Refutation of All Heresies 7.31.3

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: Empedocles placed a just reason between Strife and Love, reuniting what Strife divides.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 396

Κόσμον γάρ φησιν εἶναι ὁ Ἐμπεδοκλῆς τὸν ὑπὸ τοῦ νείκους διοικούμενον τοῦ πονηροῦ, καὶ ἕτερον νοητὸν τὸν ὑπὸ τῆς φιλίας, καὶ εἶναι ταύτας τὰς διαφερούσας ἀρχὰς δύο ἀγαθοῦ καὶ κακοῦ, μέσον δὲ εἶναι τῶν διαφόρων ἀρχῶν δίκαιον λόγον, καθʼ ὃν συγκρίνεται τὰ διῃρημένα ὑπὸ τοῦ νείκους καὶ προσαρμόζεται κατὰ τὴν φιλίαν τῷ ἑνί.

English · Claude translation

For Empedocles says that there is a world governed by evil Strife, and another, intelligible, governed by Love, and that these are the two differing principles of good and evil; and that between the differing principles there is a just reason, by which the things divided by Strife are brought together and fitted to the One according to Love.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 396 · 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.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 7.31.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/31/3/).

The SBL abbreviation for this work has not been checked yet.

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 7.31.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/31/3/).