Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 1.16.1

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: Hippo made water and fire the principles and identified the soul with the brain or with water.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 30

Ἵππων δὲ ὁ Ῥηγῖνος ἀρχὰς ἔφη ψυχρὸν τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ θερμὸν τὸ πῦρ. Γενόμενον δὲ τὸ πῦρ ὑπὸ ὕδατος κατανικῆσαι τὴν τοῦ γεννήσαντος δύναμιν, συστῆσαί τε τὸν κόσμον. Τὴν δὲ ψυχὴν ποτὲ μὲν ἐγκέφαλον ἔφη εἶναι, ποτὲ δὲ ὕδωρ, καὶ γὰρ τὸ σπέρμα εἶναι, τὸ φαινόμενον ἡμῖν ἐξ ὑγροῦ, ἐξ οὗ φησι ψυχὴν γίνεσθαι.

English · Claude translation

Hippo of Rhegium said the principles are cold, that is water, and hot, that is fire. Fire, produced by water, overcame the power of what begot it and formed the world. He said the soul is sometimes the brain and sometimes water; for the seed, which appears to us to come from moisture, is that from which, he says, the soul comes to be.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 30 · 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

Notes on the original text

  • Digital text corrected (misspelling in the digital text): φησε → φησι.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 1.16.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/1/16/1/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 1.16.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/1/16/1/).

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