Refutation of All Heresies 7.21.3
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: Like a mustard seed or a peacock's egg, the one seed laid down by the non-existent God contained the whole world in potential.
Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 358
Τὸ δὲ σπέρμα τοῦ κόσμου πάντα εἶχεν ἐν ἑαυτῷ, ὡς ὁ τοῦ σινάπεως κόκκος ἐν ἐλαχίστῳ συλλαβὼν ἔχει πάντα ὁμοῦ, τὰς ῥίζας, τὸ πρέμνον, τοὺς κλάδους, τὰ φύλλα, τὰ ἀνεξαρίθμητα [μετὰ] τῶν κόκκων [ἀπ]ὸ τοῦ φυτοῦ γεννώμενα σπέρματα πάλιν ἄλλων καὶ ἄλλων πολλάκις φυτῶν κεχυμένων. Οὕτως οὐκ ὢν θεὸς ἐποίησε κόσμον οὐκ ὄντα ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων, καταβαλόμενος καὶ ὑποστήσας σπέρμα τι ἓν ἔχον πᾶσαν ἐν ἑαυτῷ τὴν τοῦ κόσμου πανσπερμίαν. Ἵνα δὲ καταφανέστερον ποιήσω τοῦτο ὅπερ ἐκεῖνοι λέγουσι· καθάπερ ὠὸν ὄρνιθος εὐποικίλου τινὸς καὶ πολυχρωμάτου, οἱονεὶ τοῦ ταῶνος ἢ ἄλλου τινὸς ἔτι μᾶλλον πολυμόρφου καὶ πολυχρωμάτου, ἓν ὂν ὄντως ἔχει ἐν ἑαυτῷ πολλὰς οὐσιῶν πολυμόρφων καὶ πολυχρωμάτων καὶ πολυσυστάτων ἰδέας, οὕτως ἔχει τὸ καταβληθέν, φησίν, ὑπὸ τοῦ οὐκ ὄντος θεοῦ οὐκ ὂν σπέρμα [πανσπερμίαν] τοῦ κόσμου πολύμορφον ὁμοῦ καὶ πολυούσιον.
English · Claude translation
And the seed of the world had everything in itself, as the grain of mustard seed holds everything together in the smallest space: the roots, the trunk, the branches, the leaves, and the countless seeds produced by the plant along with its grains, the seeds again of other and other plants poured out many times over. So the non-existent God made a non-existent world out of things that are not, laying down and establishing a single seed that had in itself the whole seed-mass of the world. And to make clearer what they say: just as the egg of some richly varied and many-colored bird, such as the peacock or some other still more multiform and many-colored, being one, really has in itself many forms of multiform, many-colored, and variously composed substances, so, he says, the non-existent seed laid down by the non-existent God holds [the whole seed-mass] of the world, multiform and of many substances together.
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- The mustard-seed image recalls Matt 13:31–32. The bracketed words in the Greek are editorial restorations; πανσπερμία, “seed-mass,” is the mixture of all seeds.
Cite this passage
Hippolytus, Haer. 7.21.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/21/3/).
The SBL abbreviation for this work has not been checked yet.
Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 7.21.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/21/3/).
Download citation:BibTeX ·RIS (Zotero, EndNote)
Whole work:BibTeX ·RIS ·Markdown text