Refutation of All Heresies 5.16.12

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.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 192–194

Τούτου κατʼ εἰκόνα γέγονεν ὁ ὄφις ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ χαλκοῦς, ὃν ἔστησε Μωϋσῆς. Τούτου, φησί, μόνου τὸ ὁμοίωμα ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ διὰ παντὸς ἐστὶν φωτὶ ὁρώμενον. Οὗτος, φησίν, ἐστὶν ἡ μεγάλη ἀρχή, περὶ ἧς γέγραπται. Περὶ τούτου, φησίν, εἴρηται· Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος. Οὗτος ἦν ἐν ἀρχῇ πρὸς τὸν θεόν, πάντα διʼ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο, καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν· ὃ γέγονεν ἐν αὐτῷ, ζωή ἐστιν.

English · Claude translation

After his image was made the bronze serpent in the wilderness which Moses set up. “Of him alone,” he says, “the likeness is always in heaven, seen in light. This,” he says, “is the great beginning of which it is written. Of this,” he says, “it was said: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things came to be through him, and without him not one thing came to be. What came to be in him is life.’”

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 192–194 · 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

Num 21:9 · allusion, high confidence
John 1:1–4 · quotation, high confidence

Topics

Heresy, Christology

Notes

Translation notes

The likeness in heaven is the constellation of the Dragon (Draco). The quotation is John 1:1–4, punctuated so that “what came to be in him” begins the last clause.

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (misread article in the digital text): θεὸς ἦν δ λόγος → θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.16.12 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/16/12/).

The SBL abbreviation for this work has not been checked yet.

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.16.12 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/16/12/).