

Εἰ δέ τις, φησίν, ἐστὶ τυφλὸς ἐκ γενετῆς καὶ μὴ τεθεαμένος φῶς τὸ ἀληθινόν, ὃ φωτίζει πάντα ἄνθρωπον ἐρχόμενον εἰς τὸν κόσμον, διʼ ἡμῶν ἀναβλεψάτω καὶ ἰδέτω οἱονεὶ διά τινος παραδείσου παμφύτου καὶ πολυσπερμάτου ὕδωρ διερχόμενον διὰ πάντων τῶν φυτῶν καὶ τῶν σπερμάτων, καὶ ὄψεται, ὅτι ἐξ ἑνὸς καὶ τοῦ αὐτου ὕδατος ἐκλέγεται καὶ ἐπισπᾶται ἡ ἐλαία τὸ ἔλαιον καὶ ἡ ἄμπελος τὸν οἶνον καὶ τῶν ἄλλων κατὰ γένος ἕκαστον φυτῶν.

English · Claude translation

And if anyone, he says, is blind from birth and has not seen the true light, "which enlightens every man coming into the world," let him recover sight through us and see, as it were through a paradise full of plants and seeds, water passing through all the plants and seeds; and he will see that from one and the same water the olive chooses and draws the oil, and the vine the wine, and each of the other plants according to its kind.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 172–174 · 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
Topics
Heresy

Notes

Translation notes

  • The allusions are John 9:1 and John 1:9.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.9.20 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/9/20/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 5.9.20 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/9/20/).

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