Refutation of All Heresies 5.9.5

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.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 166–168

Τοῦτο, φησίν, ἐστὶ τὸ ῥῆμα τοῦ θεοῦ, ὅ, φησίν, ἐστὶ ῥῆμα ἀποφάσεως τῆς μεγάλης δυνάμεως· διὸ ἔσται ἐσφραγισμένον καὶ κεκρυμμένον καὶ κεκαλυμμένον, κείμενον ἐν τῷ οἰκητηρίῳ, οὗ ἡ ῥίζα τῶν ὅλων τεθεμελίωται [ἀπό τε] αἰώνων, δυνάμεων, ἐπινοιῶν, θεῶν, ἀγγέλων, πνευμάτων ἀπεσταλμένων, ὄντων, μὴ ὄντων, γεννητῶν, ἀγεννήτων, ἀκαταλήπτων, καταληπτῶν, ἐνιαυτῶν, μηνῶν, ἡμερῶν, ὡρῶν, στιγμῆς ἀμερίστου, ἐξ ἧς ἐξάρχεται τὸ ἐλάχιστον αὐξῆσαι κατὰ μέρος· ἡ μηδὲν οὖσα, φησί, καὶ ἐκ μηδενὸς συνεστῶσα στιγμὴ ἀμέριστος οὖσα γενήσεται ἑαυτῇ ἐπίνοιαν μέγεθός τι ἀκατάληπτον.

English · Claude translation

This, he says, is the word of God, which, he says, is "a word of declaration of the great power; therefore it will be sealed and hidden and veiled, lying in the dwelling where the root of all things has been founded," [from] Aeons, powers, thoughts, gods, angels, spirits sent forth, beings, non-beings, begotten, unbegotten, incomprehensible, comprehensible, years, months, days, hours, the indivisible point, from which the least begins to grow part by part; the point which, he says, is nothing and consists of nothing, being indivisible, will become for itself by thought some incomprehensible magnitude.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 166–168 · 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

Notes

Translation notes

The phrase "declaration of the great power" recalls the Great Declaration ascribed to Simon Magus (6.9). The square brackets are the editor's.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.9.5 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/9/5/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.9.5 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/9/5/).