Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 7.29.2

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: Hippolytus claims Marcion took his two principles from Empedocles' Strife and Love.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 382

Οὗτος νομίζων λήσεσθαι τοὺς πολλούς, ὅτι μὴ Χριστοῦ τυγχάνοι μαθητὴς ἀλλʼ Ἐμπεδοκλέους πολὺ αὐτῷ προγενεστέρου τυγχάνοντος, ταὐτὰ ὁρίσας ἐδογμάτισε δύο εἶναι τὰ τοῦ παντὸς αἴτια, νεῖκος καὶ φιλίαν.

English · Claude translation

Thinking that he would escape the notice of the many, that he was not a disciple of Christ but of Empedocles, who lived long before him, he defined the same things and taught that there are two causes of the universe, Strife and Love.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 382 · 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
  • Empedocles (Empedocles (fragments)) · allusion, high confidence
Topics
Heresy

Notes

Translation notes

  • Hippolytus reads Marcion's two gods through Empedocles; the identification is his own polemic.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 7.29.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/29/2/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 7.29.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/29/2/).

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