Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 6.54.1

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: They say the Demiurge, himself the fruit of a deficiency, tried to imitate the eternal Ogdoad by multiplying times and years.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 342

Πρὸς δὲ τούτοις θελήσαντα τὸν δημιουργὸν τῆς ἄνω ὀγδοάδος τὸ ἀπέραντον καὶ αἰώνιον καὶ ἀόριστον καὶ ἄχρονον μιμήσασθαι, καὶ μὴ δυνηθέντα τὸ μόνιμον αὐτῆς καὶ τὸ ἀΐδιον ἐκτυπῶσαι διὰ τὸ καρπὸν αὐτὸν εἶναι ὑστερήματος, εἰς τοῦτο χρόνους καὶ καιροὺς ἀριθμούς τε πολυετεῖς πρὸς τὸ αἰώνιον αὐτῆς τεθεῖσθαι, οἰόμενον ἐν τῷ πλήθει τῶν χρόνων μιμήσασθαι αὐτῆς τὸ ἀόρατον.

English · Claude translation

Besides this, they say that the Demiurge, wishing to imitate the boundless, eternal, unlimited, and timeless character of the Ogdoad above, and being unable to express its permanence and everlastingness because he himself is the fruit of a deficiency, set times and seasons and numbers of many years to match its eternity, thinking to imitate its invisibility by the multitude of times.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 342 · 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

  • Demiurge: the craftsman-god who made the visible world in the Valentinian system; Ogdoad: the first eight Aeons.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.54.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/54/1/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 6.54.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/54/1/).

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