Refutation of All Heresies 6.32.8

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 Demiurge is the “consuming fire” of Deuteronomy; the soul is a middle realm, the Hebdomad.

Textual problem in this passage: the printed text is uncertain or disputed here. See the notes.

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Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 280

Λέγει, φησί, καὶ Μωϋσῆς· Κύριος ὁ θεός σου πῦρ ἐστι φλέγον καὶ καταναλίσκον. Καὶ γὰρ τοῦτο οὕτως γεγράφθαι θέλει. Διπλῆ δέ τις ἐστί, φησίν, ἡ δύναμις τοῦ πυρός· ἔστι γὰρ πῦρ παμφάγον, κατασβεσθῆναι μὴ δυνάμενον... Κατὰ τοῦτο τοίνυν τὸ μέρος θνητή τις ἐστὶν ἡ ψυχή, μεσότης τις οὖσα· ἔστι γὰρ ἑβδομὰς καὶ κατάπαυσις.

English · Claude translation

“Moses too,” he says, “says: ‘The Lord your God is a burning and consuming fire’”; for he wants this to be written so. “The power of fire,” he says, “is twofold; for there is an all-devouring fire that cannot be quenched … In this respect, then, the soul is something mortal, being a kind of middle; for it is Hebdomad and rest.”

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 280 · 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; the problem in this passage is discussed in the notes.
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

  • There is a gap in the text.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.32.8 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/32/8/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 6.32.8 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/32/8/).

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