Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 5.16.14

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: Eve is the common nature of all beings, and the serpent in the sky is the source of all motion and every event.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 194

Αὕτη δέ, φησίν, ἐστὶν ἡ Εὔα, μήτηρ πάντων τῶν ζώντων, κοινὴ φύσις, τουτέστι θεῶν ἀγγέλων, ἀθανάτων θνητῶν, ἀλόγων λογικῶν· ὁ γὰρ πάντων, φησίν, εἰπὼν εἴρηκε πάντων· καὶ εἴ τινος, φησίν, οἱ ὀφθαλμοὶ μακάριοι, οὗτος ὄψεται ἀναβλέψας εἰς τὸν οὐρανὸν τοῦ ὄφεως τὴν καλὴν εἰκόνα ἐν τῇ μεγάλῃ ἀρχῇ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ στρεφομένην καὶ γινομένην ἀρχὴν πάσης κινήσεως πᾶσι τοῖς γινομένοις, καὶ γνώσεται ὅτι χωρὶς αὐτοῦ [οὐδὲν] οὔτε τῶν οὐρανίων οὔτε τῶν ἐπιγείων οὔτε τῶν καταχθονίων συνέστηκεν· οὐ νύξ, οὐ σελήνη, οὐ καρποί, οὐ γένεσις, οὐ πλοῦτος, οὐχ ὁδοιπορία, οὐδʼ ὅλως τι τῶν ὄντων ἐστὶ δίχα σημαίνοντος ἐκείνου.

English · Claude translation

“And this,” he says, “is Eve, the mother of all the living, the common nature, that is, of gods and angels, of immortals and mortals, of irrational and rational beings; for he who says ‘all,’” he says, “says ‘all.’ And if anyone's eyes are blessed,” he says, “he will look up to heaven and see the beautiful image of the serpent turning in the great beginning of heaven and becoming the beginning of all motion for all things that come to be; and he will know that without him nothing, neither of things in heaven nor on earth nor under the earth, has come to stand: not night, not moon, not fruits, not generation, not wealth, not travel, nor is anything at all of the things that are without his signifying it.”

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 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
Topics
Heresy

Notes

Notes on the original text

  • Digital text corrected (misread letter in the digital text): ἀρχῇ τοῖ οὐρανοῦ → ἀρχῇ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.16.14 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/16/14/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 5.16.14 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/16/14/).

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