Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 8.10.3

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 only-begotten Son contracted his greatness into a small body, like the light of the eye that reaches the stars yet hides under the eyelids.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 420

Τοιοῦτόν τινα τρόπον ὁ μονογενὴς υἱὸς ἐκεῖνος, ὁ τῶν αἰώνων ἄνωθεν τὰς ἰδέας βλέπων τὰς ἄνωθεν μεταβαλλομένας ἐν τοῖς σκοτεινοῖς σώμασι, ῥύσασθαι κατελθὼν ἠθέλησεν. Εἰδὼς δέ, ὅτι τὸ πλήρωμα τῶν ὅλων αἰώνων οὐδὲ οἱ αἰῶνες ἀθρόον ἰδεῖν ὑπομένουσιν, ἀλλὰ καταπλαγέντες οἱ φθαρτοὶ φθορὰν ὑπομένουσι, μεγέθει καὶ δόξῃ δυνάμεως κατειλημμένοι, συστείλας ἑαυτὸν ὡς ἀστραπὴν μεγίστην ἐν ἐλαχίστῳ σώματι, μᾶλλον δὲ ὡς φῶς ὄψεως ὑπὸ τοῖς βλεφάροις συνεσταλμένον, ἐξικνεῖται μέχρις οὐρανοῦ, καὶ τῶν ἀστέρων ἐπιψαύσας τῶν ἐκεῖ πάλιν ἑαυτὸν συστέλλει ὑπὸ τοῖς βλεφάροις τῆς ὄψεως ὅτε βούλεται.

English · Claude translation

In some such way that only-begotten Son, seeing from above the forms of the Aeons being changed from above into dark bodies, wished to come down and rescue them. But knowing that not even the Aeons can bear to see the fullness of all the Aeons at once, but that the corruptible, struck with amazement, undergo corruption, overpowered by the greatness and glory of power, he contracted himself like a very great lightning flash in a very small body; or rather like the light of sight contracted beneath the eyelids, which reaches as far as heaven and, having touched the stars there, contracts itself again beneath the eyelids when it wishes.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 420 · 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, Christology

Notes

Translation notes

  • The theory of vision as a ray going out from the eye is ancient Greek optics.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 8.10.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/8/10/3/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 8.10.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/8/10/3/).

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