Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 8.10.4

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: We see only the coverings of the eye, not the light of sight itself.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 420

Καὶ τοῦτο ποιοῦν τὸ φῶς τῆς ὄψεως, καὶ πανταχῆ γινόμενον καὶ πάντα, ἡμῖν ἐστιν ἀφανές, μόνον δὲ ὁρῶμεν ἡμεῖς ὄψεως βλέφαρα, κανθοὺς λευκούς, ὑμένα εὐρὺν πολύπτυχον πολυκτηδόνα, χιτῶνα κερατοειδῆ, ὑπὸ δὲ τοῦτον κόρην ῥαγοειδῆ, ἀμφιβληστροειδῆ, δισκοειδῆ, καὶ εἴ τινες ἄλλοι τοῦ φωτὸς τῆς ὄψεώς εἰσι χιτῶνες, οὓς ἐστολισμένη κέκρυπται.

English · Claude translation

And this light of sight, doing this, and coming to be everywhere and all things, is invisible to us; we see only the eyelids of sight, the white corners, the broad membrane of many folds and many channels, the horn-like coat, and under this the grape-like pupil, net-like and disk-shaped, and whatever other coats of the light of sight there are, clothed in which it is hidden.

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.

Notes

Translation notes

  • The terms are anatomical names for the parts of the eye (cornea, retina, and so on).

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 8.10.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/8/10/4/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 8.10.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/8/10/4/).

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