Refutation of All Heresies 5.17.2

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 Son, identified with the serpent, receives forms from the Father and stamps them on formless Matter.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 196

Καθέζεται οὖν μέσος τῆς ὕλης καὶ τοῦ πατρὸς ὁ υἱός, ὁ λόγος, ὁ ὄφις ἀεὶ κινούμενος πρὸς ἀκίνητον τὸν πατέρα καὶ κινουμένην τὴν ὕλην, καὶ ποτὲ μὲν στρέφεται πρὸς τὸν πατέρα, καὶ ἀναλαμβάνει τὰς δυνάμεις εἰς τὸ πρόσωπον ἑαυτοῦ, ἀναλαβὼν δὲ τὰς δυνάμεις στρέφεται πρὸς τὴν ὕλην, καὶ ἡ ὕλη ἄποιος οὖσα καὶ ἀσχημάτιστος ἐκτυποῦται τὰς ἰδέας ἀπὸ τοῦ υἱοῦ, ἃς ὁ υἱὸς ἀπὸ τοῦ πατρὸς ἐτυπώσατο.

English · Claude translation

The Son, then, the Word, the serpent, sits in the middle between Matter and the Father, ever moving toward the unmoved Father and toward moving Matter. At one time he turns toward the Father and takes up the powers into his own face; and having taken up the powers he turns toward Matter; and Matter, being without quality and without form, receives the impress of the forms from the Son, which the Son received as impressions from the Father.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 196 · 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, Christology

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.17.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/17/2/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.17.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/17/2/).