Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 10.17.3

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 iota contains all; the six days of creation are six powers, and the geometric solids of the elements come from its numbers.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 522

Τούτου δὲ ὄντος ἰῶτα ἓν καὶ κεραία μία, τέλειον ἐκ τελείου, ῥυεῖσα κεραία ἄνωθεν, πάντα ἔχουσα ὅσα καὶ αὐτή, ὅσα καὶ ὁ ἄνθρωπος ἔχει, ὁ πατὴρ τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, — γεγονέναι οὖν φησὶ τὸν κόσμον Μωϋσῆς ἐν ἓξ ἡμέραις, τουτέστιν ἐν ἓξ δυνάμεσιν, ἐξ ὧν ὁ κόσμος ἀπὸ τῆς κεραίας γέγονε τῆς μιᾶς. Οἵ τε γὰρ κύβοι καὶ τὰ ὀκτάεδρα καὶ αἱ πυραμίδες καὶ πάντα τὰ τούτοις παραπλήσια σχήματα ἰσεπιφανῆ, ἐξ ὧν συνέστηκε πῦρ, ἀήρ, ὕδωρ, γῆ, ἀπὸ τῶν ἀριθμῶν γεγόνασι τῶν κατειλημμένων ἐν ἐκείνῃ τῇ ἁπλῇ τοῦ ἰῶτα κεραίᾳ, ἥτις ἐστὶν υἱὸς ἀνθρώπου.

English · Claude translation

And since this is one iota and one stroke, perfect from perfect, a stroke flowing from above, having all that it has itself, all that the Man too has, the Father of the Son of Man, Moses, he says, says that the world came into being in six days, that is, in six powers, from which the world came into being from the one stroke. For the cubes and octahedra and pyramids and all the figures like these with equal faces, of which fire, air, water, and earth are composed, have come into being from the numbers contained in that simple stroke of the iota, which is the Son of Man.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 522 · 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.
Scripture
Topics
Heresy

Notes

Translation notes

  • The iota and stroke recall Matt 5:18. The sentence is an anacoluthon in the Greek.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 10.17.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/10/17/3/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 10.17.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/10/17/3/).

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