Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 6.22.1

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: Plato's Timaeus traces its account of the world to Egyptian wisdom brought to the Greeks by Solon.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 258–260

Ἡ μὲν οὖν ἀρχὴ τῆς ὑποθέσεώς ἐστιν ἐν τῷ Τιμαίῳ τῷ Πλάτωνι σοφία Αἰγυπτίων· ἐκεῖθεν γὰρ ὁ Σόλων τὴν ὅλην ὑπόθεσιν περὶ τῆς κόσμου γεννήσεως καὶ φθορᾶς παλαιῷ τινὶ λόγῳ καὶ προφητικῷ, ὡς φησὶν ὁ Πλάτων, τοὺς Ἕλληνας ἐδίδαξε, παῖδας νέους ὄντας καὶ πρεσβύτερον ἐπισταμένους μάθημα οὐδὲν θεολογούμενον.

English · Claude translation

The beginning of the foundation, then, in Plato's Timaeus is the wisdom of the Egyptians; for from there Solon taught the Greeks the whole foundation concerning the generation and destruction of the world by an ancient and prophetic account, as Plato says, since the Greeks were young children and knew no older theological teaching.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 258–260 · 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.
Extrabiblical texts
  • Plato, Tim. 22b (Plato (works)) · allusion, high confidence

Notes

Translation notes

  • See Plato, Timaeus 22b.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.22.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/22/1/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 6.22.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/22/1/).

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