Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 8.9.4

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: Seeing its forms caught in the darkness below, the third Aeon set a firmament under the Aeons.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 416–418

Τὸ δὲ φωτισθὲν ὁμοῦ καὶ μορφωθὲν ἐκείναις ἄνωθεν ταῖς πολυποικίλοις ἰδέαις, πῆξιν ἔλαβε καὶ ἀνεδέξατο τὰς ἰδέας τὰς ἄνωθεν ἁπάσας ἀπὸ τοῦ τρίτου αἰῶνος τοῦ τριπλασιάσαντος αὑτόν. Ὁ δὲ αἰὼν οὗτος ὁ τρίτος τοὺς χαρακτῆρας βλέπων πάντας ἀθρόως τοὺς ἑαυτοῦ εἰς τὸ ὑποκείμενον κάτω σκότος κατειλημμένους, τήν τε δύναμιν τοῦ σκότους οὐκ ἀγνοῶν καὶ τὸ ἀφελὲς τοῦ φωτὸς ὁμοῦ καὶ ἄφθονον, οὐκ εἴασεν ἐπὶ πολὺ τοὺς φωτεινοὺς χαρακτῆρας ἄνωθεν ὑπὸ τοῦ σκότους κάτω κατασπασθῆναι· ἀλλὰ γὰρ ὑπέταξε τοῖς αἰῶσι [στερέωμα].

English · Claude translation

And what was lit up and at the same time given form by those manifold forms from above became fixed and received all the forms from above, from the third Aeon, which had tripled itself. And this third Aeon, seeing all its own characters caught all at once in the darkness below, and not ignorant of the power of the darkness, nor of the simplicity and generosity of the light, did not allow the luminous characters from above to be dragged down for long by the darkness below, but set [a firmament] beneath the Aeons.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 416–418 · 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

Notes

Translation notes

  • The bracketed word is an editorial supplement.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 8.9.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/8/9/4/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 8.9.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/8/9/4/).

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