Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 7.22.8

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: The first, fine Sonship at once rushed upward to the non-existent God, whom every nature longs for.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 362

Τὸ μὲν οὖν λεπτομερὲς εὐθέως πρῶτον ἅμα τῷ γενέσθαι τοῦ σπέρματος τὴν πρώτην καταβολὴν ὑπὸ τοῦ οὐκ ὄντος διέσφυξε καὶ ἀνῆλθε καὶ ἀνέδραμε κάτωθεν ἄνω, ποιητικῷ τινὶ χρησάμενον τάχει ὡσεὶ πτερὸν ἠὲ νόημα, καὶ ἐγένετο, φησί, πρὸς τὸν οὐκ ὄντα· ἐκείνου γὰρ διʼ ὑπερβολὴν κάλλους καὶ ὡραιότητος πᾶσα φύσις ὀρέγεται, ἄλλη δὲ ἄλλως.

English · Claude translation

The fine part, then, immediately, first, at the moment the first deposit of the seed was made by the non-existent one, burst forth and went up and ran from below upward, using a kind of poetic speed, “like a wing or a thought,” and came, he says, to the non-existent one; for every nature longs for him because of his surpassing beauty and loveliness, one in one way, another in another.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 362 · 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
  • Homer, Od. 7.36 (Homer, Odyssey) · quotation, high confidence
Topics
Heresy

Notes

Translation notes

  • The quotation is Homer, Odyssey 7.36.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 7.22.8 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/22/8/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 7.22.8 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/22/8/).

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